Nætter jeg faldt i søvn til blide toner
i en salig strøm af længselsfuld lyrik
citeret af stemmer i takt med
dit hjertes ****
bag brystkassen ved min kind

Mens drømmende melodier faldt
ind i rytmen fra dit rolige åndedrag
og den stille efterklang af
lyden fra tabte toner
for altid at minde mig om dig

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the ***** sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging.  I look down

Till his straining **** among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a *****.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper.  He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf.  Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no ***** to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Et sted er der et lys.
Det sniger sig ind, rammer ikke.
Det lader dig beundre, hiver dig ikke ind.
Det lyver og skaber håb.
Alt imens stilheden fylder rummet.
For stille er der.
Hvis du lytter godt efter høre du et suk og to hænder foldes.
Mærk efter og føl hulken der spreder sig kilometer væk.
Kig op og vær forundret.
Alting er ikke godt og okay er ikke et rigtigt ord.
Ting misforstås ofte.
Men forstå mig ret.
Det sker og det er sket.
En tøven opstår for hvad kan du føle og hvad kan du se.
Er ikke det samme.
Nej tværtimod.
At se er solen.
Men hvem elsker ikke månen.
Om natten folder vi os ud.
Til toner langt over vores syn.
Toner der rammer hjertet.
Toner der hiver os ned op og rundt
Og pludselig er vi i et cirkus.
Der er mange mennesker og alligevel ser man kun en.

He knows not how the toner trails,
I know how my conduits drain themselves.
Forming a queue while spitting blood
They’re an anemic residue.

He knows not how to freshen my palate,
With warmth, I see no remedy
My so-fatigued heart,
I was a monochrome in plastic wares.

I wasn’t a prototype, but a derivative.
Seclusion I abhor, indeed my life too

I can never  seem to warm up
these days.
Its freezing all day
my feet like popsicles
pale, white, and frozen.
Winter is really
hitting Arizona
Its
wet
gray
painful
Ian Curtis and Hank Williams weeping in the black clouds above
walking to the bus stop
my freshly shaved bald head
numb from the cold.
The pomp
the greasy combed hair
gone.
Since my pin-up girlfriend
the Marilyn to my Elvis
packed up and left.
The week before Christmas.
I can't say I really blame her
I can't say she didn't try
She stuck it out a good while there
She left because I cant hold down
a job
and because
I caught her going behind my back
with another man
that combed his hair too.
Secret conversations
with a guy that had what I didn’t
Vintage wool suits
An apartment in New York City
And exotic antiques.
No matter how handsome a ***
eventually
he doesn’t stand a chance.
She used to joke about it even
“Ya know, you’re lucky you’re so handsome.”
when we both knew most woman would be leaving.
I forgot to tell her
good looks only get you so far
and they don’t last very long.
But I got a job
actually
started it the day she left for Tucson.
It’s a place that represents small business office suppliers
paper, ink toner, pens, pencils.
They get small offices to ditch the corporate
staples office max kinkos office depot
and go with small business suppliers instead
stimulate the local economy they say.
It’s a cool gig
pays high commissions and is a real quiet place.
It sits in a business district that’s right next to
an artificial lake
a big winding one
going around medium sized lakeside houses
with tiny docks and tiny boats.
It’s so close
Its just right there
out the backdoor
next to the radio blaring AC/DC
outside it’s like an entire other world
not Arizona.
green waters
thick green grass
little green *****
from the green headed
mallard ducks.
There’s pairings of them all over
a lady said they mate for life.
Those mallards
they give all that fake stuff life
they make it real.
On our smoke breaks we all go out there
most everybody just stands
and smokes on a little back porch area.
laughing, joking, telling stories
putting the cigarette butts neatly in a coffee can.
sometimes I’ll walk away from the group
and stand at the green/blue water’s edge
staring at the concrete shelf of the fake lake
just beneath the water
the real dirt
concealed beneath the murky blue/green mixture.
And everyday
I miss her
a little bit
less
and a little bit
less
with every
fake wave
that rolls in.
I just gotta warm up
winter has really hit Arizona.

one more click
a button pressed
an ocean of toner evaporates
line by line by line

the hand that presses the buttons
connected to the brain from the word go
twitches, trying to remember:
the muscle memory of
sliding knives into delicate ******* of chicken
uncorking expensive bottles of wine
to drink, to cook with
to bandage bleeding fingers
cut to the quick by misplaced motion of
chef knives
remembering the gossamer touch of the sous chef
who said, in her northeast Philadelphia sing-song
applying Bactine, gauze and several different types of pressure

"hey, at least we aren't dying in cube-farms, right?"

the blood pours in the past, but now the bills are paid
the stain, long wiped away, still remains

hit. print.

Læs mine tanker,
stands dem, riv dem ud så jeg kan se, hvad jeg føler.
Klippe små huller,
mønstre der forvandler dem til ferskenblide kærtegn.
Sneen falder hysterisk fra himlen og lander ufrivilligt i min mund.
Ligegyldigheden lægger sig som tunge fjer for mit blik,
og jeg er bare -
Indhyllet i repetitionens storslåede pragt af forblødende sind,
der overses af snefnug og placebolykke.
Jeg lytter til melankoliens toner, der lægger sig sterilt i mit blod,
forsøger at rense det for alt der er mig; til der intet er tilbage.
Men jeg føler ingenting.
Kun en brændende stikken af forfrysningerne, der har bredt sig til alle mine organer, hvor det eneste, der pligtopfyldende fungerer,
er en pulserende hjerterytme, der magtesløs hvisker signaler om et synderknust indre.
Men væggene er for tykke og sneen for dyb
til at noget skulle kunne trænge igennem til omverdenens bedøvede trance.

dengang duftede jeg kun af syntetiske roser, og
jeg så kun franske film med spanske undertekster
jeg røg 29 cigaretter om dagen, og drak 3 kopper
te med smag af håndsæbe
jeg skulle skrive en opgave om mord, men endte
med at skrive 12 ligegyldige digte baseret på din
soprane stemme, og den måde, du kunne få mandag
til at føles som en lørdag eftermiddag med vin i årerne
dit navn har klistret sig fast som lim omkring mine
tænder, men når jeg skal sige det højt, holder jeg op
med at blinke, og mine øjne forvandles til kviksølv
orkestre spiller blå toner under min hud, og hvis du en
dag ser på min tunge, vil du finde groende poesi som
en sygdom, der ikke kan helbredes
halvdelen af verden
er døende,
den anden halvdel ved
ikke engang,
de er i live

There was a time that I found my life
to be boring
inane
bourgeois
some...other fancy sounding word
but that was before I discovered how amazing
life could truly be. That was before I discovered
InsaniFree. I bought it over the phone
for $14.83 and let me tell you

I couldn't be happier now.

You just take a teaspoon a day, and your
annoying
    controlling
        bothersome
sanity just slips away,never to be seen again.
Why within the first day I had quit my job of 25 years.
Just up and quit!
I walked into my boss's office and told him I was done.
Done being underpaid and overworked.

Well...
I might have actually just ran in covered in toner
with my pants tied around my head and tried
to jump through the window only to find it
was reinforced glass...
but it's practically the same thing.

Anyway...

I have a new job now as a "Rodent anxiety theorist".
It's so exhilarating and I've never felt more fulfilled
as a member of the work force. I spend my days
carefully observing the small critters at the park
to see what makes them tick.

Quite literally the best job ever.

Well...
I guess it technically isn't a "job", as I don't really get paid.
I basically run around throwing acorns at squirrels, then write
down what they do on napkins. They generally run away,
but I think they're starting to mobilize. I've got my eye on them.

Isn't it amazing what you can do when you don't let your
stupid
   oppressive
       restrictive
sanity stop you from doing the things you want?


Just a week ago I left my wife of 12 years. I told her
I couldn't stand her unrealistic expectations anymore.
"Dear, you need to spend more time with your son"
"Dear, we don't talk enough"
"Dear, take out the trash"
"Dear, please stop cutting locks of my hair while I'm sleeping"

Women, am I right?

I'm so much happier now. I'm marrying my dream girl next month.
Literally.
As in she's a girl that only exists in my dreams.
The paperwork will be tricky, but I think I can manage.


Now that my goodfornothing sanity is out of the way,
I can focus on lifelong dreams like
traveling the world
learning a new language
or just running through a mall and seeing how many people
I can squirt with ketchup before security tackles me.
I could never do these things before.

Well...
I guess technically I can't do them "now"
since I'm writing this from my padded cell,
but I know it's only a matter of time
before my new wife gets here with the paperwork.

She's great.

I hope she hurries though...I think I saw a squirrel.

Wait for laughter.

Med kolde hænder der arbejder i halv hast. Lytter til Bella note fra en klarinet som var det de parisiske gader fra en tegnefilm. Lykke og ro strømmer i kroppen, baggrundsstøjen fra folkemængden toner ud, klarinet i øret.

Klassikerene fortsætter, la vie en rose høres nu og jeg er glad så glad. Tiden står næsten stille. Hvad franske toner gør ved dig.
Har fluks taget en rejse til den franske hovedstad og jeg bliver der.

Blide men hastige toner
Fra hendes lysebrune guitar
Minder mig om egetræet i min gamle have, som falmer langsomt
Ligesom sangen man har hørt
For mange gange
Noderne slynger sig ind i øregangen
Har lyst til at blive
Men triller hurtigt ud igen
Afvist
Alt for mange gentagelser af toner
Som første gang var det eneste rigtige
De eneste man kunne holde ud
Men eftersom tiden løber ud
Falmer tonerne

the night and the frost and the words that they speak
your fingers are frozen, your eyelids are closed
the crests and the troughs of your breath in the air
like the language of winter winds;
harsh tones that never go unheard
beneath your feet or inside your ribcage
or even as the frigid night that entwines itself with you
demanding to be felt

kveld og frost og ordene som de snakker
ditt fingrene er frosne, ditt øyelokkene er lukket
topper og daler av ditt pusten i luften
som språket av vinteren vind;
harde toner som aldri går uhørt
under føttene eller inni ditt brystkasse
eller som den iskalde natten som entwines seg med deg
krevende som må oppleves

Grålige toner turnerer rundt, isnende.
Smaragder, forklædt som mine bankede, tunge og paniske hjerteslag.
Febrilsk narrer vi hinanden til at være glade
Følelses-dækkende smil og hjerter, I dette
mørke, som har sænket sig ned over os.
Alle går vi rundt med minder, miner, sorte og triste.
Trængede efter lyst og lys kaster vi os over hinanden.
Skyder med en stjerneregn af følelser mod personlige parader.
Når solen kaster sig over mig og jeg stiger til vejrs.
Vi skal forenes og forsones, vi vil kende til hiannden.
Så husker du mig, så vil du kendes ved mig.

Jeg ser sorte toner for øjnene
og mærker skarpe genstande mod blød hud
når du fortæller mig, du ikke længere synes,
du er min
jeg lader natten drage mig ind i ulykkelig poesi
du kysser hendes læber
imens jeg går i opløsning indeni

Stemmer udefra
Overdøver larmen indefra
Tomme tankestrømme flyder med kraft
Gennem mine hjerneceller.
Slår mod kanten af mit hoved
Indre afbrudt af ydre
Bølgerne af lyd skærer i mine øre
Døv for toner og stemmeføring
Men ikke for valg af ord.
Tunge larmende fraser -
Spyttes vildt ud gennem fedtede læber
I et desperat forsøg på at
Slette sporene i sandet.

blot et par måneder siden, ville selv det mindste tegn på oprigtighed vise sig ved sentimentalitet
Vi ville grine og nyde sommeraftener sammen, vi ville skåle for vores dybe samtaler svøbt i champagne
vi ville fortælle sandheder og hvide løgne, og ingenting ville kunne males ovenpå det lærred af glæde og kreativitet vi havde formet
Men når det kom til stykket
Ville vi ikke dele oplevelser eller indre tanker, end ikke når det var vinter og det regnede og var koldt
Vi ville ikke drikke kakao sammen, og varme os ved pejsen
Nej, om vi ikke ville sprede selviskhed og irritable toner
Fordi at tiden heler ikke sorg, den lindrer bare og vi fortrænger
Hvilket er det jeg tror der skete
Vi fortrængte minderne
Og det kan vi ikke gøre noget ved

mørket trænger sig på. månen spejler sig i ulveflokkens nådeløse øjne. ulvene kigger mod himlen og hyler deres hjerter ud. månen er omringet af stjerner, men rovdyrenes kalden blokerer alt kommunikation. nuancer af liv toner ud. natten ligger skindød, men søvnløshed betyder sult, så den ensomme ulv søger blod. månen rækker ud til den. den føler sig heldig. men den lytter blot til  en vuggevise, der snart vil blive sunget for den næste i flokken.

nu har natten taget over og månen skinner som aldrig før. den blænder mig, så jeg lukker mine øjne og pludselig kan jeg selv høre visen.

*f.b

Jeg frygter fremtiden,
at fortidens spor, der er i dag er
altafgørende
alt vi gør er at kæmpe for at eksistere.
Smagen af verden ændrer sig,
og hvor skal jeg gå hen?
Weekendens distraktioner bliver en inhibitor
der holder fast i glasøjne og naivitet.
Jorden er sort og jeg ser mine organer blive
gennemboret
af snefnuggene, der falder.
Tankeløst.
I et splitsekund,
forstår jeg uvisheden, om måske aldrig at møde dig.
Mit hjerte falder ud, og lander i dine hænder.
Ud af min blodsprængte øjenkrog skimter jeg kaffen.
Jeg kan se mine lunger punktere
og skyerne kommer nærmere,
og jeg ser det falde, nattens blod
eller din sjæl?
og orkesterets toner spiller kærlighed under min hud,
men intet kan jeg mærke.
Jeg smadrer min hånd
Et antiklimaks af ferskenhud og fløjlstårer.
Når du siger mit navn vokser der universer  på min krop
"månen er død" flyder det ud af din mund og intet kan jeg stille op.
Man skulle have været barn af en anden tid.

A text for five voices.

Note on text: For formatting reasons, this should be read on a full screen, or in landscape mode on a mobile.

i. Blank copy

I look out of the window at
the houses as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                    or glide past
                                                the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
House after house after house after house
                                                dit-dit-dit­-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the houses
                                  as they pass.
It’s 10 o’clock when I arrive at my office
and no-one is there yet
and I turn on my computer.
I sort of just
                sit there
                for quite a long time. Then
at 10.37 I print a document I’ve been working on
and I pick up my mug and I go to the kitchen where the printer is
and I put the kettle on.
I log on to the printer but instead of pressing
                                                Print
  ­                                              I press
                                                        Cop­y
                                                        instead­.
The machine whirs
The light goes
                        across
And out comes this copy this
        Copy of
                nothing.
I pick it up from the cradle.
It’s warm.
And I hold it and I look at it and I think:
                                                This is a copy
                                                                ­of nothing.
And since it is no longer an empty piece of paper but now
                                                             ­   something more
                                                            ­    something
                                                   ­                                imbued
I don’t put it back in the paper tray
and I don’t put it in the bin.
I carry it carefully with my tea back
to my office and put it
                                Carefully
                    ­                            on my desk.
I close the door.
Usually when I arrive and no-one is there I keep the door open for a bit.
It’s my way of letting people know I’m here.
It also helps me get a sense of what’s going on in the building
which students are there and what they’re doing
and once I’ve got a decent enough idea
or if there’s someone around I don’t really feel like helping
                                                         ­                           I close the door.
Today it is quiet.
It is a Friday.
                     Fridays are quiet.
It is the seventh of March.
It is 2014.
              I’m looking out of the window as I recall
              without much interest
              that yesterday was my father’s sixty-first birthday.
The buses tick past the window.
Without really thinking I
roll down the blind
                            Until the window is as blank as my copy of
                                                              ­                                           nothing.
I look at it but I
don’t
              sit
                     down
                                   yet.
My computer makes a noise and a purple box
tells me I have a meeting in thirty minutes.
                                                        ­Oh shut up I tell it
                                                        out loud.
Now I realise that I never did print my document
so I go back to the printer and the file is still there waiting for me
and I press Print All
                     and out it comes
and the piece of paper looks
Obnoxious
                     scrawled over in heavy black print
                     and ****** coloured columns
                                                                ­      and smelling
                                                        ­              Smelling of toner.
For someone who claims to be conscious of the environment I
print excessively. But only at work.
It’s the combination of it being free
                                          (or at least, no cost to me)
and that feeling you get when you
swipe
your access card to log in to the printer
and tap the screen dit-dit-dit to choose this or that.
It feels
       to me
              like being a grown-up.
It’s intoxicating.
I don’t want to go to the meeting
and I’m suddenly annoyed by this ***** piece of paper
which
       I ***** up
                     and throw in the bin.
**** it.
Not even in the recycling.
**** it.
Who cares.
              What difference could it possibly make
              whether I throw this piece of paper
                                                 which I will now have to print again
              in the black part of the bin for waste
              or the green part of the bin for recycling.
I go back to my computer and press Print but
this time
I keep clicking my mouse
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          Yeah.
                                   ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
                         ­          ditditditditditditditditditditditditdit
And I go back to the printer and the name of the document comes up on the built-in screen
dozens and dozens of times
the same name of the same document
and I tap
              Print All.
And as the machine spits out clone after clone I
mutter under my breath:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
Then out loud:
                                   **** it.
                                   Yeah.
And as I throw them in the bin and go back for more I think
I’m going to buy a car. Yeah.
And I’m going to drive my car to work and
when I finish work I’m going to drive it
to a big supermarket
                            a hypermarket
                            a super hyper mega market
where I will buy and buy and buy,
and on my way home I will buy petrol to put in my car
       And I will go on holiday
       I will book all those last minute deals on the internet
       And go to Turkey or Lanzarote or Corfu for a hundred
                                                         ­      or a couple of hundred
                                                         ­      pounds, every month maybe
And I’ll fly there on a big plane.
I’ll soar over the ocean on a big plane.
And when I come back
I’ll soar over all those people outside Stansted Airport
All those
people
With banners
Moaning and complaining and protesting
Banners saying things like
                                   I don’t know
                                                 “Down with planes”
And as the flight attendant smiles goodbye I’ll think
yeah.
       Down with planes.
                                   And I’ll drive my car home and I will
                                   stop
                                   worrying
                                   about
                                   everything.
I go back to my office.
I retrieve one copy of my document from the bin and I
put it on top of my copy of nothing.
Whereas before the document offended me
                            now I have difficulty
                            telling the difference between the two.
My colleague arrives and she tells me about the motorway.
She’s always telling me about the motorway.
I think about my car I’m going to buy and I
think about being on the motorway.
I think about being on that part of the M25
where the planes are so low you duck as they thunder over you
and they come
                     in rapid succession
                                          dit dit dit
                                                        rapid­ eye movement
                                                        ­radar.
I think about being stuck in traffic there and the air
thick with exhaust fumes
mixing with the air around Heathrow
and all those tons of jet fuel from the planes zooming over
Blink and you miss them
                                   but always another follows.
I go to my meeting.
I realise that I have picked up my blank copy
along with the document I printed for the meeting.
Someone says they wish I’d printed more than one copy
as it turns out it would be useful for everyone to have one
and I laugh in their face without explaining myself.
                                                         ­             I make notes on it.
                                                             ­         My copy of nothing.
                                                        ­              Without really realising
                                                       ­               I’ve scribbled notes on it
but as I look at my spidery black biro handwriting
and think with some real despair about how I have mindlessly
destroyed
something pure
the notes
              disappear
                                int­o the paper
and it is clean again.



ii. Ringing sea

My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough.
What I’m looking at
my rational brain tells me
is a video of two people having ***.
I have seen that before.
But what I’m actually watching is a video of
my husband
                     having ***
                                          with another woman.
And my eyes don’t refresh the image fast enough
So I keep seeing his face.
The whole picture melts away and
I just see his face
                     Which belongs to me.
                                          It’s my face. I – own it.
                                                        It’s my- my- my-
                                                        And it freezes there
just his face is all I can see then the video continues for a
split second then freezes again
                                   His face
                                   His face
                                   His face       It’s him
                                                        It’s him
                                                        It’s him.
I stop the video and I put the phone down on the table
and I breathe very deeply and
every time I blink, between every saccade
there is his face
                            a face I know intimately
                                                      ­         and it’s looking away from me.
I turn on the television. It is Saturday.
He is flying back from Asia on Tuesday. I have until then to
                                                              ­        what?
The sound and light from the television
flicker over me
And I sort of just empty,
Quietly, like a balloon disappearing into the sky.
I don’t know what I’m going to do but
for now that’s
fine.
The brown armchair swallows me up
and I cry for two hours without really noticing.
The cookery programme I’m not watching finishes and I think
the news is about to come on so I turn off the TV
and I put on my shoes
and I go down the stairs and out of the house
and I get in my car.
It’s raining and I just sit there.
Without starting the engine I flick on the windscreen wipers:
                                                         ­      Dit / dit.
                                                            ­   Dit \ dit.
                                                            ­   Dit / dit.
It takes less than three seconds for them to pass
from one side of the windscreen to the other.
And I get this feeling this
unexplainable feeling
that I want to crawl inside that moment
when the wipers are moving from one side of the screen
                                                          ­                   to the other.
I flip down the sun shield and look at myself in the mirror.
There are two lipsticks in the glove compartment.
I pick the darker one
                            and apply it
                                                 carefully
                                                       ­          sensually.
I start the car.
West London ebbs away to the motorway
My car is silver and in the rain it feels invisible
I don’t know where I’m going
                                I follow words on signposts I recognise the shape of
                                without really reading them
and I keep driving
I let my eyes come away from the road and
watch the fields and trees tick past like cells of film
and I look at the cars on the other carriageway
and I notice they’re all silver like mine
                                                        (onl­y mine is invisible)
and I duck as a Boeing 777 soars over near the M4 interchange
and let myself scream soundlessly under the roar of its engines.
I wonder where it came from.
                                          I think about the people on board.
I think about their mobile phones and
all the ******* there must be on them
and I realise
how many videos there must be in the world
of people having ***.
I take the M23 past Gatwick Airport
                                          the motorway ends but I keep driving
until finally I come to the sea.
No-one is here because it’s March and it’s raining.
I have always loved the sea.
Not sailing or swimming or surfing
Just being near it, for me it’s
                                   a spiritual experience.
I’ll lie on the stones and gaze at the sky for hours
but not today.
                     There are some flowers tied to a railing
                     somebody has drowned.
Presumably they never found a body to bury.
The awfulness of that strikes me like a stone.
                                                        It­’s the not knowing.
                                                        ­The lack of 100% concrete total proof.
I take my phone out of my handbag.
                                                        ­But I know now.
The shingle crunches underneath my flat shoes.
                                                        No­w I know.
The cold burns my ears and the wind picks up as I get closer to the water
the tide slips serpentine up the stones
white-edged
                     beckoning me.
Without realising I’ve slipped
                                                 out of
                                                            my­ shoes
but the stones do not hurt my coarse feet
and the wind
                     howling now
                                          catches me behind my knees
quickening my stride.
The spit curls around my toes.
And then I catch myself wondering
                                          whether my husband will call me or
                                          text me when he lands
and I hurl
       my phone
              into the sea.
On the drive home I listen to the radio.
The news is dominated by the Crimean conflict
and the referendum that’s coming up there.
Florence Nightingale
                            is all I can think about when they talk about Crimea.
Until recently I never even knew where it was.
At school you only learn about Florence Nightingale
                                   not the geography
                                          not the conflicts
                                                 not Ukraine’s edges so charred by
                                                               invasion and,
                                                                ­             subsequently,
                                                                ­                                  explosion.
                    ­               We live in so many war zones.
and I’m wondering what else I never learned about when
the story changes and now they are talking about a plane.
A plane is missing
                                   between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing
                                          and the blood drains out of me.
It isn’t like floating away like a balloon this time
it’s like plunging off a cliff.
And at once I see
                            with brilliant, burning clarity
                                                        m­y phone, ringing, on the sea bed
The light from the screen illuminates the stormy water but
I can’t see the name:
                                   I can’t see who’s calling.
I need to know.
I need to know it’s him.
       I drive back at twice the speed limit.
In the dark the flowers look menacing and half-dead; my
shoes fall off in the same place
But the tide is in so the whole beach looks different.
I’m up to my waist but my
top half
       is as wet
              as my bottom half
                            because the rain
                                          is torrential
                                                      ­  and I can still hear the phone ringing
                                                        b­ut I can’t see the light in the sea.
and I howl
       his name
but the wind carries it away soundlessly
       and I can’t tell if I’m
              further out
              or if the tide’s further in
                            and the ringing grows louder
                            as the current takes me powerfully by the waist and
                                                             ­         the stars rush by overhead.



iii. Acid rain

Every time I blink, between every saccade I see
a brilliant but infinitesimally brief flash of colour.
       Purple
       or green
       I think.
                     One on top of the other.
It’s hard to tell for sure because they’re so brief.
It’s like when you look at a light bulb for too long
                                                            ­   or stare directly at the sun.
I see it sometimes when I’m on my bike
or on a really big rollercoaster
                                   going downhill at 100 miles an hour
                                   the wind blasting through me
                                   the screams whirling through the air.
But I’m not on a rollercoaster, I’m sat very still
it’s Monday afternoon and I’m at school.
I haven’t said a single word to a single person today.
I didn’t even answer my name in the register.
I feel a bit dizzy like
                                   everything is turning together
                                   but I’m on a different
                                                       ­                 axis?
I think the bell goes, I’m
not a hundred percent sure,
but I leave anyway and no-one stops me.
       Outside in the sunshine the flashes of colour are
       several thousand times brighter.
In the next lesson I slip in my earbuds and
it looks like the teacher is singing the words.
                                                 I put on the most obscene song I can find.
I must have it on too loud
because eventually she notices and
she forces me to give her the headphones. This is the first time
someone has spoken to me today
                                          it feels a bit surreal
                                                         ­      but the world stops spinning
                                                        ­       a bit.
After school I go into the supermarket on Wigmore Lane
the enormous white of it is tinged in green and purple
and all I want is to buy a drink
                            I have a feeling of exactly the kind of drink I want
                            but I can’t find the right one
                            even though the fridge must be longer than
                            the driveway of my house.
Racks of newspapers and magazines clamour for my attention
       the only real colour in this great white warehouse of a store
       red tops and blue spreads
       and green and purple and green and purple
              and green and purple…
They’re talking about that missing plane in the news
and they keep using the same phrase.
They’re talking about the people on board the missing plane
and they keep saying
                            Missing
                      ­      presumed dead.
Not dead dead. Presumed dead.
I start wondering what it’s like to be both dead and alive at the same time,
as if all the people on board that plane are like Schrödinger’s cat
              (cats)
and we won’t know whether they’re dead or alive until we find the plane
and pull it out of the sea
and look inside
                     so
                         until then
                     they’re both.
Out in the car park I count the planes as they descend onto
the runway less than a mile away.
       One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
       I figure about a hundred and eighty a plane maybe,
       which means fifteen hundred people just arrived in Luton.
Nobody comes to Luton for the scenery.
Soon they’ll be gone,
A town haunted by a ghost population of thousands an hour.
                                                 filtered onto the trains and buses
                                                 and out from the sprawling car parks
                                                 to the motorway, and
                                                 onto connecting flights back into Europe
              but none of them will stay in Luton
                                                           ­                  Missing
                                                         ­                    presumed dead.
As I bike through Luton I think it might not be so strange to be dead and alive at the same time.
I’ve lived here my whole life and the whole place
                                                           ­                         which is a *******
                                                 moves with the mundanity of machinery
                                                 like the big car factories by the airport
                                                 the lights on, the production lines rolling
                                                 but all a bit automatic and lifeless.
But in the airport, it’s different.
The air, with its artificial chill, hangs with a faint shimmer
and the people here move purposefully, and with charge
                                                          ­     excitedly
                                                       ­                      or dejectedly
                                                      ­         but not neutrally
heading for the gates where they are sealed two hundred a time into airtight tubes
like Schrödinger’s cat:
                            dead and alive in the air;
                            one or the other on the ground.
                                                         ­      My teachers say I have an
                                                              ­ “odd way of looking at things”.
I leave my bike outside without chaining it up and go into the terminal.
In a café in the check-in hall I find exactly the drink I want
and I pay £2.75 for it.
                            I look at the departure boards.
                            Edinburgh. Bonn. Marseilles.
                            A green light flashes next to each gate as it opens
                                                           ­                  green and purple
                                                          ­                   green and purple
                                                          ­                                 Missing
                                                         ­                                  presumed dead
The flashes of colour are growing brighter
every time I move my eyes a green and purple streak follows behind like a jet stream
but the bustle and activity of the airport is so much that I can’t keep my eyes still
       so they keep darting
                            this way and that
                                                 until my vision is painted over
                                                            ­                 green and purple.
The streaks roll over each other like clouds of acid rain.
       This is the final call for flight 370 to–
My bike is gone when I go back outside
The front of the terminal is a plateau of thousands upon thousands of cars
and it’s probably in one of them
                                          but I’ll never know which.
The car parks reach all the way back to the runway.
Green and purple acid rain from all the jet fuel mixed with the air
melts a hole in the fence and I slip through
moving purposefully
                            with charge
                                          across the green and purple grass
                                          scorched by a hundred thousand landings
                                          a hundred thousand people arriving in Luton
And there on the tarmac
                     glinting in the rain
                     surrounded by blinking amber
       there is my bike
       its black handlebars spread like the wings of a jet plane.
I duck as an Airbus screams in just a few feet over my head
the rush from the engine lifting the soles of my feet from the ground.
I pick up the bike and start pedalling
                                                 pedalling down the runway
                                                 pedalling towards the blinking amber.
It feels light, nimble, fast
the tyres take the asphalt with ease.
And the faster I go the lighter I feel
       the acid rain eats away at my clothes
       and they melt off my body and pool on the runway below,
                     Lighter
                            and lighter until…
                                                 The wheels lift away from the ground
                                                          ­     and in the air I am dead and alive
                                                 and maybe nobody will
                                                                ­                           ever
                                                            ­                               see me
                                                                ­                           again.



iv. Burning sky

The faster I go, the lighter I feel.
I’ve taken the night watch and the yacht
is cruising across the Indian Ocean
penetrating the black abyss like a white bullet
and the lights in the portholes send shimmering white bullet shapes
for miles across the endless ink.
                                                            ­                 What?
                     We’re not going very fast at all
                     But it feels like any minute
                                                 we might drop off the edge of the world.
I hope we do.
I feel light and dizzy and irrational
                                          and I feel aware of being
                                          light and dizzy and irrational
and I wonder if this is what going mad feels like.
Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
I
       feel like that a lot lately.
Marc is sleeping.
We didn’t speak much today.
I can’t really remember how long it’s been
       since we left Victoria but the fight
       we had there
                            in a bistro by the port we
       said things we
       said things that
                            we can’t take back.
The Seychelles were stifling.
The heat was stifling.
He was stifling.
And the people were stifling
                                   the people kept talking about pirates.
                                   They kept warning us about pirates.
                                   You’re sailing where
                                                        the­y say
                                   You must be careful
                                                        t­hey say
                                   It’s notorious
                                                       ­ they say
I have fantasies about being kidnapped by pirates.
Not stupid Johnny Depp pirates with *** and parrots, no
       Real pirates.
                     Nasty pirates.
                     With dark snarls and AK-47s.
When we were at sea off the Horn I’d see things on the horizon
Dots or lights I couldn’t make out
And I’d imagine the rifle against my neck
Their hot breath
Chains and ransoms.
                          I’d wonder how much we’d be worth.
                          If we’d make national news.
                          Would it be David Cameron to announce,
                                                       ­        regrettably,
                                                    ­           we don’t negotiate with pirates,
                          or would it be someone less important?
                          Maybe just the foreign secretary.
                          What is the worth of my life at the end of a steel barrel?
But it would only be a buoy, or a plane on the horizon,
and I would get into bed with Marc
       disappearing under the covers like a different kind of hostage.
I
              oh
                                   I
                                                 Sorry
I’m crying.
                     I don’t know when I started crying.
The thing is I don’t know if it’s me breaking the marriage
or the marriage breaking me.
I’m watching everything literally fall to pieces and for all I know
it’s me with the detonator.
And then
              everything
literally falls to pieces
                            My mug of coffee falls from my hand
                            shatters on the deck
                                                            ­and the sea rears up nightmarishly.
Above me
a long orange **** of flame
is burned into the sky.
                            No, really.
                            That’s not a metaphor.
                                                       ­        There is fire in the sky.
It’s about a mile up and a mile away.
Look.
       There.
              ****.
                            **** **** ****.
What is that?
                                   Marc!
I call for Marc.
                                   Marc!
       There is fire in the sky.

–              Katherine.

       Fire in the sky.
       Fire in the
       Fire in

–              Katherine.

       Fire

–              Katherine.

       What
              Marc, what?

–              Are you awake?

       I think so.

–              You were calling out again.

       Calling

–              Calling out. You were shouting.

       What
       where
       What time is it?
                                   Where

–              Dubai. We’re in Dubai. It’s 7.
                They delayed again while you were sleeping.

       Dubai?

–              Katy I really think you should see a doctor.

       Don’t call me that.

–              Pardon?

       Katy.
       Don’t call me that.
                                          Like

–          ­                                       Like what?

       Everything’s okay.

–

       Everything’s not okay.

–               There’s
                 doctors. You’re not well. You’ve been confused since,
                 well actually since before it even happened.

       You think I’ve been confused.

–              Not right.
                Not you.

       You’re **** right.

–              Forget it.

       Thank you.

–              Go back to sleep. ****.



–              Are you still seeing it?
                The plane? On fire.
                                   You’re dreaming about it, aren’t you?

       Yes.

–              It’s affecting you?

       I’m
              just
                     unhappy,
       Marc.

–              That’s not just it though is it?

       What’s that supposed to mean?

–              Something about seeing that
                                                           ­   plane has scared you.

       We don’t know it was the plane.
       The one that –

–                            No. But, right place, right time.
              They said

       Maybe.

–              It’s still a coincidence.
                It’s not

                                   What

–                                   A sign.
                                     From god.
                                     Or
                                          whatever.

     ­                                     Whatever you think it means.



                            Katherine.

       The thing I don’t know, Marc
       is if I’m more scared that it was the plane
       or that it wasn’t.

–

       Imagine.
       Vanishing.
       Into thin air.

–              I know.

                            No, you don’t.
       Disappearing
                            into thin air
       Or falling
                            out of it.

–              Falling.

       You can’t imagine that.

–              I can.



–              I can, Katy.
                I ******* can
                                          Imagine.
       ­         Falling.
                Disappearing.
             ­   Into thin air.

                *******
                            i­nvisible.

                 I am
                           right
                          ­          ******* here,
                                                        K­atherine.

       I see you.
       I see you Marc.
       But you’re not
                            solid.

       I’m not
                            solid.
                          ­                              See?

                           ­                             It passes
                                                          ­     right through.

       Now you see me.
                                   Now yo–



v. 2015

Have you ever felt like you’re living in a corner of your own life?
The hotel room here in Singapore is almost identical
to the room I had in Mexico City.
The heat feels the same and it’s the same
nondescript decoration
which doesn’t really belong to any time or culture.
It gives me a headache. The neutrality of it.
As I check my messages I remember
                                                        ­       I’m not in Singapore.
I’m in Kuala Lumpur.
I haven’t been home for nearly three weeks now.
It’s ridiculously late
The IOC conference is at six thirty
              and I’ve been asleep all day.
                                   I get dressed and grab my camera
                                   and leave the hotel with a large, black coffee.
At the press call I see a man from Reuters I recognise.
       The coffee here is terrible.
I talk to him about his family
              his daughter is four now
              he’s shaved off his beard since I last saw him
              and he’s moving, he says,
                                                 near me apparently
                                                 to Southend.
                                                       ­               “London Southend” he jokes
                                                                ­      with a roll of his eye
                                                             ­         and inverted commas.
I say yeah that’s quite near me then move away to take a phone call.
Inside the press conference there are ten people at the table
       the women are all wearing identical powder blue suits which
       strikes me as idiosyncratically Asian for no good reason.
The men all wear simultaneous translation headphones
                                                      ­                but the women don’t.
I wonder if this is because they speak better English than the men
or if it just isn’t considered necessary to translate for them.
       They have given the Winter Olympics to Beijing.
              I wonder what is lost between the
              Mandarin spoken by the mayor of Beijing
              and the English spoken by the translator.
                                                     ­          The space between words.
                                                          ­     The space between looking left
                                                            ­                               and looking right.
It’s a nice atmosphere in the cool air-conditioned room.
I’m struck by how nice everyone is
       except for the British delegates
       including the man from Reuters who speculates
       that the voting was rigged.
A while later someone else calls it a “farce”.
              I get a photograph of the IOC President’s face
                                                            ­          as it falls
              and email it to my office from my seat.
Outside, the Petronas towers rise above the conference centre like
enormous empty silos.
This is my first time in Kuala Lumpur
                                          the last city I have to visit before I go home.
I get in a taxi and say the name of my hotel
                                          and the city flashes by.
I look out of the window at
the buildings as they pass and they
don’t so much slide past
                                   or glide past
                                                        the motion isn’t smooth.
They sort of click past.
They tick past, dit-dit-dit:
Building after building
                            dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
My eyes don’t quite refresh the image fast enough
to keep up with all the buildings
                            as they pass.
The taxi stops and I pay seventeen ringgit and get out:
it has gone by the time I realise this is not my hotel.
I don’t know where I am but I was in the taxi long enough to know that I
am some distance
                            from the centre of the city.
I look up at the name of the hotel the driver has taken me to
and the English transliteration is very similar to the name of the hotel I am staying in.
       I go inside.
There’s a nightclub in the hotel
I order Glenfiddich
                            double,
                 ­           cut with water.
              not because I like it but
              because there’s something about scotch that feels
                                                           ­                         moneyed
              heavy amber liquid in heavy-bottomed glasses
              it helps me buy into this idea of the travelling businessman
              even though that’s a lie.
                                                        I’m just a man who takes pictures.
                                                       ­ And I want to go home.
I sit at the bar which is as long as my driveway.
I swirl my glass and watch the amber legs trickle down the sides.
A moving light above it hits the gloss black surface
with an open white like the early morning sun on my gravel
                                                          ­                   as I get into my car.
A girl from here, young enough to be my daughter, is talking to me.
She points out her friends and I half-wave, uneasily
and she asks what I’m drinking.
                                          A news alert on my phone says a piece of
                                          plane wreckage
                                          washed up
                                                        on Réunion
                                                        i­n the Indian Ocean,
                                   east of Madagascar and south of the Seychelles.
The girl seems nice. She says her name is Dhia
                                                            ­                 it means “glowing”.
She doesn’t seem to want anything,
certainly not ***;
her friends have disappeared so
                                          I dance with her.
As we dance I see something in her eyes that is at once
both young and
                     endlessly wise.
She has deep brown eyes exactly the colour of earth
and a small mouth which smiles brilliantly.
In the half-light they open up to me like pools
                                                 and I imagine
                                                         ­             swimming
                                           ­      in them.
Even though she’s only nineteen, twenty-one at most,
there is something about her that’s
                                          maternal
       ­                                   spiritual
                    ­                      nourishing.
She asks me what I’m doing in Kuala Lumpur and I tell her
I don’t know.
She asks me what I did today and I tell her I
                                                               ­              slept
                                                           ­           then took some photographs.
You’re a photographer, she says, and I shrug
then she leans into my ear and says
                                                        don’­t tell anyone.
What
       I say
and she says
              I’m a princess.
And I look into her eyes and she isn’t lying.
She says no-one is going to recognise her
but
       just in case
                            she isn’t supposed to be seen drinking.
Who would I tell
I say to her.
She grins and finishes her beer and it’s true
                                   no-one is looking at her
                                   but she’s the most magnetic person in the room.
In the taxi I say the name of my hotel extremely slowly
and the driver replies in perfect English
                                                         ­      yes sir, I know where you mean.
Kuala Lumpur ticks by in electric darkness.
I flick through the news as we drive
                                                 I see the photo I took this evening about
                                                 a dozen times
                                                 or more.
There is something bitter about the tone in all the British press when they talk about the Olympics
as if:
Beijing get to do it twice?
                                   What about us?
I think about a country with a quarter of the world’s population
and I think about the tiny little island I’ve come from
                                                        and I feel smaller than I’ve ever felt.
The aircraft wing that washed up in Réunion is from a Boeing 777,
they say.
The same type of aircraft as the one that went down last year.
The one they never found.
                            It was going from here to Beijing.
                            Last communication at 1.19am.
And it’s at
                     that
                     time
                     precisely
                                   my phone rings.
It’s my boss in London
she says the Chinese Olympic Committee
are scheduling press conferences.
                                                    ­    It looks like I’m going to Beijing.

Du samlede mig op.
Stykke for stykke.
Jeg er ikke hel, men det er okay.
At spejle mig i dine nat-klare øjne heler mere end tiden nogensinde vil
og det sendte et samsurium af alt det gode verden stadig gemmer på
igennem mine glasknogler og trætte organer,
der langsomt heledes når mine isblå negle forenden af mine fingre
trykkedes i din ferskenbløde hånd.
Endeligt var det rigtigt.
Endeligt er jeg hjemme.
Endeligt kan jeg mærke dig,
beundre din marmor-hud hvorunder toner af liv, jeg ellers aldrig har hørt, spilles.
Et endeligt øjeblik, hvor lyset slipper ind, og jeg har det som om,
at der vokser fløjls roser i min krop.
Natten omslutter os med ét og jeg ser igennem dine øjne.
Tegner ekliptika langs din rygsøjle.
Endeligt flyver vi.
Ikke længere skal vi forestille os.
Endeligt.

Wide awake rushes up my vocal cords

Nothing is so bashful nor sweet to tongues

Make my very eyelids whisper “Oh Lord”

And fall on their kneecaps burn out their lungs.

A Morning breath armchair sipping coffee breath

Red lips punch the mug right in the kisser

Of all the Mahogany nothing’s left

Hemingway spoken floats like a whisker.

I slam the window in Bossanova,

And the armchair appears- smiles a bullseye,

I printed your face without ink toner,

Into an old crossword unmemorized.

Slept like cocoons that anxiety’d worn,

Stomach full of butterflies- your front porch.

One day our spines’ll tesselate under sage soft duvets as storms sweep across us and no one will cry;
not one noise shall slip from tongues
‘cos strength comes from keeping quiet
or carrying on.

You’re a now realised kindness that doesn’t know what breath is
or how the north circular works in festive rush hours home,
but I’ll kiss the answers upon your tender carbon tapered chest and hope the toner never runs low
(your dad would’ve handcrafted every thing he knew in semaphore if he’d have pulled through,
but you’ll learn in time, too, that time does not ruin fewer experiences than being).

I lean in. Whisper this (above) across your one body,
three eighths the size of a coffee table hardback book:
the result of patience pined for
that I mimed along to motherhood the best I could for nine months
and now, here, I lift the hood and work out what to do next       in this rush to settle down and sit,
sip until you snooze off into silence.
Here I carry you and do not notice the weight,
stare at the gape of you, my newly framed little one held in the palm of my hand,
squat full four pinter named after someone we knew.
You landed lunar surface side up,
smoothed new to the toes
and I wonder how I’ll meet you
I wonder how this goes.

Tårerne falder og maler gulvet sort
ligesom den blanke kaffe jeg spejler mig i.
Jeg ser din månehvide hud
alt imens natkanonen sender toner blå,
af melankoli gennem mine årer og bider sig
fast
på min krogede rygsøjle og
jeg kan mærke mine lunger.
Synet af dig skærer i mine blå øjne
Jeg tænker tilbage på tiden med dådyrøjne og cashmerehjerter.
Nu har vi kun reptilblikke og vinylindre.
Omridset af dit ansigt
har jeg glemt
og jeg famler hjælpeløs i tågen for at
nå dine krystalgrå hænder
med farer for
at blive spist af
fortrængelsen.
Åh. Jeg husker din pastelhud og dine øjne som
lilla ferskner.
Duften var som jorden selv.
Du smagte af knuste drømme og hypotetiske realiteter.
Jeg tænker på dig,
så stille som en marts nat.
Du er så smuk
Især når du er stille.
'Men hvad ved jeg også om det?'
Platonisk kærlighed.
Jeg har allerede fortrudt min tanke
og ønsket om at vende om,
sætter sig som glasskår i mine øjne.
Måske er du noget jeg har fundet på?
Mine kinder bløder og stjernerne danser røde og blå.
Lysår væk.

Sitting – well, slouching
Parochial ticky-tacky chair distorting sprawled alignment
How does a piece of paper weigh so much?
How do I extrude a greater weight from it into another page?

Fumbling with knotted headphones
My eyes drop into the inked Times New Roman
The page intones my fumbling succinctly, “I try to find something, anything.”
What boyscout, boatsmen, or climber crawled in my bag and tied this interminable knot?
My eyes turn to the knot -
Still fumbling with the toner’s entombed dance

I grew up in this slouch, in this tangle, thinking in Times New Roman
Etching knowledge into or from 8 x 12 reams
Does the paper weight I feel in the paper’s request equate to the weight of a neural connection ascertaining chemical knots?

Tankerne kører rundt i hovedet på mig, som en karrusel snurrer de mig rundt
Jeg kigger ned, rør ved mit hår, har lyst til en smøg
Jeg betragter flammen da jeg tænder: jeg ryger i stilhed
Jeg er halv beruset, jeg tænker på dig
Jeg suger røgen ind og trækker vejret dybt, lader det fylde tomrummet i mit hjerte
Det føltes som at danse på knust glas
Jeg kan mærke smerten, jeg kan se at mine fødder bløder
Men jeg bliver ved og ved med at danse, til de smukke toner som fylder mit hoved og dæmper smerten
Jeg danser, som om at intet var galt
Jeg er ligeglad
Jeg ville danse i 1000 år, bare for at få hans opmærksomhed
SE mig
Den rigtige mig
Den pige der danser sensuelt rundt på gulvet, rør ved sit hår og ryger cigaretter – er det mig? Kan du se det?

pigen der tavst traver gennem
skoven der efterhånden er helt nøgen
og iagttager de gyldne blade der er faldet
med hendes rødvinsfarvede læber suger ***
grådigt på den sidste cigaret *** kunne finde i lommen
og vinden hiver i hendes lange lysebrune bølgede hår
men *** er ligeglad, for *** kan kun tænke på at
en dag, snart, vil *** forsvinde fra dette sted
i ørene danser der stille toner komponeret af engle
og sunget af Bon Iver
pigens øjne er store og runde, og vidt åbne
for *** prøver at sluge så meget af denne følelse
før det er for sent igen og lyset der titter igennem de spinkle
grene atter er forsvundet og erstattet af en grå tåge
hendes tanker står så stille, samtidig med at stemmerne
aldrig nogensinde stopper med at hviske til hende
de hvisker, at en pige som hende aldrig vil blive lykkelig
pigen griner da lyden af ordene giver genlyd i hendes
hovede, *** havde nemlig for længst affundet sig med at
lykken er den nøgne skov, gyldne blade, rødvinslæber,
cigaretter, de sidste solstråler og Bon Iver

He was leaning against the wall, backed up
And staring through fumes of gin and whiskey,
Glaring at all the toffs, dressed up
And ravelling through his sordid history.

But never a sense of ‘us’ with him
He was more like a raging arcane animal,
Caught and caged, as they looked right in
To poke and pry at his painted trammel.

Oils and charcoals, water colours,
Pinned like an insect by their gazing,
Pointing fingers would **** his skin
Pick through his pockets, grinning, gaping.

What would they know of his woods and fields,
The towering oak, or the dew at dawning?
Only the light that a lamp post yields
In the mean streets when the world is yawning.

Theirs was a world of tile and brick
Of diesel fumes and the rail line snaking,
His were the hills of hay and rick
The tumbledown cot and the farmer, raking.

‘What did you bring me here to spill?’
He said to the shyster gallery owner,
‘There’s nothing you couldn’t print at will
With a Laser print, and a barrel of toner.’

‘They’re coming in hordes to see your myth,
You’re a breath of air in a jaded Autumn,
A genuine Primitive, Jordan Griff,
I lured them in, and your work has caught them.’

But Jordan scowled and he curled his lip
As the crowd milled using an unknown language,
‘I’d rather be down at the ‘Rope and Skip’
With a pint of ale and a cold meat sandwich!’

‘You’re really an artist?’ said the woman
Who stood at his shoulder, pale and shaking,
‘I like the one at the farmer’s gate
With the girl, head bowed, as her heart is breaking.’

Griff looked deep in the woman’s eyes
For the chord she’d struck was his secret mourning,
‘How did you know?’ He’d sobered up,
‘I was the girl your paint was born in!’

Jordan halted his glass, mid-sip,
He seized her hand as his heart was pacing,
‘Years have slipped between cup and lip,
I’d give them all for a second tasting!’

He led her into a lumber room
And she locked the door as they pulled apart,
Then found some cushions and in the gloom
They lay on the floor there, making art.

That’s how his Primitives came to start
With a joy not there at his god-rot dawning,
A horse and cart with his palette heart,
And a tousled woman each tumbledown morning!

David Lewis Paget

Du er i mine toner, bevægelser, blikke, drømme, samtaler, sange, opdagelser, forventninger, idéer, notesbøger, lyster, tårer
forelskelse er en tvagstanke, står der på google
men jeg ved ikke hvad dette er

*** var en fløjlsblød stemme i kakofoni, en rød rose i regnvejr, smeltet ost i en french toast. Creme de la creme de la creme de la creme de la creme… I et flygtigt øjeblik var *** min. Jeg gav slip, da *** lod facaden krakelere. Der var mere larm, mere regn og mere tørt brød. Det glansbillede, jeg havde malet af hende, var en parodi af virkeligheden. Jeg forelskede mig i en forestilling – en opdigtet person, der stadig lever i min fantasi, æder mine minder og erstatter dem med forvrængede forestillinger.

Så jeg savner hende. Jeg savner hendes ustabile psyke – at *** måtte indtage **** piller i samme mundfuld som morgenmad, at *** blev syrlig uden grund. *** var forelsket i mig i et øjeblik, og smed mig ud det næste. Jeg savner hendes vanskabte krop – hendes korte ben, der ikke kunne holde hende stående en hel dag, det skæve øje, der fokuserede på det, *** ikke så, hendes store tæer, der trods al plejning aldrig så pæne eller tillokkende ud. Jeg savner hendes barnlige opførelse – *** snakkede i høje toner, kunne ikke undvære sin mor i en længere periode, *** kommunikerede med alt omkring hende, objektgjorde alt.  *** kunne aldrig skille sig af med noget – bamsen der var en dåbsgave, bøgerne der kun havde været åbnet én enkelt gang, kattefigurerne fra Italien, der egentligt kun bragte dårlige minder om et forlist venskab og en lang ferie med krops-, familie og varmekomplekser. *** græd ved tanken om den svigt, de måtte føle, hvis *** forlod dem. En spøjs idé, *** sjældent havde om levende organismer såsom mig og de to kaktusser i vinduet, der visnede bort. Ligesom jeg.
Jeg savner hendes selvbillede – hendes dybe selvhad forplantet i enhver celle af legemet, men også den paradoksale tanke om at være noget særligt. *** så sig selv som unik – et unikum af et væsen med unikke problemer, unikke tanker og en unik livsbetydning. *** gravede sig selv ned i takt med, at *** så sig selv som værende højere placeret.

Skulle jeg vende tilbage, opleve dette igen, ville jeg vende hurtigt væk igen. For jeg savner det ikke. Ikke oprigtigt. Fordi jeg ved, jeg kan få det igen – fordi jeg ved, *** er lige præcis der, hvor jeg efterlod hende – *** kommer ikke videre. Gjorde ***, ville jeg savne det. Der er noget behageligt og bekræftende i at vide, at *** for evigt vil vente på mig – at tankerne altid vil vandre tilbage på mig, hver gang *** kommer forbi det hvide slot i skoven. Jeg vandt. Og alligevel ikke. *** fik plantet sig i mig – og *** vil for evigt vende minderne og tankerne, så jeg vil være i en konstant tvivl om hvorvidt, *** er den reelle vinder. Og om *** stadig venter. Jeg ved, at *** venter – *** vil altid vente. Men jeg kan være nødt til at være sikker – se, om *** venter. Om *** venter på mig, som jeg tror – eller om *** endnu er en udefinérbar skabning, som jeg igen har skabt min egen version af.

Måske er *** hverken den fløjlsbløde stemme i kakofoni eller den ustabile kattedame. Måske er *** begge dele. Måske var *** min i et flygtigt øjeblik – måske var *** ikke. Måske er *** altid min, måske var *** det aldrig. Jeg ved kun én ting sikkert, og det er, at intet er sikkert. Det hele foregår i mit hoved, i mit sind og min fantasi. Virkeligheden er fjern, måske endda urealistisk. Var du her nogensinde? Er jeg? Tænk en tanke kan erstatte en tanke med en anden tanke. Tænk, du kan erstatte dig med en anden dig. Tænk, jeg kan erstatte jeg med et andet jeg. I så fald, erstatter jeg hele jeg’et eller kun dele? Jeg skulle spørge for Freud. Ville det ikke være komfortabelt, hvis jeg kunne erstatte et jeg med et andet jeg? Så ville jeg være det jeg, jeg gerne vil have, jeg er. Det er en god tanke, som snart bliver fjernet for en anden tanke, der skal have plads. Er dette en monolog eller en dialog med mig selv? Snakker jeg med andre sider af mig selv, eller findes der kun denne en kendte side? Hov, det var vist den næste tanke. Hvor

jeg danser i cirkler
i 360 grader
kraftigt farve bølger over mig
den varme stilhed bliver højrøstet
og hvad laver jeg her
uvante gulve, der klistrer mig fast
med klister, som sidder i 118 dage
men det er jo spild af skridt
kraftige farver, som forenes i ét
langt mørke der strækker sig ud
samtidig med, at det råber
en melodi
en kronisk sammenhæng af toner
og jeg suger det ind, så
det sætter sig på rygraden

Glenshane Pass separated you both.
23 miles away in the same time, same place as my father’s childhood.
So when you talked of your da digging Toner’s bog and waxed lyrical about sheughs, I knew in our English class what exactly you were saying (when others didn’t).
Your words float over time & space to me now.
A celebration of the intimacy of our homelands.
A holy adoration of long gone voices that still resonate.

You never strayed, never.
It was always in your heart, always:
the land, the forgotten lanes, the broad fields, the lost language of it all.
I keep a certain comfort now with your lines as I Iay in my southerly home,
knowing that I am forever tithed to the townlands of our shared ancestry.
I thank you.
May your words stay alive as song as Ireland still has its beauty
and may their illumination still shine on us all.

skygger af sorte palmer
plettes til at toner fra sinatra
lytter ikke efter, men venter på
tomme beskeder
jeg har siddet på hug i min egen tåge
det er tåget
og jeg prøver at tegne poetiske stemninger
af aftener i selskab med mig

da jeg faldt over teltsnoren
den første aften
blandt telte, tørt græs og forventningsfulde toner
af sommermusik

da vores øjne mødtes
da tiden stod stille
et øjeblik
pupiludvidende
elektrisk
hundrede tusind mennesker samlet på få hektar
og jeg skulle falde for dig