Jan De Raeymaeker Poems

Don't talk of graves at your tender age

Not until your rickety rack is a trembling wreck
Till your white-film eyes are all but blind
...

He's sitting awkwardly, set aside
Dirty hands holding one stained leg
Grey beard grown to a point
Wide-brimmed flat-cap anointing his head
...

So old these grey bones; so old, and so alone
Shrugging loose their soiled coat

To dip the salt caress, its wet brush
...

In the thrall of tiredness
This hoeboy glowers out his ought ait

A blunted oik forking the topsoil
...

Will you, Lunacy, pledge
To take me ere the end
Bend my final days to wonder
Bereft of reason's clarity
...

These boys are born for fire
A pagan desire to set the world alight

Searing the starkness, blackening skies
...