Seven Poems by Boel Schenlaer

I

From an underlying past
someone peeps out, a part of me
embodied in another, a third
someone prepared to sacrifice everything.
Groping in secret. Wait and see.
I dream of blood.

 

II

Narrow roads that seemed broad in the mountains
like cotton squeezed out of oblivion.
You have to follow the heart in its chaos.
The price you have to pay to avoid the truth.

 

III

The tower from which I throw myself.
When destiny stands on its toes.
The wagon that pulls in two directions.
When destiny hunkers down.
Poets who cry out
from garrets, rat-holes and sewers.

 

IV

Our devoted dreams in the nights.
You sleep a few yards from my bed.
Do we catch sight of our true distances?
We don’t approach each other any more.

We let this happen.
Could we have stopped it?
The thought of our omnipotence.

 

V

When illusions refuse to knock,
you could see that the door is closed.
If you propped it open they would rush in.
One more door, opposite the alley with the stork’s nest.
The door, a weathervane against eternity.
God is not a joke, for some people God
is not funny, but I laugh at God.
We consist of sixty-seven per cent water, the rest sugar.
The icing on the world’s soul. I laugh at everything.

 

VI

Sometimes when you’re sitting in a teacup
and there’s a storm, you have to hold on to
the ear of the cup. Hark, hark to the song of the smallest bird.

 

VII

You really cannot condemn anyone.
As soon as you condemn me I become your guide
and you become directionless.

---

About the Author

Boel Schenlaer is a poet and playwright from Stockholm, Sweden. Poems from the collection ‘I DREAM OF BLOOD’.

Image

Photograph by Denny Müller (Unsplash).