Yes, I may get sour, even  
Angry, at things where my
Reaction has effects.

Caring little about spending
Myself on distant affairs,
I am an ambassador of common

Decency. Not some moral police,
But a surrenderer of seat
To an elder standing in the

Aisle. I'll find the owner of that
Dog left out in the rain. You may
Be a brother to me; still

I'll ask you to keep your
Voice down if I see
That it bothers

Others. I've been that guy myself.
A thirty-something-year-old acting
Fifteen, making others change tables,

Or even leave the premises.
I've taken up more space than I
Require. I don't wish that

Retrospective shame and regret
On any of my friends.
I'll not throw a stone at a sinner,

That I haven't already
Flung at a
Mirror.

Blue sky lightning bolt.
This is not a sunburn.

Struck to the Ground of
Gratitude by the merciless

Fist of serendipity as I toss the
Puzzle in the air and watch the

Pieces land perfectly in place.
Knowing lightning won't hit twice

I stand back mindblown and blissful.
For the first time in so long

The Man Upstairs and I speak
The same language.

There's listening to be done
On both sides.

Few things are as black
As a snowless December morning

In Norway.
Some nights it's so

Dark I can't
Sleep.

A sad snapshot of a
thought: we
could have never

met. how close were
we?
to picture

life
without our
love;

opposite of
a
selfie.

My grandfather could barely make
Out the blond boy's head
Lost, if only just slightly|frightened
Enough still|amidst
Waves of green potatoe field.
An old man's single arm held my
Weight; I was that small.
A strand of grass to his oak.

Old ladies with veins on the outsides
Of still strong hands,
Who worked those same fields with
Him sixty years before,
Would look at me with unwitheld
Bewilderment:
You look just like him when he
Was your age...

How alien now, the idea: Someone
Knew that old man as a child,
Remembering well enough
To compare us.

And I still find myself there at times.
Lost|but not quite|yet
Worried that I am.
Waiting in the potatoe field.
Smaller than then, now that
I've grown;

Knowing that nobody's coming.

Between volumes and syllables.
From a piece of paper
Folded with smitten hands and
Hidden between

Books of lesser interest to a
Young heart in first love,
To the isles and isles of scrolled
Knowledge lost in the blasphemous

Fires of Alexandria, my story
Remains only for as long as I
Do. Punctuations and dreams
That will forever matter less to

Another than their own. My
Story is my doing. My being.
My loves and dislikes.
My failures and successes weigh

Exactly as little as names of
Kings and gods long forgotten,
When printed with other drops
Of the same ink as theirs.

I love my girlfriend's answer
To questions of an afterlife:
*"I hope it all ends when it ends.
I have been given enough.

Give my space to other souls.
All I am; all I have,  
I am comforted to think I only
Borrow."

A confused magician,
I pull the rug out
From under
My own feet;
Remain standing,
Refusing to learn:

Nothing bruises your ego
Like your own
Bruised
Ego.

Singing in one ear, ringing
In the other.
Both drowning out
The voice of shouldered
Angels telling me
To let it go, just let
It go, little big boy.

A confused egoist,
I put rabbit after rabbit
Into the hat of my closest
Human relations,

And remain on stage
Until the last of
The audience
Has left, applauding
Their every step
Away from me.

Frailty, thy name
Is Pride. Another is
Demanding Respect.

Here, pick a card. No,
Not that. Another one.

Some of us spend lifetimes
To grow into
Lesser men than
At birth.

I want you to smile.
I see you trying; you know how
Frowning turns me off.

But you'll always slip back
Into old neuron habits,
Won't you?

You'll say this is who I am, and
You know where I come
From.

Yes, I know where you come from.
So let it go.
Every time you thought things were

Getting better, they were.
Every time you felt the world let you
Down again, it didn't.

You just
Fell
Back.

Start smiling more.
Grow from
There.

Things
Smile
Back.

Sun shining on the white shells
Of pearls cradled in mid-day warm
Sands will not excuse herself

For making them sparkle hot
Under her invisible hands.
Snow landing on the faces of

The battleground fallen
Rests as easily as on the forehead
Of a fever ridden child now soothed.

Tides rise and withdraw, rains
Drench even the drowning.
This is why you must feel the pain

You do. Finish this bad day.
Meet tomorrow
Older.

Haunted for decades by
Ghosts in the shape of
My own broken parts.

At my most vulnerable, I
Am torn and spilling.
Some girls have knives

For fingernails; broadsword
Words swung by own
Insecurities-

To chop down a man
Renders many young women  
Giants in the eyes of their egos.  

Enter exorsist. Enter patient,
Slender hands around
Work worn, worried ones.

*Take your time, you man
Of open, ancient wounds.
Rain your lust upon me,

Unveil fantasies and wants.  
I'll be sand; white beaches;
Welcoming your every wave.

I have no room for new scars.
My heart is more glued seams than pieces of
Hope and muscle.

My smile is as pale as the back of a
Dalí painting; all canvas and
Dirt.

I have opened my arms for a hug and
Stood accused of impersonating Christ.
Meditation rendered me unsocial.

As misunderstood as Latin, yet
I yell at the walls of common reality with
The dead language of my innersoul,

Cursing and blaspheming for the attention
Of deities. Some may listen; not one needs
To reply.

All I want is to break down the wall
Between myself and any creator
Listening,

And say Thank You. The Love
Of my Life is
My life.

What I love the most about my
Life is  
It.

Kiel, Germany.*

I know it's not even lunch yet,
But I'm a poet, so this huge
Beer has no bad feelings

Attached to its coldness.
All ice, hugs and barley.
I love Germany this time

Of the year. Guess I should
Get back on the boat and wake up
The woman,

But there is something about
Cold drops running down
Glass to kiss a coaster that

Makes me want to read what
The cardboard says. So I expose it
With the intentions of a literary

Drunkard: Noch ein Bier Bitte.
I guess there's poetry
Everywhere

To a writing man
Who loves
Beer enough

To write about just
One. Even in
Germany.

Walk with me through winter darkness.
Snow creaking under soles of shoes,
Stars like dust on window glass.
I gave you my glove

So you wouldn't feel cold on the hand
Holding mine.
You smile from heart to soul,
Walking with me through winter darkness.

Who needs daylight?
Any ghost would recognize love
And leave us to our sweetest selves,
Walking together through winter darkness.

Walk with me.
We have years to match
Our
Paces.

Let me be the string that holds
The kite of your
Deepest dreams.

I searched for meaning
In religion and philosophy.
Taking on gods and
Prophets.

Gained some wisdom, but
Ended up confused more than
Enlightened.
Lost the little firm footing
I had.

I searched in arts and music.
Interprating. Analyzing.
Enjoying and disliking.
Expressing and being
Alternative. Original.
Outside the box.

All I gained was an unhealthy
Love of wine.
Less meaning than I
Began with.
Some pretentious friends.
More confusion than ever.

So I stopped searching.
Stopped chasing.
Stood still drawing fresh,
Crisp morning air into
My lungs, then felt it travel
To my soul.

I closed my eyes and heard
Her heartbeat through her
Naked chest; her collar bone
Against my temple.
Attuned my own to hers.
Dancing. Still.
Dancing. Still.
Dancing. Still.

Everyday magic.
Adventure within trivialities.
Dirt on the knees of my new
Jeans from recieving a hug from
A five-year-old.

Seeing pride in the eyes of my
Parents from a distance.
Unretainable love
And lust in the eyes of
My woman on a Tuesday afternoon.  
No special occation at all.
Just here,
Now.
Us.

No need to struggle.
To search.
To run after anything.
Just relax. Observe. Appreciate.
Love. Long for, then
Enjoy.

Nothing is without reason.
There's meaning in  
Everything you sense,
Everywhere you are;

You.

I speak the language of
The gods;
Silence.

Years of practice, flexing
Soundlessness
Repeatedly

Until its grip around
My brain's mouth became
Inescapable.

Dead center of any
Construction site;
Loud meetings,

City streets.
I carry a flame of tranquility
Anywhere.

This morning I watched the
Sun rise over Oslo from
The roof of my

Workplace. Pink touching
Blue pushing February
Darkness gently away,

As if whispering a child
Back from sleep.
Seagulls and crows

Dancing. Silences matching
Inner with outer,  
I stood smiling.

Smiling so
Hard I
Cried.

I wish the rest of my life
was a long, long weekend.
I'd spend it with you.

Foot tapping on waiting room
Linoleum with the pace of test
Result nervousness.

Scent of mostly bad news
Layered on walls in dire need
Of paint and less tasteless

Decor.
Her name is a shot fired at
The shield surrounding her

Continous playback of worst
Case scenarios as her hand meets
That of the doctor

Whose eyes give less than
Nothing away.
Please sit down.

Sink like shards of shattered
Hearts, or float for decades in
Love with the worried man

Awaiting the same news with
Unsteady workman's hands
Around a ***** phone.

It vibrates, and the Doomsday
Clock in his chest skips ticks
And tocks, approaching a

Schrödinger's midnight or noon.
I'm in remission, she whispers.
Then nothing.

Nothing but two unison breaths
Carried across an umbilical
Cord connecting souls that just

Lost their full
Amount of
Weight.

This is Relief.
This is Sunrise;
Spring.

Holy water into wine. Beer from barley.
Walking on the roof of a brewery,
Contemplating how Jimmy Fallon's
Finger never really seems to heal.

Combine harvester headlights dance
On the living room walls
As I lean back on my white IKEA
Sofa, tracing long hairs and

Fingerprints of lovers gone,
Wondering why I chose such a
Revealing colour.
Suppose the transparency matches

That of my soul's lining.
Holy water into wine.
Fields of gold now liquid painkillers
Slurring the voices in my head that

Pick fights with my heart over
Insignificant issues.
I lip synch to the music of my
Neglected talents and the memories

Of inspiration attached.
Bullets like knuckles rapping, rapping
At my empty chamber
Door.

Every finger I ever broke
Was from typing or
Punching
Walls.

Sometimes I put on the mask of
Poet, and pretend to be writing  
For as long as it takes to fool
The empty pages.

When she reads, the way her
Tongue peeks out slightly
As if trying to taste the words,
Makes a full-day poem worth
Every second of dropping ink.

I love it all, she'll say.    
Even if only the first few
Lines make the side of her
Mouth curve in comprehension

The way it does when she's
Warm from being
Agreed with by whom- or
Whatever's before her.

She'll love it all, as long as I have
Words and blood in me.
She'll love it all, as long as I have ink
And we have history.

There are little diamonds
Delighting her
In the bits of white between
Every word.

I woke up 35 today.
Thought it wouldn't feel
Any different from 34, but
This time...

I'll buy an extra few flowers
For my mother.
It's her day too.

I'll buy my dad a cigar and a
Cold one.
For all the gray hairs.

I'll thank my brother for
Being
Just that
For 33 years,

And my girlfriend for not
Minding what we
Both think
Might be the earliest whiffs
Of an 'old-man-smell'
On me.

It's the first rainy day in weeks.
I'll have a
Few beers too many tonight,
And just stand in the downpour.
I'm an adult now; I don't
Have to wear a raincoat.

It's my party and I'll
Laugh hysterically

If I want to.

We went and got lost in the woods,
Didn't we?

Laughing through it all, as we do.
You're beautiful picking blueberries

Like some Eve of Eden,
Not the least bit worried that

We'll lose daylight before finding
Our way,

And cute as Hell when asking if your
Tongue is blue; sticking it out

With your eyes closed.
I brush pieces of forest from your

Shoulder. Somewhere out there
A leaf still smells of you,

The way my hands do now.
I can't stop putting them over

My nose and mouth; agreeing
With the memory of you stating

That we're the most juvenile
35-year-olds we've ever seen.

Lost?
We never were.

Even my doctor says I seem
Ten years younger

Than I did only
Weeks ago.

I put on socks knitted by a
Grandmother long gone
And open my windows to winter.

Fine snow like mist through a microscope
Enters and dies at the tempered hands of
Home.

I reach outside to stroke the crystal

Stream in the air,
Looking forward to sun, and the rain.
Always also the rain.

So sweet now, my life.
The sounds my woman makes from
The next room
Pronounce home.
Pronounce unalone.

So sweet now, my life.
Winter is over and tonight we sleep
By open windows.
The sounds of the night shape
Our dreams; we awake remembering
Adventures.

So sweet now, my life.
A palace of contentment raised on
The sound foundations of
Tragedies and pure ecstacy in equal
Amounts.
As any life should be.

So sweet, so sweet. Belly full of milk,
Mouth full of honey.
Rain is a cool shower,
Snow confetti.
The Dome of Sky a hand above me
That assures that all is safe.

No step I take lands wrong.
No step brings me away
From anything
Sweet. So sweet now;
My life. My *life.

All it took was
One grown-up touch
Too close to places she was
Too young to name.

Now all hands move
Like searching spiders on the
Table of her little
Self.

Skin constantly goosebumped.
Eyes focused on the
Potential harmfulness
Within and between all things
That move with
Predatory silence.

She walks as if under
Water, like a weblocked
Fly; afraid to make ripples
And draw

Adult
Arachnid
Attention.

Sunrise at 4 am.
Birdsong before my alarm.  
Outside an open
Bedroom window

I saw no reason to greet
Another day with other than
Gratitude.

A deer drinking dew from
Leaves, startled by a
Fox, then, seeing no threat,
Continued to make
My morning.

I watch you draw.
I've always loved that.  
The way you brush away your
Hair with the pencil between your
Fingers.

You're a little girl again,
Unaware of your surroundings.
At peace and safe and loved.
I want to keep
You
Forever.

I giggle.
World; sand-
Box.
Red plastic
Bucket:
My ♡

While she's getting her
hair done, I'm in the
pub where the bartender-
lady is hung over,
playing Alanis Morissette
unplugged

and asking me without a word
not to speak to her

but listen quietly to
would you forgive me, love,  
if I danced in your shower,

and I'm more than happy to
sit at the bar with a pint of

lager and break radio silence
by whispering

got any Eva Cassidy?
as she looks up from her coke

and whispers back
*I could marry you. Yes.

Politeness. Common decency.
Giving more than two *****
About how others may
Feel.

Some carry a torch until their
Hands blister scolded in
Futility.
Most of us pull our pants

Down laughing and
Put it out. But above the sink,
Between magic marker genitalia
And profanities,

Someone has written
Something that might just
Fuel a fire
That's dying today.

*You don't need
A mirror;
You are
Beautiful.

My brother has fewer
Vices than most.

Hands that need to
Create non-idly

Folding reciepts; wrappings;
Pieces of unappealing waste

Into origami -by now nearly
Unconsciously-

Turning nothing to something
And leaving behind him

Little signatures of beauty
Where less was before he

Unbored himself. Such healthy
Opposites to the cigarette butts

And crumpled discardments
Of us other; lesser men of art.

My brother has the vices
Of Nature. Of little gods.

We need him more than
He'll ever care to grasp.

There is poetry in my blood.
Some blood in my poetry, like that
Fresh from a broken heart
On a band-aid lip kissing
Old pain into fresh pleasure,

And promising truth, comfort and
Loyalty within a blizzard of rose
Petals and cotton candy dandelion,
Being easier to believe than anything
Else ever.

There's poetry in my blood. Cells
Red as new love; white cell soldiers
Devouring infectious threats; poison
Lies and painful heartless behaviour
Such as infidelity or being broken

Up with, in a bed at night; in a
Blossoming garden, or worse,
With a pen in hand, mid-love,  
Mid-poem; mid-
Heartbeat.

I adore the way the
Presence of a toddler; little

Diaper steps from something to
Something else

Softens the eyes of grandmothers
Smiling between themselves

Remembering their grown
Children

As not.
Paper-skin hands

Veins of deepest ancient blue
Holding love so old

For small things.
New things.

Fresh, little human being
Royalty in our eyes.

Commanding
Without knowing.

Heart itself on two
Tiny legs.

The farmers praise these days of rain.
We've had weeks of heat.
Now all will explode
In green.

As a child, I would build forts with
Hay bales and hide from
Tractors and harvesters
As if they

Were monsters. My imagination
Took me on rides that would
Actually scare me.
Adventures

Everywhere. I find I do the same
To myself now. Watching rain on windows
With soft music on her speakers that are
Still here.

Our music. I think back on that time
In the bowling alley. I picked her
Up and bowled a strike with her riding
Piggy Back; she was

Laughing nearly hysterically.
Just laughing nearly
Hysterically against
The camera.

Did that really happen? I love that.
I praise these days of rain.
I've had sunshine for nearly four years.
It's time to grow.

Yes.
I watch you
On the pillow; your hair is a
Holy halo gilded by the
Goddess of
Gold
Herself.
Your mouth open in
Innocent oblivion.
I watch you sleep
So far from
Feeling the
Least bit
Creepy.
You make sleep beautiful.  
Angelic is your
Default.
Baby.

Tools heavy in hands weak from
Weekend's fill of laughter,
Beer and barbeque.

Sun in eyes narrow from
Sleep. Traffic in ears spoiled
With countryside serenity.

Not even eight am, and I'm
Bleeding from open joints on fingers
That left their gloves somewhere

Clever on Friday. Drops of myself
Form little red rings in the chemical
Rainbows of puddle beneath.

It is my passion; not my job
To play with words in the ways of
Poet. To drop a few lines instead.

I am a man of heavy duty action, the
Kind that jackhammers concrete to
Dust, a thousand demolishing words.

My work is so far from poetry that
I should get changed in the phone
Booth outside the barracks, but

For now my mind is as narrow,
My imagination as shallow as this
Hole that I'm paid to dig.

I have a black cat.
She crosses the dirt road in front
Of me, every morning.

I should be dead by now.

Rows of rogue gladiators
Recaptured and crucified.
Muscles, grit and warriorship

Beyond that of any centurion,
Humbled, humiliated, spat upon
By the wine-greased gears of a

Machine the size of seized continents
And cultures crushed to crumbs
Within weeks -not centuries.

The stuff of contemporary tales and
Future feature films. Justice -not
Unlike poetry- is a purely man-made

Concept. But so very unlike the
Other; as frail in its mortality as
Man's own justless Self.

I have medicine.
Am being kept alive by progress.
Little pills like droplets of pale blue
Doctor-nectar.

I have been inside women so beautiful
I nearly gave up
Ghost.
Their confidences were instruments

Of classical composers.
The creative pleasure of the
Universe manifested. Aesthetics. Pure.  
Their bodies were salty

Words longing to be
Poetry.
They did it.
Made flesh immortal.

My hands were dead upon them; my
Heart skipped beats in the name of
Glossiness.
Twig fingers upon dead silicone.

And I grew around their hearts
Like a tree around a graveyard light post;
Watered with tears and appreciated at times  
When any

Grieving heart throws itself at anything
Beautiful and
Rigid.
For something.

I know love.
It tickles and hurts.
And I know death.
They're related.

Sisters separated at birth.
I know Poetry.
She says to Death and Love:
*Do you guys have the

Other two
Thirds of
This
Medallion?

You may be more beast than
Man in their eyes; bearded,
Scarred, too tattooed,
History of violence,

History of summoning tears.
But you'll dig a grave for our
Loved ones with your own
Two hands, bruised knuckles

Around hickory and hard
Plastic. So we can relax and
Cry.
You've wrestled huge, angry

Enemies, and won.
Your hugs are epic.
You have taken lives. You have
Arms to hold galaxies.

We build our relationships
With the wreckage of all our previous.
Always.

Bagage the weight of
Broken ships.

Expectations built on debree; forever mirrored in
Shrapnel.

Everyday blows huffin' and a' puffin' and'll blow your house
Down piggie after piggie, love after love bacon.

Burn the next one down to the ground.
Harvest forest fresh and be
New.

Sunday morning.
Eating her food,
Drinking her coffee

While she sleeps in. I
Miss her through the
Door, but a

Lady is entitled to her peace.
Last night I
Think I fell

Ever so slightly deeper
In trouble when
She, with the assertiveness

Of a woman aware
Of her own
Loveability,

Ran her fingers through
My beard; taking all
The time she wanted

To whisper: *"I really,
Really like
You."

He is almost filthier than
The twenty pigeons that he
Somehow has gathered enough
Scraps to feed.

Almighty to them.
Bringer Of Food.
"Look," someone says,
"Parasites on a parasite!"

I think of gods. And parasites,
Picking laughs from
Their unjudgemental
Hands.

The guys from the demolishing
Team accidently broke a door
In the basement.

Things happen, but this door was
From the original building; built
In 1920. Covering it in bubble wrap

And writing HANDLE WITH CARE
All over it didn't help. The
Lithuanians were in a hurry;  

No match for a speeding BobCat.
I carried the corpse out to the
Container, and thought to myself:

I'm gonna be the last man to ever
Knock on this *******...
I set it down (the oak thing was a

Good 95 years old), and wrote
On it in my finest lettering.
Chamber.

Took off my glove and stood there,
Gently rapping, calling out to
The guys by the forklift:

HEY! Name the bird, boys!
No response. Sometimes I feel like
I might not belong in construction.

malware no software can
fend me against rust my blade
like a feast for anaerobic bacteria.

red as if with unjust blood.
but it isn't.

I wear a portable blood pressure
measuring device that inflates
around my arm and could be

waiting to give me good news
every thirty minutes.  

but it isn't,
and a few floors above me
the carpenters are listening to

Smells Like Teen Spirit on their
Milwaukee radio, reminding me

that we always seem to agree on
the more important things in Life,
like what was good about the

ninetees. and what
wasn't.

Construction project
King's st. 6.
Oslo.
14.00.*

A few humble grains of snow
melt upon
impact.

pavement. concrete. the air
between everything. they all  
blend together. then rest.

darkest time of the year.
I love it.
depression. suicide. some

fall victim to this absence
of daylight. their world is
not mine.

self pity and other heavinesses
vanish when opening ones
eyes to the beauty that resides

within even darkness.
I have clothes.
I have fire.

I have
love.
I have

more than
enough
light.