To his father

(after Tu Fu)
-------------

The note books have faded to yellow
The rubbers don't listen no more
The ski tracks are blown away and
The TV screen dishevelled
At a dump

The pupils have turned into parents and
The incineration ovens turned cold.
There are no longer a living
Memory of the English classes and
The red pen's orders

The trying steps of friends in dance are forgotten and
The mistress' painted cheek
Changed to dust in the river of eternity.
What remains after the passing
Of centuries? What was me?

-phatic

chewing gum

-- for lit-ideas

Dead bureaucrats sailors
Dead poets teachers
Oh how I have suffered for this poem

The voices will never stop
Dispose of your objects you say
Dead fishermen scholars
I can only write how I write

My child is hanging from a tree
I put him there
Don't look at me now
While I eat the evidence

Dead people's voices speak through me
Every sentence is a betrayal
I dream what I dream

- phatic
(traslated from hisself)

What's in a name

Upon asking "What could be a greater insult to Christianity than to substitute Christ with an X," Mike Geary informed that he

> sent him a note while he was broadcasting

which opens up for a number of interrogations:

1. Does Mike still correspond?
2. Is Christ still broadcasting?
3. Did Christ call hisself chris(t!) and does he (still)?
3a. In the case that he didn't, how come it would be an insult (to him)?
3b. In the case that he did, what would be his riposte?

phatic,
Down under

Presentation, check one

http://home.no.net/torgfje/utopos/images/healer(s).ppt

Chewed Moons

(After Tor Ulven)

Heaven is an indifferent moan

Joy's torturous instruments make every day bearable
Fishes walk on water 'cause they're tired of swimming
Pine trees root in your nails' dirt
as language roots in your mouth's swamp

The foot is simply a neutral joint
between the kick and the mutilated face
the ungoverned foot limping along
to restlessness' encounter

Feverish musicians play instruments of reality
on seductive violins of innumerable noses

But music causes ears to deform
And evil has wings

*

Tor Ulven:
Avgnagde måner

Himmelen er et gjesp av likegyldighet
Gledens torturinstrumenter gjør hverdagen utholdelig
Fiskene går på vannet fordi de er trette av å svømme
Grantrærne slår rot i skitten under neglene
slik språket slår rot i munnens sump
Foten er bare et nøytralt forbindelsesledd
mellom sparket og det kvestede ansiktet
den herreløse foten som halter avsted
til møtet med rastløsheten
Feberfantasiens musikere spiller på virkelighetens instrument
på dine utallige nesers smektende fioliner
Men musikk fører til misdannelser i ørene
og onde mennesker har vinger

(from Skyggen av urfuglen (The shadow of the original bird), 1977, repr. Samlede dikt, 2001, p. 22)

paper scissors rock
paper scissors rock
rock scissors paper
paper scissors rock

rock paper paper rock
scissors scissors scissors scissors
paper rock paper scissors scissors
scissors rock paper scissors scissors
scissors scissors scissors scissors scissors

roll rock roll rock
scissor paper
roll rock
roll roll

paper scissors rock
paper scissors

rock

We have reached a conjunction and
we have reached a conjunction or
we have reached a conjunction but
we have reached a conjunction if
we have reached a conjunction then
we have reached a conjunction so
we have reached a conjunction because
we have reached a conjunction.