Eighteen young writers from Flanders and the Netherlands have brought nineteenth-century artefacts from the Rijksmuseum to life. They wrote their stories in response to the question: what do you see when you look at these objects through the lens of impending doom? Mahat Arab wrote a poem in response to a figure called Two Fighting Knights, Known as ‘Mort de Monseigneur le Duc de Clarence’. ‘they make him a martyr/ and will silence him should he dare to protest’.

Alfred Emile O’Hara de Nieuwerkerke, Two Fighting Knights, Known as ‘Mort de Monseigneur le Duc de Clarence’, 1838 © Rijksmuseum Collection, Amsterdam

The men

this is not a picture of the past
this is how the past pictured the past
when closeness could be no more than a collision
that’s to say
not for these boys
the word of their king was paramount
so collide they would
and collide they did
and if
quite by accident
he
were to fall and wipe the mud from his face
look up one last time
impaled and trampled
and ask himself
why closeness could be no more than a collision
only silence would envelop him

until the boys of the past
dressed in breeches and high hats
bring him back to life
but make him something other than he is
attribute a heroic death to him
one they want to live towards
one with which they burden each other
life was so simple back then they argue
when a man could simply be a man
could be armed and armoured as he looked for closeness
could prove himself in battle
and then, fulfilled, finally close his eyes
they make him a martyr
and will silence him should he dare to protest

and when the young man of the present will rise
his eyes still sore from the screen on which he’s built a world for himself
a world in which he dictates when birds will sing when days will end and each breeze submits to the click of his mouse
beyond that he won’t know how to read between the lines
he tried is what he’ll tell himself
but he’ll peel any closeness off his armour
he’ll never get to the core of his being
because he knows what a man should be
the boys of the past and the boys of the present have burdened him
have pulled him into an abyss in which
only silence gets to envelop him
and if
out of sheer despair
he’ll extend his hand
they will respond
with a collision