Another poem by the Dutch writer Toon Tellegen

I always want to think further,

but I don’t want thinking to come easily

I want obstacles I have to think my way around,

ambushes, ingenious pitfalls,

and I don’t want things to go off well,

that I have a lucky escape,

I want hostile thoughts

that push back, wound, decimate

my thoughts,

I want concepts reduced to ashes and ideas trampled underfoot,

I want my thoughts to be lost,

but feverishly still to be laying plans –

ill-fated plans, wonderful plans –

that’s how I want to think

for as long as I still can.