29. (planet of the apes / december 10 2014)
translated from the Norwegian by Gabriel Gudding
after ten years i quit writing in my diary
and started an epic poem it grew unwieldy and greedy
and far too pretty stuffed with vacant rooms
plastic palms stabbing empty air fishless aquariums lit
for the cleaning staff the leather in armchairs
shining like butter not like in real epics
where it’s crawling with people around the clock
and no one lives where they should they roam the roads
sleepless paperless sleeping in bus stations
fleeing in the middle of the night writing without the peace to write
thinking without the time to think eating while standing
sleeping while sitting washing in rainwater and
living in cars until the prisons throw their gates open
and the mutilated body of the villain
is burned on the city dump
and the heroes get to speak out on tv
about how they’re ashamed of their medals
claiming they’re just regular people
talking about how when we all crawled out of the forest
and no one recognized us anymore we made fuses
out of old extension cords and spools of yarn and we stole power
with baling wire and duct tape and then there were those others
who used to pet the cat and tinker at the piano
after long shifts in the deathcamps and taught one another
to never hang clothes out to dry on the days when it blew
from the crematorium and those upstanding people
who were forced to forget everything they’d learned
at school a people of children who had to instruct
even smaller children and fashionable at last
i was the last to want to be epic i only wanted to be left alone
with the previous century i examined what i had made
the cities glowed like low fires the clouds rose like snowy mountains
the oceans of the world were black holes behind unlocked doors
buildings were swarming with apes they lived in the corridors
on fruit and vermin i tried to be one of them they didn’t like me
but they let me be in the end and in our ink dark fur we
flowed like brooks in the stairwells and it was fitting
the light had gone because in my epic
i don’t want to see the poet
From Friends with Everyone (Action Books, 2024) by Gunnar Wærness, translated by Gabriel Gudding. Copyright © 2024 by Gabriel Gudding. Reprinted by permission of the publisher and author.