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When did you look at your hands and decide
they could no longer hold on?
The year you were born,
the comet Kohoutek
appeared in a dull, dark sky
spooking everyone into doomsday theory mode.
Did your parents make you in a moment of panic?
could you hear the apocalyptic pronouncements from the womb?
was it the airplane noises that startled you
as you began your initial descent into the world?
When did you look at your trembling hands
and realize you couldn’t stay here?
when did the interstellar communications begin?
Was it the comet’s vibrations?
Was it a thought you couldn’t grasp?
Was it something else entirely?
Something I failed to say?
How many other comets buzzed around you
while you cursed the heavens,
while you misplaced my love,
while you lost your inner war
and took off.
How many I didn’t see
how many, in your eyes?
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2. |
Cursed with Clarity
02:04
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Cursed with clarity
It’s fascinating how the brain
can give the hand an unconscious order
and make it reach for whatever the heart
is asking for.
Life is consecrated in the moments of suspense
the shimmers of clarity:
So, this object you hold
not heavy, weary, but pulsating with life
squiggle-dances and slithers
it rises to the heavens
your beggar fingers cannot contain it
The heart says you cannot possess love
the brain seconds the motion
your knuckles loosen up
the truth slides away from you
it flees miles away from you,
this diamond-like play of light
blinds you temporarily
… when you wake up it’s clear
there’s no going back.
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3. |
Open Source Sacred
03:32
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Open Source Sacred
I have come to tell you
that you are free
Take a deep breath:
You’ve got to be able to pick up my movements
with your eyes closed
you’ve got to be ready to know when it’s time to strike
without second-guessing.
if I let go of your hand at this moment
you will not be hindered by fear.
You’ve got to really want this.
Reality amounts to nothing more and nothing less
than a series of mediated images
and after a while you will begin to hear it…
There is a dark side to it as well,
a disruption that knocks the perceiver out of known flesh
the ironic discord must become the way,
death is the price of orgasm.
And when you’re ready to go
And when you are ready to let go
you will reap the harvest
you will break free
you already are
free.
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4. |
Arcane Encounter
04:05
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Arcane Encounter
Feeling
manifests itself
in the form of frantic, unrestrained movements.
Along the road
it’s difficult to see all the highs and lows,
but once the journey is over you can see everything clearly.
I wonder how it is possible that there are billions of people
in the planet
who only have emotions they perceive as neutral
and then there is us.
Sometimes it seems to me
there is no map to finding a way out of this.
The numbness in your extremities
reminds you of the inevitability of death
a symptom of a broader shift in consciousness
a spasm, a concept, a mode of being, a sigil, a raw material,
which long resisted this impulse to let go
but now prefers to be part of a mass transmission.
Bright sun shining on us through white curtains
I suppose when the journey is over
we will know.
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5. |
Thoughts of Eternity
05:24
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Thoughts of Eternity
Commercial break.
////////
Allow me to remind you of the inner voice,
humming like an old refrigerator,
the tender breeze,
the pale butterfly coming and going,
the sheep gathering in groups to roam on open pastures,
the waves of disappointment and irritation
like invisible itches on your body.
Things are never what they seem.
Sometimes the world appears busy and complicated
like a puzzle missing crucial pieces,
a constant forming of bruises
a sinister joke about capitalism or aging.
There are lighthouses of all shapes and sizes
their lights move slowly
reflected on dark bodies of water
which sing to you in perfect harmony:
You shall not fear – You shall not succumb
Wave upon wave
with such mystical sublimity
the desire feels attainable.
Thoughts of eternity:
If you feed them,
they will become fiends instead of foes.
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6. |
Neurological Scramble
06:30
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Neurological Scramble
Just when you think you have all the answers
the sky shifts from pitch dark to light blue
There’s a sudden flash of light behind your pupils.
It penetrates the enclosure of the world
and makes itself therein heard
as a call:
A panicked feeling
A despairing collection of reconstructed experiences
A quest
A flashback
An essence talking back
sprouting / behind the skin on your fingers
as you try to keep up.
Keep it all on the inside.
Bury a nail on it.
Come up with some beautifully written text
to explain the staggering visions
that keep you
awake.
Lights out.
Here we go again.
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7. |
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A degree of critical agency
You will not enter! – said the multitude
but you had already stepped well beyond the parallel of this reality.
The paradox for our story here
is that you did not escape the chapel
through psychiatric disenchantment
and I did not say the prayers
to safeguard our sanity,
which would have emphasised
essential differences
between left and right cerebral hemispheres.
It may have facilitated the degrees of separation.
Instead, here we are,
in limbo.
I keep thinking you’re still here, my friend
I take solace in my ability to keep my feet on the ground
even as the ground disappears.
Feeding crude data with needles to the crowd
and watching as their blank eyes begin to form an answer:
…They see you too.
They nod:
You may come in.
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8. |
Itinerary
04:45
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Itinerary
Do not let your wandering thoughts
feed you guilt as the pain recedes
you are in your absolute right
to come and go as you please
to enter paradise
and take from it what you must.
A twinge of fear
a spectacle
your collection of sunsets replaying all at once
on your closed eyelids…
what else do you see?
Memory is nothing
but a rubbish heap of details
fleeing from your earlobes
towards their own redemption / the intermediate state.
As they transition from their former life
to a new destination
It’s necessary that you release them
and by doing so, that you release me
a transference of knowledge
a summoning
I wonder what lies behind / beyond
May you know the truth
and shine like a boundless light.
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9. |
Eloquent Interpretation
07:55
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Eloquent Interpretation
Forgetfulness is a compass to safety:
Stale winter air,
a brilliantly clear, if not cold, day
or was it summer
the war between realities splits the planet in half
right down the middle divides one thing from the other
one memory from the next,
each piece so full of love and heartache
long coats and awkward silences
a long row of questions no one dares to answer;
One by one they pass in front of our eyes
like pieces from a glacier
sharp and crackling under the light.
Are you okay?
How are you doing?
Are we far from home?
Do you know your way back?
The shallow water came in with the tide
and began to cover the corners of those moments
when we most feared we would lose ourselves.
We kept going until the seagulls resembled insects
and disappeared
we kept going while the clouds came sporadically to life
and drew marine species in the sky
which then devoured one another and disintegrated
we kept going until we knew not if it was water or ground
below our feet
It felt at times like we were going straight down,
like we were falling.
Forgetfulness is a compass to safety;
A dream-like state where the sharp arrow of grief
begins to sting less and feel more like the outer shell of a cocoon
the narrative
into an extraordinary,
unequalled new form of existence.
We forgot if it was you or us,
We forgot if it was you or us,
who got left behind at the shore.
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10. |
Phenomenon of Release
04:18
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Phenomenon of release
In the village you recognized as your own nature
in the body you once saw as a favorable place
In the eyes where you once sought compassion or approval
In the caves where pleasure and pain came
as sudden animal impulses
nothing awaits you.
In the promise of returning
in the rooms where you paced backwards and forwards
consumed by the desperation of your daily living
in the hunger, rage and bitterness you made your uniform
in the warm embrace of the many bodies who loved you
nothing awaits you.
In the streets of childish feats where you mind roamed freely
In the temporary pleasures and alluring labyrinths
In the piling dust of photos nobody wants to look at
in the sudden moments of self-pity or self-indulgence
nothing awaits you.
A present event after a present event after a present event
you cannot break into or out.
In the heart whose grief threaded invisible chains
through other realms to keep you from this,
as the eyes open and close in spontaneous outpouring of sorrow,
the realization arrives:
Nothing awaits you here.
Nothing awaits you now.
NOTHING!
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11. |
Your Will is Our Peace
01:45
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Your will is our peace
Sometimes I wake up
and there is nothing.
No bundle of leaves and angst
No burning house, no temple open
no liquid acid spreading itself through the streets
no bills unpaid, no things unsaid
no waves coming nor going with your name,
as a matter of fact, no name.
And no spine and no bones and no warmth
where you used to lay.
No soft and kind intermissions from no long list of rage.
No tremor and no need for pills and no rush to go or stay.
In such days
I like to sit very still and enjoy the occasion
there’s a beauty in this emptiness
it expands like a tender mist towards all corners of me
and it continues growing above the tallest trees
until it covers everything in white shimmering light
nature’s stupor
and it is in this place that I feel closest to you
I assume this is what it’s like
a gentle moving on from the convulsions
a caress of infinity that sets us free.
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12. |
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Would you like to come home?
Weeks passed,
months,
years passed,
the sea level rose
and the foundation of sand and rocks
started to give in.
Every room of the house
began to shut down
in loud shrieking noises and small spasms
an orchestra of mourning and lament
that nobody could hear because the sea, too, had turned into storm,
in it the rhythm of death was even louder,
a black fog had covered the shore and the waves,
the moon saw this and crawled into its shell,
and the beetles that guarded the shores
disintegrated into fine green dust
in one fearful movement.
In this dark abode one could not see much
the stars, millions of miles away
hid in the crevices of the sky.
A vision of you
standing in front
of a vision of me
but it was two others entirely
two who after a long journey cannot reach one another
we turned around, each in their realm, and asked simultaneously:
Would you like to come home?
And in front of our eyes, no home to return to
and behind us only sunken ships and coral.
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13. |
Praise Be Unto You
08:38
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Praise be unto you
Peace shall arrive
like the sun emerging from the clouds,
as the wind recites
the numerous forms which your heart was pleased to take
so as to keep you here.
You, who settled within the limitations
of a living being
imprisoning your mind with daily made-up duties
You, who rambled upon these streets
inebriated with despair and chaos
but chose to keep on walking
giving yourself to countless trembling bodies night after night
You who cherished the hidden caves
under the parks
and made them temples of adoration
to anyone who felt like playing deity,
and didn’t mind the emptiness of the aftermath.
You, who in earthly hours
dug with your fingers
opening every portal in your flesh
and once you found an opening wide enough
stretched your hand and pulled out
an unmentionable solution
Praise be unto you.
You who drank every omen
and danced every feeling
and fucked every melody
and searched through every orifice
and dwelled in every horizon
until there was no more hope
to be retrieved from your marrow.
You who stood with your arms raised
in enlightened intention one last time
after having arranged all the pieces of a puzzle
others would stare at endlessly to explain your reasoning.
Around you three apes
typical of the spirits of dawn
and on your right the sunset and no goddess to your left
You who didn’t feel the urge
to stick around for the apocalypse
and simply picked up your strength and disappeared
Praise be unto you.
I kneel before your memory
shimmering rainbows appearing amidst the clouds
I release you from our contract
of mutual torment / and yes, love too
I release what is there for me to release
You, whose untamed heart now roams freely
across a vaulted sky where we cannot reach you
Praise be unto you.
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Madam Neverstop Denmark
Madam Neverstop is a multimedia artist and worldthreader.
Her work intertwines poetry, visuals and soundscapes, language and performance, combining visions and concepts across various art forms and media.
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