Wat het hart wil

Hoe mezelf te verhouden tot een wereld
waarin ik nullen en enen aanbiddend
nooit de tijd aan de stand van de zon heb leren lezen
een digitale Icarus in mij verwek
Ik tart een zwerk vol error, een digitale god
Ik uit mijn zorgen met een app, de data liegen niet
en met een crash and burn in het verschiet googel ik de kans
dat regen redding brengt, een val gebroken kan
Het breekpunt van getallen
Hoe becijfer ik mijn zijn?
Hart keer lijf gedeeld door bits en bytes?
Sociale media min eenzaamheid in het likeskwadraat?
Ik sterf het aantal doden dat ik bij elkaar kan gamen
dood realiteit, heb spijt
Bedenk dat zwaartekracht nooit faalt, bedacht als god
almachtig is voor hen die zich vertillen
aan de naaktheid van mijn hart
Het slaat een bloeddoorlopen
Driekwartsmaat

What the Heart Wants

How do I relate to a world
In which, worshipping zeros and ones
I never learned to tell time from the sun’s position
I nurture a digital Icarus
I defy a heaven full of error, a digital god
I express my concerns with an app, the data don’t lie
and with a crash and burn on the horizon I google the chance
that rain brings salvation, that the fall can be broken
The breakpoint of numbers
How do I calculate my existence?
Heart times body divided by bits and bytes?
Social media minus loneliness in likes squared?
I die all the deaths that I can amass while gaming
kill reality, have regrets
Consider that gravity never fails, as god is considered
all powerful by those who couldn’t
lift my heart’s nakedness
It beats a bloodshot
three-four time

Lucas Hirsch (1975) has an MA in American Studies from the University of Amsterdam and is the author of six collections of poems: familie gebiedt (De Arbeiderspers, 2006), tastzin (De Arbeiderspers, 2009), Dolhuis (De Arbeiderspers, 2012), Ontsla me van alles wat ik liefheb (De Arbeiderspers, 2015), Wu wei eet een ei (De Arbeiderspers, 2020) and Kintsugi(De Arbeiderspers 2025).

Hirsch published his poems in (several) Dutch, Belgian, and American magazines (Copper Nickel, Pleiades, Literary Review) and performed on stages in The Netherlands, India, Belgium and the USA. In May 2011 and May 2016 Lucas Hirsch was a guest at the Ledig House, international writers residency at Art Omi, New York. Hirsch was a guest teacher at Columbia University in 2012 and 2016. He also developed a poetry game app called Puzzling Poetry. It was presented at the 2016 Buchmesse in Frankfurt. It was followed by a children’s edition called Puzzling Poetry Schatkist in 2018.

Hirsch teaches creative writing at high schools around The Netherlands and gives workshops to aspiring poets. In December 2017 he was writer in residency at Sangam House – Nrityagram, India. In February 2019 his debut novel: De Weinigen (Of de bankier in de buik van het beest) was published, followed in 2022 by Shotgun Wedding – a novel about mourning and friendship.

‘Wat het hart wil’ is a poem from ‘Wu wei eet een ei’, which, in 2025, got translated into the English language in its entirety by the poet Donna Spruijt-Metz for Ben Yuhuda Press and as such can be found right here!

Donna Spruijt-Metz on her website:

“My two full-length books are ‘To Phrase a Prayer for Peace’ (Wildhouse Publishing, 2025) and ‘General Release from the Beginning of the World’ (Free Verse Editions, 2023), ‘And Scuttle My Balloon’ (with Flower Conroy, was just released from Pictureshow Press (9/2025) and my translation from the Dutch of Lucas Hirsch’s ‘Wu Wei Eats an Egg’ was also released 9/2025 from Ben Yehuda Press. My chapbooks include ‘Slippery Surfaces’, ‘And Haunt the World’ (with Flower Conroy). and ‘Dear Ghost’ (winner Harbor Review Editor’s prize). My poems appear in Poem-a-day, Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. I'm an emeritus professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, and former classical flutist. I get restless.