Sound of falling rain

like someone

would be caressing

the mind.

22.02.2014

Global Warming

Drops of water falling from the eaves,

melted snow from the roof.

It snowed last night,

the winter's belated appearance

among this season of which one

can't say if it's still autumn

or already spring.

Now the snow is transforming

into water, the dead grass

of last year again

appearing on the yard.

22.02.2014

To expect a poet to a have a

unified view of the world,

existence and the human place

among the stars and flowers

is to deny the change

that is the one permanent

feature of existence.

Before your mind ebbs

and empties into the void

you have been reborn

again and again.

21.02.2014

Life is not a mystery

The universe, the cosmos -

it's not something

in which we are,

it is us.

You are as much

the cosmos

as the elemental particles

that make up you

at this moment,

as the supernovas

blazing through

millions of years.

To understand

that we are not separate

but one with the one

is not a revelation,

it is the existence

as it is.

21.02.2014

Epitaphs

There's a little poem

hidden in each moment,

essence of that

fragment of time

to capture and cherish,

an epic in each day.

20.02.2014

A Little Mystery

How one raindrop

on a green leaf

captures our sight

among millions

of others

that fell

in the same morning

rain...

20.02.2014

Everything will die,

it's the essence of existence,
knowledge of

the non-existence

before and after,

the mystery that is no mystery,

the lack of all

that mind so struggles to comprehend.

But with this fate given

we must make best of

these fleeting years

in a universe

fated to die.

20.02.2014

20th of February

The day came, I was 37.

The years keep piling up.

But no more of that.

I'm not alone on this day,

I share it with three of my kin,

three people I remember

each time this day comes

to add weight to my shoulders.

The birthday of my great-uncle,

the one who drowned in a well

aged seven. So

long have you slept, Väinö.

The day of death of his father,

my great-grandfather,

who died when his son

would have turned 47.

Jaakko, he survived the civil war

through cunning and bravado.

The day of death of my grandmother,

my great matriarch of a grandmother,

aged 77 on the day I turned 19

and did not go to the hospital

to see her die. Katri,

Kaisa, the one we all looked up to.

20.02.2014

Melancholy

Bleak morning, no Sun,

just gray-white clouds

above dark forests

and the melting snow

covering the fields,

the roads mix of ice and mud

connecting loneliness.

Thus the day starts,

as the one before;

we know how it will end,

in darkness, no stars

but electric lights flickering.

19.02.2014

Life shows most of it's possibilities

only after we have

passed the paths

which could have taken

us to them.

Looking back,

we are amazed at how much

we could have seen and done

if only we would have realized

that they were ours to reach.

So many opportunities

slipping to "what could have been",

wasted without knowing.

In the end, bitterness

and sense of loss mix

in that poisoned chalice

which holds our memory.

19.02.2014

All your mistakes will be erased,

given enough time,

and so will be your successes.

When the last human

has died,

your story is finally over.

19.02.2014

Ukraine

Tires burning in the night,

flames and smoke reaching up

in the darkness of Kiev.

Burns the Independence Square,

Burns the House of Trade Unions,

Burns the State,

Burns Ukraine.

The night,

heavy as the black soil of the steppe

upon a coffin,

devours the flames

as they rise.

19.02.2014

Your mistakes

make you into

who you are.

19.02.2014

When you are gone,

the parts of your life

you shared

with others

remain,

each

holding a piece of you,

still influencing

the world.

19.02.2014

The best life is the one

which gave most

to the lives of others.

17.02. - 18.02.2014

Clear midnight on a lake,

the Milky Way drowning

among the sunken autumn stars.

18.02.2014

We deconstruct ourselves

mistake by mistake

and in the end

what is left

are the mistakes.

16.02.2014

close your eyes

flow with the cosmos

the slow turning of the milky way

the expansion accelerating

the human lifespan

gone in a moment

never open those eyes

whose lids keep the void out

16.02.2014

Only good liars

make great writers.

Honesty kills

the imagination.

16.02.2014

Conscience is a cross

in which you nail yourself.

16.02.2014

The only good thing in a war

is that it teaches those

who experience it

that there are no

good things in wars,

no good wars.

16.02.2014

Syria

There is no katharsis

at the end of a

real life tragedy,

bloodshed, massacre.

Only mass graves.

16.02.2014

Happy are those

who never understand

their own

evil...

16.02.2014

What a fate

to be a monster

without a Frankenstein...

16.02.2014

Remembering Daniil Kharms(1905-1942)

Even the funny people

get killed and often

they are the first to go

before the executioners.

Perhaps it's a kind of joke,
by the rulers with cruel hearts,
by the Fate ruling over that
blood-drenched moment in time.

Or perhaps it's just
humanity thinking
that no laughs
belong among tears.

16.02.2014

To make justice to others

you must consider yourself

guilty.

16.02.2014

Fall

One day

the worst person in the world

is looking you into the eyes

and smiles,

from the mirror.

Are you smiling?

16.02.2014

Life is a lesson,

but we never live long enough

to put it into practice.

16.02.2014

To regret is nothing

without an attempt to make amends,

without a will to change.

Regret must lead to transformation

to be worth acknowledging.

16.02.2014

For crimes against

the integrity of one's own character

there can be no forgiveness.

The injured person is gone,

the guilty has taken his place.

16.02.2014

To forgive is not to forget.

That word uttered,

that sentiment held as true

erases nothing.

All remains

except a bit of the pain.

16.02.2014

Did we live?

Or was it all a dream

and, unborn,

we still wait -

or if we tasted

the pain of birth,

the last breath

are these echoes

of a life lived

reaching us

frozen on some

event horizon of existence

where we wait

tangled in cosmos

void rebirth birth

annihilation

15.02.2014

Instead of the crowning jewel of the cosmos

intelligence should make it

the human species in its greed and madness

in its bloodshed

is more like the faeces

of long dead species.

15.02.2014

We of dust, we of water,

seed thrown through time

by blind ancestors -

dance of atoms

painting mirages of consciousness

on the canvas of the cosmos.

15.02.2014

Hope is for those

who have not seen

the end of the road.

Thus when you climb

high do not look far

for the end is there.

15.02.2014

Optimism is a crime

with endless victims

sacrificed to naivety.

15.02.2014

Everything we achieve in life

we owe to others,

for every failure

credit is ours alone.

15.02.2014

What do we deserve

from life?

Everything we have done

to others.

15.02.2014

Two versions of Ein Hijleh

Ein Hijleh

listening to commercial for brain training

drinking coffee with milk

waiting a football match to begin

knowing will fall asleep during it

waking up in the middle of the night

migrating back to computer

to read about ethnic cleansing

going on under the same distant Moon

as consciences sleep in minds awake

#EinHijleh

reading tweets

listening to commercial for brain training running on Youtube

between Glenn Miller's songs

drinking coffee with milk

waiting a Premier League football match to begin

knowing will fall asleep during it

waking up in the middle of the night

migrating back to computer

to read about ethnic cleansing

going on under the same distant Moon

as Occidental consciences sleep in minds awake

01.02.2014

In the fading light

I find you,

under a snow covered tree

sleeping

headstone's gold letters

fading away

01.02.2014

Bright day, white and gold

in the January sun

empty

one long moment

between darkness

falling

rising

unmoving

full of thoughts

racing from the past

to the past

the lost

a hole in the world

missing heart

my mother

27.01.2014

apology

i was a rotten branch that broke

when you hang onto it

in your moment of distress

27.01.2014

the day of white snow and bright golden light

of crisp freezing air and glittering snowflakes

dies a slow death a beautiful death

deep blue snow and white-black trees

in fading light horizontal vertical

the grave and the gravestone

22.01.2014

if my poem tells a lie

it tells it to comfort you

to shield you

to hide you from the reality

to hide the reality from you

which like a hungry tiger

is ready to pounce

if my poem tells a lie

it tells it to move your eyes

from the leaping tiger

to give you a moment

a fleeting moment

when you aren't aware

of the claws coming

15.01.2014

epitaph

we never were much

raindrops on a leaf

then

fallen leaves beside the road

we never were much

in the Great Chain of Being

a candle flickering

in the winter night

and then

even that ended

14.01.2014

Mother from Western Sahara

beaten mother bloody eye swollen shut

breastfeeds her baby who greedily drinks

as the mother lays on the floor

aware of pain aware like a woman

beaten by foreign soldiers in her own country is

as her baby clutches to her

like the people to their land

through all the decades of pain

13.01.2014

Change and Illusion

Snowflakes in the air,

ten degrees below zero.

A late winter in a changing world,

two days ago I still listened

to the sound of raindrops falling in January.

Now, an illusion of normality,

Joaquin Desprez' music

cold and clear as a perfect winter day.

On some coming year it will be a

one long autumn until spring.

12.01.2014

rebirth in douma, syria

from the womb of the ruins

delivered

in dust baptized

the children

with fearful eyes

screaming

crying

for the life

ended

the loved

lost

09.01.2014

Of Hares Boys and other child prisoners of Israel

It's antisemitism to mention

the children caged outdoors

in winter storm.

It's antisemitism to mention

that Israel demands parents pay

for their food and clothes.

It's antisemitism to mention

that they have been beaten,
tortured, threatened with rape.

It's antisemitism to mention

that Israel's demands life sentence

for throwing a stone.

It's antisemitism to mention

that in many cases

no stone was even thrown.

It's antisemitism to mention

that with 99.74 percent certainty

they will be found guilty.

It's antisemitism to mention

that they are

children.

07.01.2014

Today, as the short day dies

in winter's weak, hesitating embrace

Today, as the light fades

and the dark green woods turn to black

Today, as the stream runs singing

through the bare fields devoid of snow

Today, as I stand between worlds

in the ever-fleeting "now"

Today, as I reach to the past

while dragged to the future

Today, memories sharp like

broken glass

Today, and each day

and each moment

I lose you, my mother,

I lose you for my sins.

07.01.2014

Yarmouk

I opposed the bombing of Syria.

Now I demand help for the remaining refugees in Yarmouk.

Perhaps people would still be dying of hunger

if thousands would have died in bombings

and more or less moderate rebels

would be fighting against each other

after the fall of the regime.

I don't know.

I can't know.

But people are dying. Old people, infants, youths,

toddlers, men in their prime, middle-aged women.

I should have called for

bombs full of food.

04.01.2014

let the night fold its wings

over your tired thoughts

cradle yourself against

the black and trouble

your mind no more

let the dark carry you

into another dawn

of winter's gray light

03.01.2014

the land bare

in January's

dim light

stuck in autumn

old wet leaves

on ground

where mice

should be running

in their

little corridors

inside

banks of snow

far from the

birds

and the fox

old wet leaves

of summer gone

beside a stream

singing rushing on

to join

a sewage outflow

the land bare

like mind

stripped of thoughts

left with

existence

01.01.2014

2014

a new year veiled in the shadows

of a night lingering at the edge of morning

not a new beginning not an ending

the same thread going on

through the revolutions of the Earth

life death and hope of something lasting

being build among the melting

01.01.2014

new year

rockets in the rain

exploding

no snow

to be seen

happy climate change

earth

happy new mass extinction

01.01.2014

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

dark night

black coffee

so tired

the wind

makes the lights

flicker

like heartbeats

wavering

on the edge

of abyss

17.12.2013

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

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