kling klang

beethoven sat sickly in my stomach,
like a porcelain teacup abortion
crushed and scintillating
 like the blood of the raiding vikings,
moving through like new papists
persuasive and astute

dominating everything with the colonial tongue
they were the new abortion
obliterations of time and space
stockholm froze my feet.
one said, you could have found me.
so true it was. in ways.

at a cafe, hungry, in asheville,
 or eating crisps on the copenhagen barge
or rolling through an ocean of euros
or the murders in brussels and the dungeons of political repression
where trafficked women die.

it was your song of butterflies and clouds
affecting me in sounds, giving stark minds
new ways to say, ahimsa grounds
the decadent to curling winter smoke
where snow has covered everything
ta det lugnt!

sorry sorry sorry for the
words that spill from my busy fingers
one day i promise
to throw away language altogether
and take to sounds
and humans

your fervent observation, and the silence of your smile
the good i could for your brotherhood
conspire
du e for fin for mig
alles
meine schonste bruderkin

copenhagen police beat me down
i felt bully clubs across oceans
men who hate women still haunt me
will you sing away my fears?

mann som hatar qvinnor
and call them verruckt
there is no mistaking dead prose

dublin beat me down with forbidden gaelic
i felt the sorrow of his no
and the hatchet words to cut
persona slinks on by
and the tenderness i feel

sending me under the thames
but the liffey knows your name
you were sent on slave ships

a mother sent you to me
would you give her my regards
and tell her kindly she has such
poetic sons

and when the words like shrapnel
flew into my bleeding ears
those words were meaning nothing
to the joy in my true years

the kindness meted out a way
of making time
when all
was ribbons on the high

dylan sang sweetly there
where i waited in fear for life
so many harsh bullies around me
then clearly came the west coast nach europa
and the present tense

jag alskar dig
so klingt liebe

(kling klang for stieg larsson and dungen and thom yorke and portishead and ingmar bergman and nick maybury and kraftwerk and dublin and the world for theo van gogh)