Flakes seem to soften everything
but I don't feel it. Hide my pain
behind scarves. Cold seeps
through my skin like memories.
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Ice Days
Bilingual poetry collection in the making
I used that strange period between the holidays to give my poetry collection "Driftwood – Drijfhout" the finishing touch. In this bilingual collection, every poem is in both English and Dutch. I did all the translations myself, but I did pay a professional, native-speaking translator to proofread the English versions.
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In the dead of winter
The earth is now too hard to bury corpses. Water cracks
in the pond, birds peck thirstily at the ice. A wafer-thin
layer of city dirt falls like snow from a red sky.
The deceptive beauty of the apocalypse.
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Segments
I remember how we used to count paving stones
between home and school. Straps of backpacks
leaving marks on bare legs.
Your arm through mine, an anchor.
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Things I fight
The unfulfilled expectations of the people
who still tolerate my presence or are willing
to pretend for the sake of mutual friends or family.
Losing battles. Bottomless glasses and nights.
Rampant prejudices that feed on nitrogen
and generalization. The inflation of compassion.
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Fatherland
Whether it's something or someone
I'm waiting for you ask
with a lip that trembles
for reasons I don’t know.
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Asphalt
I followed the factory spills, the fumes
of Diesel cars banned from the city center
that gathered in carpool parking lots
like civil servants at a fire drill.
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Beyond these mountains
What lies beyond these mountains
rests within me, deep and low
an unspoiled valley
where mythical creatures
with unearthly motives
lead late travelers to their destiny.
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What the universe wanted
The universe wanted it that way
he claims, and everything happens for a reason
as we’re all made up of pieces of a primordial planet
overwhelmed with nostalgia for the cosmos.
He talks about black holes, the Big Bang
and the evolution from single-celled creature
to fish to mammal to man.
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#Prague
Cab drivers who know about five English words
but refuse to use them, are speeding in dilapidated Volvos
through a city where amongst thousand-year-old buildings
tourists take pictures of themselves.
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Leen writes 