Another poem from Lars Gustafsson's last collection of poems

Draft of a religious memorandum

So God exists

if one is to believe theologians of earlier times

in a state of eternal bliss

and can therefore not be affected

by human suffering.

Now that’s a pity. Otherwise

he could have learnt something

particularly about his own activity.

It’s strange; every time

there has been an earthquake in China

the upper glass-window of the kitchen’s

antique grandfather clock swings open.

An occult phenomenon? Seismic sympathy?

Or one of those meaningless gestures

with which the world grimaces

at us,

a nasty, stupid little boy in a playground,

who has to mess with us at any price

so that we will

take notice of him.

That and nothing else.

Maestro A. said - Lars Gustafsson

Maestro A. said

When you have discovered

that the organ’s deep pedal point

you sense

furthest down there

in the cellar vault of

your own existence

is not the keynote of fear

but is affinity

with every string

that vibrates –

do not attempt to make

wisdom out of this insight

For then it disappears.

zkv33

Another grey poem by Lars Gustafsson

Morning down by Hörende lake

Out of the thick mist

the trees emerge 

like a host of reproaches

‘Is grey a colour?’

Believe you me!

This greyness

begins to look like an assertion

Snow poem by Lars Gustafsson

Lively snowfall over philosophers’ graves

A lively snowfall

falls like an ironic comment

over past philosophers’ graves

in what is practically 

a continuous winter twilight.

One of them was a kind of market-crier

the second was a sway-pole artist

the third kept a look-out on street corners

That era is over now. Here this snowfall thickens.

And these pages lack writing.

Ingemann's much-loved carol - this time in English

Fair is creation

marvellous God’s heaven,

blest the souls in their pilgrim throng.

Through realms of earthly

loveliness onward

we go to paradise with song!

Ages lie waiting,

ages quick in passing,

generations that form a throng.

Music from heaven

never falls silent

in this the soul’s glad pilgrim song

Angels first sang it

to the wond’ring shepherds,

sweet was from soul to soul its sound:

Peace and rejoicing

be to all people,

for us a saviour now is found!

Poem from Lars Gustafsson's last collection 'Etudes'

Chromatic fantasies

And then finally,

yet again a kind of morning.

Light forces its way in

through many narrow chinks.

more and more clocks

join in and form a chorus.

From the bazaar of old tower clocks

As if cut out of sooted paper

To the light whirring, like swallows

of the very small clocks

                       *

More clocks the more the day proceeds.

Here everything now happens very quickly;

The birds stiffen in the trees.

The old wood-turning chisels that slept

beneath blankets of cobwebs

wake up, sharper now

and long to cut

 into blackened oak 

The sort of wood that has waited

a very long time under water

deep asleep in its loneliness

and only friends with the channel’s movement

that constantly imitates itself.

You great trees, you once green friends,

why do you stand so naked now?

                      *

As if cut out of sooted paper

And even this day

moves with fluttering sail

into an absent-minded twilight:

the month of November’s

harsh answer to our address:

In the trees the birds stiffen now

and become their own shadows