Hey Hoo

Hey Hoo, we gaan los
Hey Hoo, we gaan los

Ze lopen in een lange rij
Ze maken nog een scherpe bocht
De kids worden gek gemaakt
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Een hoopje op de achterbank
Ze stomen van de hitte
Dampend op de back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop

Hey hoo, we gaan los
Schiet ze in de rug snel
Ik weet niet wat ze willen
Ze zijn los en ze zijn er klaar voor

Spring (dream 3)

The garden’s full of spring shoots
but weeds are running the show.

On the street I meet young Jos. “You need
a haircut,” he says.

“Really? Do I?” I check my reflection in
a window. The hair indeed is long and thick, imposter’s hair.

The houses have already had their breakfast, they’re flexing.

“Take me to the barber post-haste Jos.”

Through an alley, round the back of a farm crêche. Rabbits
scattered in long juicy grass mean we have to watch our step.

I enter from the left wing.
There are red hills in the distance.

“Welcome Jos. Is this your friend? You would like a haircut?”
She is Italian and holds a rabbit under her arm.

I wait in a waiting room. Jos and the woman discuss my cut.
“We’ll give him a background of flowers,” says the woman.

Suddenly I am small
and bald.

New Vorst

So we sat on the black side
near the logs.

I looked at shy Jesus.

“Show me the way you dance
to this song,”
I asked Wim.

He span.

Els perched on a chair edge,
pad on lap.

She sketched a stiletto sprint
down the Spoorlaan.

Koen plonked a jar of ants
on the wood floor.

“Look at that,” he said.
and “here comes the queen”
in falsetto,
as his hand mimed an ant and crept
to the jam jar.

“What is Web 2.0?” I thought.

The Arctic Waltz

News flits from rock to ravine,
Sandblasts bible belts, ruins Roman haircuts,
Blunts steely scissors, rusts
Swiss army knives

Tits and guns, kicks and flames, pianos to tune,
All dumped in pools.

Cushions scatter as she, logistics,
Throws me backwards
And batters me with love and letters.

Falling rising luck of the leaves,
Dig up salsa, butter my bread, shoot
No-one in Maine, Middelburg and Venlo,
Pacific capoeira in slow mo.
New splits, toes aligned, dance krump, nights in Babylon, wine.

I was joking when I said
I’d cap my teeth and smack my lips to Lindy Hop
So I’ll wear a mask and squeeze a plaster orange between
My bony hips,
Whirl the clocks, hammer the meringue
At dawn.

And I’ll sculpt a giant pepsi can, spend
My days scamming scams,
Listening to the Dan, cook
Up fictions while the soul expands
And analogue flower machinists weep
Over Grandpa Munsters.

Work it out leave it out, Cezanne’s Mountain stands
Which he painted again and again
And again.

Let us give birth to the surface and all its depths.

ouvroir

spilled sugar puffs on cushion volumes
evil kitchens in the dirty rooms

marble devils, puffed out, strutting peacocks
even ill, dirty brass, dived Dante's plots

bled, vinegar soused, wintry seas, air loose soul
the east is still, grass sadness, glorious all fall

flop, tyres float the single force comes breezing
trait or not, it has the blend of feeling

high note in cents and crumble re-routed
true tendency, granted, plinth and sutured

smallest harboured for tricks attests
she scattered sugar, global texts

Amsterdam Tilburg Neverland

We work with the spaces
The back is quiet, the front door ajar
On the street I see a queue
Of monks on skateboards
And hear bells
While frying onions

We cut and thrust
Road-mending en-masse
I hear a samurai giggling fit
So modest but shrill
And feel metal
Stretch the fabric

In my dream I dream
I’m dreaming
Out between the starlight
I see trains shuffle sleepy
By the pale green radiator pipes

It’s as indispensable as the bread
I taste in a Balkan high rise
Or the extension cable I hug tightly
Picturing something else again

Contact my lawyer

New splits giga bytes,
I’m Kaiser Söce, Kaiser Söce, crispy bacon
TV ratings, my dog’s got rabies
Blast him with a laser beam, sing scream
Because nothing really matters to me,
Transformed into a giant beetle, it was no dream
I am Lazarus, I will rise like the sick sun
And my dog bites your bollocks, even if you have none
Contact my lawyer about it
He will see the money is transferred to your account
Welcome to my crib, I’m Major Tom
This is where the magic happens, tragic apples, tragic apples
Dancing in the dark, humming Hummer humble people
I gave birth to Bono, in the name of love
Contact my lawyer about it
We can we can wrap our legs around my bed
Can you wrap your legs around your head?
Can you, will you could you?
Would you?
Obama can Obama can Osama can’t
I am Obama
He will see the money is transferred to your account
George Dubya could make a grapefruit granita
Do you believe that?
Contact my lawyer about it
Break your mama’s back, let each person do his or her part
He will see the money is transferred to your account

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao

I

Once the path was conceived
the ribbons were cut away.

There was a birth.

The grass was trod to mud, then gravel lain,
and gold leaf hammered into place under the stones.

The path is not perfectly straight,
but its intentions are clear as a seducer’s.

It bisects the rectilinear park diagonally,
penetrates the campus with inexorable forward dynamics.

Foreshadowed in all the other lines and straight routes in the vicinity,
it is the king of paths.

It’s daily crossed like London Bridge; it’s
taken again, and again, blindly, trustingly.

Because it begs its question.


II

At night the path is empty and the ends
join.
The park thinks, time
slows.

Like slugs, ghosts weave trails of
chaos too vague to
leave a daylit trace
and the pond leisurely seeks depth and depths
with complete lack of responsibility.

doubly landlocked

wore a chimpanzee mask (bright pink)
marched along
a mountain trail (bowling lawn mown grass)

from sides of the trail
from
shower-head loudspeakers heard
“something is missing! something is missing!”



at the summit, the Victorian group photo, subjects draped
over and around about each other – tangled blank
faces – flat and smooth

there were night fish, hiding their faces but not their lights
there was grasshoppers around a pool

into which dripped
lines of water
from guttering
from storms

a dirty child who tugged the air tried but
couldn’t reach her hand

said

“my dream was not magical enough”

“mijn droom was niet magisch genoeg”

he woke up but he was
wrong - he did dream a magic dream

Raging

Gordon Ramsay’s youngest child Matilda
is staging a screaming fit in the back garden.

The grand exponent of the F-word holds her
tight, tries to calm her, placate her.

No good. As he hugs her, her neck heats
up.
She cranks her volume to wailing and growling and

pours her tantrum into his ear
like bubbling hot bechemel sauce
over-seasoned with tears.

iets over niks

drie keer niks
betekent iets

ik zeg niks
betekent iets

we maken iets van niks

Best Karate Still Inside

It bothered her that they had used an adult
Actress to dub into Dutch
The lead character in TV’s Pippi Langkous
The screeching and squawking mockery
Of girlish speech
Gave her headaches
And made the paint peel

The Puritan Roundheads of the English Civil War
Smashed the faces off statues in churches
She felt she had been cheated out of art
When she got home
From her latest binge on sacred buildings
She imagined how the faces might have looked
At night they ghosted their way into her dreams
Where the 17th century Taliban couldn’t reach

She was pissed off whenever the BBC warned her
A programme contained strong language
She was as averse to euphemism as she was to cheap stair carpets

She would not let the expressions ‘drie keer niks’
Or ‘doe even normaal’ pass her lips

She had four pets:

A monkey named Idiom
A snake called Slang
A parrot, Paradox
And a pig by the name of Ham

Trapped in the web of love
They co
-existed

you're tearing me apart

he stole his mum’s car, drove it to wasteground
near the harbour

he’d a mobile to his ear
listening to his girlfriend

over-kissed, he’d still rebelled,
a familiar familial plot
but the back story was his own, (that much
he insisted to the captive audience hanging
on the phone)

he parked the car skewiff by the water and waited a long time
before jumping

it tasted of iron
he surfaced and trod water,

the buildings opposite loomed in the lamps
there was a bar squashed between two cobalt blue garages

in the window he saw an ugly yucca and mutant beer taps
it was comic, like a grasshopper

when he was used to the water he rebelled against the cold
swam to shore on his back, smelling smoke

his phone sank to rest
its battery expiring among cans and mud

Repeat The Assassination - dream 2 (real)

I work for an agency. In the previous weeks we have been assassinating Mafioso in elaborate ritualized killings, incorporating dance and theatre. The liquidations take place in a hotel / school. During the previous assignment my partner and I shot a Godfather and his henchmen. My boss wants us to repeat the assassination. It is an odd performance, as it involves an upbeat Lindy Hop routine and the presentation of miniaturized patisserie and coffee. I have rehearsed the dance steps but I worry about serving the postage stamp size food with white-gloved hands while I am out of breath from dancing.

In the previous assassination, we bought the gangsters a piece of cake and my colleague sang an Ivor Novello song before I machine gunned the Don. Afterwards I wonder how on earth we got the gun into the room. As I am going to be duplicating the assassination, surely the bodyguards will search me when I enter the room? I say duplicating but that’s not strictly true. The food will be slightly different. I have to butter a tiny slice of bread. This will turn into a cup of red coffee with a swirl of cream in it. It’s not going to be easy.

I arrive at the building on the appointed day. I check my pistol is loaded as I go upstairs. There are students on the landing of the second floor and I proudly show my gun. My boss’s room is on the left. Dressed in a sombre grey suit and speaking in a Geordie accent, he tells me that a Grandmaster has broken out of prison. He will only go back on one condition – we have to fight him ‘man to man’. My boss’s nose is bulbous and red. He looks like the actor Karl Malden. “He got me with his elbow”, he says, miming an elbow strike to the face. I hear a loud “KEEAAAIIIII!!!!” and the sound of a body hitting the floor, coming from a nearby room. “But he’ll kill us!” I say, very worried now. “No, he won’t kill you”, says my boss.

Mashed Potato

Now who’s served me this wrong drink?

It’s mashed potato, beer
and a layer of fruit juice and cream.



I have a flying machine
operated by remote control.

Saloon Door - dream 1 (real)

Tony Blair will fight a pirate chief to prove he has the mettle to be a brave inspiring leader. His fear is finding a weapon that will not break or shatter. The chains on the harbour might serve well as weapons, but he cannot detach them.

Before the fight, Blair undergoes an ordeal of eating. He must eat worms, raw fish and raw chicken. He drops the worm in his lap, enjoys the fish but refuses the chicken. His advisors are furious.

It is time to fight. Cherie Blair says she prefers his teeth before they were bleached. He nods but it is clear that he is very nervous. He walks to a saloon door whose top half he opens, just as in cowboy films. A large-breasted woman appears. "Son, you must fight" she says.

Blair dances around the pirate chief, waving daggers and flailing his skinny arms. The pirate stops mid-fight to take a drink. Blair stabs him.

TASK: look up 'mettle'
TASK: say it a) with a Cockney accent
b) with a Manchester accent