Selections from a Contemporary Danish Poetry Anthology?!

"have you lost your mind?" "why are you posting this here, this isn't blogging, this is posting other people's works!" "what's with the artsy-farsty mumbo-jumbo?!?!". These might be things you are screaming right now, in vain at the screen. In my muddled world, things work just a little differently. I'm trying to get off to K.C. to go see the Violet Burning tonight, and these library books are definately overdue, and I cannot renew them anymore. Our tempermental computer does not let us use word, works, or any other random saving device, and I wanted to save at least a few of these poems without taking them to a photocopy place.........so dear readers, I shall post a few poems that I just happened to like for some reason, for our collective reading/remembernce enjoyment, since I will lose my bookmarked pages if I take them back to the library now.

"but won't it take a long time typing out all of them?"
a. silence!
b. Maybe....depending on several factors.................enjoy them or not.




Heroica by Sophus Claussen(1865-1931)

It is a fight to halt wild horses.
It is a fight to win rare women,
stately, beautiful, who offer fair resistance-
and satisfy them for their loss.

It is a fight to put life-size
figures alive onto canvas,
and a fight to conjure spirit
from compressed worlds into a tight frame.

It is a fight to fell big trees-
but also to make them grow
with wide-spread arms, strong as giants,
and roots deep in the mould- the same whether
raising a tree out of the earth itself
or an artifact of word and color.

It is a fight which delights the whole kingdom
to have checked our own strength
on the point of victory...
and a fight to grasp the current of life-
gold coins for one, song for another-
and not lose the right word when its time is there,
while it is still worth knowing.

It is a fight to keep both power and spirit,
and to suffer punishment from not fist.
If condemned, you must stand up to the sentence
with words that have five fingers on each hand.








Fear by Tom Kristensen(1893-1974)


Fear is stron as a Mongol horde.
It is ripened by immature years.
And each day my heart grows heavy,
Foreseeing the continents flooded with tears.

But my fear must be vented in longing,
In visions of horror and stress.
I have longed for the final diaster,
For havoc and violent death.

I have longed to see cities burning
And the races of mankind in flight-
A world rushing headlong in panic
From God's retribution and might.



Christ in the Grain Fields by Ole Sarvig (1921-?)

Tonight I saw the grain,
the dreaming grain,
the grain and husks of all the living,
here in these fields.

I saw it this morning about five-
pale hour when Christ came,
when children are born,
when fires break out.

It was so beautiful. Sleepers so hushed. Calm.
Christ moved like a moon through the grain.




The Cologne Cathedral by Ole Wivel (1921-?)

Automobiles speed by it.
Like a hammer blow of the past,
contrary to probability
and the law of perpetual evolution
it stands, scarred and splintered
between the streets.
A cliff furrowed with dreams
or better:
an antenna of the past
created to pick up the heavenly blessings
that we totally ignore.
We clatter at the bottom of it, move chairs,
sell postcards, shout perhaps
(as when one scratches a fingernail on a stone).
Should much rather tear it down,
blow it to pieces,
a useless symbol of inner conditions
which no one admits (shining arches that span
the space of silence). Insolent efforts
to escape the place where we obviously find ourselves
these frenzied minutes
and the morphine-high at the end.
Silence and striving in one,
rising toward that
which is impervious to analyses and proof.
And yet everyone knows
there are tones
inaudible to the ear.
(Tastebuds on the tongue are dulled
by tobacco and old age.)
The music plays above our heads
and what we see
are the empty, ingenious racks of the music stands.

Pros & Cons

This could be a familiar title. Pros and Cons that is. I like to write 'em out. I often do in my head, so I might as well type 'em as well. I've noticed that people don't use the word type as often...hmmm....

Today I had to "shop". Grr.....Really the only thing I had to buy was toothpaste, but you know how it goes. I also wanted chapstick, which apparently is a namebrand, not unlike Kleenex. I never say, "man, my lips are chapped, I need to buy some Blistex!" (what I bought today, because it came in cherry and was cheaper).

Onto pros and cons: Cons; nobody in this town has the new Starflyer 59 album! ARGHGH! i've tried everywhere. I'm not above buying it at Target or Best Buy either, believe me I checked. I usually try and support the little shops downtown or wherever, but it's a moot point because nobody carries this. Argg! I really hate shopping at big stores like walmart,target, best buy. I don't know if I could accurately explain why. I've been putting off that blog for some time now. Everytime i'm at one of these places I'm filled with bile, and bitter sentiment. But i'm usually thinking about what i would write about my thoughts on these places, but you guessed it......i rarely do. It seems inevitable that whenever I'm in one of these types of stores, i end up wandering around in a trance like state, frowning, and etcering...(new word?)

Cons: Back hurts in that weird, is this cancer way.

Pros: Whilst looking for Starflyer's new album, I came across two Stavesacre albums for 4.99! Wahoo. I also bought this Korean War Movie for my brother's B-day that he recommened we watch together. While he was living in South Korea, he went to see this movie (Tae Guk Gi) in the theatre. He was the only American in there. Turns out the theatre was packed with teary eyed South Korean vets. He said it must have been much like American D-Day vets going to see Saving Private Ryan, except this was about a war in which their home country, if not home city was invaded. Several people had to leave, because it was just too hard to re-live. I've yet to watch it, but i'm completly fascinated already as I've done lots of reading on the subject.

Pros: whilst downtown depositing my loly paycheck for the temp agency, I saw a man riding a bicycle in the rain and wearing a bright yellow tin hat that looked like a World War I relic. I don't know why this is a pros, other than it made me smile.

Pros: I randomly dropped in at a pet store. I sometimes do this just to look at the fish. My favorite fish store went out of business (i should have put that on cons, but it happend before today). I like just looking at fish. Therapy. I ended up buying Lucy, our dog a big rawhide bone. She is happy.

Whatever you wanna call it.

Just a stone's throw away from
a state of comatose you may
be familiar with.
bleeding the clock dry,
remembering all these swirling nemesis'
some call "ideas"
completly here, completly here.

...And now perhaps, a collective groan, and then maybe some "poems"...

The ACHE

Some want to be soothed,
With the probability
Of their own inventions
The "genius species"
Complicated in verse,
On paper,
Rhythmic simplexities,
Audible rapture....
Others, In the same light
Grow only the more wearier,
With the knowledge of their own potential,
Some say they have or had,
Blaming their failures on themeselves,
Justly,
This whole mess,
Self stated circle of thought,
Continues on into morning,
Perhaps rightly so...
Perhaps not for the best.

Welcome to the World.

My cousin Sarah called me this morning with good news. I of course, being a fan of good news and what would you call it, well, not a fan of bad news, was glad to hear. (insert clever modest mouse referrence here if you wanna)
"Guess what Andy" she said?
"ummmm........let me guess" I say......."Aliens landed in Nebraska and want you to open a sweater shop with them?"
"uh...no, you have a new cousin!" (i knew this was coming, cause it seems like Melissa's been pregnant for a good long while now)
Had I had a triumphant trumpet fanfare button on the phone, this is the moment were I would pushed it, instead of just sounding really happy, which I was actually.
And so, little Ava Geneve enters this cruel and harsh, beautiful yet lonely world on a day I find quite funny....april fool's day. It's a good day to be born I think. The weather is near perfect today (well at least here in Kansas). Yes, yes, dear readers I am open to the fact that maybe cousin Sarah was playing an "april fools" day joke, but I'm pretty sure Melissa actually had her baby this morning.
And so cousin Sarah proceeded to give me the facts, and I proceeded to write them down with concentrated accuracy on my "fact sheet" which I, in family style have already relayed to mom at school, ben on his answering machine, and soon Dad and Molly, as they come home from errands/class. Cousin Sam yelled in excitement in teh background that he "HAD A NEW SISTER". He also was quite proud that he poured his own orange juice without spilling.
I woke up this morning In a dismal state, possibly from the nights previous dream, but I don't want to dwell on that currently. Much like a wedding, it's not about me right now, If I had a glass to raise, I would, as the orange juice is currently thawing......happy day.