sunnuntai 28. kesäkuuta 2015

A Single Day

A single day in Kobane Ayn al-Arab
Rojava Syria

290 dead
100 children
79 females
22 entire families

at the hands of the Islamic State

In the photo a sad tired
looking woman in her mid-20s
with a baffled looking baby in her arms
stands before a brick wall
brown land horizon 
in fading light

Both killed

28.06.2015

torstai 25. kesäkuuta 2015

THE PASSAGE OF TIME

Odd how
so many memories
have gone to
ashes and dust,

so that the mention
of those events,
by someone else,

brings nothing but
motes briefly glimmering
in the light of
our consciousness.

25.06.2015-21.03.2022


#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

keskiviikko 24. kesäkuuta 2015

LIKE NOTCHES ON A GUN GRIP

In each Apple product
there should be
carved the number
of workers

who
killed themselves
in the factories
which produced
the parts and
put it together.

The price
of the brand,
the price of being 'cool',
of riding the Zeitgest wave
on corpses,

the lost dreams
of real people.

24.06.2015-21.02.2022


#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

perjantai 19. kesäkuuta 2015

Possessed by the Past

Awake after a night spent reading -
that tremendous feeling of just
going through page after page,
hour after hour,
just like in the past, in the years
before everything started to fall into pieces.
Old books, long ago bought, never finished,
the last one signed by me on 19th of February 2001.
Still eight years, four months and two days
until the end of the world.
Now this night of cold rain
as the days tumble towards Midsummer's Night,
not a... resurrection, but a renimation,
my lich's fingers holding the book
in the little light of your lamp
you bought with me before the last Xmas.
And the shadows, all those years gone
in to them, all the decades,
all that time wasted, all that was lost,
held back, for this night, by
devouring the books.

19.06.2015

tiistai 16. kesäkuuta 2015

Democracy

The problem with democracy
is the assumption that people are
both good and that they -
both those who vote and
those who are voted for -
make decisions based on reason.

The fact that a mug of beer
was considered enough to buy a vote
in early 19th century England
should have already
revelead the fault in that idea.

Greed is the basis of democracy;
greed for power and status for the politician,
greed for things that they desire for the voters.
There is nothing wrong in that, as such;
reason can drive your greed,
make the politician bend -
just make sure that the politician
pays more than a mug of beer for your vote.

10.05.-16.06.2015
Buddha, in a previous life,
allowed a hungry tigress to kill him
and with her cubs to eat his body.

The path to enlightenment
leading between the fangs
and through the belly of a tiger.

The lesson: All flesh, life
in itself is meaningless;
throw them aside

when compassion can guide
us to a path to escape
the cycle of suffering.

22.03.-16.06.2015

perjantai 12. kesäkuuta 2015

Make a wish

No fallen stars
no coins thrown in hope
at the bottom of this pool
just bottle caps
shimmering through the water

12.06.2015
His classic song

Disgusted by Jacques Brel
singing about Madeleine
pathetic awful parody of a song
like a worm twisting its way
inside
like the light the horrible
pale cold light of this long afternoon
in the video
his teeth seem to move on their own
those enormous teeth
of Jacques Brel(1929-1978)
whole face ready to come apart
in black and white
and the sickening unseen audience
applauding applauding
there's Boris Karloff in Frankenstein(1931)
in this hunched man
missing one huge teeth on one side
Simian
smile
sweat
whole face
in sweat
Madeleine
something in my throat
like a big white worm
making its way up
as I listen
on this shivering June day
to the 1962 past
as horrific as this
and in the end
the awful circus melody
for the tormented ape-man
in him
and me

12.06.2015
Happy the ones
who never
lose their early illusions
about life and society

Unhappy those
who have lost theirs
and are ruled
by those who have not

12.06.2015
The faded colours
of faded lives
in old photos
the missed dead
in the warmth
light of gone days
and today
the cold light
of what is
less real

12.06.2015
Archimedes' death

Sharper than the wit of a genius
the blade of a nameless soldier.

08.-12.06.2015
Until the end

The end is always the same.
The only question is when.
How far you will get?
The only difference
until your own end.

12.06.2015

tiistai 9. kesäkuuta 2015

We have no right to turn away
from suffering.
No matter what form it takes
we have a duty
to look, go forward
and help, if we can.
It's the duty
that comes with
being a human.

09.06.2015

sunnuntai 7. kesäkuuta 2015

Every war is fought against civilians.
There are no exceptions.

Some wars are necessary,  justified
until humanity learns
and grows up.

But after a just war of liberation
the dead civilians
are still as dead
as after an unjust war of conquest.

They must not be forgotten.

07.06.2015
Love is the poison which is most deadly
for no Mithridates can become resistant to it
through small amounts of love.

07.06.2015
Greed is the sin, greed is the traitor

No one has a right to be rich,
become rich
or stay rich.

Greed is the sin
that makes stones
out of hearts.

Greed is the traitor
that stabs the conscience
in the back.

Greed is the disease
that devours humanity
in a human being.

To be ruled by a
pack of hungry beasts
driven by greed

is not a state
humanity should accept;
their greed,

our harm,
the planet's bane.
Viva la revolucion!

07.06.2015
 
 Nocturne

Night silenced the winds,
made dark,
calm statues out of trees
yet allowed the birds sing
of love and territory
throughout it's reign,
forever merciful,
the summer night.

07.06.2015

lauantai 6. kesäkuuta 2015

Tony Blair's New Job

So Tony Blair wants to ban Holocaust denial and antisemitism,
in exchange of a big pay day.
Let's look beyond Tony of the bloody hands and endless greed,
and say something of denial and racism:

Denial of suffering, historic and current, is all around us,
ill-informed and deliberate revisionism both; should we ban it all?
If not, why only particular case or cases,
and leave other bastions of ignorance and hate unbroken?

Should only those whose voice is loudest, whose mouth is
closest to the ear of the politicians and the media
and those who control both, have their grievances relieved?
Isn't the denial of suffering that goes unchallenged the worst?

Antisemitism is racism. It's not something else,
it's not more or less worse, or more complicated.
It's racism. If you don't want to fight racism in all its forms,
in equal measure, you can't fight antisemitism.

And it's not a tool to be used, not a shield to rise
to 'defend' Israel, like Tony Blair and his alike think.
They think it's in the arsenal of politics,
but so did think the Czars and the Nazis in their day.

06.06.2015
The only kind of charity
we should allow to the rich
is a free noose given to them,
a chair for them to stand on
and a free kick.

06.06.2015

tiistai 2. kesäkuuta 2015

Welcome to The Economist

I had to laugh out loud
when opening The Economist's web page
a pop-up window came up
claiming "Welcome to independent thinking..."

I had thought for decades
The Economist was dry
magazine without a sense of humour,
and then they come up with a joke like that!

Independent thinking!
I still smile while writing this;
where no thought swims free
the absurdity is at least acknowledged.

02.06.2015

maanantai 1. kesäkuuta 2015

'Basic' Finns

Be very afraid of the weak,
in terror shun the needy,
in haste turn away the refugee.

Vote us, we shall
protect you from those
who need protection.

Vote us, we shall
kneel before the powerful
and the wealthy;

we shall take from you
and we shall take
from the weak and the needy

and give to those
who have plenty
so that they could have more.

Vote us, we shall
screw you
and make the country suffer.

And so you did,
and we servants of the rich
thank you for it.

01.06.2015
 A Song For Summer

1
First of June,
first of Summer,

a cold, rainy day,
wind bending the trees.

Wind that goes to the bones,
wind that breaks the branches.

All the warmth
of the late May gone,

the Summer is here,
June is here,

all cold and wet,
overcast.

2
From the surface
of a muddy pool

my reflection,
dark, looks

back at me
without a smile.

In him I see
the autumn.

01.06.2015
Diddly

Palladius the bishop
to Ireland sailed,
in Wicklow came ashore.
He had papal orders
to bring forth Christianity
and thus the bishop did,
but the green isle forgot
all about him
and came up with
Saint Patrick instead.
And in glory stands
the myth, and
in dust lays the memory
of Palladius of Gaul.

01.06.2015