I met Sharon, walked

her along unknown canals --


with bikes everywhere.

In the city there are many doors
that are open at night
to being awake
experiencing something together
across the threshold
no longer being an outsider

In the city there are many sidewalks
where people stand
and explore distant areas
with flexible words
questions and mental leaps
to become familiar with them

In the city there are many gardens
where children play, birds
whistle and all year round, flowers
attract bees and people
to come and feast
on the nectar of the day

Back in Amsterdam!

So, why aren't people shining --


here with happiness?!

The sky is blue and cold today
as if the atmosphere is thinner
and I can sense the void

under which the houses are small
and low, meaningless
fleeting and interchangeable

The old timber factory seems to be leaking
On the right side of the base
smoke rises from the building

as if a reversed draught
through the black chimney hole
absorbs, from distant stars, seas
of gigawatts of power for the city

I entered the display case
of people educators
subsidizing snobs
the multirich and companies

among tourists and inhabitants
who want to be seen
in the museum café and
with sophisticated pastry lard
the conversation with careless clauses

they quote from an authority
whom nobody has to understand
to get the intention
of the praised artists

The shop was crowded
Spotlights on show-pieces
fancy coffee table books
and chic presents
for the season and the next holidays

Especially the past
is on sale, postcards
of the attractions
and sights of the city

interchangeable
like the collections
which graduated stylists
cast in international moulds
to magnets for visitors

Sincerely David,

lovely apparition for the man in me,

lovely decadence of the eagerly,
lovely poem lovely,
Kissinger and the dearly,

how often does one remember
how often of the off
off the membrane of the soft
off the remembrance of thy spine

love your poems and the manly woman

women are they eager of Shakespeare?

Amsterdam! Free
man of the world you want to be

your wild eyes threaten
my father hand, please, send
an angel, light, a woman
a favourable wind, sweet dreams
someone, something to help you
unbreakable mirrors if need be

Father, mother, earth, universe
make something happen, of course
who sees everything, does not know why
to intervene

freedom would be meaningless
if for adults only

understanding and obedient
everything with measure, giving up
what is beautiful and attractive
and smiling
at the discontented excuses
and lies of the past

You grow up wounded
I too have built, defended
and then demolished
castles and walls -

old men's proud
of the scars of my fight

The level is rising around
the islands of silt
in the swamp, the fishermen
see their world widening
Old streambeds are also filling up
The wetlands become accessible
by rivers from the mainland

It is a ******* void
a gate to the sea, a chance
for the peat farmers and the forest people
to start trading, to build
dikes, quays, a city
with a dam
in the middle

People are flowing over
from the prosperous villages
to the impoldered land
with the new port –
not an old core that hungrily
conquers the surrounding lands
but their colony