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.