And we all go to Heaven in a little row-boat
The pubs are mostly closed by now,
the Prinsengracht all but deserted;
bicycles well locked or casually disposed of.
Stolen this last night, tomorrow the police will take them,
sell them off next month:
recycling’s just another game.
A February rain,
so cold it feels like fireflies stinging:
every breath and every word a comic strip balloon,
torn apart by harpies’ wings;
the cobble-stones, softly coated now with freezing film.
Extremities are numb.
Amsterdam, more than a city -
not destroyed by bombs but maimed severely
by eighties yuppy architects:
a hooker that’s grown careful,
no longer so outgoing,
no longer so convinced of immortality.
No stars tonight: sky hanging low -
though Heaven is no closer.
The Prinsengracht, quiet as a requiem;
and pock-marked and still:
the old canal, covered with white,
whispering ghost stuff.
Lying in bed and thinking of you,
honouring some old agreement
with some deity of hope,
I do not even touch myself:
I lie awake, laid out like a corpse -
not really waiting;
hardly aware of slowly leaking breath;
not really thinking of the flesh
that I refused tonight.
(This is my body; this is my blood.)
Not in the mood for sacrament I was polite:
I’m sorry, my sweet stranger, not tonight.
In a fourth floor bed,
close to the February sky
(still far removed from Heaven)
I think of you and counting camels winking at me
with their needle eyes and locked or stolen bicycles:
small February fever stuff but then -
then the ceiling is a mirror,
made from splinters that I salvaged
from a thousand garbage-cans,
glued with blood from fingertips,
glued to the smoke of dreams -
and suddenly I feel breathtakingly alone.
Ghosts of Ice Age flowers
drip from night-dressed windows.
Sirens in the street proclaim the living
are still chasing the dead.
My heart won’t stop though - no,
not this time anyway.
The pubs are opening by now.
The Prinsengracht is as of yet deserted.
A February rain turns into snow:
a miracle as minor, as flesh and blood,
touched by religion;
the sky still low - no closer to Heaven.
If love was enough or wanting;
if words were enough or deeds;
if despair could be translated or distiled -
if love was enough or contagious…
(A dirge of crib death angels, melting on my window,
singing Adam’s blues: calling upon you.)
Dreaming’s not enough
and explanations only painful.
Faith is for all the tourists,
off to Heaven in a little row-boat.
Back to the city though that spawned me,
the only thing I know:
that I was born of woman,
there and then -
a mother who abandoned me at birth
and left me there,
to be picked up by strangers,
as if I had not happened.
Leaving me with nothing
but some questions:
Was she raped, or careless;
touched by incest or a stranger’s lure?
Stupid questions:
I will never know what happened.
Back to the city -
to this place of birth:
the only place I know is mine.
Not important in and of itself
but I like all symbols, all Hermetic stuff:
the roots I cannot claim.
Back to the city:
February feelings - Amsterdam a shell,
where memories I do not have
are like so many bicycles,
well locked or casually abandoned, stolen.
(At times not thinking is all that I can do.)
But still I can forgive -
if that’s not too presumptuous.
Even if I have no rights to judge
or to condemn, I do forgive;
even if that’s not enough,
but let’s get back to more demanding issues:
Lying in bed, watching my blood
working its way through cracks of mirrors I collected,
built from scrap.
Lying in bed, counting to nothing,
thinking of you -
thinking of you and Amsterdam,
I realise at last I have a choice of February symbols:
feeling locked out, lying abandoned -
or like these low skies slowly reach
and take my feeble chances
for some, almost forgotten
but soft-whispering need of Heaven.