JOOP BERSEE
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Acknowledgements: Identity Theory, Fidelities,
I am sure this is about war
Us
Fruitcake dept.
Amsterdam central station
A song of old
What we hope for
Ourselves
Off she went
There she stood
Early she
She has rich words
Details are slipping
Mountains the
Coming/going
Model
Who is in there?
Every day
Hugo Claus
22 March should be 29 March 2008!
Donald Duck
Travelling fast
Just a thing
I want to go to the Dylan Thomas boathouse
Chestnuts
Wrecking ball
Composer in Vienna
Closer & closer
Collect
Mother
What would it say?
The dog
Unique way
Not her dream
K.B. Harbour, Cape Town
I carved her
Touching spring
Xanax (Alprazolam) daily
Blessed bridges
A small flame
Streaming spring 40
‘She had this monstrous fear,‘
Being there
‘She travelled a day’
Streaming Spring
‘Clean sheets surround my pale skin.’
‘I don’t want to meet him. He’
‘He already belongs to her’
‘I was his boyish poster’
‘I didn’t see my mother.’
‘He looked at her watch’ 50
I am sure this is about war
There are a number of dogs
in my attic. I don't know
how they got there. Sometimes
I hear a bark, their nails
on the wooden floor, moving
around. I don't feed them
nor give them any water.
I don't even know what they
are actually doing up there.
It is never really quiet,
they always move, walk
in circles, or are lying down,
moving, touching each other.
Can they survive like that?
Us
For three days in a row
I found dead fleas
on the table.
They died young;
they were tiny.
It is just a matter
of them or me.
They can kill the cat
if they have a good season.
I sprayed, dripped,
bombarded,
napalm,
cluster bomb,
village on fire,
people still inside
their houses.
Fruitcake dept
The doctor told my wife
it would be best
if I'd go
to hospital,
fruitcake department
for about 2 weeks.
I was very pleased
to hear that I was a fruitcake;
it would trigger off a lot of
emotion, confirm
the medieval
believe that writers of
verse are fruitcakes. It could
be a whole chapter in my
biography; the torture, chemicals,
shocks, surgery
to remove active gargoyles.
Amsterdam central station
Autumn
The first people arrive before
sunrise, a few ants exploring
their surrounding from a tiny hole.
As birds announce daylight
more people leave the station,
increasing bursts; newspapers,
gloves, hats accelerating,
trying to catch tram 13 or 17,
the bus to Kudelstaart. Others
stand and wait while the sound
of a clarinet seems to ricochet
off the passers by. It slows
me down, and I see my number
5 leave, but hell, that clarinet
puts some kind of grin
on my face, this second day
of October. I am too lazy and
ashamed to make my way
to the musician, part with some
of my hard fought for copper.
All I do is hope that someone
else will; there is always a
jingling in my pocket,
but that grin is often so far away.
A song of old
Whether I go
far and beyond
the hills of green
and plentiful
or no more
than 6 feet
below
the dirty soles
of common man,
I will
be happy
to close my eyes
and put myself
into the hands
of soothing
dreams
still from boyhood
when sleep
was a soothing,
even now
when I lie
on my painful
bones.
A smile recognises
a smile
and switches
the lights off
in the hall.
What we hope for
Requiem is when the apples
have fallen off the tree, when the
dog and its owner return from
their last walk of the day. In pacem
is what we all hope for, of what
we all dream of, headphones and
the wonderful world of Mozart,
his string quartet KV 428,
the fish in need of clean water,
the heater on after a long
summer and quiet autumn drenched
with wine. Requiem when our bones
wake up in the middle of ice,
screaming and trembling, people with
scarves, stiff necks, trying to smoke this
hurdle away, but it won't go.
Ourselves
Summer has packed its suitcase,
declares the beaches unfit for a tan.
The tears of autumn are silent
but scouts are on their way:
flu, bronchitis, pneumonia.
The street changes from green to
yellow morning piss. It's as
if a giant has lifted
the city, soil attached.
There is a gentle breeze,
the trees lose their leaves,
preparing our world for new old,
like snowflakes,
warm song and dance bottles,
people being carried out of
their houses into the blizzard.
There the eagle goes. She goes
with a piece of liver, a heart,
hands without gestures, an eye
and no sadness in sight.
Off she went
In memory of Irene and Pingle
She walked the dog.
The day pealed off a
life and so the dog died.
A few years sailed past,
quite a breeze, getting
wet, wet, ropes pulling
calluses, cuts, bruises,
till death caught another
sail in the wind. Off she
went, over the fence, to
where she and dog met,
where they walk now,
somehow forever.
How can it be? Or is it
this green field inside my
head, where I see them
walk now and then?
There she stood
There she stood, in her dress,
wearing shiny shoes caught in
the mud, like a swamp, her
arms and hands above her waist,
staring at the mud clinging
to her shoes, wheels spinning.
She gave no sound, not
knowing what to say, caught,
catch me if you can. There.
Would it be revealed to her?
How would they tell her?
Did she have to crawl?
Or would she glide, a
beautiful bird, cutting
the sky in half with a knife?
She saw a patch of green,
took the jump and disappeared
into the house, to her mirror
for repairs, and diagnosis.
Early she
Early she turns the key
and the engine starts, her
body feeling the tremor.
She looks at her watch,
and when she releases
the handbrake, a train
roars through her car,
spreading its grey wings,
cloud of ashes coughing.
She returns in the evening;
the morning restored,
the seasons packed in a
ship, colour of sunsets,
and fish and flowers
enter the basket on the
backseat of her car.
She has rich words
She has rich words for
his friends are her friends
and the beating
and the whipping words
are hidden behind
Christmas trees, holidays
planned years ahead,
unwillingness to say yes,
his hidden mouth,
on the other side
of the pond, fish.
What luck can turn sour?
When she is alone in the house
she sometimes melts on the
old stairs, feels the stairs,
the rough wood. She will never
understand the incurable sore
which has no meaning,
she carries it with her,
like so many others,
a hollow feeling, dust on
an endless road, terrible
silence of a bird.
She sometimes wishes she
could believe in a holy heart,
an angel behind each bottle,
doing good things,
orchestrating the evening,
circling the guests, him,
like a hawk, looking for
food and love. Finishing
this unfinished exile.
Details are slipping
More and more details
are slipping away as she
gets older. It's like opening
a window to let a fly escape.
How it will be chased by the
small bats around the house.
Then she realises: these
are my boundaries
and my route. No
miracle, just evening, the
soundless wings snatching
the darkening summer sky.
Mountains the
We have a lot to carry
during our lifetime:
this coat called skin,
full of tough bracken,
landscapes with red sun.
Carrying peaks, valleys,
trees and angels hiding
and hiding, soft wings,
amazing hills and the
cross of erosion, places
turning into deserts,
lonely spots, forgotten
doorways and the anchor
of time building castles,
scratching, roots slowly
killing our sanctity,
the beautiful leaves
falling to the ground,
destroyed, trampled
by our cloven hooves.
Coming/going
In the train
coming/going/home,
where's that,
which side
of the door
what you
call home
as we are
lending a life,
intimate, slack,
killing,
rent a life,
a mother,
a father,
brother
sister
put money
into your slot,
running outta coins
and bury
the fever
of steel, mortar,
walls and more walls,
to survive
the cruellest
toughest bones
becoming bones,
ferns, huge ferns,
amazing ferns
in a book.
Model
It is Monday
and has been
snowing all night.
It still is. The
twenty year old
catwalk model
feels flakes
clinging to her
face, clinging
to her clothes.
Her footprints
are ploughing
deep furrows
in the snow,
40 kg's deep.
Who is in there?
I woke up in the middle of the night.
I could feel the cold next to me.
Was she dead?
Had she died while I was asleep?
I touched her. She felt cold and rigid.
I got up, panicked, left the room,
kept the door ajar. As if a stranger
had entered the bedroom,
who is in there?
I got the phone.
'Darling, wake up. Wake up.
If you don't, I'll phone the police
and the other emergency number.'
No answer.
I felt my body shake, tremble.
I started to cry, like a child,
holding the door handle with one hand,
feeling the freezing cold
coming out of the bedroom.
Every day
Each morning we go through
the same ritual. I don't know
why I think about it now.
The shaving and bad mood.
I give him his toast, and no
matter how golden brown
the toast is, he always scrapes
an imaginary black layer off.
He makes me feel incomplete.
As if I am not able to get
anything right. Then he goes
to work, never making any
mistakes of course, and if
he does I won't know it.
He comes home, unblemished
and rubs it in, while I dress,
go out with him, do the silver,
carry on with my friends,
do something good, make him
smile, and when he starts to
laugh he looks at me and
laughs as if he heard this
great joke for the first time.
Hugo Claus
His index finger followed
the numbers on the calendar.
A soft shuffling from day
to day: some so mild, others
the turning of a month;
his mouth’s speechlessness,
his plodding, falling away
from the last page, reaching
this point of no return to
the world of work and life,
smiling, laughing nevertheless;
it was a finished script.
And so his finger froze
as he took the final pills,
put his mane in the sand,
and left us more than a life.
Claus, who suffered from Alzheimer's,
died by euthanasia at a hospital in
Antwerp, Belgium, on 19 March, 2008,
not wanting to extend his suffering.
22 March should be 29 March!
for Hugo Claus
I had it all wrong: your funeral
or should I say your liberation
through an ocean of flames
is tomorrow, Saturday 29 March,
it was not last week the 22nd;
they keep you cool, stored
like a sandstone monument
without its fingers and no real
brain to dream from morning
to morning after. As I write
this you are still amongst us,
the flesh you waived, the world
you ate, licking your lips and
moaning when you wiped your
mouth clean, it was so good.
You left us behind where we
do and don’t, sober or stoned
by religions and gods in the heads
of Man not yours. Well, we will
keep on murdering, that is a
promise. What you left behind,
the misery, will not change. There
is the dance around the trees
of water and blood, saliva on
the tongues of popes, pulpits,
the dragon’s flesh, the silent mirror
of the lake of our eyes, waving,
calling us to take a peek, a sneer,
a bow and I hope you like it there.
You might wonder where o where?
We are wondering, where o where?
Claus, who suffered from Alzheimer's, died by euthanasia at a hospital in Antwerp, Belgium, on 19 March, 2008, not wanting to extend his suffering. For several years in the 1990s, primarily because of “The Sorrow of Belgium,” Mr. Claus was cited in the European news media as a possible contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In a statement on Wednesday 19 March 2008, the interim Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, said the Dutch-speaking world had lost “its greatest writer.”
Donald Duck
I awoke in the middle of the night,
remembering a dream I just had.
A small, black, squarish person
appeared in it, like a cartoon character.
It represented my fear. Me.
It said:
"I can't. I am scared."
When it spoke, something like an
electric current of fear shot through
my body,
wrecking all my nerves
in the process.
A dentist's
drill severing a couple of nerves.
The whole day I remembered
that dream very clearly, vividly.
But why should I be scared of a
little cartoon character? Was it
the left over fear of a child?
The only thing
to do was to rid myself of this thing,
this Lego voodoo doll,
by thinking it away.
Pretending that the cartoon character
was just a silly joke of my
imagination.
No.
The dream didn't allow me. It
told me that it was real, and that
ignoring the black cartoon figure,
would be just as impossible
as trying to imagine the world
without Donald Duck.
Travelling fast
Bye bye. I wave at friends
on the platform as the train
leaves the station. I wave
one more time in the air,
to be sure. It was probably
at the parking area.
The sun is shining and it has
almost stopped raining.
I am at home in a chair looking
at the raindrops and the
leaves on the trees, almost
yellow, getting ready for
undocking, falling away.
It feels as if I am in a train again,
the world
speeding past, a few
yellowing trees, blue sky,
clouds, -
If I would take a mirror
and stare at my face, I
would be able to follow the
lines, creases on my face,
railroad lines to a distant oven.
Just a thing
Here I sit,
with my bones in this world,
with my grandfather's legs.
He disappeared in the rain of time,
the minutes of his watch
ticking in my inner ear,
a candle for when it gets dark.
He really was one of us, like us.
But now he is one of them,
horrors of the green, quiet,
nightingale cemeteries,
a child's sole on someone's
name, just a thing, not related.
I want to go to the Dylan Thomas boathouse
I want to go to the boathouse.
I want to go to the Welsh boathouse,
smeared with coca-cola, hamburger hands,
shiny noses and farts, rubbing layers.
This shrine,
white and blue estuary,
smoking cigarettes, opening
rows of bottles,
not writing a lot-
That is where
I want to go.
How will it feel
going to the boathouse?
Perhaps like going to a place
where someone's grave
used to be.
Chestnuts
Two chestnut trees
not far from here.
Since youth they have
something human:
umbrella, limbs, joints.
When autumn strikes
and the land turns dark
it is not pleasant
to go back in time.
That is how it feels,
back to my youth, close
to the chestnut trees.
Wrecking ball
I hammer a nail through my hand.
I nail darkness to my wall.
The light comes from outside.
The grass is lighter outside.
I cannot escape this wrecking
ball called my brain.
Composer in Vienna
As they entered his rooms
they could hear the shouting
behind the closed door,
the room with the piano,
as if he was talking
to someone deaf,
booming Latin lines,
a mass he was writing.
They found it awkward,
embarrassing, left quietly,
accompanied by the shouting,
the gulping replica’s, lost lions.
Closer & closer
No, its not
that you grow
further away
from the past.
You get closer
to all that
till one day
you knock
on its door,
meet the familiar faces,
such a long
time ago, then,
but now
here again.
Collect
He sat in a corner,
could not walk because
of the way he felt.
How they made him
feel with their tricks
and talks sitting at the
tattered table, a needle
straight through his head,
continuing until it came
out of the sole of his foot,
pinning him to the floor
like an insect, butterfly.
Mother
And bad children sucked her lips,
they touched the mountains
of her hips, fed themselves, feast of flesh,
on her arms with razor blades.
Day begin. Day with a ridge.
The apple trees stand like spines
against the yellow of
a painted field.
What would it say?
Her husband is useless. He works
in the garden in his blue overall
pretending, but not succeeding
in hiding his thoughts. She
is sometimes him, and her father,
and the wind. An actress without
much body, playing, acting, husband,
no lines to say; what is she doing, what is
the meaning of her existence?
An eggshell is protecting her as
days run past. A person breathing
inside an egg. Once outside
the protection is gone and the countdown
will start: friction, pain, animals
everywhere. Her own animal is
the worst of them all. It will never
let her go, flying. Even so; where to?
What would her head say, lying?
The dog
The dog without its fur
walking muscle naked,
white strands, purple flesh.
Purple ropes stretch and
shrink, move the dog.
Eyes like strange balls,
too big a world I do not know,
no longer a dog, not like this.
Saliva roosting, dragging
wet oil paint across the canvas,
head hanging low, growling
angrily, starting from the
wound by the tail, nails
scratching the floorboards.
Born head first, gear on.
Unique way
Elvis died,
rolled up his
sleeping bag.
Became tiny,
a comma in the ground.
He died his personal death.
We all.
I will die, my way.
My own,
personal,
unique way,
rolling up,
disappearing,
comma
in the ground.
I hold this in my hands.
And I feel safe.
Secure.
Not her dream
I don't even know
if she is still alive.
But, if I would meet her,
see her, in a dream,
she'd walk out. Yes.
And her face is a
Käthe Kolwitz,
because she looks at me.
Then she'd turn
her face and walk
out of my dream.
Not her dream.
K.B. harbour, Cape Town
In memory I feel being hurt,
fishing boats anchored to colourful
ropes, the white red light-house
on its pier where I once sat in cold
pee, two boys fishing at night.
The weather clearing, walking lives,
never growing bored, wearing the
red or pink sun, the wet hours
enduring waves, and more more waves,
finger waiting in light or darkness,
singular, people passing, before us,
after, cutting hours, cleaning fish, their death
staring eyes always blind, growing
more tired with each day passing.
I
I carved her
bones clean
and threw
her flesh
to the wind
A game
for two
Endless love
ocean after ocean
of deep
draughty
darkening love.
II
I catch the
tunes coming
out of your
hair,
soft soul
A game
for two unlucky
touch animals
ending their
days lying
under a tap
science and
planks.
III
It rains Christmas
because you,
leaving much
hidden
in a box
fluttering answer
in my face
I stumble
create a hole
in the sun
Every day
a new year.
IV
Rockslide.
The cancer on
the side of the tree,
elephant tusk,
consuming, eating
the flowers.
God, film it
all, take that
bit of hay
away from me.
Last light bulb,
broken on my shoulder.
Touching spring
The landscape
the colour of
granite. Buds
are brimming
with leaf. And
soon it will pour
cows and sheep.
Our pots and pans
are patient,
waiting on pickled
shelves for the lambs
to leave the safety
of their harbour.
An electric storm
with its flashing
knives will slice
and drip on the
innocent boots
of our hunger.
Xanax (Alprazolam) daily
I am using the long nose
of the Xanax factory to
cool me down. These pink
girls touch my body from
foot to mouth, my neck,
churn my big stomach.
They close the shutters with
the pale and flaky paint
to prevent me from having
a closer look at myself,
the burned down streets:
‘Woman, I do not know
where your children are.’
We die in a slow campfire
of rain forests where monkeys
with shrunken heads shriek
with long leashes. Snakes
bloom. Big, strangled bodies
clearly visible inside them.
Blessed bridges
It has blessed oceans with
mirrors. It made a rat
look like a pope.
My car wouldn’t start,
a woman was
murdered by her ex.
We are so helpless,
and begging. The devil
shook his flowers at me,
said I would drown
one day, that I had cancer,
growth on my face.
The beach,
the blood red sea,
womb.
I
She had this monstrous fear,
of the scorpion and the
bright powdered snake,
spider with rows of eyes,
their legs like fingers,
playing the keys of her
piano fear, music spider
of beauty, wasting it all.
II
The curtain on the wall
was useless; there was
nothing but wall behind
it; she felt and wrote,
tasted and wrote, she saw
and wrote the tar of her fear,
noticed men carrying boxes
holding men, women
III
cold for the hole in bog.
Meat in suits, dresses, socks.
‘You smell in your cold age.
Don’t you dare to leave me.’
She yanked her fingertips
lose from those in the
tidy pine boxes. Winter.
It would leave a clear trail.
Being there
My friend’s clock,
its mechanism,
would not
let her live.
She travelled a day
on her thumbnail:
licking, biting, sucking
the taste of metal.
‘I can remove any artery
from my arm,
if I want to,’
she said to those
who took her
out of her house,
to the ‘chiatry ward.
The back of her head
had never left it,
still scared and frail.
Streaming Spring
The landscape
the colour
of granite.
But soon
it will pour
fresh green,
cows and sheep.
Our pots and pans
waiting on pickled shelves,
for the lambs
to leave their harbour.
For our knives
to slice and drip,
on the innocent boots
of our hunger.
5.May.2008
Days in hospital (kiss my ass)
Clean sheets surround my pale skin.
Two voices coming from the
passage: a soothing one leading
the staccato further and further
into the pale dress code room.
Desperate measures, arms, machines
stuffing a head with pillows,
rags of soul on a small boat,
dura mater, pia mater
sinking, green leaves waiting
for autumn falling. I can’t wait.
He already belongs to her
if that is what you want
to know; her smile says enough.
She owns, owns. He has a grey
Mercedes but she owns him,
top to bottom, his crap hole.
Their one visit; he left the
room, his image on a balloon,
floating through the wall,
her knees and thighs razor sharp,
as fast
as the speed of sound, a Porsche.
I was his boyish
poster on the wall,
slowly fading,
rapidly,
time running,
creature pale features,
dull words.
Do you remember
us?