The distribution of Poetry Issues #14 began yesterday. This issue also features Birgitte Brøndum, a poet currently residing in Malmö, Sweden. You can read the issue here and find more of Birgitte's work on her personal website and on Instagram.
Besides the usual distribution points, this issue has also travelled to Prague (thanks to SJ Moenandar) and Copenhagen.
The Coming of Age
I need to cut all your words
with red childproof scissors
and rearrange them into solved
thousand-pieces puzzles, purple-horned
unicorns and double negations.
I’ve sank before in awkward situations
spun in the roulette of truth or dare.
I had to sit still in uneasy chairs
rushing as my deadlines were due
wary of the you’s that came before you.
I’m not the child one can oppress anymore
but neither cut out for the things I want.
Adequately clumsy in my unfitting skin
I miss the harmony you granted me
– a welcome recess to disparity.
Neural Delirium
by Birgitte Brøndum
In a coffee cup is a heart of foam
foam bath and foam hair at seven
7 bruises are never enough
enough is a wet cloth on thin paper
papers are confidential, yellow binders at sixteen
16 photographs of one-eyed dogs in my hand
hand it over, hand it over, hand, it’s over
over there, over here, overdone
done with your large continent
continents spilling out of me
“me, me, me!” he says pointing
pointing inwards is not a skill
skill acquires the will to step
out.
Together
One lucky day I will expire
like the bottle of milk
we still keep in the fridge.
It patiently came to be
the mother of all
battles for household authority
in the fringe of our commitment
to hostile passivity.
But one lucky day I promise
I too, milky and sour, will expire.
His Mind
He said he kept it all in there
pointing at his whitening head
slant-looking and pleased.
He was a dinosaur of sorts
an ancient retrieving machine
for truffle-like memories.
Then he started searching
for lost words, as if scavenging
in a stranger’s attic.
Associations eluded him
like sand dripping
from a golddigger’s sieve
and the hanging teardrops might
have been a side-effect, or pain
for a missing verbal scheme.
Measuring It
If we start counting in summers
life is not long at all. Isn’t it obvious
we have to – absolutely must –
start living more?
If we subtract the full moons
not much is left of romance. Mustn’t
we – isn’t it imperative –
fall more, and more, in love?
If we divide the gain by the strive
it clearly wasn’t worth the while. Shouldn’t
we be more careful – diligent –
with how we spend our time?
[You will learn more about the Poetry Issues project here.]