Crippled, skinny gull
puddles in the potholes
of empty streets

holes in the walls
the school closed, no one
who could leave stayed

after the riots
no one who was released
from the cells

Losses have been taken
suitcases packed
the water shut off

Old town, dead harbour
where I was at home and would
have liked to come back

clean your white steps
turn on your lights, please
turn on, turn on again

Grandma's tapestries,

which she wove as a girl, are --


decaying with her.

Everything flows, a coming
and going of opportunities
Flags blow everywhere
but I don't put poles
of certainty around me

My work and my relationships
are fluid, my fate
is not in my hands
not even in the lines
that fortune tellers read

Pleasure for myself
idealism for all
between the flippers and
the facades of the day and
the dreams of the night

The flippers of catastrophes
and consequences bang
on the bonces of power
the wheels of money and
the cannonballs of contempt

At the reception

I am bouncing everyone --


like silly putty.

Can people still have a discussion with me?
I can confront you
with my falter
That searching, the slow
which I can hardly bear myself?
And what do you think of me?

I'm getting smaller, too small
for everything and everyone
I know, more and more
is falling off my world
Dependent on friends
who need me

So nothing seems to have changed
but it's not like that
not the way it was
not what I was worth
I know too well what it is
to endure the day depressed

It may take a long time
that I'm not there for a while
Lost in unreachable thoughts
until I sound again like
I'm doing better
than I'm telling you

Am I elitist

if football is new to you --


and I explain it?

After today's four steps
I'm sitting in socks by the fireplace
My heavy boots are standing straight
and my back is still rattling

I am a henchman
I push the boundaries
of the ladies in love
and the rich gentlemen

I leave horse **** behind
and take the scent of freesias with me
The water in the bucket sloshes
like yearning love

I don't travel alone
We are armed
The papers are precious
Sealed letters

Beginning and maintaining
of relationships and major interests
Between the stops, the reins
of fate are in my hands

The world we know is

an evolutionary


boundary crossing.

You say: attention
is the most loving thing
you can give

I answer: carefreeness
is the most loving thing
you can have

It often eludes me
Then I lie awake
because I can't do anything

as long as there are no certainties
no current measurements and slices
for relief or a new plan

I want to try everything
to gain time
exhaust all my strength

adapt
and save who I am
what I'm worth

my head full of purplish blue fragrance
which turns my feelings blue
Blue Bluish blue

Numbers: Eight times eight?

When I am in doubt I know --


that I am in love.

The melancholy

that it's true, the earth is small --


but our soul is not.

As a reader I

would like to buy with each book --


reading time as well.

Not living for later
but together, social
and respected

The king loathes it
He takes palaces and farmsteads
His taxation breaks

the compliance, cold
causes hunger
Threat of war

Propaganda points the way:
there is a saviour, a Father
of the Nation, he protects

the refugees from Antwerp
and the trade, he will
drive out tyranny

that beheads dukes and puts
believers at the stake, that makes
the country pay for the oppression

I kindled a fire,

from it blows a wind, it blows --


the fire far away.

I think of thinkers
who describe other sides
of the old stories
and the new talk

who observe what is there
as new and notice something
other than is accepted and
put that into reality

Precisely this responding
to what is already there
is originality
or the illusion of it

In an earlier time
I would have been such a thinker
but now it is of no use
in the easy lives

of well-to-do citizens, no use
to outcasts, no use
to outsiders, no use
to my heirs

The short summary,

summarised just one more time:


Wait! What's it about?

Not grown apart
still familiar, changed
/by each other's attention
Grown along in the other
in who we are

For everything
there can be a time
For slow days
/For closer to home
For constantly creating order
For new projects
and old friends

Occasionally
a message
without a hold
/on whether it fits
in the moment
and falls, falls
into place

Occasionally
the nearness
of our voices
/our most unique selves
talking freely
with open endings
for other times

The percussionists

are counting, they are alert --


to the right moment.

Groups of people attract leaders
give them power, and that power
attracts people

In new times, power melts
Supporters drop out, so
the level drops again

Thus the masses push and ******
the waters of prosperity up and down
as if it were happening to them

Far away the sea moves with it
bringing drought or flood
and tormenting people until they unite

in a countervailing power, bringing their
well-being and downfall upon themselves
with all its consequences

The Great Leader shouts:

We Are Great, The World Is Ours!


Who offers the most?

Having a stare-down,

as if the other is wrong --


sitting on your seat.

The sand wants to be

here, or on the other side --


not in the middle.

Everything goes slow,

his walking, his answering --


Always three dots first...

Shall I still caress

him, stroking through his thin hair?


Will it make him bald?

I must placate mum

and dad when they are fighting --


I'm not there myself.

There's no other way.

I must be white when he's black --


be black when he's white.

So what are the facts?

Just unforgettable, are --


my reconstructions.

Slow lava creeps up

on you and it swallows you --


There is nothing left.

Sadness disappears

in ever wider circles --


of re-retelling.

Today was a draft,

but tomorrow I will start --


a fresh piece of life.

He's lying there weird,

his body is not sleeping --


it is left behind.

It makes me lonely

that no one sees how serious --


things are for me now.

It's a social game:

he looks at her, insecure --


so she looks at me.

She quickly locks - click -

her little mouth and swallows --


up the little key.

Closing time, the farewell
almost over, the seats free
the table full, the glasses empty

I have to go, I'm leaving
Don't look at me like that, you
old singers in old frames

It's quiet on the street, I'm going
The moon is shining, we are turning
back to the sun already

The dogs stand
The scent of our love
has evaporated

The sheets are cold
Put an extra blanket
over your memory

Step aside! Don't speak

of what you don't understand --


This road is our road!

Oh, these good old days...

how elusively little --


is left of them now.

Will people ever

love the earth, their mother, more --


than all their vices?

What a strange office!

Still, it turned out that I stayed:


I got used to it.

Getting old, no time

anymore to keep order --


in what I witness.

Being so concerned

with the oppressed everywhere --


just not with colleagues...

The clouds chasing grey

and fierce, over the canal --


a flock of starlings.

The majority

will want to live frugally --


when it is too late.

Death penalty: could

be, but it's risky to train--


executioners.

The Director stands

in his room like a farmer --


in his own courtyard.

The café is full,

I am outside and I feel --


the comfort that's there.

Never any change!

Everything always the same --


with variations.

I am as the phrase

goes, deep in thought, pondering --


just about nothing.

The Spartan women,

sitting on the salty shore --


are combing their hair.

That light over there,

the outer side of the black --


that is the future.