​Alfred Schaffer (The Netherlands) 

(day)dream #99
 
I’m making a terrible mess I think.
I can’t get the spoon up to my mouth
but the guards are patient
with my dog too, he almost never bites.
I should give him a name.
I’ve got nothing left to say after last night.
No one is interested in bad news so
I don’t move a muscle, I don’t even blink.
What sadness, nothing but landmines and graves
for miles around.
If I’m new here there’s something wrong with my memory or
I haven’t been paying attention –
what takes place in the mind and what happens outside of it.
My arms are itchy, I smell pretty bad.
At times I agree, at times I don’t,
and every now and then I nod my head a little
just to be polite.
A single nod is enough.
Anyway, I don’t have much to say.
He-he-hel-lo m-m-my n-name i-i-i-is.
I get no further than that.
 
Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchinson