poetry – Skärselden

Retreat

if i look at you now
my sentiment is this: teeth shatter,
i cower up like a dying dog
sweat trickling down my forehead like beady arrows
aiming for my
stomach growling to expedite you from my guts.
you are my swelling guilt
my mistakes past midnight

your charm, and modest provenance
drew me in inconspicuously
a dance as natural as
one fancied danced before
within the realm of predictability

yet like every dress
you hid a petticoat
far too hideous for your own reticence
my curiosity unknowingly nudging on your calves
eager to devour you
conviction and all

among my ribs you grow now
a slithering skin inside of mine
a parasite upon my flesh
as i turn into a jumbled mess of melting marrow
you wrestle control over my
willing joints

i fret at your presence,
at my own yearning,
our past and future
your journey to my lips proved far too fruitful
: we manifest as juxtapositioned beings

being better off
your worst enemy
swearing:
never having you tread the curves of my arteries again
i light a candle to my own folly
every damn time

Text: Beate Björkengren
Image: Zola Gorgon

A date with Thanatos

Through the night I walk,

empty shadows paving the way

like streetlights.

On a date with Thanatos,

his bony hands clasping mine.

A unison in life, sanctioned in death.

Promised a ring of poppy

one day (night).

He’s a mediocre magician,

getting stuck in his own escape tricks.

He lights my cigarette upside down,

happy to support a lethal habit

to see me sooner.

He lifts me up to peek over the fence.

The grass isn’t always greener,

but it is grass nonetheless.

Dipping our feet in the dark abyss, Lethe

flows by us,

a never ending highway,

his brother skating down it.

No one can skate like him

and yet

he only looks to skate like his brother,

forever the imitation of an Ollie.

Running past the suburban homes

housing the dead,

the dog on old man hades porch barking threefold.

For fun we smash mailboxes,

twelve times.

I run faster

but he always catches me,

cradling me in his cold embrace;

a reminder of this

once-in-a-lifetime-encounter.

Enveloped by his mother,

making love inside her womb,

this union can’t last more than

forever.

Sad to be a one-night stand,

but knowing an awkward run in IS inevitable.

Catcheur Catch Me

I’m in a bad mood
My heart aches
I’ll take my first dose and pour it all down, into my stomach
After yesterday’s game
I see his hook approaching my mouth
Don’t ask me what I was thinking
When I dropped my defense
I just felt the mouth guard go into my gum
And passed out
I have no more strength
You do not understand
That it’s you I think of while spitting blood
You don’t care
I’m on the stretcher and you take my hand
You will do better in the next game
Manager from hell
I know you want my skin and my money
The city warping all around the traffic lights
The paramedics have faces of vultures
They tried to pick me up

But I’m more of a support than you
I can’t stand your sad reaction to my failures
In the morning when I wake up
You make coffee, very black, very strong
Like your straight ass

I’m not asking you to bear my failures
And you think about the game
Semi final
I’d rather you love me as dumb as I am
That we are taken care of in material life
Fuck glory
As long as my jaw lasts
I am not a machine
I will take neither gold nor iron to my grave
I’d rather be a secret bomb
And drink good bottles in secret
Training starts again
And I take so many hits
I take my protein
Make a sour face
You’re sexy you tell me while covered in sweat
And undermined by effort
I’m not Frankenstein babe
I’m not as kind
Listen boss, I won’ die for this
And it pisses you off that I’m not bleeding today
You convince me to save my anger for when I get to hell
So I dumped you, put a mini shirt on my muscular wrestler’s ass
And I hitchhiked in New Port, the airport

I ‘d rather find stable relationship where I’m not getting hurt
And to live by the beach or on another planet

text & image: Clément Szuszkin
translation: Ian Memgard

cradle

to be born into the grave
not willing, nor able
the lilacs growing eventually in spring

lulled gently by the cradle
the rotting carcasses of unfulfilled wishes tipping over the edges,
growing like mold

it didn’t have to be that way but it was
and it became the march through the night all of us
like the dance macabre
became morbid figures
dancing the night away

it wasn’t like we had a chance to become
ourselves or anything
after all,

a birth rooted in death is, figuratively, an preemptive strike

living
like burning candles in the wind
not really understanding the meaning of heat

it is fragile

Text: Beate Björkengren
Image: Alexander Norton, “Was ist loss?”, 2015

The Knight

Is it your medieval breath that calls me

or is it proof that I lived a long time ago?

Were you, perhaps, a long long time ago, a knight

or is it due to weakness that you suffer?

What is more beautiful than dying –

in your arms, all things become so sexy.

You do all things – in your name

is it, perhaps, because a long long time ago,

you served the Lord?

There is a way – as a fag

but perhaps it was lost, a long time ago

The wind is calling us

Time to move on

Back to the middle ages

Text: Ian Memgard
Image: Juliusz Lewandowski
Translated from Swedish by Zola Gorgon