It's all in the mind!

It's coming
from so far away
it's hard to say for sure
Whether what I hear is music or the wind thru an open door
There's a fire high in the empty sky where the sound meets the shore
There's a long distance loneliness
rolling out over the
desert floor

And the years
I spent lost in the mystery fall away
Leaving only the sound of the drum like a part of me
It speaks to the heart of me to forget what life used to be
You are what you choose to be
it's whatever it is
you see

That life
will become whatever it is you might think you have
You have nothing to lose
Through every dead & living thing time runs like a fuse
And the fuse is burning & the earth
is turning

Though the days
give way to uncertainty & the fear of living for nothing
Strangles the will: there's a part of me though sometimes it's hard to see
It's never far from me alive in eternity that nothing can kill
Oh Lord Are there really people
starving still?

Look
beyond the walls of Babylon
How long will their needs go unfilled?
I want to say right now I'm going to be around
When the walls & towers are tumbling down &
I will tune my spirit

To
the gentle sound:
I want to hear the sound of the waters
Lapping on a higher ground
of the children
laughing

Alone
in Petra
with the bedouins living in caves & shelters
Mountaingoats climbing up & down steep rocks
The sound of water indeed & the voices of children filling the air
Green pastures watered from Moses his well
where he struck
the rock

Aharon
is supposed to be buried there
Red rocks also yellows & brows & reds in endless shades
Temples cut out of the live rockfaces
Always water
flowing

When I took
my bath early in the morning of the first day of the week
In the rocky basin filled by the waterfall
Bedu came to take me down to the policestation of Elja just outside
Wadi Mussa: the uniformed men took off my headcover
& took the bedouin dagger

Searched
my rucksack
for nothing to find 'cause war broke out
The evening before that war started I walked thru the Sikq singing
HaTikva with dutch words: A word going thru the World:
Driving people on the move: Break up your tent
& Start on your
Journey

To find the land
I will show to you: Oh Lord we became Strangers
By listening to your Voice: bring us together with your countless Refugees
To the New
Jerusalem
...

The local Arabs
must have heard me singing of course
all the way

From Wadi Musa
to Petra thru the rift over countless stones under countless
Stars: just to go to sleep in the City of the Dead
Smoking one last Cigarette
So after some spitting & beating & kicking
to a Very Dirty Cell
in Ma'an

Next day
big Mercedes:
little blond me
inbetween two fat Armed Jordanians to Rabbat Ammon to be again Kicked Around by the Uniformed Officers
After they sent their Soldiers away (Anti-Nerves Kicking Games?)
Interned with Palestinians behind bars
for the Third Time

As Innocent
as a Newborn Baby I felt
After Some Time Aboe Jaber (the Dutch Honorary Consul) took me out of There into his Villa on Top of the Mountain with Roses in Bloom
I called my 2nd Son Elja (thought it to be Totally Original)
but it proved to

Be
the Name
also of the Policestation just outside Wadi Moessa I Discovered Much Later
That's the way lives get mixed up all together: Names & Places, Acts and
Coincidences, Willing & Unwilling, Guilty & Not being guilty
at the Same
Time

Coming back
to those places (camps, sites, rocks, rivers, people)
Memories stretching from the oldest to the newest cities & villages
Absolutely endless feelings, thoughts, actions & counter-actions as it were
ONE
& millions of years rolled
into this Temporary
Body & Mind

What's
it all about?
Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Is it wrong or fair?
And what happened to my hair? Growing longer
& stronger
...

Is there
anybody going to listen
to my story?

Nobody knows
the Troubles I've seen & nobody knows
my Sorrow
.......

The shy small
simple little boy Stayed Alive thru all those minefields
Borderlines: good & bad dreams alive in Eternity & spread over billions
Shukran Salaam Aleikum InshAllah
BishillahRahmanuRachiem
AllahuAkbar

dank je wel
en wees gegroet als god 't wil want die alleen is
goed & groter
dan alle andere vormen van leven tezamen
als 't ware de som van alle
Leven of Aarde
en Alle andere Planeten
met of zonder Afstammelingen van Apen,
Zoogdieren, Walvissen & Dolfijnen:
Alle Bommen &
Granaten

't ochtendlicht
laat op zich
wachten
...
ik ga Slapen,
ben zo Moe, sluit mijn Beide oogjes toe
laatste kuch moet slijten: 'k klink nu als een kudde geiten
heen & weer, op & neer klauterend
op stijle rotswanden

it's
all in
the
mind
...