Freddie Gray Is Dead

Mainstream media cries

that there is a riot going on,

that a store was burned,

a mall is being looted.

A man's spine

was almost severed,

his voice box crushed.

He died.

They knew what was coming,

after Ferguson and the protests

last year they knew.

The civic leaders of Baltimore knew.

But they chose to protect the police,

like they did in Ferguson

and New York

and everywhere.

They chose fire, they chose looting,

they chose rioting -

the leaders of Baltimore

and those above them in the ladder chose this.

When they severed his spine,

when they crushed his voice box,

when they threw him in the van

the police chose this too.

28.04.2015

Rain, birds still sing

under the gray clouds

make their nests

in the chill wind.

26.04.2015

Voyagers into the Interstellar Space

Rising from the gravity well of our Sun,

reaching out

into the empty void,

my peers, launched on their travel

the year I was born,

drifting between the stars

billions of years after

I and the Earth both are gone,

our atoms engulfed by the Sun

whose reach we never escaped.

23.04.2015

Earth Day

Sun shining long in to the April evening

For thirty-two years I never saw it there

high on the spring sky

through the tall thick forest of firs and pines

now felled

hundred years of growth

22.04.2015

Do not ask for forgiveness

broken minds and hearts

dead lips can't give any

Just change

become someone

who doesn't have to ask for forgiveness

22.04.2015

evening scene in early spring

crescent moon

above bloody shreds of clouds

the lights of cars

mapping the road

at the bottom

ants creeping up the hill

beyond the stumps of felled trees

21.04.2015

EDLA KANGASNIEMI(1879-1926)

of course it was the mother who died first

the mother who had buried first two of her boys

the mother of the son who ran away for a life in circus at 15

the mother of the son who was left behind by the father after mother was no more

that son who begetted four children but could not be a father even to one

that son grandfather of mine who lived

under the shadow of his mother

under the shadow of her death

under the shadow of the family

that suddenly was no more

when he was 12

19.04.2015

After winter, before spring in a changed climate

The new, fifth season -

the second autumn, the pre-spring

a wasteland between winter and spring

to cross under cloudy skies

in the old autumn's waste,

but birds... the birds already sing

and on the roadsides tiny coltsfoot flowers,

little suns.

19.04.2015

We are always living the past

There is no present,

only the past,

ever-fleeting,

ever-disappearing,

ever-changing.

We are always

just missing it,

the present,

those seconds

already falling away

in time.

All we have

is a memory,

the shortening future

turning into the past

without a present,

like water vapour

to frost on Mars.

18.04.2015

Of Saigyõ(1118-1190)

Watching from the sidelines,

on those roads beyond the gates

composing conversation

with life, religion, nature

as power shifted hands

and sea took child emperor and court...

So far away from his time

as one of the old emperor's

youthful playthings in armour

that he had to come up with

a world of his own,

world of words and memory

made into words,

religion the unchanging change

behind a crumbling order

and clashing swords,

blood on the fields.

18.04.2015

on an april day

muddy yard

pool of water

reflecting clouds

bare branches

the deep silence

of the saturday afternoon

18.04.2015

birds are already singing

of spring

among the falling snow

of april

18.04.2015

with unchained anger

my paternal grandmother died on april fool's day

after a life time of sorrow disappointment and hard work aged 53

the last cruel joke from god or cosmos or fate

that could not care less

like my mother aged 58

to the last

she dreamed

of something better

moving out

last travel

to somewhere

where it would be better

for them

i hate those

who see order and plan

in the universe

a hand of god karma

who think justice will be done

that in the end all will be right

that we must take live as it comes

accept all

no we must be filled with rage

rage and hate

for the fate of human in this universe on this planet this society this land

against those who think demand preach write we should accept it all

hate and rage

will uplift us

save as as much

as we can as individuals nation society civilization species

hate and rage

trust them

embrace them

show them

with unchained anger

14.04.2015

i not I

the lower-case letter

minuscule

just perfect

for me

14.04.2015

To the raging wind
which tears down towering trees
i give my sorrows to carry

14.04.2015

Of time, again

There might not be time

as the scholars say

but there is a sense of time

and a sense of loss

that perfect moment

you can return to

only in memory

until it too grows dim

06.04.2015

Beside the fallow field

A stone upon a boulder

resting

like it has

ten-thousand years

& I

sitting beside it

this early spring

afternoon

06.04.2015

From the branches of Yggdrasil,

knowledge Odin sought,

night and days hanging,

the fruit of wisdom

no snake had to tell innocents to pick;

he picked it himself,

the father of gods,

rising from the dead.

But no hidden knowledge revealed

would save him

from the wolf-son of the Trickster;

truth his first death gave to him.

01.04.2015