Poem
Maarten van der Graaff
LIST OF CIVIC SONGS
Tonight I want to talk to a fascist.By soft light and beer, on Europe
and on bosses, the bosses of bosses.
It will be like we’re in a saloon,
the food and drink of an underwater city.
And in the twilight, in each other’s lust
we will see Europe and know that something old
has been taken from us.
I eat in front of the television. I am the citizen of a state,
eat a microwave meal, watch a rerun of Frasier.
It is my duty to eat the sausage and lick clean the gravy tray.
Online I read a polemic essay that I once wrote
and despise the petty style, the calculation.
Suddenly I understand I’m not waiting for the future
and that I left both God,
my family, the soul that housed inside me.
What do I register?
No longing or dreams of home,
but giddiness, rage, dead politics.
I hate this mutilation and I hate the future.
I am a mineral fact,
surrounded by brothers and sisters.
I am the parasite of a murky thing.
Brothers and sisters surround me
and I startle awake from a drunken sleep.
I sit on the night bus and see the moon
above the fields of Flakkee.
Agricultural sector, I worked in you
and now I am far away from your gruesome beauty,
which is accessible through workplace
romance on the night bus, but in no other way.
And yet I enjoyed the corporality
of husking bulbs and deadheading tulips.
Still, it isn’t my job, I don’t have to do it.
I have observed the biotopes of knowledge
and upwardly mobile is what I’ve become.
My body was my summer job,
and now I am creative.
From obliviousness I awake on Flakkee, gloomy island,
where first I was a religious masochist
and later sought the spirit of humanity.
Now the moon stands over the fields in its own gleaming
and I contemplate my ideas, that are dead.
My semblance in Stad aan ‘t Haringvliet.
What is going on here?
It is all cast in the glow of the private,
but the Haringvliet estuary speaks to me
in different ways.
Club life has stagnated.
Houses and lampposts cool down.
There is no one on the football field.
I take my place on the centre spot
and see the lines.
I wrote a poem about taking a shower
after the game.
About our white boyhood bodies,
our homophobia.
The bodies of my team members
were my source of information.
Memories of something collective.
And now what?
LIJST MET CIVIELE LIEDEREN
LIJST MET CIVIELE LIEDEREN
Vanavond wil ik praten met een fascist.Bij zwak licht en bier, over Europa
en over bazen, de bazen van bazen.
Het zal zijn of we in een saloon zitten,
het gelag van een onderwaterstad.
En in het halfduister, in elkaars begeerte
zullen we Europa zien en weten dat er iets ouds
van ons is afgenomen.
Ik eet voor de televisie. Ik ben burger van een staat,
eet magnetronboerenkool, kijk naar een herhaling van Frasier.
Het is mijn plicht de worst te eten en het jusbakje leeg te drinken.
Online lees ik een polemisch stuk, dat ik ooit schreef,
en walg van het stijltje, de berekening.
Opeens begrijp ik dat ik niet op de toekomst wacht
en dat ik wegging bij God,
mijn familie, de ziel die in mij huisde.
Wat registreer ik?
Geen heimwee of dromen van thuis,
maar suizeling, woede, dode politiek.
Ik haat dit verminkte en ik haat de toekomst.
Ik ben een minerale waarheid,
omringd door zusters en broeders.
Ik ben de parasiet van een duister ding.
Door broeders en zusters ben ik omringd
en schrik wakker uit een dronken slaap.
Ik zit in de nachtbus en zie de maan
boven de akkers van Flakkee.
Agrarische sector, ik werkte in je
en nu ben ik ver weg van je grimmige schoonheid,
die door werkromantiek in een nachtbus
toegankelijk is en anders niet.
Toch genoot ik van de lichamelijkheid
van bollen pellen en tulpen koppen.
Maar het is mijn werk niet, ik hoef het niet te doen.
Ik heb de biotopen van de kennis gezien
en opwaarts ben ik mobiel geworden.
Mijn lichaam was mijn zomerbaan,
nu ben ik creatief.
Uit onbewustheid word ik wakker op Flakkee, somber eiland,
waar ik eerst een religieuze masochist was
en later naar de geest van de mensheid zocht.
Nu staat de maan boven de akkers in haar eigen afglans
en denk ik aan mijn ideeën, die dood zijn.
Mijn gedaante in Stad aan ’t Haringvliet.
Wat is hier aan de hand?
Over alles ligt de gloed van het private,
maar Stad aan ’t Haringvliet wil mij
iets anders zeggen.
Het verenigingsleven ligt stil.
Huizen en lantaarnpalen koelen af.
Er is niemand op het voetbalveld.
Ik neem plaats op de middenstip
en zie de lijnen.
Over het douchen na de wedstrijd
schreef ik een gedicht.
Over onze witte jongenslichamen,
onze homofobie.
De lichamen van mijn teamgenoten
waren mijn informatie.
Herinneringen aan iets collectiefs.
En wat nu?
From: Dood werk
Publisher: Atlas Contact, Amsterdam
Publisher: Atlas Contact, Amsterdam
Poems
Poems of Maarten van der Graaff
Close
LIST OF CIVIC SONGS
Tonight I want to talk to a fascist.By soft light and beer, on Europe
and on bosses, the bosses of bosses.
It will be like we’re in a saloon,
the food and drink of an underwater city.
And in the twilight, in each other’s lust
we will see Europe and know that something old
has been taken from us.
I eat in front of the television. I am the citizen of a state,
eat a microwave meal, watch a rerun of Frasier.
It is my duty to eat the sausage and lick clean the gravy tray.
Online I read a polemic essay that I once wrote
and despise the petty style, the calculation.
Suddenly I understand I’m not waiting for the future
and that I left both God,
my family, the soul that housed inside me.
What do I register?
No longing or dreams of home,
but giddiness, rage, dead politics.
I hate this mutilation and I hate the future.
I am a mineral fact,
surrounded by brothers and sisters.
I am the parasite of a murky thing.
Brothers and sisters surround me
and I startle awake from a drunken sleep.
I sit on the night bus and see the moon
above the fields of Flakkee.
Agricultural sector, I worked in you
and now I am far away from your gruesome beauty,
which is accessible through workplace
romance on the night bus, but in no other way.
And yet I enjoyed the corporality
of husking bulbs and deadheading tulips.
Still, it isn’t my job, I don’t have to do it.
I have observed the biotopes of knowledge
and upwardly mobile is what I’ve become.
My body was my summer job,
and now I am creative.
From obliviousness I awake on Flakkee, gloomy island,
where first I was a religious masochist
and later sought the spirit of humanity.
Now the moon stands over the fields in its own gleaming
and I contemplate my ideas, that are dead.
My semblance in Stad aan ‘t Haringvliet.
What is going on here?
It is all cast in the glow of the private,
but the Haringvliet estuary speaks to me
in different ways.
Club life has stagnated.
Houses and lampposts cool down.
There is no one on the football field.
I take my place on the centre spot
and see the lines.
I wrote a poem about taking a shower
after the game.
About our white boyhood bodies,
our homophobia.
The bodies of my team members
were my source of information.
Memories of something collective.
And now what?
From: Dood werk
LIST OF CIVIC SONGS
Tonight I want to talk to a fascist.By soft light and beer, on Europe
and on bosses, the bosses of bosses.
It will be like we’re in a saloon,
the food and drink of an underwater city.
And in the twilight, in each other’s lust
we will see Europe and know that something old
has been taken from us.
I eat in front of the television. I am the citizen of a state,
eat a microwave meal, watch a rerun of Frasier.
It is my duty to eat the sausage and lick clean the gravy tray.
Online I read a polemic essay that I once wrote
and despise the petty style, the calculation.
Suddenly I understand I’m not waiting for the future
and that I left both God,
my family, the soul that housed inside me.
What do I register?
No longing or dreams of home,
but giddiness, rage, dead politics.
I hate this mutilation and I hate the future.
I am a mineral fact,
surrounded by brothers and sisters.
I am the parasite of a murky thing.
Brothers and sisters surround me
and I startle awake from a drunken sleep.
I sit on the night bus and see the moon
above the fields of Flakkee.
Agricultural sector, I worked in you
and now I am far away from your gruesome beauty,
which is accessible through workplace
romance on the night bus, but in no other way.
And yet I enjoyed the corporality
of husking bulbs and deadheading tulips.
Still, it isn’t my job, I don’t have to do it.
I have observed the biotopes of knowledge
and upwardly mobile is what I’ve become.
My body was my summer job,
and now I am creative.
From obliviousness I awake on Flakkee, gloomy island,
where first I was a religious masochist
and later sought the spirit of humanity.
Now the moon stands over the fields in its own gleaming
and I contemplate my ideas, that are dead.
My semblance in Stad aan ‘t Haringvliet.
What is going on here?
It is all cast in the glow of the private,
but the Haringvliet estuary speaks to me
in different ways.
Club life has stagnated.
Houses and lampposts cool down.
There is no one on the football field.
I take my place on the centre spot
and see the lines.
I wrote a poem about taking a shower
after the game.
About our white boyhood bodies,
our homophobia.
The bodies of my team members
were my source of information.
Memories of something collective.
And now what?
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