AS OUR MINDS OPERATE

Jussi(?.08.2007-10.07.2024)

Relief that your pain is over

is already skirmishing with the wondering

of if something could have been done

if signs would have been noticed

much earlier. And surely something

could have been, that's the case

with almost all illnesses. Something

could have been done, medicine

much earlier, and this could have

been prolonged, few weeks more,

maybe, of your active presence

in flesh, not this presence

in my thoughts, where you live

now. Still feeling of relief is winning,

but behind the forces of wondering

are advancing the troops of feelings

of loss, grief and sorrow, and I know

they will break through on some near

day, for they always do, and relief

will withdraw, defeated, when

memories of those last days,

especially the last terrible hours,

is withered with the leaves of fall.

11.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

WHEN I SLEEP, I WILL LET YOU GO TO BECOME PART OF THE PAST

Jussi(?.08.2007-10.07.2024)

To go to sleep means to end

the final day on which we

were both alive; when I fall

asleep, these shared hours

will become part of the dead

past, fading in memory. And

when I wake up, it will take

me a moment to remember

that you are dead and gone,

it will sting, that realization.

I remember the feeling it has

from other deaths, that of

a sharp needle pushed quick

and fast through my very being.

11.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

NETHERLANDS - ENGLAND 1-2(1-1)

England makes it 2-1 very late

in the match, but it doesn't matter,

on a day like this, who wins

- not for me. To the Dutch

and the English, yes. But not

to me, on a day when an old

furry friend died. Their grave

in the deep blue night matters,

not the celebrating English,

the Dutch in tears after the final

whistle. They possess time,

no matter the score. In this game

of life they are winners both,

for now, even when the white

shirts celebrate and the orange

shirts mourn. They have time,

time still running towards finite

future and an unknown end.

10.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

NOT ALONE

I'm watching Netherlands - England,

alone and yet not alone, my mind crafting

presences from its stubborn remembrance

of what should be present in moments

like this. An old cat, a dog, an old man -

they come uninvited but very welcome

to my mind, make themselves comfortable

on sofas long gone, and watch the game

through my own eyes, as part of me.

11.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

REST IN PEACE, JUSSI

Jussi(?.08.2007-10.07.2024)

Two and a half hours

after you died in

that room strange

and terrifying,

smelling of the deaths

before your own,

you were in your grave

back at home, under

sand and stone and turf,

wrapped in a scarf,

your eyes left open

forever covered by them,

forever hidden the world

you had ceased to see.

10.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

15:21

Jussi(?.08.2007-10.07.2024)

No pain, no fear.

Final sleep ended

at 15:21.

There is no 'Now'

for you in Time,

not anymore -

this finite 'Now'

we live

until the cutting

of the final

umbilical cord.

10.07.2024

THE NEW SCHOOL MASSACRE

30 people murdered by Israel

in the bombing of a school in

Israeli occupied Palestine's

devastated Gaza Strip, and it

barely makes news, here

and there, in the 'West' -

which has become bored

with the ongoing genocide

which happens only because

the 'West' allows it to happen.

10.07.2024

HIS FINAL HOURS

Two hours

until he dies

and still active,

seeks a cool place

on the bathroom

floor tiles,

drinks a little,

and purrs

to calm himself,

to keep away

the pain that

his life became.

10.07.2024

SUFFERING CAN'T BE NORMALIZED

Another bloodbath in Gaza City,

fifty people killed in Israel's occupation

forces attacks. The 'West' has

'normalized' a genocide, but each

person murdered now suffers

as much as a person murdered

ten months ago by the Israeli regime

and its 'Western' collaborators.

09.07.2024

HYPOCRISY

Bombing hospitals is wrong

- if the flag flying over the military

bases firing the missiles, sending

the fighter jets with bombs, is

'wrong'; but when it's the 'right'

flag... Bombing hospitals

becomes suddenly defensible,

even a 'necessary' act, morality

collapsing like a hospital wing

hit by a missile.

09.07.2024

LAST EVENING

Evening sky in the faded

colours of the flag, light

blue and linen white,

through the window

of the sauna, as you

purr beside me, tired

old man, suddenly so

very tired after all

these years, almost 

all grains of sand having

passed through the neck

of the hourglass.

09.07.2024

NOT JUST THE WATER FROM THE RIVER LETHE

He thinks of a quickie with

her after playing with her

intimate words brings back

into life a desiccated part

of himself, pushing away

all other thoughts from

the cluttered desk of his

mind, lowering her on it,

tearing her knickers off

to get the one true relief

the world offers to its

overwhelming sorrows,

and entering, finding bliss

in his imagination.

09.07.2024

HOW DIFFERENT JULY IS!

One month filled with foolish

sort of desire, yet life embraced

like a garden growing wild;

and this, the end of things,

the world around wearing

its mask of mourning. And

the part that remembers

and yearns the foolish days

of June carries its cut

lust in a pouch around

its neck, a eunuch.

09.07.2024

YET ANOTHER MURDERED CHILD

Another dead, bloody infant,

perhaps half a year old,

head turned on the left;

in the bruised face

lips and eyelids just

barely open, beginning

or ending a cry as

the Israeli missile

brought down the home,

ended the child's life.

Israel murdered the child

because it could,

and it can

because we,

humanity, allow it.

09.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

A CHILD AWAY FROM THE SCREENS

 A child jumping

in a puddle,

doing parkour

atop trash

containers,

climbing a fence,

watching ants

on the march -

if only those

screens

with their

sirens' call

could be

off, black

forever,

for them.

09.07.2024

AUTUMN IN JULY

Such dim days,

clouds and rain

and death, the fall

in beating shower,

the once hungry

mouth that has

eaten its last.

09.07.2024

BUT THEN, WE KNEW THIS ALREADY

The press that had been silent

about Apartheid Israel forcing

the closure of the two last

operating hospitals in occupied

Palestine's Gaza Strip

is now full of articles about

Russia's bombing of a children's

hospital in Ukraine. It's like

all lives, all human beings,

wouldn't be equal to the press...

09.07.2024

THE VISIBLE PART

Crouching down to pick up

a piece of broken glass, once

part of a lemonade bottle, lying

on the grass just beside the cracked

asphalt of the pavement,

noticing an entrance to a nest

of ants, and the endless busy

traffic in and out, following

the line of insects to a birch

and up its trunk, the aphids

hidden among the leaves,

like the nest below the ground

with its queen, two unseen

ends of this ceaseless movement,

the beginning and the end

and the beginning.

09.07.2024

THE 'WEST' RECONSIDERS "NEVER AGAIN"

The 'West' has decided

that in Israeli occupied

Palestine "Never Again"

is just "Again".

08.-09.07.2024

LYING GENOCIDAIRES

Zionists claim they would stop

the genocide against Palestinians

if their victims would

end all resistance

against it.

No genocide has ever

been ended by the victims'

unconditional surrender.

Neither would this.

09.07.2024

BETTER THAN THEM

Zionists don't care about the fight

against real antisemitism.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't.

Like we must oppose the genocide

the Zionists are carrying out,

we must oppose real antisemitism.

Fight against racism benefits all

who are not racists.

09.07.2024

IN THE SAUNA WITH JUSSI

We sit on the uppermost bench

in the sauna; he purrs, hasn't eaten

after getting his medication.

It's difficult being old and ill,

all the long years on fast paws

suddenly at an end. Time

is running out swiftly

and now it's you who is

being left behind, an old man

in a fur now far from immaculate.

Time, the great beast, has defeated

you, and with you, part of us.

08.07.2024

ANOTHER MASSACRE IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE'S GAZA STRIP

You think they are all dead

and then one of the bloodied

bodies moves, still on this

side of death, his broken flesh

torn apart by the uncaring

world wielding Israel.

08.07.2024 

436

At least 436 cancer patients have died

in Israeli occupied Palestine's

devastated Gaza Strip as a result

of Israel's destruction of the healthcare

system, including the closure

of the only specialized cancer

hospital, and denial of permits to leave

Gaza for treatment abroad.

Israeli regime uses all possible

methods to carry out the genocide.

08.07.2024

 

JUSSI

A hot, sunny day,

without knowledge

one could call it beautiful,

missing the shadow cast

on all your thoughts

by the hands of the dial

moving, counting the minutes

together with those unceasing

hands of time to a likely end,

to one of those moments

for which there is

a before and after,

a dividing line drawn

across your existence

as another existence ends.

 

08.07.2024

ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES CLOSURE OF ANGLICAN HOSPITAL IN GAZA STRIP

 Israeli occupation has again forced

a hospital to close in devastated Gaza,

and these mass killings via denying

even the most basic healthcare

don't get any attention here. People

could be given life feed of gas chambers

and they would just shrug, blame

the victims, or claim that their own lives

"are hard too" and they can't be bothered

to care about an ongoing genocide.

08.07.2024

THE FACADE BEFORE THE GREATER REALITY

Occasionally, on moments like

these, there is a strange

shallowness in the landscape,

lacking depth beyond the merely

apparent. Like a facade hastily

put before some unfathomable

secret of which we can only

perceive this hint of its existence.

07.07.2024

 

PRC

Letting people down after

one has promised support

can be worse, much worse,

than turning down their

call for help. Hope dashed

is worse than no hope;

it's unforgivable cruelty,

even if I believed and tried.

07.07.2024

IN ONE MOMENT CHANGED

Almost autumnal, windy day

suddenly all sunshine and blazing

heat, the pools of morning rain

reflecting shreds of white clouds

drifting on water.

07.07.2024

EVENING IS DARKENING

 Whole day gloom and brightness

alternating, moments of sunshine,

occasional rain, quick changes

until now, the evening succumbing

dim towards lenghtening night.

And now, everything before

in this weakening, pale light.

06.07.2024

ENGLAND - SWITZERLAND 5-3 ON PENALTIES

England wins on penalties over

more deserving Switzerland,

but this was a somewhat worse

day for the old man in a tuxedo fur,

not to speak of the slaughter

in Palestine and Sudan. It's

just football, a game, it doesn't

matter that much. And there

will always be the Hand of God

from Mexico before VAR.

06.-07.07.2024

SWITZERLAND - ENGLAND 1-1 ON 80. MINUTE

England, dull bloodless England

equalizes against the land of

cheese, milk chocolate, melting

glaciers and bankers. Sign of

a good team getting a result

while playing bad, but when,

oh when in these finals has

this England squad been good?

06.07.2024

WHERE IS THE ANGER?

 Israeli regime has killed five journalists

in half a day in occupied Palestine's Gaza.

A day ago they were all alive, now

they are dead, joining at least

one-hundred and fifty-two other

Palestinian journalists Israel

has killed in the last ten months.

One-hundred fifty-seven dead

and two missing (and likely dead)

journalists, and do their 'Western'

journalist colleagues care?

Where is their anger?

Where?

06.07.2024

RILKE AND WANG WEI

Reading translations of Rilke,

I'm struck how different many poems

become at translators' hands. No such

multiplicity of meanings in German

as gifted to Wang Wei's poetry

by the Chinese language, yet you

could easily write Forty Ways of

Looking at Rainer Maria Rilke,

how the translators used

a particular poem as a mirror,

a bronze mirror fit for Wang Wei,

to see themselves.

06.07.2024

NOTICE THE BEGINNINGS

Everything ends. That's the sole

certain thing in this life, on this

planet, in this galaxy, in this

cosmos. All else is in doubt,

but this thing holds solid:

Everything ends. But in this early

era of the universe, things still

begin also, from stars and planets

being born to little things sprouting

in our own lives that make

them life, not mere existence.

06.07.2024

 

PORTUGAL - FRANCE 4-5 ON PENALTIES

France wins on penalties, but no feat

worthy of Athos, Aramis, Porthos

and that fellow from Gascoigne -

the one that becomes angry so easily.

Portugal was slightly the better team,

as much as Cristiano Ronaldo was

like some Cardinal's man, failing

to thrust their blade into the target.

I'll see to the ailing old cat in his

sauna, warm some old coffee,

and read the shadows of the past

on bloody Parisian cobblestones.

06.07.2024

ON A BEACH

She had spoken of a beach,

his muse, and he had been on

one, and he tried to imagine

them there, an encounter,

something primal that would

banish this melancholy stream 

death's nearing touch created;

he tried to raise in a vision 

the fundamental things that speak

to the flesh and can let it

dominate the part of us that

thinks and thinks endlessly

and quivers before things

it can't change. But the flesh

was weaker than the timid

mind, mind which in all beings

coming passing sees a part

of its own end, all the years

invested into that other life,

shared with it, no matter

its nature. So the vision

withered, a limp thing dark

waves carried away in silence,

as he thought and thought

about the slowly approaching

death nothing could avert,

and that part of him that

would be gone.

05.-06.07.2024

ONE OR THE OTHER

How strange that

a person's laugh

can so resemble

their weeping

so that at first

you can't know

which is which,

and your thoughts

balance on this

knife's edge, this

Schrödinger's uncertainty

between fear and hope.

04.07.2024

ON THE ROAD

Bashõ, Bashõ you old scoundrel -

one day you are writing about

the travails of a poor traveller, you,

spending night in a lice-infested

roadside inn, the next being invited

into a grand mansion to enjoy

the gardens, to be the ornament

of a lavish feast. 

04.07.2024

THE MASK OF TUTANKHAMEN

Flesh of gods gold

and your image in gold

placed on your head

your face for eternity,

forever young, divine,

unshrivelled - unlike

the features that time

could touch on

your mortal flesh.

And that golden

mask still your face

to this late time,

not the one

in the tomb.

04.07.2024

SOUNDSCAPE

Heavy rain, distant

thunder, whole landscape

sculpted by those two

sounds, forming

a rumbling cascade.

05.07.2024

A SIGN

After the rain, finding a long white

feather stuck in a hedge, I take it

as a sign that liberated Eros,

in his flight, took cover here

from the warm, beating drops,

and that his arrows might

still reopen the flow of words,

flooding pages like the rains

the softly murmuring brook.

05.07.2024

RAINY DAY IN JULY

Raining again, might

as well be autumn

yet burning summer

but a week ago

in June. But July

rain, dim, slow days

have their own

quiet charm, and time,

time gathered

in pools of rain

to think and ponder

this downcast serenity.

05.07.2024

WITH SHAKING HANDS I TURN THE RECOVERED KEY

The rusted lock of Cupid's cage

doesn't open, breaks the key,

and its bars of stainless steel

stand unbroken, gleaming,

when I feebly try to break free

that winged assailant of the senses

to let him soar and balance

the grey old world and its

crimson dusk, scarlet morn.

04.07.2024

DOG MAGIC

A short walk with Neffi the dog

in the warm, glowing husk of

the evening, into which the bright

night flowed smoothly from

the deep fountain of murmuring

time. She rolled happily on gravel,

old eyes bright, turning back briefly

that clear flow of rushing time.

04.07.2024

POEM ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN IKEA

Reading Peter von Bagh(1943-2014)

Blue sky, white clouds,

blazing heat of summer,

and I, reading about

the magic of cinema

and trains, another dead

voice alive in my mind,

and the window glass

like the lens of a movie

camera between my own

existence and the vast

landscape of azure heaven.

03.-04.07.2024

FOR NOSTALGIA'S SAKE

Reading Les trois mousquetaires,

for nostalgia's sake, to capture

something of the past and my

past self, to make it manifest

itself in this mind, mind aged

to a different person playing

the same character. And this

necromancy works, the pages

flying past luring out the memories 

 and the shade lingering in them.

Yet I know I am but a stranger,

long removed by years, inhabiting

the tomb of his flesh.

04.07.2024

SUCH VAST EXPANSE

Things that were but a few hours

ago can belong to other days,

other worlds than this;

entire lifetimes separating

the bright evening from

the clouded morning.

04.07.2024

DEPTHS BELOW, DEPTHS ABOVE

 The dark surface of the lake,

unreflecting, hides

even the clouds above.

04.07.2024

FOURTH OF JULY IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE

A bloodied body hanging

upside down on the side of

a bombed building in Gaza,

a person alive this morning

turned into a trophy

for Apartheid Israel

on this Fourth of July.

An American bomb and

a Palestinian death.

04.07.2024

AFTER A BRIEF RAIN

Dark, low waves wash

the curving shore under

gray clouds, not a single

person will remain, now,

only our footsprints

sunk in wet sand

leading away.

04.07.2024

ONE SLIP OF THE TONGUE CAN BE TOO MUCH

Think and think again

until you speak; to be called

a fool because of slow answers

better than being known a fool

as a result of stupid answers.

04.07.2024

THE FALLEN CROWN

The old cat likely has no memory

of it, but he used to dominate

this apartment, a feline lord

over his fellow cats - and dogs

who kept their distance

and accepted the occasional

strike of a cat's paw with

resigned grace. Now he barely

ventures beyond the sauna

and the bathroom, having

found his safe place there,

snarling without conviction

to the young gray cat who

fonds him curious and

interesting and tries to enter

his haven. The old master has

become only old, time having

caught up with him, his

kingdom gone now that he

has returned from his exile.

04.07.2024

PALESTINE AND SUDAN

One massacre after another

in occupied Palestine, and in Sudan

Israel's fellow genocidaires

joined by the Abraham Accords

have captured another major city.

Desperate, pouring out from under attacks

displaced people filling roads again,

hunger gnawing millions; it

could be either Gaza Strip

or western and central Sudan -

it's both. Shared, immense suffering

and now 'normalized'

by those whose indifference

makes them 'honorary' members of

IDF / IOF and RSF / Janjaweed.

04.07.2024

ON EARLY JULY MORNING

Morning, under clouds

all hues of green

the summer.

03.07.2024

CONSTANT RECREATION

We exist only in the exact "now",

the versions of us in the past

a constantly growing chain

of ancestors to this illusion

of sustained identity. No

Ariadne's Thread of memory

can lead us back to our

former selves.

03.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

CAPTURED BY HER WORDS

He made the mistake of thinking

about her, her captivating words,

and now he was overcome by desire.

All doubts swept away by the simplifying

force of his overwhelming lust,

to be completely captured by

passion, only thinking about all

the things they could do... How

was he supposed to sleep now?

How could he ever face the cold

light of the morning?

18.06.-02.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

WATER FROM ANOTHER SPRING

Poetry can flow directly from

the poet's character,

their very being,

be a manifestation

of who they are,

a memorial in ink,

or an external stimulus

can subsume that character,

dictating to the mind

what flows through it -

water from another spring

being metamorphosed into ink.

02.07.2024

 

HARD TO MEND

 Such little things

as a missed kind word

can cause a massive

heartbreak. Yet still

we miss them often, that

expected single word.

02.07.2024

HOLOCAUST 'LESSONS'

Even a self-declared Jewish state

didn't learn from the Holocaust

the simple lesson that genocide

is always wrong.

No, it 'learned' that the Holocaust

'justifies' a Genocide

against one's own victims.

And what the architects

of gas chambers and crematoriums

'learned' is that you can pay

for your crimes against humanity

by supporting the extermination

of a third nation.

02.07.2024

JUST WAIT

Another massacre today in Gaza

by Israeli regime's occupation forces

against hungry people waiting for food.

This will get little publicity, massacres

having been 'normalized', just something

that 'happens', but just wait when a bunch

of gloating Zionists get disrupted by

demonstrators somewhere - then

we will get headlines...

02.07.2024

LYING AWAKE IN THE EARLY HOURS

Sound of rain in the night,

dark under the cloud cover,

like this wouldn't be

the first of July,

and the dark autumn

days and black nights,

with rain and wind

flying wet leaves,

those bleak days I

used to love, would

already be here,

in my thoughts.

01.07.2024

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse