I have a taste of blood
in my mouth

For a while,
something is

Only when ridded of all sense
of assurance and security,
can one listen

”Look, you have a book
on table manners!”

(Claude Levi-Strauss:
L'Origine des Manieres
de Table;
Mythologiques Vol. III)

”Yes, feel it, it's so smooth!”

LAUGHTER

A dead horse
behind the stable,
covered up

Sentient beings become things,
objects on the ground
or in sick beds,
to be disposed of

Neighbours disappear
in ambulances,
never to return

Only when ridded of all sense
of assurance and security,
can one listen

My father
had turned into a dry shell
when last I saw him in 1992,
my seven-year-old son
waiting in the rented car
down in the hospital parking lot

Horses get sick,
have to be euthanized
by veterinarians traveling far
on Sundays

Terminally ill people
travel to Switzerland
to be shot off
into the constellations
through their last breath

Around the farm:
An empty feeling
with streaks of panic

Torre, the old Shetland pony,
stands by the fence
neighing for Eldur,
his Icelandic companion,
who lies dead 'round the corner
'neath a tarpaulin,
a dense snowfall
muffling the murmur of sorrow
and pain

Only when ridded of all sense
of assurance and security,
can one listen

I remember the voices of the dead:
Mom, Dad, Kjellström, Dellaree, Runell,
Judy, Guido, Folke, Bruno, Kim, Izzi,
Grip, Eldur,
and I creep into the the woolen sweater
that Anna knitted for me,
pull my legs up under myself
and my arms around me,
shiver;
weep between the never too late
and the aways too late

Only when ridded of all sense
of assurance and security,
can one listen

I listen attentively
to the endless weight
of the body of Eldur,
weighing down this whole Earth
under the tarpaulin
behind the stable

Only when ridded of all sense
of assurance and security,
can one listen

All comforts are just excuses;
habits but hiding places

Charon arrives in a heavy truck
from The Livestock Disposal Service