Vesica Urinaria's Wake-Up Call
At night
Vesica urinaria draws the sleeping poet
out of the dreams’ vacuuming-up of subconscious impulses,
by means of an irresistible overpressure
The furrowed wielder of the pen
– whose body has learned to handle these emergency call-outs
almost entirely on its own –
hardly opens his eyes any more than horses do
standing in the pasture in hard winds and driving snow,
facing into the wind
through narrow slits, ears laid back,
as he shuffles out of bed in the Eastern Bedroom,
barefoot in his body memories,
without turning on the light
– and at that very moment, there & then,
the adventure begins its dizzy-edged counting of steps
How is the aging poet to make his way to the toilet?
Vesica urinaria presses on;
the poet gropes his way through his dizzy-edged night walk
The landscape behind the half-lowered eyelids
feels unfamiliar
Every night is a labyrinth with uncertain bearings,
as through Tomas Tranströmer’s Romanesque Arches,
”vault beyond vault” of possible routes to the toilet
through a long & winding mental state
to negotiate;
on a par with searching for a possible line of approach
up through a high mountain pass in cold, rain & foul weather
on a late-summer night at Kåtotjåkka;
an exquisite nocturnal challenge
without compass or GPS,
or even a map
Where the hell is the toilet tonight?
Every night is a voyage of discovery
under the guidance of Vesica urinaria
through the dizzy-edgedness,
sometimes in mountain terrain,
sometimes in a smoky industrial landscape,
and occasionally in the rainforest
or out on the savanna;
elephants trumpeting
and giraffes drifting past in long-legged streams
between the termite mounds
With half-closed eyes the body maneuvers
my half-asleep faculties of soul
out into the hall,
but every toilet becomes a revelation;
a cross-draft of porcelain through creation,
and – yes, holy smoke! here's the toilet door,
here I am, straight onto the porcelain
and its splashing relief!
The way back to the bedroom now lies,
bladder empty, eyes open and sense of direction restored,
illuminated by an awakened consciousness,
like a parade avenue in an old dictatorship,
the seven meters back to the bed,
where the body, curled in the fetal position,
tastes dreamless sleep
until Vesica urinaria, in the small hours,
comes for a second visit,
just before dawn's grainy pallor
and another dizzy-edged adventure-step through the labyrinth!
Poetry by Ingvar Loco Nordin
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Written on 2026-07-24 at 12:21
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Clara Mae Gregory |
