The greatness of the ocean
Captures me each time
The power of the water
The surface that seems mine
The rolling of the thunder
That rushes every tide
And still I find my peace in
The emptiness so wide
I could stare forever in
The darkness of the waves
And let the flood take all
My cares and fears away
Each time I feel that cool breeze
And smell the scent of shore
I wish to drown in the deepness
Of that ocean just once more

Surely I would know it
If there were any truth to this
The senses, yet, are treacherous
And mostly so’s the wit

Truly I’ll believe it
When intuition strikes
The mirrors running liquid
Through my mind

Freely, I would will it
Convinced by logic’s myth
But ignorance is willfulness
And indifference is bliss

Clearly I can see it
Awoken from reality
Plugged into a conscience
That feeds on mere deceit

Naturally, I am it
The being and the time
Meddling in reality
Mistaking truth for mine

He sighs
My life
Is scattered on the floor
My heart
Makes art
As a mosaic forms
The glue
Seeps through
It paints the picture red
Time’s waste
The taste
Is bitter with regret

As I watch the sunrise it dawns on me
The sun will always shine
New mornings will forever follow
The darkest of the night

Nothing stays the same as
The shadow that the sunlight casts
Behind you keeps on changing
The sorrow never lasts

Neither does the happiness
When leaves fall down in autumn
And holding on to anything
Is like chasing after phantoms

The silent stream I trust my heart to
Takes it along as it goes
So just like that my heart has changed
Confirming that everything flows

This land we inhabit
Staking our fences
The lens through which we see the world
From behind windows and hedges
Spectators of passers-by
Random sidewalk happenstances
We live vicariously through
What lives on the outside of our plots
Our parcels, our lots, our allotments and our storylines
Where branching out will always be
Punished by pruning and
Shielding off of stretching out
The ground beneath our feet too fixed and stable
To switch
When plots thicken
It does nothing
But hold us in place

Again the thought
'When I'm alone,
I'm sure gonna cry'
Knowing that
I'll break my heart
Later that night
Aware I'll do this
To myself
A million times more
Aware that in the end
I won't see
Anything to live for

If the quantum is foaming
Roaming space for a chance to manifest
Lest it neglect to collapse in on itself
Then who am I

To negate the hypothesis
That life is ineffable
Interfering with the pattern
That would have else entangled me
Instead,
I find myself a wave function
Undetermined until interacted with
Insignificant until observed

Who am I to challenge
That everything is energy
Rising through the ranks of probability
A wavelength contracting  
An equation waiting to materialize

Who am I to doubt
That uncertainty is anything less
Than a superposition  
A potential to fill
The vacuum to the brim
With vibrations that extend far beyond the evidence
Fluctuations fulfilling a destiny  
Of singularity
A momentum to make matter matter

Shattered glass
Broken by force
But out of despair
The bleeding fist
Token of both
Witness of one
Mistaken strength
Screaming for
Recognition that
Will never fulfill
Fear forces further
Into slavery that hurts

Slowly finding its way down
The window pane I’m watching
The lonely drop of rain is all
My crying eyes can see

With my wandering finger tips
I follow it down to the place
My heart committed suicide
And left my world to die

The pain is bleeding out of
Pierced black nothingness
Spilling empty all across
The ice cold bedroom floor

A star lights up distracting
My eye away from the dark
Reminding me that out there
A million windows are

Just like mine the only
Comfort that could ever be
Hard enough to handle
A hurt this frightening

And while the glass is only
Reminding of the hopelessness
It soothes the sense of solitude
By allowing the view

Against better judgment, I forget
How the sun casts her shadow
On roads that unroll themselves
As minefields full of expectation
I find my pleasure in disaster that
Draws near when I laugh at it
Blowing caution to the wind
Of change behind me

Tegen beter weten in vergeten
*** de zon haar schaduw werpt
Op paden die zich uitrollen
Als verwachtingsvolle mijnenvelden
Genietend van het onheil
Dat nadert als je erom lacht
Verstandige adviezen sla je
In de wind die door je haren waait

His blood ran down the fogged mirror.
Even after the final breath had escaped,
life hung around, wounded but out there,
counting how many heartbeats it takes to forgive.
Hair stuck to faces. His, hers.
Unsaying the words was of no use now.
Vows to save lives they had spoken,
but only one of them had kept that word.
She had known he’d be the one to follow through,
moved as he was by the pain of another,
strong as he was to disregard his own.
His parts would be carved out, divided,
to give another sight in eyes, air in lungs, blood in veins.
He must not have considered
he’d give her heart up for donation too.
That by saving all these strangers,
he’d **** the very person
whose vow was only ever meant
to just keep him alive.
He’d live on in others, mothers, fathers,
who’d pass on the breath he’d so selflessly shared.
She took her hands from the glass,
wiped his blood from her skin,
looked up in the mirror and ****** that final breath of his in.
His organs might be taken to give another hope.
But the air from his lungs was hers to breathe,
his life to live on in her.
Her heart might never again be beating,
and her life might be spent walking among dead.
But at least she’d find him there,
where he’d prepared the way.

It hatched, the egg
Last time I was left
With a yokey substance
That only landed me
A hangover worse than
Ever imagined
Last week, though
Oktoberfest
Best idea ever
As the ***** wore off
The notion rose
To a higher plan
Whenever I am drunk again
I should remember
To never
Get out of bed
In the morning

It's two minutes past the deadline
The coffee he spilled has seeped into the wooden table
As if leaving a masterpiece of stains would somehow make it right
The boom caused by the implosion of his future still echoes in his head
As he lifts himself from the shallow puddle of confidence
That has almost dried up whole
The dirt under his fingernails is a reminder
Of the time he spent trying
To get this tree of missed chances and what-ifs
To grow again
His car keys and his passport he uncovers
From under a pile of broken promises
Maybe he can push back time
Following the sun

Waar de zon wel lijkt te schijnen
Ziet zij nog alles zwart
Waar hitte de vreugde verdort
Zomer in haar hart

Waar de kleuren wel mooi lijken
Heeft de wind haar gevoel verwart
En de regen haar vrijheid doen wijken
Herfst in haar hart

Waar de zon schittert op de sneeuw
Heeft het ijs haar hoofd verhard
Snijdt de kou zich in haar lichaam
Winter in haar hart

Waar alle kleuren lijken op te bloeien
Maar de regen met tranen vermengd wordt
Hoopt ze dat het in haar hart
Ooit weer lente wordt

The spear leaves the bow
Sizzling sharp sound
Of the echo of words
Hollowed by clichés
Piercing my heart to deflate
The hope evaporates
Numbing my senses and
Inhibiting my muscles to
Turn away from the next spear
No wonder I wear
A shield

Remember, being young, you used to love those posters
We’d look at them for hours, got addicted to the game
Of trying to be the one, who found the most new details
We searched for all the features that none had seen before
And every next disclosure would shed a whole new light
On the storyline we thought had nothing new in store

Where along the way did you lose your sense of wonder?
What was it that blinded the eye for detail that you had?
Was it time that rusted your fixation on what’s known yet
Was it life that happened and robbed your curious mind?
‘Cause though still friends forever, the magic slowly faded
The picture got familiar as if holding no more surprise

Now just take a moment and imagine that we’re standing
Looking at that poster that you still know by heart
The one that tells the story of two best friends forever
And spells their lives out since the time that they were young
All the ties that bind them, the obstacles along the road
All the precious moments that gave colour to their lives

Imagine that this picture, etched inside you memory
Holds one little detail that you've never seen before
Would its revelation bring back your imagination
And hold the hidden power to change the story line?
Would the boy hidden inside accept the great adventure
That a few small brush strokes invite him to pursue?

This time, let me tell you the thing that you’ve been missing
The detail that’s been overlooked in all the years gone by
The painter of this story line that sketched our lives together
Signed this valued work of art with the truest signature
If you’d open up your eyes and see the artist’s message
You’d read there in my handwriting “please let me be yours”

I wish you were a song in my head
So I could play you when I want,
Stop you when I want,
Stop wanting you when you play
Me like a song in your head

These chances that surround us
As subatomic particles
Descendents from the brightest stars
Blinking in and out of
An existence that registers
On cosmic scale alone
These bones
Might tingle
Hinted by a ripple
Traveling through time and space
That once returned to dust
Our essences might mingle
And dance on winds as one
This spine, yet
That I was taught to have
Has stiffened
Standing firm above the force fields
A scarecrow there to daunt
Even the dustbowl of our love

You stepped in my soundtrack
Bought out the baton
You laughed at my lyrics
Rewrote verses wrong
You chewed on my chorus
And spat it back out
Cracking my key notes
And muting my loud
You revised my rhythm
Swallowed my rhyme scheme
You mashed up the melody
Now I want a new theme

In the rolling of the thunder,
In the clashing of the waves,
In the raging of the storming seas

He whispers.
                              Will you?
He whispers.
                                                       ­     Listen?
He whispers.
                                                       ­                                   And be still?

But shouldn’t there be lightning crashing,
Voices singing, clouds breaking?
Isn’t glory only shown through
Miracles, eclipse?

And I… run,
                              run,
                                             run,
To the rhythm of                               my heartbeat,

Each thud roaring down the whisper
He’s trying to make me hear.

But I… run,
                              run,
                                             run,
To the rhythm of                               my heartbeat,

Which slowly he aligns with...        His.

In between the beats He still
Whispers,
Hardly loud enough to hear;

                             *“Slow down, listen!
                                                         ­         Be still before
                                                          ­                                 Me”

She stepped back until the branch that hit her
Was nothing but a still part of a tree
Until the wind that had cut her skin
Didn't move her sight no more
Until she was just an observer
Of the mess her life had become
So she could set it still, paint it
As a picture more rosy than it
Ever would become

The sunset over the Atlantic
As seen from my balcony
A sight that never tires me
Even though it doesn’t change

I don’t know where the ocean ends
And where the sky begins
Even when the colors change
They fade into each other

Instead my life confuses me
Sitting alone on my balcony
Even though the landscapes change
It always just feels the same

I don’t know where the present ends
And the future will begin
The seamlessness just frightens me
As if I’m missing out on life

But like sunset over the Atlantic
Teaches the view from my balcony
There’s more to life than sea and sky
And the sun will elsewhere rise

Though first, I evolved according to plan
Little enabled me outlive this predator
With few permanent armor plates, strong
Muscles capable of crushing
Anything, bones extremely tough,
These serious injuries go beyond
My cold-bloodedness.
I like my environment, have developed
Behaviors to control it, to save energy
That can be put to other use
An evolved entirety of reason
Is why I can go for over a year
In extreme shutdown
My own tissue will feed
On anything it can overpower
Extraordinarily adaptable
During difficult times,
I will scavenge for everything,
Digest nothing left behind
My social interactions are complicated
I primarily lead a solitary life, don’t recognize
Vocalization, postures, signals, touch
My brain more complex than that of any other
A powerful sense of perception
The ability to learn, to avoid situations
That modify me structurally
Adaptations have allowed me to thrive
But surviving human encroachment
May be my biggest challenge
Through habitat enhancement
I may be able to ensure these
Sophisticated survival skills
For years to come

Look at me and see
A dancing apple tree
These branches representing
All of my extensions
All the ways I’m extending
Away from my roots
Look
Look at me swaying in the wind
Dipping my toe into every new thing
As if it were a lifeline
A way to strengthen my spine
To grow
And withstand the next storm
So look at me spread
This canopy of leaves
Towards the sun
Drinking in the light
The life
That gets me through another season
Look at me breathe
The chest of my stem expanding
Breathing in the dust of life
Breathing out the rust of death
The stem of my chest collapsing
Under the weight of the dawn
Retracting from this lifting mist
Until the senses settle in to old patterns
And my tree dances
No more

How?
If even there were
A force in this universe
Sustaining life beyond just breath
Beyond this web of neurons
Firing in predictable patterns
Prescribing every inclination and desire
A flame in which is fully forged
The consciousness that
Dreams and dares all things
Beyond our mere survival

If even there were such a force
How would it be made known?
How does a foundation work
When the fundamental building blocks
Are massless, pointlike?
As much wave as particle
Basking in the sunlight of uncertainty
Existing in duality

How, when everything else is
Nothingness
A void a million billion times more extensive
Than anything substantial
That surrounds it
A vacuum that renders
The remaining matter pointless
How could force be hollow
Yet encompass all
What does it all mean
When all of matter falls in between

This unseen field
Rippling, wriggling, rigging
Everything it fills with the seedlings of decay
Each day
Moving along the breakdown towards
Entropy
Splendid chaos,
Almost too perfect to be called such

How could we not see
The force
Still elusive, but unchanged
Striking a balance
Between fate and volatility
The neverending battle
That morphs each how into a why
The demon and the butterfly

His touch haunted her,
Guarded as her heart was, she couldn’t afford
To connect,
To attract,
To enter into any state of delicate but zealous longing
Instinctively she knew
Any feeling would be misleading;
Splendid sensual snow melting into liquid lies,
Her heart disarmed, sinking into that gusty sea
Of spoiled desire
A barbarous distance between craven obedience
And the grandiosely brilliant beam she used to embody
An emotional war as tangible as a robust ruin
Worn down by stormy weather, unable to shelter
Her blue-eyed innocence
Recondite or unexpected it never was,
The effect of his shaggy possessive smile
And giddying twisted promises
Drawing out her hurt and suffering,
Disguised as a youthful fluttering
Of nonchalant excitement
A deceitfully draining destruction lurking
In his fondling fingertips,
His smiling dimples,
His laughing wrinkles
Yet thoughtfully she took the plunge
Into a wilderness she couldn’t afford
To miss out on

You stretch arguments along the lifelines of my patience
Plant eager excuses on my collarbones of doubt
Feed me watered-down wine of ever-pending promises
That my trust-tangled stomach can never hold down

Your touch singes holes in my dress of protection
Burns through the layers of my shock-salted skin
Your eyes tell a tale of belligerent disarmament
My judgement messed up by your lopsided grin

Your glance of missed chances pierces my instinct
Sees right through the weakness of my fast-fading self
My senses confused by the lure of your fragrance
Susceptible bait for your trickery of scent

My nails scratch your back for a grip of intention
I stitch up your contour, unravelling my own
Tearing up scars that I once thought well-covered
Slowly you’re ******* the marrow from my bones

Smiling you cushion the blows of your winged words
But the humdrum still bruises my lured lazy limbs
Your smoke-flavoured lips taste of death and destruction
But still my parched mouth follows your every whim

I wish I could feel the pull
That I would know where to go
To be in her reach
Which frequency to tune into
To feel this spirit
Fuel my soul, form my self

There, where the universe is flat
I gain a dimension
Am brought into my extensions
Where the background energy
Keeps drafting the blueprint
Of me

But when left to my own devices
In a world that towers over me
I am lowered into voids
In which I can't but disappear

I wish I were made of steel
Drawn to her, magnetic
Through a space, permeated by it
This body it inhabits
For a short while
Matter, embodying the story
The narrative that whispers
Of what is

And me
One story incarned
Suspended in this vacuum of ignorance
Until returning to a wave state
Tuned into the frequency
Of reality

The fire sparkled a watery light
As the moon soothed time into oblivion
And a faint recollection of yesterday lay dizzy at their feet

Her afterthought was inconclusive
As to whether the cup in her hand
Had elicited an exuberance
Sufficiently encouraging to make her face the dawn

On their playground of broken bottles and burned out branches
The chords of melancholia clung heavy to the night

The sweet sounds of memories they had relived
And strung together into an utterly unruly melody,
Seemed to push the sunrise back
Under the horizon lying looming out of reach

Smoke rising up from the last of their dampened pine branches
Laid a murky gloom over the glaring view of an inescapable morn

The clouds rolling in ****** them back into darkness
Hiding an unwanted future from sight
Allowing an indulging as sweet as the drink
That still lingered on the lips that spoke of never wanting to go back

The rain-burst covered their world with a wafer-thin film of glistening protection
Every thunder bolt momentously holding off dawn

But the fire that had fuelled their careless lazy limbo
Hissed under the abundantly extinguishing streams coming down
The spark that had lasted them all through the night
Melted into a shocking sense of reality
Quenching her parched desire
To dance in the rain
And run towards the sunrise with arms wide open

Nails in pocket
For future fastening
Of repellence on wood
Legs twisted, stiff, that
Forgot how to follow
In any other way than
Swaying in the wind
Hay hair shining in
Sunlight less every time
The dustbowl hits
Rags around lumps,
Stakes, rakes
Make for inadequate
Facade of waking
From afar well placed,
At ease, maybe
Somewhat untidy,
But balanced, stable
At a distance, listening
One might even hear
A raspy voice whispering
Wind to wood,
Promises of movement
Mistake a hollow stare
For vigilance
But with senses obsolete
Inertia well-rewarded
Mere being never sufficed
But for here and now

When I pull you close
The space between us
Is just moving elsewhere
And your arms around me
Will not cease to
Silently push me out there
So that the air that once connected  
Me to you will now
Surround my skin with empty
Remembrance of yours
And choke me with the thought that
You won’t let me to
Embrace the man that you
And I both know I love

She keeps on falling from the tightrope
That connects her heart with his
Every first step frightens her
Thinking about how maybe this
Could be just that one chance
To reach the other side

Snowflakes fall
It doesn’t change
That I feel that all
There’s left is nothing

The whole world seems
At perfect peace
But the light beams
Can’t bring me joy

While once so close
I feel that I
Like a faded rose
Have lost you

That the world tore
You and me apart
Like away from the shore
The ocean pulls the waves

Rushing over me
A stream of lifted spirits
Upwards waterfall

Het verleden begeeft het
Verweet het me eerst nog
Niet te zijn geworden
Wat kon
Nu
Nu beleeft het
De kleuren, de klanken, de stilte
Nu weet het
Dat wat gisteren miste
Vandaag was
Scheef gegroeid door de jaren
De kaders, de verhalen, de adem
In wat van mij is
Uit wat verraadt ***
Goed
*** dit slechts
Het tipje van de sluier is
*** de ontluistering
Leidt tot luister
Tot alles wat rauw en puur is
Wat echt is
Het vroeger van vroeger hoopte
En bad
Maar vreesde
Het vroeger van nu belooft me
En leert
Dat angst nooit in me zat
Ondanks het vroeger groeide ik
Vergroeide ik, met mezelf
Bloedde ik
Maar niet zonder te voelen
Ondanks het vroeger
Vermoedde ik
Dat de missende link
Verlicht was
De liefde was
De liefde is

Her hands held on to
His fingerprints on
The other side of the glass
Window that divided them

Left her longing for
A moment to grasp
And cherish him and her
And what they never were

And while she watched
His back turn to her
She conquered the familiar
Sense of holding back

And with her fingers she wrote
The words in the dust he left
On the window. She whispered
“Look back and see” I love you

I thought you’d go the distance
You didn’t move an inch.
How can I recover with this
Hovering over my head?
You said ‘just trust me’,
And then let me
Go the extra mile while
You stayed behind and whispered
A soft goodbye.

You sent me out into a storm
That I only could survive
With someone else beside
Me, with you right there.
This is indeed the end of it.
You led me to believe that if I
Were to ever have you,
‘Now’ was the time
To jump.

So I took the leap and
Landed in the puddle
At my feet.
Stood tall to see the rain fall,
Stood tall to see and meet
A someone else beside me,
Fronting the same storm,
Who looked at me and whispered
A soft hello.

Holding on, hands grappling
Wrapping arms around air
Fleeting, leaving
Urges, lurking
Out of reach
Bubble burst
Glass shattered
Chances lost
Among the ashes of
Could-have-been-but-wasn’ts
Last convulsions
Pulsing
Through my fingers
Lingering loud

We worship words
While words have lost all meaning
Pinned down and carved out
Hollow sounds
Mere moulds we fit to the world around

Why light another candle
For a soul already lost
Why say another prayer
For a world as contorted
That words, so hollow
Are worthless
Mere moulds we fit to
A deformed sense of purpose
Mostly,
Heaven is what works for us
At any given time
Just as often a struggle to overcome
As it is a fate we acquiesce in
Victory, contentment
Both equally worthy
Of pursuit
Both virtues
Both sins
Ever in need of salvation
We breathe life into
The miracle of the mundane
Resurrecting a reasoning that absolves
Reincarnating a consciousness of hope
Of whatever will let us
Exalt it, adore it,
Extract from it
A narrative
To subscribe to
To believe in
To be God

Worth wondered why
I didn't want Him
While He was always
A better companion
Than fear
Why I deemed Him more a
Question of value
A question at all
While He merely was
Wonderfully enough