A religion has

more power to destroy than --


power to do good.


Een godsdienst heeft meerEine Religion
macht om te vernietigen --hat mehr Macht zu zerstören --

dan om goed te doen.als Gutes zu tun.

Poem S3258
Amsterdam, 2026-09-07
Joseph Anton. A memoir (Salman Rushdie) - 2012
Autobiography, chapter 6. 'Why it is impossible to photograph the pampas' (reflection by Jorge Luis Borges in an essay on the photographer Gustavo Thorlichen)
Hindus destroy the Mosque of Babur in Ayodhya (December 6th, 1992)
Collection: Sludge
Tribute to: Rushdie, Salman 
 

Zywa The boat is full

Up to our waist, we sit on the top
of the mountain in the middle of the sea

in which our houses bubbling
and the livestock bleating
have disappeared, the birds
have landed tired and
have sunk soaked

My daughter holds her baby
out in front of her, his feet wet
She submerges him
It won't be long before we'll drown
We don't want to

swim around in despair
for a while longer

Noah has holed up himself
in his boat, he can't bear
to watch and he cannot
and will not save us, only
the memory of our fate
is on board, drifting with him

Poem 5883
Amsterdam, 2026-02-12
A Time for Everything (Karl Ove Knausgård) - 2004
Novel "En tid for alt" (translation 2009), end of the fourth chapter ('They buried him the next evening')
Collection: A Home
Tribute to: Knausgård, Karl Ove 
 

Duty of plunder:

it is attractive to them --


The chosen people.


Plundering als plichtPlünderung als Pflicht
is aantrekkelijk voor hen:ist für sie sehr attraktiv:

uitverkorenen.die Auserwählten.

Poem S2241
Amsterdam, 2024-06-29
The Enchantress of Florence (Salman Rushdie) - 2008
Novel, part 3, chapter 19 - Afghan tribes, led, misled and incited by religious doctrines
Collection: Wind
Tribute to: Rushdie, Salman 
 

Zywa Turbans and daggers
(believe, know not better)

There is a dozen groups
condemned to one another, yet
they prefer to remain separate
crying for space, free
space that is not there

The leaders organise order
They dress up uncles with turbans
and with the authority to speak
and surround them with cousins
who lend force to new laws

which they recite, repeat
and enforce
with a dagger in their belt
with ropes and with sacks
for everyone's offering

Everyone is equal before the law
so everyone must participate
and believe, know no better
than to have the right
to the promised land

To kill someone
face to face is difficult
You must be blind
then you can do it
for the comrades next to you

Poem 3506
Amsterdam, 2021-02-23
Theocracy (a vergence of legislative, executive and judicial powers [Trias Politica])
The laws and rules in the books of Leviticus, Deuteronomy and part of Numbers together make up 40% of the Thoráh)
Thoráh = Teaching (instruction, law)
Collection: The King
 

I embrace daddy

in his grave, also mine, we --


lie here quietly.


Ik omarm papaIch umarme ihn
in zijn graf, ook het mijne --in seinem Grab, auch meins, wir --

We liggen heel stil.liegen ganz ruhig.

Poem S0962
Amsterdam, 2019-11-15
The Moss of His Skin (Anne Sexton) - 1960
Poem (collection "To Bedlam and Part Way Back")
Collection: Em Brace
Tribute to: Sexton, Anne 
 

Zywa The Words (Do it)

Remember only the good, repeat it
day after day, all your life
Always make a new start, do it
thoroughly, forget old thoughts
get out of their way to save yourself

Kill them if there is no other way
Your sons, brothers and neighbours
kill them and leave them
for vultures and hyenas
It has to be that way

Not out of cruelty, not out of blood thirst
but because what they believe does not exist
so their lives don't matter
Your dagger does not judge them
but it executes the Words

Read them, read them aloud
Sow fear and obedience
Expecting
eternal punishment
is wisdom! insight!

Poem 2340
Amsterdam, 2019-07-04
Moses brings down the Ten Words from Mount Horeb, after which the people travel around Tabuk; there, Levites kill the unbelievers of the people
Syria (ar-Raqqa 2014)
Collection: The King
 

Zywa Where warriors live

We create
a new world
with bombs
fear and blood
fire for a fire
debris for debris

We know
we will die
we have chosen to die
on the right side
where only warriors live

Friends and foes
have to pay
for our food
and the swords
that slaughter
the old world

Friday afternoon
we kneel in ar-Raqqa
and in the evening
we give thanks in Tel Aviv
it's a prostrated fight
prayer for a prayer

Poem 2133
Amsterdam, 2019-02-27
Syria (ar-Raqqa in 2014, "Management of Savagery", instructions for jihadism)
Palestine (Tel Aviv in 2014)
Collection: Short Sermons
 

Zywa Wriggling slimy snail

Don't imagine anything
we will not ask anyone
for a ransom, advice or mercy

You are lost, just for another while
good for my laundry and my bed
though you are black and blue

Don't you dare stink
say that you feel fine
and don't show yourself to anyone

Wriggling slimy snail sex
you've had with devils
without me, you would have been buried

under a hundred stones
honourably cast by men
of God, be grateful to Him

because you don't have to wait
your punishment has already begun
every day is your Last

Poem 2128
Amsterdam, 2019-02-26
Syria (ar-Raqqa in 2014)
Collection: Short Sermons
 

Zywa School

I won't go to any school
where you learn to lie
about the rain and the earth
to haughty scold them
for natural phenomenon
a sphere around the sun

We set fire to those schools
The world is our workshop
Rain may be a blessing
or a punishment, that is
what we learn in the real
school of our worship

To pray is to learn
is to live, and I pray
I pray
together with the girl
who is chosen for me
I pray

before I collect the contributions
I pray
while the High Command leads me
to cleanse the villages
from slanderers, their false tongues
and their poisonous words

They stand in wetted clothes
in the sun that hides their shadow
begging
that they are good people
I will redeem them
silence their lies

Poem 2122
Amsterdam, 2019-02-24
Child soldiers
Nigeria (Yobe in 2012)
Collection: Short Sermons
 

Zywa Example

Listen!
We are not weak!
What shall we do with you?

You are not a warrior, you
are already dead, though you dared not
die when the time came

as if you could choose it yourself
Do you want fame?
Your head high on a stake?

Do you want a spectacle?
Your silhouette in the middle of the fire?
Do you want to leave?

Weakling! Where is your faith
in the loving Mercy?
Where is your faith

in the punishment
we execute on its behalf?
You must be an example!

Poem 2121
Amsterdam, 2019-02-24
Unwilling recruit
Nigeria (Yobe in 2012)
Collection: Short Sermons
 

Zywa Unseen

We are the gate to the unseen
world for the fools who refuse
to submit, all their good deeds
are not enough, only submission counts

Our submission, our ideal not to die

in an accident or of sorrow, not for stripes
and stars on flags and shoulders, we are free-
men, we pave the way
for a better world

We have an ideal, we want to die for it

That is our sacrifice
on the altar for The Unknown
our victory
over gold money power

and death, to see The Unseen

Poem 2055
Amsterdam, 2019-01-25
Aides (Hades) = Unseen
Syria (ar-Raqqa in 2014)
Acts 17:23,29
Collection: Short Sermons
 

Zywa The world is waiting for us

No dogs living here anymore
we beat them to death
They didn't have a chance
under our sticks

We laughed at their whining
and at the girls
who didn't dare to look
who ran away

to where they belong
There was a hysterical child
who had hidden a dog
We hunted them together

as if they could escape
Afterwards the girl mowed
away sand between her knees
with her bare hands

The world is waiting for us
to be cleansed
We will free it
from every godless dog

Poem 2033
Amsterdam, 2019-01-16
Joan Baez in Baghdad in 1951
Collection: Short Sermons
 

Zywa Hell

There are two Hells
outside the walls
yonder at the source

Children went through fire
for their parents there, knowing and afraid
not to be able to make it to the end

sacrificed as the most precious
that a person can give
to his kinglike god

And on the field of blood at the narrowness
the insurgents fought
themselves to death for their new king

clinging
to the first rays of the sun
while the light in their eyes was fading

and their blood embittered
the water from the spring
for everyone who knew

Poem 1726
Amsterdam, 2018-04-23
MLK = Moloch = King, the god (Lev. 18:21, 20:1,3,4, 2 Kings 17:17, 23:10, Jeremiah 32:35)
MLK = Malchus = King, the king of the Jews (John 18:10)
Valley of Hinnom = Ge-Hinnom = Gehenna = Hell (Matthew 5:21-23), from the source Ein Rogel to the west; in this valley was the Tophet (from Tephet = fire stack), where children were sacrificed
The Field of Blood (Matthew 27:8) is the western slope of red clay in the valley of the Kidron, north of the source Ein Rogel
Collection: The King
 

Zywa The swamp

People disappear
in the dark forest
of the new beginning

behind the swamp death
where is nothing else
to give food for thought

Is myopia sufficient?

All around far and near
the trees are always the same
past and the future

is hidden in children
who know nothing
but what they are told

Be careful with your words
because people disappear
in the dark forest

Poem 957
Amsterdam, 2017-01-16
Sambisa (Nigeria)
Collection: The Praised One
 

Do not count the dead,

remember them and be proud --


Be proud of our God.


Tel de doden niet,Zähl die Toten nicht,
gedenk hen, wees trots op hen --gedenke sie und sei stolz --

Trots op onze God.auf unseren Gott.

Poem H1223
Amsterdam, 2015-07-19
With God on our side (Bob Dylan) - 1964
Song (album "The times they are a-changin' ")
Collection: Great Flow 
Tribute to: Dylan, Bob 
 

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