'After the disaster' quartet by the Danish poet Katrine Marie Guldager

after the disaster i

After the disaster there were some who wanted to push you away, some who said: This is our disaster, this is our pain. So strange to fight over this: The remains of a dead man. A dead man whose familiarity still turns your ears red, a man who died twice. For was everything better before the disaster? Isn’t the disaster a construction? They bend their heads forward and say they really did love your father.

after the disaster ii

After the disaster you hung in the air like a spider without its web. But you got to know loneliness, completely encapsulated, you became familiar with the dark. Or did you just get more scared? The silence of the mountain massif, the soft belly of the shark, the feather lying on the terrace like a sign. But before the disaster everything wasn’t better, I object.

after the disaster iii

After the disaster you had to realise that grief was slowly destroying you because you did not know its many names, its peculiar bite. It actually enjoyed sinking its teeth in your innocence, your soft flesh, your stairs. And you didn’t even scream, didn’t defend yourself, you just thought: I feel a bit warm. Am I the only one here who feels a bit warm?

after the disaster iv

After the disaster there were so many people who wanted to help, but not of course in the way you needed. No one wanted to help you by tearing the veil away from your eyes. After the disaster there was something that was gone, a tone of voice, a place in the world one can return to. After the disaster there was nothing to return to. But there wasn’t before either.