The Smile of the Unvanquished

     (Dedicated to my lovely wife who's birthday is today) Silver lining slithering across a boulder-scattered landscape rapidly in a gluttonous delirium, without a sense of propriety, only the sense of its swollen thrust taken as compass, to drown in the ghastly cold waters of a tempestous sea. Shafts of blonde mystique slitting down the dismal billows quiescently in a beatific spray, far removed of false humility, no hiccups of gaunt adversary sways her determined stride, to dress up the shivering forlorn does of mankind in the gossamer embrace of hope.

Churchill's voice drowned, while rejoicing ranks of white horses with sinewy pride pranced toward the deserted beach; her smile took hold of them and immerse itself in their briny gleam; then, guided by two pearls of wintry lark, they hailed for the bewitching great beyond... her heartbeat and the rustling murmur of rolling waves in pure synchronicity, hers though lingers in remembrance: like crystalline drops falling from some height, where ice shivers from the touch of a warm breeze...

the harrowing sound of grit as it grinds its way through the narrow neck of the hourglass; blind and pitiless time digs its own grave - from a solitary dune, slowly sinking in the murmuring ripples of quicksand, waits like a young lapwing, the spirit for his sublime opportunity - gliding over the eddying thermals his wingspan carries him alongside the languishing mirages drawn upon a vacant canvas. though he renounces all enchantments and the burning flush in the groins which would asphyxiate him in the dust bath of his impermanence. indeed his calling lies beyond the gloss, past the dreaded entrails of entropy, there about where the north star beckons, and the horizon dances with fire.

From where the sun scorches the soil to gold dust, drawn by white horses over roiling cold waters, a silver needle plunged into rock hard bedding - as green blood was spilled, the morning star withdrew, the horizon blushed; dewed petals quenched their glumness with juvenile fire.  

met smartelijk geknars vliedt het gruis door de nauwe hals van de zandloper; blind en zonder erbarmen graaft de tijd haar eigen graf -- vanuit een eenzame duintop, langzaam zinkend in de ruisende rimpeling van het drijfzand, wacht als een jonge kievit, onze geest op het sublieme ogenblik - glijdend over de wervelende thermiek voert zijn vleugelspan hem langszij de ijdele smachten aftekenend op de hemelspiegel - maar hij verzaakt aan alle verleidingen en de roes dat brandt in zijn kruis en hem zou verstikken in de schilfers van zijn eigen vergankelijkheid. immers zijn roeping ligt voorbij de glans, doorheen alle kerkers, waar de poolster wenkt, en de horizon danst met vuur.

As I came across a contest to send in a haiku themed around sixties cult gothic soap opera ' Dark Shadows ', I set myself immediately up to the task and wrought a threesome of haikus. While used to write poems - in English, which is not my native language, which is Dutch - haikus demand a trifle more concentration and effort from me, and I am not sure whether I get the count of syllables correctly, as the way my Flemish ear hears and interprets them from spoken, might be entirely different to whom is English is his or her mothertongue.  The fey and rain-soaked atmosphere outside the kitchen window at this moment (I live in Scotland, my adopted new homestead) served my purpose and colours the mood found in these haikus which I had offered for the prize draw. The first one is serviceable but probably off the mark regarding the requirements of a haiku (a pseudo-haiku so-to-say), but all three together are now crafted anyway into a full-bodied poem of my own whims

Eyes wide open, drink from a gossamer pool of peaty light  timidly nibbling at the hem of flailing shadowy brutes: a night of grief rolls in over this cajoling pair - their language echoes the sigh of the sea, whimpering in vain against brooding shores.

Cornered by warfare and bloodshed all around him, a warrior caught between the heaving and bucketing of cringing and groaning, the ooze of anger and the whispers of bitter sorrow, in death troes, a butterfly fluttered by, dainty and oblivious of pain and horror. Gently it rests its fragile body in the heart of a flower, that survived the ploughed shattered earth, sickenly drunken by wafts of spilled blood,   the pungent acidity of brooding metal shells and organic débris . There it quells his thirst, sipping the rich nectar and flies off again; the warrior watched closely and moved unto the flower, snaps it from the stem to smell that dazzling sweet flagrance. At the moment of plucking, a bullitt seals his fate, the pump of life throbs towards a stop. Another carcass soon nourishing the roving insects and birds. The fragrance lingered on above the purulence of the decaying bodies for a while, before it melted away in the blustering rain that weeps down

life blossoms in soft tonalities, freed from the shackles of the ice queen; reed murmurs a lullaby, while the sun's glow transforms the surface of the egg. into a canvas of star shine. dew dances in the spicy velvet wind; the morning pours her joy out over a thirsty world.

a reverie heaves a sigh over the waters of forever like a cooling breeze by eventide; in the oily membrane of their hides a star dances bristling of inextinguishable desires until the midnight blue retires in the pits of the earth. the statue toppled from its socle, every memory evaporated in dried blood, and yet beyond our empress's shield, the fool mounts his miscarriages in an encadrement made of horn and gilding.

een gemijmer zucht als een koele avondbries over de wateren van de eeuwigheid; in de filmachtige weerspiegeling op dier huid danst een ster briesend van onblusbare verlangens totdat het nachtblauw zich terugtrekt in de holen van de aarde. het beeld omvergeworpen van de sokkel, elke herinnering verdampt in het opgedroogde bloed, en toch voorbij dat schild van onze keizerin, lijst de dwaas zijn falingen in een encadrement van hoorn en verguldsel. (will receive a suitable English translation anytime soon, but as the poem was initially conceived in Dutch, it deserves a post of its own)