Editor’s Note
Per Olvmyr suite of poems reminded me of the composer and music theorist John Cage’s ‘Lecture on Nothing’, where early on Cage admits, ‘I have nothing to say / and I am saying it / and that is / poetry / as I need it’. Of course, Cage does have a lot to say, as does Olvmyr, despite their intentional flatness and deliberate anti-poetic register. It is this surface nothing, a potent nothing, a meditative nothing that first intrigued me when I encountered these poems.
At face value, the simple declarative sentences appear to resist narrative, metaphors or transformations in the traditional sense. But these poems are characterized by simple persistent repetitions, the stillness of attention, and an uninterrupted, pointed witnessing, all of which add to their zen-like textures. Consider how, after a series of unremarkable factoids about the orange, we’re told it is ‘enclosed in its own peel’ (why is the orange considered separate from its skin?), and later, ‘now the orange closes its eyes’. This moment not only animates the object but inanimates the (this) reader, to a state of stillness and contemplation. Where quiet is a container.
—Pervin Saket
The Bombay Literary Magazine
i
The orange is on the table.
ii
It doesn’t roll away.
iii
It remains in its place.
iv
It does nothing.
v
While not trying to escape, it just sits there.
vi
Enclosed in its own peel.
vii
It just sits there like an orange is supposed to.
viii
It seems to be waiting by itself.
ix
Now the orange closes its eyes.
x
But it doesn’t move.
xi
I look at it.
xii
I look at the orange.
xiii
I look at it without moving.
i
The seagull seems to wear a white tight-fitting sports jacket.
ii
In the morning it appears to use the roof as shoes.
iii
The bird’s presence is very intrusive and with almost no respect for intimacy.
iv
With its constant, high-pitched screams, it occupies the airspace.
v
From rooftop to rooftop, the bird flies up in high circles and lands, only to quickly decide to change shoes once more.
vi
In spite of being a bird, it moves surprisingly clumsily in the air, but it’s the repetition of movement that is terrifying.
vii
On closer inspection, the seagull’s expression looks like Baudelaire with a beak.
viii
When it opens its beak, it sounds like a garbage station trying to sing like Maria Callas.
ix
On the roof of the car, it looks out over the road, like Napoleon, although it is still just a car roof it sits on.
x
One minute later it settles down on a nearby rooftop, again.
i
This is my kneecap.
ii
It is slightly bald.
iii
Most of the time it stays in the same place without moving, except when I move.
iv
It does what it can to stay in place.
v
The light veins around the knee make me think of Lichtenberg figures.
vi
The kneecap, it turns out, is quite mobile.
vii
It bends inwards, with rather large, deep pits in two places.
viii
If I place my finger in the pit, it fits well there.
ix
It looks pretty funny.
x
But it’s just a kneecap.
xi
After losing myself in my kneecap, when I emerge, it remains exactly the same as before.
xii
I start looking at my other kneecap.
i
The cauliflower resembles clouds more than clouds.
ii
Ideally, it would prefer to be a Rococo armchair.
iii
The cauliflower manifests randomness gone out of control.
iv
Perhaps that’s why it wobbles so clumsily on the kitchen counter.
v
It is almost impossible to put a finger between its stems.
vi
The cauliflower ascends like Ionic capitals.
vii
Being-in-it-self it creates dented daydreams.
viii
The more you consider the cauliflower the more it grows.
i
The heart is a bird sitting next to the ribs.
ii
The heart’s feet are red.
iii
Sometimes the heart opens its beak.
iv
Every now and then it makes a creaking sound.
v
It uses the chest as its living room.
vi
It has dug a long narrow passage through the body.
vii
The heart has blunt wings.
viii
When resting, the heart tucks its beak into the armpit.
ix
The heart has 4 office chairs, but rarely spins on any of them.
x
That’s because the heart has no illusions.
xi
With its heartbeat it names itself.
xii
Until all there is is an empty birdcage.
Acknowledgements
Image credits: © Ziqian Liu. Check out her Insta feed for more of her wonderful compositions. For more about the artst, see www.ziqianqian.net.
Per Olvmyr’s poems cried out for a cover image that could play Ginger Rogers to their Fred Astaire. Or an Arwen to a reflective Jersey Cow. You get the idea. Well, you probably don’t. Here, have an orange.
Author | Per Olvmyr
Per Olvmyr is a writer of absurdist fiction, prose and poetry. He lives in Malmö, Sweden, and has been published by literary magazines such as Poetry Wales, Gone lawn, Glänta, Takahē and Propagule magazine.
