Skinny dipping in the river of transfiguration


that which is insignificant

will always cling

to that which is enlightened

the fish

escape the sea

the trees

are no longer standing still

we write our lives

on plastic pages

look future look

were we kids
on those beaches
were our eyes
that young
and the stones

did they
go into
or float on top of
those surfaces

nine, eleven circles undulating

did they dissolve
in
or outside
of what our eyes could see
and

was there anything out there
that could tell us
how far
we had come
and

what it was

that would come after
the oil was gone
from the waters
what

would come after
the kids were gone
from the beaches

atlantic ocean city

if you allow it

the oceans

will disappear

so that you

can move in

and

erect monumental shopping centres

advertise blue whales

bigger

and better

than the already non-existent

products from ash

and new books

also from ash

on ash

Truthyeasayer:

Needed:

huge bread basket

anointed child

whole day of good weather

decrease in alligators

slow currents

no signs, no confusion

determination

pre or post-god

ravenous hunger

mediocrity

scented afterlife

truth and consequence

there is a grain of sand
that grows into vast universes
and every language spoken
every book read
and a word so absolute
and all-encompassing
that it fills every body
to the point of asphyxiation
and ensures that no one speaks it

instead we try to expand
and become open seas
that stretches into blue infinities
so we can swim alongside it
and bask in it's endlessness
but the word becomes an orca
carelessly singing under water
before disappearing
into it's own vastness

so we try to follow
when it strands on a beach
and becomes a girl
that runs away barefoot
and hitches a ride soutwards
we try to stop the driver
but he spins away
and whirls up a dry red sandstorm
leaving nothing
but the dissipating sound of a car horn
a siren singing on a hot summer day

so she becomes a memory
of a word
that once filled every body
to the point of asphyxiation
and could not be spoken

hesistanza

we travelled for years

and became entirely new

we forgot roads and everything

and became new years babies

ceremonies, half important
forgotten

crazy idolatry
very few remnants
outside loving preconceptions

indentures on maps unwanted

tracks

under the sun we forgot

we travelled for years
and became satellites

caught in dull orbits

long space autumns

stellar crickets chirping
in the DVD version

no spectacular dimensional glitches

no more hyperdrives

"love"

says a gentle voiceover

"they never forgot"

kill the light before we burn



we're all friendly here

all



why do you run

space is also empty

none is friendly there

all

doesn't matter

mosquitos gets trapped on windshields everywhere

bowling alleys are not lit up by the mind

space is not emptied by your hand



all

doesn't matter

seas are not emptied by your hand

the latest broadcast from space was silent

curling is not a sport

the last message



all

doesn't matter

dreams are not emptied by your hand

you can try

try to empty your hand

nothing grows

it only gets less aggressive

heart shaped boxing gloves


I am gutting a cod
from an artificial lake

artificial moonlight beaming
from my headlight
onto my very real hands
as I watch the artificial blood
wash away in the quiet surf
of the Baltic sea

now recognisable from sound and darkness alone

sixty-eight mosquito bites on my right foot
seventy-seven mosquito bites on my left

the sea is very real somewhere
as I know you are
very real somewhere
up on the beach
by a waning bonfire

I have a dolphin heart
and two prayers for this dead fish
as I chuck it's head
into the sound and the darkness

one
that it will find some artificial current
and rise again
in an artificial afterlife
two
that our bellies be full
when we find each other
and prepare it on the hot coals

in my hidden prayer
or is it just a premonition
the rampant buzzing
of the frenzied mosquitoes
subside
and give way
to the calm washing of the sea

our dolphin hearts
adjust their beating
to each other
and we listen
and become mystified
by our wondrous humanity
forever

not another useless poetics

the poem was read
as if it couldn't
be caught

by me
in recess
ca 1991

consequently my hands loosened

and drew the trousers off
a girl
that either wanted to speak
very soft
or very loud

and later made cakes
like they were love letters
with so much sugar (and eggs)
that the poem
could do nothing but connect

postcards from the Misantropics

I'm seventeen and twentynine(

the original baptismal font from Urnes stave church
is installed on the train between Paris and Budapest
it's the fifteenth oj July 1997
me and twelve other traveling Norwegians in a celebratory mood
wasted on 4 centiliter bottles of aquavit
take turns in filling it with vomit and piss
laughing as loud as possible because the conductor
sounds like a french edition of Harald Mæhle
the original Harald Mæhle
before the dubbing
and the many changes of character began
inbetween the expulsions we sing
so loud
the theme song from "Les Mondes Engloutis"
that everybody is kicked off after Strasbourg somewhere

Paris
we write in our post cards
was never as beautiful as Oslo
that day when King Olav stepped onto the tram
and forgave the rest of the world for being so poor
and disagreeable

but almost

)and an age inbetween running paralell with the tracks

from Stavanger to Oslo
Bergen to Oslo
Oslo to Dombås
SK327 from Oslo to Copenhagen
E47 in direction of Hamburg and Berlin
Ringbahn S41 from Landsberger Allee to Halensee
two fighter planes crossing the blue sky
the cork from a bottle of Prosecco shooting off
seven or eight concentric rings escaping the impact
your perfect legs on a near green patch of grass
your neck (fails description)
leap year
the very richest of the poor
no batteries for the MP3 player
breast strokes in a tiny lake
slowly filling up with books and long poems
submerged and new
clean
ready

shapedrifters

A man exits a grocery store in Reichenberger Strasse, Berlin. He looks down, and then halfway tilts his head upwards.
He has a half crooked smile and grey hair shining like an electrical fan in the sunlight.

Actually, he looks a lot like Leonard Cohen, entering the stage in Helsingborg one summer afternoon two years ago.
Looking down, and then halfway tilting his head upwards. Greeting the choir girls, who greets him back and send him
kisses from the palms of their hands. He greets the bouzouki player, who looks like a reflection of Cohen in Hydra,
ca 1965. Cohen looks, the bouzouki player looks, Axel Jensen looks, and something disappears only to return. And
the other way around. The sun is almost blue. Cohen greets the audience, and we almost forget to greet him back,
being spellbound by his half crooked smile we instead smile half-crookedly back at him. Respectfully imitating that
which we can not be.

The man in Reichenberger Strasse also greets, half-crookedly, and lifts his phantom hat in salutation, either to me or
some phantom friend just passing by. He takes two steps and halts. I am the audience. He turns and questions the air,

«Did I, did I forget anything?»

Just like Leonard Cohen.

The shop keeper places a hand on the maestro's shoulder, and respectfully asks him, knowing that he is disturbing a
genius at work,

«Excuse me sir, is that your dog tied to that bicycle rack?»

in echo bay

street smart/corner smart/avenue smart/down the alley smart/road smart/thruway smart/lane smart/fastlane smart/highway smart/autobahn smart/country road smart/50 kmh village road smart/parking lot smart/handicap parking smart/pavement smart/chalked sidewalk smart/hopscotch smart

landing on already crushed bugs in your trophy childhood smart

mother calling smart

mother not calling smart

house smart/door smart/house smart/door smart/house smart/door smart/wait in the car smart/change the radio channel smart/drive smart/sit smart/watch smart/dissipating roads smart/wet from rain street smart/line smart

submarine or catholic smart

the bomb or not the bomb smart/god's mercy smart

god's non-existing mercy smart

humanity smart

nature smart

growth and decomposition smart

you smart

no thanks for the add

not a wildflower
not something dreamy
wishy-washy all those years ago
not all grown up now
not fulfilled
not a fake ruin
not withering away in a fake garden
not royal piss
not plastic column
not running brook-like
into non-cut grass
not eventful
not uneventful
not becoming true ruins
not becoming ruins of ruins

paganini's in the hallway, shouting

currently considering final fantasy offer
sparrows halting at brink of exhaustion
currently considering final
breath

and usage

currently considering waste

and an I seeing and something else
with eyes shut
recognizing a stranger
currently considering an introduction

and an I lifting off the receiver
currently considering a reply

hello

currently considering baby steps

and two-headed dogs
one head not acknowleding the other
currently considering decapitation
and building guillotines out of clay
and rain

currently considering hours
well spent
not having a past
or an ageless recollection of a good idea

currently considering blue pens
writing blue skies
for the rest of the day

i killed leisure suit larry

the eighties never
saw a more persistent vulture
than me

going for that bone
that makes you grow
and think of prophecies

pecking tirelessly
at the tattooed stone
lodged somewhere between
the metal memory

a fork returning on a radiographer's
screen

and barbie's punctured lung

so many words carved
on my tongue
now growing ancient
while i remember

youth

short shorts

bicycles
spinning off rainbows
into persistent futures
hanging
from meat hooks

in gasping auditoriums

pick a world and become the person who inhabits it

the moon is a great poem to be had
we walk upon her like sharpened pencils
titillating pogo sticks bouncing off
cosmonautic leftovers

the earth is a great poem to be had
and had we not tired so soon
we would surely see her
reposing on the pages
of a very worn book

the ocean is a great poem to be had
and jacques costeau is smiling

the heavens is a great poem to be had
and when we grow real bodies
from real words
she can read us
reading ourselves

---

eutopia unveiled

my shame extends into historic collages
of glued-together circle jerkers

now i have a thai pussy

rub it

wet nymph limbs

unicornvampire heart

"do you worry about the world?"

the bomb

nuclear frogs nose-diving into empty swimming pools

no systems, no impulses

dead but sexy

calling all locusts

trapped here, like emotional dead weight, overweight
a pedophile troll under admiralbrucke, perceived as sensational siren by some birds
chanting away, old melodic fairytale

dancing feet rolled up like corn dogs and barely warm, ashes of burnt flags drawing new maps on worn jeans

un-christian territories spattered by unexpected urinal outbursts, the semi-messiah, pee stains and swans gobbling, now ready to try flesh

corals dropping from every sanctified orifice

all ferrymen put to work on clogged canals

coins trapped in sticky pockets

morpheus now morphii, morphed like everything else into everything
abandoned to the heavy salvation of wasted onlookers

looking, surely not into eyes

almost stalked

remembered
because you once slipped
your tantric fingers
ice cold
under my covers
very unexpectedly
and served me honey blossom kisses
some night
on a ghost train
derailed

pioneers without a frontier

i have feared this poem

roaming dim corridors
looking for an outstretched
body
a sick mattress

desperate to inject itself
into a functional vein
and find hiding
in already poetry-ridden
arteries

"the last hit"

is the name it bears
and it goes like this

"there once was a man..

there once was a man.."

ancient epicurating

you are almost
made of stone
i am almost
made of stone

without arms

we roll against each other
in a museum

waiting

for antique ejaculations

librarian's lament

why not listen

to the
tear drops

hanging on for dear life

to your almost
forgotten eye

how to say why, what

you can't reach into that
which becomes more
in it's past
than in it's future

norway, soon
those old sagas
will be fossilized
and we shall read them again

black tinted scrolls

our very skin

the oil became flesh
the flesh became a cry
the foxes shivered under ground
and grew antlers
out of confusion

languages came and went
some books were canonized

são paulo, truth or dare

kids on ghosted bicycles
storm past the lemon glare of Lula
and the Samsung blue tinted smile
of what's-his-face
into prosperous nights of sweet scented sugar popcorn
and lamplights long forgotten
singing
guns 'n' roses hits
to the steel raven
flapping
it's nationwide wings somewhere
in the black smog
in the darkened diners
and the taxi driver's petrol stained havens

"john carpenter was here"

a hooker's uniform
resting on a window sill
turns catlike
under the crescent nothingness of a moon
too shameful
to bare it's skin

a murder of helicopters in it's place
exuding lifelike whispers
to skyscrapers
wet with rain
still
dancing
that tired old jig
taught
by centuries of junkies
hopped up on capitalism

telephone-sex on a dimly lit expressway

there is so much
to be said

under the erupting volcanoes

but nothing really
to deafen the cries
of creation

short poems dedicated to suicidal seagulls

speak to the head of the triptych

say

what do you know
about brothers and sisters

what did erupting into meaning
give you
of beauty

other than
short gasps

and billows of
bad breath


---


giant squids

so hard to find

so easily left behind

the sun is up for entertainment purposes only


1

jumpstarted

into adventure

unwanted

by christlike tiger

on frozen lake


no toes


2

gypsy women singing

about gypsy women

singing

about gypsy women singing

somewhere in new york

phosphorescent sea babies

it's not hard to imagine harder times

new desires maybe

it's not hard to imagine another imagination

free of desire maybe

white clouds
whatever latin name they bear
not shaping into your sex

or your mouth and your sex

like a bag of cocaine laid out
in beautiful patterns
somewhere in the sky

to make me think of you

behind squinting eyes
and with an imagination
i imagine

that will never bring anything
better than this

summer memory from the Hardanger fjord

none of us
are split in half

none of us
are split in half

rowing boats
reeking of sex

and platonic solids

bomb night


the concrete melted

to deprive
every standing thing

of it's shadows

remains of whole families
would fit

in a red wheel-barrow