We Are Dead. You Owe Us Nothing.
Family & Marks
- Medium
- Engraved steel plate
- Dimensions
- Year
- 2026
- Availability
- Enquire
- Song
- We Are Dead
A poem written in Haarlem in April 2026 and cut into steel, so it outlasts the paper it was written on. It addresses whoever is reading it from the far side of the artist's own life, and asks for nothing.
We are dead. You owe us nothing.
You might think of us now.
I cannot guess at your voices, your vices or devices.
How can I possibly offer advice about your life today?
Only that this time is yours.
Revel in it. Feel its edges.
Stretch out in it like a freshly made bed.
Wriggle like a happy bug on a spring morning.
Trust that you will make use of history.
Watch for war lords and try to live in peace.
Know the past and pay it some respect. But not too much.
Clear place enough for your own things.
If your rooms kept every cup and moment,
there would be no space left for living and breathing at all.
Perhaps my songs were heard beyond the rooms in which I sang them.
Perhaps not. It's OK.
I am still singing in the wind.
I grow among the poppies I painted as a younger man.
Still we are dead. You owe us nothing.
