I would choose if I could
To be anything but a wasted man,
Sinews roping duct and glands.
Leave me, as everyone must,
Leave me to organise these poems –
Jumbled words from an idiot,
Good for kindling, good for dust;
I only request a lifetime’s hibernation
And a printer on a sturdy desk.
You pushed in vain, no little art,
Jumpstarting with your spark plugs
This cold and weathered heart.
My mind is like a mountain slope
For when I shout, an avalanche
Subsumes with snow
Everyone I hear below;
Terrified sounds, such voices,
Of my own villagers trapped
In subatomic neuroses,
My choicelessness of choices.
N.B the title is Norwegian and means ‘An Avalanche’
Seven Hundred Jisei 