Im Herzen von Köln (St. Andreas)

January 1, 2024March 25, 2024 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Im Herzen von Köln (St. Andreas)

Vorm Fenster herrscht
der alte Dom
und unterm Fuß
das alte Rom.

Minutentakt
Der Boden bebt,
die U-Bahn pulst,
die Erde lebt.

Die Straße dröhnt,
die Weltstadt wacht,
der Domplatz zittert
Tag und Nacht.

Der Baulärm grellt,
das Blaulicht greint,
die Flöte lockt,
die Geige weint.

Die Orgel jauchzt,
die Glocke braust,
die Stille ruft,
die Stille rauscht.

Am Kreuz hängt einer
ganz allein
und will das Herz
der Erde sein.

Die heilge Stadt
lebt noch aus ihm.
Sie weiß es kaum;
er gibt sich hin.

Minutentakt:
Der Tunnel braust,
der Erdschlund grollt,
die U-Bahn saust.

O Einsamkeiten –
Mein Herz brennt.
O eigne Sehnsucht –
Mein Herz rennt.

Doch Ruhe ist ja
nur in Ihm…
So knie ich nieder:
Nimm mich hin.

Christina Egan ©1992

Tall remnants of Roman city wall with Cologne Cathedral in the background — *Photo: Christina Egan © 2014*

The first poem of the year takes place in Roman streets again, in the midst of Cologne, in Sankt Andreas, the mighty mediaeval church right opposite the Cathedral. When you descend into the crypt, you are pretty close to antiquity. All around, Roman walls are displayed, or simply still standing.

For an English poem about Cologne with a similar content and in a similar style, see My City Calls (Grey Roofs Grey Walls). There, it is the city itself which provides comfort and hope, as religious faith does here. I noticed the striking parallel only yesterday on relaunching my poetry blog!

A Lonely Star

November 25, 2021August 22, 2020 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

A Lonely Star

A lonely star surveys the streets.
The dark is brownish, blurred by lamps.
The cold is damp and slowly creeps
through draughty windows, long-locked doors.
Bats flit about like ghostly hands.
A blinking helicopter roars;
the city stirs and sighs and sleeps.
The star looks down and frowns and stands.

Decorative paper. Image provided
by British Library through Flickr.

Tabucchis Blau

July 17, 2021August 7, 2020 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Tabucchis Blau

hochsommerhimmel
über Lissabons hügeln

so blau daß es beinahe beißt
so schön daß es beinahe schmerzt

und vor der gleißenden steilen
vielfach verschachtelten stadt

ruft mit demselben trunknen blau
die bucht dir unbeirrbar zu:

du stehst immer am anfang
einer entdeckungsfahrt!

Christina Egan © 2012

„con… il sole che splendeva, e con una città che scintillava, letteralmente scintillava sotto la sua finestra, e un azzurro, un azzurro mai visto, sostiene Pereira, di un nitore che quasi feriva gli occhi…”

Antonio Tabucchi, Sostiene Pereira

Antonio Tabucchi (1943-2012) loved Lisbon and lived there. I wrote this poem for him when he died: his last voyage would be the one to another, even more beautiful world. The last line can, however, be interpreted in many other ways.

Illustration: “Elba — Land der Esel” by Ottilie Ehlers-Kollwitz (1955). With kind permission of Galerie Klaus Spermann.

Sous les toits de Gand

May 16, 2021August 12, 2020 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Sous les toits de Gand

Je suis toujours en vie
Et j’ai toujours envie
De vivre, de rêver

Des rêves énormes comme les nuages
D’été qui glissent au-dessus des flots
Et poursuivent leur pèlerinage
À l’infini

Des rêves résolus comme des bateaux
De bois solide et souple, à trois mâts,
Et qui soupirent pour un grand voyage
À l’inconnu

Je suis toujours en vie
Et j’ai toujours envie
De vivre, de rêver

Rêver
Penser
Et projeter

Des rêves somptueux comme les portails,
Autels et voûtes, les tours et toits de Gand
Ces fantaisies en marbre, gré et brique,
Ces fantaisies…

Des rêves généreux des bâtiments,
Des ponts et rues et tout cet éventail
D’une grande ville vraie et fantastique –
Ces bonds d’esprit…

Je suis toujours en vie
Et j’ai toujours envie
De vivre, de rêver

Rêver
Et puis
Réaliser

Purple Dusk (Bankside, London)

March 8, 2021August 5, 2020 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Nocturne in Purple and Grey
(Bankside, London)

Hemmed with the sequins of lamps
the silver carpet of the river,
the lilac scarves of the bridges, the buildings.

People are blown about like brown leaves.
A few boats float, dozing,
awaiting brighter days.

The hues of lily and lavender
rise, for a moment, and blend,
with a pale memory of their scents.

Great and grey, the river strides past,
great and grey, the moment slides past,
like a graceful line of wild geese.

Christina Egan © 2005

An early-spring impression in pale lilac and silvery grey. Bankside is the southern shore of the Thames in London.

Many years after I wrote those lines, I noticed the similarity with Turner’s mesmerising Nocturnes and renamed the text!

For a German poem depicting purple dusk see ostseeschlaflied (Darß).

Nocturne in Blue and Gold. Oil painting by J. A. M. Whistler, showing Battersea Bridge in London, ca. 1872-1875. Tate Gallery, London.

The Hallowed City

January 5, 2021December 18, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

The Hallowed City

Aliusque et idem nasceris

When last I looked upon that golden hill,
the only coal-grey clouds along its crest
were pine-trees of Mediterranean zest,
clear-cut against the blue, timeless and still.
When I surveyed the city from the west,
beyond the river and the seventh hill,
my thirsty eyes rejoiced and drank their fill…
A pilgrimage it was and pagan quest.
Behind me passed the Sun on wheels of fire,
accompanied by Mnemosyne’s lyre.
Was this my long-lost and recovered home?
Born here and buried, had I now returned,
the same and not the same? My eye-lids burned.
This is the hallowed city. This is Rome.

II.

Pulchrae loca vertor ad urbis

My eyes have seen the marble halls of Rome,
resplendent like the mighty mistress Moon
and multi-coloured like a field in bloom;
I’ve watched the buildings grow in brick and stone.
I’ve stood beneath the proud and perfect dome
which emulates the heavens’ sparkling room
and holds our destiny from dawn to doom.
I’ve roamed those hills and called a roof my home.
I’ve heard the chanting children, sighing harps,
the darting chariots and creaking carts,
the swish of virgin water, purple wine,
I’ve seen the aqueducts descend and curve,
the roads roll into Rome, unite, disperse —
I’ve tasted all that splendour. It was mine.

The first blogpost of the year deals, as always, with Roman roads!

The impression of aqueducts, which illustrated one of my parents’ books about ancient civilisations, informed my entire life. Unfortunately, I do not know the artist, but there does not seem to be a copyright on it.

The quotes are from two Roman poems about Rome, Horace’s Carmen saeculare and Ovid’s Tristia.

I apply Horace’s idea that the sun is daily reborn, another and yet the same, to a person who feels he or she was reborn into this world many centuries later, another and yet the same; and I reinterpret Ovid’s lament about remembering his home from exile as a modern person’s longing for antiquity. Mnemosyne is the Greco-Roman divinity of memory, and the Sun and Moon, of course, are mighty gods, or at least representations of gods.

Kerzenbekrönt

December 1, 2020November 30, 2018 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Kerzenbekrönt

Senkt sich die Dämmrung an frostigen Tagen
– früher denn jemals, doch zauberhaft blau –
hängt über stolzen gewölbten Mansarden,
hält über giebelgeschmückten Fassaden,
bannt aus dem Geiste das leidige Grau.

Stürzen Gestirne herab in Kaskaden
– feucht ist das Pflaster, doch goldengetönt –
spannen sich Perlen an Faden um Faden
blinkend und bebend von Laden zu Laden
bis an die Kirchtürme, kerzenbekrönt.

This poem was inspired by a front page photograph of the superb newspaper Agora in Fulda, Germany, which I had folded over. Then I noticed that beneath the idyllic historical street lit up for Christmas, an industrial container had been inserted through photo montage: as a makeshift home for a refugee family. I felt I had to write a second poem, which you can find at Farbechte Hoffnung.

The street shown is Friedrichstraße, which gives you quite a good impression of past centuries, despite severe damage during the Second World War and ensuing changes. Fulda is quite good for midwinter holidays because of the Christmas Market, the nativity scenes in the churches, numerous festive events… and the snow in the mountains.

When the Snow Falls

November 28, 2020March 25, 2024 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

When the Snow Falls

When the snow falls,
when the snow calls
with its crystal-clear voice,
when the streets hum,
when the streets drum
with their boisterous noise,
when the fog shifts,
when the fog lifts
and the sun gilds the stone –
let your smile grow,
for a while know
you are never alone

This poem was commissioned for a Christmas card by a university library.
Feel free to write or print it in your cards, as long as acknowledge me as the author somewhere.

Notnormal

September 30, 2020January 13, 2024 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Notnormal

Lightningwhite
vast rib vaults
suspended
in brilliantblue
and a rainbow frame
dazzling and doubling and
tripling
around Broadwater Farm.

Four feet tracing
pavements pathways
the brooks underground
the trains underground
with the windinyourhair
and the sunonyourskin.

Fivefoldflame flowers
dancing for joy
rolling up into fruit
while ivory butterflies
and bumblebees feed
on lavender forests.

Time to cook
food and eat
food
Time to talk
into a telephone
time to talk
talkandlisten
Timetogether.

All this is not normal.

All this is mental
detrimental
to your output
to your outfit
on all platforms
detrimental
to your attitudes
to your platitudes
diametrical
to the narrative.

This is the new
Notnormal.
This must stop
fullstop.

Otherwise
more stained statues will fall
and heads of heads will roll
and skyscrapers skygraters
surveying the Thames
will be kestrels’ apartments
their amenities reclaimed
by the reeds and the weeds
by the swans and the swifts
by the songs in the dusk
and the
silence
under the crystal crescent.

Hoping for a revolution in the suspended time of the C-19 pandemic…

Under the lockdown, the air had become so clear that on May 1st, 2020, I did see a triple rainbow around the apartment blocks of Broadwater Farm.

For more thoughts from the first phase of the pandemic in London in spring 2020, see Hidden Rivers / Verborgne Flüsse.

Children of the sun and moon

March 21, 2020July 5, 2019 ~ Christina Egan ~ Leave a comment

Children of the sun and moon

When we drift through ink-blue dusk
under the twigs of moon-white blossom,
under the crystal orbs of street-lamps,
under the shadeless signals of neon,

when we slide across concrete squares
and sail around sharp and rounded corners,
restless and vigorous, at home in the dark,
at home in the city, nocturnal birds,

we know deep down that we are still
children of the sun and moon:
the sun must rise in our eyes,
the moon must rise in our brain;

we must admit that we are still
children of the earth and sky:
the spring must rise in our bones,
the stars must rise in our veins.

	payoli on Die vierte Frucht
	M.W. on Schläft ein Lied / Sleeping…
	Cari Harris on A Window will be Thrust O…
	Cari Harris on The Ice-cream Van is Comi…
	Cari Harris on Suburban traffic jam / Vo…

Christina Egan

Poetry & Plays – Dichtung & Drama

CITIES

Im Herzen von Köln (St. Andreas)

A Lonely Star

Tabucchis Blau

Sous les toits de Gand

Purple Dusk (Bankside, London)

The Hallowed City

Kerzenbekrönt

When the Snow Falls

Notnormal

Children of the sun and moon