Aase Berg

1967

The new Highway E4 between Enånger and Hudiksvall before

The new Highway E4 between Enånger and Hudiksvall before
it is opened to traffic. A cold planet platform in future tense seen through
the woods.

The traffic rules have not yet taken effect, and right blows
from left. Still a smooth surface, the dimensions have
not been awakened, they will be rolled out when
speeding vehicles pull out on the wind-speed's disappear-routes of jet velocity.
The vehicles shooting by with faceless ghosts.
Thickly blacked vehicles form black asphalt
escape routes toward the earth's heart.

Waves of invisible hope, a rushing river of speed.

Far in the distance, outside the endorfine room,
the Motor Men's bellowing, a four-wheeler absorbing cosmic
vastness. A glowing space-fly casts
flitting silhouettes on bibulous surface.

When the remorse grows steadily worse, the abuser's
ruthlessness evolves into a manic trance, from which
he increasingly fears waking up. Instead metal fatigue
will gradually overtake him. Can the sleep of matter
be humanized?

Friction against cooling process of slow lava.
A horse who grazes next to the highway,
dissolved sap in its warm intestines, inflated floating
along foraging paths, devouring the world's rest.

The horse is a shelter in which time stands still.
The sky reddens overhead in a murmuring calm.

But the horse is also a war machine,
the road a cloud,
the asphalt slackens,
time surges.

If speed is the urge get away, towards what.

Translation: Johannes Göransson
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