We were young 

translated by Willem Groenewegen. Original title 'Neverland', by Bart FM Droog

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WE WERE YOUNG

Riding the adrenalin kick in our fanatical bodies
we trampled dead bodies, or bodies we made to look
like they were dead, my friends and I
oh those days, long ago, we were so wild
how we cursed and sneered, swore at everything
we didn’t like and especially each other
beating our breast we collected the cash
that the state we despised granted us
in great big piles and then there were our parents
who we heckled, more than the state, who spoilt us
– bawling on the barricades – with money and
clean clothes we were after all soiled and scabby
protesting against injustice here and there and
especially far away in other countries so we could
boycot for that was politically correct after all
although that phrase did not yet exist, because
in those days that was just being a traitor, just like
the fascists and all the papers and from the Germans
we stole bikes and if they didn’t have bikes
we wrecked their cars or sold them grass for pot
they couldn’t tell the difference and the D-Mark
was strong, not just here but also on the other side
of the iron curtain where real socialists oppressed
people but Marx was cool and Lenin wicked
so they were allies and so were we
and the rest were traitors, cocksure we were.

© Bart FM Droog, 2000
© translation Willem Groenewegen, 2001
original title: Neverland, from Benzine, Passage Publishing Company, Groningen, 2000



© Bart FM Droog & Willem Groenewegen 2000/2001. Auteursrecht berust bij de auteur en vertaler op basis van de Auteurswet 1912. Er mag niets uit deze website worden overgenomen, opgeslagen op media ter verspreiding onder derden, gepubliceerd of anderszins verveelvuldigd zonder uitdrukkelijke, voorafgaande schriftelijke toestemming van de auteurs.