do not fall down by L.J. DeVries

do not fall down

part I & part II

I

                                this here / these schooled hours / this brief night of no hearing and no sight
resembles the full stretch between birth and grave

a childseer
not hindered by perhaps a pointless challenge
& the surplus stretch between birth and grave
but free to wander
takes a chance
to go into that night
and haul back sound & light

sharp and fully
the two turn around
& the corresponding senses do not fall down

II

                                 hinweis and reason to be cheerful

learn fear is loss of time
know the game do not change it
do not try this
be the game beat the game
be
if someone wants to take something away
become someone else transform
put back in order what has been spat out
let the childseer
in peace go into that night &
re-fashion hearing with sound
re-draw sight with light
mind
simple love & kind words will surely perish
will fail
when all this is a flippant act
so splendid enhance every source of hearing & of sight
give it over & let the senses do not fall down

L.J. DeVries about L.J. DeVries. Spawned in 1963 i tell them i am a ‘ flowerchild’. Honestly that is a two-bit lie. No hippie times for me at grammar-school and college. No, madam, sir. First it was punkrock, then heavy metal and grindcore and finally the ugliness of blackmetal. All with such intensity that music is one of my sources Tony Moffeit points out as necessary to become an outlaw poet. Another key source is the discovery at an early age that the answer about what the hell is going on can only be found in books. My timeline in that perspective travels from the Bible at sunday- and grammar-school via Steinbeck, Hemmingway and Amis at college and Dante, Milton, Hamsun, Saramago and Fante in adulthood (to name but a few). Mid-twenties the devil himself urged me to become a writer. Believing I could manage the short-story Lucifer led me into purgatory. I failed. Miserably. Had to. To learn. I quit writing.

Then came Allen Ginsberg. Around the 25th anniversary of Woodstock I zapped into a documentary about him. And with him came Kerouac. And other Beats. And more poetry, ancient and modern. And the devil again too. This time rather to my avail. This time not sending me into the flames of hell to devour my words. More a satisfactory companion. And I didn’t have to sell my soul. I had to change religion. So i read the Outlaw Bible. I got to know of Micheline, Patchen, Moffeit, Sandburg, Bodenheim and Whitman (amongst many many others).

My writing is not academic, is not learned, is not conform. It is about what is going on and going down. It’s about the next layer. To frighten them. Sometimes it’s full of shit. But who cares. As long as it feeds my obsession and the wildchild in me I am happy as a ‘one eyed cat in the fish store’.

Right, let’s conclude this intro. With a snippet about language.

My mother tongue is the ‘frisian’ language. A minority tongue from the North of the Netherlands. When I write I do so in the ‘frisian’ language. Poems are (sometimes) published via a frisian literary magazine; www.ensafh.nl. Then I translate the poems into english at the same time deconstructing and reconstructing the whole damn thing. And the horror the horror, it shoots off into a new dimension i.e. new universe as Moffeit calls it. The other way around I am challenged to translate Micheline and Whitman into my mother tongue.
So long you bums ! Signed; L.J. DeVries. Burgum/Friesland/Netherlands.

2 Replies to “do not fall down by L.J. DeVries”

  1. Really enjoyed the poem and the bio! Dig those crazy beats all the way to China, pound punk nails into black leather love, get jiggy with whatever it is that floats your boat and tempts the Devil kissed by bastard angels and process in Fante’s Inferno.

    • Dear S.A. Griffin….goodmorning from the Old Country….

      We should have a chat. About all the above and beyond in your comment. I almost cried. God no! But still…how and where to meet? (online that is)…my email is lubbertjandevries@hotmail.com. Hasta la Pasta…and hail! From L.J. (Bert) DeVries

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