They can't see me no longer
I am gone, free
from cavilling:

the best years
of my, my life
That's exactly how it was

And then the overtimes -
my happy contentment
if it came to it

And now - that we have enough time
now that everything has calmed down
and is losing its colour

you watch me considerately
with your all-seeing eyes
Not a parent, not a keeper

I do not hide
I will not leave
and I don't wish to be free

In Gilroy they sell garlic
coffee, apples, ice cream, and cookies
In Deventer, the colours are yellow:
mustard, tongues, and beards

the asphalt, roses, and the sun
paintings in the museum
dogs, clothes, mustard everywhere
mustard soup, salad, beans, tea, and eggs

They make a living from it, they are
what they eat, they would like to be
named Garlic and Mosterd
to compete with Hamburg
Tabasco, Sardinia, Nîmes, and Genoa
Badminton, Bikini, or Cyprus at the least

But in the competition of interests
these dreams are far too big
although the world is getting smaller
maybe small enough for Deventer

to be a theme park with nothing
but books and mustard, a fairy tale
where everyone is welcome
to dream away a day

Don't touch me, I strike
fire from my unshed tears
for the tentacles in my belly
I scorch every hand
(including mine)

Don't touch me, my skin
is tight around the old wounds
hardened to an abrasive armour
against what nobody should do
(and yet it happened)

Don't touch me, my belly
does not tolerate any pressure
on the serous membrane around
the spines on the wounds of lust
(of men for me)

Don't touch me, I cry
out the invasive past
from my body for new
cells that know nothing
(virginally)

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

Do you know where you are going to?
Do you like the things that life is showing you?

the way it is, today
my own life today
softly singing on

my way to the next
crossing in the park
knowing where I'm going

left or right, always
back to friends
with whom I'm happy

Even if I don't participate
with the neighbours, all of Brussels
Berlin, Beyrouth, and Beijing

I still participate
but otherwise, living
close to myself

indoors "viewless"
today's life, softly
singing on my way

This street in wonderland
a lane of pink clouds
must be the end

of the normal world, happiness
begins here and over there
must be the gate

but I don't want to go there yet
Let me walk slowly and enjoy
trees full of pink cakes

Let me fly away
from pain and nausea
from the holy trinity

of my thoughts, my
organs and the rest, my
despair, grief, and fear

of the unbearable
Let me walk in the clouds
Let the blossoms keep raining

It is a beautiful autumn day
the park splendidly strewn

with spiny balls, they proliferate
everywhere, I can't watch it

The bad news attacks
I withdraw inside

the walls, close the gates
Leave me alone, let me fight

the facts on my worldwide desktop
as the days go by and I am uncertainly

taking steps in the dance to the final party
letting my I flow in, slowly

exhaling It to be whole, it goes
naturally, it goes by naturally

but now a pill and then
I'll eat and know that outside is inside

- a beautiful day

Between the hard facts I look
for a passage
The sun blinds me
delivers me to the wind

Come, sweet fay of the sea
around misty Avalon, come
then I will be fine
which I never doubt

except at night
when I would like to rest
and sweat fears, tired, so tired
but too vigorous to give up

so I put on nice clothes
to go out and celebrate
to reinvent myself
and connect with the world

Since that day I

old striped out tiger
in a young body

stand in another light
that undresses me, inexorably

untying the laces of my certainties
unbuttoning my habits and dreams

kissing open my eyes
to the beauty

of the abyss
and with a soft hand

taking off my immortality
The abyss isn't an abyss

if I fly and you
accept my hand: look at me

I'm looking at you
standing in another light

since that day when I was so happy
to be still alive – I am

after deep sighs, ready
to jump

Content with each step
that overcomes the tongs
of don't and the knives of do

move, I walk
more and more outside
the lines of society

in my own circlet
There's danger tinkling
in my long breath

of slowly living
step by step
I pour more and more

honey in the tea
but I refuse to flee
in the powdery snow of the night

Friends don't know what to do
with me: not with themselves
and their own worries

with which they are welcome
but they cover them
with worries about me

and my high spirits
against one's better dreaming
against their dreams

because I would miss a part of my life
if I forget today
for a day to come

Dare to watch me
while it's getting dark
and I am lying to rest

I am not dead
I am a flower child
in Mother Nature's lap

That sense of yellowing and falling
to an adornment around my feet
the richness of what was, what wasn't

missing, I know that well
but I'm not looking at it
the way my friends do

Only for a while do they join me
down in my beauty and gratitude
and then they quickly stand back

aside again
looking into the pit
in which I am budding

That sense of hard work
on the balance beam and whoopee
I live, io vivo, I know that well

I do not fall, I plus up
and subtract, step by step
I go further than they do

On good days I apply
     lipstick, put on nice clothes
     for the day theater

     of life
     in the streets and parks
     One of the people

     Everywhere we see red roses
     pouring down from heaven like rain
     Miracle after miracle will befall us

     We get everything we ask for
     and can bear our burdens together
     Those are the good days

after the timeless madness
of the devastating storm
I bump up and down, panic

rushes through my blood
short circuits in my head
I'm staggering from the doctor's cocktail

there is a ghost in it
a giant wildly shaking
the supershots into my lame body

until I fall asleep amorphously
and exhausted, and wake up
wonderfully normal (on a good day)

This is not a flying cold
this is doing the usual things
in a tilted world

crawling on sore knees
over the sharp rings in the metal
of a fallen spiral staircase

Keep going, keep going, take a rest
in a corner of the turn
till fear loves me again

till my ears go again
with what I see and feel
in the storm of my thoughts

till my intestines fall in place
in the witches' cauldron
and my emotions come home

from suffering
from the lesser evil
to everyone who loves me

The worse it is, the less I
bother others with my illness
I do want to

be connected, but I don't know how
to catch my chaos into friendship
I'm trying my best

there is no secret
there are no forbidden
thoughts, I like to see you

embrace you if possible
under the flowering trees
but please wait

till I'm better, well, good
enough not to be ashamed
and to enjoy the buzzing spring

without seeing threatening clouds
so be sweet and write me sweeter sweetest
write me that I love you

My darling is a mermaid
drifting ashore with the tide
from the hurling waves
in which she braces herself

I let her lie down quietly
until she extends her arms
and forces her hands
to work precisely

as long as the light burns, setting
out signs, water hours, moon phases
and weather forecasts
a map

of her love
I count the series
draw links with a ruler
determine her position

on the ticking coordinates
of the greedy time
Mistakes are not allowed
in the danger zone

I'm stuck, how did I get here?

How do I get out, who will help me
accompany me, if need be just
in the spirit, to the Golden Gate
with free birds in the glimpse
of the light between its doors?

Who feels my love tugging
at the nets that connect us?

Who will wash the hard crusts
from my body, kiss my wounds
into flowers as the most beautiful
dress I ever wore, who will
put his hand in my blood

as a heart?

Ill again. Panic
of falling into pieces
in my own skin

Trying all I can
to hold myself
Searching for weapons
and dreaming of ruses
Waking up without

Walking the problem out
the door, having to rest
somewhere in the grass, seeing blood
well up from an abrasion

Taking a baffled look at it
My worthless body full
of fresh blood, full of strength
There is still so much to do

what I thought I could
postpone, time and attention
for friends in the waiting
rooms of my eager life

Come on, I live, I can
bleed and be ill, take care
of others, I live –
no measured hours

I watch, take a grab
of the facts, rearrange the booty
to body's own and the world

constructions of fragments
of reality and myself, the truth
of my existence, my who I am:

turbulent clouds
in my sleep
and reckless pilots

of medicinal substances
that play with me
throwing me back and forth

through the hell
they mold out of my life
and I can only watch

Sometimes they also fly by day --
from my very own memory
I am thought by foreign substances

No minor issue can be made
of the stinking discomfort
my body has become
because of the remix with pills
trying out
better versions of me

With a mouthful of Latin
the doctor lets everyone
speechless with bated breath
in the danger zone
of my sweat and gases
have a look

into the cold beak
between my legs
There I lie
thinking of the cloud
of friends around my bed
in which I relieve my soul

Familiar were the winds
that shaped me in their wide world

my branches towards the same side
reaching over the edge

yielding to the pressure, proudly
my own posture

Iron water has hardened me
and captured the pattern
of my life in the bones
and in the veins
of my slanted balance

I make elastic jumps
which would break my fragility
without the precision of manure
on hour and time, from time to time
disrupted by my zest for life

I don't live in a greenhouse, but
in the winds of the world

Smaller than I am
I fell into my own arms

to pieces
but all love

licking the wounds
they are mine

The bed doesn't know a thing
just carries whoever lies down

it is soft for heavy
and prickly, for me

I talk and write my complaints
away under enthusiastic words

friends desbravely hope with me
guessing what I don't dare

to share and afterwards
I am worried

whether I did them wrong
I am so tired

my body is the limit
I want to pass

Everyone knows
from the daily news
the places and times

are wrong sometimes, suddenly
people are no longer alive and we
forget it again, so frail
are our feelings

and thoughts as well
under which we don't want
to suffer and be weighted down

Rather we keep up
that we are safe, twice a day
we see beside the screens

the good of our lives
and against the bad luck
that slips through
we arm ourselves with humor

Everyone knows
about being silent, alone
or together, then it is less bad

Awakening with a start, I softly push
over your snoring, reassured

I sink back in fatigue, dreaming
to catch up what I don''t come around to

in my half days of little
care for Missy, you and me

Sometimes I have to keep kissing you
have to weep you wet for more

time, doing more, living bigger
with less sleep, I do have so much

to give what I dont come around to
in my half days of little

care for Missy, you and me

Cleaners are haunting
my house, bossy
they do all the talking
take me off my hands

and tell stories
that I am ashamed of
I lie helplessly crying
in your lap, in the shadow

of my fear of losing myself
more and more to them
I couldn't live without them
but my sake is suffering

from the occupation
of my head by the stage
mask of my face
that the cleaners wear

Ik wil niet voor mezelf leven
daar ben ik niet goed in en leven
is ook niet zo bedoeld, maar

het is nodig: mijn lichaam
heeft het moeilijk

en wil verwend worden
meer verwend worden
meer dan ik weet

dat verstandig is; mijn verstand
heeft juist rust nodig

geen diepgravende gedachten
alleen praktische zorgen
voor mijzelf zorgen

en alleen als het kan
ook voor anderen, mijn lief

anders ben ik niets
waard, ben ik niet
wie ik wil en hoop

te kunnen zijn: gezond
genoeg voor lang en gelukkig

Chatterchick is scattering cackles
because my husband follows
a truth of his own again and in vain
I am looking for silence

Blacky is in the dumps
sighing that she suffocates
in the darkening darkness
where it's never silent

It won't work!
Bring nuts and bars of chocolate!
Madam settles herself
to savour it in silence

I wish it were so
easy, Chatterchick cries
Bonkers, Fatty, Layabout
they taunt; Silence, Silence, I

shout, Go, go! I'm going
to think of something else
or thoughtlessly
do sports, get tired

I wish it were so
easy, Chatterchick cries
and the dumps are moaning
and the sofa is snoring

It is not cosy
in my bodyhome, sweating
on the bed, I stretch out wide

to an X
(value unknown)
to cool down

but there is no wind
and the air is damp
with sorrow for my fate

and with fear that this is the last
I am able to sustain, that
thereafter, it will be too bad

(I'm not sure what –
  then again it is too dark
  then the light shines too bright)

I want space and breath
to fight, I am a fighter
in my head and my belly

I am surrounded there
constricted and suffocated
There is plenty of air

Why not for me?
I bear the stings
and the cramping

for the danger –
the gong rings
(for a new round)

Suddenly it was different
the toggles turned over
and I was picked up

I brace myself, fallen through
something, a membrane
between order and overpower

Carry me away, I want heavens
of pastel and gray after the outings
in my room and in the hallway
not a dropped ceiling

Back home, in the light
of my own windows
between the plants, the pillar
and the post of pain

thinly covered with anxious dreams
in which I don't want to be snowed under
no matter how tight the ties squeeze

In pyjamas I suffer myself
clamping my cup in my hands
I won't let go

I want to live without the ready-to-wears
of my former identities, I don't want to
be a former colleague, not a patient

with a rare disease
of the most severe category
rescued in the hospital mill

I want to live without the pity
that compassionate eyes attribute to me
I am still who I was

With a new decoration --
my hidden life line
with a curve

around my belly button:
here I am
Reborn

My birth eye is blind
to the scar around it
my decoration

the life-size secant line
my fingers see
and my eyes feel

I taste the activities
of my organs, I taste
new flavours in my mouth

More identities are added
then get off, new clothes
that are one size smaller

and experiences as a friend
student, teacher, and fellow sufferer
that are one size extra

I bathe in abundance, so much
help and renewed contacts
because of who I am

I live, I make webtrips
my thoughts run around
and often stand still

in slow movements
around the centre
behind my belly button

Look, do you see it's me?
Don't mind the poppies
don't mind my skin, my head

without hair, okay, you may
see the earrings, they're winking
to the desirable gold

that you only know tied up
tight above unadorned ears
It was only loose at home

I tried lipstick
and became invincible
a robot woman full of energy

The pain does not count, I'm alive
experience after experience
a different person

The pain does count, I like
to live, take all
chances, give

anything for it
as long as it goes, as long
as I can, as long

as my energy flows love

Please fold like a pillow
in my back, shape your body softly
to mine, then the pain will sink

down in it, in the embrace
of your affection, you may caress me
lightly over my shoulder, that's all

I can give you if you promise
not to move, I can't cope with more
my open flower remains closed

Sometimes it burns from cramping pain
sometimes from desire, always delicate
everything is delicate inside

too delicate for wild passion
nectar kisses, heavenly sweat
and total satisfaction

Not the war makes the warrior
but his peace
with the ending

     My gates are open
     energy is flowing in
     my face shines from it

     I live, I don't distract you
     with golden hair, I am
     life, bald and unadorned

Not: I survive with hope
but with inner peace
with the ending

     I don't leave me
     I don't withdraw
     in pain and sorrow

     I let life flow in and out
     I'm standing in the light
     in which we find each other

I am not here as a sick person
but in my hard-fought peace
with the ending

     My chest breathes up and down
     my dear body hurts
     I radiate it

     With hot water I wash
     off flakes and sighs
     and I stretch out, cautiously

Space, ease, myself
breathing, feeling the stitches
under my ribs and the poison
in my body, in my head

Not thinking about that
Every day a friend
who cares
about her own interests

No curiosity, patronising
and consolation, only
an embrace and
being spoiled a bit

Awake, not dreaming
in my sleep, walking around
in the colours of the world
and eating roasted peanuts

in the park, the park
always a park
a forest, a dike or a beach
and otherwise my balcony

PAN-PAN   Come closer
without secondary objects
of illness and dying

Do not waste time
read my face
not my unusual skull

The sun shines, I breathe just like you
Feel free to touch me, I am
not a shadow behind the threshold
of memories

We can be together these hours
without the fatal snake venom
overgrowing our relationship

There is so much
that I want to hear from you and
that you don't know of me

Be as carnal as you can be
Answer my body language
caress the painful spots and
put your soul in me for a moment

In bed I don't imagine
to be a warrior, I lie back
and let the disaster year occur

the inconveniences of my body
when waking up at night
and when it's time

to pee, to wash, to shake
up the pillows and to drink
something to start

the day, the light
that shifts through the room
and the visitors, the friends

who love me, just happy
to be with me, almost carefree
about my fate, just being themselves

as good fairies, strong fairies
of flesh and blood like me
in the survival game

I press weakly the hand
upon my hand, it's the last
thing it comes down to

Between pain and numbness
there are faces
at my bedside
and memories

still understandable
but accompanied by chances
that dropped out, and mistakes
unsatisfactorily explicable

They change over time
also the fondest, with sex
the feast and the beauty
of my body

charming and fertile
holy by nature
Hold me, touch me
keep seeing who I am

He drove me to the sea
I make small steps
barefoot

Barefoot steps in the cold
sand, I do my best
I don't lie down

The toes of my feet
comes towards me
Next to his steps

We have done this
before, nothing wrong
The wind was always blowing

salt into my hair
foam into my words
playing hide and seek

inside my head, and the seagulls
squawk shrilly through it
I get lost in language

differences and bad
connections, and still
he does not notice

I cry with misery, inside
I collapse, again, again
I have to fire myself
to hold on

Time is short and goes so fast
but I have to go to bed
to lie down with my tiger
and get up with it

Homely chatter in the kitchen
the soup is already smelling and
I know there are candles burning
If only I could sleep

I shiver when I put back the blanket
I'll move the bed to the winter side
My tiger stays in bed
and rolls over again

The dry tears contract
my skin, come on, out
there are blackberries and
smell, smell the fresh bread

I pull myself together
caress the stiff parts
and wrap up myself nicely
as the tiger I've been

My body does not know
I have my birthday, it doesn't know yet
what will be working today, and what not

It tingles. It hurts.
Where do I get the strength from?
the Force, the Force

Scatterbrain, are you awake
here on the edge of the bed
what do you think, can I get up?

Hello Missy Kittypee
why don't you say anything, come
and sing a song for me?

Let the phone lie over there
I know I am kind
if I'm fit without pain

I welcome you, my house is green
plants everywhere, fruit and cookies
Let us celebrate life

I want to smell the earth
I want to feel the rain
that releases the scent of the earth
from the cracks in the land

I welcome you, in beautiful clothes
cheerful if possible, happy
that you are there

Open the window to the gardens
let the pleasure substances in --
the pollen of the world
that finds soil everywhere

I welcome you, please help me
since this is all, help me
then I'll be able to face it

Who can I ask
to go with me
behind me on a single track

of false hope, genuine hope
against my better judgement
on the way for too few

meagre minutes to celebrate together
but still time that I don't want to miss
even if it does not offer what I wish?

The little trod paths
will be as well a dead-end
as the short way into the mists

that stun you and increasingly
take the view of the mountains
the balding mountains away

I don't want to stand still, I walk around
looking out for a new path
a magical path of life

that I, stumbling and slipping
over the sharp stones if need be
want to clear where it is not

The blue butterflies live
on honey from the magic world
of changes -

the rain and shine
and the wing beats
of all the bodies

with more or less happiness
suffered injuries and tears
for unwelcome outcomes

I massage my aching belly
full of vampire moths
As long as I live

blue butterflies will
fly up from the womb
of my affection

Three wands
One is not finished yet
the gold is melted, but
the magic has not yet been found

The airy one is available
on call, to numb the pain
and the living one, made of wood
lies on my bedside table

as a hold with dying
before I pass away
The stories are told
my horses stand in front of the sea

I hesitate about the spell
and I am in doubt to let go
of the reins of my will
leaving the world to others

The waters break, they
flush around my bare feet
from the ankles to my vagina
they flow into me and out of me

Drinking tea in the rain
in the smell of rain
plain tea, plain rain
but, the two of us, full
of expectation: touch me
touch me, feel me

Lips, hands, all
of you, dear darling
touch me, touch me
nicer much nicer
than dreaming
dreaming the past

If you like you can
silently shout a stick
into the sky, climb
and climb higher, higher
sliding looser, looser
down and up

higher higher up
colours around the sun
diving deep into them
wallowing and wrapping yourself
and sparking sparks
from my hands

But stay with me
want me, want to
see and feel me
keep me whole
see me, feel me
touch me, touch me