Penultimate January
This morning it is pleasant
to draw one’s legs back
out of the emergency sleeping bag,
and sense free airy spaces
beneath the duvet’s cloud service;
to reclaim free mobility
after Anna has been quick to light the dawn fire
in the stove downstairs in the house
This morning it is liberating
to read Thomas Metzinger’s Being No One,
the Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity;
a deep dive into a theory
of the illusory nature of the first-person singular’s
perception of individuality and self
But the body,
which has been my window onto the surroundings
and an open door toward adventure,
raises a scabby wall against the world;
an obstacle on the only road
When anatomy,
which has been truth & life,
becomes blotting-paper-dense living falsehood,
it is good
to disarm subjective body- and self-perception
with Metzinger’s study
I hold myself back,
lie still beneath the cover
so as not to reveal myself;
the pains ready around the bed;
hungry, eager
Radio P1 runs on in long reasonings
between silent bedroom walls;
the moment withdrawn, listening,
as I think cautiously;
listen for paracetamol’s calm chemistry,
the cats restful as I wear away time
with pencil lead & vague grounds of persuasion,
and remember Sune & Camilla
and all that came after;
stretch myself,
the calves taut as troll-drum skins,
the centrally heated habitats of another world
scattered everywhere through the cities;
faintly glowing cubes with bodies
getting ready behind windows
in the first round of clothes;
soles of feet scuffing
in the clatter of breakfast crockery,
while outdoor transport moves
illuminated; pre-warmed, worm-masked
through the street circuits,
like laconic exhibition objects at Moderna Museet;
schematic flows toward offices, department stores, marinas,
and all prepared sittings
behind doors opening onto spatialities
where coffee machines hum, burble, click
in contemporary variants of Strindberg’s
tokholm portrayals in Röda rummet,
thick tackles through corporealities,
misspent opportunities in legion
among people in different stages,
left behind in furtive tense-forms,
in senior silence,
while death, unspoken yet overwhelming,
fills squares & shopping centres with overweight & addiction,
year-children & screen-sickness,
as well as all those who’ve drawn a freak card
and are allowed all manner of madness
A finality rests over us old ones;
a bodily restraint, a creeping shadowing
around furniture & garments;
a tacit excuse
beneath a cold-clear winter sky
that echoes, blue from horizon to horizon
as an enraged sun in a golden chariot of war
roars across the retina
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
Written on 2026-01-31 at 22:43
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