I was such a beautiful child,
With my shoulder lengths of
Sun bleached barley.

Smiled little pearl soldiers in
Line. Old glassesless ladies
Took me for
Girlchild.

But I grew twisted like an
Appletree around a
Graveyard path
Lightpost.

Teeth came out crooked.
Hair fell out at thirteen.
I was big for my age;
Grew other hair in places
I never knew I would.

My voice broke as if in
Sorrow over the child
Inside that had
Died. After that I spoke as if
Into a bucket.

Sometimes I catch my father
Gazing at me through a slight veil
Of grievance for that same
Child.

I would never dream
To blame him.

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.

Oslo
Summer

Hot

I eat
Ice cream

Like a
Child

Having ripped my way through
Concrete older than my father
With jackhammer and
Shovel
I rest. As thirsty as sweaty and *****
As dirt.
Across the street
The ladies at the hair salon
Whistle and wave giggling girishly.
Clouds of menthol.
**** sexists.
I put my shirt back on.
It's not even lunch and I'm
Less than a Diet Coke ad
Without the coke.

His Down's Syndrome makes
His age a tough guess, I'll
Say eight to ten.

Wide eyes on machines,
Ice cream dripping on the
Pavement outside the

Construction site.
I wanna work like this when
I grow up, he says in

Young enthusiasm to a mother
Whose eyes well up with
Gratitude when I approach

And kneel down in front of
Him. So you want a job,
Buddy? I ask him with a

Wink. He suddenly remembers
His ice cream and bites into
It shyly. Nods, glancing at the

Tools in my belt, the scratches
On my arms, the brick wall
I've been attacking with a

Wacker jackhammer. Nods
Again. Well, I'll see you in a
Few years, I say with another

Wink, this time to his mother,
Who'd look her young age if
Her eyes weren't as tired,

But you can start with this
And get some practice. I hand
Him my Stanley Fat Max

Hammer. His ice cream
Hits the ground as he
Recieves it with both hands,

Looking to his mother for
Confirmation that it's ok.
Oh, it is. She mouths a

Thank you SO much...
They walk away, his chatter
High pitched and fading

Around the corner. And I
Head over to the foreman to
Report that I lost my hammer.

Don't ever employ me.
I can work a good game, but
I'm too soft around little heroes.

Whisky, whisky.
My worst
Best friend.
You have embarassed us
Again.

Whisky, whisky.
One kiss leads to
Another.
Angry lover.
A terrible mother.

Warm. Sweet.
All a woman should be.
Smiling
With perfect
White fangs.
Whisky,

Whisky.
If we keep biting
And clawing at her
Heart, it's your
Fault
If I end up as single
As your malt.

Poet, be not afraid.
There are far worse things than
Bad poetry.

Keep writing; like a child keeps
Drawing with the purest of
Disregards to likeness.

The more stones you turn, the more
Gems you produce.

The more ink you rain,
The more gracious your written
Children grow.

All flexing builds muscle.

Rough bricks form castles.

Even Dalì carved canvases to shreds
And started anew
Not caring too much.
Not caring

Too much
To keep painting.

Few can pronounce it
Unless Scandinavian.
The r's are all rolling,
And the letters all sound...
More or less not as
In English.
Just let it go, it's a 'twister,
I know.

My names are all old-norse,
Not modern Norwegian.
(Viking-speak sounded
More close to Icelandic).
Sverre means "spin like an arrow",
Expression for being untamed; un-
Controllable; wild-man.
G is for Guttorm: "Where Gods
Seek Shelter"; a fortress for those
One thought needed one least.
Holter means "edge of the woods";
The end of the forest (or where it
Begins).

The Wildman Where the
Gods Seek Shelter at the
Edge of the Woods.

My friends call me Sverre.
It is a name I've shared with
Swordbearing kings.
I am equally proud
When addressed.

Even as dying, I have no time
For bitterness.

Life was too short,
Even before.

Each step holds gratitude for the sound
Of snow beneath it.

For
Now

I carry my passenger
Unburdened.

Say no to nothing. Not
Even the cancer.

Even tomorrow's mother's tears,
Father's clenched fists upon casket;

Flowers; loss. Inevitability.
Death grows inside me.

The opposite of a
Pregnancy.

Western coast of Norway.
Relentless fists of salt and sea
Pound against the windows
Facing the openness.

All edible remains after every
Meal, they surrender unto her here.
She feeds them back.
Her moods change daily,

Taking only one life
With every ten thousand she
Nourishes. *We love her. We fear her.
We love her.

Sometimes I feel **** alien, even in the
Most familiar of surroundings.
Instead of spinning, pointing,
Naming everything Home,

I shut myself, and turn inward.
Day after day the first one at a
New school in a foreign country,
As far from a cool kid as the

Overweight teacher's pet with a
Stutter. I don't even know how to
Speak my own name in their
Incomprehensible language.

Nothing here is for me, and
At least E.T. had a home to phone; all
I have is the space i possess as I walk
Through it, eyes firm on borrowed

Footing. No single road leads to my
Rome, and somewhere inside the
Timelessness of my innermost, the
Old, old man watches the young'uns

Talking, dressing, adressing,
Preferring, doing it all the way
Young'uns do, with pale, tired eyes
And simply just

Can't, -tries, but- just doesn't
Understand.

To write food in the stomach
Of every hungry child.

To spell war as peace,
Metaphorize flowers into the barrel

Of every gun on Earth.
The poet has responsibilities

Beyond those of mothers,
Of kings and presidents.

I refuse to give up hope;  
This could be a poem world.

Come on, write your worst piece
Of literature.

Even misprints may give other
Meanings to a word,

Write me a green sky, blue dirt,
Trees the colour of air.

Sometimes the best poets
Have the least to say,

So keep writing, write until your
Fingers fall asleep.

Write until you havent slept
For weeks in search of that word,

That one right word,
Then rest on a notebook pillow

And dream the world right.
Write the world right.

There is no such thing as
Wasted poetry.

In memory of, and with respect to the victims of the 2011 terrorist acts in Norway.
As the weather resembles, one remembers...


Perhaps if you went to *my school,
You'd have gotten beaten up for your egocentricity
Long before it grew to such deranged preportions.

As misplaced as the runes you carved into Glock and rifle;
You'd have been not only estranged, but broken.
Disarmed decades before detonation.

Alas. A distorted berserker you ploughed through
Establishments and hearts; an armed teenager fuelled on
Video games, soft candy and steroids.

Pity the nation that nurses such an unpoetic national enemy.
We forgot your name and face, as you never knew ours.
The symbol we chose was an ocean of roses,

Like torches held to our love unharmed.

Norwegian leap year two-thousand-eleven;
Only twenty-two days in July.

A sweet, soft engine.
Oiled with heart's blood,
Running on lover's sweat.

A beautiful machine; an
Organism inhaling pain;
Exhaling hope and clear

Skies: The opposite of pollution.
Girl. Closest friend to my
Environment.

They're burning the stubbles of yesteryear's fields
Before ploughing.
Walls of fire around every farm.
Smoke blends with the smell of pig's furtilizing manure,
And whenever my nose wrinkles up
I remember my father's words:

It's the result of millennia of agricultural tradition.
It's the smell of money.
It's the smell of soil to bread.
It's the smell of something far more important
Than nasal comfort.

He had me at
-Where he should have said-
*Organic.

I've been a construction worker
My entire adult
Life.

Still, I cannot
Seem to rebuild
Her confidence.

I've been a poet for
As long as I can
Remember,

But my encouraging
Hollow-point-words shatter
Against her insecure kevlar.

Suppose all I can be is
Sunlight, water and
Soil.

I'll try that; I've been a
Farmer's boy since
Birth.

I pile up twenty years worth of
Publisher-declined
Collections.

They reach me to my knees.
Little towers of Poetic
Injustice;

Mini-monuments to the years
Of mailbox disappointments
And cursing the arts.

Now I thank for every manuscript
Returned with their polite regrets.
Another volume of "Unpublished

Works" for the future.
They are my Twelve Monkeys.
My Poetry of Gold at the

Rainbow's End.

My secrets are the size of
Planets. They smell of diesel
And magnolia, and
They fire at the inside of
My heart with nuclear arrows
The size of a toddler's
Intentions towards a
Crying mother, flowers in tiny
Hand and all.

One hour north of Oslo
It is spring morning.
I see my bus
Through my breath.

Up here it's cold until
The sun screams in the summer day
And whimpers red and spiteful all
Night;

We've barely seen it for six months.
Winter is white ground/black air;
Colour only in the cheeks of
Dog walkers
Under thick hats and wrapped in
Yards of scarf.

Life is magnificent when awakening
From annual cryo.

I smile at it from my seat.

It's almost time for my ritual.
Friday after work.
Alone.
The one beer, and the burning of
The Long Johns.

I am blowing out
My candle in
Both ends.

At times I refuse to believe that
Racism exists, other than in
Movies and jokes.
It is just too ridiculous a
Concept.

In a world overweight with
Selfish, hate hurt, grudge holding
Beasts of Barely Men
With gold lust in their bone
Marrow and gold dust on their
Minds working to make it all
A miserable place for everyone else...
Judge from colour?

Who can afford to exclude the
Good ones, over something
As sadly superficial
As skin?
Angels and devils walk
Within all shades of
Man
Alike.

Brother Bear (your name in English)
once again we meet in joy.
Soon our laughter rolls across the fields
and plains and forests, boy.

My best friend, my twin although
you're twin years younger than I am. 
Still in many ways superior to this
rough and rugged man.

*Hark, I feel my stomach shiver.
I can hear my liver sigh.
I can sense my brain's uneasiness,
I hear my kidneys cry.
I can feel my long intestine curling up
and screaming WHY!?
I can smell the smoke from meat ablaze
across the summer sky.

The sound of swallows
Thrusting diving
Whistling
My first
Childhood home

House already then old
Even older barn smelled
Like livestock of
Distant times

Fell asleep between walls
Soaked in centuries
An infant

But the house and barn
Are gone -I remember-
And the swallows
With them

We laugh like there's nothing
That's not hilarious.
We speak in unison when skipping down

Cobblestone streets, on our way to
Music or movies. Like magnets
Through two crowds, drawn

Until interconnecting. Astral athletes
Exchanging tops after a game; pointing,
Asking, learning, relaxing.

Learning, relaxing more, pacing. When
Love tries, everything becomes
Dancing.

Dry your eyes,
Little girl.
Don't let them in.
They're only words.

There, now. There.
It's just a tear.
A raindrop from your  
Atmosphere.

I promise you
Clear skies again.
Brush off your knees.
Arise again.

Dry your eyes,
My little friend.
More things begin
Where others end.

So stand and shine
Despite their words.
They envy you.
Of course it hurts.

So, yeah.
This would all have been a lot easier
If I didn't have the heart of a

Poet.
But I'll say this: Please love to learn,
So we can have *** with

Semicolons in as suggestive a
******* as they would imply. I know
I lost my innocence to an

Adjective, but didn't we all?
There's no room for jealousy in
Poetry,

We just rhyme and give the rhyme
Time to define, and aline with the
Rhythm to create a devine

Relaxationary artpiece to be consumed
By any reader who would find the
Time to entwine with a sentence

Or line, and use'em to maybe just
Describe the feeling of a hand
On the face of a man as myself, who

Has written so much of the things one
Can touch, that he looks at the world
As a man that a girl

Can tell: Look at me, and say all
You can see is the face of Eternity.
I am that man, with a pen in his hand,

And you could say it, but I surely  
Know it: My body's a worker's.
My soul is a poet's.

I stand behind you.
No matter where you turn,

I've got your back.
Don't care if you can't see me;

I won't make a sound as the
Bullets hit.

It's a cheap shot world at times.  
You form the frontline,

I'll be here with a back full of
Lead with your name on it.

I'm a ***** Boxing Champion.
Taking all their sucker punches,  

I stand behind you. Let you fight  
Your own battles,

Shield you only from what
Isn't fair.

Even the odds with every step
You take. I'm kevlar. You unalone.

I was one too.
Taking pleasure in pains of the
Past; addicted nearly, to the
Pity and attention
Of others.

Now I keep it locked away.
Private pearls of an adventure life,
Wounds long healed;
Faded scars. My smiles now deserved.
I wish the same contentment

To all those others, the
Happy unhappy. Who can only
Recognize themselves
In broken
Mirrors.

An ant before God.
I am a humble soul within
Humble flesh,
Yet at times ignorant, like a
Baby kissed by a president.

Sometimes you are the most
Womanly woman I have
Ever felt.
Pure feminine.
Venus mirrored.

I am snake to your swan.
Turtle to your cheetah.
When you ask me to hold you,
My arms embrace the
Universe.

Disclaimer:

These are my private opinions.
Feel more than free to disagree.
They've made Life better
For me.

Eat breakfast.
One half hour less of sleep in the
Morning will keep you
Steady and strong until lunch.
It'll be worth it.
Oatmeal packs a good punch.

Don't mention how little
You've slept to anyone.
Unless you operate dangerous
Machinery or rely on being
Rested for the safety of
Yourself or others, no one
Will care.

Map the different nationalities
At your workplace.
Learn these phrases in their
Respective languages:
Hello.
Great work.
Watch out!
Making someone feel welcome at
Work is a gift worth giving.
Bridges build
Friendships. Friendships alone
Make a life worth living.

Spend some money on a
Special water bottle.
It'll inspire you to drink from it.
Drink enough to keep hydrated;
Not so much that your
Breaks interfere with your
Obligations.
Don't challenge your rights,
Or your boss' patience.

Leave the toilet looking a little
Nicer than it was.
Pick up that piece of paper.
Wipe the soap from the sink.
Aim carefully.
Others will follow your example.
Ask for hand disinfectant.
Use it.

If you feel overwhelmed by
Stress, or have personal matters
Occupying your thoughts,
Take a toilet break.
It is one of the best places on Earth to
Clear your head. Take only
The time that
You need.
Even brilliant minds have  
To act to succeed.

Enough on toilets.

Fall in love with a colleague.
Don't ever follow up on it.
Pick a favourite secretary or
Cleaning lady, janitor or
Security guard, etc.
That warm sensation in your chest
When you see them, might just
Make a bad day better.
Theirs too, when you
Smile their way.
Just remember:
Harassment is for the weak and
Insecure; a little attention never
Hurt anyone,
But don't push for more.
Keep it innocent.
Keep it pure.  

Find your least favourite co-
Worker. Make friends.
Start rehearsing that 'old buddy'-
Feeling when you see them.
Say hello. Smile.
You'll be in for a surprise in most
Cases. Trust me, you will find
Golden graces. You'll get to love
Them; you'll look for their faces.

Turn to your seniors.
They are a tremendous resource.
They deserve to be needed.
They deserve your respect.
They know how to repair more
Than we ever will.
They know what it's like
To be younger than them.
They'll have time for your
Questions,
But none to ****.

Quit smoking. Together.
Go for a coffee break.
Go for a fruit break.
Go for a water break.
Together.
Pat each other on the shoulder
With every smoke you don't have.
Take the stairs. You'll feel so well. 
Quit in pairs.
Not in a shell.

Put up humouristic posters,
Tell jokes, make
Friendly fun of each other.
Anything that provokes laughter.
Time will fly. Bonds grow stronger.
You'll look forward to work. You'll
Live happier; longer.

Do more than just enough.
You'll feel so much better about
Your skills. And others about you.
Any job is worth that little extra.
Few are worth doing twice.
Judge your efforts through
Your own eyes.

Be poetry. Don't just write it.
You'll need less ink and paper.
The art will live forever.
You'll be thankful for more.
You'll think higher of yourself.
You'll see the world around you
As the beautiful place it can be.
Be the poet and the poem.

You'll never feel depressed.
You will never be alone.
You'll be the single richest person
That you have ever known.

When I touch your
Forehead with
Mine

The energies between our
Eyes dance within
An inch of

Immense impact.
I could drop you over ruins;
Rebuild cities.

I fear not a thing in this room; world; vast. A path as wide as Earth-
I have none other to follow. Why should
I find myself ravingly inclined to throw this bucket into the ocean,
haul it back in until my palms bleed and with the intent of an excited madman
drink it all until I regurgitate shards of broken dream, regrets and utter salt.

I have listed all my achievements, all the houses I built, all the cast-iron-flame-retardant-
bridges I sat ablaze without a shrug; floating away into the air-waving
|new-life-death-the-universe-and-everything|
fumes of a well-played Molotow Coctail. I fear not a thing in this room.
When I die, I'll rest my cranial remains on a volume of pure epicity.

Loves and lovers won and mostly lost. Victories at high and lower cost.
Faces, sounds and scenes, more wild and blinding than I'd ever seen.
I cannot see in past or future anything considered missed.
No laugh withheld, no sin I felt I needed to resist.
It's only me: Little God. And I have come here to exist.
My diary. Is my Bucket List.

Bullet and blade
Have ended
Many a friend.

Some were warriors
Living by sword, others
Just unlucky.

No one safe from
Anything. I buy her
Pepperspray instead of

Flowers these days.
Keep leaving
Butterfly knives in the

Pockets of her coats.
I am a man of non-violence,
But one with worlds to lose.

I miss the days when the fight
Ended as ground was hit.
Knuckles and bones were

All we needed; men fencing
For themselves with nothing
But themselves,  

And women were there to be
Charmed and fought over. Not
Left torn and terrified

In a ditch, broken beyond repair,
Their men helplessly wielding
Lead and steel at the absence

Of the animal responsible.
I'll buy her flowers today.
Flowers, and walk her home.

Bullet and blade
Have ended
Many a friend.

The weight of their
Tragedies is about the
Same

As that of the crates of ammunition
It takes to keep the world
Safe from the threat of itself.

Life is too short to waste
On insignificancies,* she says,
Waving carefree toes under socks
On my lap
-One green; one red-
When I call her my
Lantern-Lit
Vessel of
Wisdom.

Others slept.
We sat with a bottle
At the kitchen table

The way men do
Who deserve to
Talk.

Outside, the embers of
The dying bonfire
Flung sparks

Into the dark, and as
Men that need to cry
So very often

Don't, the night, the woods
And the cabin kitchen
Formed a tear

Just our size. In which
We sat. And sometimes
Spoke a

Little.

As suggestive a ******* as the
Thought of ink kissing paper kissing
Eyes kissing

Ink back. Letters drawn describing
The sound of drip-dripping drops onto
Parchment to form

Circular inkless stains on it, or perhaps in
These days rendering a touch screen
Untouchable;

Do you really wish to delete this
Draft?
"No, idiot machine. I just cried on it."

I wish I was there with you,  
Watching the ocean break its green
On white Australian rock.

I wish I was there with you,
Seeing a thunder storm form,  
Knowing the only shelter we had

Was our rental car parked
On an Arizonan desert roadside,  
As we opened our bottles and prepared

For the night.
I wish that was your hand in mine,  
As we counted crows landing on

Stonehenge. That that was you
I shared a snow cave with
In the deadly sub-zeros of the Finnmark

Plains. I wish that was you with me.
Even going for walks here, under the
Northern Lights on a January night,

Both dimmed with dad's home brew and
What not, content with the fact
That we'd wish

We were there with
Each other, if with
Anyone else.

Gravel pathways across a
Graveyard.
Rainbows in
Garden sprinkler droplets.
Church tower swallows.
I know death.

I know its smell, the touch of
Something unalive. I know
Its feeling.
It is sharp, lucid and transparent.
White haze in open eyes,
Dreams and memories now

Forgotten.
Stones leaning like mourning
Heads against one another. Trees
In breeze, one has grown around
The single rusty lamp post.
I have stood in its light.

Stood in its light looking up,
Caught not crying over a tragedy.
I know death. I know its feeling.
Closer every time I think of it;
The opposite of a mirage.
Mine may very well one

Day be the first dead body
Someone has ever seen.
These blue eyes milky blind.
Arms like branches; twig fingers.
Life means surprisingly little with
Your hands upon its absence.

Leave my name on each bullet.
Show me your shadow,
Scythe and all.
Dead as burned trees and great
Grandparents. Rancid rest. Dirt.
I know death.

I hear you saying
The games that they're playing
Are meant for the
Talented few.

But the power invested
In all of the best, is
The same one that rests
Within you.

I woke up from snoring.
I'm a light sleeper
When carbohydrates and
Fats roam my
Temple.

Sometimes I drink three pints
Of water before I sleep.
It's as good an alarm in the morning
As any.

So much in my life is
Food and drink.

You may kiss me as sweetly
As you can, or slap
A bitter palm across my face.
It's all dessert and dinner to me,

In any order you wish.
I'll never sleep with you
Hungry.

Riverside camp
Site plans.

Stones smooth from
Currents of centuries

Surrounding ditch
Dug for bonfire.

Driftwood shelter
Tied with fresh willow twigs,

Tiled with leaves and ferns.
Location for personal business

Decided upon and upheld.
The choice is mine whether to

Watch the weather, the fire,
The sunset and its mirrored twin

Where dinner skips for its own,
Or the spaces between it all.  

I have shovel, axe and a knife
As sharp as a scorned woman's

Tongue. Sleeping bag, and salt.
If the fish doesn't bite

I'll sleep hungry. No worry.
My surroundings always

Provide. They tolerate me;
I address them as I would

Any mother.

I'm just a man.
I think things can be fixed.

My first aid kit contains
Super glue and duct tape.

Any box is a tool box to me;
I'll always look for the right

***** to reattach your self-
Esteem; the right clamps to hold

Your good days together. When
You cry, I want to open you up

Gently, lay out all your parts and
Find the leaking gasket.

In the woods outside my home town
Mushrooms grow in clusters shaped as dead vikings.

The soil rich; thick -dense- with history.
Lean your face on the ground. Feel the warmth

Of blade-based battles on forest grounds now buried
Under centuries of rot, moss and everyday oblivion.

Rust-warped swords pulled from deflated tractor tires
By angry farmers' hands so far from unlikely

Related to those who -fifty or more generations ago-
Forged the ancient nuisance.

Dad spoke of his father today.
I listened with Friday
Beer breath and keen
Ears, as he said:

I hope to God your brother
And you won't remember
Me as a ****
Fool when I'm gone,

Then coughed that gurgle-rasp
That promises significant
Changes in a son's
Life within

Not too distant a
Future.
Those **** cigarettes.
Half a lung gone, surgery

Scar a part of that back
That I remember I thought
Would carry me
Forever.

We never spoke too emotionally.
He does it more and
More, and all I can do is
Prepare,

And to speak such truths as:
Dad. You've impressed our
Friends, charmed our women,
Driven us through snow storms

And late nights
To get us to -or home from- either.
Fed us, chopped wood through
Summers to keep us warm through

Winters.
Taught us languages and carpentry,
History and poetry,
Classical wrestling and chivalry.

You've made us laugh since
Before we knew how to.
I think of you whenever I smell
Sawdust, new guitar strings, and smoke

(Only minutes old, his cough
Was the first sound I reacted to...)
Your memory is safe.
Whenever your time comes

To leave us to the strength of our
Own arms and souls,
Trust that your rest is well earned.
He laughed a little,  

Eyes wet from coughing
And whatever.
I could die content tomorrow,  
Having told him.

Some giants don't fall.
They just lie down.
Not to wither away and die.
But to retire,

The way oak trees,
Mountains, revolutionary ideas
And gods
Retire.

As the story goes, my newlywed
Ancestors, in accord with
Tradition, drank mead
-Honey wine- for the first full
Month of their marriage.

Honeymoon.