Five Friends on a Saturday Evening in Oslo

Five friends in the park, high school or recently graduated,

all good-looking, but not quite equally, all dressed

differently, but in outfits chosen carefully for a Saturday

night out, laughing, hugging, jostling one another,

posing for photos in various combinations–someone

has to take the picture, after all, and it looks like a couple

of them might be, or have been coupled, at least one

seems probably single, but clearly they all know each

other well, they all have with one another the intimacy

of relaxed familiarity, able to touch without worrying

what it means, and they’re drinking Isbjørn beer

from cans carried in a paper bag, walking around,

checking out the music festival in this park, the

outdoor dance party in the next one over,

but mainly just enjoying each other’s company

on a beautiful June evening that will seem nearly endless

since the sun won’t set until after 10, and true dark

will hardly come at all this time of year, and their

youth must now seem almost that eternal too, and

though it will someday fade, as youth does, I

hope their friendship will endure, just the way

it is right now, for at least a lifetime.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

Sunday-Morning Meet-Up

Young man sitting on a park bench,

sunglasses on, blond hair well cut,

in grey shorts, maroon T-shirt

that shows he’s spent time in the gym,

legs crossed, on his phone of course.

After a while, he gets up and walks

over to the the tram-stop shelter,

alternately glancing at phone and street,

and then another walks up to join him,

a half-embrace, not quite a hug–

What does this sunny day in Oslo

hold in store for them?

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

The Stave Church from Gol

Stands now on Bøgdoy in Oslo, displaced in time and space,

a reconstruction, of course, but isn’t everything really?

Imagine a time when infant Christianity had come, but

the dragons had not yet gone into hiding, the magic

was frail, faltering, but not yet quite dead.

Outside, spires reach heavenward, but dragons

climb them. And then, through a portal like a

keyhole, one enters an early-medieval quiet

that must have seemed a welcoming sanctuary

not only from the old dragons and new demons,

but also from the uncertainty of change, a

comfortable snug of softly filtered light and warm

wood beautifully painted and carved,

but low-key, not ostentatious.

Imagine minds troubled by literal demons

seeking solace here–and though, in the

aftermath of science, it’s easy to mock

their fears, are we driven any less to distraction

by the continual parade of cat videos and

Tik-Tok dances, twisted memes and conspiracy

theories? And for just a moment…

Yes, only for a moment, to entertain the fantasy

of changing demons with them, going back

to a time when, an internal space where,

binaries are real but digital has no meaning.

But then I snap the image on my phone;

I’ll post it on social media.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

View to the Fjord

From Holmenkollen,

a train ride down the mountain,

rain splashing window,

looking over woods and town;

in the distance, Oslofjord.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

Olaf Ryes Plass

You wouldn’t think that I, pacifically minded,

would find appealing a place named for a battle hero,

even if he did also fling himself nine meters into the air

on skis, but this little park in Grünerløkke fast became

my favorite place in Oslo, my temporary Penny Lane:

on weekdays, the province of lunchtime picnickers

with their matpakker, the place to catch

the trams into the city center; on Saturday

night, the location for a music festival, the

local place to be and to be seen; on Sunday morning,

a tranquil spot for a coffee, a newspaper, a walk with

you dog, a bit of knitting, a quiet conversation,

in person or on your mobile, and maybe a little later,

a busker or two, just a singer with a guitar.

And so, Olaf, soldier, skier, a man I might have liked

but probably wouldn’t have, Skål for deg!

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

Slottet

Looks like King Harald’s home,

or at least his flag is flying,

but he hasn’t invited me inside,

and I guess it’s just as well,

not that I wouldn’t like to meet him–

I hear he’s thoughtful and funny

and down-to-earth as far as royals go–

but I have to confess I don’t much like

the house, big and all, but rather drab,

like Buckingham without the fancy fence,

but, still, I’m glad I happened by;

I have to say, the yard is pretty nice.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

Oslo Sentralstasjon

Though a statuary tiger prowls outside it

and Henning took the train here from Mysen

to look for drugs in the original Norwegian Eyewitness,

you’re unlikely to feel too fearful if you’ve

ever been to Rome, say, or Amsterdam–

you’ll probably survive this one unharmed,

still in possession of your wallet even,

accosted only by magazine-hawkers as you step outside,

but it still harbors the energy, the chaos,

the crazy travel-weary confusion of any

city-center terminus, a place of arrival

and departure, anticipation and retrospect,

a glassy modern nexus where you meet

not only others but yourself

coming and going.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

For Show

So of course I had to find it,

Hartvig Nissens Skole where the SKAM kids went,

a real school from a fictional series,

and walking up Niels Juels gate from the tram stop,

I almost pass it before I notice it, but there it is—

I know those windows and that entrance arch,

even masked as it is by some construction work.

The building’s architecture is pleasing enough, but

not especially remarkable in relation to its companions;

the extraordinary thing is its position on a real-world street

from a fictional universe, and that I’m standing in front of it

in a city I’ve long imagined but feared I would never

really get to visit.

Like many non-Norwegian viewers, I found the show

on the internet, entering at Season 3, the Isak-and-Even season,

having encountered many references to it, searching out first

short clips and then digging for full episodes subtitled in English.

And, like so many others, I was drawn in by the freshness of the script,

the compelling story shared by the characters, and the

obviously genuine chemistry between the actors portraying them.

It’s been a few years now, and the actors have moved on—

not just Tarjei Sanvik Moe and Henrik Holm, but others too,

like David Stakston and Herman Tømmeraas—but avid fandom

persists for both the Norwegian original and the remakes for

audiences in Italy and the Netherlands; the series clearly 

connected with its viewers.

And here I am, on an imagined trip now realized, visiting

locations for scenes that I remember: the school of course,

and just one street over, on Skovveien, the coffee shop

where Isak at the window on his phone tries

to communicate with his parents and where he meets

up with Even for the surprise adventure he has planned.

Later on, across town, I’ll find the high-rise hotel

where they spend their special night, and explore

Grønland, the neighborhood where Isak searches

after manic Even wanders naked into the morning.

Isak finds himself at sea, not knowing the backstory

and thus bewildered by Even’s behavior, but aren’t

we all a bit bewildered when we’ve entered a new

and unexpected relationship and come to know someone

in this present moment but not yet in all their other moments.

Their relationship is shaken but not broken. The high

precipitates the low, and love is not easy in a state of depression,

but sometimes one can climb from the abyss if another

offers a hand, a kiss, a constancy of love.

The hotel was a one-off thing, but there’s a shared flat in Season 4.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

Nedre Foss

You know the river’s there, of course, you’ve seen it on the maps,

a short one, just five miles, but scenic, lovely when it’s clean,

and you hear the rush-and-tumble from a little distance

as you approach, so the cascade should hardly surprise you,

and yet it does, every time you turn aside from the street

and descend the stairs or stroll pass the grassy bank

to find it there again, water washing over stone.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper

Oslo Harbor, June

More shades of grey than you could write a book about

on an overcast day in Oslo, opera house arching its back

and wedging its way into the landscape, ramping up

and then sliding down into the harbor, steel-blue and

calm, a grooved mirror reflecting the sky emptied from

a thousand-piece puzzle box, every piece grey but no

two of them the same grey, sky from water slashed

to reveal a skinny triangle of white-edged blue

over one stripe of brownish architecture, and a single

speck of red hooding the one pedestrian, probably

not local, who missed the grey-is-the-new-grey memo

and stands out like a cardinal in a field of dirty snow,

but it’s summer now, the light near perpetual even

when cloud-filtered, and the mood is one of energies

compressed and potentially colliding into spectacle,

life budding awake rather than blanketing itself in gloom.

Copyright 2022

T. Allen Culpepper