I love Amsterdam at night
rows of narrow houses on the canal
lit windows, slow time
jewel of my loneliness

predictable daytime traffic
manoeuvering through logos and slogans
grumpy faces, professional smile
turning diagonally on steep sections

zigzag track from right to left
watch out, it causes accidents
attention, left is going, right is standing
flashing lights in the middle every now and then

like nothing is wrong
grab like crows in the poo
between garbage and inventory
ephemeral, a group on the sidewalk

familiar strange ordinary
fellow citizens where we live
quite easily next to each other
our contacts interchangeable

Amsterdam at night
narrow houses on the canal
lit windows, slow time
jewel of my loneliness

Ducklings swim around in the water
goose always are keeping pace
but humans are a noble race:
they worry about the future

That means a lot, but
nobody knows: what exactly
where to leads road, why are we
on earth, what is good for you and me?

We don't get sorted
in detail and in general we
hardly ever agree, while we can't
stand that, funny but true

Humans are a talking race
that thrives well in its swamp
of fuss and having the last word
that everyone wants to have said, not heard

In my heart, mi corazón
the musicians kill
with love songs full of sunshine
my sadness, muere la desazón

With closed eyes are we dancing
in marble luxury
under an ornate ceiling
busts looking down on us

Someone takes my hand
and makes me spin around
my soul sails up
and shakes off its tears

stretching out its arms
like a sun-peacock
My belly shines, big
is my heart, mi corazón

Seemingly out of nothing
small sounds of a beginning
are popping and plucking

in the pool of my thoughts

atoms of observation
in the infinite void
of my mind

my universe in the multiverse

intersecting image-
particles that connect
to coherent thoughts

I knead, mix and bend them

until they smile
or I let them burst
for a new beginning

The little beech tree
in the forest looks up
to its family

the high crowns of wisdom
of hundreds of seasons
of the time she cannot yet count

the order of the world
the time to be young
and know little

the time to be patient
to be small and to know
you're not short of anything

may eat from the toes
of the aunts
who teach you everything

Electrically
they give signals
The microbes and the threads

of fungus tell
what's going on
with fragrances and bright colours

the leaves speak
the blossoms sing
they call animals

for help in case of danger -
Life is performing miracles
together

Being... generated by genes
being... their collection
their life, their copies

Experiencing... the outside world
fires, drums, scents, neighbours
and who we ourselves are

Receiving... abundance in my hair
seed in my heavenly flower
pleasure and pain

Giving... the play of gongs
in the wind, our thoughts
who we want to be

And when it's my birthday
time stands still a little
in the years that fly by

Cut-outs photos genuinely
I myself in my memory
the applause and the sweat
the dancer that I was

lithe long muscles
a flying warrior maid
of beauty, of flesh
and blood, from childhood

in a porter's shirt
exercised daily
and stored
in every cell and the world

kept on turning, carelessly writing
off my fame as one of many
multiversal time fragments –
real but insignificant

On the stage, the earth
is a plain with a mouth
of whale bones that sieve
in-and-out streams of life

and digest what doesn't swim
weakened from diluted passion
faded from lost joy
rusted from fatigue

The dancers search for themselves
on the tongue, flushing
to and from the stomachs
the nurseries of life

The thread curtains breathe
around them, they close
smoothly like titanium bars
shiny with perfection

In sanding sand, we stare at the sea
we dream dreams and hope hope
we wish wishes and we listen
to the wind, the dancing wind
dancing a dancing dance for us
the dancing wind, dancing wind

Today is today today
we dream dreams and hope hope
we wish happiness after happiness upon happiness
and we desire what today, today
must be the day, today today
mercilessly today's day

that laughs his ugly face in my face
and pushes us with pushing pushes away
our dreams and wishes and best intentions
our desire to dance in the wind
dancing a dancing dance for us
the dancing wind, dancing wind

I get paid and I buy

the bed I want to lie in

in the country of my choice

the country of the revolution, of freedom
     and equality where everyone has to leave
     who says or supports that different is better

the country without people
     who exclude members of the household and neighbours
     because of their origin, gender or love

the country without followers
     of heads of the family, gurus and
     men with a sacred book

the country of the paradox
     where freedom is the system
     without poor and rich people

the country without people
     who claim the status
     of having more than others

the country on the verge
     of bondage and inequality
     where no money is for pretended luck

the country of real answers
     to the questions of why
     where no one takes nonsense seriously

Ravens on my shoulders
to show me the way and to call
people to meet them

The boy who is drawing on the beach
with colourful stones, twice a day
recounting them before he leaves

knowing that
the flood comes with waves
that will live longer than he

The man in the rooms full of tables
with quartz crystals from the countries
where he was looking for holiness and love

knowing that he can build a house
with what he has received for nothing
from the earth that is his mother

The little sister who sleeps
between the legs of the horse
of her desires, warm

under his breathing canopy
balancing her dreams
like stacked stones

There is room for everyone
All together their own place
With water and fire and roofs
and beds and chairs full of fun
With a smile, singing, and free

The world is changing, now
a new time begins, our time
We are many, we don't fight
out the old arguments, but for peace
With a smile, singing, and free

For everyone who does not participate
we have large safes
which we fill with their gains
and we throw away the keys
With a smile, singing, and free

And if anyone resists
we swing knives from the drawer
blood for blood, tears for sorrow
Equal rights for everyone
With a smile, singing, and free

When the parents at the nursery
look at you and whisper
that the man who picks you up
is your father, then defend yourself
Straighten your shoulders and your eyes
Shamelessly dare to be his son

When people see you and chuckle
because you have a different name
from your father, aunt and grandmother
then defend yourself with the truth
of their deeds, which is greater
than what is in the civil registers

When you do not know where you stand
then make friends with the neighbours
and live in that reality every day
Defend yourself with what you can do
Shamelessly dare to receive
what is available to you

When you finally know the secret
then shrug your shoulders
because you've already forgotten it
You have defended yourself
with deeds which are greater
than the stories from the past

I learn to see
what is important by imitating
the way you look

I feel what you feel
by imitating what you feel
Like a babbling child

my knowledge follows
my body that follows
your movements

The closer the better
my mirror imaging is
but never exactly the same

even if the water is smooth
and that is gone
as soon as I dive into it

Change my clothes
on the beach in a big towel
like mum does

Push my sailboat to sea
with the shovel, pee underwater
while looking around

not yet an ice-cream cart
in sight, well, then I'll measure
if the tide is rising

Dad goes with mum
where it is deep -
they tread without fingers

I also would like to
make her laugh like that
but I do not yet dare

to dive, it is difficult
to follow dad's example
if I can't see what he's doing

You know what's going to happen
but you pretend anyway

that it will turn out differently
and pass, if only you hold
your breath for a long time

and prolong the waiting
of your better judgement

that rigidity is impossible and
that something standing still, continues
to disintegrate inside

and that everything begins again
in another life as you have

seen often enough:
the clearing after a devastation
and the first returning birds

Together on the bench
under the cherry tree
slowly letting the day

set in the night
Another evening together
under the cherry tree

Do not think romantically
of the sparkle in a glass
the flame of a candle

in the twilight
intimately together
under the cherry tree

That would be a surrogate
and leave us no space
to feel who we have been today

to sense what we really want
It is in the air we breathe
and smell, here, on the bench

under the cherry tree

Frames manage
a lot in the house

They decide about sofas
and cupboards, which

models may enter
Tables, beds, pianos
cradles and baths
Roller coasters
they refuse contemptuously

Frames choose
for everyone

what everyone should choose
because people aim for standards
frameworks for their lives
ISO ASA EN BS
We are all equal

and doors are two meters
34 by 93 (Building code 2012)

The all-egg without size
burst and spouted

its roe, nematodes
nuclear energy
creates space

grows out light-years large

to nebula serpents, starry
sky and later earthly time

the small like the big
waving water

the serpents in the void
popping sounds

or whispering, sometimes
making long journeys

the fast light

rivers and adders
proteins, strands
colour bodies

flowing feelings
and thoughts

New Year, the beginning
of spring in Amsterdam
The air is soft, life

is lighter in the streets
carefree are my steps
white and pink

the fruit trees, with confetti
of New Year's Eve
in the gutter, red scrap ribbons

through the city, the body
in which I breathe and live
Everywhere the promise is budding

that it can be peace
when we are neighbours
and it is spring

in everyone's heart
street after street
a flourishing beginning

The doctors have done their job

     I'm alive
     a new spring
     a big cleaning

     my habits one by one
     wiped off and polished back
     in their deserved place

and/or

     sigh deeply
     for myself and the question
     that my body may be asking me

     Resistance is pointless, denial
     does not help, only honesty
     but where should I look for it?

     Causes enough, fault none
     because this is how it works
     just look at the statistics

and/or

     my needs one by one
     explored and accepted back
     in the first place

There is a time for everything
that is beautifully said

but it's an ugly prospect
that there will always be violence

and worse, with and without love
the world will continue revolving

     a chaos of actions
     and reactions with traces

     of insights, wishes and
     intentions, the repetition

     of New Years – again
     the children shout after the game

          again the time
          of starting and finishing

          time to do my best
          to rest and to be content

          again the lotus spring
          and my arms around you

In the past there were pictures

of an old crooked man with a stick
like in the riddle, and a white beard

in a long point to the ground, and
next to him was a baby on the threshold

of the new year, the new god:
Lord Adonis, welcome to your house

Bethlehem, the house of spring
flowers, grain, and bread

Also welcome in Amsterdam
where we blast without believing

that evil spirits must be chased
away – it's an expensive pleasure

to celebrate that we live
hope for happiness, are grateful

and wish that the good continues
in terms of health and the courage

to trust in peace – if
we realize all of that, then

I gladly will put a baby
picture in my book next year

If you are lucky, you will grow
slowly
sheltered by family

You begin at the beginning:
networking
in the ground

You eat slowly, make
every muscle fibre strong
inch by inch

and form a firm skin
to become a giant
as then

when there were no people yet
and you could count life
in ages, in thousands

of new moons, in years
that still are breathing
in the woods

Public art property:
the firefighters are training
in the Seine, in the gallant park
forty sparrows play

with Sunday's children, and
oil and sand sail steadily
through the dense grid
of swarming people

At the new bridge, a ship squeezes
out two decks of pupils:

a long ribbon of orange caps
waves over the bridge railings
to the other side and paints there
a line through the streets

moving from the thick tail
that is pushing at the bottom
of the stairs in the garden --
spied by a cat

on a hot tin roof

Moles and crocuses again
in March, everywhere

where there was grass, nothing
can be done against it

It is the new youth
with its two faces

of beauty and destructiveness
claiming the garden, the world

being reduced to a cake
cottage: laughing

the boys and the girls eat
themselves fat, every day

again the future is open
So who would want to whine

about the grass?

I decided not to lament
over my homeland, the trees
of my youth, I don't want photos

I decided not to be angry
with my father, his rules
and the proud family who is silent

I decided to live yellow
Sun in my house, on the walls
my belly and my bare feet

I decided to dance
to be my own story
for my own eyes and ears

The lanes to the rusty gate
overshadowed by the white
marble stairs where has been sky

have disappeared
under a maze of roads
Now the clearing is awaited

of the New Cemetery
behind the city wall
beyond the Elysian Fields

     where sparrows feast
     on chunks of bread and the pigeons
     do not dare with a crow
     hidden in their midst
     capturing a sparrow

The grave covers are dark
here begins the night
in the middle of the day

here you leave the city
life, in the shade
of the triumphal arch

An enlightened one doesn't eat alone
One plus one is more than two
Being together is seeing before you
the most beautiful gate one can imagine
the gate to a life you want to lead

Get up and go in
Every day anew
when you wake up
from your dream of a life
that really matters

An enlightened one drinks
water plus water is water
What happens, happens
seen or unseen
without loss or profit

We suffer what happens
working to end pity
working and wishing
for the well-being
of people

New Year, I choose my eyebrows
Star, Paris or Princess
the lines of my happiness

as the edges of my view
and I protect myself with scents
never leave the house without

this assurance of the blessing
from above, the red carpet
on my fictive way

Stretching and extending
with graceful bows
of love to prevent

that my body sags
that's all
what it is about

being on the way
to a balance
until the evening comes

And tomorrow
the next day
the next year

Bird's eye view over houses and workshops
erected in the land that neatly combed
still shows a pimple here and there

Everything orderly piled up, ready-to-wear
leaving me free to do what I want
to do, my profession, my plans

despite everything, with the help
that I need and have received
as a gift, of course I want to

celebrate, embrace my life and the uncertainty
ahead with heart and soul
continue counting the results

and ever devise new possibilities
to measure reality
Again I rearrange

my powers, I fly like a bird
with borrowed wings
to unreachable places

and tonight we cross over
to celebrate that together
in restaurant The Embrace

A profession lasts and lasts
a lifetime in weal and woe
about 100,000 hours

of doing what is possible
as if you don't care
that your wishes are impossible

doing what is possible
as if it is all over
and you enjoy every addition

alternately gasping for air
in the flood and being dry
in the ebb in the midst of the hissing

breathing of the algae – the waves
of divided CoWorking
in a world full of kings and cows

but I am neither –
Why should I choose
Cow or King?

I know my responsibilities
and my duties as a citizen
how I should behave

as a man, what I should do
and not do, and what my path is
as a woman, how I am just a person

in clothes that caress me

I am that woman
who takes a few steps and then
stands still in the wind
on her face, my skin

feels the world
new, the cherry trees
this walk to the store
on the corner around the corner

cars parked next to the sidewalk
are so much more than the view
of the windows all around, the gardens
chimneys and clouds, the wind

on my face, my heart
touched, pounding
in my throat, three times
I take a deep breath, only then

do I walk along the traffic
away from the cherry trees
to the store on the corner
around the corner

The level is rising around
the islands of silt
in the swamp, the fishermen
see their world widening
Old streambeds are also filling up
The wetlands become accessible
by rivers from the mainland

It is a sucking void
a gate to the sea, a chance
for the peat farmers and the forest people
to start trading, to build
dikes, quays, a city
with a dam
in the middle

People are flowing over
from the prosperous villages
to the impoldered land
with the new port --
not an old core that hungrily
conquers the surrounding lands
but their colony

What is a new year worth
if there is nothing new about it
and also nothing old?

If I no longer know myself
no longer am my old self
and have to learn

to love the other person
with my name and my body
whom I'd rather not be

Who misses my capacities
who needs to think far too long
before she says something back

who is not as funny and quick-witted
as me, as I remember
that I was, as I am

But it doesn't come out
it is hidden somewhere
so that I want to crawl away

and see nobody, nobody
until it appears and
I can jump and talk again

When waking up
from my sleeplessness
I am tired

of the task
to create
a new past
anyhow

grafted onto
who I have been
with a family
and a mother
who knew me

to create
a second life
under a sun
bright enough

to warm me
and bleach
the shadows

From The Horse
a lot of digging has been done
right through the island
where the Eastern Canal now
runs, to Mound White

Further on, on the mainland
the canal passed through
the Big Lake
below the Border Ditch
diagonally through the pattern
of the Waterland

past Hollow Ditch and
the Flower Valley Country Road
to Waterland Dam, no further
did the confidence extend
The skeptics got their right
by refusing to contribute

and 200 years later it is clear:
the plan was not bold enough
for the course of history
that is constantly changing

A hot air balloon hung motionless
in the sky, we stepped out
of the vintage car

by some inventory
on the cobblestones
behind us, my older self stood

on the iron bridge watching
how we and the dog looked
around in the new world

which rose
half-dreamed, half in brick
from the mist of the old

Belgian land beneath
the clouds of time
and the threat

of the wind that will
blow away everything
dear to us

That's how people are: gods
in their minds, Apollos
and Aphrodites, an Ares
if they are more brave

the elderly immortal
on their own Olympus
playing Hera or Zeus
on Grand-board Earth, Grand

Princes among themselves, others
are their pawns doing the work
being obliged to give their life
when the almighty thoughts

do know no better: the monster
of reality steadily eats them away
and weakened, they shift the battle
to Small-board Self-deception

Who oh who
am I really?
Who did I choose to be?
My whole life is at stake