There is a fresh wind
there is a new world blowing
through the city, I see
my life in the distance

lying to my feet
Young men aspire to me
they give me everything that's needed
for the new time

They are the promise
I carry its torch
They are the deed
I am the promise

I promise heaven
on earth, my breasts
are full, my dress
is transparent

After every conception
I am a virgin again
After every conception
I am still a virgin

I don't have a speech, not even this one
nor farewells that embrace you
warm you one last time

I know the books you read
the kind of films you watched
your worries and the things you ate

yet I don't know you well enough
to really be able to say who you are
therefore my speech is this one:
your own diary to readout

We looked around and soon we found
a shady spot, where
we quite passionately
enjoyed each other

sheltered but in public
what certainly is inexcusable
so I felt embarrassed
while I cried of happiness

it was too wonderful to tell
I found it hard to explain
and didn't know how to broach it well
couldn't overcome my shame

but tomorrow night, if I'm at ease and ready
I do want to discuss my tears seriously
before his mouth touches mine

because I think, above all, they are a sign
that we shouldn't do the nice thing
no more and better restrict our delight to kissing

For better, for worse
I am asking, asking
for knowledge of the universe
the commonplaces and
myself, to understand

the earthly paradise
Time after time I am choosing twice
becoming less young and more wise
willingly paying the price
unless it was for the asking

The years of boring, boring
school-hours of gazing, gazing
at bare walls and the ceiling
have turned into revealing
myself by asking, asking
and learning, learning

what to do when, may-
be I better wait and stay
or take a turn and go away
not depend on chance alone
but make decisions of my own

I am talking, talking
with a girl like me
talking tall and small
about ourselves we agree
with the sayings on the wall

We are asking, asking
about the wheres and whos
the manners, the rules, the dos
and don'ts, all the kinds
of problems on our minds

In the meantime I play
the piano every day
The universe was waiting, waiting
for my asking, asking
so I did, and now I'm walking, walking

to spend the odd hours playing, playing
the pianos, still in stock
inside a warehouse-block
I am playing, playing
in a paradise

Emptiness pulls me over the sidewalk
past the house in which also
my parents do not live anymore

Everything is different
The heart is lacking
The table massif

of the unwritten rules
preached to obedience -
a book full inside my head

I feel its weight
move when seeing
the room, so familiar

the certainties heavy
and clear again after years
of thinning, an unlosable

belief, despite
opening
the pages and

despite my way
my truth
my life without

In the museum, we look
at the attendants: a gangster
a beach girl with sleepy eyes
and a man who's almost falling
but he startles and hobbles away
to the hall with glass tombstones

We see people wait
gloomily, enjoy
a cigar at the end
suppress the disaster at the piano
with a smile, scream to win
their case with their husbands

or cry and jump in
the lifeboats sauve qui peut
(la vie)

Pee carefully, girls on one side
The boys do it the farthest and nonchalantly

We sit in the gutter, how my buttocks ache!
Jerome pushes up himself, he just can not hold on no more

inclined backwards he leans upon the tiles
of the roof, but doing so his legs get tired

His mother is worried, so she begs, entreats
him: boy, take care, what if the bracket breaks?

Then, then, well, then your body will be doomed
Oh my dear boy, then I will also die of grief

But soon enough he sits astride upon the ridge
and downstairs strikes the clock again, what time it is

It takes some wrangle till René gets almost nude
He plunges in the house and grabs a lot of food

the greens are washed, the pizzas flabby, hard the wurst
A feast for all, along with drinks to quench the thirst

we are in need of water and there's no boat, oh why?
Come, action action action, otherwise we die!

Please, let me
do my job, don't
interfere, then it will be

finished sooner and better
I know how, I can do it
you may think about it

aren't we friends
we laugh
at economists and big bosses

and at each other
the most
and if we wish

we swim together
to the other side
that we dare to dream

It's been all day like this
The people waiting behind
the rain-line take shelter

in bays on the sidewalk
along the Titanic Bar, no hope
of entrance nor of the end

of the long tears of rain
over the rough wall, the window
and the bars in front of the gaiety

inside, where I walk hand in hand
in slow circles around the band
over the black and the white

of tiles splashed with mud
Also contraclockwise and once
through the middle, non stop

looking at the singer, looking
if she looks back, without hope
that she will. Waiting

My skin is growing thicker and thicker
with wet paint, all my experiences
covered with a new layer
which changes colour
with the still wet substrate

which slowly dries on my hard core
which no one sees - who I am
in my own memory
as if seen from the inside
and that is a fantasy

because from the beginning the outside
world mixed its colours in me
so I can never know
who I would have been
in wartime, drought, or cholera -

a golden hero, rosy-fingered love
or a smelly brown mush
around a black core

In the Rijksmuseum I explain
the Night Watch. The curator keeps
asking questions. But what do I know?

Jane has no doubt, she says:
Once you see it
you should also dare

to know it. That three year old girl
who is mixing pigments
in Rembrandt's studio

and has painted herself
behind huge peacocks, that
is you, his daughter

and secret student, who was aching
for his love and with his death married
out of necessity and for the sake of art

her comrade Arent
the two of them painting
under his name

In veils of uncertainty
I stand on my balcony
the stones lose colour

turn grey behind a shower
and sink in the shadow
of black clouds, I'm waiting

for steaming clearances
that shoot colours again
in my quiet house

     The day has a lot of time
     and all that time I'm standing here tired
     working hard, bouncing

     emotions back and forth
     between all and nothing, bundling them
     one by one in the prism

     of my heart and scattering
     their colours far outside me, and then
     crystal clear silence

There is quite some wind
the woman on the corner pulls her dog

She comes back again
for the rest an empty street, no visitors yet

The children do not call
there is no need to, if they come

for a good time, not being too busy
And there is no point

in saying anything about it
Maybe they are on the way

Could I have forgotten something?
The cookies are ready

the curtains are washed
there is no stain on my dress

Outside the village is the bridge
without a road, at the cemetery
Occasionally townspeople sit there
painting it
Sometimes children play there

To me, it is an image
of life and this morning
I came across a woman there
She lay on the abutment
and was scared, did not dare

to come with me, because of me
she lost her no man's land
For the rest, little happens here
There's never any news
and that is official

There is so much more
than being happy
together
enjoying
a whole world

of life
radiant eyes
arms seeking me
yet being shaken
by a word

Alone

Near someone else
in his mind
vulnerable sad
going
my own way

Alone

There is so much more
than arguing
not trusting
what seems to be beautiful
a whole world

of words, shaking
arms, facts, illusions
of pink wishes
of love
hiding another love

I'm sitting at the table, maybe
sleeping, I think for a second
at the blare of a siren
that takes along the smell
of puffed chestnuts from my nose
to an emergency

In the kitchen I see
the cat looking expectantly
and the clouds pass swiftly
past the drowsy sun
We're going to play soon
first I make coffee

High and low the boiling
water and the traffic rustle
my eyes shut, I feel
the cold under the arid air
of autumn, it will take long
before spring comes

I may want and know
anything, but it makes no sense
Yes sun, yes food, what else?
But I don't tolerate sounds

let alone that I have any energy
for love or a performance
which brings the day to life -
the dead days of being too tired

for myself and the world
Thinking is already difficult
and time is going too slow
to be able to change something

Lying is still the best
dreaming with closed eyes
that I am fit, and active
with nice clothes on

Jij op jouw balkon
met een herinnering
een mooie herinnering
een mooie avond, stilte
jij op het balkon, ik in de kamer

schemerende nevels een gloed
over de stad, zoals toen

je wakker werd uit de roes
verkleumd en klam
een paar mannen nog
aan het vissen, de geur
van de wijde kleine wereld

van grondmist, die sfeer
die zomaar over jaren heen stapt
van dat gras naar dit balkon
een herinnering om te delen
over dagelijkse zorgen heen

What I notice in the world
is important: dissatisfied
faces in the street
except for the men

who examine me
when I ask them something
I saw happy people and many
women with a stroller

reflecting my thoughts
when I was pregnant
and House for sale signs
when we were about to marry

Outside I see images
from my own life
in the looks
that tell me what I want

a different life
more fun and excitement
with another man
because it's been enough

I'm tired of being
who I have become in my marriage
I want a new love
to be like I used to be

I have tried:
mirrors are not usable
They give a mirror image

and in them, I can't
see the face I have
outside the mirror

Only in photos
taken close and casually
I can see who I am

but most I recognize
my fantasy of myself
in a few bad snapshots

half-sharp in yellowish light
like a truth filter
that merges momentary images

into a permanent portrait -
at home they say about it
that I look a bit

like mémé

It is windless
Plastic water in the canal
I'm having dinner with my mother

Then I linger at the crossroads
on the way home
My rooms are so empty

and you live nearby
I can go to you
and yet I can't

Behind the thin curtains
is the street, the city, alive
Nobody sees me

I'd like to read love letters
from you, confessions
that you never wrote to me

I keep thinking about that -
waiting for sleep, lying still
like a doll

Sometimes I determine
the right moment myself, thinking

I know enough, but often I am surprised
by what comes from heaven

exactly at the moment
when I open my eyes

     I look in the envelope
     which half concealed

     is waiting for my unconscious
     knowing of the right moment

     to read what now
     is meaningful to me

If only I could stand above myself
to see the information flow

to behold and admire
the coils of the channels

from the universe in my body
and to understand and enjoy

life, that sometimes lies
waiting in my consciousness

as poste restante

To find your company
again, I walk
between two worlds

every day
I pass strangers
They are busy

I feel no warmth
in their breath, no warmth
in their renowned pursuits

I don't meet anyone
because here everything is
already said and done

and in the other world
where you are not
I eat and sleep

Without you, I can't stand
it there, rather I wander
through the danger

of my memories
with the enticing risk
of losing my way

Mealy-mouthed, the words send
you out of your house
out of your expectations
into the bush of hope
the white powder

that sticks to you
but is fading more and more
with your own bones and flesh
as the only support
for your thoughts

your Midgard, middle yard
of known regions, surrounded
by the endless of mountains
a jungle in the south
and the ocean in the west

where the serpent rules, the monster
the mealy mouth speaks of
to save you from its jaws
opened wide to devour
if you are afraid

An afternoon with father
he directs a play
in the patron's building and
meanwhile, I wander around
the attic, room after room
musty stuff from the past

saints that I don't know
of wood that I don't know
smoothly and shiny waxed
but fallen out of favour
only sometimes as an advocate
carried on a throne in a procession

here they are real
here I can smell them
and touch them, see
their look close up and feel it
upon me from heaven
questioningly I look at them

I think of America, the dream
of life giving you a smile
so exuberantly

the woman sings out
on the sign of Café the Laugh
Underneath it grows some moss

that takes life as it is
between the roof tiles on the sidewalk
It must

have been very stormy last night
but everyone was inside
and forgot the world

which is not as safe
as we wish, not as solid
as thought when it was built

Everywhere there grows some moss
that takes life as it is
also in America

Lost what does not exist
maybe myself, alone
between nothing, no before, no after

Just my sweetheart, and the thought
that he may be enough, but
how, however sweet

he is, not a father
showing my happiness
to my mother

who died prematurely, or not
now this won't happen –
a future lost

to another future
that I am sadly afraid of
at most, it can drown

in sorrow for the sorrow
that drowns me, lost
in the flow of time

It doesn't matter
to the people in the street
that I look at them
if I exist

there is no need
to help me out
through the window

waiting, tired of waiting
back in the chair
back in time

lost in possibilities
of old summery desires
to be touched by you
while the horse is snorting

your innocence
unconscious and untouched
by my fantasy

your boredom
that seduces women
and keeps me awake

as I rewrite notebooks full
of poems, to have them tasted
by your blushing lips
in the afternoon hammock

But I don't want that anymore

My memory talks
to people just long enough
to get rid of them neatly
They don't demand answers
it's enough that I don't run away

Then why do I long
for contact, why don't I feel
anything? Because of the sense
that it is not possible
or is it due to the pills?

Will I get my body back
will I ever smell where I am
and no longer feel straight
through myself and others
with thin memories

from the time I learned
to behave
as if it matters
and I'm interesting
worth loving?

They slip in through a crack
between shame and decency
their bodies lie down

on the disposable covers
and smell the expectation
not the disinfectant

on my hands, not the rubber
around their longing, beating
for my proximity, their imagination

makes me desirable
the woman of their dreams
thought in the flesh

Outside, the Elephant waits
his eyes seem very small
peering inside

until the door opens
and his trunk searches for me
to swing me on his back

I didn't even live by a river
yet again I stare into the distance

at nothing, at the water
that cannot choose either

where it ends up
over which toxic grounds
and prickly expectations
diluted, frozen or eaten
by a thousand kilometers of sun

Black wings of homesickness
grow on my shoulders

but I know I'm covered
by the lion of my duties

to people like me
who once left somewhere
dreaming, to learn
that there is no way back
to their youth

A brief break on the road
too tired for a nap
or to really eat here, something
that they don't even have

It's no use
to take my coat off
I just keep that one
glove on as well

I wish I was at home, in bed
not those bright lights, not that
endless dark night
still to go

Daydreaming in the tower
of concrete, manning
the office, that's not too bad
on a sunny day

I just have to point
my nose out, count
the chimneys, and I don't
have to pay attention to clouds

Nobody comes
only me, in the morning
with a packed lunch
and a clean mind

for new ideas
about the people in the houses
below me, I know a few
who show themselves sometimes

Occasionally someone is looking
Then I play a role

in his head, as the girl
from the other side, the girl
with too long hair
to see her breasts well

In the shadow months
the apartment blocks remain gloomy
Then I close the curtains
and wander through the pattern

in this same soft chair
in which I am completely free
and experience my firmness
breathing inwards from the outside

knowing what it is
to exist -- then it's nice
to be nude and play to be naked
and seduce someone

with what I could
desire and do
in broad daylight
if I were not alone

It is too high here
and too empty, and that man
over there is observing me
so awkwardly

He apparently has nothing
to do, he's knotted up and keeps
looking past me, squinting
at my breasts

His second cigarette
does not soothe him either
his thumb is tense
of desire

I can't go anywhere
there are no stores in this quarter
to escape
if he trails behind me

Should I just nod
to him, kindly
as the sunlight
and have a chat?

On the low steps in front
of the open door
in the empty street

a man is sitting
with crossed arms
his lips sucking

a cigar --
thick lips, never
may they kiss me

He peeps up
to my belly --
the sneak

in uncrushable work clothes
free from overt suspicions
but never someone looks back

He is politely avoided
with a nod, quick steps
and thoughts to forget

The door is open
Something happened and I
don't dare to move

Was there a man?
Where are her clothes?
What is this smell?

Should I call the police?
Her hand lies protectively
between her legs

Did she hear me?
She doesn't look up, something
is wrong, she is despondently

slumped against the bed
the sheets pulled to the floor
under her bare lower body

the clip still in her hair

The woman behind my sister
looks outside, and her husband
is also busy

with his own thoughts
I wonder why
she herself looks past me

although she wanted to bridge
the distance she felt
and now I feel the same

She has changed
her breasts are too full
in the tight sweater

and her lipstick is too red
so unapproachably girlish
under the helmet of her hat

We have finished our tea
They'll stare us out
if we don't order a new pot

The stone is smooth, always cool
always the same blue
and at home in my pocket

We arrived and we are on the way
We live and stay
at this hotel today

The view is wonderfully boring
You hear the trains rush
over the passing track

Jeanette has taken off her travel clothes
She's reading, it's too early
to go down for dinner

We're doing well together, there's enough
to do, in between the breaks, enough
to see in nothing special

if you have an eye for it
and give caring attention
to others

as heir of a piece of world

The silent life lies on the cemetery
right here, the new life rages
past it over iron bars
and this makes me crazy, it thunders
through the rooms where I played

I empty them out and I smoke them out
with Nag Champa, with tears
in my eyes I close the windows
and still the walls get thicker
from the raging, they eat it up

just like me, it haunts my mind
that there is a smell in the basement
where mammy in the rocking chair
commands that I am not as sweet
as her new friend

but I don't want a new friend
I want everything as it was
slow and simple
quiet and familiar, silence
without a graveyard

On the veranda, we wait
for coolness, a fresh shower
Only with us there is light

Nobody sees us
nobody is at home
What is he thinking of?

Not of me, fortunately
I'm already hot
in my underwear

I keep quiet
otherwise he'll fancy
and that takes me too long

The nights are so short
we need sleep
no sweaty sex

On assigned holidays
I step out of the order
of my work into the row
for useful relaxation

The grain comes up
the sun breeds the grains
and colours the winter out of our skin

Everything is included, extras
can be booked on site
and appropriately enjoyed
in one of the wings

Thus we fly laps
in our dreams for a week
enjoying our role

although there is always someone
who doesn't participate, hooking
on to the back with a book
that he could have read at home

without disturbing others
in their well-deserved vacation
of exclusive behaviour

The sun falls diagonally
along the shadow of the extension
upon the threshold of the house
upon the woman in the door

What did draw her
to this outpost of the old?

where there is no path anymore
to get there
where there is no fence, no border
where everything is open, empty

without a beginning
of going somewhere

There's a chink in the curtains
her long shirt falls open
and her body senses
a presence

something
going to happen

I get too fat
I can't go anywhere
The grass is too high

Not for Collie
She feels at home here
For me it's a fairy tale

of Grimm, the forest is dark
it makes sounds all night
and it pushes against the house

which is not as beautiful as it seems
with the luxury glass, the frills
and the canopy above the door

It's hard working all day
In the evening we look at the dog's
running, until bedtime

How did we come in?
Can we just peg out again
to the right there, and
are the WCs behind this door?

Are we here or do we play it?
The city is asleep, are we asleep
when everyone lives?

Can we touch each other
and let each other blush, or are we
shadows on the empty scene
of our alienation?

What are we doing here, in this scenery
of deceased peace? Are we dreaming
of last masterstrokes?

The sandwich and the drinks are real
the round room is not a stage
it throws a lighthouse light
into empty streets -- a beacon

that attracts night-moths
warning everyone
to stay away from here

Wishing to live
in the city without
its burden, above

the chimneys, cleanly
swinging in grandma's chair
in front of the bay window

seeing the dormant mouths
of the pocked roofs
wake up without

having to smell their poison
and then also breathe it
out of solidarity with everyone

who has to live fast
in the stone world
where everything is hard

The sky is burning, mists
push forward, the signs tilt down --
Everyone lives longer

than the world in which he grew up
He has to withdraw
or change

The watchtower is unmanned
dogs whine in the distance
This city may no longer exist

as it was, its theaters
have been declared unnecessary
The last players watch

but now it is real
they find it difficult to enjoy
the beauty of the downfall

that, since hundreds of generations
has been flattening glorious empires
to heroic stories

Who will, without self-interest
sing the praises of the good
that I have known?

A lot has changed, old wishes
have been passed for new
circumstances and memories

remained the way it was
I cherish what we shared
satisfied with what is nearby

We were close and now we search for a hold
as strangers who cannot stay long
from mutual awkwardness

Do we still know each other
and do we want to make a new start
or should we move then?

Let's celebrate who we were
let's celebrate who we are
and embrace each other intimately

At home, Lonely Hearts sing
in a band, far from our room
where I hold your hand

We put a rainbow
of flowers in the windowsill
and we praise the hard workers

The fires of the light are blasting
outside, but love cannot harm us
We no longer have expectations

Doctors cannot help us
against the riot in the streets
It is everyone for himself

Girls have stains on their dress
Tramps climb the sidewalk
Beggars are burping at dinner

The flames flutter in top
above the citadel of the gang
of rich people everyone knows

Let me my habits
Let me, let me inside
Give me a shelter
Give me a kiss

     Take me
     Protect me
     Give me your magic
     Give me what I need

Then I'll give you my blood
I will pump it outwards
I will blood on your belly
I will blood in your mouth

     Danger is everywhere
     just a blow away
     Love is everywhere
     just a kiss away

Happiness is elusive
The pie turns around
Happiness is elusively
nearby

     Let me bleed
     in your storm
     Let me bleed
     in your heart

     I here, you there
     Apart together
     Our love a bed
     full of missing

On my way home
weak from desire
for all days
with our family

     I here, you there
     Apart together
     Our love a bed
     full of missing

Wild, wild horses
cannot separate us
Wild, wild horses
we will ride

     I here, you there
     Apart together
     Our love a bed
     full of missing

Pupils are grown
properly raised
to be good Mouths
in the shopping society

They are hungry
for another life
but there are laws
and police forces

for those who do not participate
and complain about lack
of opportunities, but believe me
I figured it out:

It can't happen here
Mama Mia, not here
Do not worry
We are safe

Fellow countrymen, everyone can choose
there is a parliament for sale
     If you don't choose, you don't participate
there are nations, as many as you like
new mums and daddies
     They have plastic thoughts
With a button you open daddy's hand
for this week's pocket money
     Plastic stinks when it melts
There are nice little cars
convertibles and antiques
     Your salary goes to the factory
dogs and little balls: poo
and blood for the car accident
     The factory belongs to all of us
removable intestines
stretchers and body bags
     It stinks when it melts
New is the DeLuxe box
     But love is not plastic
with screeching, screaming and sirens
     Love is not for sale

Any way the wind blows
that's where people fall in love
until the poison stops working
your loved one pulls out
the arrow and makes you cry

No more sweet words
only the popular songs
about your own pitifulness
the widespread disbelief
in real real love

and the general envy
of cheap sensations, as if
people wish for nothing else
and have nothing more
to offer than that

Beware, wherever you are
there is always a fountain of love
nearby, where the world stands still
from timeless happiness
sealed with a coin

The parties fell silent
all fuss ran away
from the cafes and the streets
And the sky turned pale

We no longer participate
as long as it is winter
and we can do without
Only the absolute necessary

we'll buy, we'll maintain nothing
that sustains the occupation
its land bite, people bite
Freedom bite

Our blood flows, our breath
makes us appear at our most beautiful
crystal after crystal
Untouched

We will die a new life
in the hearts of the soldiers
once vulnerably kiss spring
awake in them