Traces

The Madman (in Context)

In a world of math and math awry
contradictions still go on to die
in lonely corners of empty rooms
where Earthly death forever glooms
but no life is resurrected
before it finds itself subjected
to the power on high
where contradictions go to die

A madman screams, The math makes sense!
Here is all your evidence!
But there is not yet enough reverence
among the men of golden handshakes
in cockeyed glory of all that man makes

Get lost you fool, they say out loud,
your math is not what life’s about!
But before the closing office door
contradictions galore
the books, no longer sound, don’t knock
but tick like a national debt clock
the train left, oh, when, so long ago
points of no return, oh, who told you so
such a highly complex context
and each day still becomes the next

It is easier to bury the spinning heads
in the written sands of no regrets
there is still time to breathe, they say,
tomorrow is not Judgement Day

Math man the madman, he still goes on
wherever sense is never frowned upon
and nonsense is a well-known joke
of the cold men who left their warmest cloak
on the hall tree of ease and greed
where no deed goes unpaid indeed
where the narrow gate is paid no heed
and no man can ever be freed

In a world of math and math awry
contradictions still go on to die

The Fire Photographer

You stand there in your yellow suit
staring, watching, a popular pursuit
the pastime of many a gentleman
in the city center of Amsterdam
your phone, as if in praying hands
aims at where the church still stands
between your eyes and the screen
another ghost wanders inbetween
you and Cuypers’ church on fire
between you, dear firefighter for hire
and Cuypers’ house of God
its towers burning orange and yellow
you are standing inbetween two fellow
men in helmets, red, one recording phone
did Petrus Joseph build that up in stone
firefighters fight a fire that seemingly eats
every damned baked brick it meets
did this one, once again, start in the tower
before closed doors, firemen don’t cower
but so high on up into the sky
another Cuypers treasure starts to die
what are the risks, what are the chances
around which the world of spirit dances
burned, bombed, sold to the lowest bidder
before squatters made them reconsider
and still no one fate so unclean
as Mokum’s ode to Mary Magdalene
torn down in the sixties ruled by the dark
shaming and renaming the people’s own park
fireman how did you find yourself behind
barricade tape, a phone, the ties that bind
is watching and filming all that you may do
a chief’s orders that were in store for you
no waterspout or white foam cloud
tonight could make your mother proud
underneath a helmet, inside a heavy suit
life unfolds before the firefighter that could
where will you safekeep your film of the burn
when the new years’ day greets you in return

The West

The last remnant, bewildered and small
that even before they spoke had seen it all
the missing clue, trace of tomorrow,
in a future unfortuitous and hollow

A forgotten piece of lonely math
under the tree where sages sat
once alive now mere periphery
at least that’s how they appear to be

Walking slowly in a distant crowd
talking from afar out loud
just as the people think knew best
the Sun shone from the West

Through the light of colored glass
the rays had nothing left to pass
straight lines of the spark once seen
shattered what was inbetween

God bless the last remnant inside
at large now so far and wide
gathered along Christ’s light abreast
all beacons shining from the West

Captain John

He was a brother that we knew
so much shared by so many and so few
disembarked, a big part of our crew
a drunken life conquered and slightly anew
some others never made it as far as him
poured into one life’s mold most sorrow within
at least one son; his gracious lady free of sin
at least up to where his tiger’s eyes begin
so slowly did I see how they symbolize
and patronize his home in a thin disguise
brown stone bracelets, bright blue eyes
living where the dead do not yet arise
his grand ships of old are lagging far behind
the man watching far too many of his kind
abandoned by equals, too far gone to find
that all rods of time will one day unwind
John predicted a moment, just as a joke
his microphone closed, just after he spoke
that nothing was lost, that the sleeping awoke
in the deep of the night and as the day broke
I prayed for the Captain in his whisper boat
his spirit holding a course to stay afloat
on the rugged terrain where the river that slowed
to a standstill beneath the surface still flowed

Mother Nature

Some creatures on the beach, you see
are not part of society
Mother Nature is their only home
the dunes their holy place to roam
they look like us when passing by
but there is more than meets the eye
they live in tune with all her songs
and travel where spirit belongs
at night as they lay their heads
unaware of modern dread
they sleep soundly, conscience clear
forever free from force and fear
out of reach of devilish voices
demanding we make different choices
those creatures on the beach, you see
Mother Nature is their identity

The Names of Stones

The land of lost opportunity is not the land we know
sown into a sunken meadow we were born to grow

these Lowlands are green but unlike the Highlands
only a little still stands of what a soul understands

like two fish fishing, we catch the deadliest of lives
in which we to ourselves go unrecognized

in which we sit still on old ammo, looking like fools,
while few ever wonder how the crossfire cools

the people may talk but we never brought hurt,
we never opened up heavens, we just lifted the dirt

but those who could see, they closed their eyes,
and those who tried did not see through the disguise

the answers are plenty, more than enough,
but the people out here love the searching too much

after all our neighbors had left, the silence amused us
their vague opaque chatter had rightly refused us

our glasses filled with a spirit straight up wrong
like two fish fishing, to live was to be strong

until dawn revealed to us, time, and a new days’ tones
we talked about the names of trees and the names of stones

about their form, substance and special powers

in repairing castles, churches and water towers

until dawn made us hide where no phone ever rings
locked up inside where the last bird still sings

to linger and soar within a land that is true
closing a bedroom door is the first and the last thing to do

streetwise or otherwise, he said, love and regret,
you shouldn’t think too much with your head

in this massive meadow one old man still stands,
freely and firmly, in the High- and the Lowlands

one last thought before sleep, both hearts fulfilled,
our hunger for life temporarily stilled

by our voices’ echoes inside our bones,
by the names of trees and the names of stones.

Sea of Fate

Let me drive without the brakes and
be the fool
who raised the stakes

karmic debt is mine to pay
If I must leave I’ll never stay

the ballast is of unknown weight but
by God
let me sail the sea of fate