Ragnar Thoursie
The
crows are laughing
Late poems
Prelude:
Crows
around Tegnér
Crows in sleet;
black limes against the
white sky of the episcopal
residence. The scavengers
flock together, laugh
at Death, the Right
Reverend,
my torment. And under the
Cathedral’s double spire – a
skyward claw – the scrawny city
huddles.
In broad daylight, shamelessly to any eye-
witness, he comes in the litter, ‘The Old Man on the Hill’;
crows escort him – they start their
day’s work. Soon as witnesses they sit wide-eyed in a row on a
roof-edge
resemble poorly-paid clergymen; black
cloaks folded on their backs and stained waistcoats.
Along with co-opted house-sparrows: peck at horse droppings
on Main Street.
All
this while Doctor Selldén’s wife lifts her chemise
for
the great man.
They believe they have seen
what ought not to be seen.
They believe they have heard
what ought not to be heard.
They believe something has
happened anew that ought not to happen.
They caw indignantly their
message
with cracked voices into the
late-winter day.
. . .
What is the more shameless?
To caw
like crows in Växjö – every
morning the gossip
becomes World History. Or to
make love
to Emili and subsequently
mount a pulpit.
What does the
early-bird crow care about the night’s
torment. What do
those that yawn and gossip,
that flutter
their black wings at the sky in the daytime
matter to you
when you alone
are
to meet our Lord and Maker.
Chorus
of crow and old men’s voices
Earthly lamentation
‘Tell me, you
watchman, how the night progresses!
Is it unceasing,
will it never end?
The moon,
half-eaten, through the sky’s still presses,
The tearful stars
still through the heavens wend.
My pulse beats
fast as in my youth’s successes,
Hours of
affliction though it cannot mend.’
I
Today myriads of vermin,
small black
bugs: on my profusely flowering
Hibiscus.
And in my life they also
gush forth – unexpectedly
myriads of black
memory-bugs: fierce small
nips, poisonous words,
mortal stings, hordes of secret signs
of hatred... Time to put an
end to this, my Hibiscus!
II
Darkness slowly descends
over my garden. Soon only
black
contours visible: the
juniper on its lonely
watch in the snow, and the
impenetrable hedge.
Night grows more compact
around my life, what is past.
Only the longing for You
lights with a flickering flame.
III
Else I’d expected on life’s
last slope.
Carnations, not hatred’s
envelope.
Clothes black as night.
Faces veils are concealing.
Guests sadly gliding, with
shoes that are gleaming.
Then she thanks God, who has
answered her prayer.
IV
Death unavoidable
is blocking my path.
With an evil grin,
the keen scythe
laid over his knee.
Doesn’t budge this time.
Wants to see me give way.
-------------
Don’t believe Death –
not mild, but scrawny.
No, He hacks
hungrily with the axe.
Gauges exactly
the depth of your torment.
-------------
Spruce forest snow-laden
mile upon mile.
Such is the path
up to the old one’s meeting.
V
Poor my preparation.
Woe, alas and dread in my
soul.
It most resembles a rag in
shreds.
No plucky resolve to stay
silent
and suffer. No, a coward’s
moaning, when night tightly
holds me.
A kiss so cold, a claw-like toe.
What use is welfare on
a farewell journey. No son, no sister
allays death’s pain,
now numbing my heart.
VI
Dirty grey,
ruffled by rain,
heavy with years,
despised.
- Crow in the
courtyard. Attempts a dignified walk:
teeters, totters,
scouts (like a weather-vane);
laboriously takes
off, a crash,
to
another corner of the yard.
. . .
Behind the
curtain a pop-eyed old man.
Scratches his
beard-stubble, his nails cracked,
nasty taste in
his mouth: lonely
the
final years.
VII
Close to the
heavy front-door of my rented lodgings
(that will be my last)
swallows have
built their airy nest, briefly,
in a ventilator eaten by rust.
Old man thinks
every morning: - Ah, if only my soul
could leave earthly life as lightly as
those on the wing!
VIII
Sixteen stairs.
Heavier each
time; hand on
banister. Somewhere
memory fails.
Seventh stair
and the old man’s
forgotten:
Why did I set
out? Thinks: count-
less rounds, up –
and down.
Up to carry out,
down to recall.
What.
Slowly life
passes. Downwards.
IX
Four walls limit
my field of
vision, the ceiling a lid:
a box, rented
from co-op housing.
Wait and see –
when the contract
the white one
signed by the Lord
may expire and
the box be nailed shut again...
like a coffin –
it soon shall be closed, and reassured
I once more
whisper through my evening prayer.
X
Precisely, almost
scientifically
pedantically I
keep the ledger of my
nonsensical life.
In so doing
bring order into
what it is meaning-
less. While
waiting.
XI
Lion in cage.
Three paces,
satiated with power.
And back. The
broad nose
kisses the steel
wall.
I likewise in my
final
asylum: lap upon
lap
my thoughts take
the last paces.
In vain
searching for an
exit.
XII
Old poet writes
poems
about
death.
As if discovered
first now
where
life is heading.
Astonished the
eye blinks at the inexorable.
No longer a play
on words – no
a
wordless while
when you conclude
your last poem.
XIII
Old trousers as
if new – before
when they were
turned inside-out.
But the known,
accustomed
and much-turned
words: turn them
around and inside
out. But no
more meaning came
out of that!
XIV
Old-man poet much
to do:
Mops up a drop,
dirty behind.
Darns a stanza
that’s got a hole.
- White as a
sheet, I grassp my penn.
Oh, what
laundrying it would need
were I to wash my
past until
clean! Here all
that’s to be done is
to darn and mend
and wash one’s life’s
most noticeable
stains.
XV
Seven lines,
seldom more.
And yet too much.
So little his
day’s work
and yet immense:
to find
the final
words.
XVI
The deranged,
demented, debilitated
deservedly
guarded.
Arrogantly
rattling heavy
key-bunches of
prohibitions.
. . .
But no longer do
the
keys fit his
existence.
Seeks in vain to
guard
over his own
insanity.
XVII
Pointed nose,
varicosed legs.
paunch heavy and
ditto pouch.
Memory poor – for
injusticies ever young.
Coquettish: wig
awry and a wine-
red swearing to
the black ulster.
Look in the
mirror: Who are you like,
old man? Oh yes,
the Evil One himself;
friendly smile he
still bestows
on your world
whose end near grows.
XVIII
Like an
intractable old crone:
knows plenty, has
learnt little.
shuts her
dentured mouth up tight
except when it
ought to stay silent.
Blue veins, red
eye-slits,
strands of beard
– and yet coquetting
with her conceit.
Boasts
of her age,
insists on respect
for her ailments.
Sucks on her
lump of sugar.
Such is
Humanity’s last
madness: wrangles with death.
XIX
Grey-stony.
Stock-still. Mute.
So does the old man
seem: Seals off his mind
from the world.
Broods on himself;
remembers. And
all the while the cancer
grows in his
flesh, incessantly: The only thing
that lives –
works indefatigably towards death.
XX
Give up! All
time’s no longer yours.
Your time is up!
Always you
hope in vain. The
Angel’s
revelation came
to pass too late.
A grave prepared!
From blackest soil grows
worms’
yellowest rose.
XXI
Today – how far
away
the present is
for sure.
How unreal
reality.
How uncertain
the only certain
thing.
-----------
All the temporary
seems permanent.
All our efforts,
so futile
richly rewarded!
All our striving,
so absurd,
the only noble thing!
-----------
The present,
the real,
the only certain
thing: –
my limbs’ mark,
the sign of putrefaction!
XXII
Of love the
grown-ups do not speak
to the lad who is
in anguish.
The path to death
the old man
takes alone in
torment.
Yes, all the gravity of life
must be learnt alone.
XXIII
Misty my gaze:
looks away
ever further
away.
As if earlier
clear-sightedness
had been
in what was
closest?
No, I see
I’ve never seen –
never perceived
what is closest
to me.
XXIV
Crow on chimney
presses.
Seeks a smidgin of warmth.
I have recourse
to the same
in memory of you.
XXV
Understand first
now
what I’ve always
known.
To live
Is to be crushed.
To live on –
become whole anew.
XXVI
Good thing no one
can hear me – except the Lord
on high! From
where he has seen so much devilry.
Buchenwald,
Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua and Gulag.
The question is
whether he is in the slightest bit
interested in me
lying here in Växjö
awake in my white
nightshirt and howling soul.
XXVII
Inspection
of Granhult’s old church
‘The evil elf bit
without warning deep into my heart.’
Then did I flee
to the Lord’s sacred sanctuary –
but found here
too a place full of Devils painted on wood
in great
magnificence, in green and gold, with jowls
run red and venom
running down for a hundred years.
What succour came
from the Vicar’s words and Dove above his head!
I was tormented
by endless singing, from old crones with dragons’
necks and old men
like me on the edge of the grave.
Only a deceased
field-mouse under the pew kept my heart
awake. Finally
the litany was over. We trooped out like
criminals. Though
in the parish house the soul felt freer.
– God’s word is
great; but its light does not light up our dead bodies
until after talk
of this and that and several cups of coffee.
No comments:
Post a Comment