Even Now

Horizon

The horizon is the language, the language I am

expected to share

with the mutilated child,

the youth who’s become a soldier,

so proud of his boots,

the greybeard with his ripped bowels

in his arms.

It rains phosphorus and sirens.

The voices of my country,

mostly in the television.

Murderous families.

A criminal chorus.

And the blood-slurping gods all around.

Our Century

In my youth: smudges, curls

gouges

After my youth: coloured shadows

rusted, scorched

something like a past

written down, photocopied, enlarged

primary colours

— the reeds disobedient—

soot

hay

prickly or smothered in asphalt

Since my youth: salt and wind

Splinters in distant boats

It’s our century

It remains our youth

No better way to

waste it

than surrounded by fingers of grass,

lightning bolts in snow-covered

gardens

Norm

No other expectation—

No assault

No shadow of an offence

The revulsion resounds

up to the last

desecrated song

Imbalance as the norm

Swimming or flying

In nature

with its splotches and rags

Rehearsal

I wish I was dead.

Like forty-five per cent

of Belgians

I have no one

“Because you never invested

in love, sweetie”

I begin

Continue

Sodium thiopental

There, you’re almost unconscious

Then pancuronium bromide

Your lungs fail

Then potassium chloride

And your heart stops

I’ll never remember all that

Eris

There is sorrow’s rubbish

art’s obscene charter

always somewhere always elsewhere.

There is Eris who wanders

on blood-stained feet

searching the thirsty grass

for the bodies of my friends.

When you see her it’s too late.

Die while you, like always,

are saying your hellos.