I feel so at home

in the world, with the tomcat --


curled up on my bed.

In my work I can

add trumps and do everything --


if it comes off well.

Would the alehoof and

creeping-flower wish to flee?


From my weeding hand?

The bookkeeper counts

the legacy, a drawer --


filled up with poems.

With all their long toes,

the trees stand in the floodlight --


of the poppy field.

I was seventeen,

with all my being I longed --


to offer myself.

Do I prefer to

remember, forget, forgive --


or be forgiven?

The red sun burns in

the windows of the city:


everything is lost.

It's raining tonight

on our summer memories --


They are washed away.

Silvery glaucous

leaves sail away from the trees --


Little crescent moons.

She took her clothes off,

unconcerned whether she might --


want to hide something.

First you slurp water,

and from inside, it slurps you:


isn't that called drowning?

There are just no ways

to our goals, we hesitate --


and saunter about.

Still, twisted people

do know what love is about --


their own twisted love.

Two teenage girls sit-

ting opposite each other --


form a closed circle.

It is summer fair,

I hear it at home, passing --


me turn after turn.

Don't go anywhere,

there is a Way, you just walk --


That's living your life.

The psychiatrist

desperately deals hard blows --


to me, to my thoughts.

It is late, bedtime,

there's a waft around the lamp --


a cloud of white moths.

Disabled people

evolve, as human beings --


they become braver.

They seem well-known, yet

marital relationships --


are a mystery.

The words are there, and

they are lost, unfindable . . .


just suspension points.

For hours they're chasing

each other across the plains:


thundery showers.

The years fly by fast,

so the better you can see --


what the changes are.

Day to day I live

eternally, in moments --


of time that passes.

I lived happily,

comfortably in the blue --


big egg of heaven.

I'm roving about

in fear, there are big holes here --


that I cannot see.

Everything changes

and suffers from it, I too --


am living that way.

Love: forgetting you

know each other, discover --


each other once more.

To keep her and me

from being alone, I put --


an arm around her.

She likes me, so she

does know human nature, or --


is she just stupid?

So I'm a poet,

which was once just a pose, but --


I conformed to it.

From the river, forest everywhere
with yellow knights, turkey tails
and white-bearded trees

Sometimes there is a silence
and I hear the treecreeper
here and there a stone

which is described
on the map of this area
a map that is not a map

but a summary
of intersections, bridges
and solitary trees

Tonight I will rest
in an easy chair
that important invention

after the folding chair, the tilting chair
the swivel chair and the wheelchair
luckily I'm whole inside

not shaken in a coach
with suspension
fit for a rest day

for considerations
about my journey and the world
accepts the outcome

Every day I pass

the forest, it's hard to see --


that we're transforming.

Taking a deep breath:

there is space, calm, sometimes joy --


It's the real nectar.

Wait for a new age,

when there will appear new priests --


to reinvent God.

A romantic kiss;

her first, so her eyes tell me --


dying passively.

But in retrospect,

I wasn't really unhappy --


It didn't mean too much!

My love must not seem

like desperation, that would --


be a proposal.

She broke up with me.

Overwhelming! Finally --


something big happened!

Appearances are an art, a few strokes
form out of paint, an intimate experience
of velvet, skin and sadness

There is no better job
than feeling proximity and depth
shamelessly direct, like in bed

Appearances are deceptive, my insolvency
is just a façade, like a name
given to you in ignorance

I no longer have debts
nor money, I earn nothing
and can work without worries

So let the pious people talk
I take care of Hendrickie
and Titus, everything is theirs

The old actor has

been playing all grandfathers --


for twenty-five years.

Trolley cases on the quay, tourists
are part of it when you live here
And Thin John, sitting straight on his bike
every morning three times around the block
in the afternoon on foot the other way around
Mario the Sidewalk Speaker also
is part of it with his dog

Children jumping cannonballs
next to party people in their sloop
Anyone going on vacation
Every two minutes an air-plane
against the wind, low over the houses
Cyclists with their priority face
and the people who live here

The Americans in front of their café
on the corner, where believers sat
when the church with the tower was still there
Red Mia shuffling around
the litter bins, and neighbours
arguing again
They all belong

Here and everywhere the world
is maladjusted, we know
about ourselves and we address
each other: Hello! Good morning
good day here where we are at home
and can only wish that
everything remains different

We are beautiful

and special, all of us, it's --


just ordinary.

Like you, I look
for the distinctions to understand
what has been

different in the womb
in the neighbourhood where we grew up
and with the people who lived there

And I do not know
We look alike, this or that way
we rolled down a sand hill

whistled on a straw or acorn cap
discovered the zero after a lot of counting
learned to write with bread

and tried our best to get permission
to eat the letters, it was
all differently the same

Also the uncles and the aunts
and the children from the neighbourhood:
the differences are numerous

but too small
to be able to catch them
So I have to swallow

and admit that it is true
that you are just as good
as I think I am myself

Life is learning that

you are No'other, almost --


the same as I am.

Our beautiful life, preserved
against the cold that may return:

cans with beans, old newspapers
worn out clothes, jars of jam
up to the ceiling
the hard land, and the hard way
of the great leaders, and the little ones
who fought for their own advantage
the heroes of steel, later torn
from their home and from the books

But we are still there, in our musty house
we still share - a beautiful life

The audience isn't

listening to the concert --


It's background music.

Everything is there,

but it gives me no idea --


what to do with it.

There is your laundry,

which I will clean, but for whom?


Will someone wear it?