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(for Dutch poet, Jean Pierre Rawie)

In Holland, Jean Pierre Rawie revived a taste for rhyme and rhythm in poetry, in which he has proved himself a master and sold thousands of his collections. He is a present-day romantic who writes of hopeless, devouring love, and of death, but with the sobering insight of a realist. That is to say, with a Dutch touch.

Haunted by these themes as Rawie is, an up-to-date, not too serious – but also not facetious – version of Keats's famous poem, 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci'seemed a good form in which to salute him.

I have kept to Keats's story-line, rhyme, rhythm and stanza pattern throughout, using different words but keeping to the same vowel sounds as used by Keats in his poem.

O what can ail thee, sweet Rawie,
   Alone and palely suffering?
I fear you are all too aware
   Of death's cold sting.

O what can ail thee, sweet Rawie,
   Poor, haggard, melancholy one?
The girl's gone home, the bar is closed,
   The party's done.

I see -a cold sweat on thy brow
   And on thy cheek a fevered hue,
Upon thy lips a dying smile
   Fast shrivelleth too.

I met a maid in Amsterdam,
   Full beautiful, all weirdly styled,
Her lips were pale, here cheeks were wan,
   And her eyes beguiled.

'I set her on my trusty bike
   And rode her through the milling throng,
And as we went she murmured a
   Bob Dylan song.

'I took her to my favourite bar,
   And when we found ourselves alone,
She looked at me as she would be
   My very own.

'She fed me joints of soothing grass
   And purple hearts end poppers too,
And ofttimes did she whisper low:
   "I'm sweet on you."

'We scrambled to her top floor squat,
   She led me in and locked the door,
And warm we lay and kissed and did
   O so much more.

'And in her arms I slept and dreamed
   A dream of fearful suicide,
And though I slept, I swear my eyes
   Were open wide.

'I saw the ghosts of men she'd lured,
   The prince, the punk, the short, the tall,
Who cried – "La Belle Dame d'Amsterdam
   Hath thee in thrall!"

'I watched their ghoulish faces grin
   And warn me, lest like them I died,
And woke up in this empty bar,
   You at my side.

'And that is why I linger here,
   Alone and palely suffering,
Forever doomed to be aware
   Of death's cold sting.'