They are holding
your pale wrists
tight.

Your new side was fake
And covered in all the rust you need
To start a war.

There were springs sticking out
From holes in the mattress
The night you told me
I was void of form.

It must haunt you now
To think that I'm such a good abstraction.

Lacrimosa,
Lacrimosa...

My dear,
I'd prefer to sing alone.

To think of you washed
In all the colors falling
Like Whistler's Rocket
So far below the moon...

I cry away any sanctity
Placed upon me in my youth.

When I am stricken
With all the words
Uttered over the silence
Of our modern, beautiful
Communication...

I will fall silent.

I will fall still.

I will be quiet,
But I will be swift,
And I will be void of mercy
To all but myself.

the foxgloves explode
in infinite slow motion [silently]

from them also we can learn
the soft crash and save ourselves

from the genius suicide:
the brief fame of a supernova

…

intermittent rain keeps the land fecund,
a deluge cleanses to the bedrock,
rain in perpetuity is impossible
and we think we can control this

but we live at one speed,
and measure in standard units:
our language is insufficient
to give a precise reflection

…

to assume our laws are true beyond appeal
puts into question our democratic process

we forget the necessity of conversation
the original Greek ideal of the agora;

to meet friends and argue is the point, is it not, of life,
of all this noise, after all, what use is silence?

…

our luxury of having the exercise of our conscience
is subsidised by the suffering of a multitude other

..and yet

when we all speak with one
language / currency / voice
there is no poetry anymore
no rhyme, no metre, no form

in this Heaven only, [on Earth], we are united

Until recently, I had the impression
Of decaying
Along with the moral standards
Of contemporary Europe,
With London as the lieu
To which all Autoroutes lead.
                                                           ­         
In my room, I was surrounded
By debris
Of my existence,
Lacking the will even to clear
The carpet, whose colour,
Incidentally I came to forget.
                                                         ­           
I ceaselessly tampered with my hair,
Growing it long,
Having it cropped, hennaing it red,
Dyeing it blue-black, bleaching it near-white;
It fell out in bunches,
Desiccated and exhausted.
                                                      ­              
My face grew sallow and haggard,
With bloodshot, inflamed,
Glazed, blue-ringed orbs,
And bitten, bloated, ravaged lips.
My body lost its athletic aspect,
And became shapeless and emaciated.

You tip-toe out of the day
out of the Atlantic Ocean

with Africa's sun on your brown skin
with Africa's wind grazing your dark hair

and all of South America behind you.
Had North America and Europe

had enough sense
they would have followed, too.

Had they known of everything good
tucked away in your womb

then surely surely
they would have followed, too.

Your small hand, is all I asked for darling.
The wedding band, well it comes after darling

I've seen your seams and know you're not a human being
But you're the dream that I've been looking after

I've torn off to the East coast and I've gone to the West
Your parents and your siblings have only done what you've said.
I didn't lead you on when you showed me how you liked to be touched,

Do you know how long you've asked me to wait now?
Do you remember when you used to faint and cry?
I remember when you couldn't feed yourself,
I remember when you tried to lie about dying.

Why do you do this? We both have mothers, we've got sisters and dads.
I've seen you broken, sick, and crying while we laid in the bath.

I never thought I'd see you settle or give up on your dreams,
Now I've given up six years for someone I haven't even seen.

It's like when you held my shoulder during that downpour
Driving 75mph in the Mercedes back and forth on Highway-19

I begged you to tell me that unconditional love story,
About the girl who met a boy three weeks before she was to leave.

You can keep the story but I want my penguin back.
It survived Fallujah as well as the war in Iraq.

Even though I ache missing the taste of your skin,
Nothing's more important to me than being in your company again.

Maybe you could stop the torture
While I do more than taking pictures of the talent,
And instead you might consider doing something romantic;

I think you're brave enough to live an incredible life
But can you speak your mind without having to lie.

Maybe one day you'll realize I don't have ulterior motives
Except to earn enough gold so we can live how we want to.

Mustard sweaters in the Mauritshuis,
     scattered ashes at the foot of our bed.
We run, run round in circles,
     till the stars drop out of their cat's cradles and into our laps.
Empty paintings and glasses frames,
     dozing atop anarchist literature in the back alleys
of some distant treasure island.

Grass-stained shirt hems,
     your mother's scrawl inside your collar, faded.
Scuffed knees,
     not quite bleeding.
Too far away from home,
     swimming in your reflection in your watery cup of tea.
Ripped up notebooks,
     a writer's love ignited.
Rough wine on the banks of the canal,
     crying, laughing, tumbling still.

A dash of spluttered kisses
     come raining down on your neck.
Buried in your sandy hair,
     shining lips in the candlelight.
I don't speak your language,
     you barely speak mine,
*Ik wil jij.