awaking to a dream...

I dreamt about a cellar door cracked open and a dim light shining into a dark hallway. I opened the door and I walked down the stairs. Old bare wood stairs, I could feel the grain with my bare feet. I was wearing old jeans and a white t-shirt and I was young. I realized it then as I walked. I realized also that the light drawing me at the bottom was flickering. A candle was burning in the cellar and it's shadows were many and motioned me forward.
I reached the bottom and there, among the cans of paint and nails, the old radio and typewriter, various tools, there sat a small table. The candle was in a dish on that table and my grandfather, whom I hadn't seen in many years, sat in a chair next to it. Rocking back and forth, he wore slippers and a gray robe imported from some asian country. He was eating grapes and offered me one. I took it and put it in my mouth, feeling it's smooth round shape before splitting it in half with my teeth, lengthwise. I savored the soft meat and sweet juice.
Then I smiled at him and he smiled back. "What are you doing here grandpa?" I asked, 'it's cold."
"I was waiting for you," he answered and I realized that I hadn't thought about him for a long time. I looked at his hair, thin and gray and parted at the side. His shoulders, broad and uneven. He seemed thicker than I remembered him being. Maybe younger perhaps as well, but death does that to people.
"You've been waiting a long time haven't you," I said. He nodded, smiling. I said, "I'm sorry."
"It's alright," he said. I stood there in the cellar looking at him and felt sad. All the things he didn't see and wouldn't see. I wanted to thank him for everything he said to me and every wet kiss he gave me and the trains and breakfasts. I wanted to tell him that he was the reason for my passions in many ways and that I wanted nothing more than to read every word he ever wrote. I wanted to tell him how many lives I realized he touched and how I wanted to touch people that way. I looked at him and he looked at me and then he spoke: "I am proud of you Pieter. You wondered once to yourself if I would be proud of who you have become, and I am. I wanted to tell you that."
And then he was gone. I stood in the dark cellar by myself and I heard what sounded like raindrops. I looked out the small windows near the ceiling and realized that the world outside was on fire.

What if...

"I hear the divine"
August 2004

I hear the divine.
His raspy cough.
Emphysema, leukemia, and who knows what else.
I touch the divine.
His wrinkles and stretched skin.
Oily hair.
I see the divine.
The stains on the knees of his trousers.
The big toe poking out his torn sneakers.
The lice infested hair.
I smell the divine.
Piss and wine and rotting teeth.
The perfume of countless dumpsters.
I taste the divine.
The warm saliva that seeps out the glands in my mouth.
I breathe deeply off to the side.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
Not the threat of tears but the threat of vomit.

"Life Passes"

"Life Passes"
September 2004

If you turn your head fast enough
the passing cars seem to
hold still for a moment
in suspended movement.
A boy discovers this and plays games;
traces the outlines of passing hills
with his fingertip,
left eye closed.
The world is outlines and images.
Shapes.
Movements frozen between periods
of thoughtless involvement in things not understood.
Not needing to be.
His father drives;
watches the lane dividers,
road signs, brake lights.
Life passes one mile marker at a time
and he wonders into the rearview mirror
when life stopped carrying him,
as he watches his son
squint out the window,
his finger slowly rising and falling.

Train rides....

"Trains and Memories"
March 2004

Long train rides through new countries
with rivers and fields and gothic cathedrals
I fall asleep to the low metallic rumble
and awake to a sharp hiss as we
go through a tunnel and I look up
smiling silenty at the girl I think
I now love this red haired girl
with those sharp blue beautiful eyes and
that smooth and sensitive soft white skin I
think I'm still so childish but with her
I'm so much more and feel so much
more like I'm changing but I don't know
how completely but it's good and it's permanent
her friend and mind be default is still sleeping
so we're alone in this crowded train just
staring at eachother smiling until she looks away
and I knew when I loved her
in Ireland in that Irish rain
that I thought should be green
but wasn't as I smoked alone
on a bench while she slept inside and
I wonder what will happen when we get back
and we've had this great new experience
together as I talk and try to remember
this trip with other friends a month later
in a crowded room later with pictures
and laughs and drinks and stories
and I find her and she smiles at me
trying but all I remember is that
Irish rain and how her red hair
looked wet and felt beautiful as I
brushed it back to see once again
those sharp blue eyes
and we smile at eachother
alone in this crowded train.

-Pieter

....interesting how things change so much in a year....but i guess poetry is sometimes a record of a life, the good and the bad...and that makes it beautiful.

Another poem...

My favorite season...

"She is Autumn"
August 2004

In the last days of Autumn
my heart would swell
with a song, a shape
a laugh or a dance.
In the leaves like rain
the rain like leaves
in the sky I viewed
so happily gray.
Gray with the rain that washed
away so happily the world's dirt,
the world's sweat,
the world's hurt...
About what's to come,
what's been done
and I laughed.
I sat.
I walked in the rain.
Through the woods
the gardens, the roads,
because they were beautiful
and she was and she is.
Autumn...
her kiss is the flutter of leaves.
Autumn and her sharp
crisp change.
With her coming sister
she begins the end
of a year, an age,
a life and it's song.

Not sure about this one anymore....too cheezy?

You were lost, or I was...

Where have you been child? While I have been here, in this filthy city. I looked for you but could not find you. I walked and prayed for your return. I crossed an entire country because I thought that maybe I had left you behind somewhere far away. Maybe on some previous journey. Or maybe I felt that if I left my worries you would find me, and we could move on together. I didn't know what drove you away or if I even needed you still. Maybe this was just a part of life's process, but it all happened so suddenly and expectedly. I had no choice but to look.
I realized later that I didn't drive you off. Leaving wasn't even a choice you made. You just didn't recognize me anymore and became lost yourself. I wept once, picturing you wandering these dirty dark streets alone. Looking for me. Maybe you would even follow me at times, thinking I resembled that man that you wanted to be. The man who once guarded and grew your hopes and dreams. After a while I lost you completely though, and you lost me.
But someone watched over you while I was away and we were separated and I am grateful for that. And when I was at my worst. When I had been wounded the deepest and realized that you were what I was missing, we were reunited and I finally realized who you were and why I needed you. You were wounded too I think because you are quieter and somehow sad in your own way. But you're my anchor in this stirred sea. My compass in this wilderness and I know that I can do nothing good without you and that the closer I am to being you, the better we both are. We can become who we were meant to be. Who we both dreamed of being.