Good memories and others
Alike, move the waters
Of my innermost.
Tides of time cannot wash away
Our footprints.
I burn calories by making peace
With the beauty of even pain.
Looking back so hard my
Eyes are sweating.

For Helene.


Ashes on the water, now.
Love's bones like dust downstream.  
At least it got to see itself in our eyes,
Feel itself between hand holding hand

And whispered caresses.
From pillow talk to fists raised at
Concerts, glasses of Portuguese wine
On her balcony to the sound of magpies

We named our neighbours.
We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Ended gracefully.

I open hands that held hers and see
Nothing but skin worn by labour,
And air.
Ashes on the water, now.

Embers without a chance against rivers  
Cold with melted mountain snow and
Unyielding differences.
Some loves drown with lungs too full

To cry; others float like a funeral-pyre-
Longboat into the night, ablaze.
King and queen, hand upon hand.
Crowns tied from fresh flowers,

We were beautiful.
Began beautifully.
Slid apart the way a glacier parts from
The hills; slowly, but with the force

Of its thousands of tons.
Ashes on the water,
Where the ghost of our union rests
Underneath the surface of our memories.

I will remember you.
Until the stars burn out, raining the
Dust of themselves like snow upon
These waters that always are moving.

Winter introduced itself like a
Sudden death in the family.
A -28 degrees celsius day has fingers
Thin enough to reach through glass,
Leaving its ice on the inside of
Windows.

I find candles and carry firewood,
Preparing for a cold one.
Out here, blackouts can last for a day.
My iPad and portable modem have
Battery enough for one
Poem.

Such are my priorities.
I empty my fridge into the snow,
Thanking the gods
For my beer.
Don't try to reach me. I'm remembering
Life from centuries ago.

Throwing rocks into the winter river.
Ice as thin as a child's soul's skin
Carries not the weight
Of History's oldest weapon.

Like a paperless poem it shatters,
Floating away with the fleeing stream.
Water needs no windows.
Nothing is outside to its within.

After the battle
Flaming fragments fall like snow
Like glowflakes

A traditional western Norwegian lullaby, sung by my girlfriend's mother to her in her earliest years. Directly translated from Norwegian.*


It was a lovely, lovely day, and now
That day is over.
All the children that are good
Are sound asleep and dreaming.

The heavens that were happy blue,
With a thousand smiles within'em
Will only start to laugh again
Sometime tomorrow morning.

Few things are as black
As a snowless December morning

In Norway.
Some nights it's so

Dark I can't
Sleep.