Ann Jäderlund

I am dying. Deep outside. Out of myself.
I was dying yesterday and since I was born.
I wasn’t born out of myself. I am destroyed.
My body disjoints all I own. I can
not be in there.

*

In these despairing distances. Which can
be neither here nor there. They shimmer
from their domains. Lift themselves out
and blacken. It is
so dense. It is only
these last few days
which will return
to their places. One can change
place. But
no-one does it. Even
the atoms can change their
places with each other. And
everything itself.

*

He who rises up through the head. Straight up
in one of its thinnest channels. When the bodies
are annihilated. He who rises inside. When you see someone
who really cannot give. Who doesn’t believe. Provides
dead bodies with gifts of food. Or if the body becomes
too adorned. Mutilated when it becomes mutilated.
Annihilated by hate itself. Then nothing of it is
in it. What can follow will follow.
Unchanged in its form. Turns to the
inner behind of the head’s eyes. Maybe for ever again.

*

To speak is little. The monotony
which makes an amount out of it. Leaves
through the eyes in every fibre. Pushes itself.
against. Like this low form.
Pierced without being. What
ever anything is.

*

The soul is alone with its tears. In coverings. Spread over the
dense eye. Only a quarter can be seen. An eighth
or less. Left in the facial shell like a membrane. A
spirit flame without fire. It does not burn. It does not fly.
Does not crackle in the ear. It only pushes itself
up morosely. It is engraved in the cornea like a scar
in the thin layer. It can barely look out. Hardly
be seen by someone or by  something.

*

Virgin forest with a row of figures. Testimony’s tent.
Why is there no explanation? It will never
pass. There is nothing else. You cannot
leave your body.

*

I look at a leaf and attach my hope
to it. That despite the year’s end
it will remain. If the wind will quiver.
And trembling not notice. I look
at it from my place. Hasn’t
it’s place always been? Similar
in itself? What keeps me
then. From that and for ever
turn back. Or just turn myself around.

*

When life passes away. Each heavily
laden body. Detaches itself
from the actual body.
And steps in to the other.
One doesn’t know where it
begins. Maybe it re-
distributes itself all the time
on the same surface. Sidewise
without temperature. If surfaces
even exist. Probably it doesn’t
save anything. Does not exist
in itself. Where one is.
Soothes no suffering. Does
not even trace the emotion. Does it
even exist in depths? As
they are? Even porously?
Like the sides
in the shadow.

*

Those who seek peace should draw the arrow out.
A bud means nothing
to it. Then you will get no peace. Such
is a life. No matter how attached you are
to it. Or to the world.

*

The self in the sun and the self in the human.
It spreads through all the layers.
I who am filled with them. And of
the self in the heart. When it is
unknown. But how shall it
come to exist
there? Without my having
part of it?

*

Everything there is alike. One
cannot break that
form. Of water which
absorbs everything. The
magnetic rag. To treat
each other the way. One wishes
everyone to treat each other.
Almost in pieces. Between wherein one
finds oneself.

*

That is all the thoughts of the heads. When one
in one’s thoughts turns around. One destroys one’s
approaches. Boiling and boiling again.
Accumulations which look like
elastic parts. But what is elasticity? You who
were my friend then? During that time
which never again can make
demands on anything.

*

That which is in the water. But is not
the water. Which the water does not
feel. But which is the water
from inside. Which no-one feels.
But is everything from inside. Which
body does not exist. Not scent hearing. Sight
or speech. And is not
transient.

*

Turning myself easily. It is not enclosed.
All the way to the edge. Reality. From the fingers
come threads which extend out into the room.
Sitting like black birds. With big peeled
pupils. It is not difficult.

*

And the sea gave back the dead. Those who had been thrown into it. But
not that  which had been killed in them. The beheaded got their
heads and souls back. And those who had chopped each other’s
hands off had got them back. And the devil who had tricked them
was burned on a stick. And he who had not been
recorded in the book of life was now forever. Recorded in it.

Translation: Pamela Robertson-Pearce