Zywa

Zywa Sleeping peace

Merlin enchanted the people
with the breath of a dragon
so that they forgot their struggle

and lived together without awareness
of suffered losses and sorrow
even without hatred towards the other

who had lived here from birth
or had only recently come
to settle here

Finally it was possible, finally
there was peace, thanks to
oblivion

Finally the giant seemed to be
buried, that brute full of envy
greed, and hatred

Who would want to rake up the past
now that it was quiet and
the wounds were almost healed?

Who would want to recall
memories that would soon
incite retaliation?

Poem 6102
Amsterdam, 2026-08-01
The Buried Giant (Kazuo Ishiguro) - 2015
Novel "The Buried Giant", chapter 15
The migration of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons to Britain in the 5th century CE
Collection: Blown sand
Tribute to: Ishiguro, Kazuo

The immigrants come

to us to indulge themselves:

fa fee fi fo fum.



De immigranten	Die Einwanderer
komen zich hier verwennen:	wollen sich hier verwöhnen:

va vle vi vo vu.	Fa Fle Fi Fo Fü.

Poem S3004
Amsterdam, 2025-11-11
[fa-] fee-fi-fo-fum = [see] food, good-to-eat, sufficient-for, hunger
Collection: Local inconveniences

Zywa North Paradise

There are no guest rooms
because the land is too full
for a paradise life

The villages arm themselves
against newcomers
there is no need for them

They have to move on, to the hard soil
of the mountains, on the edge
of the North Paradise

or in a bend back
to the south, nowhere
welcome, nowhere is there enough

milk and honey, enough space
even if fields fall vacant
because of drought, smallpox, or plague

The neighbours fight for it
because the land is too full
for a paradise life

Poem 3512
Amsterdam, 2021-02-25
Terach, Abram, Sarai and Lot, 1970 BCE
Terach = wild goat, vagrant
Collection: A Home

Since there is mankind

men go in all directions:

people are migrants.



Sinds er mensen zijn,	Seitdem es Menschen
lopen ze overal heen:	gibt, gehen sie überall:

we zijn migranten.	wir sind Migranten.

Poem H2522
Amsterdam, 2019-07-10
Grand Hotel Europa (Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer) - 2018
Novel
Collection: Palace of the night
Tribute to: Pfeijffer, Ilja Leonard

Zywa Goat heart

A wild goat lived in his heart
dreaming of paradise
so he decided to go there
and it was larger than imagined

For weeks, he looked
for the most beautiful place
to live, until one day
he approached the border, a wall

of mountains, and their weight filled
his legs, he could go no further
and stayed where he was
without answer

when his son asked if this
was it, the best, and they
of all people the happiest
here in paradise

Poem 2228
Amsterdam, 2019-04-26
Terach and Abram, 1970 BCE
Terach = wild goat, wanderer
Collection: A Home

Zywa On the run

Strips along the road:
my dreams rose themselves to pieces
torn by their over-pressure

Fellow-sufferers hang in the water
rippled, on broken legs
skinny from waiting

too tired to go on
and not strong enough
to stand still

I only cry tears
that do not come
to relieve or redeem

The light of the lighthouse
swings brightly
but the eye is blind

Poem 2219
Amsterdam, 2019-04-25
Collection: On living on [2]

Zywa Who among us?

Not even tents, some cloths, wet
cardboard and pieces of plastic tied
between mud bushes, children
limp with their mothers, everywhere

young men stomping around
looking in every nook and corner
of their heads how to tear
down the fence, leave

their hopeless misery
in this no man's land
to put love again
in the eyes begging for help

Who cares about them, who
among us breaks the indecision, who
brings water, a bed, a loaf of bread, who
does do something, who goes to them, who

dares to look them in the eye
from person to person?

Poem 2153
Amsterdam, 2019-03-13
Islamic tradition: Zaynab bint Khuzayma - 620
Closed borders
Zaynab bint Khuzayma "al-Masakin" ("Mother of the poor")
Collection: The Praised One

Zywa Land of my dreams

I feel Grandpa's soul in me

contracting with desire
for land, not fields
but my own pastures
No longer being expelled
by the farmer's sons

with their dogs, mice
and bugs in the beds
for their sick and their sore backs
from ploughing and planting
weeding, harvesting and grinding the grain

I have gone further
than my father, with my herd
on the way to uninhabited pastures
but I did not find them, nowhere
was the land of my dreams

Only the desert is free

Poem 1778
Amsterdam, 2018-06-01
Abraham, 1900 BCE
Collection: A Home

Zywa Big Grasper

I get food, if
I make myself big enough
otherwise I only figure
in the statistics of the problem

There's a light on in the office
that is never open
It echoes behind the door
which does not give way under my fists

This can't be an office
Too hollow for compassion
a dead body
with a bulging eye

and I am the nobody
who cannot escape
A journalist runs by
doesn't ask for the plan

What is, what can be
what must be behind it?
Nobody picks it up
with a Big Grasper

Is that me?

Poem 1294
Amsterdam, 2017-04-23
The Migrant (Mister Nobody) and the Cyclops (epic "Odyssey", end of book 9)
Collection: On living on [2]

Zywa They just have to suffer

We must suffer
until we are strong enough

to make demands
But why me?

I only have one life, may have
it better in another country

and if they don't want me there
then the people here should

help me, even though
they have nothing

to do with it except that
that we are humans

They just have to
suffer

until they will:
be the owner

of the problems and the solutions
the owner of their ideals

Poem 1229
Amsterdam, 2017-03-19
Collection: Blown sand

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