Diktdialog

HT:

Eg sit like ved muren kring York
og legg ord etter ord
sirleg etter kvarandre
i ein diktbyggjartradisjon
som går langt attende i soga
Og nett dette vesle diktet
ender med eit spørsmål:
Kven er me
som trur me kan byggja murar
som held verdas vondskap
utanfor?

RP:

Here I sit in a blue, faux-leather phlebotomy chair.
I doubt that's what they call it
– the nurses –
But I think it.  

I write it in my journal, and
– that way –
it feels like I have control

when the doctors act
like my body is none of my business
I appropriate their big word for blood.  

Sitting in a faux-leather blue chair. I think of faux-coated blue cows.
I imagine them grazing the green fields. Maybe
in the field that runs along the trail
I run in the mornings –
where there is a stone hedge
broken down by time.

I have no clue what the builder’s intention was,
what he intended to hold in
or hold out.  

In Poe's story, they decided to close the great gate
to keep death out. Entombing themselves.

The door to the examination room
is closed. The clock on the wall
– also blue –
Ticks past another hour.

When it opens, the faint howling
– I hadn’t noticed until now –
Stops.
And the room gasps.  

It’s a room for privacy. The pain inside
and the pain outside, ignorant of the other.  

Maybe all the pains of the world
are assigned, and walled off
– intentionally –
with four walls and a roof.

Private homes, we carry inside our homes,
Inside our houses.  

Everything opening brings a rush of air
– an unintentional gasp.  

What if that is just the way of the world?
Our outsides ignorant of our insides.

Everything blue until it opens  

HT:

Eg veit ikkje kva eg hadde venta meg
eg visste bare at eg måtte ha den boka
då eg stod inne i den vesle sommarvarme
bokhandelen i Whitby

Eg tok bussen attende til landsbyen
der me leigde eit hus ved damptogstasjonen
Det var varmt Eg sette meg ut med
boka og eit glas øl

I suset frå elva som renn forbi
opna eg «Voices from the Asylum.
West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum»
sett saman av Mark Davis

36 portrettfotografi i sepia
biletskildringar av ein gong levande
pustande menneske, med redde rynker,
omsorgstrengjande hud, forvirra munnar,
kjenslefylte auge

37 lagnadsrapportar i eit tørt
konstaterande institusjonsspråk
«refused her breakfast this morning
and threw the dishes at the attendant.
She gets very noisy and excitable,

also imagines that this is the place
where Queens are beheaded.»

Å hamna bak murane i eit slikt hus
på attenhundretalet var ofte for livstid
Omlag ein tredjedel hamna der
utan at det var grunnlag for det

Fram til 1959 var det umogleg
å få saka prøvd på ny

Sju år, sytten år, sytti år
Paranoide, mistenksame,
drikkfeldige, valdelege,
og døvstumme,
uforståande

Her er hjarteskjerande handskrivne brev
til dømes retta til ei mor og ein blind far
Brev som aldri vart sendte

Når dei døydde hendte det
at ingen frå familien dukka opp
Av og til hadde alle
gløymt dei

Eg lyttar til suset frå elva
Drikk av ølet og høyrer
damptoget arbeide seg oppover
mot stasjonen

RP:

I was sixteen. And I drove the hour each way
to Eastern State Hospital up in Lexington.
My first time driving in traffic.
I felt very grown-up on the way into the city.

I was researching the place for a term paper.
First named Fayette Hospital, then just
Lunatic Asylum (no definite article until years later).
Between 1817 and 1912, the place was given 14 names
– variations on a theme –
11 with the word Lunatic. 1 with the word Insane.

Eastern State Hospital, at last. And since.

I'd come to see History. Capital H.
Specifically, the basement rooms
that Dorothea Dix described in her oration,
where the wounded from the civil war had been
packed into the 15-foot x 15-foot windowless rooms.

Moral therapy was what they called it then – what
some said she was fighting for: pretty curtains.
(I'm not kidding you.)
A place at a dinner table.

(I suppose everything can be boiled down
to the ridiculous
to make the desired point.)

The woman who showed me around giggled a lot
and jangled her huge keyring. These were the rooms
filled now with cardboard boxes. Rolls of toilet paper
bundled in plastic, and stacked against the white
white walls. Not
what I expected.

On the way back up the stairs we ran into a man
who stared at my shoes. He laughed.
«I'm going to get stabbed today,» he told me.

«Oh, that,» she giggled. «He's probably
talking about his medication.»

HT:

Som smågutar var me halvt merksame
på ho som kom ut
med finkjole på fine kvardagar
og snakka høgt med nokon
me ikkje kunne sjå

Om nokre av dei frekkaste
av oss ropa noko til henne
svara ho med å gje ein ordre
til ein av dei usynlege:

«Hoffmann, ta dem!»

Det var fleire utsette i bygda

Me lærte oss at dei høyrte til
Var ein del av den store samansette
heilskapen: alle som til saman
vart eit 'oss'
eit omgrep der det òg var ein plass
for 'dei andre'

Men for ei jente på min alder
vart dette verre

Ho måtte til det bitre bera
på følgjene av ordninga med å setja ut
menneske som ikkje sjølv kunne
gripa samanhengane mellom handling
og følgjer:

Då ho var ungdom i eit hus der
småbarn leika

og ho kvilte på divanen
kom ein av dei utsette ned frå loftet
og tok del i barneleiken

Og det gjekk så gale
som det kunne gå

Ein av dei minste
levde ikkje etterpå

Og ungjenta
bar for alltid
spørsmål
som ingen ville høyra

Svar var hjelpelause
nyttelause
meiningslause

Bare spørsmål
spørsmål og
usynlege skuggar
av tvil og sorg

Ein kunne fortvila tenkja
at det einaste ein kunne gjera
er å ropa:

«Hoffmann, ta dem!»

RP:

In the cities people move through
so quickly
Or we did. Neighbours were
characters on TV shows. So quaint, the gruff
Archie Bunker (like everyone’s grandpa) knew their names
and worked hard to forget them.

When I moved through here, a place
called Tussevik – a red house sandwiched between
the fjord and farms – neighbouring sheep
would wander into the yard. Their Satan eyes
on my toddler. And me with a «bun in the oven»-
Who says that, really? Neighbours as plot devices
for smugly-earned points on the Nielsen ratings.

We stayed inside. But one morning
she was standing there
an inverted pear, a Venus
of Willendorf, silent and stony among the sheep.
Staring through my living room window. Like something
out of a movie. Absurd, or horror genre – take your pick.
I had to go outside to see what she wanted.

So we did what neighbours do: I don’t remember
what we had for dinner, in their oak-panelled room
with a chrome-legged table and croqueted doilies and the bite
of urine from her clothes as she leaned over to pour water
into my glass. A single photo in silver frame on the sideboard
– a toddler – «my angel» she explained
eventually. The state had taken her for safe-keeping
and she'd drowned later that year in a river
not far away.

We moved again before the baby came to term.
I never seem to remember people’s names.

HT:

Orda våre svarte
mot denne store stille kvite flata
av nei

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