G(e)nome
G(e)nome
halvard johnson
xPress(ed)
G(e)nome by Halvard Johnsom
Cover Art by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
Copyright (C) 2003.
Design, Typesetting and e-Publishing:
xPress(ed)
Espoo, Finland
Copyright (C) 2003 by Halvard Johnson
All rights reserved
Electronically published in Finland
ISBN 951-9198-38-5
WWW: http://www.xpressed.org
email: info@xpressed.org
for Lynda
Synaesthetic Sonnet #1
gr unts, groans, howls and shrieks,
frontal lobes concerned with emotion,
superficially dissimilar things, deep links,
howls of system, dusk of syntax
neurobiological basis of metaphor,
emergence of language, embedding of clauses
within larger sentences, pur ple like a toxic herb,
first shape the hammer’s head
guttural utterances produced by the right
hemisphere, he was green with nakedness when
she knocked, joining words into phrases
and sentences, on a seed and attach basis
Synaesthetic Sonnet #2
and sentences, on a seed and attach basis
she knocked, joining words into phrases
hemisphere, he was green with nakedness when
guttural utterances produced by the right
first shape the hammer’s head
within larger sentences, pur ple like a toxic herb,
emergence of language, embedding of clauses
neurobiological basis of metaphor
howls of system, dusk of syntax
superficially dissimilar things, deep links,
frontal lobes concerned with emotion,
gr unts, groans, howls and shrieks
Brazil
Vanishing sheep and goats capture
the beauty of a vanishing planet, explored by sea
or air . . . native people
rebound in the blue of the Amazon forest,
hard edge of darkness, wrist watches
and rings forever lost
street kids, Danish philosophers, and oil company
biologists suddenly appeared in Bolivia
shor tly after the Wor ld Cup
while the rare glimpses of blue,
a canopy raft, canopy sledge, centenar y palm
not so widespread as in southern
Brazil, including Belo Horizonte,
the blue and rose periods . . .
wary natives dodge from sight, paving
stones on a rigid man’s body, crack them
apar t with a sledge
"Cr ystal Blue Persuasion"
and other songs of the rainbow
world, across snowless
mountains, communities fretting
about disasters and disorders,
diminishing supplies of
books, candles,
bells . . . a modicum of humor, rainforest
razzmatazz
small quantity, modicum, trace, hint,
minimum; vanishing point; material point,
atom, particle, molecule, cor puscle, point,
speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace
of the pan, making a slope paper, cardboard tissue rolls,
tape, blue avocados, bananas, bamboo,
black pepper,
with a talent for vanishing from southern Mexico into Amazonian
Brazil, flying steeply up a rocky gradient,
cer tain that the power of blue light clearly against
clouds now low and thin, tents pitched on . . .
the unexplained flycatcher, sliding down a jungle slope
for a while, prior to disappearing . . .
G(e)nome
1. Life
It turned out Miami
the real owner of her apartment
once bothered his
long-cher ished destinations
2. Species
She reminded him
they too, his contemporar ies,
were out there
the rectitude of their complaints
3. History
Time’s healing power
most asinine younger days
a more general wor ld-embracing perdition
exactly what it was that troubled him
4. Fate
Filling in the picture
the roots of his distaste
looked at his wristwatch
gulping down historical kitsch
5. Environment
An era of belief in progress
educational advances
releases effected only by death
its three-star chuckwagons
6. Intelligence
The sheer brainlessness of his parents
chosen servants of divine
providence
no longer envied the bereaved
7. Instinct
Outside any banal moral codes
tiny, suddenly accumulating
changes, absence
of tenderness, anger he felt toward his own
X/Y.
Conflict
Entered without knocking
the mere passage of time
the Promethean shame
probably a genuine blonde
8. Self-Interest
The ooze of the canals
things more unbearable here
than around the globe
long-standing miseries
9. Disease
She kept a sharp eye on mar ket values
blindly flailing daily
because of the extent he had sinned
the barely noticed backdrop
10. Stress
Winds of change blew
on his mother’s hand
on his back in a way
that summoned fantasy
11. Personality
Swallowed up by quicksand
small, salmon-colored blossoms
somnambule indifference
a small circle of passengers
12. Self-Assembly
His Armenian aunts
faceless faces, he thought
enough to convince a few others
making money with the best of them
13. Pre-History
Then the wife
she was ancient too
standards of quality
antiquated chivalr y
14. Immortality
Another gin and tonic
too well for med
too much pride
suppressing the spirit
15. Sex
Unreality, Amer ican style
a dream journey
pseudo-reality of an artificial past
each outlived life-moment
16. Memory
Tw o blocks of text
an old, half-remembered melody
he continued his pilgrimage
the glass of the lamps
17. Death
Losing it, moment by moment
inher ited life-knowledge
the way he chose movies
made a smarter impression
18. Cures
Stations of the cross
old cars from a junkyard
both touched and interested
doomed to one treachery or another
19. Prevention
Befitting their exclusiveness
the vision
of a shared future
a fit of madness
20. Politics
A tempter was lurking
engendered reverence
reflected in the var nish
of a bright summer’s day
21. Eugenics
Shiny wooded pews
a kind of cloister church
incense tore at his throat
murmur of sumptuous darkness
22. Free Will
Night fallen on the country
they were passing through
she held it between her teeth
silken skin just above the knee
[source text: Gregor von Rezzor i, The Orient-Express,
trans. David Cameron Palastanga]
