Nordic Poetry Center

 
Sickle cell soldiers do I don’t Lose controll lose weight 
Daisies doing pushups Die and relive carry my semi-
Automatic conveys a very special meaning We are to
The biotech what The body of Pina Bausch for The
Contradiction that I am Surrendering

We have your mothers heart or your cock
cajoles all night – I suppose – And I need sleep
Give us a call and
We might give her away and then…
My thoughts cannot account for themselves in
This thought desert

You blame yourself for your mother’s self destructive
criticism He lits himself alight with sunlight and washes
his hands with it and after photographing everything The
height of his tome gathering dust and crisp sunlight
It will be soon… And we laughed our heads off blowing
His hollow Everyone of their child was bequeathed
assertative western sins Just a bottle of need tasting
like pocket lint

A dust bin of bad Symbolism and a rampage
of Unconscious my soul
Classics counterfeited by them I
Heard her telling her life-story
just How I became a suggestive-aggressive
You prefer these instead of margaritas
It’s a condition of your kind

Of something I don’t know nothing of How it work’d
Yet I keep believing it so They pulled the sea from the
Body but couldn’t pull the body out of sea – as some
things move me this does it too – for one thing He
was forced to quit when holes on the golf course started
reeking bad fumes

Gently like a hot bowl of soup – and I’m not telling this
for a joke – you need to be coming back with your
traumas Cured or not Your grass needs to be very dry for
Not to emit smoke If not a thousand cracked piñatas
what will it be? 

 
***
 

‘Twas Mirta’s first hard-core shoot and
It remained the only one And they
become intimate friends since then
Her twin was perplexed to receive
the gaze meant for the other sister The
Net seem’d always to know
Beforehand the messages I’m sending
Before they reach her Inbox Timetabels
Notes on epoch of the piece and such
We do not need to look far for an advance
Knowledge to know the fail of the shoot
For what is a blunt blade but useless
Knowing too And in this knowing is what?
That makes it knowing for us
Being too much preoccupied in ‘being’
Is not a danger Her response times getting
Shorter all the time until There was no time –
Between yea and nay – pulse and repulse –
Or the negative of it If that’s possible And
That’s why I read only short books
Although his and hers writing was –
How can an army of so many arms
lose? – like life-size enactment of
History In this room the railroad net-
work built and under it the powder keg
ready to go And in that room radio-
active fat on the waist – also life sized –
all had to be aborted, unexplained A
People’s uprise A disassembled cask
A roar of first time Shooting the in-
visible man You have a strange way
Of saying you like me says he But
Heart is on the right side – innit?
though from which side you are
looking on you don’t know

 
***
 

To the point of being gun deaf to your moral accountancies
I creed comedy and tragedy are not opposed
But positive concept with specific content like
lack of resources duped as freedom of choice

Behold you should be seeing them everywhere
True source of evil is the gaze that sees evil everywhere
And when he looked at it he said I like this civilization
and the unborn of it’s eggs

Your flash player is not working in your adoration of her
flak jacket must be returned for repairs to
the seat of your true desire who tricks’d you
But I can borrow her for the death of her
Cause I am a relatively natural blonde in and out
We are spoken by a language but not by this

Likert

No importance at all
Somewhat important
Neither important nor insignificant
Somewhat insignificant
No insignificance at all

Disagree a lot
Disagree
Somewhat disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Somewhat agree
Agree
Agree a lot

Totally inconsiderable
Inconsiderable
Rather inconsiderable
I guess it’s inconsiderable
How would I know
I guess it’s meaningful
Rather meaningful
Meaningful
Totally meaningful

Truly
Almost truly
Not very far from truly
Less than a bit truly
Don’t know
Less than a bit unlikely
Not very far from unlikely
Almost unlikely
Unlikely

Clearly better
Better
Probably better
Not better
No change
Not worse
Probably worse
Worse
Clearly worse

Pretty bright
Twilight
Pretty dark

The Tape

Sorry to trouble you she says at the door.
So she assumed that she could have known I was troubled.
I ask her to play the tape again.
I think it’s important to make sure that it was a tape not an album radio broadcast or other.
Who was speaking on the tape?
Why she had to know that? Why she assumed I knew it?
When she entered she placed her shoes under the chair.
Shall I put the shoes to the closet?
Leave them under the chair I said. Let’s listen to the tape.
But she did not listen to me only walked about in the room and spread her scent all over. She also talked incessantly.
You do not like me talking?
You have always talked. That’s a nice scent. Unfortunately I just burned a scented candle. I can’t identify if it’s patchouli or what?
Give me a break you don’t know a thing about scents.
She assumed that she was irritating me and now she did. Except the scent I liked.
Could it be pine?
I told you!
Of course I meant heather but now I had shaked her ground and I liked that.
Her scent made me forget she was there. That was obviously her aim.
Shall we listen to the tape?
No. Move about a little I would like to know that scent.
I open the window.
She took the tape from her bag. It smelled of celluloid.
Play it again. I must know if it’s you or the tape.
You really like it. Pine you say?
Why did you think I wouldn’t like it?
Close the window.
You don’t like open window?
Do as I say and I take my shoes from under the chair and put them in the closet.
Now you’re talking business play the tape again and you can do what you want. Like…
Shoes.
Tape.
She stood at the door and asked where she can put the shoes.
I closed the door and opened the closet door.
What do you have in that bag I asked her. I tried to sound casual.
You are trying to sound casual. Are you worried?
Why should I be? Nice shoes. You have the tape in your bag?
Yes. You want to listen?
No, lets open the window first and talk. I want to let some fresh air in. I have burned a scented candle.
What scent? Patchouli?
Pine.
I would say heather.
That comes from outside I opened the window.
You are hasty.
I closed the closet door she walked into the living room.
What’s this smell?
I burned a scented candle.
She played the tape.
Who’s talking on the tape?
You are hasty. No chitchat. No exchange of pleasantries. You ask too much. What’s the matter are you worried?
No.
Yes you are. Play it again. You are hasty. I want to listen to it all the way before I say anything.
Sometimes you say without saying anything.
If you think like that why are you here. You can listen to my silence in many ways. In other places.
Don’t be cross. Listen the tape and say what you think.
I was cross. But I feel pleasant now. Where is the tape?
In the bag.
Open it.
It’s open. The tape is here. Where is your tape deck?

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