Dear Reader,
Most of my thinking, feeling and living has been done in Dutch, and so is most of my artistic text-work. And although I have experienced some great moments in the English language, and with English-speaking people, I do not feel the urge to translate all of my work.
Still, I can offer you some poems, and of course the links to my photographic work:
- www.phd-conceptuals.info: my photographic & philosofical projects
- www.buikdans.info: belly-dance art, with some translated poems
- Belly Dance Poem: poems for a belly dance-production
- Parfum d'Orient: poems for a belly dance-production
- This Happens in Belgium: a single poem from het Smachtend verlangen (the painful desire)
Bridge
through us passes the many lives
through us passes the broad sea
through us passes the full tide
straddle-legged on earth
under us a wider sea
through us passes a new time
through us passes your old dream
through us passes the eternal now
Philip Demeester
Café Cadis
the sun am I the moon
the earth you are the sea
the fire wind we are
seated on the beach
come and dance for me
your whole life in a dance
come forget your life
your whole life in my dance
Philip Demeester
Laicism
open up yourself
with hair and skin (wholehearted)
to the world
and to me
put your beauty
in the sun
let your hair swim
in the sea
dream of freedom
open naked(ly) your heart
and body
Philip Demeester
Mesopotamia
nothing can I be than close to you
radiating feels your body with me
closer by i would no longer be
further than the loneliness
dance with me your one direction
freer than a water sound
flow through me and through yourself
til you find yourself in me again
Philip Demeester
Stream of air
do not be afraid I am nothingness
nothing than the here and now
I never promise you the heaven
never the endless sea
do not be afraid I am nothingness
nothing than the here and now
you are nothing than not your self
nothing than your nothingness
do not be afraid I let you go
you are nothing thand the here and now
and freer do you live than just your self
do not be afraid you are yourself
when you lose yourself in me
you become your own nothingness
Philip Demeester
.
the world cries and screams in me
I pull the veil from your mind
the hunger from your body
through my bodies your tears scream
through my minds your anger rages
round and firm as an apple
is the world between us
my bellies dance for your life
at the sharpest cutting edge
Philip Demeester
I: Fist day in the desert
listen
listen to the wind
listen to the wind, howling over the desert
listen
listen, and the wind will tell you a story
of a life different from what you know
the life of a different life
the life of the desert
and in that desert: women live
sisters of yours
(sisters of mine)
and still
so strange they are
so different
so totally other
will you ever know her
this sister of yours
she who knows of horizons
you've never seen
you'll never see
listen to the wind
listen to the voices in the wind
listen how the wind blows over the desert
and carries their voices, your sisters voices
trembling in the air, with heat
with burning heat
and the wind blows the heat of the sun
burning in your nose
sisters of yours
(sisters of mine)
and still
so strange they are
so different their lives
so totally different their mind
freezing in the night
feel with her the cold
the unknown cold
dripping through the sand
the night is black
the stars shine, bright
as if they were the suns of the night
but cold and twinkling blue
and the moon could be their sister
your sister
but the night is cold, and so the moon
and the only planet mars is red
as war
as burning sand, roasting our feet
as struggle for life, for food, for water
together and never alone
listen to the wind
listen to her voice
Philip Demeester
II: Second day with you
the desert is my soul
the desert is my life
and water is scarce
as we move from spring to spring
and in between the endless sun
the endless night the endless sky
and my body in this emptiness
my freedom is: other freedom
my freedom is: freedom to be other
to think other, to feel other, to live other
give my sister the space to think different
to live different, to feel different, to be differently
give her the silence to hear the dessert
leave her this language of silence, to sound different
the dessert is not the dessert
the dessert is the rock, the sand, the howling wind
the cold nights, the lonely days, the trembling horizons
the dessert is the dessert
and so she lives: your sister
Philip Demeester
III: Third day of listening
there are sounds here in the dessert
they carry from ages long ago
from places far away
and what you seem to see
and what you seem to hear
might not be there at all:
no water, no shadow,
nothing is what is seems to be
so
let us listen
let us listen carefully
let us listen now
let us look with open eyes
and what we see, and what we hear
might save our life
your life:
my sister's dance, my daughter's dance
the dancing of my mother's life, high up on the animal
each sound sounds different, so it's worth listening
we do not understand
not immediately
not totally
the picture never is so clear that you can grab it
and that's our life
and why we listen
Philip Demeester
IV: Forth day of truth
they say the water is the same
the river is the same and so the spring
the same the same is also sand
and rock and night and sun and heat
the thirst and sometimes even hunger
they say: it's all the same
but I say: what a shame
the water brings us life, and ever new a life
we walk the dessert, she's not dumb
or blind, or without feeling
do not repeat this lie
never is our life the same
and yours is different, o so different
that you hardly hear my voice
the Nile is floating through the night
and through the day
the Nile is never there to stay
and so are we
Philip Demeester
V: Fifth day of being other
you think I am your shadow
your picture in the mirror
your reflection in the spring
I am not
please let me drink
I have to tell the truth
the Nile is there to flow
the spring is there to drink
trees are sparse and there to shelter
and if we do not share the shadow and the water
we are dead, and dead together
so boring dead, so deathly killing dead
so satisfied
let me disrupt your picture in the spring
let me drink the same and other water
let me look at you through trembling air
and see you ever new again
Philip Demeester
VI: Sixth day of dancing together
from spring to spring we walk together
no one's left alone
no one flees her duty
from spring to spring we walk together
alone together
and never left behind
nothing is more beautiful than a body on the move
a dancing you and me
and never ending
always moving
and never being home
the night speaks
the day speaks
the dessert is my home
and nothing is more comforting
than your open lips
a language answering back
and as the wind, howling in the night
you are so far away
so totally different and so the same
let us listen to each other
let us listen to the wind
Philip Demeester
VII: Post Scriptum on forever being on the move
the Nile is there for comfort and for visiting
for fishing and for swimming
for water and for trees
let us never ever go and claim the land
let us protect our lives and do not settle
let us humbly dance and swim and ride
from oasis to oasis
let us never go and claim the property
of land and words and being better
for property is theft of life
and right can only bring the war
let pain and murder, killing field
to those who want to stay
let us move and dance and swim the Nile
and listen to the wind
Philip Demeester
VIII: Lost sentences
I
and the sun blows the heat of the sun
burning in your nose
drying your skin
till your body feels like sand
scouring, rough, like leather
the night is cold
cold as only nights can be
IV
they say the same about my skin
the dryness of my skin
the thirst and sometimes even hunger
V
you are bored with me
VI
nothing is more beautiful than being other
nothing is more beautiful than your body
my body
her body being other
so different and not to grab
I listen to your voice
I feel the need in you,
and your surrender, your surplus
you feel the hunger as a wolf:
you feel the thirst as a dolphin:
Philip Demeester
Ladies Gentlemen
(Very Posh)
this is the Catholic Institute Universe
Ladies, Gentlemen the Institution
for the Research into the Borders
of Pain and Joy
this happens in Belgium
it happens here
stop talking through the phone
don't speak up behave as normal
this is Belgium this my pain
destroy the information
leave your friends
burn the papers take your gun
this is Belgium
keep cool
hurry up it happens now
burn your papers burn the bridges
you're alone don't hope
you'll die in pain
it will be worse
enjoy your joy you'll
die of it
Philip Demeester
