vesturferðarvísur anno 2004

Harmur var Hrímgrundi
að halda frá
Ísafold yfirgefa
ástvini kveðja
Alþreytt á Manhattan
millilending
fyrsti áfanginn
yfirstaðinn.

Hún kom til landsins við Langey og keyrði úr Konungsfylki vestur til Manhattan-eyjar. Þar heyrðist karlmannsrödd kveða í haug einum við veginn:

Greenwich Village
Vesturbær
Staten Eyland
Austurbær
Bronx og Battery
Brooklyn, Queens
Harlem, Miðbær
Miklagarður.

Hún kvað á móti:

Sæll vertu Stuyvesant
stjóri borgar fyrrum
Pétur tréfótur
traustur hollendingur
Segðu mér af öllu
á eyjunni litlu
Hvað er að frétta
fræga bænum af?

Pétur tréfótur kvað á móti:

Bruna gummíbátar
á bylgjum árinnar
vopnaðir vélbyssum
vel útbunir
gamla miðborgin
morandi i löggum
öryggisástand
aukið mjög.

*

asterion

Well-starred.

rime

If they ever tear that place down, plow it under, or refurbish it, I will be very sad. The Kreppa will probably preserve it in its núverandi form, however.

This summer the heitir pottar were full of the usual suspects:

• Ormtyngdur former institute director backtalking his colleagues
• Broad-faced giant absently fiddling with his own nipples
• A young bóndi from Dalasýsla reminiscing about the countryside with men much older than he by enumerating the things vanished from his valley: the slaughterhouse, the children, the majority of the sheep
• Pensioner with an unending book project that brings him daily to his desk at the library and then to his evening soak
• The usual token foreigner, oblivious to the content of the skvaldur around him

The poster outside touts the health-giving properties of the minerals suspended in these waters. It does not mention the pipes in the showers, ever more encrusted with those same minerals. It does not mention the encrustation of chattering characters on the edges of the hot tubs, but I have even greater faith in their salutary effects on body and soul.

skel