Poetry Slam - Team Contest, Heat 5, Day 1

Dags för femte veckan av PSTC 2014. I det här gänget stöter vi på det första, och enda, helsvenska laget i tävlingen, Älvsborg (ett gammalt länsbegrepp). Ålänningarna som deltog i heat 1 kan inte räknas till Sverige även om de skriver på svenska.

Heatet inleds med tema Myt.

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QUEENSLAND : LXVIII [In the myths of the chrysalis] / M.T.C. Cronin

In the myths of the chrysalis
the butterfly reads what flies written on its wings.

To understand its itinerary, the bee knows
the letters of a sleeping alphabet.

With the numbers of the solar system
the ant subtracts its dead soldiers.

When they stand still, cyclones are called
by the same name as all great deaths.

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TOSCANA : Hymn to Satan / Giosue Carducci

Whilst earth and

sun exchange 

their smiles and 

words of love

And shudders 

from their secret embrace run down

from the mountains, and 

the plain throbs with new life

To you my daring

verses are unleashed, 

you I invoke, O Satan 

monarch of the feast.

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KANSAS : [The bird’s-eye view] / Ben Lerner

The bird’s-eye view abstracted from the bird. Cover me, says the soldier on the screen, I’m going in. We have the sense of being convinced, but of what? And by whom? The public is a hypothetical hole, a realm of pure disappearance, from which celestial matter explodes. I believe I can speak for everyone, begins the president, when I say famous last words.

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AMSTERDAM : from Descent / Esther Jansma

We crossed the Styx.

The ferryman lay drunk in his boat.

I held the helm and we sank like stones.

Water like the earth consists of layers,

transparent ribbons, glistening strata

of ever less light, less warmth.

Bubbles blossomed in your hair,

the current tugged your head backwards

and stroked your throat.

Stones waved with arms made of algae and ferns,

gurgled softly, sang of ‘peace’.

They sliced your clothes away.

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CHICAGO : I Was Never Able To Pray / Edward Hirsch

Wheel me down to the shore

where the lighthouse was abandoned

and the moon tolls in the rafters.

Let me hear the wind paging through the trees

and see the stars flaring out, one by one,

like the forgotten faces of the dead.

I was never able to pray,

but let me inscribe my name

in the book of waves

and then stare into the dome

of a sky that never ends

and see my voice sail into the night.

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VERMONT : from Practice / Ellen Bryant Voigt

Some believe in heaven,

some in rest. We’ll float,

you said. Afterward

we’ll float between two worlds—

five bronze beetles

stacked like spoons in one

peony blossom, drugged by lust:

if I came back as a bird

I’d remember that—

until everyone we love

is safe is what you said.

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ÄLVSBORG : ur diktsamlingen Omega / Johannes Anyuru

Det finns
ett stycke i Koranen, andra suran
som jag läser ibland, några
enkla rader
om den yttersta dagen
som jag
läser gråter
sedan med en sådan
nästan lätthet -
Världen löser upp sig
som en magnecyl i blodet
och virvlar, pulvervit, ut
ur munnen och näsborrarna
Man somnar