Poems don't make friends
If they seem to, pull back fast!

Poems serve as absolute logic,
no exceptions
If they seem not to, be suspicious

Groups of poems
never form social clubs
If they appear to, bid fare-thee-well

Poems show no consideration
Should they seem to,
hit yourself over the head, go to the mountains

Poems either show a clarity that hurts,
or a vagueness that soothes,
but always stay clear of nostalgia,
far away from sentimentality and self-pity

Some poems play with anything; hail those!

Poets serve a calling,
abstain from relationships that muddle,
that cannot take cruel honesty and dangerous beauty;
- clear the table!

A poet of stature
will not need ”club” members in need
Look the other way!

Poets harbouring such needs
are referred to welfare organizations,
and therapists
like Gert Jan Kloens & Grethe van Duijn

Sentimental writers are referred
to little girls' ponny booklets
or the classic stories of Cinderella
& Snow White

A hard situation should be told
poetically & mathematically exact

Any sad sentiments or sense of suffering
must be left in that silence
that'll munch us all

Any social consideration
will compromise any honest poetry
and have it disintegrate
like an old wasp's nest out in the barn

Age & ills constitute a perfect environment
for hard poetics

Sentimentally dirtied grounds
should be cleaned out
with the soap of relentlessness
and the detergent of clear thinking;
muddy words
put through the sewage treatment works
of style & grace,
and poets be held back at the gates
until they can produce valid value visas