Poem by the Dutch writer Alfred Schaffer

LAND AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

And then the curtain rises, the small word EXIT reassures us.

Once again you concentrate on the wrong things, at a distance you even

make me think of someone else. With that cigarette dangling from your mouth,

a travel guide in your left hand, your weapon in your right. Suspicious, so

much attention to detail. Is all that reverence in place? How far does your

echo carry? Our urge to look exceeds all expectations, but that’s

nothing for you to worry about, it’s not your fault, you standing there

like that, the distance exposed: the image can’t be thought away.

Was something due to happen? Or is it already over, the finger on the trigger,

the convoluting smoke – you think to yourself I can’t have done that, I

simply can’t have done that. All that empty suspicion, shaped of the

sort of stuff, in a past long-gone, that dreams were made of.