First day In Haarlem Holland I walk over
the Spaarne River near the old icon mill
the Adriaan rebuilt in early 20th century
after it had burned down near the great
Koepel Gevangenis, that is domed prison
a panopticon like the one in Philadelphia
each individual cell always in surveillance
from its constantly manned observation
center which has now been remodelled or
herbouwd/ rebuilt into all new innovative
businesses cum community cave of film
and art that I heard about from two Neder-
land tourists on the shuttle out to the ferry
back to IJmuiden, the poort of Amsterdam
where finally after 8 or 9 trips I see for the
first time at the entrance to the lock’s gates
whose initial creation I found recorded in
the last chapter of great grandfather’s half-
cousin’s 3 volume novel of growing up in
in the city orphanage and there previously
unseen so many times passing twin pill-
boxes on either side of hardened artillery
bunker on what is the 80th anniversary of
WW II ending and everywhere resistance
including in the dome prison in very cell
of Hanne Schaft where she was held before
they shot her in Overveen (out near a beach)
for shooting a collaborator she and her girl
friend chased down firing from their bicycle.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.