10 years ago, on February 22th 2014, Leo Vroman died at the age of 98, a Dutch poet and scientist (known for the Vroman effect), living in Forth Worth (Texas). A most wise and talented man, born in 1915 in Gouda, near to the city I live in. As a poet he is widely known for four lines:

Come tonight with tales /  how the war has disappeared /  and repeat them a hundred times /  all times I will weep

These lines are part of the poem ‘Peace’ he published a few years after WWII. He fled The Netherlands for the Nazi's and saw his fiancé only back after the war in America (surviving a Japanese camp during te war).

When he died, I recorded this song of the first three verses of his poem, using the well-known last lines as the chorus. I mixed it again (better understanding mixing now) and I'm still impressed by the power of his poem and its timeless message.

[rough translation]
PEACE
Comes a dove of hundred pounds,
an olive tree in its claws,
near to my ears with his mouth
full of sweet corn women,
full of cooing stories
how the war is gone
and repeats them hundred times:
All times I will weep

Since I so unexpectedly
jumped into a taxi
leaving a hole in the night
that’s becoming ever larger,
Since my soft tearful darling,
drought blushing of misery
stood still, stood still 
so that flint bounced in her loins
My skin is too dense and dry
in order to sweat in prayers,
creases tweaking, nontheless,
and ‘peace’ grinding, ‘peace’, ‘peace’

Love is a stinking miracle
of decapitated desires
if I have to live without peace
peace, God damned, peace;
As the ripping sound
with which I was separated from my love
scares me even now from the bed
where sometimes we both dream
that the war of yesterday
returns on felty feet,
that we, no longer fit for everything, 
yet again must lie down, run
and also scream in each other’s ears,
so desperate that we almost
dream we can hear ourselves.

[May I not curse 
when the fire of a long rebuilt city, 
rolling forth of a chamber wall,
blazes and keeps me awake?
It’s not the roasted kid, 
becoming fireworks, 
I feel terrible, terrible about,
It’s the age that nothing is happening,
when suddenly, in the middle of the house,
rises a tower of dirt,
long forgotten cellar mud,
quickly becoming unusable furniture,
blood-red flames and flaming
red blood, the surrounding air
wallpapered with living parts of dead yet
nice people, the eternal silence before the
surprised child in this column
is strangled and already raises the arms]

come tonight with tales 
how the war has disappeared 
and repeat them a hundred times
all times I will weep.

Vrede

VREDE (alle malen zal ik wenen)

New songs on https://soundcloud.com/seb-mankoo

VREDE (alle malen zal ik wenen)

Bas Kooman