ENGLISH
Listen to the painters (2003)
The quiet beach (2014)
A free body (2014)
The bus is late (2015)
Osorio 1 (2015)
Tour dogs (2016)
Up to eleven (2019)
This is the day (2019)
Medicine (2020)
NEDERLANDS
Gelukkig (2010)
Bericht uit Beijing (2011)
Denk ik aan Johnny van Doorn (2013)
Jouw zomer daar (2021)
De dagen hier zijn niets
de ketting van m’n fiets
een teentje waar een voet op stond
een beetje in de zon gezond
naar de blauwe lucht gekeken
die schapewolk geen boek gebleken
duf drankje op een dakterras
een boodschap in een plastic tas
De krant?
de tour?
de rest?
geen moer
Het glas nu leeg
het hoofd nog dol
en ook nog een of ander
hart op hol
Die nacht als in een droom vergleden
en dan? weer zien? misschien? een ander heden?
ondertussen wordt er heel geleidelijk geleden…
ik ben hier en jij verleden
tijd
is relatief
En toch,
het opent perspectief
ikke dinges
vinje lief
Jouw zomer daar
en de mijne hier,
maar lang niet slecht
zo’n allereerste kier
6-2-9
the cat drank wine
but will that be enough
before making love
to a porcupine
5–2-8
the dog ate cake
or is he lead by the nose
shouldn’t get too close
with a rattle-snake
4-2-7
here’s hog heaven
I’m heading for the bog
gonna kiss a frog
on cloud nine
ten
eleven
Almost everything I have
used to make me feel ashamed:
my job, my flat, my friends,
and my name
the bicycle I got from my brother
the presents I got from my mother
But now that my father is hanging on,
hanging on five tubes,
and now that his hoarse mouth
speaks of adieu,
my shame squats in a corner
now my shame squats in a corner
He died the way he drove his car
calm, controlled, correct might be the word
looking bravely at the road
jumping the lights he considered to be illogically absurd
Absurd, how everything I still wanted to say
has slipped away under the wheels of time :
the presence of my mother
the bicycle of my brother
my father in his suit . . .
And so I say adieu
with everything I have
and I’m looking at the road
calm and controlled?
correct
(Based on a poem by Menno Wigman)
I speak of thoughts that cross my mind:
the world is chaos, unconfined;
she moves around, and round she goes
like flames around a firehose
I never thought that I could sleep
among firm flocks of sheepish sheep
and yet I’d join the sick poor souls
to wake and watch the world go whole
Medicine . . .
What do I want in these sickbays
primed with monitored medals?
How does it feel to be losing your health?
If I put new spurs on my boots,
expose my profile
reeking of facebooks, twitters, and death,
pampered with sneers and smears of bullshit lies
coughed up in criminal companies,
arsonic arcades,
ballistics’ statistics,
bureaucratic cesspits,
war rooms?
Medicine . . .
I would rather throw my body from the chair,
tied to a table in a fastfood diner;
rather go shit my pants
in front of family on prime-time tv
rather laud rotten vegetables
with hobnob fries and make-believe pie
rather,
stuffed like a cooked goose in France
dressed as a sitting duck in Disneyland
hung on a nail in Christie’s
sliced extra at the Worldwide Bake-Off
taught how to ski jump with Eddie the Eagle,
resurrected in 1988 somewhere on Calgary Hill,
than come down roaring
in a blaze of violence,
filth,
and villainy
Medicine . . .
(Action Beat + G.W. Sok in the USA)
Special delivery straight from heavenly hell…
that is: New York, Philly, Washington DC,
Baltimore, Richmond, Charlotte, Winston-Salem,
Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans,
Houston, Austin, Dallas… that’s us, fellas…
traveling around in the Underground Scenery of
Anothermerica
One drummer missing, arrested in the UK,
tour hasn’t even started yet…
then sun blasts, heavy rains,
and a series of seriously troubled vans
long drives, short drives… and all the time
loading in, loading out, waiting, soundcheck, playtime…
yes food, no food, fast food, slow food…
yes sleep no sleep, roads roads roads and MORE roads…
One troubled van now unsurprisingly unsurrealistically
fucked up…
think fast, think not, burn rubber, on the double
one apartment, one floor, seven bodies, and dogbeds,
two sleeping-bags, and one family flee couch…
juice, water, beer, weed, coffee, “coffee”…
bagel, burger, donut, diner…
Smelly clothes, a stolen backpack,
occasional showers, a van-change, a smelly shirt change
one guitarist heading home, due to family illness…
and then there were six…
and too much change in the pocket, fuck it
a traffic jam? terrific man
and meanwhile trouble in the US of A
a certain kind of malice
in Atlanta, Baton Rouge, Dallas…
we’re just passing through, though, but we’re concerned,
and worried,
and so are the people we meet
and yes, this music IS bringing us together…
for worse, or better… rough, hypnotic, jagged
a noisy, chaotic, vital racket…
with sometimes even louder miles per hour…
who cares, hurray… hear! hear!… and we’re only HALFWAY here…
and so, what’s left?… right!
Kansas City, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Binghamton,
Portland, Boston, Providence…
unlock your ears, and hear it come,
for here it comes…
the amazing noise
of the Bletchley Boys…
Tour dogs!
(misprint, baby:
tour gods…)
—2016
It seems your name is light
you thought you knew your father
then one dark day you’d find
he might have been another
Meanwhile on the Plaza
the gathering of mothers
circling, searching, still, for
husbands, sons, and brothers
This past, a pack of dogs
it chased the future out of sight
shadowing the day, but hey
come what may, your name is light
—2015
The bus is late
I’m not surprised
the rain is wet
and supersized
the night is grey
I know the score
the rose is red
just like before
The wind is cold
the queue is slow
I’m still patient
but go go go
the door is jammed
my coat is stuck
the driver’s deaf
well, just my luck
The light is green
the light is red
the light is o . . .
oh no, too bad
the car’s been hit
I’m black and blue
the rose, it snapped
I think of you
I’m in the bus
it’s full of doubt
the road is where
the light’s gone out
the bus is late
and off you went —
The bus is late?
and off you went?
again I see
no happy end
—2015