Parfymens äventyr (extract from a longer text)

The clocks were just striking six as Mara began to cross Vasaparken. It had already been dark for hours, and gangs of children were playing ice hockey under the park floodlights. A lot of people were still strolling around, despite the darkness and mosquitoes. The rounded artificial contours of the park had been battered and dented by a recent meteor shower, and small chunks of ore still lay around on the ground. Without thinking, Mara automatically bent to pick one up and put it into her pocket as she walked along.

Before very long she had left the park and was turning along various streets in search of her destination. After a few minutes she stopped in front of a tall red brick apartment building and took a slip of paper from her pocket to check the address that was written there. The piece of paper had been rubbing against the lump of ore as she walked and gradually become magnetised by the friction: now the paper and the ore were stuck fast together, and what was worse, it was the written side of the paper which was attached to the ore, so that she was quite unable to read it. Was this the right house? It stood in the middle of a street of identical buildings, the only exceptions being a few small shops – a florist, a hairdresser, a couple of antique dealers with little golden ornaments and knick-knacks in the windows. She had arrived at the front door just as a young man was coming out, and as he was politely holding the door open for her she decided that she may as well go inside after all. As she stepped into the hallway she was surprised to find that the staircase had apparently been replaced with a waterfall which smelled of bleach and other chemicals. The smell was not unpleasant, but she decided to take the lift instead all the same.

Coming out of the lift on the seventh floor, she almost collided with a small blonde girl who was just emerging onto the landing from the waterfall. The girl was wet through, especially her hair which dripped a trail of strong-smelling water behind her as she went along the corridor. Mara followed her. The two of them came to a stop outside the same door. They stood looking at each other shyly for a moment until the girl finally asked: “Oh! Are you invited to the dinner party too?”

The Enchanted Forest

found image

(the side-panel of a lorry parked on the high street)

One-eyed skull on the Underground

Her voice carries through a thousand years

The Sibyl with raving mouth utters things mirthless and unadorned and unperfumed ...

found midday at the kerbside
a gust of wind carried the tresses away

larval and azure

larval and azure, the tracheal glister
conquers the breastbone in boreal daylight
grey as the cinnamon-traders’ horses
whose hooves spark milk from the flinty paths