Six Poems
By Gerður Kristný.
Cheers!
Six days
and the world came into being
and ever since we have
strewn sands on canvases
and rounded up horses in poems
brought heaven to our lips
and touched glasses with the Almighty
Hole In The Ice
Drift ice in your eyes
hoarfrost in your heart
your hands
untamed sled dogs
above us
a moon poises
amid stars
target
surrounded by holes
made by darts that strayed
Prayer
Recall you still
before going to bed
sometimes
I say a prayer
that only includes you
and dreams about a tiny boat
Recall you also
when whetting the knife
know that the shortest way
to a man’s heart
goes straight through
his chest
Inheritance
Little do I inherit after my uncle
my books
with their silly dedications
and an old photograph
of a relative long since dead
a cheerful lad
drives a tractor across a hayfield
in black/white sunshine
The damage has not yet
settled in his head
and it is to be expected
that he is still to
make hay in many pastures
When he went
a name was left
that every one wanted
to say again
at last it ended up with me
Not such a small thing
when all is said and done
now I own that name
and my books
with their silly dedications
Langanes
We sat in the black bay
open sea to the east
homefield flecked with sheep
sky with high-flying wings
Then came the fog
veiling mountain, sky and dog
You went before me
into the vanished house
I should probably
have knelt in prayer
given thanks for this day
but who was I
to interrupt God
the many-voiced whisper
of the moor?
Anne Frank
By day there’s not a peep
from Anne who lives
in widowhood overhead
– except when she dozes off
over her diary
drops it on the floor
Otherwise not a peep
It’s another matter at night
then there’s all hell of a hubbub
Anne’s friends pound up the stairs
hollering their hellos
and crack open a feast
Some with a bottle of buttermilk
others nursing eggs
Towards dawn the neighbours are fed up
of fiddles and folksongs
The guests depart in haste
melting into the walls
When the police force the door
Anne sits at the kitchen table
writing
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gerður Kristný was born in Iceland in 1970. Her first collection the critically-acclaimed Ísfrétt (Ice Report) was published in 1994 with a second book Launkofi (Secret Cabin) appearing in 2000. In 2007, her latest collection of poems Höggstaður (A Weak Spot) was released and was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in the same year. Her work has been translated into German, Finnish and English.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Sunday, March 14th, 2010.
