CAST A SILENCE
(Poland/ The Netherlands, The Hague - October 22nd 2018)
I waited too long to discover the weakness inside
and the hatred became part of me now
The day comes that I cast a silence on your head
as my head will roll down the scaffold of your plans
My cry is a last call to warn those
who trade work and exploit my people for little to nothing
So I lit the candle to my face
to wash off and burn away the scars of my family.
I have to.
I do grind - I do slog
I do sweat - I do please
I process - I persist
I refuse - to decline
I do risk - I do bleed
I do crouch - I do crawl
I process - I persist
I refuse - to decline
No second thought
Can you hear my violent eyes
Can you see my silent cries
Do I really put a spark to the flame
The Partisan
(France 1943)
When they poured across the border
I was cautioned to surrender
This I could not do
I took my gun and vanished.
I have changed my name so often
I've lost my wife and children
But I have many friends
And some of them are with me
An old woman gave us shelter
Kept us hidden in the garret
Then the soldiers came
She died without a whisper
There were three of us this morning
I'm the only one this evening
But I must go on
The frontiers are my prison
Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing
Through the graves the wind is blowing
Freedom soon will come
Then we'll come from the shadows
HUMANITY WASHED ASHORE - The Zanclean Flood
(Mediterranean Sea - September 2nd 2015)
Throw your little hands
in the ocean and swim
to the yearning light
Don’t touch the bottom but crawl
Throw your arms deep in the water
Boy from Babylon
The Zanclean Flood is throwing
bodies upon our shores
Humanity washed ashore
Breathe and break through this blackened blue
Where the open arms are waiting for you
Rest your little hands in the waves
and speak like them
to the lighting dreams
Don’t touch the bottom but kick
Until the water becomes butter
Boy from Babylon\
The Zanclean Flood is throwing
children on our shores
NIMBY
I got a school full of kids playing running around.
I got twenty miles of asphalt here to pave your town.
I got a village full of boomers morally shifted their minds
I got some populist leaders crossing over the lines
Empathize. Realize. Sympathize
.
I got a truck full of fugitives who try to survive
I got religious neighbors praying 9 to 5
I got some fellow countrymen in need for a house
I got a million richass people
with too much time to kill
and way too much money
looking for a purpose
destroying my backyard
HUMANITY WASHED ASHORE
The Zanclean Flood
(Mediterranean Sea - September 2nd 2015)
Throw your little hands
in the ocean and swim
to the yearning light
Don’t touch the bottom but crawl
Throw your arms deep in the water
Boy from Babylon
The Zanclean Flood is throwing
bodies upon our shores
Humanity washed ashore
Breathe and break through this blackened blue
Where the open arms are waiting for you
Rest your little hands in the waves
and speak like them
to the lighting dreams
Don’t touch the bottom but kick
Until the water becomes butter
Boy from Babylon\
The Zanclean Flood is throwing
children on our shores
HANDS ON MY FACE
(Theatre Square 1, Mariupol, March 16th 2022)
I fear the night that covers me
As I will wear the warmth of you
I can’t breath in such ominous spaces
As the sky rips to a blackened view
I read this room as I read my reflections
The loving arms of the streets I knew
I want to crawl to other dimensions
To end up roaming in a timeless embrace
But I can’t see into the nearest distance
Get these hands off my face
And as the shells are eagerly raining
We hear the wolves on the street cry out
They sing aloud to the thunder looming
And to prevent for the clouds to be plowed
I swallow tears of this city my love
To shed the skin of its historical weight
The curtain falls but I don’t let go
Just put your hands on my face
STRANGE TEETH
(London, March 2003)
There are strange teeth
growing in my stomach
that bite both the hands and the veins
that feed off and put me in a coma
that drives me -the thoughts- insane
There are deep cuts
lurking in the shadows
that could slice off the body from the brain
that could drag me and makes me the owner
of what I created to blame
Is there a proper way to stop
to cut this chronic nerve pain
to keep the body intact to quit
this wrecking hate campaign
Never to buy a lie
There are strange teeth
growing in my stomach
that feast on the marrow of the bones
that travel down the lungs and the liver
that melt my blood to stone
Can you feel my teeth
Don’t buy that lie - A black hole
Touch the spine - A stranglehold
Read the signs - And behold
The moral’s gone - And so are mine
OUR BEHEADED COUNTRY
(The Netherlands, The Hague - May 13th 1619)
Don’t we belong into
the arms that hold us strong
I fell to the sky
a lifetime dethroned
Waiting, reeling, drifting down the corner into
nothing, quiet I feel I’m at mercy to the
rabble, that fears that venges on the ghost of our
resilience, that cracked our inviolability
.
Waiting, alone. The verdict was an insult to my
allegiance and trust I touched the wheel to roll it down
cold science, betrayal in the first degree
I’m stunned, confused. Waiting for the morning.
Death will come
My name endures
The voices that embrace me
will translate to the next
generation willing to
not silent to progress
Underneath this iron sky
a blade is on the throat
of this nation, vulnerable.
The storyline unfolds.
I´m ready. Tense. My loyalty was a virtue I have
sold, too cheap to people that invited me to their
royal drama. This role-play really suits me, but this
clothing; they choke me. Strangling until it brings me down.
My death will give me wings and these wings of time will carry
My story of sincerity. I´ve always served my country
The noise is falling silent now
as I´m climbing up the scaffold
No fear remaining in my veins just
Please make it short
CAST A SILENCE
(Poland/ The Netherlands, The Hague - October 22nd 2018)
I waited too long to discover the weakness inside
and the hatred became part of me now
The day comes that I cast a silence on your head
as my head will roll down the scaffold of your plans
My cry is a last call to warn those
who trade work and exploit my people for little to nothing
So I lit the candle to my face
to wash off and burn away the scars of my family.
I have to.
I do grind - I do slog
I do sweat - I do please
I process - I persist
I refuse - to decline
I do risk - I do bleed
I do crouch - I do crawl
I process - I persist
I refuse - to decline
No second thought
Can you hear my violent eyes
Can you see my silent cries
Do I really put a spark to the flame
EUROGRAD
A skyline filled with forget
Neon lights and bodies to sweat.
A nervy vapor swells in the air
And I can see no difference
between what is new
and the old town streets
Once offering their grace to strangers
This city tells her stories by offloading shame
and expectations as high as the aspiring watchtowers
And from all directions the light keeps rolling in
like ships harboring their treasures
and ancient wisdom from overseas
north, south, east, west
we do forgive, we do forget
And I like to see
which skin she is going to shed
I can see skyscrapers high
The walls, concrete fences stacked up, pinched around
Raw and blunt, between these bricks
And I don’t feel I can relate
Do we crave. Do we pave a template for tyranny
And I foresee the borders shake
A testament of an old brigade
And I cry. And I know I will renegade.
Do we crave. Do we pave a template for tyranny
This city leaves me speechless
And I will not leave breathless
Do we gather in European brightness
Do we linger in European darkness
THE MELTING BODY
(Berlin 1940-1945 - in memory of Marie Jalowicz Simon)
Like the moon fell out the sky
I waited until the morrow kneeled
I’d love to run away, hide away
And I feel longing
And all these warnings
All feel like they deny me
Tainted soul
The will to wonder
leaves me starsailing
I’d like to find out if I’d been cut in two
Better than to feel locked inside
I want to vaporize
through my words
I want to crystallize
end up in salt