maanantai 30. joulukuuta 2013

Syria and the shoemaker

517 dead in Aleppo,
151 bambini writes an Italian activist
I'm remembering the picture
of a Mi-8 with barrel bombs
death hanging on wires

but a billionaire man
who has played all his life with cars
hit a rock
and famous neurosurgeons fight to save him
fight

Yarmouk with it's 18 000 remaining
refugees among ruins
a lifetime of exile
230 000 scattered refugees twice over
people dying of starvation each day
children old people
even men in their best years
skeletons all

but Michael still lives
Michael fights for his life
Michael the Greatest
who has played with cars
his entire life
playing with cars
his fame

a little girl lifted
all covered in dust
from ruins
alive it is claimed
but it's hard to see from the picture
so we must trust the claim
and that she
is the only survivor
in her family

famous people are praying for Michael
they say to the press
tweet to the hoi polloi
shocked they say
that rock of a billion years
did not shatter when hit
by a billionaire's head

Muhammad the teenager came home
to find there was no home
no family left
all dead
in ruins
I'm not sorry they are dead
he supposedly said
again we must trust the claim
I'm only sad that they went away
and left me
I will go for them

but what about Michael?

30.12.2013
days are few now
the year falling
through the winter dark
towards rebirth
in blood
of innocents

as usual

30.12.2013

tiistai 17. joulukuuta 2013

dark night
black coffee
so tired
the wind
makes the lights
flicker
like heartbeats
wavering
on the edge
of abyss

17.12.2013

sunnuntai 8. joulukuuta 2013

1987 The First Intifada

before the eastern bloc fell
you rose up
but yours was an unwanted rebellion against oppression
yours was an unwanted liberation
your occupiers
your tormentors
they were the good guys to the west
standing on a moral high ground
made up of your bodies

they would go to cheer
the fall of the soviet system
those westerners who claimed to support freedom
they would continue to cheer
your oppression
killing imprisonment torture
the deaths of thousands
the illegal colonies
speaking of safety and security
of the oppressor
but never about your safety and security

they were joyful
those westerners
when the Berlin wall fell
they were indignant
when you opposed the illegal Wall
Israel uses to dissect what remains of your land
they speak of it in soft terms
trying to hide the brutal reality
the necessity of opposing it

of opposing what is being done to you
those westerners who so love freedom
the freedom they want to deny to you
because they believe in
Israel's freedom to oppress you
Israel's freedom to kill your children
Israel's freedom to torture you
Israel's freedom to steal your land
Israel's freedom from being humane

08.12.2013

perjantai 6. joulukuuta 2013

looking at individuals alone
we miss the unity
but looking at
individuals together

we recognize the truth

taking many different forms
to manifest itself
to adapt
all life on Earth is the same

one organism

06.12.2013

lauantai 30. marraskuuta 2013

snowfall on the last day of november
icy roads become white snakes
between dark forests
fields where dead grass
still peeks through the white

white snakes like thoughts
joining breaking off
becoming lost
in the gathering shadows
of winter mid-afternoon

in the gathering shadows
of a life in descent
from it's zenith
towards some unforeseen
moment of breaking off

30.11.2013

torstai 21. marraskuuta 2013

to my mother

every moment for the last four years
i have been standing beside your grave
wherever i have been

for every moment remaining in my life
i will be standing beside your grave
in grief for my loss

21.11.2013
early november morning

frozen puddles

cloudy sky
ready to unleash
its small white
paratroopers

winter coming
to conquer

21.11.2013

tiistai 19. marraskuuta 2013

sounds of rain
late in the night
all the sadness
of the autumn
hidden in the dark
better to sleep
when the pale
morning comes
over the fields
better to sleep
until the light
wanes

19.11.2013
Under cloudy skies
we walk in rain
to hide our tears

13.11.2013

tiistai 29. lokakuuta 2013

looking forward the human race
crawls in its own entrails
stands up and slips
in its own blood it shed

always looking forward
rising up and bleeding
suffering and blind
to much of our suffering

we go on
in pain
and ignorance
our own worst enemy

29.10.2013
it all drains out
in the dark
the essence
of life

29.10.2013
like ancient insects in amber
we are trapped in time
in the moments
that are our life

29.10.2013
what defines life

life
is all about
death

like space
surrounds
the earth

death
surrounds
life

&

all paths
away from life
lead to death

29.10.2013
growing old

once they were rose petals
whose fall was greeted with youthful abandon

now days are falling like withered leaves
into the cold earth

the past feels more welcoming
than the darkening future

towards which we once
wanted to make our way

29.10.2013
autumn why wouldn't you
rip me off like a withered leaf
and let me fly
in the cold wind

29.10.2013
there is no escape
from a failed life
death just nails you
into it for eternity

29.10.2013
everyone of us
builds her or his life
into their own
escape-proof
prison cell

29.10.2013
existence

what is
is

what was

down
the black hole

in to the
singularity

gone

&

soon forgotten

all
of us

29.10.2013
only nightmares dreams
only nightmares the past
only nightmares the future
when do i wake up

29.10.2013

torstai 24. lokakuuta 2013

24th october

warm october day
swans on the muddy fields
in their white dozens
waiting the right time to leave

24.10.2013

tiistai 22. lokakuuta 2013

dead corpses are an universal language
that everyone understands
same with smiling killers in uniforms
standing beside the corpses

22.10.2013
void

there is no comfort against death
we end the universe ends for us
nothing
not even the possibility of rebirth
that a dead universe carries
in its fabric
long after life has been extinguished
a human being
becomes the true emptiness

22.10.2013
the excuse of erich priebke(1913-2013)

spare humanity from people
who hide behind orders
when they stand over corpses

order to kill is nor just an order
it's a matter of life and death
it's a test of humanity

22.10.2013
october night
in the darkness
flickering heart

21.10.2013
relativity

if there would be no time
if the future is set
then we are all dead
and unborn

22.10.2013

maanantai 21. lokakuuta 2013

cold afternoon falls towards early evening
snow scattered here and there
sign of the changing seasons
it reminds me of death
i think of the long dark days ahead
pale brief light among
endless snow embracing days
weeks months that go on
until your whole life is one long winter
as evening comes forward assuredly
brisk wind whispers of bare bones
on white snow
touching like unsentimental lovers do

21.10.2013
autumn the season of mortality
when we realize that like the nature
we are withering
that spring's promise of rebirth
is not meant for human beings
that the rust coloured leaves
are falling on our graves

21.10.2013

sunnuntai 20. lokakuuta 2013

middle class

what the middle class wants above all else
is upper class to like them

the working class to respect them
and not to try to be too friendly

or the upper class might mistake
the middle class for proletariat

20.10.2013
burial of erich priebke(1913-2013)

strange world where the burial
of a mass murderer
is given more time in the news
than the reason
why he was a mass murderer

the rituals of civilization
and forgetting
in action
seeking katharsis
not remembrance

20.10.2013

torstai 17. lokakuuta 2013

october
snowflakes falling
into mud

nature's very own
haiku

17.10.2013
thoughts arising on the 200th birthday of georg brückner(1813-37),
author of lenz and woyzeck

there are eras
when the mad
are more interesting
than the sane

and eras when
there are no
sane ones
to be admired

just the mad
on the stage
putting it all
into pieces

17.10.2013

keskiviikko 16. lokakuuta 2013

order is not just an order

order was an order
- erich priebke(1913-2013)

order is not just an order
to be blindly obeyed

its a question of life and death and humanity
life and death to those
facing the guns
humanity to those
holding the guns

order is not just an order
something that does not affect
the one
who carries it out

when shots are fired
lives facing the guns
are ended
humanity is lost
behind the guns

a different person
exists behind the guns
before and after
an order is carried out
or refused

those who faced the guns...
it was not just an order
for them
it was the end

16.10.2013
life the mirage
of existence
in a dying cosmos
collection of atoms
joining disbanding

16.10.2013
civilization ends
when war begins
humanity ends

all becomes permissible
in the name
of all-devouring war

victory an altar
to which all
can be sacrificed

humanity
an open vein
endlessly bleeding

16.10.2013
On the graveyard, at night

Over their graves they hover,
the lonely dead in phantom form
like mist while deep beneath
their cadavers in silence turn to dust.

The moonlight dances on these
ethereal mists as they call for
walkers of the night, longing
after human touch and voice.

If a mind open to the call of what
lies beyond should wander
among the tumbling gravestones
and see the ethereal spirits mourning

they should avoid the touch
the dead long for; the essence
of death and mortal life combined
is only death and to speak

to the dead is to join the
feast of the still twisting
corpse that heard the call
- as one of the misty dead.

16.10.2013

maanantai 14. lokakuuta 2013

withered flowers
covered with
fallen leaves
autumn's blossoms

14.10.2013
At horizon, light

Pale light at dawn
doesn't give answers
to the questions
of the night.

It asks questions of its own,
of cold frost
briefly glimmering
in the Sun's rays
after bringing death
to the last flowers.

The dark roads of the night
are now gone,
the roads of the day awash with light
and the paths taken under stars
beyond reach
until darkness falls again.

14.03.2013

lauantai 12. lokakuuta 2013

Nearly silent, nearly silent - Simon Schama on the BBC

“…in some sense if you don’t live in Israel – I don’t live in Israel – you’re morally obliged to be nearly silent, nearly silent.”

Simon Schama: The Story of the Jews, episode 5, broadcast Sunday 1st October 2013.

How blind are those that put
ethnic, religious or ideological allegiance
above justice and morality!

Simon Schama tells about
the past suffering of the Jews
and then demands "near silence"
about what Israel does
to Palestinians.

He should be an intelligent man,
but he isn't intelligent or wise enough
to understand that
when Jews were the ones who
were oppressed,
who suffered,
people like him stepped forward
demanding that their suffering
would be met with silence.

11.10.2013
Good family

It doesn't matter that daddy has a mistress
and beats mommy
when she tells him to get rid of his whore,
leaving mommy comforting herself with too many drinks
and both neglecting the kids.

What matters is that they have money,
that daddy is a doctor,
mommy is a teacher
and when others look at them
they see middle class personified.

And what else there can be
to a good family?
Money and rank are virtue,
wealth is a sign of character
and poverty makes you bad.

11.10.2013

perjantai 11. lokakuuta 2013

In memory of Scott Carpenter(1925-2013)

Orbit has decayed,
the long flight is over.
No recovery,
now you sail
the cosmic ocean.

11.10.2013
Humans invent monsters
from hells or space
so that they would
not have to acknowledge
that to every other species known
they are the greatest monsters.

If on the darkest night
a human sees
a pair of glowing eyes
in the shadows,
those eyes belong
to a being who watches
in fear...

11.10.2013

Frost in the first light,
in the horizon
red clouds
like tattered flags
usher the day
forward.

11.10.2013

keskiviikko 9. lokakuuta 2013

The rain returns,
night after night
washing the autumn landscape
like a mother would
a child who is always
playing in the mud.

08.10.2013

tiistai 8. lokakuuta 2013

October morning,
mist on the fallow fields
and evergreen woods;
in utter silence
the landscape sleeps.

08.10.2013

maanantai 7. lokakuuta 2013

Dawn. Autumn in scattered, brown leafs
on wet grass. In the silence
that has embraced the landscape.
Even the wind has died.

06.10.2013
footprints in the sand
high tide comes and
washes them away

time comes and
washes away the one
who made them

time comes and
the sea rises
and the sea falls

until under bloated sun
heat cracks cliffs
on a shore of a sea of sand

07.10.2013

sunnuntai 6. lokakuuta 2013

FOR WANG WEI

1

Empty rivers and mountains,
searching for you friend among them
you vanished in the clouds.

2

On the river bank
a lone crane
watches a disappearing sail.

06.10.2013


#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse
One morning
only silence
finds us

and we are
one
with it.

06.10.2013
One morning
we greet
the world
with silence,

but in the minds
of our friends
we speak
still.

06.10.2013
boys airguns & birds

a poem of afghanistan

shooting birds with air guns
was the five boys' plan
like that of so many boys
who think nothing of the birds' suffering

some foreigner saw them
in the distance
with the guns
made a call

a metal bird came
with its deadly cargo
explosion bleeding bodies death
the usual claim of no civilian deaths

06.10.2013

beach

the sea at night
great waves crashing
unseen
only the sound
of water meeting rock
as in the beginning

06.10.2013
Fragility of Goodness

One act of evil
can erase a lifetime's worth
of good deeds

and no amount
of repentance,
no amount of good works

will ever erase it.
So fragile is everything good,
so permanent is evil.

06.10.2013

lauantai 5. lokakuuta 2013

Summer morning, bright
dew glimmering in the first light;
memories, mourning.

30.08.-05.10.2013
Another night, black
as the coffee on the kitchen table
waiting for me to drink it,
bleak as the mind
that wants that dark fluid.

Black pearls these nights
that tie into each other
through the shivering autumn
descending into winter
as the mind follows them
with faltering steps.

24.09.-05.10.2013

Hidden under fallen leaves:
The last flowers of summer.

05.10.2013
Fading light, gray land
in the in late autumn,
soaked with rain,
melancholy as fallen leafs
mix with memories.

05.10.2013
Fallen leaves
fill the roadside;
yellow, gray,
few bright red ones
glimmering.

05.10.2013
Yellow, wet leaves on the green grass
in the gray light of the October morning;
Departed summer's long goodbyes.

05.10.2013
Dust

My dust shall not dream of me;
before it was the dust of others
yet now it dreams no dreams of them
and so it shall be with me.

The dust dreams only of the life
it now gives form to,
the lives gone
are dust to dust also.

05.10.2013
the night, again, black nothingness
beyond the windows
dawn a dream lost
somewhere in the labyrinth of thoughts
perhaps this time
Apophis did get Re
morning won't paint the sky
with its pale colours
and the night and the void will be one

05.10.2013