NOTES OF A FLÂNEUR Poem by Remco Campert

To the journalist H.J.A. Hofland
Going outdoors

Oh well I'll just go out a bit
my work's getting nowhere again.
I'll turn right today
there's more to see in that direction.
For example they're digging up the tramrails
I can stand and watch.


Good intentions

Walk straight
keep your stomach in
and your buttocks
shoulders back
swing your arms relax
and don't look so disagreeable.


News

Someone I hardly know grabs my lapel
near the Leidseplein.
"Have you heard? Jan Timman's
been selected. Great isn't it?"
He casts his eyes around wildly
Anyone else he can tell?


Reading Matter

Someone's sitting in tram 5
I'd call young
now I'm getting on myself.
Dressed neatly
coat with fur-trimmed collar
aubergine-coloured shoes
with tassels.
He's leafing through Story
and every time he turns a page
he sniffles loudly.
Finally he gets stuck into
an article with the headline:
"Good-luck charm brought lovers
true marital bliss."


Café Terrace

"A peaceful end,
that's all I want now",
says the old man at the pavement café.
"But there are plenty of things to live for,"
says the woman drawing up her chair.
"Take me, for instance, I love cream,
I'm a real greedy-guts."
And she takes
a spray-can from her pocket
and squirts some whipped cream
in her empty coffee cup.


In the Café 1

I'm rock-solid, chum,
you can rely on me
it's a jovial man talking
jacket over his shoulder oozing honesty
it's afternoon in the café.
You can see it straightway
people don't trust him an inch.


Friendship

Friendship,
you shouldn't mess around with it
just as you shouldn't touch
a painting that's finished.


In the Café 2

"I've got ears like taxi doors."
the man saying this
is incredibly fat.
He means it figuratively
there's nothing special about his ears.
But his feet
how small and neat they are!


Holland

Half-past seven that's strange
who are all those people outside
has something happened?
oh no, it's Thursday, late-night shopping.
I feel my blood turn cold.


Reading on the street

Walking in the street and reading
you don't see that so often these days.
If I still do it sometimes
I'm walking in the past.
There's not much traffic
I hear radio music from an open window
a girl in a new-look dress
brushes past me.
The book I'm reading,
is Gerard Reve's The Evenings.
It's "just out".