Evenings of Certain Lives

                                                  I

You don’t need always to be scrubbing the tiles, Hendrickje,

my eye drinks itself,

drinks itself to death—

but other drink is in short supply—

the little Buddha there,

Chinese grove god

in exchange for a ladleful of Hulstkamp,

please!

Never painted anything

in frost-white or ice-skater blue

or that Irish green

in which the purple shimmers through—

always my own monotone,

my compulsion to shadows—

not pleasant

to pursue that path so clearly.

Greatness—where?

I pick up the slate-pencil and certain things appear

on paper or canvas

or whatever the heck else—

result: Buddha bronze hocked for booze—

but I draw the line at homage under ornamental plants,

banquet of the painters’ guild—

something for the boardroom!

...Creaking,

little sheep squeaking, chromotypes

Flemish, Rubensish—

for the grandchildren

(same idiots!)

Ah—Hulstkamp,

hits the spot,

midpoint of colors,

my shadow brown,

stubble aura around heart and eye—

                                                 II

The blocked chimney smokes

—the Swan of Avon blows his nose—

the tree stumps are wet,

clammy night, emptiness mingled with draft—

enough characters,

the world is overpopulated as it is,

plentiful peach-fall, four rosebuds

per annum—

asperged,

set to tread the boards

by this hand,

grown wrinkled

and with sluggish veins!

All the Juliets and Ophelias,

wreathed, silvered, sometimes murderous—

all the soft mouths, the sighs

I extracted from them—

the original actresses long since turned to smoke,

rust, leeched dry, rats’ pudding—

Ariel too, away with the elements.

The age takes off its frockcoat.

These lousy skulls of lords,

their trains of thought

that I pushed into extremes—

my lords makers of history

all of them crowned and sceptered illiterates,

great powers of the cosmos—

yes, like so many bats or kites!

Sir Goon wrote to me lately:

“the rest is silence”—

I think that’s one of mine,

could only be mine,

Dante dead—lacuna

of centuries

to my logomachic quotes—

what if they didn’t exist,

the booty never brought to light,

the booths, the scaffolds, the cymbals

never clashed—

gaps? Gap teeth maybe,

but the great monkey jaws

would grind on

emptiness, mingled with draft—

the tree stumps are wet

and the butler snores in porter dreams.