Eight Poems
By Aase Berg.
In the Guinea Pig Cave
There lay the guinea pigs. There lay the guinea pigs and they waited with blood around their mouths like my sister. There lay the guinea pigs and they smelled bad in the cave. There lay my sister and she swelled and ached and throbbed. There lay the guinea pigs and they ached all over and their legs stuck straight up like beetles and they looked depraved and were blue under their eyes as from months of debauchery. My sister puked calmly and indifferently: it ran slowly out of her slack mouth without her moving a single nerve. And the cave was warm as teats and full of autumn leaves and beneath the soil lay the arm of a mannequin. There lay the guinea pigs and ached and were made of dough. There lay the guinea pigs beside the knives that would slice them up like loaves. And my sister with lips of blueberries, soil and mush. In the distance, the siren bleated inhumanly. That is where the guinea pigs lay and waited with blood around their mouths and contorted bodies. They waited. And I was tired in my whole stomach from meat dough and guinea pig loaf and I knew that they would revenge on me.
from Hos rådjur (With Deer)
Glass Deer
A glass deer here
branches break, thigh bones
Autumn leaves gather around the body here
an ice creek courses close
Red foxes smell shadow,
shadow untouched the glass deer here
An ice creek licks bones,
autumn leaves gather cold at the site
A thigh flute breaks and bursts
from Mörk Materia (Dark Matter)
Umbilical String
In the middlecirclehole
hard sucks the hare track
in the inwardcircle whirl
of the strung
Clear cold rushes cable
Mute voice runs strung
Strain strame rushes fat
in the maelstrom sore
Bard
Planckton:
Shells sieved through
the sounding board of
the breastplate
fatshield
Dare/waves
As the ocean tears
rubs claws
against surfaces of
the closed
as waves ride
deepseachasms
singing and
thronged
Fled
Whale-dead, brain-dead,
cavity flushed,
spool-forming,
lung-blowing,
crooned
from Forsla Fett (Transfer Fat)
Infantry
Heartbeaten Peacebeaten
in the fontanel
Saltcrow snotcrow,
shitty bigfootess,
the laughmap’s wild strawberry patch
Foothold
Nudefart, nudesmack!
clothograph mealy time
from Uppland
Translations by Johannes Göransson.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aase Berg, born 1967 in Stockholm, is a poet and literary critic. She lives in the countryside of north Sweden. She has published five collections of poetry, several in a thematic combination of science fiction and motherhood biography. In English, she has published one book of collected poems, Remainland (Action Books) and her first collection, With Deer (Black Ocean Books), both translated by Johannes Göransson. Aase Berg has also released a collection of essays and a poetry novel for young people. Her next book, which will be published in 2011, deals with the indifference of nature, and includes a chorus of chicken that comments about Swedish society in a confused political way.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, December 26th, 2010.
