Reykjavík Grapevine - 11.09.2015, Side 30

ARTISAN BAKERY
& COFFEE HOUSE
OPEN EVERYDAY 6.30 - 21.00
LAUGAVEGUR 36 · 101 REYKJAVIK
30 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 14 — 2015CULTURE
is this your moaning dog, sorry, no pets,
is this your bag, your children, is this your
weakness, your hunger, your drowning,
and have you brought any items worth
more than $1000, any alcohol or tobacco,
any misrepresentations of your culture,
any misconceptions about ours, have you
brought any prejudice, any oppression,
have you brought fascism, PTSD, dyslexia,
religion and/or technical prowess, have
you brought entrepreneurship, MSG,
AIDS or artistic talent, uncooked meats
(discounting dead children), exotic fruit
or fruitlike substances, is this your meal
ticket, your passport, is this your outlook,
your perspective, your pessimistic nature,
and how good is your kebab;
will there be people coming after
you, talentless kin or secret police, dirty
scoundrels or pretty ladies of desperation,
and when will you return, will there come
others worth less or more, in cash, love,
adoration, others with more baggage,
heavier loads, carrying still others with
even heavier loads, handicapped zealots
and canned foods, unmarked medicine
which might as well be heroin, unmarked
citizens who might as well be terrorists,
pimps, bearers of bad news and rabies,
babies without baby-daddies, babies with
gender issues and subliminal war trauma,
complicated futures, who may or may not
become transgressive artists and may or
may not make us proud, but they better
make good kebab;
is this your mode of transporta-
tion, is this your buggy, your barge, your
ornithopter, your sandals to remind us of
christ, your deep brown eyes, olive skin,
are these your common features, hordes,
herds, are these your trampling feet,
these your gigabytes floating overhead,
these your smartphones (you can't have
smartphones), are these your drones or
our drones, have you brought any dis-
heartening priorities or policies in your
buggy, any unfortunate consequences of
preventable causes in your barge, have
you brought any sense of responsibility
for your own situation in your ornithop-
ter, and I can have some kebab, yes, mit
scharfer Soße;
is this your benefit concert and if so
have you brought any instruments, are
you carrying any tunes, any appropriate
melancholies, malappropriate melodies,
and would you care to share in our boun-
tiful cocaine, in any case there's a back-
stage and a VIP backstage and refugee
status will grant you access to both, here
have some beer tickets, there will be, you
know, food, we know you’re hungry, but
we may just have run out of kebab;
is this an automatic reminder about
the compassion you have for the down-
trodden, exiled and drowned; an auto-
matic reminder about the children at the
bottom of the Mediterranean, the children
midway sinking or floating upwards, the
children heading for shore, gasping, or
playing in the sand, panting, the children
face down on facebook, seen not heard,
shown not told, is this your automatic
reminder about grains of sand, drops of
ocean, herds, hordes, schools, locusts,
poverty, values, sacrifice and the sky, the
mighty, mighty sky and lest we forget, ke-
bab;
is this perhaps your conscientious
lasso, your way of asking have we not al-
ready surpassed our humanity, wrangled
our collective bosoms into a tidal wave of
social media hugs, is not all better already
and if not then soon(ish) yes, you will stop
sobbing and start making kebab;
is this your tasteful image manage-
ment and if it does not preclude actually
helping, we may in the future once more
engage your vanity and your proclivity for
conga lines (monkey say, monkey do) in
the service of good, and then perhaps
with less cynicism, less disdain, more
sincerity, more pure-hearted love and un-
fathomable loads of kebab;
is this your bi-annual investment in a
better soul, another rung for the ladder, or
just something to keep you occupied on
a tuesday, beats the dishes, beats home-
work, beats worrying about dinner, beats
moaning about compassion for others, is
this not actually doing something or is it
merely virtually doing something, is there
less or more there here, less here there,
any more beer near, I swear, I'd give my
döner for a kebab;
do you promise to like us and like-
like us and be like us and not just up and
go when you don't need to like us, or any-
one like us, we really want you to like us,
do you promise not to complain, protest,
riot, do you promise diligence, allegiance,
like us, you won't go back and you won't
behead anyone like us, you won't just stay
on welfare like us, you will turn out to be
worth it in the long run, like us, unlike us,
for the bottom line, this is the bottom line,
yes finally the bottom line, if you leave
we'll have no kebab, please like us, that is
the bottom line.
---
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl (1978) is a writer and
a novelist from Ísafjörður, Iceland. He has a
novel coming out this fall, it’s called ‘Heim-
ska’ (“Stupidity”). Learn more about his
work at www.norddahl.org.
Steingrímur Gauti Ingólfsson (1986) is an
artist from Reykjavík. Learn more about his
work at www.steingrimurgauti.wix.com
A Poem
About Kebab
New Poem by
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
Fresh Paintings by
Steingrímur Gauti Ingólfsson