Hendrik Jan Marsman Poems

On the edge of the newspaper he sketches skelet
tries to cry but that ancient feeling
evaporates in the loud headline of the sun - instead
he makes some coffee in the bitter realization
...

The conservatory windows are wide open
inside someone is molesting age-old emotions
the grand piano moans and laments
...

Having no faith in big words
in small words, conjunctions
interjections, in the last word
everybody wants and nobody gets
...

If it's someone
then it's that someone
who knocks us down
mows us down, all our grass
...

It's always somewhere, but whoever happens upon it
in some nameless street, usually runs into
a closed door behind which silence reigns
...

Thrown on the paper
in a relentless stream:

The grasshopper with vertigo
...

When they pass away some poets
want the light to die when they go
for the world to end and though
they're furious about their own demise
...