Thursday 29 July 2010


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

Friday 23 July 2010




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?»

Saturday 10 July 2010


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

Thursday 1 July 2010




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