NOT THESE WORDS
Prologus
And he stepped in...
and he looked left and right
a heap of old newspapers on one side and an open can of old cottage-cheese on the table he put one hand in his pantspocket and pulled out – clenched between his fingers – a spruced up doomsday poem suit-and-tie-verses for burning churches an ode to a bleeding 1st class prostitute (those were her last days and she deserved a couple of beautiful words dying from the toil for bread and bacon – deserved pretty words like all those who never ever gave up) opens his clenched palm so that the last days come flying up a monkey wrench and love and kebab and the bus-that-always-gets-there fluttering dancing from one corner to the other over cottage-cheese and heaps of newspapers stepping on eachothers toes levitate and fall so that one day they can get back up having become a spanner and mutual responsibility bread and the hatchback-to-get-the-kids-to-school the poem only the coupling of what it once was closed in the palm of a hand in a pocket that strokes it gently tucks it into a piece of paper and sings it the national anthem before bedtime.
I
The world is all in other words. I won’t claim that it’s more beautiful – that the sun sets more leisurely or that people kill eachother less for no apparent reason but I am much happier in other words dancing in other words conflicting in conflicts and love to feel under my fingers fresh flesh and when this one flabs itself out of my reach the sun comes and sets in other words in other worlds and we finally manage to squeeze between us this lovely cynicism – a world in other words is never completely stable and therefore I sometimes lose my balance and bowl along on my ass somewhere to the never-never and barely manage to stop myself with my head buried between unknown breasts I almost suffocate when I bend back my head intoning in prurience „My darling my whore smile or I’ll cease my commotions and leave.”
II
Oh all this huh?-happiness doesn’t come naturally.
This is just a world.
It’s even bad and ugly and filled with misunderstandings and regulations.
Freiheit and libertad are mine but my most economical advisers agree that freedom should be run by private contractors – I want a freundin ‘cause girlfriends don’t do it for me anymore.
III
Phooey! it’s still just a world when they pronounce it in another way. Phooey schmooey.
A tale of growth?
There’s nothing to talk about that isn’t growth.
Except for vanity
except for the tranquilities and me
conversing with my elevated self
I wish for flesh and just as swiftly I wish it away.
A love story?
Well ... no. A tale of growth.
Through the three kings, slender corpulent and colourful Buddha.
together through our flesh oversatiated dancing the apocalypso pulsating with a doomsdaybeat in the dark and the silence of clubs when I can’t talk to people.
Do we praise the animal? Isn’t that ok then,? Seeing as it’s human, and all?
IV
Down on the ground
a depression where the snow will melt away
in our coming May
the sun talks to me without padding it
purrs and whispers:
„If you don’t smile I will stop and leave. Smile my whore.”
Came uninvited suddenly on nobody’s call putting forth demands of all possible kinds but refusing to manageable herself: „You can’t own me!” like some stupid high-school girl in an existential crisis. Of course I can own you! But I answer: „Uhh ... you ... uhh ... are my sunshine ... my ... uhh... only sunshine?” hoping that she’ll appreciate the power of poetry and forgive me in the end and finally.
V
A rapacious child ripping the world from your arms?
-Crash!
And the world (you think) twists and deforms to other words?
-Crash! Crash!
It winds up and down whirlpools with top-agility spinning fluttering crash! The theory that the world is a spinning-top doesn’t hold spinning-tops need a substructure and equilibrium crash crash!
The child plays gurgling at her surroundings taking turns at screaming and shitting senselessly conjuring a mobile over the crib and drooling on the bedspread and finally laughs crash at the whole boatload of nonsense.
Never forget that if you want to teach the child to avoid fire you must first burn the child. If you put a shutter on the well to keep children from falling in we will all die from thirst. To make the world childproof is to destroy the world.
VI
Are these words written for eternity? No no. And phooey!
The loudest mouth says the least ...!!! and all of those.
Somebody should to stock up on deprivation bottle it lug the bottles to the market with the ass on a leash and sell it at a bargain. You really don’t want to know how this ends.
VII
And where does this need come from, this need to be for rather than against? To oppose rather than approve? Is it also conformism when we swim together upstream?
And maybe here concentration gets lost here in this river’s mouth that the fountain saw in mirages and the answers all sink into the foam before the questions even show up sinking sinking smiling my whore my darling finally smiling.
Translated from Icelandic.
Original title: Ekki þessi orð.
From the book Nihil Obstat. Published by Nýhil in 2003.
And he stepped in...
and he looked left and right
a heap of old newspapers on one side and an open can of old cottage-cheese on the table he put one hand in his pantspocket and pulled out – clenched between his fingers – a spruced up doomsday poem suit-and-tie-verses for burning churches an ode to a bleeding 1st class prostitute (those were her last days and she deserved a couple of beautiful words dying from the toil for bread and bacon – deserved pretty words like all those who never ever gave up) opens his clenched palm so that the last days come flying up a monkey wrench and love and kebab and the bus-that-always-gets-there fluttering dancing from one corner to the other over cottage-cheese and heaps of newspapers stepping on eachothers toes levitate and fall so that one day they can get back up having become a spanner and mutual responsibility bread and the hatchback-to-get-the-kids-to-school the poem only the coupling of what it once was closed in the palm of a hand in a pocket that strokes it gently tucks it into a piece of paper and sings it the national anthem before bedtime.
I
The world is all in other words. I won’t claim that it’s more beautiful – that the sun sets more leisurely or that people kill eachother less for no apparent reason but I am much happier in other words dancing in other words conflicting in conflicts and love to feel under my fingers fresh flesh and when this one flabs itself out of my reach the sun comes and sets in other words in other worlds and we finally manage to squeeze between us this lovely cynicism – a world in other words is never completely stable and therefore I sometimes lose my balance and bowl along on my ass somewhere to the never-never and barely manage to stop myself with my head buried between unknown breasts I almost suffocate when I bend back my head intoning in prurience „My darling my whore smile or I’ll cease my commotions and leave.”
II
Oh all this huh?-happiness doesn’t come naturally.
This is just a world.
It’s even bad and ugly and filled with misunderstandings and regulations.
Freiheit and libertad are mine but my most economical advisers agree that freedom should be run by private contractors – I want a freundin ‘cause girlfriends don’t do it for me anymore.
III
Phooey! it’s still just a world when they pronounce it in another way. Phooey schmooey.
A tale of growth?
There’s nothing to talk about that isn’t growth.
Except for vanity
except for the tranquilities and me
conversing with my elevated self
I wish for flesh and just as swiftly I wish it away.
A love story?
Well ... no. A tale of growth.
Through the three kings, slender corpulent and colourful Buddha.
together through our flesh oversatiated dancing the apocalypso pulsating with a doomsdaybeat in the dark and the silence of clubs when I can’t talk to people.
Do we praise the animal? Isn’t that ok then,? Seeing as it’s human, and all?
IV
Down on the ground
a depression where the snow will melt away
in our coming May
the sun talks to me without padding it
purrs and whispers:
„If you don’t smile I will stop and leave. Smile my whore.”
Came uninvited suddenly on nobody’s call putting forth demands of all possible kinds but refusing to manageable herself: „You can’t own me!” like some stupid high-school girl in an existential crisis. Of course I can own you! But I answer: „Uhh ... you ... uhh ... are my sunshine ... my ... uhh... only sunshine?” hoping that she’ll appreciate the power of poetry and forgive me in the end and finally.
V
A rapacious child ripping the world from your arms?
-Crash!
And the world (you think) twists and deforms to other words?
-Crash! Crash!
It winds up and down whirlpools with top-agility spinning fluttering crash! The theory that the world is a spinning-top doesn’t hold spinning-tops need a substructure and equilibrium crash crash!
The child plays gurgling at her surroundings taking turns at screaming and shitting senselessly conjuring a mobile over the crib and drooling on the bedspread and finally laughs crash at the whole boatload of nonsense.
Never forget that if you want to teach the child to avoid fire you must first burn the child. If you put a shutter on the well to keep children from falling in we will all die from thirst. To make the world childproof is to destroy the world.
VI
Are these words written for eternity? No no. And phooey!
The loudest mouth says the least ...!!! and all of those.
Somebody should to stock up on deprivation bottle it lug the bottles to the market with the ass on a leash and sell it at a bargain. You really don’t want to know how this ends.
VII
And where does this need come from, this need to be for rather than against? To oppose rather than approve? Is it also conformism when we swim together upstream?
And maybe here concentration gets lost here in this river’s mouth that the fountain saw in mirages and the answers all sink into the foam before the questions even show up sinking sinking smiling my whore my darling finally smiling.
Translated from Icelandic.
Original title: Ekki þessi orð.
From the book Nihil Obstat. Published by Nýhil in 2003.
posted by Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl at 5:46 AM
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