Alphabet Read online

explains leaflessly

  that in our despair we have made

  a flowerless earth

  sexless as chlorine

  see a morningpale star

  gleams above like a brain

  that is almost used up and burned out

  too diffuse to recall

  a man’s and a woman’s

  union in their wingless flight

  in a sweet-scented meadow

  a summerwarm bed

  see the clear waterfall

  has congealed and grown small

  on its way up the rock face again

  and the fathomless roses

  have hidden in bogs

  indelible pollen laid by

  for eternity

  here they are copied fair in a script that is like

  the script that the clouds in their drifting can write

  or the script Archaeopteryx wrote into stone

  across a dizzying sky-blue and clean

  eternity

  eternity

  see the still becalmed wheat

  in the haze and the heat

  on its way down the rootstock again

  while the poisonous winds

  that paralyse blindly

  move slowly and sullenly on

  to eternity

  never will death itself be the same any more

  earthly death that all mortals must die as before

  they are now counted down they are ticking away

  while the earth crackles just as if it had frozen

  for eternity

  eternity

  see the wonderful summer

  the plums blue as doves

  blown to particles feathering down

  see the bindweed greywhite

  as it crumbles and sinks

  to the depths of the unmoulded clay

  for eternity

  there they are signed into the planless game

  where none can tell whether a thing will remain

  whether what’s raven or starling or lark

  lost for all time will find itself there

  in eternity

  eternity

  while the leaves of an elm tree

  are swept down a street

  and summer is greying with soot

  I walk down the avenue

  dark as when snow

  one evening has frozen to blood

  for eternity

  here I slip in behind an old graveyard’s walls

  where only the petrified doves go for walks

  here they steal about in search of a place

  where the stone heart informs them that peace settles down

  for eternity

  eternity

  alphabets exist

  the rain of alphabets

  incessant rain

  grace light

  intervals and forms

  of stones of stars

  courses of rivers and

  motions of mind

  tracks of animals

  their routes and ways

  nest-building

  human solace

  daylight in air

  sign of the hawk

  union in colour

  of sunlight and eye

  wild chamomile

  at houses’ doorsteps

  snowbanks wind

  house corners sparrows

  I write like wind

  that writes with clouds’

  tranquil script

  or quickly across the sky

  in vanishing strokes

  as if with swallows

  I write like wind

  that writes in water

  with stylised monotony

  or roll with the heavy

  alphabet of waves

  their threads of foam

  write in air

  as plants write

  stalks and leaves

  or loopingly as with flowers

  in plumed circles

  filaments dots

  I write like the water’s edge

  writes a tideline

  of seaweed and shells

  or delicately as mother of pearl

  feet of starfish

  secretions of mussels

  I write like the early

  spring that writes

  the common alphabet

  of anemones beeches

  violets wood-sorrel

  I write like childlike

  summer like thunder

  over domed treetops

  whitegold of ripening

  lightning and wheat

  I write like autumn

  marked for death

  like restless hopes

  lightstorms slicing

  fog memory

  I write like winter

  write like snow

  and ice and cold

  darkness death

  write

  I write like the beating

  heart writes

  the skeleton the nails

  the teeth the hair

  the skull their silence

  I write like the beating

  heart writes

  the hands the feet

  the skin the lips

  the sex their whisper

  I write like the beating

  heart writes

  the muscles the lungs

  the face the brain

  the nerves their sound

  I write like the beating

  heart writes

  the blood the cells

  the visions the tears

  the tongue their cry

  14

  nights exist, nightshade exists

  the dark side, the cloak of namelessness exists

  the northern limits of consciousness exist, there

  where what is dreamed opens and closes its

  northerly crown in nastic turnings

  without day and night being definitely

  placed, without nadir, zenith

  straight below or above and without

  the naos, the innermost space of the cell

  revealing whether the seed in an inner sky

  gathers the limits of consciousness into a point

  a flowering point where like a bit of sunshine

  ice ages exist, ice ages exist

  where like a bit of fire the insects’ wingless

  Nike exists, neither victory nor

  defeat, just the solace of nothing;

  the solace of names, that nothing has

  a name, namelessness has a name

  that names exist, names like narwhal

  nettle, names like carnation, tawny owl

  and nightjar, names like nightingale, new moon

  evening primrose, naiads, and the other kind of

  name in which a word when named is scent

  like the narwhal’s name for Arctic seas,

  the nettles’ names for fever, like carnations’

  names for light reflected into factory-white

  nights, like the tawny owl’s, the nightjar’s names

  for feathers, the nightingale’s names for being

  an Old World warbler hidden in moist thickets

  like the new moon’s names for Earth and Sun

  the evening primrose family’s names for kinship

  like the naiads’ names for being pondweed

  whispering the naiads’ names in wind

  so here I stand by the Barents Sea

  out there is the Barents Sea

  and it looks like the Barents Sea

  is always alone with the Barents Sea

  but around behind the Barents Sea

  the water stops at Spitzbergen

  and just behind Spitzbergen

  ice drifts in the Arctic Ocean

  and just behind the Arctic Ocean

  there’s solid ice at the North Pole

  and just behind the North Pole

  it looks like the Beaufort Sea

  is all alone with the Beaufort Sea


  but around in back of the Beaufort Sea

  it looks like Alaska

  has always seen only Alaska

  but behind Alaska

  at last is the Pacific Ocean

  it looks like the Pacific Ocean

  is always alone with the Pacific Ocean

  but around behind the Pacific Ocean

  ice drifts in the Antarctic Ocean

  and just behind the Antarctic Ocean

  there’s solid ice at the South Pole

  and just behind the South Pole

  there’s water again in the South Atlantic

  and just behind the South Atlantic

  the water stops at Africa

  and just behind Africa

  some water again in the Mediterranean

  and just behind the Mediterranean

  it looks like Turkey

  is all alone with Turkey

  but around in back of Turkey

  there’s water again in the Black Sea

  and just behind the Black Sea

  it looks like Romania

  is always alone with Romania

  but right behind Romania

  there’s the Soviet Union

  it looks like the Soviet Union

  is all alone with the Soviet Union

  but right behind the Soviet Union

  there’s Finland

  looking like Finland

  is all alone just Finland

  but around behind Finland

  there’s Finnmark

  and just behind Finnmark

  there’s the Barents Sea

  planed and chrome plated

  beneath a dome of light

  so here I stand by the Barents Sea

  all alone by the Barents Sea

  evening June 24th

  the Gävle canal is as shiny as metal

  and regardless of weather it always reflects

  a cloud cover somewhere, so you never

  feel up to carving your heart in

  the water and, blindly as a poem that

  is written too soon, flowing away

  from the county extras in the square

  the streets lie as someone must have

  laid them out once, waiting, the light from

  pavements rises toward an overgrown sky

  and not until five o’clock when the factory gate

  opens do you see a child run over to

  her father while he looks like a stranger

  and share his uneasiness before it disappears

  it is here in a worn-down province

  where from hour to hour the street-trees

  cast shadows longer than before

  collect water and watch that the adults

  keep track of their allotted time

  and preferably feel no regret

  it is here in a worn-down province

  where no citrus trees bloom

  where the swallows do not even come and

  summer is almost somber with sun

  that people lie awake and think

  while the gardens slowly take root

  only a few dogs are still about

  an eagle lands on a coverlet of

  air, while a child in her bed gets

  the printed wallpaper to look like

  a sky that will clear up soon

  it is here in a worn-down province

  with a wistfulness no one dares love

  that the gravel on the paths of the manor grounds

  keeps creaking for years

  after the last lovers have gone away

  it is here in a worn-down province

  that the last flock of houses has long

  since stopped so people can watch TV

  and save up tears for future use

  only a nestless sparrow flutters up into the air

  only a breath as if from everything’s

  lawless sorrow makes a tree

  whisper a black indefinite sound

  before the train starts up with a jerk

  and I soon will remember only the

  empty platform and the bench with the

  wet newspaper, which the wind,

  leafing so pensively through everything, never

  could lift, while the rest is washed into

  my childhood somewhere in a

  dry indestructible house where

  I stand by a window and look

  at the train through the sheets of rain

  evening June sixteenth

  there’s something specific

  about the doves’ way

  of living my life

  as a natural result

  of today since it’s raining

  and as always in rain

  they softly alight

  on the window ledge

  so close to the white

  piece of paper that they

  can easily see if

  I’m writing of doves or of rain

  it can feel wrong

  that it never is doves

  themselves impassively

  writing of doves

  of the rain perhaps

  or the pane that they just

  with a round little eye

  see me so blurrily through

  they don’t realise

  that especially their flight

  and their wings are connected

  with gentleness, peace

  a relationship making it

  practically impossible

  to mention doves as doves

  for instance in a poem

  or to mention doves in rain

  as the drenched and dishevelled

  doves in rain that they are

  today since it’s raining

  it was actually first

  at Berlevågs harbour

  where the gulls rage

  in the cold in June

  that the absence of doves

  of their arbitrary

  clucking and crooning

  struck me with something

  that was not wonder

  but quite ordinary

  everyday openness

  almost a reverence

  as if the world held

  a magnificent crystalline sphere

  of minuscule steps

  on wine-red feet

  an ever-enamoured

  complex tracking-down

  of food and desire

  in the caverns of day

  a murmuring wanting

  from second to second

  to circumvent death

  and communicate presence

  it struck me that poems

  about doves about rain

  must start in an egg

  in a dizzying drop

  must start out with down

  with a gathering of drops

  with feather on feather

  a searched-out design

  with greyish and brownish

  and whitish and bluish

  immaculate colours

  with strata of water in air

  with a heart somewhere

  with delicate lungs

  like bracken of oxygen

  with the clouds’ web

  with absence and at

  the same time with a thirst

  for human happiness

  with all the possible

  words made impossible

  meaningless so that

  the rain can rain down

  and the doves can alight

  so softly upon

  the white paper that I

  can easily see if they’re

  writing of me or of you

  of the rain perhaps

  or the peace that they just

  with a round little eye

  see us so blurrily through

  morning June 26th

  dreamers go around openly now

  with dreams out on their skin

  with the lustre of membranes

  and entrails spread over

  their bo
dies like old-fashioned

  maps; the specific

  contours of the moment show

  the future’s embryo

  as a contagious stand of fossils

  and the earth’s surface cracks like

  peeling canvas; the stuff

  of dreams and everything else a human

  being was made of flutters

  in the air, a few classic

  strips of veil and gauze

  around the glassclear thoughts

  while drops of sorrow break out

  on a forehead washed clean;

  as when ships with windblown

  dead leave the sinking

  water and put in through the town

  in the creeping sun they always

  gather on a summer-grey evening

  with violence and decency

  bound to fragile flesh like

  particles of soot bound to soap;

  anyone at all is a hostage

  somewhere in the jungle of consciousness

  and builds on a church of snow

  anyone at all raves on about

  the gods’ punishment about chaos

  that reaches its boiling point far

  too soon and anyone at all

  curries favour unseen

  with the patrols of an unyielding

  order where they hand over life as collateral;

  only the poor live on in fear

  of dying before the rich give

  orders at last for

  anything at all;

  and as clocks run races over

  the planet and hearts are filled with

  stone after stone that never will

  fall as machines devise

  other machines as if it were

  possible to conceal that the future

  conceals nothing today as

  nothing happens as I sit

  somewhere in my apartment almost

  apathetic alone at any rate with

  thirty pounds of white paper today

  as August eleventh slowly

  but surely vanishes as

  the full moon closes its eyes

  against the dazzling sun today

  a woman returns to

  the village sees if there is

  water in the charred

  well grubs a bit in the ground

  with a stick hut picks up

  nothing and sits down and

  waits thinks she can hear

  a dog in the distance from

  the forest that’s still smoking

  and that keeps on smoking

  when the night chill comes

  thinks she can hear the stars’

  flames when the stars come out

  right where the house with

  the fence and garden used to be

  thinks she’ll rest

  a bit and dies

  a bird flies off a bit of dust

  eddies up a drop of water falls

  on a leaf on a branch on a tree

  on an earth and the rain starts

  to cry noted somewhere in the

  distance as rain on the computer

  screen a bit of infrared radiation