this bird has flown

Kongsvinger  |  3 degrees  |  cloudy

back at the Sentralstasjon

hot coffee in hand

all about are padded and muffled

grey and black

matt and flat

gloves and hats + hiking boots

the train travels smoothly

out of the city

through spindly woodlands

sparse and white with thin crisp snow

at Kongsvinger station – much smaller

than it’s google photograph –

cold winds dither round its 6 bus stops

bus driver asks where i’m going

and he drops me at the door !

the door is open and here is Astrid

welcoming and smiling

here’s the studio, and this is my story…

here’s the bathroom

this is your room – you can get a heater

there’s the kitchen and help yourself,

enjoy, be creative !

meet the shadowy boy from Taiwan

smiling sweetly and with halting english

he is friendly but moves quietly

from room to room to be alone

and meet the tired looking girl just back from

Oslo – buying canvas

she’s from Ottowa and a painter

in a Munch like manner

she seeks wintery residencies

in places just like home

to make a start I find an empty place

at the long table in the big windowed studio

it is warm and the heating blows noisily

in the background

am on Wi Fi and connect again

with the world

I make a plan

make a list – stuff to finish off

stuff to begin – stuff to think about

alone in the house,  in the dark,

near dense forests and deep lakes

it’s thrilling and strange

I can see myself and the glow of a small lamp

reflected in the window

left it rather late but

I cook an omelette in a pan

something smells horrible

it’s the smoking pan

with centuries of ancient acrid Elk fat

(I imagine – it is late after all!)

emanating from it’s base

I cook the omelette and feel

quite ill

the acrid smell becomes a taste

that lingers on until the next day

Oslo  |  0 degrees  |  fog

arriving in Oslo

at the airport – all pale wood and clean lines

along the windowed corridor

and emerging from the downward escalators

in small groups we hold up our passports

one by one

and later emerge to collect our baggage

trains this way, tickets for trains, which train express or what ?

machines for tickets

– in a queue

head to express train

it smoothly slides in view and on I get

through Oslo it goes, into cold countryside

and towns – ghostly grey in shrinking fog

there are screens with rolling news

in Paris they’ve stormed a flat

women have blown themselves up

at Oslo Sentralstasjon

am overheated in this fast and modern place

down the escalator and out

into the brittle chill air

ahead is the chic and whitely slanted opera house

about me are men dishevelled,

layered up for outdoor living

but to the left and right again

is the hostel

definitely not chic nor slanted

a man opens the door

handwritten signs point to recepsjon

up a load of spiralling stairs

a get a key, a dark red towel and linen

for the bed

up 2 more flights

past orange rag-rolled walls

a place once grand now carved up

to a room that smells of cold and dirt

twin beds – gritty pale blue lino underfoot.

I head for Karl Johans Gate

the main drag

parliament, cathedral + theatres

can be seen from here

national gallery and marc jacobs

can be seen along the way

Det Kongelige Stottet

(a royal palace)

modest by Buck house standards

sits neat and tidy above of the city

looking out to sea.

lots of shops – could be Brighton

but beggars and christmas lights

line the street.

after pizza, whiskey and a read of

M. Wollstonecrafts’s letters from Norway

I sleep

despite the battered door

outside my room, with a sign that advises

‘all to lock their doors or look

what happens !’