Poem for Our Children and Grandchildren

By Theo Koot

This collection of poems was written especially for my children and grandchildren. By involving them, I hope that they become more and more interested in my ideas. By offering them this bundle, they will certainly succeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookTrail Publishing
• Release date: May 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637678459

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Copyright © 2022 by Theo Koot.]

ISBN-978-1-63767-844-2 (Paperback)

ISBN-978-1-63767-845-9 (eBook)

LCCN: 2022905899

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

PREPOEM PART 1:

For Nuun. (wedding day June 10, 2008)

Suddenly you were standing there

on the edge of the nest.

Spread your wings

for your first flight.

We looked at you smiling

how proud we were.

In your best clothes

on your way to adulthood.

In your most beautiful clothes

on your way to connection.

Together with your husband

on the way to connection.

For Nuun there is now another

who watches over you day and night.

Maybe tomorrow you will realize

that love breaks you or makes you.

Look on the ground at the fallen feathers

of the shadows of days gone by.

Always follow your heart and know

that we will never ask for an explanation.

The once familiar nest

became much too small for you.

You are now making your own nest

with Ronnie, whom you love.

After this special morning,

the rest of the day will be changed.

In your most beautiful clothes

on your way to security.

In your best clothes

on your way to adulthood.

Together with your husband

on the way to an eternity.

That’s why we’re flying away now

without you under our wings.

The shadows of the past

haunt us deep into our nest.

The feathers we leave behind

show the way you must go now.

On the road to adulthood

on the road to bondage.

Love,

Dad and Mom

BEGINNING OF THE FIRST LIFE

THE BEAR AND THE TABLES

The feeling is high,

and of such a kind

that is higher than the tallest trees,

but lower than the tallest words.

An influential dark side,

the thoughts of a bear in a china shop,

which will rejoice the shards

at the sight of such a large brush.

A bound rose outside the door

felt wetness down to his feet.

It didn’t want to whine

at all, although the bear thought it should.

So it happened in that closet,

that the bear stamped around with his big paws.

The china, which had just been washed,

rattled like a bunch of idiots.

The cups flew from the shelves,

the saucers flew through the air,

the spoons were hit in their sides,

the shards on the floor were very formidable.

The bear just kept stamping and stamping,

stamping all night long.

So much so that the beast began to vapor

and falling drops of sweat like a trail left behind.

You have to know that such a night lasts a long time,

not only for the crockery but also for the bear.

Only after everything was thrown to the ground,

we never saw that bear again.

A CARDINAL’S DOG

cin the year of the Lord 1984, March 25

to be precise, wanted to write to

the Pope some letters in the night,

a little tipsy, confused

to refresh their memory,

while ghosts

flew around their heads: I now translate the words

of the writer: he wrote literally,

to reconsider his task.

A brown labrador, enormously heavy

with fiery eyes and drooping ears,

always glued to the ground, wanted

to jump on his lap that very night,

but missed, forcing the longear

under the table of the papal envoy.

still writing his letters, he

silently cried out to the Lord in

agony and respect, while his

acolytes called everyone by their names

in order to remove the dog from the room.

But wherever they searched, they found

the dog lying in no place,

causing the Cardinal to close his eyes,

fall unconscious, become ill,

and eventually die.

Once lying in his coffin,

while the stonecutters were working on his last

statue in marble and granite,

the Pope’s envoy shouted:

"What kind of bulge is that,

is that his dog’s head, isn’t it?"

THE QUEEN AND THE LION

The queen was a gentle woman who loved love.

One day, when the king was outside the palace,

she sent her servant to a nearby village.

He had to look for someone who was inspired.

A mighty lion knocked first at the palace

and tried to force an entrance inside.

The guards stopped him, that would teach

the lion, for it was not wise to make love to a lion.

The thought of it was not to envy her,

the nobles shocked, and it was with the queen that she lost her pride.

The nobles asked if she wasn’t a little off the rails

by wanting to be ridden by a lion.

And truly, the show was almost like a miracle,

guts and love just couldn’t be remembered from her

in the hours she spent working

with the lion up and she lay under it.

The lion drew with his huge claw,

she gave love bites into his mighty body.

With that she wanted to say, ah, little lion, stay

then I belong to you for a few hours.

The king, not shy of a chat,

rode to the nearest town.

Not to buy something, but there was his treasure

that he suddenly encountered a few months ago.

She smiled at him and with a pair of clear eyes,

she made him long for her forever.

He gave her a few gentle kisses on her cheeks

before promising her heaven here on earth.

She smiled at him and with a pair of clear eyes,

she made him long for her forever.

He gave her a few gentle kisses on her cheeks

before promising her heaven here on earth.

Now the king and the lion have the same disposition,

they are equal in conscience.

Live only for the love they have given themselves,

this poet has selected it for you.

THE COLLAR LIZARD

On a winding road

I saw a beautifully colored lizard

(green as an alligator)

pondering his sins.

With his great green mohawks,

like a long cape of the devil,

he confessed all his sins

while his green collar stiffened,

as he looked with his head up to the sky the

way a professor does when thinking.

His large, sideways green eyes,

as broken as an artist’s eyes,

overcame the might of the afternoon

shaken as he was.

Is this all, my boy?

Is this your dark side now?

Use your wits

despite your age, lizard.

Your children from the ditch

will never let you choke, will they?

What were you looking for on this road,

you little green philosopher.

Now your unbridled imagination

in these winding roads

is showing the horizon in parts.

Are you looking for the blue truth

of the dying sky over our heads?

From a flash of light from a star in infinity?

Or do you perhaps measure the sound intensity,

which can be heard between the ear and the sky?

Do you sometimes see the vibrations of dying stars,

going back and forth between planets and stars?

Or do you enjoy the funny fluttering of the birds,

which fly freely in the sky between heaven and earth?

With your big eyes you see the sun rise,

your eyes gleam at the sight of so much sunlight,

you gladiator of the frogs, dragonflies and grasshoppers,

and with some human features.

You, gondola with itchy oars under your body,

lives in the shadowy times of the day

in the streams of the brackish water

through the mirror of your soul.

Were you looking for your beautiful lizard queen,

as green as the duvets of fields,

where sheep and cows like to graze.

Seek your hair with her long locks

of green, gray temples in the water,

which has touched you deep in your soul and heart,

but left you in the field of honour.

The idyll smashed, your heart broken,

your life is at stake,

not a day should be waited.

But live and what the hell,

I like you and want to help you.

As the sun slowly fades behind the mountains

and let his light shine only there

and the flock of clouds gather round him,

it is in this hour that thou shalt vanish:

follow this dry, tortuous road

and leave thy thoughts for what they are.

Then you have time again to look at the stars

and see how beautiful they really are.

While the worms will make their way,

if they will all go on vacation because of you.

Go home, dear lizard,

go to the brackish water, go where your children are.

Now hurry before it gets light again

and you sink back into memories.

Go, my dear friend.

Go, mister lizard.

Now the road is again free of creatures and empty,

the mountains seem to shrink, the water seems to grow.

Only now and then you hear the fish gasping for air,

only now and then you hear birds high in the trees

in the darkness echoing their songs.

Only now and then a cuckoo calls for itself

high in the tops of familiar trees.

The road is littered with memories, but it is empty.

I think I’ll just move on.

THE POPE AND HIS GHOST

What? He for whom the voices cry loudest

has missed the last boat, while his life

has just begun, at least his