Beers & Books CCCXLVII – Erna, the tree is needling

Erna, the tree is needling

Robert Gernhardt (13 December 1937 – 30 June 2006)

Beers & Books CCCXLVI – Dickens' Christmas tales

A Christmas Carol,
The Chimes,
The Cricket on the Hearth,
The Battle of Life,
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain,

Charles Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)

Beers & Books CCCXLV – Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë (30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848)

Beers & Books CCCXLIV – Emma

Emma

Jane Austen (16 December 1776 – 18 July 1817)

Heine's Doctrine

Doctrine

Beat the drum and don't be afraid,
And kiss the sutler!
That is the whole science,
That is the deepest meaning of books.

Drum the people out of their sleep,
Drum Reveille with the vigour of youth,
Always march ahead drumming,
That is the whole of science.

That is Hegel's philosophy,
That is the deepest meaning of books!
I have grasped it because I am clever,
And because I am a good drummer. 

Heinrich Heine (13 December 1797 – 17 February 1856)

Beers & Books CCCXLIII – Jiří Mahen: The Moon

The Moon

Jiří Mahen (12 December 1882 – 22 May 1939)

Beers & Books CCCXLII – The Poems of Emily Dickinson

Bilingual delight.

Emily Dickinson (10 December 1830 – 15 May 1886)

Beers & Books CCCXL – In the Borderland

I'd suggest:
In the Borderland

Sherko Fatah * 28 November 1964

Beers & Books CCCXXXIX – Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie

Anarchy's brief summer:
the life and death of Buenaventura Durruti

 
Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022)

 

Beers & Books CCCXXXVIII – Never let me go

Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro *8 November 1954

Beers & Books CCCXXXVII – German Autumn

German Autumn (1946)

Stig Dagerman (5 October 1923 – 4 November 1954)

Adios for a while

Surrounded by books
writing is nothing but joy.
And nights getting long.

In praise of ...

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbed
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rotted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.


My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy neat the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

Beers & Books CCCXXXV – Road to Brightcity

...

Máirtaín O'Cadhain (1906 – 18 October 1970)

Beers & Books CCCXXXIV – The Swan

The Swan

Guðbergur Bergsson (16 October 1932 – 4 September 2023)

Happy 112th, Flannie!

When health is bad and your heart feels strange,
And your face is pale and wan,
When doctors say that you need a change,
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.

 
Flann O'Brien * 5 October 1911*

* In case anyone should miss a date of death:
No, he did not die on 1 April 1966. Flann fooled you all, folks.

Beers & Books CCCXXXII – George Bernard Shaw

Now that we have learned
to fly the air like birds,
swim under water like fish,
we lack one thing -
to learn to live on earth as human beings.

George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 –2 November 1950)

Another Bloomsday

Sláinte.

 

Beers & Books CCCXXXI – The Family of Pascual Duarte

The Family of Pascual Duarte

Camilo José Cela (11 May 1916 – 17 January 2002)

Beers & Books CCCXXVIII – Bobby Sands

 Bobby Sands (9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981)

I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets. Tiocfaidh ár lá' (Our day will come), I said to myself, Tiocfaidh ár lá. [Final diary entry]