In a Winter Landscape

I woke a few days ago to wonderful scenery of winter beauty; my world was covered in a thin layer of pure white snow, in the sky above the sun shone from a brilliant blue. This is the winter landscape from the world of Friedrick and Frost. From my window in the office my view is towards the snow-laden forest, I see the day pass by while I study the works of long-since-dead authors. In just a few days, the university will quiet down, and my evening contemplations be composed of music, tea and piles of books yet again.

As I walked home that evening I came to think about a poem by Robert Frost I had read a long time ago, well I only remembered the last few lines, but it seemed so fitting when I again entered my slumbering neighbourhood:

Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.

I spent today reading John Donne, his poetry of love and life is some of the most beautiful of the day. With lines such as "Goe, and catche a falling starre, Get with child a mandrake roote, Tell me where all past yeares are," from the poem Song, I long back to a world of those words, a world where proclamations of love could be written in verse of divine proportions and declared to all the world. If ever dreams were interrupted like this:

My Dreame thou brok'st not, but continued'st it,
Thou art so truth, that thoughts of thee suffice,
To make dreames truths; and fables histories;
Enter these armes, for since thou thoughtst it best,
Not to dreame all my dreame, let's act the rest.

I am only saddened that we rarely hear words spoken like this anymore.

Another poem I read today, and with which I will end this first winter thought, though not a winter poem, is from Petrarch:

A doe of purest white upon the grass
wearing two horns of gold appeared to me
between two streams beneath a laurel's shade
at sunrise in that season not yet ripe.

The sight of her was so sweetly austere
that I left all my work to follow her,
just like a miser who in search of treasure
with pleasure makes his effort bitterless.
"No one touch me," around her lovely neck
was written out in diamonds and in topaz,
"It pleased my Caesar to create me free."

The sun by now had climbed the sky midway,
my eyes were tired but not full from looking
when I fell into water, and she vanished.

The unknown one

I want to measure the many things I don't know
and that's how I arrive
aimlessly, I knock and they open, I enter and see
yesterday's pictures on the walls,
the dining room of the man and the woman,
armchairs, beds, saltcellars.
Only then do I understand
that they don't know me.
I go out and I don't know what streets I'm walking,
nor how many poor and tantalising women,
workers of various breeds
and far from satisfactory rewards.

P.Neruda

Gently Weeping

Been thinking a lot lately, do not actually know if I figured anything out, but one thing I have come to realize is that there is one person that frequent in my dreams, both during my nightly slumbers and as much in my waking moments. I do know that some dreams are not to be discarded as random afterglows of fleeting moments, but are to be cherished and kept safe. After waking, still remembering the music that flowed through all corners of my unconscious, the images of moments more sweet and piercing than ever felt during hours of daylight, I know I will carry with me the remembrance of the sweetest scent, the softest laughter; and a smile making this day the best I ever had, yours.


I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it need sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know why nobody told you
how to unfold you love
I don't know how someone controlled you
they bought and sold you

I look at the world and I notice it's turning
While my guitar gently weeps
With every mistake we must surely be learning
Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know how you were diverted
you were perverted too
I don't know how you were inverted
no one alerted you

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at you all
Still my guitar gently weep.

G. Harrison

All Swept Away

Sickness often, often attends me. I'm ruled by pain
Tortured memories burning my brain. Oh make it end
Killed for nothing. Killed by no-one. I was just a boy
Weak and lonely, cold and bloody. Give me a hand

Cared by many, but I know none. My life has gone
Rage and anger tearing through me. Who's God will pay?

Made me fight for you. Made me die for you
You and your sick God. You hope to be loved
We're all swept away, so you can have your day
On blooded knees for you. Heaven calls to you

But I won't die without
Without your heart
In my hand

My Dying Bride

The not-happening

Some time ago, not a long time but still, I was sitting on the train home and in a compartment a bit further down sat a most beautiful girl. Every time I passed her she smiled at me and I smiled back at her, but not a word was spoken between us. We were both sitting alone at opposite sides of the carriage, still we only exchanged smiles. Half way through the journey she was gone, I can't even remember where she got off. For the rest of my homeward journey I contemplated on how I should have approached her, I ran through countless of opening lines and what were to follow those and what should again follow those, all too late. I still wonder what we might have had in common and what kind of music she listened to, and what movies she liked. I have travelled by the same train several times since this first encounter, but I never saw her again.

The not-happening was so sudden
that I stayed there forever,
without knowing, without their knowing me,
as if I were under a chair,
as if I were lost in night.
Not being was like that,
and I stayed that way forever.

Afterwards, I asked the others,
the women, the men,
what they were doing so confidently
and how they learned how to live.
They did not actually answer.
They went on dancing and living.

What determines that silence
is what doesn't happen,
and I don't want to keep on talking,
for I stayed there waiting.
In that place, on that day,
I have no idea what happened to me,
but now I am not the same.

P. Neruda

First day of Autumn, and late night at the Office

Today autumn arrived, and my days at the office once again became somewhat longer than they have been the last few summer weeks. I do not object to the arrival of windier, darker and perhaps also quieter evenings, I quite like it to be honest. Though my days are almost always full of plans and assignments, I often look forward to the late evenings alone at the office. This is for me a time for thinking, reading and writing, even more effectively than I usually am able to during the busy time of day. When every other office is empty I make myself a new pot of tea and put on some music, some quiet late afternoon autumn music like Tom Mcrae or Susanne Sundfør. This poem is from Susanne Sundør's album The Brothel.

The Brothel

Purple pavement
Crookfingers knocking on windows without souls
Bodies are swinging from rooftops and poles
Howling through hollows
Restless nights and one night cheap hotels
Oh, I’m only drifting to always come back

And I search for something
Oh, whatever I don’t really care
Driving with their lights off they can be anywhere
Rolling down their windows
Open card with open mouths
Golden teeth and golden cars

You call me your eyes, you call me your mouth, you call me your ears
Still you follow my trail
I’ll do it all, I’ll do whatever you say, God has left me anyway

Love I laid in payment
Stars with stains and heaven and afterglow
Beneath the ashes of echoes buried alive
They are howling through hollows
Once we share their temple of our arms
Now our heads are hung up on walls

We are ruins within ruins
On every corner a gladiator is begging for another century
When no one cut your tongue to know nothing and to know it all
To be both the animal and god

You call me your eyes, you call me your mouth, you call me your ears
Still you follow our trail
We’ll do it all, we’ll do whatever you say, God has left us anyway
You call me your eyes, you call me your mouth, you call me your ears
Still you follow our trail
We’ll do it all, we’ll do whatever you say, God has left us anyway

There are echoes in the garden is anybody listening
There are echoes lost in the garden is anybody listening
They whisper:
The ones who are only living are the ones who are only dying

Komakino

I reread James O'Barr's The Crow tonight, and just wanted to write down the last poem in the book by Joy Division:

This is the hour when the mysteries emerge
Strangeness so hard to reflect
A moment so moving goes straight
to your heart
Condition that's never been met
The attraction that's held like a wake
deep inside
Something I'll never forget
Pattern is set, the reaction will start
Complete but rejected too soon
Looking ahead in the grip of each tear
Impulse that blinds every move
Shadow that stood by the side of the road
Always reminds me of you
How can I find the right way
to control all the conflicts inside,
All the problems beside
As the questions are right,
and the answers don't fit
Into my way of paying, into my way
of paying

Sonnets in the Night

Sonnet 23
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.
O! let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

Sonnet 24
Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath steel'd,
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective it is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictur'd lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

W. Shakespeare

Unforgiven

Been on a journey, explored old and new, met people never met before, met friends dear to me. Has returned home, to a challenges new and old.

After having been to London and Bergen for a couple of weeks, in London alone, and returned home alone, I again feel the importance of friends. I travelled to Bergen to see my friend defend his doctoral thesis with the highest of praise, I salute him for his remarkable achievement. To be with friends again was truly a joy, and is the one thing I miss since moving here. Hopefully I will see them soon.

Now summer is over autumn is here, and work will recommence.


Unforgiven 2
Lay beside me, tell me what they've done
Speak the words I wanna hear, to make my demons run
The door is locked now, but it's opened if you're true
If you can understand the me, then I can understand the you

Lay beside me, under wicked sky
Black of day, dark of night, we share this pair of lives
The door cracks open, but there's no sun shining through
Black heart scarring darker still, but there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining through
No, there's no sun shining

What I've felt, what I've known
Turn the pages, turn to stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you?

Yeah
What I've felt, what I've known
Sick and tired, I stand alone
Could you be there, 'cause I'm the one who waits for you
Or are you unforgiven too?

Come lay beside me, this won't hurt I swear
She loves me not, she loves me still, but she'll never love again
She lay beside me, but she'll be there when I'm gone
Black heart scarring darker still, yes she'll be there when I'm gone
Yes she'll be there when I'm gone
Dead sure she'll be there

What I've felt, what I've known
Turn the pages, turn to stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you?

What I've felt, what I've known
Sick and tired, I stand alone
Could you be there, cause I'm the one who waits for you
Or are you unforgiven too?

Lay beside me, tell me what I've done
The door is closed, so are your eyes
But now I see the sun, now I see the sun
Yes, now I see it

What I've felt, what I've known
Turn the pages, turn to stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you

What I've felt, what I've known
So sick and tired, I stand alone
Could you be there, cause I'm the one who waits
The one who waits for you


Oh, what I've felt, what I've known
Turn the pages, just turn to stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you

So I dub thee Unforgiven.

Oh, what I've felt
Oh, what I've known

I take this key (never free)
And I bury it (never me) in you
Because you're unforgiven too!

Never free
Never me
Because you're unforgiven too..

London never fading

For the past week I have walked the streets of London, in multitudes of crowds, filled to the brim tube fares, lines upon lines of travelling tourists longing for an almost never-ending dream of a city soaked in music, colours, ancient history of kings long since gone, cask of whatever ale guesting the local pub at the moment and endless rows of performances of every kind. The performances of this city are as many faced as the galleries which inhabit it. From the man who plays his drum on the street corner, the Agatha Christie mystery which renews itself night after night never to be fully solved, to streets that never completely empties, just like the pint glasses of the old man in the local pub who also seems to never leave completely. Where ever you wander a show is always in progress, the steps of old St. Paul's invites to a play of old, how often have not a stranger put on his merry face to ask for a two-pence?

I have walked the streets of London many times before, and the show that I see is always new, always ancient, always the same. The ancient stones, the old faces, the familiar sounds and smells, but never fully the same. There is always a new road to take, a street corner never before seen, or a pub never before visited, this is what creates the show that never ends, the London of all time. I have been to many a bookstore in London before, but I always find a book I never read, I have entered many a friendly pub, but I always find a beer never tasted.

To walk the halls of knowledge, art and history I find myself amazed at every turn. I never get bored of either Turner, Shakespeare or the marble halls of the British museum. When entering these great halls, I feel just like the kid I once was, and well, never grew out of, that for ever hungers for more of that abundance of knowledge.

I have, as oftentimes before, walked the streets of London, but these streets are for me not quite the same, not quite new, though, I know not what I will see.

New Book of Poetry

It is mid summer, the sun, the heat, and the summer holiday have laid my city in a dull haze of calm and relaxation. I have submerged myself in this midsummer slumber and bought a new book of poetry, namely Pablo Neruda, and moved to a shaded spot under a large tree. To read his poems is to wander around in feelings of love and longing, sensuality and desire. In my mind I truly see the images of my own desire, and continue to enjoy the beauty of midsummer.

In You the Earth

Little
rose,
roselet,
at times,
tiny and naked,
it seems
as though you would fit
in one of my hands,
as though I’ll clasp you like this
and carry you to my mouth,
but
suddenly
my feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips:
you have grown,
your shoulders rise like two hills,
your breasts wander over my breast,
my arm scarcely manages to encircle the thin
new-moon line of your waist:
in love you loosened yourself like sea water:
I can scarcely measure the sky’s most spacious eyes
and I lean down to your mouth to kiss the earth.

P. Neruda

A Summer Night

These last few months have truly been the most insanely busiest days for a very long time, but perhaps also some of the most interesting in quite a while. Part from my brother getting married, and I being his best man and toastmaster, he and my new sister-in-law came and visited me during Easter, I have travelled to my friends on the West-coast, attended a PhD-course in London and met many new friends, my second conference, have co-founded a research network, an online academic journal, and written the first 100 pages of my dissertation. Yesterday I ended a week of fun, work and an absolutely joyful time with visiting friends. I have also been witness to my first summer month here in the south, which I must admit has not been at all bad.

I now have some time to relax somewhat and devote my time to hopefully read books I have been longing for. I have brought my book with the Auden poems and found one which describes my present summer in this sunny and surprisingly quiet neighbourhood. Over my speakers Julie London's beautiful voice fills the room, and the summer night sky is clear with stars is my view.

Out on the lawn I lie in bed,
Vega conspicuous overhead
In the windless night of June,
As congregated leaves complete
Their day's activity; me feet
Point to the rising moon.

Lucky, this point in time and space
Is chosen as my working-place,
Where the sexy airs of summer,
The bathing hours and the bare arms,
The leisured drives through a land of farms
Are good to a newcomer.
W.H. Auden

Spring and Easter

Almost all the snow has gone, but there is still some chill in the early morning breeze. There are still some small patches of snow along the road, but spring is rappidly moving, and Easter has already arrived. Some say that this week should be a time of solemn reflextion, quiet reading of books and chocolate, to some degree I agree.

’TIS spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.

And there’s the windflower chilly
With all the winds at play,
And there’s the Lenten lily
That has not long to stay
And dies on Easter day.

And since till girls go maying
You find the primrose still,
And find the windflower playing
With every wind at will,
But not the daffodil,

Bring baskets now, and sally
Upon the spring’s array,
And bear from hill and valley
The daffodil away
That dies on Easter day.

A.E. Housman

Some new words

It has been a long time since I last posted any new words on this blog, the reasons for this are manifold. I have of late been overladen with all sorts of academic activities, most prominent of all perhaps has been my Oh so facinating doctoral thesis, which slouches ever so painstakingly forwards. There has also been a lot of time devoted to reading all I can get my hands on relating to my fields of interest, this leads me further and further back in time as well as deeper and deeper into quaint and curious volumes of more or less forgotten lore. I can also add that my daily ritual of walking through the forest has, of late, resembled a struggle towards any of the snow laden cornes of the world, of which there seems to be quite so many of these days. Though my office is warm and comfortable, the thought of having to leave the building at the end of the day does seem to keep me here for great while longer than on sunnier days. But, I will not fall into any sour mood of complaints, I do get lots of time to my books, and there must be said; I have vast supply of Twinings Earl Grey.

I was somewhat surprised to see that within this last month several new followers have succumbed to the pleasure of the words posted on this blog, for this I am also very greatful. I hope in the future to be a bit more present, and will try to find ever more poems of depth and beauty.

What 'vaileth truth, or by it to take pain ?
To strive by steadfastness for to attain
How to be just, and flee from doubleness ?
Since all alike, where ruleth craftiness,
Rewarded is both crafty, false, and plain.
Soonest he speeds that most can lie and feign :
True meaning heart is had in high disdain.
Against deceit and cloaked doubleness,
What 'vaileth truth, or perfect steadfastness ?
Deceived is he by false and crafty train,
That means no guile, and faithful doth remain
Within the trap, without help or redress :
But for to love, lo, such a stern mistress,
Where cruelty dwells, alas, it were in vain.
What 'vaileth truth !
T.Wyatt

Poor Fellows

What it takes on this planet,
to make love to each other in peace.
Everyone pries under your sheets,
everyone interferes with your loving.
They say terrible things about a man and a woman,
who after much milling about,
all sorts of compunctions,
do something unique,
they both lie with each other in one bed.
I ask myself whether frogs are so furtive,
or sneeze as they please.
Whether they whisper to each other in swamps about illegitimate frogs,
or the joys of amphibious living.
I ask myself if birds single out enemy birds,
or bulls gossip with bullocks before they go out in public with cows.
Even the roads have eyes and the parks their police.
Hotels spy on their guests,
windows name names,
canons and squadrons debark on missions to liquidate love.
All those ears and those jaws working incessantly,
till a man and his girl
have to raise their climax,
full tilt,
on a bicycle.

P. Neruda

Water

These last days, well actually it is the last couple of months, an abundance of water, in form of snow, has been getting on my nerves. Every day I have to drag myself through mountains of unploughed snowy streets and forests, well only one but still, to get to where ever I need to be at a certain time. This is, if nothing else, time consuming, hard work, slippery, cold, annoying, wet after getting inside, as well as demanding since one needs to get dressed up in far too heavy boots and clothing to even attempt to form the thought of opening the door to get out for the mail.

The good thing about having snow is the amusement of having to sit afront of the tv watching facinating shows on themes one knows nothing about, or reading the books that either should have been read for a very long time ago, or books that have been postponed to just such an evening, whilst drinking anything that will help keep the spirit(s) to a maximum. Luckily for me I have an abundance of all of the afore mentioned items and have been craving more and more the last few days. Hopefully it will all go away soon, as I should, by all reckonings, be doing something useful such as writing my dissertation on Renaissance law, drama and cognitive linguistics.

All day I hear the noise of waters
Making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is when, going
Forth alone,
He hears the winds cry to the water's
Monotone.

The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters
Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro.

J. Joyce