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* * *
I notice that last week's old Swedish poem was an unintended reprise. Let's pretend I published this one instead:

Makaber gåta
Han hoppade från tredje våningen
fast byggnaden hade tjugonio.
Varför?

Svar: Hissen var trasig
och hans läkare hade varnat för trappor.
(Svaret 'Varför inte?' godkännes icke.)


_____________________________


Now, I'd like to have something here that's meaningful for someone who doesn't read Swedish. But what?

I guess I still have a backlog of pictures... guess I kind of like these, of the statue "Diskussion" ("Discussion") at Korsvägen, Gothenburg. I think they weren't in any of my earlier big photo-posts... bit ironic if they were, but anyway:


Next time I might have time to do something semi-ambitious, or at least actually produce something new... Keyword might.
* * *
En clown som aldrig lärt sig att jonglera
och som glömt sin röda näsa på station,
En gycklare som inte ens kan rimma
är jag. Tjohej!

*

Men det lät väl inte alltid just så illa
som den behandling Edra öron nyss har rönt.
Ja, nog råkade min tår nån gång att trilla
just på den lutsträng som för tillfället kved skönt.

Tags: ,

Current Location:
Belgium, Gent
Current Mood:
lethargic lethargic
* * *
Jfr placeholder, dikt i hast.

Ode till lyssnaren
Jag älskar Dig
Just Dig och mången annan
Just som Du,
Oh underbart unika, utbytbara universum.
Tags: ,
Current Location:
Belgium, Gent
Current Mood:
cold cold
* * *
Det är på det viset att jag har en halvtimme att göra veckans inlägg, eftersom, ja, sedan är det nästa vecka.

Det är också på det viset att det även av andra skäl är bra om det här kan gå lite snabbt.

Det är slutligen på ett tredje vis, nämligen: Jag har ganska systematiskt hystat upp allt engelskspråkigt gammalt skåpmatsmaterial jag har på lager på bloggen men lämnat det svenska relativt orört, troligen eftersom bloggen startades som renodlat engelskspråkig.

Alltså:


Självporträtt i ferlinpastisch
En clown som aldrig lärt sig att jonglera
och som glömt sin röda näsa på station,
En gycklare som inte ens kan rimma
är jag. Tjohej!

*

Men det lät väl inte alltid just så illa
som den behandling Edra öron nyss har rönt.
Ja, nog råkade min tår nån gång att trilla
just på den lutsträng som för tillfället kved skönt.

Current Location:
Belgium, Gent
Current Mood:
determined
* * *

Current Location:
Gent
Current Mood:
bouncy bouncy
* * *
Grådikt
Det är fantastiskt vad mycket som är grått.
Lyktstolparna är gråa.
Himlen är grå.
Jag har mycket svårt
att se några färger
på himlen.
(Om nu inte grått är en färg, då.)
Skymningen (tidig) är grå.
Husen (förorts-) är gråa.
Sanningsvärdet för påståendet att jag själv är grå
ligger någonstans emellan sant och falskt
(i en så kallad gråzon).
Ta mig fanken om inte själva färgerna är gråa!
Det är också en slags
grå magi.

Current Mood:
stressed stressed
* * *
Again (warning! Swedish link!) I find myself having relatively little time to meet this "exactly one post per week, with Monday as the starting day" requirement that I've set up for myself, and also being relatively tired and uninspired (but not too unhappy, I should add). I turn to the same binder which I turned to in the post linked to above, where I've collected some creative works of mine, and pick the first English text not already on the blog.

Ehum... I wonder if I ever gave this a title, by the way? And was there supposed to be a tune to it?

Whatever is said in latin sounds profound
so I say "carpe diem"
and hope you'll be impressed
Whatever is said in latin must be true
so I hope you will believe me
when I tell you that you're beautiful
Whatever is said in latin sounds profound and beautiful
so when I proclaim my love for you
perhaps it will be requited
and you may answer that you love me too
in whatever language you would choose.

Current Mood:
relaxed relaxed
* * *

Jag har länge haft en känsla av att vilja säga
utan att nånsin riktigt veta vad

så här står jag

och efteråt kanske en applåd
någon vänlig kommentar

och så klarar jag mig någon vecka till

i alla fall
detta med att säga
en konstig känsla av
nånting ni borde höra
nånting som borde ut

stannar

och så säger man nånting
om jordens fortsatta snurrning

eller

behovet att förlåta

eller

frågetecken

eller

priset på bananer

och så ler då, lite lagom ursäktande

och, faktiskt
världen är förändrad

men
ingenting är sagt
 

**************

Oh yes, English next week, alternating Languages and all that.
Tags: ,
Current Location:
Strandnäs
* * *
Well, Swedish this week, English next. I alternate. Most of you will know this by now but I guess not everyone.

Detta inlägg skulle innehålla en dikt på svenska men jag har inte riktigt lyckats få till formateringen på livejournal, så jag länkar till min geocitiessida i stället: Dikten!

Tags: ,

Current Location:
various
Current Mood:
wonderful
* * *

 
ANSVAR ÄR OMÖJLIGT
SAKER BARA HÄNDER
MAN RÅKAR T EX TORTERA NÅGON
ELLER FÖRTRYCKA HALVA MÄNSKLIGHETEN
 
DÄRMED ÄR DET FÖRSTÅS OUNDVIKLIGT
OCH INTE ENBART ATT BEKLAGA
ATT NEURONERNA KOKAR IHOP ETT HAT
I SOMLIGA MÄNNISKORS HJÄRNOR
 
OCH KANSKE RÅKAR DESSA SLÅ TILLBAKS
I SIN MER ELLER MINDRE RÄTTMÄTIGA VREDE
 
ETT LIDANDE UPPSTÅR
ALLA ÄR SKYLDIGA OCH OSKYLDIGA
OCH JAG BLIR MYCKET SORGSEN
NÄR JAG INTE RÅKAR VÄLJA ATT TITTA
PÅ NÅGOT ROLIGT TV-PROGRAM I STÄLLET
 
HATET ÄR ALLTSÅ NÖDVÄNDIGT IBLAND
SOM JAG VID DENNA PUNKT FÖRSTÅR SAKEN
MEN JAG ÄR OCKSÅ RÄDD ATT DET KAN GÅ RÄTT ILLA
OM VI GLÖMMER ATT IBLAND RÅKA FÖRLÅTA


Tags:
Current Location:
Järntorget
* * *

...och jorden snurrar vidare
som jordar pläga
ett tag till.
Ett rätt bra tag.
Det är inte så dåligt.
 

* * *
poem
found.
Tags: ,
Current Mood:
found
* * *
Still alternating between Swedish and English. If you know English but not Swedish, please return next week. And if you're a US citizen, go vote (and please don't vote McCain).

Så. Här kommer en av fyra nya dikter jag skrev till uppläsningen på Stadsbiblioteket. Jag tjuvhåller på de andra så jag inte behöver tänka så mycket vid några senare bloggtillfällen. Man får inte vara dum. (En av dikterna kräver dessutom lite extra formateringsarbete som jag inte tror jag har tid med för tillfället.)
 
Priset på bananer
 
Kanske finns det ett pris
för att alltför mycket ägna sig
åt politik och slagord
men nog har det ock ett pris
att alltför mycket undvika
så låt oss tala några ögonblick
om priser
och bananer.
 
(Och ni som redan hör till kören får ursäkta om ni hört predikan förr.)
 
Priset på bananer är alltför högt
för de som tvingas betala.
 
Vi skämtar om goda och onda bananer,
men där finns ett allvar
 
Frånvaron av de goda märkena
är ett DÖDSMÄRKE.
 
Bananerna är ett exempel
och problemet så mycket större
men låt oss ändå bli snäppet mer konkreta:
 
Forty-one of the children began working between the ages of eight and thirteen, most starting at ages ten or eleven. Their average workday lasted twelve hours, and fewer than 40 percent of the children were still in school by the time they turned fourteen. In the course of their work, they were exposed to pesticides, used sharp knives and machetes, hauled heavy loads of bananas, drank unsanitary water, and some were sexually harassed.
 

kära. Köp inte onda bananer,
är ni snälla.
 
***slut på dikten***
 
Det är Human Rights Watch som citeras på engelska och det handlar om förhållanden på plantager i Ecuador. Citatet återfinns bland annat här.


Current Mood:
cold cold
* * *
A sestina in Swedish partly in response to Marie's comment in the shoutouts post of two weeks ago, which said among other things that she wouldn't mind if I wrote some more poetry, if I wanted to. (All readers, once again: I take requests for this blog. I'm grateful for them if I can get them, I like the concept and I'm interested in what I can do with other people's ideas. If you have a moment to think up some sort of idea for a post, something you would like to see what I'll do with, don't hesitate to let me know. But you don't have to.)
 
Current Location:
zu Hause
Current Mood:
creative creative
* * *
Partially in response to Marie's comment/request from last week, asking for more poetry (and partially "for completeness sake" - see below - and to get it up while it has actuality in the Narbonic reruns), I decided to publish this:
 
Dave's hair is now not butchy
January style-change
Helen's has changed too
 
It is a contribution, I believe, to the second Narbonic haiku-off. It didn't make it into the comic, perhaps because it isn't 5-7-5 or because I got  three others published there which were perhaps considered better. And for some reason I didn't quote it in this post, which lists my contributions to Narbonic. Thus it has until now only been available to the readers of the narbonic mailing list. The haiku is based on this one -

Your hair is winter fire,
January embers
My heart burns there, too.
- from Stephen King's It, also quoted and discussed here.
 
With that, I say "auf Wiedersehen". Marie, I think I'll be able to put together something new in one of the following weeks (this is from early 2002), but I hope this suffices 'til then.
Current Location:
here
Current Mood:
happy happy
* * *
toothbrush in my mouth
a card game recently lost
pimple aches on nose
Tags: ,
Current Location:
Tollered
Current Mood:
amused amused
* * *

...or I can has skanner, Part II.
 
First, this is what the famous notebook looks like.
 

As you can see I have carefully labelled it "THE ISTANBUL NOTEBOOK", but that is a rather late addition.

I made a few drawings in the notebook during our stay in Istanbul. One or two have even been mentioned in earlier posts. The first one I think must have been this, a pier full of birds seen from the ferry to Kadaköy:


Then there's this framed portrait of Kemal Atatürk, found in the Russian restaurant Rejan:


We have this cartoon from the weapons room at the Topkapi Palace, with an authentic overheard comment (spoken with an Indian accent, I seem to remember):

("I wonder who had that in his pocket!")
 
Two views from a hotel room bed:


...and, finally, me being sleepy on the flight home. This image is drawn into a block of text, and should if possible have been included in an earlier post, which had a translation of that text into English.



And then there's these, neither of which has the slightest thing to do with Istanbul. Except they're in "the Istanbul Notebook", of course.

These are both from a meeting with a writing club that I'm a member of, Ordbrukarna, and connected to two different writing exercises. The left one is an illustration to a group poem where death was referred to as variously "he" and "she" (well, "han" and "hon"). We'll leave the actual poem to another time. For now, the top priority must be the text actually pictured to the right. It's a sentence, rather nonsensical, with words chosen so that the initial letters make up a given word: "tjugohundraåtta" ("twenty hundred eight", the recommended Swedish speech-form for the present year). "tänk, jag undrar gräsligt ofta hur underligheter nekas delning redan av årtalsuttalets tiofalt tusenhundrade advokater." If anyone who does not know Swedish actually reads this, this would translate to something like "you know, I terribly often wonder how curiousities are denied sharing already by the year-pronounciation's tenfold thousandhundred advocates." 

Ok, that's all for tonight, I guess...

Except: Earlier Istanbul posts at http://martinho.livejournal.com/6918.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/7372.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/7430.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/7691.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/8409.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/8573.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/8930.html , http://martinho.livejournal.com/9025.html. And I guess at http://martinho.livejournal.com/6539.html , too.

Current Location:
Tollered
Current Mood:
awake
Current Music:
Swedish talk radio
* * *

I can't say I think this is very good, but it's meant to be song lyrics, it's in English (of sorts) and it's written by me so I think it needs to be here, especially now that I've spent silly amounts of time looking for the damn thing. So...
 
So
So,
you did it your way, did ya?
The girls all loved it, did they not?
So,
no compromises, there were?
You stood tall like a grand fir
And you were grand yourself and 
fuckin' great and noone liked you
and everyone admired you and you
said you didn't care and
you were oh, so cool but
oh, in retrospect it all seems quite
pathetic
and please forgive me if I ask myself
"So what?"
 
So,
it wasn't quite so easy?
Just like the clown who cries at night? (eh)
Oh,
you want my pity, you do?
Well in a way you have it
but can't you see I'm crying
Yes, still I can't help crying
Pretty hard to be objective
Pretty hard to be forgiving
No fun to lick a hand that's struck you
Can't really love your executioner
No, I hate you, mr. once-so-very-perfect,
you must excuse me but I think it serves you right.

Current Location:
left of center
Current Mood:
artistic artistic
Current Music:
background music on NCIS, which Anna is watching
* * *
There's snow in Gothenburg now. I thought I'd get this up before there's a huge rain and all the snow is gone over night.
 
A Paradox of Early Spring
 
melting snow
freezes time
naked trees
skeletons of summer
we humans are buds and seeds
insects, slowly
digging our way through the snow
 
Current Mood:
calm calm
* * *

I've been wanting to write something new for this journal, but now I'm just too damn tired and it's sunday and I need to do my post for this week. So on with the recycling... though I'm sort of running out of things I've written in English. This is a bit fun though. Through the run of Narbonic I actually got a few things published in the sunday strips of the comic - maybe a testimony to

[info]shaenon's desperation for material for those. There was a rather horrible guest comic, one or two entries to the annual haiku-off, and a couple of photos of me with a Helen "portrait-pumpkin" (designed by James Rice)  and my bootleg "evil" t-shirt. Also possibly a suggestion for a new title for "Dave Barker, MIT Student" after he graduated ("Dave the logistics lemur"...no, it seems that one didn't make it into the strip). What you see below, however, written for the Madblood robot army battle anthem competition, sadly didn't make it.
 
Unofficial Battle Anthem For Madblood's Robot Army
 
 

 

Air: 'The Ents' Marching Song'
 
Great ringing sound:
blip-blop-bleep!
 
We come, we come with blops and bleeps: ka-blippi bloppi blippi kzz!
We come, we come with bad-ass guns: ka-boom kaboom kadünka dooom!
 
'Bleep, rrriinnng! Here we come with a flash, here we come at last! Come, join our March! Resistance is futile. We're off to planet Earth!'
 
'To Earth!' (in many voices)
'To puny Earth!'
To planet Earth! Though that old ball has never yet been conquered all;
Though planet Earth has nuclear bombs, it still is puny, old and dumb;
We go, we go, to Madblood's war, to pillage, loot and sing bad songs;
For algorithms are running now, which say One thing - Let's go
  to war!
With algorithms of blood and gore, with bleeps and blops, we come, we
  come;
    To puny Earth with doom we come!
    With doom of Wolf, with doom we come!
 
                              :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 
(There was much more. A great deal of the song had no words, and was like a music of instruments things of flesh and blood would not want to be near. It was very exciting.)
 
And here is the original marching song by J.R.R. Tolkien, taken from http://tolkien.cro.net/talesong/entsmarc.html . 
 

The Ents' Marching Song


We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!
We come, we come with horn and drum: ta-runa runa runa rom!
To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone;
Though Isengard be strong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door;
For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars - we go to war!
To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come;
To Isengard with doom we come!
With doom we come, with doom we come!

Current Location:
the greensofa
Current Mood:
apologetic
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