Beautiful minds are like butterflies:

Most of them fly and live

unseen.

08.08.2015

To Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792-1822)

From the bottom of the same sea

which took your life,

carried your body in its bosom

to that shore where

everything but your heart burned -

from the bottom of the Mediterranean,

a sight worthy of your Ozymandias:

Twelve meters in height,

fifteen tons in weight,

a Mesolithic monument

that sank with the island it stood on

nine thousands and three hundred years ago.

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away. 

From beyond memory,

the sole monument

to people whose world

in its watery grave sleeps.

08.08.2015

The one who wanted to escape

Those cold eyes of yours,

all depth but no feeling,

with vast indifference

our dreams swept aside,

the foolish lusts of ungrown men

- for yours were different dreams,

of vast wings opening

to carry you out of this

pale, gray existence

to the sunshine above the clouds.

And we, we were the mole-men

trying to take you

down among the roots,

the damp scents of the soil

where we dug ever deeper from the Sun.

07.08.2015

The news from Yemen's war

Taiz is in the hands of Hadi's forces,

or Saudi or perhaps it's little helper United Arab Emirates.

No one seems to know.

Houthis and Saleh lost it,

the spear broken in Aden,

driven back.

I doubt they will lose, though

- few lose wars nowadays;

the Tamils were the last.

Wars just go on, in one form or another,

a Protean spectacle of murder,

on and on while lives end

and wars do not.

09.05.2015

Sacred Prostitution

Only a man can declare

- and even believe -

that "sacred prostitution"

is anything more than

sex from an abused

in exchange of money

to temple coffers.

Neither in Mesopotamia of old

or India of today

did and do men seek 

holiness through intimacy

from women forced to serve

as temple prostitutes,

priestesses or not -

no, we know what they seek:

Intercourse, the tenth or twentieth

of the day for the woman or the girl.

09.05.2015

The Most English of Authors

One of the many problems

David Herbert Lawrence

endured in his life

was that he was born with

a second anus in the place of a mouth.

08.05.2015

To David Herbert Lawrence(1885-1930)

They should have put you in the mines

and never allow you out 

like one of those asses;

you could have contemplated the mysteries

of life and soul

in the flickering light of lamps and candles,

in the heart of the land,

deep, deep underground.

They should have put you in the mines.

They should have put you in the mines.

08.05.2015

A Short Gospel

Either you are a human being, a true human being

capable of and showing compassion and empathy,

or you are nothing. Nothing at all.

Be a true human being. There is no alternative

for Homo sapiens sapiens. Those without

compassion, those without empathy,

those who do not give when giving is needed,

those who do not offer a hand when others

need help to rise up, those -

those are nothing.

08.05.2015

The 1 %

Give them their money,

bury them in it

and burn the pile.

All shall be ashes.

19.07.2015

Don't lament past atrocities

if you are unable to raise your voice

to condemn those done today.

Words without action,

the suffering people being

safely dead or saved,

are worthless.

Help those who can be saved

and save your own humanity.

18.07.2015

To an author complaining of poor children in the streets of Havana, Cuba

Complaining that revolution eradicated illiteracy

and brought great progress in medical care,

but left poverty -

I don't understand these who think that imperfect

result spoils the very attempt;

imperfect revolution is

no reason to oppose revolution,

a reason for a new stage 

or a new revolution altogether.

08.07.2015

Everybody makes history,

nobody is outside it,

no one is without influence

even when

they never realize it.

05.07.2015

What I learned from reading Samuel Beckett's poetry

Sometimes, to find your true voice,

you have to leave the language

you learned hand in hand with learning to walk.

Going through the collected poetry of Samuel Beckett,

the stuff in English is godawful third-rate mess,

and the French soars up from the dump

where the English nonsense fell,

up, up to the boundless sky.

05.07.2015

The duty of a historian

Rescue the forgotten dead from oblivion,

give them voice to speak

when their tongue has long decomposed;

unmount the powerful

who still, as revenants,

rule over the past in learned pages.

This is the duty of a historian:

To raise up those

who were kept low,

and to bring down those

who too long have obscured our view

when taken for giants.

05.07.2015

I lost my only reader

for carrying out a fool's request

that should have been denied

and stamped upon.

An apt punishment.

Actions have consequences,

as they should have.

05.07.2015

Either all lives matter

or no lives matter.

Which option

do you choose?

05.07.2015

To my three grand-uncles who died as infants

Every life is epic

- at least when it

comes to sorrow.

05.07.2015

The poor need no charity,

only a revolution

and the heads of the rich.

04.07.2015

One of those Saturday mornings

One of those Saturday mornings

when the distant rumble of car engines

becomes a lullaby

calling back to sleep.

The deep waters of sleep,

with faintly seen forms swimming

in the abyssal darkness,

swirling even in the coffee

that was to be the saviour

of wakefulness,

the liquidness of sleep

taking form in the mug.

04.07.2015

Injustice is a crop

that always leads

to a plentiful

harvest of hate.

02.07.2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'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

Of Friends of Israel

The great moral failing of the philosemites

flocking in "defense" of Israel

is that they think that it is progress

that Jews oppress, torture and kill

instead of being oppressed, tortured and killed.

Just like antisemites in the past,

they can't see the humanity of the victims,

just the ethnic-religious labels

according to which they decide who

can be killed and who can kill.

31.05.2015

it makes us uncomfortable

say the tourists on the island of Kos

of the hungry Syrian refugees

watching them eat

30.05.2015

death is the moment

when our active presence ends

and the effects our actions

move forward on their own

until they are mixed

in the great whole of human history

29.05.2015

sunflowers beside the road

little stars bursting in the mind

as we walk

on this long afternoon

one of those when time

doesn't seem to flow forward

(time is a pool not a stream now)

but memories come

flooding the mind

and among them

sunflower constellations

the anchor to this moment

of walking when

like clouds above

all could just float away

27.05.2015

There is nothing outside of existence.

No hand can push through the fabric

of space-time and reach

the absence of everything.

We speak of void, but void

is full of particles, potentiality.

Void is basis from which matter rises

to existence. To cease

is to lack all potentiality.

Death is the absence of energy

to escape into existence.

25.05.2015

The Final Betrayal

to become part of the landscape

continue as a thread woven through it

a song a sound heard in the distance

an echo of a life a whisper in the wind

my mother wanted her ashes

to be spread in Lapland

the dream she could never permanently achieve

the Arctic shores of Norway she gave up

to have us instead

but you can't do that

spread human remains even in ashes

to become part of the loved land

the endless days of Sun in Summer

the long night of the Winter

so near parents sister and nephew

in the old home county

graveyard instead

another betrayal clipped wings

even in death so sorry my mother

that even now you can't soar

to be the land you loved and dreamed of

because law was put before love

24.05.2015

Jon Krakauer: Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman

Or, in the other words,

after enlisting in patriotic fervour,

got shot in the back and killed

by subordinates

and the killing hidden

by superior officers.

That's the 'glory' he won.

23.05.2015

Reading long dead monks,

all those quests for enlightenment

dust and sand,

those nights spend looking at the Moon

just words on paper,

thousand years have passed

and they are there,

frozen in their own poems

to those long gone moments.

23.05.2015