Thomas Krogsbøl

 

LIKENESS


like the rain making craters in the gravel


like a wind sneaking round the corner


like the night trickling out of the mattress


like rust sprinkling from springs


like plate shaped cells carrying on with us


like quiet pulsating machines behind a hedge in the suburb


like everything more noisy than lunar landings, leaves falling to the ground, frogs thinking


like the sound of the light in a dream that’s being forgotten


like everything you know you’ll never remember


like the river of the eyes leading through the face, like your ego’s architecture on the sea front


like those paces flowing down the street


like being a nail in somebody’s coffin, meaning something to somebody


like the hares in the snow, not wanting to tell where they’re going, forgetting their feet


like people refusing to tell the truth, even in documentaries


like the autumn of the neon tubes in the basement passages beneath the hospital, the cafeteria fallout


on the stairs


like the body thanks to which I belong to a nation, even though the nation calls itself a society of


information


like sails inflating and flags flapping


like wet skinny dogs dying in January


like the horses returning home to the weed every night


like God saving George W. Bush from alcohol


like Caligula appointing his horse senator, “Would Mr. Senator like his hay now?”


like the only hairy planet, like the hairy books


like when you’ve still got a couple of hours before the cleaning team arrives


like the fox in a parking cellar early in the morning


like doors slamming, like creaking stairs, like the dust in attics


like a trip though the centre of darkness, like big empty lobbies, parties celebrating nothing


like Elvis entering the door, at once turning the room into one single sentence that is being repeated


endlessly


like a movement in continuation of a water fall or a violent haemorrhage


like physical connections, throbbing and knocking at different places, sticky areas


like large animals shaking themselves and things falling heavily from the sky and men with nipples


like burning stones in the midday heat and burning bushes in the books


like a world of facts that the poem in a way contradicts and in another way


like the poems just being new facts


like the formulas of trees and the turning over of dunes


like the things standing farthest off on the tip of the point, simulating


like seaweed, like long wet fingers sliding over rocks


like that of mine sinking to your bottom, setting itself on the point of your cone


like when it’s right now the sun rises again and you finally find your hair


like a tangible situation for a moment regaining some of its concretion









Thomas Krogsbøl, Danish poet, born 1963 in Copenhagen where he still lives. He has published four volumes of poetry since his debut in 1999 and has been a co-editor of the literary magazine Øverste Kirurgiske since 1998. Also he is an organizer of readings and musical events in Copenhagen.