From Iceland — Ground Zero

Ground Zero

Published January 26, 2015

Photo by
Magnús Dagur Sævarsson

ZEN

Ring the bells! Ring the repetitive alarms—the irresistibly itching reminders of circular memories! Pull the triggers! Ignite the fuzes of colourful calorie bombs—the highly explosive redeemers of repressive histories! Entrepreneurs of all progressive Lebensraums, reunite! Artfully insert your edgy index fingers into the generous soil! May infinite amounts of holy bread and healing circuses pompously flood the farmsteads of your enemies’ sacrilegious lands! Pray for a final solution—for a fulfilling end to their growths, to their gains, to their plagues, to their poisonous breaths!

SHRINE

An over-voiced clergyman pauses, sneakingly blowing his allergic nose. Below him, the fireworked cult remains catastrophically silent as a Goliath worth of a ping pong ball—electrified by heretofore unheard-of mass of convictions—methodically jumps between glittery heads breeding undisputed earth connections par excellence. Eyes get shut, mouths mopped, tongues cut, ears chopped, chins knocked, lips clinically sewed up. All the other cheeks are turned—deadly strokes returned.

WEIGHT

A cross fucks the crescent. A crescent sucks the cross. In the basement of an abandoned monastery, at the top of a steep mental hill crowned with thorns of woven thunders, a foamy muzzled veteran monk spanks a praying crowd of freshly captured mujahideen. Tied up and chained to the wall, a livestock of Dalai Lama copycats and Rastafarian fridge magnet designers steadfastly operate the spiritual cogwheel—harmoniously chanting a tranquillizing mantra of a “fountain flowing deep and wide, deep and wide, deep and wide…” All is hidden—incest is the nigger of the sensual world.

HEAVEN

Legions of powdered pigeon feathers fall gently from the love-polluted firmament. Quietly settling on privatized puzzles of reflectional debris scattered around the cemented desert. Finely chopped up by state-subsidized butchers. Lined up in flaming barricades of disciplined fossils during the never ending second ahead of the ever approaching vehemence. Finally transferred—via clandestine labyrinths of Nobel Prize plumbing—deep into the ravening nostrils of runaway marionettes.

FIX

Suddenly, seemingly unallied bus drivers mightily strike, staging an unforeseen coup as they abandon their means of production en masse, leaving on the acridly buzzing radios—the inevitably to-be-shot heralds of moderate etiquette: forcefully balanced neutrality. As unrestrained herds of four-legged humanimals flock to the mesmerizing flashmob, the in-between voice shouts out the utterly greatest of last year’s backbreaking news. A choir of soprano smartphones enlightens the sky.

HIVE

A THIEF TOOK. A COP SERVED. A KILLER SHOCKED. A JUSTICE CUT. A POLITICIAN DID. A COMMENTATOR SAID. A VOTER CROSSED. AN ANARCHIST BROKE. AN ARTIST STRIKED. A POET DOTTED. A CONVEYOR TRAVELLED. AN ENTERPRISE SOARED. A HUNTER SHOT. A VESSEL SUNK. A HERO SAVED. A VAGABOND LOST. A LETTER EXPLODED. A LOVER BETRAYED. AN ANIMAL ATE. A CREATOR MADE. A BELIEVER DOUBLED. A TERRORIST DROPPED. A DIRECTOR HEADED. A SAVAGE BEHEADED. A NOBODY WAS. A NATION WAS NOT. A NOTION WAS MAYBE. A MEDIUM WORKED.

MORE

The shit hits the fan. And the fan shit the hits. And the hits become popular clicks. Two sides to antagonize without risking. Five ways to swim without touching water. Seven days to spend in a bottomless hot spring of glory without losing oxygen. Nine peculiar lives to lead without noticing. Ten or eleven explicit commandments to keep in a bulletproof safe by a chartered accountant. Twelve months to count—to count in and count out. Equally many apostles to bat without blinking.

KNEE

At the centre of a royally ornamented square, surrounded by fishhook-like flagpoles and haunted crystal meth palaces, a hole in the ice-covered ground draws 360 degrees attention. Around it, a uniformed brass band of malformed misfits plays Strawberry Fields. A jet black and empty faced, genderless mortal—its iron-coated neck garnished with endangered snakes—monotonously repeats a forbidden refrain from the forsaken innards of innocent bystanders: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” BOOM! A geyser of distilled saliva kills infidels in thousands.

FLU

Raindrops travel upwards—the traffic heads backwards. Delicatessen enter the rectum—exit the mouth undigested. Disliked letters leave the screen via candle wax fingers, silently downwards the blossoming spinal cord, into the over-nourished earth of original words. From deserted rooftops, leftover filmmakers turn their lenses to a carnivalesque battalion of semi-headless creatures, carried by bastards of angles and apes, ceremoniously marching towards an omniabsent tomorrow of unwritten territories, atonally trumpeting a radically realistic demand: “NO MORE REALITY!”

GONE

The first becomes last. And the last becomes next. And the next becomes fast. And the fast becomes text. And the text becomes question that’s vexed. Silver coins and plastic stripes join long-defeated forces. Sugar-coated toxic fruits ride overdone pieces of decadent horses. Mobs of filthy zeros float an inch above nullpunkt—blatantly looting the lungs of last monkeys standing. Gangs of pinioned birds sing missing pseudo-psalms from future crashes—a tickling strain of absinth fills the air.

This is a poem by our friend and frequent contributor Snorri. This seems like the perfect time to print some poetry. Enjoy!

Support The Reykjavík Grapevine!
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!

Show Me More!