Tag: conversation

Radio RTVP (Parkstad)

Rainier Eggen, the DJ for Radio Parkstad and I, had a lovely talk on the 4th of December. We talked about a lot of amazing things, and he is a great guy! We shared a taste for music and I listened to some very good songs while on the show.

He is a really kind and welcoming person, so I felt straight at home there. Although I was a bit nervous, he helped me right through it. We talked about my passion and I read a poem of mine, which he really seemed to like.

We joked around a bit, but all the same it was an amazing experience. I also met two lovely ladies while just coming back rom the interview who told me they were inspired by what I do. It meant the world to me!

Once I got home, I still couldn’t fully believe it. Thousands of people had listened to me, even a few of my good friends had tuned in, some from abroad. I had never imagined this to be possibly, but trust me when I say I’m so happy that it is.

Radio LRM

In November 2019 the same friend who wrote that beautiful song for me, helped me get on a radioshow in the Netherlands! Johan Coolen is a true sweetheart and helped me through my first ever 30 minutes fame on the radio, haha.

I read a few poems and talked about why I do what I do, etc. The topic of how my teachers responded to what I do came up, and I remembered the one history teacher I had who called me “soldier girl”. So for the show I was sometimes called “soldier girl” which stood out quite funny to me, but also very nice.

I had a blast, it was something I had never done before. As said before the entire team was amazing, I couldn’t have asked for a better moment of the day.

I’m not sure if you can see it, but during the show I was wearing a Poppy for Remembrance Day. I talked about the First World War and read a poem for all the soldiers who fought so many years ago.

To Be Loved

Do you know this feeling where you just want to be loved? You want to be recognized by someone and know that you are worth loving. It’s like the constant rush for appreciation, not so much love itself. You want to be held, kissed, you want to be important to someone. 

And because you’re human, you return that appreciation. After one, maybe more, weeks, it just fades away into nothingness, until you are left with someone who doesn’t love you, but just wants to be loved. 

Shame, that’s what washed over me when I realized this. I had used someone for the soul purpose of being told I was loved. I couldn’t see it then, for I was blinded by the idea I could fight everything, because someone thought I could.

The same person had used me too, the exact same reason in his head as it was in mine, so at the end, it didn’t truly feel like I alone was at fault. I wanted to be recognized and he wanted attention, it was a perfect match made in Hell, but it felt like Heaven to me.

Now I’ve realized we both didn’t do anything wrong. We were trying to get back up from our previous battle and just needed a helping hand, a smiling face to tell us we could do it. I was his, he was mine. And now we are ourselves again.

Why One Fights

In this war, everyone has a different reason to fight, a person or idea they make themselves believe is worth hall this, this suffering, this never-ending fighting and this ever-lasting battle between two sides, which both don’t really want to do this.

You need something, someone, to keep you going. You need to have this dream, this vision of perfection you want to achieve, in order for you to get up in the morning and continue the life that has been so rudely taken from you all those years ago.

Some fight for freedom, a noble cause of course, the thought that everyone will be able to walk on these streets, Jew or not, male or female, they don’t care. Everyone has basic rights they wish to achieve, because what kind of world are we living in, when little kids can’t go to school just because of the star they’re forced to wear? 

Some fight for loved ones. The man next to me? He’s writing a letter to his wife and children, every week. He’s fighting for them, he didn’t enlist for his family, but you can be damn sure they are always in his mind, gun or not, whether he is in a battle or not, it’ll always be his family.

The young kid, he’s fighting for honour and pride. Maybe not as noble as freedom, yet interesting to say the least. He feels like he owes his country this, a country which not too long ago, wasn’t even ours to begin with. He thinks this is what he should do. 

Others fight for shelter and food, the money they get. They have seen hard times, lived through them, and they saw the perfect opportunity to have shelter, rations and a pay check. You should’ve seen their faces when they were sent to other countries. 

Some fight because they expected it to be fun, to have all the ladies swirling around them, to have them look at him, while their panties drop and they fall on their knees before him. That didn’t go as planned either, as I bet you could’ve guessed already.

Me? Why I’m fighting? I’d love to say something heroic, something brave, something that would make you think that it was the best thing I ever did, enlist in the army. But to be fair, I did it because I saw everyone who already enlisted look so honourable and shiny in their green suits, I was jealous. That’s a reason too, envy.

I know it sounds stupid, that I envied them. But all the reason’s above, they didn’t apply to me. I didn’t feel the need to bring freedom, because I didn’t expect myself to be able to. I didn’t have anyone I loved, except my mother, honour and pride had left me a long time ago, the shelter and food, the money, they didn’t draw me in. I was used to living without much gold and glitter, I didn’t do it for the ladies. I did it because of the most stupid reason anyone’s ever heard.

If I look back at myself, I swear to God I would hit myself so hard I’d fall through the ground and straight into Hell, where I belong. I was foolish to think the war was just another stupid decision that might work in my favour. 


It didn’t.

The photograph shows the original Band of Brothers: Easy Company, US 101st Airborne Division. There have been multiple books written by the man that served in Easy Company and a short series (partly) directed by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg

Peace?

He looked at what was left of the war
No Man’s Land silent at last
Feeling guilty of the clothes he wore
There was just one thing he asked

He asked God up in the sky
Just for five minutes or less,
“Protect me so I don’t die,
Still wearing my army dress.”

Some parties they agreed
Not to fire a single round
Another dead, there was no need
For even more bodies in the ground

Other soldiers they did not
Believe that war was gone
Their firearm still burning hot
To death they were drawn

Few didn’t keep in mind
On their muddy watch, still going
11 o’clock is to be defined
As peace for the unknowing

Seconds before the church bell yells
That peace has finally been ensured
A dozen stories no one will tell
Of wounds that will never be cured

Have happened

Written down on marble white
At 5 AM Germany will write
Peace, between the nations
The roaring twenties crumbling foundations

And 6 hours later
The man on the field are told
War’s very own violator
Has finally been controlled.

But in that time too many will fall
Because of a last whistle being blown
Over No Man’s Land they crawl
For the didn’t know

This poem was based on the short film called END OF WAR- the final minutes of WWI. The “peace” was signed at 5AM, but the soldier didn’t know until 11AM, or couldn’t act on it until that time at least.

A Conversation With Death

I always thought of death as the enemy, this dark figure that would take your hand and never let it go, as he walks with you to the gates of Hell. He’d offer you to go to Heaven, because he already knew that’s what you’d pick, as he waits for you to make your choice, he says:

“You’re free to choose, son, so what’s it going to be?”
“You can either chose heaven or chose heavenly.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” you’d tell him, at last
“Can I have some time to think,or do you need my answer fast?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world,” he’d smirk “so, don’t feel stressed.”
“Just chose whether you want to be worshiped,” he whispered “or blessed.”

“And all the other boys? Can you tell me what they chose?”
“Apologies,” he admitted “but I fear nobody knows.”

“So this is it? I have to pick one of the two, without knowing which holds whom?”
“For one might be my resting place and one may be my doom.”

The devil thought silently, before he muttered under his breath,
Perhaps he shouldn’t live to see what comes right after death?

“Rather I could take you home,” he offered, “if that is what you desire?”
And so the soldier turned his back to that heavenly angels choir

Took the devils hand, and together they walked back
To where the devil had before so ruthlessly attacked.

“Thank you,” the soldier spoke “for yet another day.”
“Don’t mind it, it’s what you deserved,” death would say