enkhuizen railway station

utopia

Island where all becomes clear.

Solid ground beneath your feet.

The only roads are those that offer access.

Bushes bend beneath the weight of proofs.

The Tree of Valid Supposition grows here

with branches disentangled since time immermorial.

The Tree of Understanding, dazzling staight and simple.

sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It.

The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista:

the Valley of Obviously.

If any doubts arise, the wind dispels them instantly.

Echoes stir unsummoned

and eagerly explain all the secrets of the worlds.

On the right a cave where Meaning lies.

On the left the Lake of Deep Conviction.

Truth breaks from the bottom and bobs to the surface.

Unshakable Confidence towers over the valley.

Its peak offers an excellent view of the Essence of Things.

For all its charms, the island is uninhabited,

and the faint footprints scattered on its beaches

turn without exception to the sea.

As if all you can do here is leave

and plunge, never to return, into the depths.

Into unfathomable life.

-Wislawa Szymborska, 1976-

(Poland, translation Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

strandvondst (4)

scheveningen sunset

ansichtinzicht (2)

competence

Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

- Laurence J. Peter, 1969-

skarvheimen sunset

scheveningen (8)

-Heinrich Heine, 1827-

een mens om van te houden

Zijn oude ziel
draagt hij lachend
onder de arm.
Maar niet als clown.

Rimpels van verdriet
gladstrijkend
dartelt hij,
onbevangen kind,
verwonderd
door de wereld
zijn liefdedaden
aan de man brengend.

-Anna Vali, 1977-

solitude (3)

Words are a net;
Feeling, the water escapes through the meshes
I fish for silence.

-Ronald Duncan, 1961 (no 27 from The Solitudes)-

utrecht railway station

torngats sunset

language

There are no handles upon a language
Whereby men take hold of it
And mark it with signs for its remembrance.
It is a river, this language,
Once in a thousand years
Breaking a new course
Changing its way to the ocean.
It is mountain effluvia
Moving to valleys
And from nation to nation
Crossing borders and mixing.
Languages die like rivers.
Words wrapped round your tongue today
And broken to shape of thought
Between your teeth and lips speaking
Now and today
Shall be faded hieroglyphics
Ten thousand years from now.
Sing—and singing—remember
Your song dies and changes
And is not here tomorrow
Any more than the wind
Blowing ten thousand years ago.

-Carl Sandburg, 1916-

dinner (5)

romanesco they calls it

(but it looks likes a christmas tree, doesn't it? and it tastes just like cauliflower)

still picture

problem?

 

toothpaste for dinner

well-known quote:

if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem

is a paraphrase of:

you're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem

-Eldridge Cleaver, 1968-

full blown rose

twenty days old rose

meeting

It is the dead of night,

The long dead look out towards
The new dead
Walking towards them

There is a soft heartbeat
As the dead embrace
Those who are long dead
And those of the new dead
Walking towards them

They cry and they kiss
As they meet again
For the first and last time

-Harold Pinter, 2002-

scheveningen (7)

rozeschijn

 

        en vandaag is het de elfde
        en hij is precies hetzelfde,

        als de twaalfde of de tiende
        ik kreeg wat ik verdiende

        rozegeur, maneschijn

        rozegeur, maneschijn,

        roze schijn.

-Rob Chrispijn, 1970 (liedtekst voor Herman van Veen)-

19:20, the cat train ...

 

... is ready for departure

destination: a long night

...en dat is honderd

strandvondst (3)

on secrets

How can you expect somebody to keep a secret if you can't keep it yourself?

or, in other words

If you wish another to keep your secret, keep it to yourself.

scheveningen (6)

woordeloos

Terwijl die waarheid klaarder skyn
sal die getye ons nerfkaal stroop,
afsigtelikheid kom reeds in sig.
Al wat ek vra
al wat ek hoop
is om, wanneer my brein te voos
word om met woordvernuf die pyn
en dorheid óm te dig,
dit te verdra
hoe ook al, woordeloos.

-Elisabeth Eybers, 1982-

ansichtinzicht

a rose is still a rose

same rose, one week later

een poes

een poes

is een gedicht

op pootjes

-Ronald van der Spiegel, 2008-

on science

The great tragedy of science:
the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

-Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895)-

he was...

...returning to the land where every boy 

forced into bravery and quickness retreats: a new life.

-Bret Easton Ellis, Lunar Park, 2005-