holding intrinsic limitations
for both initiator and receiver
reveal themselves between
shadows hovering over reality
whatever that may be.
Circumstance and coincidence
tend to interfere and predominate
natural inhabitants and living spaces
in this “noman’s” landscape.
Perpetrator and victim
and then there are
the witnesses.
Such is the way of war
territorial or individual.
Color race gender or religion
should play no role here.
Breaking news: They do.
There was a time when a cough was a good sign.
To cough up the smoke induced congestion.
To cough up a chicken bone that got stuck.
To cough up a glass of lemonade that went down the wrong pipe.
To cough when someone tickled you too much.
There was a time when a cough could betray you.
To cough while hiding in a closet
or crouching under the floor in Mokum
or smothering under a haystack in Friessland.
These most innocent coughs could indeed
reveal your presence to a foreign enemy,
the neighbourhood bystander or the outstander
who never really wanted to get involved
anyway.
Where did that cough come from?
Where did that noise come from?
Who has ever really given thought to a cough?
People might say:
One little cough is not anything outstanding, revealing
or of any consequence.
It is they who do not forget.
Mice do not cough.
Roosters do not cough.
Rats do not cough.
Bats do not cough.
People cough.
People cough up the truth.
In times of betrayal and revelation,
in times of suspense and isolation.
In times when other people
are frightened and have forgotten
the reasons
why
I walked through the city park.
The wide open fields of green grass
spotted with yellow and orange daffodils
cooled down my summer swollen ankles.
I approached the concrete edged wooden bench
where I always rested on my weekly walks
through this place.
It is August 4 2020 5:15 in the early evening,
perhaps my last walk near to the Rose Garden
before the second corona wave descends upon
Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Speechless
my curiosity
searches for cause
and effect which count
for something remembering
nights when bodies crawled
under barbed wires, crossing borders
into ghettos. Crying
out for help
in a city rustled into motion
on waves of seamen floating
out of breath between Ijmuiden’s
fishy memories heading
toward safer shores
reminding me I can’t breath
here in Mokum.
Heaviness hung
over this place
shading its skyline
with smells of crushed moth balls
and tear drenched red woolen coats.
Trams passed by wasted horses
pulling wooden caskets.
Quickly put together for this
taken for granted almost occasion.
Another death in the time when
no lives matter
75 years already gone.
Quiet leaks out
everywhere.
The city has succumbed to secrets.
Neighbours gossip, dangling
bags of trash over pointed
fingers. Wasted
words as weapons.
All lives matter
some more than others.
The city smells of death
in times when social distancing
should reign.
Fear tempers
masks cover
simple souls calling
I Can Not Breath.
No one reaches
the washed out horizon
in time. Elders reassure
us: this is not a Holocaust.
I am not so certain.
Sauci Bosner 
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