In Amsterdam we lived on Rooseveltlaan

in the Rivierenbuurt our courtyard

was a school’s playground the kids screamed

attacked each other I went to a hypnotist 

I’m afraid the plane will crash it won’t matter

Clinton was bombing Kosovo

it didn’t matter I walked to the Tollstraat

bought weed and drank tea the weather

was bad I didn’t notice

I was playing music writing poems

time was getting older the poems

and the songs were getting worse

eventually we moved to Koningsstraat

the people were artists the poems got worse

I didn’t play music we moved to Portugal

the people disappeared the weather was good

I noticed but the sun was hot

I didn’t write poems and I didn’t play

I kept going back to Amsterdam

everyone got older and nobody mattered

the weather was bad and I noticed

Lost in that I can’t be found

riding down the Marginal

through Praca Espagna

under the aqueduct

into Lisbon 

where Marco sells two

Euro bits of hash

and the boys drink

Sagres all day

it looks like no one

lives here she said

no one does I said

For twenty three years

there was a leak in the roof

I stuffed it with a plastic bag

when we first moved in

forgot then spent ten years

writing and drinking smoking

while it endlessly rained

mornings hungover on terraces

wandering the east afternoons

leaving the lotus eaters

to laugh alone

one night around eleven

I went out they were still there

what are you doing here they asked

the dumb music blared

I was bored I said

of writing and drinking smoking

no one knew I wrote

I never learned Danish

or Dutch or Portuguese

or French or Spanish

but I lived there 

I asked Rita

if I could

sleep with her

tonight she said

yes 

the right of every man 

to sick himself on the world

no rainbows in the low sky

the water is feared

they resemble the rain

wind torn salt savaged

drinking and smoking

there’s nothing to confess 

fix it if it works  

and if it’s broken

hide it in the shadow

of the Golden Age