Diary from Delsbo (2)
...and weird poems about gnomes...
Delsbo is a strange place. It’s called that because it lies beside Lake Dellen. I bathe in that lake several times a day — it’s silky-soft, a clay lake, teeming with fish. How magical is a Swedish summer by a lake without a single mosquito or biting insect? Alarmingly magical, you might say.
And yet, alongside that gentle, dreamy, and atmospheric Swedish side, there is another Sweden that asserts itself. On our very first day here, a guy drove past in an old Chevrolet, blaring loud music from his speakers. Just like the character in that Frank Koenegracht poem, he didn’t do it just once — every five minutes he’d come circling back, a relic from the eighties, a broadcaster of imaginary toughness.
Driving thousands of kilometres north only to be hit by one of the longest heatwaves Sweden has ever experienced — is that just bad luck? I don’t know. I’m simply trying to enjoy this Swedish summer. And for the most part, I do. Though the hours between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. are the hardest. In the Netherlands, things start to cool after 5, but not here. Those are the hottest hours, and that’s when I retreat to the coolest room in the house.
But honestly — no mosquitoes? Wow. Veronique spends most of the day drawing. I drop in now and then and go for a swim.
The new collection will be the first to feature Veronique’s watercolours as well.
Over the past few days, I’ve translated all the Norwegian poems into Swedish and am now continuing work on the Swedish part of the book.
Now on to the invisible part of Sauseschritt:
*
The Sock
Every night again the sock speaks in its crumpled little voice,
saying: “Hello — we’re going to outlive everyone!”
I know there’s a talking skull inside.
*
The Most Dog-Scientific Poem Ever Written
All I want from you
is to make crooked people — swervers.
Because the sky is mine.
All my poems are territorial pissings.
Those with the right incline
understand this poem is full of pi’s.
*
Death Is Called Karel or Frank
If I had been a waterfall,
I would never have wanted to be called Karel or Frank,
because that's what death is called in this
neck of the woods.
And in this neck of the woods we don’t know death —
we only know Klaas Vaak,
wandering with a pig-nose pistol
that, as far as we know, he’s never once fired.
You can hear him coming from afar,
his spurs ringing like little bells.
Klaas Vaak looks like Lee Van Cleef
wearing a gnome hat.
Above the forest hang eight deadly poppy moons,
and as he walks by,
eight shadows crawl ahead of him
that we call the octopus arms of sleep.
The last thing you ever see is always
the pink glow of the pig-nose pistol
that he’s never fired.
You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I'm going to tell you something.
When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass.
I don’t believe in the Devil either — not as a waterfall.
A waterfall has the clouds for an ass, far behind it —
endless clouds.
And who these days still has the ambition
to bite into clouds?
No — whoever says I’m not a waterfall but an old man,
and that it’s death making the bells jingle,
and that no eight deadly poppy moons
shine in this neck of the woods —
who are you
to tell a waterfall
what belongs and what doesn’t?
The eight octopus arms of sleep
do their job just fine —
but it’s that pink glow
of the pig-nose pistol
that undoes you, Frank.
Karel.
And we all know
that ammunition is scarce
in this neck of the woods.
There are two kinds of spurs, my friend.
Those that come in by the door;
those that come in by the window.
*
Since every cell in the human body refreshes itself every seven years,
all you really have to do is stay in a relationship for seven years —
and you’ll end up cheating automatically, with your own partner.
Poetry is a kind of infidelity with language.
Words you thought were trustworthy suddenly become thrilling.
It bedazzles me sometimes to be
the only person who must write
in eggitudes
to remain lyrical.
O patience, don’t sob behind my back.
I cannot undress you into love.
When I see you
I get the Milky Way in my Mars, Marie.
Cheating is lyrical at first,
and mostly anecdotal afterwards.
Centralise me, O my love.
*
Phoning Escher II
Phoning Escher. Hello. Phoning Escher.
Maurits speaking. Hi Maurits. I want to die.
Phoning Escher, hello.
Maurits here. I used to be good with birds.
Maurits speaking. Hello? Phoning Escher.
Phoning Escher, hello?
“She was beautiful all right, beautiful in a way
that was at once seductive, demonic, and raspberry.”
— Stanisław Lem, The Futurological Congress (From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy)
*
Hibernation
‘slaapwandelaars zingen geen liedjes,
en derde coupletten zijn voor mietjes, maar toch...
nooit iemand anders gehad’ — De Vries
Two sleepwalkers challenge each other to a duel.
Choose your weapon, says one. But the other
says nothing and starts moon-diapering.
One is left-wing,
the other extremely left.
Two ultra-left sleepwalkers squat a doll.
And with outstretched arms
the living corpse of my childhood climbs the stairs —
my first encounter with literature.
The other, Meester van Zoeten,
is tossing in his sleep
because his little fish died,
his feet fell into hibernation.
There is much in this world you can arm yourself with:
love,
fear,
sheep-chlorine.
Someone should write a poem
about the decline of the duel,
and how in the old days you wanted to defy death
with white gloves on,
just to keep everything from having names.
*
Hylomorphism
Let us — with politics in mind — also, within poetry,
point out the parasitic role of the metaphor.
Lyricism is bravado.
If a text contains enough bravado,
if a person contains enough bravado,
they get away with everything.
They begin to use metaphors.
The addiction to metaphors betrays a desire
to waste language.
Your language. My language. Everyone’s language.
The time when poets decided what poetry is
lies far behind us, in the Metaforum.
A rose rose burdensomely.
Comma, said the girl with the matchsticks.
Peter Jackson is a filmmaker
who started by filming zombies
but quickly switched to gnomes
when he noticed society greatly appreciated such things.
For over twenty years he filmed gnomes —
and the interaction of gnomes with other dumbish creatures —
but the zombies never truly went away.
After about ten years, Peter had had enough
of filming gnomes,
but everyone kept adoring his gnomes,
and in the final episode Peter went full hyper-Derrida,
and it turned out everyone was a zombie-gnome
hacking at each other —
and voilà, there came the eagles,
the mighty eagles that came to save the day.
Is Peter Jackson a metaphor for this book? No...
I have yet to find a way
to endow my language with mighty wings
that, at the very last moment and without lyricism,
strip Aristotle to his underpants.
Please enter the most beautiful gnome-letter here: ...............
*
It shows a certain sense of humor to talk so much about gnomes in the magnifying-glass part of a book.
Sincerely,
Martinus Benders