Whiteout

The turn of events and seasons
have a ring to them
of casus belli kargyraa
and silvery moon dust

The day
just barely pulls itself
across snow-covered pastures,
like wounded soldiers,
residues of life
in it's pale Mid-December face

The windows shudder
with breathless calls for time
as the jet-fighters pass Mach 1
over the coniferous belts of Lapland

The planets are caught
in their vertiginous roundabouts,
the prerequisites of physics laid out

Sonic booms from ice-covered lakes
recall the dark barks of Cerberus at Styx
and the didgeridoos and bullroarers
of down under songlines

Spare thoughts are mistaken
for dangerous objects
by the righteous;
with transparent migraine mirrors
covered up by the rabbis
of Brooklyn and Eastern Europe
under the heavy breath
of sexual desire and multiculturality

while the piercing pinnacle plight
and gaiety
of rainbow warriors
down under
raise tankards and laughter
under the ceilings of outback dance halls

The Elvis Presley motel
of the 1950s
and the self-conceit of the single-minded
are cracking up and laid waste,
proving history and truth to be but opinions

Crowds swarming the arenas
for late life Bob Dylan concerts
are brewing like rumours of war
and funnel-cloudy storms of the Mid West,
waiting for the Nth coming
of the messianic maestro
from Minnesota;
that clean-cut kid who's been to college too

I remember Yaël,
wonder how she is

Yeah, some of the people I miss
are way past themselves
and cannot be revived,
do not respond to duty calls,
no matter how hard I scrutinize
old diaries

What I miss about them
- what I lack -
is lost even to themselves

I'm too late,
they're beyond that kind of reach;
just dissolving contours
of names
and atmospheric flavors
in a bleak light
that is not of day

Passage is a dimly lit place

I recall one time,
a decade ago,
out hiking on skis
in Northern Lapland,
from Abisko
with Anna
in a southerly direction,
tense and nervous
in the wilderness of the April winter
at the first planned close encounter
with this lady, dearly desired,
my toenails black from rented boots,
face covered in black-and-blue bruises
from repeatedly falling over
under the unfamiliar weight of the backpack,
my equilibrium ill at ease
in an overwhelming whiteout,
when I suddenly sensed,
going down a slope, as I reckoned,
at breakneck speed,
that the snow felt impossibly smooth,
like I was suspended a centimeter
above ground,
until the mist lifted a little
and I saw, with a jerk
that almost had me face down in the snow again,
that I was standing there, perfectly still on level ground,
hunched over, with bent knees,
like I was travelling really fast downhill

That's an illusion
life can sometimes provide
in this existential whiteout,
and maybe you recall that line
about seemingly being in motion
but actually standing still,
in Bob Dylan's Not Dark Yet?

 
 
© Ingvar Loco Nordin 2023