The Dutch people are some of the happiest in the world. Their secret? They are masters of niksen, or the art of doing nothing. Niksen is not a form of meditation, nor is it a state of laziness or boredom. It’s not scrolling through social media, or wondering what you’re going to cook for dinner. […]
Review Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing – Olga Mecking — Simply a Book Drunkard
*So are the Dutch different?
Wars to end all wars
Remembering the fallen
Never ending war
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Unchanging nature
Constantly changing seasons
Spirits recycling
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Autumn quietude
Branches gesticulating
Relating sad tales
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Dragon on vert
poppy resonance dancing
Tuesday shimmering, bleeding
blood-high on grass smoking
in Cambrian mountains
or Vietnam
through Afghanistan’s
fields’ perfumery
stains on reverse strata
of Snowdon’s peak, or Cambodia
covered in skulls
stacked dens of white hopium
masquerading as lines of snow
conquerors’ castles
morsels of stone
demolishing molars
of the starving
in unbearable agony
— Boudica still scowling, raging,
deafening blue woad on faces
bearing banners
golden torque cast
crushed under studded caligae
mass burials’ deep turf
dredging bone from mud
Sixties’ grass, love child
in fifty shades
acid ancestors calling
thudding on our spine “wake up!”
their history burned —
your future denied
Stand firm in dissolution
on Sunday’s black evening
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Ciscography 