Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Morten Søndergaard

NIGHT BLOG

23/9
The night is here again.
Someone has let me into the control tower and thrown the keys
away. Words request permission to land. Come in.
I believe in the conspiracies of the words behind the back
of the syntax.
You just have to keep going.
Full throttle. Hope it goes okay. Even though we’ve nowhere
to go. Write like the evening light that rips open chasms
in all the colours. A spectrum from violet to phosphorescent green.
A light falls on the words inscribed here. I walk
up into the mountains with an invisible dog and write a poem.

24/9
The floors say: Hello, feet.
We go by names: counterpoint, breaking point, melting point.
Time runs its programme, it goes by, it passes, it stands
still:
The body tips forward in its figure One, for everything is
sloping, everything

comes down to blind faith in floors, faith in you,
I walk back, step
by step, I sit on the toilet in my grandmother’s bathroom, a ground of brown,
yellow and blue rectangular tiles, tiles, a way of
falling into a brown study, studying brown and yellow and blue oblongs of tile
and there in the toilet in my thoughts cut the tiles free and lay them out again
on the floor, in new patterns,
far more satisfying patterns, in the beginning was the pattern,
the brown and yellow and blue sensation on the soles of the feet,
random formulations, run-up to figuration, here and there hints
of a flower with petals, a face, a cockroach, a knife
or a screwdriver would do it,
prise them loose, the tiles, but it can’t be done, these feet
must
accept all sorts of floors, all negotiable surfaces.
We search for places. The floor is a starting point.
The place is the walker’s
fixed abode. A sense of place. This place: We.
We let the air out of this place, as if from a beach toy,
and take it with us.

25/9
Ready? Each word is another word.
Each tongue another tongue. From now on face is ‘snow’.
One is friends with one’s toes. A sentence to get hold of.
Hold up. Giddy-up.
My white horses. As a child I played the mouth organ
and regularly rode off into the sunset.
I set. Sorry: I said, I’m Lucky Luke. The palefaces of words
turn among the birch trunks.
Face ought to be face.
Step by step.
So and so many steps. Shanks’s pony.

15/5
My vanity is veritably enormous. Postcard from
Pound: Rid yourself of it, pull it down. I take a walk along
the pedestrian street, ciao. A walk can begin and end anywhere
at all. There is fire on the mountain. Luckily. Poets on
exercise bikes supply the language with electricity. Keep it
going, as they say.
Poetry is so eco-friendly. High-voltage sentences keep whole cities
up and running. I roam at random around the town. Go all
over
I must wean myself of this weird habit of counting
steps.
I truly cannot tell which foot took
the first, but
I remember my playpen was exactly 3 steps long,
there I paced under a
stripy jaguar sun, back and forth, it is 27 steps from the kitchen
over to my desk,
it is 513 to the post office
and 6989 to the football ground down by the motorway, I begin
to go out in the sun, like a babbling fool
suddenly realizing
that life is not one long descent towards death, but a series of
complicated steps
in unforeseen directions,
it is 3124 steps up to the artichokes in the olive grove,
423 steps
down to the bar. It could be 1 step to the moment
of concurrence that occurs
when the poem is written and I am allowed
to be in the world, one on one,
there it is, looking so utterly
convincing with artichokes and Glenn Gould, ossicles
and dogs and chili and
you. I walk up
to the olive grove to see to the artichokes,
portrait
of the artist as vegetable
, the artichokes, we cook them,
we pluck off
their petals,
we work our way in to the delicious heart, that’s what we’re after.
Find your patch
of chaos and tend it, get it to flourish with stray shoots
sprouting
from every branch,
25367 steps in one direction, 25367 in another,
like when
as children we
counted our steps on the way to school
and had to start from scratch if we trod on a crack, now we make
strokes on paper like bartenders counting beers, four down
and one
across, so and so many days to go, will you, will you, will you come
out in the woods with me. Out there
a copper beech counts its leaves backwards and somewhere the sun is blabbing
away
in an old fountain.
You could
go crazy with all this counting, counting giro forms, counting girlfriends,
counting brown and yellow and blue cars, counting steps, but
digits deaden
the pain and shift it slightly
from the told to the telling. We do not count
on our fingers now,
most of it is done
in the head.

NACHTBLOG

23/9
De nacht is weer terug.
Iemand heeft me in de controletoren opgesloten en de sleutels
weggegooid. Woorden verzoeken om toestemming om te mogen landen. Kom binnen.
Ik geloof in de samenzwering van de woorden achter de rug van de
syntaxis om.
Er is alleen maar doorgaan.
Op volle sterkte. Hopen dat het gaat. Ook al kunnen we nergens
heen. Schrijf als het avondlicht dat afgronden
in alle kleuren openscheurt. Een spectrum van paars tot lichtgevend groen.
Er valt licht op de woorden die hier staan. Ik ga
de bergen in met een onzichtbare hond om een gedicht te schrijven.
 
24/9
De vloeren zeggen: hallo voeten
We lopen iets te heten: Kontrapunt, breekpunt, smeltpunt.
De tijd wikkelt haar programma af, ze rent, ze loopt, ze staat
stil:
Het lichaam valt naar voren in zijn een, want alles
 loopt af, alles
is blind vertrouwen in vloeren, vertrouwen in jou,
ik ga terug, stap voor
stap, ik zit in oma´s badkamer op de wc, een vloer van gele,
bruine en blauwe vierkante tegels, tegels, een manier
om in duigen te vallen, langwerpige duigen van tegelmateriaal,
en daar op de wc in gedachten verzonken de tegels los te snijden
en weer terug op de vloer
te leggen, in nieuwe patronen,
veel bevredigender patronen, in het begin was
het patroon,
het gele, bruine en blauwe gevoel tegen je voetzolen
toevallige formuleringen, aanloop tot figuratie, hier en daar sporen
van een bloem met kroonbladeren, een gezicht, een kakkerlak, een mes
of een schroevendraaier zou het kunnen
ze losbreken, de tegels, maar dat is onmogelijk, de voeten
moeten
alle soorten vloeren accepteren, alle gangbare oppervlakken.
We zoeken naar plekken om vanuit te gaan. De vloer is een uitgangspunt.
De plek is de vaste verblijfplaats
van de voetganger. Gevoel voor plaats. Deze plaats: Wij.
We laten de lucht uit de plaats, als uit een opblaasbeest,
en dragen hem met ons mee.
 
25/9
Paraat? Ieder woord is een ander woord.
Iedere taal een andere taal. Van nu af aan heet gezicht ¨sneeuw¨.
Je bent bevriend met je tenen. Een zin die voelbaar
is. Een veulen?
Mijn witte paarden. Als kind speelde ik mondharmonica
en reed vaak de zonsondergang tegemoet.
Ik reed. Sorry: Ik heet Lucky Luke. De bleekgezichten van de woorden
draaien zich om tussen de berkenstammen.
Gezicht moet gezicht heten.
Stap voor stap.
Zoveel stappen. De benenwagen.
 
15/5
Mijn ijdelheid is echt heel groot. Kaartje van
Pound: doe haar weg, vernietig haar. Ik maak een wandeling door
het winkelcentrum, dat is ciao. Een wandeling kan overal beginnen en
eindigen. Er zit vuur in de berg. Gelukkig. De dichters zitten op
een hometrainer de taal van electriciteit te voorzien. Houden de vaart
erin, zoals dat heet.
Poëzie is zo ecologisch. Hoogspanningszinnen houden hele steden
op de been. Ik loop in het wilde weg door de stad. Kom
overal.
Ik moet me die idiote gewoonte om stappen te tellen
afwennen.
Ik weet echt niet welk been de eerste heeft
genomen, maar
ik herinner me dat mijn box precies 3 stappen lang was,
daar liep ik in een
gestreepte jaguarzon, heen en weer, het is 27 stappen van de keuken
naar mijn bureau,
het is 513 naar het postkantoor
en 6989 naar het voetbalveld bij de snelweg, ik begin
in de zon te lopen, als een lallende dwaas
die opeens heeft begrepen
dat het leven geen lange val naar de dood is, maar een reeks
samengestelde stappen
in onvoorziene richtingen
het is 3124 stappen naar de artisjokken in het olijvenbos
423 stappen
naar de bar. Het kan 1 stap zijn naar het ogenblik
van gelijktijdigheid, dat er is
als het gedicht is geschreven en ik toestemmming heb
om in de wereld te zijn, een voor een,
zij ligt hier op een zo volkomen
overtuigende wijze met artisjokken en Glen Gould, gehoorbeentjes
en honden en rode peper en
jij. Ik ga
het olijvenbos in om naar de artisjokken te kijken, een
portret
van de kunstenaar als groente, de artisjokken, we koken ze,
we plukken de
kroonbladeren eraf,
we zoeken onze weg naar het smakelijke hart, dat willen we.
Vind jouw stukje
chaos en cultiveer het, krijg het aan het bloeien met wilde
uitschieters
van alle takken,
25367 stappen de ene kant op 25367 de andere
net als toen
je als kind
je stappen naar school telde
en van voren af aan moest beginnen als je op de streepjes kwam, nu zetten
we strepen op papier als barkeepers die biertjes tellen, vier van boven naar beneden
en een
van links naar rechts, zoveel dagen nog, wil je, wil je, wil je met
me mee naar het bos? Daar
telt een bloedbeuk zijn bladeren van achter naar voren en ergens ver
spreekt de zon zich
in een oude fontein.
Je kunt
wel gek worden van tellen, girobiljetten tellen, liefdes tellen,
gele, bruine en blauwe auto´s tellen, stappen tellen, maar
getallen verdoven,
verplaatsen de pijn een beetje
van het getelde naar de getallen. We tellen niet
meer op onze vingers,
het meeste gebeurt in
ons hoofd.

NATBLOG

23/9
Natten er her igen.
Nogen har lukket mig inde i kontroltårnet og smidt nøglerne
væk. Ord beder om landingstilladelse. Kom ind.
Jeg tror på ordenes sammensværgelser bag om ryggen
på syntaksen.
Der er kun at blive ved.
For fuld udblæsning. Håbe på at det går. Selv om vi ingen steder
har at gå hen. Skriver som aftenlyset der river afgrunde
op i alle farver. Et spektrum fra violet til fosforiserende grønt.
Et lys falder på de ord som står her. Jeg går
op i bjergene med en usynlig hund og skriver et digt.

24/9
Gulvene siger: Hej fødder.
Vi går og hedder noget: Kontrapunkt, bristepunkt, smeltepunkt.
Tiden afvikler sit program, den løber, den går, den star
stille:
Kroppen falder fremad i sit ettal, for alting
er skrånende
, alting
er blind tillid til gulve, tillid til dig,
jeg går tilbage, skridt
for skridt, jeg sidder på toilettet i min farmors badeværelse, et gulv af gule,
brune og blå rektangulære kakler, kakler, en måde
at falde i staver på, aflange staver af kakkelmateriale,
og der på toilettet i tankerne skære kaklerne fri
og lægge dem tilbage
i gulvet, i nye mønstre,
langt mere tilfredsstillende mønstre, i begyndelsen var
mønsteret,

den gule, brune og blå følelse mod fodsålerne,
tilfældige formuleringer, tilløb til figuration, her og der spor
af en blomst med kronblade, et ansigt, en kakerlak, en kniv
eller en skruetrækker ville kunne det,
brække dem løs, kaklerne, men det er umuligt, fødderne

acceptere alle slags gulve, alle gangbare overflader.
Vi leder efter steder at gå ud fra. Gulvet er et udgangspunkt.
Stedet er den gåendes
faste bopæl. Fornemmelsen for sted. Dette sted: Vi.
Vi lukker luften ud af stedet, som af et badedyr,
og bærer det med os.

25/9
Klar? Hvert ord er et andet ord.
Hvert sprog et andet sprog. Fra nu af hedder ansigt ‘sne’.
Man er ven med sine tæer. En sætning der er til at tage og føle
på. Et føl?
Mine hvide heste. Som barn spillede jeg mundharpe
og red ofte ind i solnedgange.
Jeg red. Undskyld: Jeg hed Lucky Luke. Ordenes blegansigter
vender sig mellem birkestammer.
Ansigt burde hedde ansigt.
Skridt for skridt.
Så og så mange skridt. Apostlenes heste.

15/5
Min forfængelighed er ganske forfærdelig stor. Postkort fra
Pound: Skil dig af med den, ødelæg den. Jeg går tur ned ad
gågaden, det er ciao. En gåtur kan begynde og slutte et hvilket
som helst sted. Der er ild i bjerget. Heldigvis. Digterne sidder på
kondicykler og forsyner sproget med elektricitet. Holder det i
gang, som man siger.
Poesi er så økologisk. Højspændingssætninger holder hele byer
på benene. Jeg går gennem byen på må og få. Kommer alle
vegne.
Jeg må vænne mig af med den mærkelige vane med at tælle
skridt.
Jeg ved virkelig ikke hvilket ben der tog
det første, men
jeg kan huske min kravlegård var nøjagtig 3 skridt lang,
der gik jeg i en
stribet jaguarsol, frem og tilbage, der er 27 skridt fra køkkenet
og hen til mit skrivebord,
der er 513 hen til posthuset
og 6989 ned til fodboldbanen ved motorvejen, jeg begynder
at gå ud i solen, som en lallende tåbe
der med ét har forstået
at livet ikke er et langt fald mod døden, men en række
sammensatte skridt
i uforudsete retninger,
der er 3124 skridt op til artiskokkerne i olivenlunden,
423 skridt
ned til baren. Der kan være 1 skridt til øjeblikket
af samtidighed, som findes
når digtet er skrevet og jeg får lov
til at være i verden, en til en,
den ligger her på en så fuldstændig
overbevisende måde med artiskokker og Glen Gould, øreknogler
og hunde og chili og
dig. Jeg går op
i olivenlunden for at se til artiskokkerne, et
portræt
af kunstneren
som grøntsag, artiskokkerne, vi koger dem,
vi plukker deres
kronblade af,
vi finder vej til det velsmagende hjerte, det er det vi vil.
Find dit stykke
af kaos og dyrk det, få det til at blomstre med vilde
vådeskud
fra alle grene,
25367 skridt i den ene retning 25367 i den anden,
som dengang
man som barn
talte skridt på vej til skole
og skulle begynde forfra hvis man ramte stregerne, nu sætter
vi stregerne på papiret som bartendere der tæller øl, fire nedad
og en
på tværs, så og så mange dage endnu, vil du, vil du, vil du med
mig ud i skoven gå? Derude
tæller en blodbøg sine blade baglæns og et sted plaprer solen
over sig
i et gammelt springvand.
Man kan
godt bliver vanvittig af at tælle, tælle girokort, tælle kærester,
tælle gule, brune og blå biler, tælle skridt, men
tal bedøver,
flytter smerten en smule
fra det talte til tallene. Vi tæller ikke
på fingerne mere,
det meste foregår inde
i hovedet.
Close

NIGHT BLOG

23/9
The night is here again.
Someone has let me into the control tower and thrown the keys
away. Words request permission to land. Come in.
I believe in the conspiracies of the words behind the back
of the syntax.
You just have to keep going.
Full throttle. Hope it goes okay. Even though we’ve nowhere
to go. Write like the evening light that rips open chasms
in all the colours. A spectrum from violet to phosphorescent green.
A light falls on the words inscribed here. I walk
up into the mountains with an invisible dog and write a poem.

24/9
The floors say: Hello, feet.
We go by names: counterpoint, breaking point, melting point.
Time runs its programme, it goes by, it passes, it stands
still:
The body tips forward in its figure One, for everything is
sloping, everything

comes down to blind faith in floors, faith in you,
I walk back, step
by step, I sit on the toilet in my grandmother’s bathroom, a ground of brown,
yellow and blue rectangular tiles, tiles, a way of
falling into a brown study, studying brown and yellow and blue oblongs of tile
and there in the toilet in my thoughts cut the tiles free and lay them out again
on the floor, in new patterns,
far more satisfying patterns, in the beginning was the pattern,
the brown and yellow and blue sensation on the soles of the feet,
random formulations, run-up to figuration, here and there hints
of a flower with petals, a face, a cockroach, a knife
or a screwdriver would do it,
prise them loose, the tiles, but it can’t be done, these feet
must
accept all sorts of floors, all negotiable surfaces.
We search for places. The floor is a starting point.
The place is the walker’s
fixed abode. A sense of place. This place: We.
We let the air out of this place, as if from a beach toy,
and take it with us.

25/9
Ready? Each word is another word.
Each tongue another tongue. From now on face is ‘snow’.
One is friends with one’s toes. A sentence to get hold of.
Hold up. Giddy-up.
My white horses. As a child I played the mouth organ
and regularly rode off into the sunset.
I set. Sorry: I said, I’m Lucky Luke. The palefaces of words
turn among the birch trunks.
Face ought to be face.
Step by step.
So and so many steps. Shanks’s pony.

15/5
My vanity is veritably enormous. Postcard from
Pound: Rid yourself of it, pull it down. I take a walk along
the pedestrian street, ciao. A walk can begin and end anywhere
at all. There is fire on the mountain. Luckily. Poets on
exercise bikes supply the language with electricity. Keep it
going, as they say.
Poetry is so eco-friendly. High-voltage sentences keep whole cities
up and running. I roam at random around the town. Go all
over
I must wean myself of this weird habit of counting
steps.
I truly cannot tell which foot took
the first, but
I remember my playpen was exactly 3 steps long,
there I paced under a
stripy jaguar sun, back and forth, it is 27 steps from the kitchen
over to my desk,
it is 513 to the post office
and 6989 to the football ground down by the motorway, I begin
to go out in the sun, like a babbling fool
suddenly realizing
that life is not one long descent towards death, but a series of
complicated steps
in unforeseen directions,
it is 3124 steps up to the artichokes in the olive grove,
423 steps
down to the bar. It could be 1 step to the moment
of concurrence that occurs
when the poem is written and I am allowed
to be in the world, one on one,
there it is, looking so utterly
convincing with artichokes and Glenn Gould, ossicles
and dogs and chili and
you. I walk up
to the olive grove to see to the artichokes,
portrait
of the artist as vegetable
, the artichokes, we cook them,
we pluck off
their petals,
we work our way in to the delicious heart, that’s what we’re after.
Find your patch
of chaos and tend it, get it to flourish with stray shoots
sprouting
from every branch,
25367 steps in one direction, 25367 in another,
like when
as children we
counted our steps on the way to school
and had to start from scratch if we trod on a crack, now we make
strokes on paper like bartenders counting beers, four down
and one
across, so and so many days to go, will you, will you, will you come
out in the woods with me. Out there
a copper beech counts its leaves backwards and somewhere the sun is blabbing
away
in an old fountain.
You could
go crazy with all this counting, counting giro forms, counting girlfriends,
counting brown and yellow and blue cars, counting steps, but
digits deaden
the pain and shift it slightly
from the told to the telling. We do not count
on our fingers now,
most of it is done
in the head.

NIGHT BLOG

23/9
The night is here again.
Someone has let me into the control tower and thrown the keys
away. Words request permission to land. Come in.
I believe in the conspiracies of the words behind the back
of the syntax.
You just have to keep going.
Full throttle. Hope it goes okay. Even though we’ve nowhere
to go. Write like the evening light that rips open chasms
in all the colours. A spectrum from violet to phosphorescent green.
A light falls on the words inscribed here. I walk
up into the mountains with an invisible dog and write a poem.

24/9
The floors say: Hello, feet.
We go by names: counterpoint, breaking point, melting point.
Time runs its programme, it goes by, it passes, it stands
still:
The body tips forward in its figure One, for everything is
sloping, everything

comes down to blind faith in floors, faith in you,
I walk back, step
by step, I sit on the toilet in my grandmother’s bathroom, a ground of brown,
yellow and blue rectangular tiles, tiles, a way of
falling into a brown study, studying brown and yellow and blue oblongs of tile
and there in the toilet in my thoughts cut the tiles free and lay them out again
on the floor, in new patterns,
far more satisfying patterns, in the beginning was the pattern,
the brown and yellow and blue sensation on the soles of the feet,
random formulations, run-up to figuration, here and there hints
of a flower with petals, a face, a cockroach, a knife
or a screwdriver would do it,
prise them loose, the tiles, but it can’t be done, these feet
must
accept all sorts of floors, all negotiable surfaces.
We search for places. The floor is a starting point.
The place is the walker’s
fixed abode. A sense of place. This place: We.
We let the air out of this place, as if from a beach toy,
and take it with us.

25/9
Ready? Each word is another word.
Each tongue another tongue. From now on face is ‘snow’.
One is friends with one’s toes. A sentence to get hold of.
Hold up. Giddy-up.
My white horses. As a child I played the mouth organ
and regularly rode off into the sunset.
I set. Sorry: I said, I’m Lucky Luke. The palefaces of words
turn among the birch trunks.
Face ought to be face.
Step by step.
So and so many steps. Shanks’s pony.

15/5
My vanity is veritably enormous. Postcard from
Pound: Rid yourself of it, pull it down. I take a walk along
the pedestrian street, ciao. A walk can begin and end anywhere
at all. There is fire on the mountain. Luckily. Poets on
exercise bikes supply the language with electricity. Keep it
going, as they say.
Poetry is so eco-friendly. High-voltage sentences keep whole cities
up and running. I roam at random around the town. Go all
over
I must wean myself of this weird habit of counting
steps.
I truly cannot tell which foot took
the first, but
I remember my playpen was exactly 3 steps long,
there I paced under a
stripy jaguar sun, back and forth, it is 27 steps from the kitchen
over to my desk,
it is 513 to the post office
and 6989 to the football ground down by the motorway, I begin
to go out in the sun, like a babbling fool
suddenly realizing
that life is not one long descent towards death, but a series of
complicated steps
in unforeseen directions,
it is 3124 steps up to the artichokes in the olive grove,
423 steps
down to the bar. It could be 1 step to the moment
of concurrence that occurs
when the poem is written and I am allowed
to be in the world, one on one,
there it is, looking so utterly
convincing with artichokes and Glenn Gould, ossicles
and dogs and chili and
you. I walk up
to the olive grove to see to the artichokes,
portrait
of the artist as vegetable
, the artichokes, we cook them,
we pluck off
their petals,
we work our way in to the delicious heart, that’s what we’re after.
Find your patch
of chaos and tend it, get it to flourish with stray shoots
sprouting
from every branch,
25367 steps in one direction, 25367 in another,
like when
as children we
counted our steps on the way to school
and had to start from scratch if we trod on a crack, now we make
strokes on paper like bartenders counting beers, four down
and one
across, so and so many days to go, will you, will you, will you come
out in the woods with me. Out there
a copper beech counts its leaves backwards and somewhere the sun is blabbing
away
in an old fountain.
You could
go crazy with all this counting, counting giro forms, counting girlfriends,
counting brown and yellow and blue cars, counting steps, but
digits deaden
the pain and shift it slightly
from the told to the telling. We do not count
on our fingers now,
most of it is done
in the head.
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