Tomas Ekström; six poems

JAN WOLKERS DREAMS

Just before I fell asleep
I saw a sheet fall,
the country sinking deep
beneath the sea

On an island Jan Wolkers sits
twisting sculptures
out of his aged body,
he keeps prying and scratching
where the words gave out

With his back he holds
the North Sea at bay

On the mainland the roads wind
away lost in the fog
and the sheep steadily sink
into the swampy ground

Jan Wolkers dreams
of a morning long ago,
of the smell of piss from thousands
of crowded cattle

He dreams of the woman
who sat in his sink
and a cold hollands



GETTING SOMEWHERE

The dying Ezra Pound
looks back upon his life-work
regrets everything

"A swollen magpie in
unsteady sun"

To see:
the only real
knowledge is
in uncertainty



NIGHT IS BLACK

I
On the street corner
on a winter sunday
neglected in an unexpected
snowfall

Only a fool listens
to the alarm clock
on a day like this with
a tired
timetable

I look too long
at somebody,
take out a criminal
claim for the snowstorm

When you should be
harmless,
not a crack
in the wakefulness leading
back to the dream


II
I lie sleeping, turn
carefully to the left to the right
but not too much
On my back a cat lies putting me
to sleep with claws in my back

One day maybe all this doesn't
mean anything anymore, not even
A dog who was named Fidel
Or a record by Orup
that someone I liked thought was good

I lie sleeping, dreaming of
an autumn in Johanneshov
In the leaf-fog I see someone lose his
blackness, come closer with the dog
on a long string

It's like being a tourist
not knowing where to go
when the souvenir shops are closed
One day maybe all this doesn't
mean anything anymore, not even


III
Sometimes it is thinned out
and our shadows rattle
through the door

Here in an unfamiliar wakefulness
the world looks neither
kind nor common

Here the sun can hardly burn
away all decayed annual rings


IV
Deep beneath the railroad tracks
the shadows of the trees are taller
than the trees
Winds pass there,
elusively they circle
and turn their faces
to a sun that doesn't
exist

We are below the storms,
the developers
and the ink cartridges
Harvest will be good;
I lift a dampened
fingertip
to the wind



HARVEST

Roadside, august drought:
the second lets
it's refuse drop

Harvest of clothberries
and mustard heather
Everything here crunches

Lavender burns
by the roadside, I see a
road sign, august drought



ASTERISK IN FEBRUARY

Heaven hatches house-sparrows
Children bred to kill and be killed
Nail nails and throw apple-cores
squelch in mud

*

The air smells of metal



SEMICOLON

You ask me
where the misery is.

It’s not here.
On the contrary:

the joy of a semicolon
at seven in the morning.

(poems translated by lars palm)

Aaron Tieger; four poems from NOISE

NOISE

the space between

notes fills

space noise

needs




NOISE

I know my secrets &
why they are

my poison
is for weaklings

Everything counts
(in any amount)

& I tell myself
I don’t know




NOISE

Telling lies I don’t
believe to cover truth
I don’t believe say
no more




NOISE

Under light
of city valley
rises to hill chilly right
out of machinery

thick sky &
heart goes boom

jeroen nieuwland; five poems

an angel must have fallen from the sky
with blinded eyes (so as not to shame the earth?)
she rests silently between two boys that carry her
away to safety, of which she is in need.
although no one else can see her, they innocent
walk, one pouting, one with defiance on his face,
preempting any who might question them.
she wounded, holds white flowers in her hand
that droop, to not offend the wings draped wearily
along her arching back, damaged from tumbling
through the sky. unclear who bears the weight,
that they themselves perpetuate. this remains,
two boys, an angel, flowers, in equal burden
bound, without chance to quit their covenant.

(written after the finnish painter Hugo Simberg's (1873-1917) painting the wounded angel)


*


Shall we go to bed they both said as
he sat at his desk and she stood before
the mirror that hung in a wardrobe

far away from where she might have heard
his voice or seen him turn as she spoke
but he did and he did and she did and
she sat as he got up to stand then she stood

to undress to lie stiff as if cold
on the left half of her mattress so he lay
his back flat his head pressed hard to his pillow
with his right hand hanging down from the edge

to forget is to rest to remember is to regain
contours clear or barely out of focus
by gazing into undetermined space
solitary silent an activity


*


Parking lots are vacant.
Birds are flocks or
caught in flight.
Bellies heave or are
soft and white and heavy.
Once a decision is made
there is always time left.
Between a shopping cart
and the car in which
the shopping goes
one pavement cracks,
several noisy babies,
divorces undecided as
of yet, dinner in plastic
dinner served from
plastic. As long as things
are just for now, but how
long is that. If the
homeless person had
spoken you would
have taken his words
for wise. for what reason
did both of you return
the other’s smile.
Don’t buy his paper
if what you want is
to break your bill
for the soda machine.
The other ideas remain
within the lot’s confines.
They dissipate and multiply
and the parking’s concrete is
not much different in the end
some thoughts are acted on
sometimes awaited actions done.


*


All you say in the sunlight. Your day to arrange

with the small wooden bench and the trees and the

joggers. The smile that you smile at the warmth of

the breeze on

your face. That you run to catch out of breath and
keep smiling because you know you could not go
any faster. When you open your mouth in the wind
and you

breathe in and out against it. So you stop and you
laugh in the air without sound and you say in the
sun. Arrange your day on the small wooden bench
in the

park where an old lady sits on Sunday. Every week
you imagine that she waits there for a disappeared
man. He has left

long ago, before you were born. She was not there
today, is it Sunday. Would she want you to sit. You
sit down.


*


1. to me! the horseback general

2. from the man in his mercy seat, no sound.
death upon his body a fascinating vacuum

3. pick me. the antepenultimate boy then
the last boy, after all he is not a team player

4. somebody loves you. the evangelist girl big
brown eyed, had forced her card upon him
now crumpled in his open palm, he remembered

5. you’re a winner! shaking his daily fist at the morning
mirror to make the affirmation last until this evening too

6. no words from her who sits to peel skin
from her own body. she does feel something

1. forget. the general resigns descends leads
horse away from army and raging battle

Daniel f. Bradley; five from T=I=D=Y language

or are people just animals that can speak and write and make up goddess and make up morals and not think about how we are really unable to reach the lofty goals that we dream and how we are really unable to look at ourselves honestly and see

what we are i have no problems expecting the worst of my fellows and when they are throwing around terms like innocent and victim and immoral i expect them to be particular depraved in the violence that they will do

coarse be sure to label me a sociopath with the intriguing defense affective reading and demonstration of some adventurous and nonstandard modes of suggestion of a kind of utopian horizon

one of the most important critics today and it's improper how she met him and her and she won't allow anyone to speak of her in front of her as she and him made her uncomfortable over something and i'm saying this like i know these bone heads but really they uninteresting verbiage and landfill

*

the prospect of fighting paint scared us a little but when she saw the poor colour all broke into identical evil grins never fight it wouldn't matter who's wrong or right

if a broken heart needs a giggles i thought you were suppose to be evil you know you wanna do it and it will make me very happy

i don't even know anyway went climbing last weekend managed to make it to the hey i even spelled his name right everyone see now there are few things in the world which can separate such a happy mob

evil grins on all of us care free in the streets pink baby loo the night before the wedding chorus of mama don't aloud no finger painting round here this is the problem only the words cum round anymore

*

never thought that a language was geographic thing may start like and they move or die they change or die

hey become something else or die if you wanna go top dog that's fine whatever language they need to get the funny fact it is pretty meaningless

like saying i like your eye colour pretty harmless cept ya killed cuz they have a wrong pink eye colour or they don't believe the goddess

*

your body cracks and i bathe in blood wallow in thoughts i condemn myself as i bathe

blood bathe in blood by pink eyes of the dead of all that have listened love and loosened us from our salt

us from our sins in order deaths of so that he could bathe in girl n boy bath

thus stay forever young or improve her complexion this was not mentioned trial order n' steaks of human flesh moth on ya bones till none of its left breath pest exhale

death imp blessed with text bathe in the infidel wanna do this

cast the first stone decide nothing those who count everything

*

they are the same ones who refused to stay undead yet you have so many spelling powers needed to find hidden terrorist groups

talk about shaking up the beehive it went from agitated to swarming jail them i don't care how throw 'em bee they are shallow bitchy elitists suffice to say any advice from this guy like he won first place

fat chance locked up more criminals for longer because they victimize when they can't accuse me of being a terrorists don't just give up and disappear they are not aliens

now how many parents do lessons the spelling today was the big day they set up just in time

dismissal so it isn't the rational kind of fear about kids have this book jammed up their asses from day one and of course they don't realize that there is a real world out there you say go get 'em in the airport