FRESH AND DUSTY


As the sneers drift windward
from Hotel Metropolis I ask myself
am I what’s outside of me?

was Nick’s affection for the Koningsplein
and the ugly corners of the city ironic?
or absurd?
of serieus?

alles
uglicity, ons bezit
our cattle list

the Duvelhok man
Sam Sam’s boots of ages
which stay crisp in rain

Tilburg
no monument to itself
people make the most of it
people make the city? / or the city makes people?
this we shall not determine
zonder een Glock 49
op onze slaap gericht

spiritus tankless – it’s a rehearsed battle

we’re dreamers
we’re an eight-year old with some decks
we zijn Chris de stapschrijver
im
-media
-see

we’re monks on skateboards doing sacred kick-flips
nous sommes la poubelle
een stedelijke lentetuin
fresh and dusty
we’re an alpine scene on a chipped mug
what’s outside of us and inside of us
we’re Australia
we’re Anakin Skywalker’s doubts and Lolita’s pouts

as I cycle reverie-slow down the Lancierstraat
I notice
an
unkempt
. . climbing
. rose,
. . . angular
. . and
. . . . wiggly - like
a techno dancer

I see through invisible buildings Moerenburg’s golden tree

het is ‘s nachts
slakken leave trails
from the short hill
to the fivespring

is this pride I smell my own?

Oe oe

Willem z’n grootvader, double-dad begroet z’n kleinzoon Willem
“Hey? Numb Nuts! You cheeky monkey! Come
And give granddad a kiss – it’s father’s day.”
“PPLLLPPRRRRR!!” zegt Willem.
“Wat? Wat zeijde gij? Did you just give double dad a raspberry?”
He speaks in the thick Rhode Island brogue of Peter Griffin
from Family Guy (showing daily on Nickelodeon).
Willem replies as Stewie, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,
double-dad. Would your apeness care to explain the etymology
of raspberry?”
Peter legt keurig uit dat ‘raspberry’ afkomstig is uit de
Cockney Rhyming Slang uitdrukking “raspberry tart” die rijmt
op fart, het Engelse woord voor scheet.
Mother mother, dubbel moeder laten wij haar noemen, fluistert naar haar vloeien,
“Kom hier kleine beestjes; we gaan een daisy ketting maken. Mijn vingers zijn te dik om de kleine bloemekes aan elkaar te breien. En ik heb straks jullie bloed nodig om verse fristi te maken. Oe oe”
Zij las onlangs op internet dat luizenbloed of luizenpoep, word gebruikt om bepaalde voedsel een mooie rose kleur te geven
Ze heeft een erudiete tattoo op haar rug, net boven haar kontje, wat de Britten ‘butt antlers’ noemen,
‘butt antlers’, an expression, in ink, of our higher destiny, a lyrical correlative of our civilization.
Twee andere jonge apen hameren op de toestenbord van een vette schrijfmachine,
Intuitie, intuitie, dog, dog, infinite monkey theorem.
Bescheidene kleine intelligent somewhat arboreal apes
of equatorial African forests,
lucky to be given the chance to write,
the chance to create some fortunate rhyming slang
some schitterende ongelukken
amongst all the flying shit.

essence

a house to hide in
four floors for dreaming
grounded and surrounded
by the ceiling
stuck to the walls
we
slumbering wriggling boarding a train
glitter in the primordial soup

nothing can stop
the power of a real dream
not even a chain-smoking midwife
and so, we were born
with or without karate
some of us, even
with kung-fu

mother’s muscular arms
are the direct result
of carrying children, plants in pots, lambs
suitcases and butter

papa
een kirrende dwerg
leerde ons jongleren
papa
zachtaardige reus
diens gespierde armen
direct afkomstig van het behang

wij woonden op de bodem van het paradijselijke zwembad
bloedrood geschilderd
bij nader inzien
waren er gradaties van kleuren
en kindness
aardbeien
gewikkeld in caramel
om te voorkomen dat ze in het duistere water oplosten

we received the heavenly
gift
of crème brûlée
which we perfected
with a blow torch

this was no expensive cook’s blowtorch
but a simple paint stripper
bought from GAMMA

British chefs invented
the crème brûlée
divinely inspired
British cooks
strong-armed and carrying the blood of nations in their candle-like veins

yet all food evolves
from wolves to waffles

the proof of the pudding was
the aquatic dance
krokodillen worstelen met zeemeerminnen

in een onzuivere plas
stijgt een envelop zonder venster (met lak verzegeld)
naar de oppervlakte

seeming to promise the bumps on the crocodile
yet when we emptied it on a warm rock
we saw a confetti
of tickets to dreams
and performances
by Kris Kremo
and when we tried to pick them up
a wind blew them in spirals
out of our grasping claws

Kremo, born in 1951
legendary juggler
son of Béla
who taught his boy to juggle by mail

for quite some time now
we have been fascinated by kindness
and would wish for it to become
a default quality among humankind
may mermaids take de facto control of kind-essence within differ-essence

crocodiles are not kind
but they are ‘kind’

we wish to perform a study in degrees of crocodility
or is that crocolessence?
at what point does the child recognise this creature
fellow and bellow

CROCODILE!! KROKODIL!!?
we await a crocodile with wheels

Bela Kremo had a long bumpy body and 60-80 teeth
Kris Kremo’s mother was not a mermaid
and she was, kind of

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.