Versindaba
~ 'n Weblog vir die Afrikaanse digkuns ~

Gisteraand het ek weer die Nederlandse rolprent Antonia (Engelse titel: Antonia’s Line) op DVD gekyk. Dit bly ‘n gunsteling, een van die mooiste, eerlikste films oor tyd, die lewe en die dood wat ek al gesien het. Oor hoe om te leef, en hoe om te sterf. Ek wens eintlik skole wou hierdie pragwerk van Marleen Gorris, en ook Wim Wenders se Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) en Denys Arcand se Jésus de Montréal, verpligte kykstof maak vir alle skoliere. Nie omdat hierdie noodwendig die drie beste rolprente ooit is nie, maar omdat hulle jou, myns insiens, presies die regte filosofiese en etiese middele gee om mee te leef. Ek verklap dus nou ook my eie lewensbeskouing hier…

Maar dis nie oor my lewensfilosofie waaroor ek vanoggend wou skryf nie. Dit is te koud; ek het nog nie genoeg koffie gehad; en, in elk geval, wie’s ek nou so danig?! Ek wou skryf dat Antonia my gisteraand herinner het aan een van my gunsteling liedjies van Nick Cave, ‘Gates to the Garden’. Dit is een van die snitte op sy skitterende album No more shall we part. Cave se beskrywing van die begraafplaas (“assorted boxes of ordinary bones / of aborted plans and sudden shattered hopes / in unhappy rows”) is suiwer digkuns; oor sy talente as ‘n skrywer van lirieke kan daar darem geen twyfel wees nie. En dan is daar die laaste, lewensbevestigende strofes waarmee hierdie melancholiese liedjie eindig:

Gates to the Garden – Nick Cave

Past the ivy-covered windows of The Angel
Down Athenaeum Lane to the cathedral
Through the churchyard I wandered
Sat for a spell there and I pondered
My back to the gates
My back to the gates
My back to the gates of the garden

Fugitive fathers, sickly infants, decent mothers
Runaways and suicidal lovers
Assorted boxes of ordinary bones
Of aborted plans and sudden shattered hopes
In unlucky rows
ln unhappy rows
In unlucky rows, up to the gates of the garden

Won’t you meet me at the gates
Won’t you meet me at the gates
Won’t you meet me at the gates
To the garden

Beneath the creeping shadow of the tower
The bell from St. Edmunds informs me of the hour
I turn to find you waiting there for me
In sunlight and I see the way that you breathe
Allve and leaning
Allve and leaning
Allve and leaning on the gates of the garden

Leave these ancient places to the angels
Let the saints attend to their keeping of the cathedrals
And leave the dead beneath the ground so cold
For God is in this hand that I hold
As we open up the gates of the garden

Won’t you meet me at the gates
Won’t you meet me at the gates
Won’t you meet me at the gates
To the garden

En nou laat dit my sommer ook dink aan ‘n sonnige herfsoggend in 2007. Ek was in Krakau, Pole, en het op my eie deur die stad geloop. Op die ingewing van die oomblik het ek die Joodse begraafplaas besoek: 

Joodse Begraafplaas, Krakau, Pole

 ‘Assorted boxes of ordinary bones’ – inderdaad, in ongelukkige rye.

Joodse Begraafplaas, Krakau, Pole

Maar dan is daar ook hierdie mooi muurwerk wat gemaak is met skerfstukke van die ou grafstene:

Muur in Joodse Begraafplaas, Krakau

En hierdie helder herinnering aan herfs wat, wanneer jy die begraafplaas verlaat, vir ‘n oomblik rooi pols as die sonlig dit vang:

Krakau, Pole

Steve Hofmeyr

Ek wil begin om elke Vrydag ‘n ‘Anti-digter van die Week’ te benoem. Die benoeming sal gaan aan iemand wat die afgelope week verbeeldingloos en destruktief met die taal (enige taal) omgegaan het, op so ‘n manier dat sy of haar woorde die wêreld kleiner, meer geslote, en ‘n bietjie meer gemeen gemaak het. Julius Malema is ‘n aanspraakmaker op ‘Anti-Digter van die Week’ elke keer as hy sy mond oopmaak. Die Afrikaanse vermaaklikheidspersoonlikheid (‘sanger’?) Dozi is hierdie week ook ‘n sterk aanspraakmaker, met sy rassistiese uitbarsting in Oudtshoorn.

Maar Anti-Digter van die Week is myns insiens ‘n man wat nie die verskoning het van ‘maar ek is ‘n politikus’ of ‘maar ek was dronk’ nie: Steve Hofmeyr. Dit is altyd vir my ironies dat Hofmeyr so uitvaar teen Julius Malema, want hulle is kraaie wat eenders krys. Vergelyk maar: Hulle opportunistiese uitbuit van politieke sentimente; hulle opdringerige, dikwels selfdienende mediateenwoordigheid; hulle selfregverdigende, onboetvaardige houding teenoor opponente; en hulle vervelige ‘tough guy’ houding. Ag, daar is so baie van hierdie manne in Suid-Afrika, dit is ‘n epidemie. Hulle laat my dink aan Nick Cave se woorde (uit ‘Darker with the Day’):

Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones
The streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and cunts
With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones
Counting on their fingers, with crumbs down their fronts

Maar waarom vir Steve Hofmeyr benoem as ‘Anti-Digter van die Week’? Hy verdien dit myns insiens vir sy kommentare (soos gerapporteer in Die Burger) hierdie week oor Dozi en oor die dood van Eugene Terre Blanche. Dit is moeilik om te besluit watter van die volgende twee stellings die domste is: ‘Miskien was Dozi reg’, of [oor sy toespraak vandag by Terre Blanche se begrafnis]: ‘Ek wil in ‘n land woon waar mense baklei’. 

Die digterlike woord is nie altyd sag en koesterend nie; dit kan ook uitdagend, gewelddadig en selfs afbrekend wees. Ek dink egter nie die digterlike woord het ten doel om (soos ek in die eerste paragraaf geskryf het) die wêreld doelbewus meer geslote en gemeen te maak, om ons ervarings en persepsies in te perk en te verhard nie. Bruce Springsteen sing: ‘Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.’ Die digterlike woord maak myns insiens van hierdie ‘meanness’ ‘n teiken. Of soos Czeslaw Milosz (in ‘Ars Poetica?’) skryf:

And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
People therefore preserve silent integrity
thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.

Versindaba se maand van die liefde kan nie verbygaan voordat iemand nie na Nick Cave se lesing oor die liefdeslied verwys het nie – “The secret life of the love song”. Hy verwys daarin na Lorca en “duende”. Hier is ʼn kort aanhaling daaruit:

‘In his brilliant lecture entitled “The Theory and Function of Duende” Frederico Garcia Lorca attempts to shed some light on the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in the heart of certain works of art. “All that has dark sound has duende”, he says, “that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain.” In contemporary rock music, the area in which I operate, music seems less inclined to have its soul, restless and quivering, the sadness that Lorca talks about. Excitement, often; anger, sometimes: but true sadness, rarely, Bob Dylan has always had it. Leonard Cohen deals specifically in it. It pursues Van Morrison like a black dog and though he tries to he cannot escape it. Tom Waits and Neil Young can summon it. It haunts Polly Harvey. My friend and Dirty 3 have it by the bucket load. The band Spiritualised are excited by it. Tindersticks desperately want it, but all in all it would appear that duende is too fragile to survive the brutality of technology and the ever increasing acceleration of the music industry. Perhaps there is just no money in sadness, no dollars in duende. Sadness or duende needs space to breathe. Melancholy hates haste and floats in silence. It must be handled with care.’

Lees die hele lesing hier.

Nick Cave

En dan, een van my gunsteling Nick Cave songs, “Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?” Hier is die liriek:

I’ve felt you coming girl, as you drew near
I knew you’d find me, cause I longed you here
Are you my destiny? Is this how you’ll appear?
Wrapped in a coat with tears in your eyes?
Well take that coat babe, and throw it on the floor
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

As you’ve been moving surely toward me
My soul has comforted and assured me
That in time my heart it will reward me
And that all will be revealed
So I’ve sat and I’ve watched an ice-age thaw
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed
They’re only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

O we will know, won’t we?
The stars will explode in the sky
O but they don’t, do they?
Stars have their moment and then they die

There’s a man who spoke wonders though I’ve never met him
He said, “He who seeks finds and who knocks will be let in”
I think of you in motion and just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?

En kyk die eenvoudige, maar mooi video hier.