Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 72

but one day somebody will

give elegiac speeches on the emissaries

the travelling preachers

with their vibrating tongues of resonance  

and the petrified truths

well hidden inside

in the suitcases packed for America

placed at the very back in the passenger boat

write scorching

obituaries in deep September evenings

when people are gathering sheep in the steepest mountains

and are kicking brown-bitten apples on the bonfire

because this is what it is like

when the harvesting of the living and the dead starts

one simplifies and adds

in order to live here

(72 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 25

the morning comes pulling along

with the things I do not know

the day that was supposed to bring

a feeling of belonging

or the taste of expectations

but I simply sit down

and give away

everything


(25 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 23

here Bible stories are crumbling

like Underground train graffiti

here are traces of an action

I am unable to follow

inexplicable patterns

in the coffee grounds

faces that are slowly appearing

in the ashes after a long night

I can see the dead

who are waiting to die once more

in the shadow

of their childhoods

the living

who are waiting for the opportunity to live

in a brighter light

upon their wanderings

those things which always

return 

swing doors, flaps of the wings

(23 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 21

the wind is a cry

which no mouth owns

sometimes it rises

with its back against a tremendously slow second

and listens

(21 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 18

between one stone and the next

lie all the directions of the compass

north and south

like half-burnt boards of wood from a bonfire

the votive ship model is sailing

from west towards east

so that the sun never has the time to reach above the mountain

                                                                                                                           tops

before she is drowning in the ocean

(18 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 74

and still

children will be born and lifted forward

in the flickering light of the summer wind

under the winter night’s high vault over darkness

still fumbling and finding their self  in labourers`

movements and sensing the odor of spring

and transformation

here

(74 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 58

(a crofter`s cottage)

that

houses like these

could put up so many

half-grown lads in short pants, girls wearing clogs

and second-hand Sunday dresses

some of them with sinewed limbs

or slightly crooked

in honour of the photographer they peer into

the world which has hardly awakened

gradually

spread

across the islands

with children on the loose in the neighbouring villages

received letters from relatives in Canada

or those displaced to outskirts faraway

in the soil of the graveyard

where the sun tells fortunes in their intestines

one more time

(58 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 57

(drift)

it was the stubborn industrious ones

who cast their anchors here

who built up houses

and piers that forced themselves forward towards the light

it was we

born by ourselves

who woke up

at a border

lonesome birds

that floated up

in the dusk

and drifted with the current

towards grandfathers’ graves not formerly visited

and yet, deep inside us

a rhythm of sea air

deep inside us

the old ones who are struggling with the hay drying racks

and are rocking quietly back and forth

near the quays

(57 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 29

I laugh

at the idea of the ocean would be missing the beaches

that the butterflies would be test flying spring

one more time

I still inhale

what makes the tree bloom

later the last remains of laughter

descend from the woods

and the dead fly in the window sill

is filling the emptiness with an imagined humming

(29 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 19

you go to church

a morning dressed in a widow’s garments

organ music is listening

to find if anybody might be in the hall

crowds of nameless rise

and fall apart between the pews

extracted tongues call for the miracle

by means of German hymns

the church is a closed down café

the wafer between the lips one krone on a jukebox

people as old as crucifixions

shape their faces for the singing

(19 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

No 17

when the snow comes

with an emergency landing across the moor

and spreads its wings across the fields

with black frost

I can see the summer dying

in the mouth of a small child

I can read from the lips of the moon

that is turning thinner and thinner

before they disappear

in blue defiance

as a kiss flavoured with the lumps of course salt

from the ocean

(17 from kjensla av at det ikkje regnar andre stader enn her 2004 translated into english by Hilde Petra Brungot)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

Elegy                                                

losing seven aunts, all mine

seven aunts, unwed and untouched

with black headscarves and red-checked nylon dresses

selling birches for the womens’s guild and giving of themselves

inch by inch

as young girls they went to school for three weeks

in the fall and three weeks in the spring

and each day a resurrection

then they served after confirmation

on small farms

for the pilot in the fishing village, for the rich man on the moors

the oldest took care of her mother, knitted bed-spreads and read brorson

with a magnifying glass, the youngest engaged to a widower

until the spanish flu took him with it to the chapel

like magpies with silver spoons in their beaks

they flew along the roads, the aunts

let light into our houses

awoke what we’d forgotten in our sleep

with a birch at lent time

(HOMILIE from fluktlinjer 2000 translated into english by Veronika Bonaa)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

Take Care of Them                        

our mothers, younger

than their daughters

once the prettiest in the valley

wanderers in light and wind

take care of them

our mothers, pathfinders

from dark to darkness

mothers of dry heathery hills

mothers of bramble plains

patient, righteous

(TA HAND OM DEI from fluktlinjer 2000 translated into english by Veronika Bonaa)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

The White-Tailed Eagle Opens Her Wide Wing Span

to an Endless Wind            

across the sand, white

  and cold as old seamen

    walking widelegged down the stone fences

      with tobacco yellow longfinger nails around the rake  handles

        and the mild weather

over the moors, red

  as autumns of love around the villages of gravel

    sudden arisals from smouldering beds

      and subdued women’s voices

over the fjord, glacier blue

  and tar burnt like sleep

quickly the shadow lurks like a worm

  across the warm flat stones in the pile

 

(HAVØRNA FEMNER SITT BREIE SPENN OM EIN UENDELEG VIND from fluktlinjer 2000 translated into english by Veronika Bonaa)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

navigare

should I get out of this

I never owned

should I sail

by the old sea marks

the gleam of sun against a widowdressed morning

the oyster catcher’s nest robbed as the tide went out

I would surrender

to a new beginning

(NAVIGARE from fluktlinjer 2000 translated into english by Veronika Bonaa)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

this is a different country

  

this is a different country

here is no summer

and no winter

here are no steel guitars

or broad brimmed limousines

under hot sun

only cold sea

grey hills and stubborn heather

here the streamers of the rainbow are not reflected

in thousand windows along the green alleys

here no trains are pursuing

the next capital in a wild chase

no high voltage cathedrals

reach their arms towards the sky

this is a different country

this is a different country

(dette er eit anna land from havflammen 1995 translated into english by Margrete Trovåg)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

christmas eve


the reverend
had started going on about
angels and the baby jesus


the snow was thriving in the light
from the bus station


watercombed children sitting restlessly
wishing for chrome bolts of steel


at the back, by the door sat the sisters
from the valley


it was mary, martha
and the other mary



(julekveld from havflammen 1995 translated into english by Margrete Trovåg)

Øystein Orten: POEMS IN ENGLISH

a life without worries

what were they dreaming of,

the old

the wrinkled foreheads

under shiny brimmed caps on the ferry dock

watched

the sky before going to bed

praying for good and fortunate weather

the knitting women at the charity raffle

knew that their man was lying on waves

snowstorms against the edge of the boat

heard consumption cough

from the attic bedroom

sleeping

and awake

what were they dreaming of

was it a life without worries

under the vast light

(eit attelitslaust liv  from havflammen 1995 translated into english by Margrete Trovåg)