Lower Education

Rubbing my shoulders
In the middle of the night
My wife wakes me up
Saying that i must
have been having a nightmare
As i was talking in my sleep
Telling whomever it was
In my dream to fuck off.

I roll over and mumble
saying that it's ok
and that i was just a
fill in professor
trying to give a lecture
in an American university.

He said that if he wanted a news update he could have stayed home and watched CNN.

When the politic begins to negatively affect the person and without even knowing any of the persons involved personally, the responsiblity of the poet is meet and something is written and words are said and people are again affected, well then we have a situation where art can possibly accomplish what it is born for. 

The rest is just dressing for white walls wishing they were anything but.

She said, to just go ahead and fill out the form but I said that I was just too ambivalent to care.

When the going get tough

I like to let the tough rough it out.

Going to the gym reguarly has taught me

a thing or two about holding in a beer gut.

There are voices always voices

calling out and asking for and giving up.

All the echoes everywhere fill up my head

and earphones I choose only to use

when I feel at home.

The other night I was told a story

by this guy who said that he saw a girl biking one night

and she had no lights and of course

she was busy texting

and when she got hit by a car

well, he just walked away.

This was the first time in a long time that I didn’t

feel the need to ask the Universe why,

about such stupid things happening

or why

this supposedly artistic guy

was just

some pretentious nature loving person

posing

as another

poet asshole.

Give me this moment–

I know
that I ask a lot.

But just
between us –

I know
what there is

and

I know
that we
are not.

The Comment Section

So I asked him

“Hey man, I've been wondering

where the hell you've

been hanging out?”

and he said, “oh.”

and that he had been hanging out

with the rest of

the crazies in the comment section.

Then it dawned on me,

exactly why I had not seen

or heard anything

from him lately.

It was just

that I

had no patience

anymore

to read

or watch

anything

online

till the

very

end.

Give me no reason

Give me no reason, allow me my snooze

I shake the world by the shoulders
One for my dead homies.

There is a difference between
2ndhand and walking in another
man’s shoes.
He let off two shots
taking aim at the man in the moon.

When gravity proved too much to tango with
he took up ceramics instead
and spent his nights drunk
behind the pottery wheel.

Eventually when“they” came for him
I wasn’t suprised
to see you
there in the front of the crowd.

What did strike me as strange

was to see your name written in Sharpie
on the inside collar of the straightjacket
that I was asked to help him in to.

But like I said,

Give me no reason,
Allow me my snooze

I shake the world by its shoulders
and one for my dead homies.

After work I am planning on
just going home

and going to bed.

She walked with a limp

but was somehow faster than all of us.

I was watching the back of this young womans head

bob back and forth as she moved through the

aggressiveness of the holiday crowd.

I was amazed at her simple bravery.

Smoothly stumbling with a lurch, alone amongst the masses,

she seemed to me like a playback show in slow mo –

where even though you know that someone

is just lipsynching along to some crappy popsong or

possibly even a symphony

there is a glimmer of grace in their awkward movements

as you recognize that they are celebrating

a crescendo or the creation

of a fantasy world

all of their own.

Feeling better about myself

I finished what was in my lunchbox and felt better about myself.

I tore the mandarijn peel into tiny tiny little pieces then through them in the garbage

and felt better about myself.

I looked the apple in the eye and smiled before biting into it and felt better about myself.

I helped an old muslim woman fix her umbrella today and felt better about myself.

I kept my eyes on myself in the gym this morning and felt better about myself.

I planned on folding the laundry today but never got around to it and felt ok with myself.

I have pre-prepared a homemade eggplant parmigiana for dinner tonight and felt better about myself while constructing this delicious fact.

I listened to a friends musical recommendation and felt better about myself for doing so.

I am currently doing more or less what I am supposed to be doing with myself and pat myself on the shoulders for doing just that.

Haarlemtown 2018

As a city

reflects back upon

its citizens,

an image

of

everything

so seemingly

needed

and

need not

be

but still

so

unaware

oblivious that

we

just are.

Haarlemtown ik zit dwars in mijn gevoel for you, sitting sideways in my stool behind my desk on the Doelstraat, in the middle but removed from you, dreaming away my daze in my Irrational Library ways, sometimes wondering do I still love you Haarlemtown or heb ik nu en hekel pest on you Haarlemtwon.  After 18 years being here, present together with you my Haarlemtown I have begun to feel that our relationship once so intimate is now a bit distant Haarlemtown. Living together but apart in Haarlemtown. I am lucky to know so many of the people who make up Haarlemtown but what is it that I actually know about so much of Haarlemtown.

From behind the Irrational Library shop window on the Doelstraat I watch you walk on by Haarlemtown,

Haarlemtown our quiet and content conformist cultuurstad

Haarlemtown and its bloated idea of being a bloemenstad

A white washed overpriced this could be anywhere

this could be everywhere winkelstad

A 2ndhand vulture vinylstad

An overcrowded AirBnB and boutique hotel stad

A sugarcoated Popstad

A Jazz en more of what? stad

Haarlemtown a schizophrenic used and abused

whore of a stad.

Haarlemtown, a four star city with a 5 star zelfbeeld, stad.

Haarlemtown

A city full of white washed lifestyle winkels

crawling with pussy whipped soft cock male shoppers buying

uncharachteristic cadeau’s for domineering dames

hordes of dead eyed consumers from Heemstede and Aardenhout

stumbling zombie like down the Grote Houtstraat

spilling out into the Grotemarkt in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown – Sushi city on the Spaarne.

The Thrill Grill leaves this burger non-pulsed, feeling that he is better off by the Wolfhound for a good hamburger or fish and chips in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown- from the Nieuwe Gracht to the Ridderstraat plenty of ways to expand ones broekmaat eating crepes longs the Koningstraat in Haarlemtown. 

Haarlemtown how many espresso bars  do we need to keep all these burgers buzzing like over caffeinatted muggen in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown –where financial cutbacks in the healthcare of headcases housed in the psychatric instellingen ‘round Haaarlemtown, keep the police running around like kippen zonder kop looking after all the crazy’s roaming around in Haarlemtown. 

It is all cause and effect here in Haarlemtown.

What the fuck no more free parking on Sundays in Haarlemtown.

Bring back the Sunday rest in Haarlemtown.

Are you born and raised in Haarlemtown?, it will be a miracle if you can one day afford to buy a house and raise your own family here in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown – nieuwbouw cash cow – every vacant lot eaten up by developers rolling around like pigs in slop all over Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown, Mara and I wondering if we should cash in and get out of the Leidsebuurt before the real estate bubble bursts in Haarlemtown

 – the sale of rijtjeshuisen with jacked up prices scooped up by makellars to be resold, it’s almost as if the cobblestone streets of the Leidsebuurt were filled with fools gold in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown, - all the character of the old school neighborhoods almost gone – in Haarlemtown. 

No more butcher, no more baker, no more patatje oorlog maker in the buurt in Haarlemtown.

Mario and his Om and his Tante, giving up shop, what a guilty pleasure to have a good snack bar just down the block.

The Happy Snacks and Het Pleintje too, we the lazy in the Leidsebuurt will deeply miss you, and we thank you for all your comfort and care and all that deep fried food.

Haarlemtown, the Koepel reopened as a creative center for the all the overachieving ondeneemers in Haarlemtown

a hip catering tent for the higher education of the hoogschool here in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown – who would have ever thought that Haarlem North would one day be the place to be in Haarlemtown. 

Haarlemtown - the Slachthuis Buurt wort het new Brooklyn in Haarlemtown

Hey guess what, Facebook just told me that Ijmuiden

is one day going to be

the new Haarlem

instead of Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown, where its inwoners are

more open to   

an influx of Syrian immigrants than

the caravan of gelukseeking advertising yuppies

migrating in from Amsterdam.

Stop calling the 5hoek the fucking new-Jordaan,

Hannes Kuiper, Johnny the 5hoeker, one of the true burgervaders of Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown, I ramble on in my mixed taal,

my love for you still strong but frustrated in dit geval.

For I am a born again Haarlemmer

whose replanted new york roots

have grown wilder than weeds

under my broken down boots here in Haarlemtown.

and yet I am unsure of how I should feel

about the increasing number of expats with Dutch spouses

buying up all the houses and voorplanting

their seeds here in Haarlemtown.

All these american and british techheads

fleeing Trump or Brexit, a new silicon valley in Haarlemtown.

I liked it better in when

it seemed like I was one of the few degenerate

Americans hiding out and starting over

with a new life and a Dutch wife here in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown fuck the ready made and store bought

Do It Yourself in Haarlemtown.

The Mad Daddy’s Barbers keeping the Haarlemtwon men and boys

handsome enough for the ladies to enjoy.

Geertruida records still independent and eigenwijze,  standing behind bands that most Gitaarlameers will never have a chance to dislike in Haarlemtown.

The Slachthuis our new home for the musical homegrown spirit in the zo benoemde Popstad that is Haarlemtown,

Haarlem Popscene giving the young bands a chance to shine in dark bars before drunk Haarlemers in Haarlemtown,

Phil and Fay – patron saints to the Popscene and the Poets of Haarlemtowns Underground in the the fantastic pub that is the Wolfhound, in Haarlemtown

The Jan & Piet Museum, the final remanants of De Fietsznfabriek still keeping an eccentric eye open and upon Haarlemtown.

Flinty’s jongerencentrum still giving the kids and immigrants a place to kick back and feel welcome and safe in Haarlemtown.

At Bevridingspop Haarlemtown I see you partying non-stop, getting up to get down, dancing and blowing, imagining that to you are truly free to be in Haarlemtown,

Where it is easier to get your hearing checked then to file an aangifte without having an appointment at the Koudehorn in Haarlemtown.

The Houtfestival, where Haarlemers celebrate the true meaning of vrijheid not on the 5th of May but every year on Fathersday in Haarlemtown.

The Patronaat, even though I never really go out anymore, still my home away from home in Haarlemtown.

The Badhuis Leidsebuurt a lovely place for the buren to meet, with its mixed bag of volunteers, a warm bath of charm in Haarlemtown just down my street.

Haarlemtown, Beermeester Alphenaar tending bar in Lokaal, sorry I still miss the Briljante, where I first fell in love in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown my hat off to all my beloved creative cultural instigators in Haarlemtown.

My man of faith, Stads Dominee Tom de Haan leading the Monday morning meditation in the St. Bavo kerk in the middle of all the garbage truck ruckus on the oude groenmarkt in Haarlemtown

Haerlems Boedem, Begane Grond, 37 PK, Nieuwe Vide, keeping culture fresh in Haarlemtown.  Jaap Lampe doing his best with the old and the new school of theater in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown, in the winter I long for your summer vibe.  All of the freaks, geeks and weirdos chilling in the Hout at the Parksessies, we are all part of the same tribe.

And sometimes I do forget to just stop and look around in Haarlemtown. 

Willemien Spook, Stadsdichter once told me that you gotta look up and not down to see the beauty of the architecture in Haarlemtown.

Haarlemtown, whatever happened to our underground?

Haarlemtown, the more crowded you get,

the more I wonder if I will always

want to stick around in here Haarlemtown. 

For a person like myself needs some space

to be able to create my own pace here in Haarlemtown,

the wife and I still dreaming of a piece of vrijstandland in Haarlemtown.

Yeah, you gotta keep the dream alive in Haarlemtown.

So, let me say this just one more time to you Haarlemtown,

Haarlemtown,  

I love ya and I hate ya

but as always

I wanna thank ya

for allowing me and The Irrational Library

to build a home here amongst ya

and for rubbing off on me as much

as I have been rubbing them out

all over you

for the last 18 years.