Pineal Gland Wriggling For Joy

In front of friends or family, I assembled a model ship
(overseeing the adding of layers
and the spraying of a sticky sand coating)
then went on its journey.

I placed a cruel man on the snapped-together deck
and chickens and crows in niches.
The captain, feared, left his shadow in all the streets
of the ship. Even the living cabins weren’t off-limits
to the pony-tailed tyrant
though my guests did their best
to recline and act comfortable with cream clothes
and class.

The streets were deep and showed off the moon
like a stage.

The ship’s priest projected images of a dude past,
him sitting cross-legged in the audience for 1970s gigs
like Steely Dan and Captain Beefheart.
The crew ganged up on him later and accused his sexuality.
They were scapegoating him
for something.

His calm under pressure was a thing to behold
as elsewhere men were tortured on flimsy pretexts, one
of whom chewed off his tongue to survive.

The ship never arrived at its destination.

Sold - dream 4 (false)

Number 31 in our street has been sold. A family of penguins were moving in yesterday. There were a lot of them milling around outside the front door and it occurred to me that it might be difficult to remember all their names.

I helped them unload some of their gear and carry it into the house. The windsurfer proved particularly tricky to carry but we managed.

Sung, Dug, Danced, Planted

(for Mum and Dad)

Sung by things dug up,
the clay pipe with harp,
as natural as oil.
No destroyed civilization, no shocked discovery
of bust statue of liberty on the sand.
Rust on an old broach,
sweat on summer’s ancient evenings,
the spattering of brown optimism

Danced by planted bounty.
Black plant pots of leeks,
ant highways and aimlessly industrious beetles
ignoring like calmest parents
the lanky greens plopped in dibbed holes
after Mr King, à la veteran
of killing and growing fields.

Eight-tined garden fork leant by gate,
warmed and polished handle,
living stem
muddy, magnificent,
moulded to the rhythm of vegetation
and allotted growth.

May Sketches

From Simon’s 7th floor we see fullness of trees.
We send our precisely cautious understanding,
the balance of our mind
like a paper plane towards creamy smoke
from 2 chimneys over near Dongen,
distant other-industry.

17 letters are branded on the skyline above Koopmans,
logo in the sky with dyads, dripping graffiti, crucified for pride
and bucking under-renown.
On the site of the Chile mural, FEB letters,
indestructible,
like the stuff the bad cyborg was made of
in Terminator 2.

Prisma glares sagely at Warande, insect-frame roof aerials tickling
complex air, smell of tyres, cheese pastries and oak leaves
in the atmospheres.

Plains of pebbles unite UvT roofs.
but unique debris defines each
(a smashed coffee cup or two on the roof of the SSC
and Mr Fantastic’s long dried-out husk).

At ground level, medleys of jeans
and this season’s boots and Birkenstocks,
student hairstyles in evolutions not revolutions,
gentle plagiarism of genres.

The wheelbarrow man wears denim too but he’s a hole in his left thigh
from hauling sand from the side door to P’s koffiekamer
to the entrance to the Univers.

In C17, Marga opens a brown envelope with a class list
but the sender has forgotten to sign it.
The fountain holds its note though;
its tripping splashing warms faces.
It’s May.

Free Ranging Pig

The teddy bear is from the 1950s,
rescued from a rose garden,
judiciously pruned,
softening the trotter trail,
bellowing false laughter,
piglets hanging onto teets
for dear life
and for the sake of blooms.

The trimmed toothbrush
is caked with salty paste,
granular as river water
glinting in the new digital dawn,
capital lettering branded
on its muscley blue stem.

The jeans you're wearing hide satin,
waxed tints and a damp low tide
dangled from the mouth's numb kisses
and eleven o'clock oaths,
the disappeared haunts of monthly mayflies
and pushers.

In America, they have cheese from a spray can
(100% pure Tilburg emotion)


I
Wood carved friends dance
around the Moerenburg gold tree; it’s one
of Tilburg’s many rituals.
They drink silver soup with straws,
and spit it out in Moergestel on the stoop
of the shoe shop.
The owner comes outside; “Now I’m cracking heads!” she says. She has no idea how valuable silver soup can be.
“It’s a slow burner. You’ll get hooked by episode five or so,”
they say, “let it dry and scrape it off. You can store it in a beaker,
which you call a beker.”

Sam Sam in de Noordstraat are selling pizza boots; the crust stays crunchy
when it rains on them.
Café Loca went the way of the warrior left home
alone while the battle raged. Now she visits the wooden man
near Duvelhok and tells him her woes, invites him
to keep her lonely red walls company. He can’t dance but he listens,
creaks eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrr.

Acclimatize in the Cul, hang by the wall, watch, like
the zoo or the kermis but Studio wants a penny
for your thoughts.
It’s high on its reflection
in the ceiling mirror.
The dancers show off
and if you are alone, the energy will strike you
dumb and dumbells and tie
your modesty in a Gordian knot,
a Dumbo trunk of show show you are dismissed.

You can remove your golden fleece, night hound,
and go back to the Kuil at the Cul and hear song after murdered song.
Happy Birthday, pissy pissed toilet,
10 years of vaasjes, jas and Brandt,
afterwards skiing into Wilhelmina Park on smoke stacks
and the blaasinstrumenten of the nachtburgermeesters and the Tilburgurdists.

Spiritus tankless; it’s a rehearsed battle. Only Peter and the wolf
and Bob Dylan’s mum, stamping ping pong balls flat, will save you.
Thelonius clip clock, oh the music in his jerky leg da deh de deh der derrrr
Wolves travel in a howling car round midnight
and sniff the air out the window,
hang their tongues to clean the fietspad.
Bob’s ma, dressed in tea towels from de Textielmuseum, hums
“Zimmerman, zimmerman.”
And while they pass,
performance monks on skateboards do sacred kick-flips
and bakkers do cake flips.


II
Habibi Habibi, thumbsucker of the love bite stigma stigma
Babies and baboons crawl
through the double-doors of La Poubelle; they swerve
at low speed so they don’t squash anybody or bruise
antique zucchini.
And they shell out peanuts for boots in bags, the wood, the metal, the paper,
the monks and the monkeys you don’t need now, but you are time travelling,
and the 1960s and 70s and 80s are piled up like reality pimps.
Pimpburg.
There’s a buzzing sound as I cycle slow as a dream down the Lancierstraat
into the sunset and the heavenly sweet trees at the end of the Wulla Wulla.
I want some junk; for I am going back to my new roots
and I need a scratched long player
and an ugly cupboard and beer glasses commemorating JFK’s assassination
and nameless yellow stuff with Swiss history, an alpine scene on a chipped mug.


III
The Midi Theatre is sweating so heavily the police can’t take fingerprints,
so they run a wire tap with a vlinderstruik, trap butterflies in the lobby
and release them into the Dansacademie – free lessons from vlinders!
Back in the Cul, the crowd recognise each slaughtered song
like a cheese tosti.
De gekke gast with his karate kicks is removed into the alley
near the entrance to De Nacht, and the Belgian band play on.
His mae geri and mawashi geri mingle with the cum shots of jellyfish.
Sexy squid climbing up ropes of smoked eel
to the hanging gardens of Goirle, loop
tracks for cutting edge dance music.
“Kijk, Bosschens!! The Hanging Gardens of Goirle!!”,
where the balconies are drip-fed Viagra, and folks
buy into the blurb. They wear
straw hats to cover their cocks,
and carry their cunts in baskets, with Paturain en Boursin on the side.
High and low, to and fro. They have no need of gardens in Bosschkens.
Tilburg’s Napoleon Dynamite asks,
“Hebben de kippen grote klauwen?”
Adje dances sitting down. It’s a sit in, a funky protest;
we all wave our hands in the air like
octopuses and Jan Schellekens builds a rope bridge
between the cafes. He is paid in halve euros and verse tonijn.



IV
And now my diary is full like a bag of anchovies, salty and leathery
anecdotes and pizza enriched nights Peter Parker
and it’s time to dance so sweetly that the ceiling weeps,
il neige sur Liege and nachtslakken and watchmen suck
words from our mouths like the thrashing fish
in the Beekse Bergen. They’ll suck
our faces off too and our sproetjes will taste
like Anakin Skywalker’s doubts,
and Lolita’s pouts.
Time for Lolita, muscular provincial coquette. She lifts de Korte Heuvel up with her pinky fingers and shoves it into her mouth
to the piano of Ligeti and the clicks of minimal techno.
She begs us to strip her, take her to Moerenburg
tie her to the golden tree and squash hele mooie aardebeien all over
her body, but it’s quicker to spray cheese on her,
though we are crying into silk handkerchiefs and
emoting into a greasy Tupperware tub.
PPPPPPSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHSSSSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTT

Paragraph 3

Black bamboo revolutionised the American way of life.
The earliest significant change was for farming klick
families, who were no longer isolated.

Black bamboo enabled them to drive
to towns and cities sweetly and comfortably.

Another important change was that people had the freedom
to live and dream wherever they wanted.
In fact, people could work in a busy metropolitan city
and drive home to the quiet tropics.

The final major change brought by Black bamboo was the building
of superhighways,
suburbs, installations,
huge shopping saucers, and theme lillies
such as Frisbee World in Florida.