Valery Oisteanu
GALLERY ZERO IN AMSTERDAM

Hunk Spitteller is dead and soon will be his gallery
The owner sleeps below his "frei-room"
Room free of rules, for free thinkers
Tower of Babel grows to the sky, six stories high
The builders are all disciples of Hollanditis
The virus of freedom and anarchy
Ground zero for squatters of Ruitgoord
The front line of the balloon festival
The corporate pirates flood the land
Creating Africa Harbor
Pushing poets out, pushing orchids out, pushing artists out
Crates of wood, pyramids of crated books
Building blocks for the Tower of Babel
Boxes of wood inhabited by rebellious psychedelians
Green mustache, grasshoppers in the lapel
Ali-da-da has Indian looking tails, Ali-Baba
Sarah Jacob an artist living in France, Victor Hugo’s house
She found a gun and love letters that belonged to the writer
Up the ramp a house for punk poets with yellow suits
Punjabi writers, space cake makers
And the ghost of Kurt Schwitters
All fighting for the village, fighting for the future
"Fortune favors fools"
Engraved at the entrance of St. Geertruida church
Independent station in the pulpit Radio-Ruitgoord
And the voice of all is the Grand-Jester Hans Plump.


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Valerie Oisteanu
Valery Oisteanu is a writer, artist and art-critic with international flavor. Born in Russia (1943) and educated in Romania. He adopted Dada and Surrealism as a philosophy of art and life. Immigrating to New York City in 1972, he has been writing in English for the past 38 years. He is the author of 11 books of poetry, a book of short fiction and a book of essays: ”The AVANT-GODS”(in progress). A new collection of poetry with collage illustrations titled   “Perks in Purgatory” appeared in” Fly by Night Press” New York, 2009. For the past 15 years he is a columnist at New York Arts Magazine and art critic for Brooklyn Rail and www.artnet.com.