Well anyhow, here I sit and watch
as the vehicle is not arriving, I await in a bar,
the goons tell me this is a most infamous place,
the autopiano will rumble when one puts a fiver
to it, I drop a fiver to the slot and sit, and drink,
not to enjoy the taste but to avoid falling behind
I try to suck enough before the bus leaves
all the positions are equally excellent
I change seats
Näsinneula tower visible through the window,
with city dwellers erranding on the streets
they have sun lenses now, it's summer you see
no leather jackets any more
like in spring every single person wore
The anarchists and the green assemble today,
I wish you luck,
beware of the cops
AND UNSHACKLE THE HENS, AND
THE HORSES AND ALL THE LIVING BEINGS
at the bus station it is sunny,
and clear,
as the weather is dry
near the bus doors there are men
standing doing nothing,
industriously,
Also I remember how I travelled, back then
with all the seven hundred years
exploited again (they fled)
on an agora when those vomited out of the pubs
had their swigs on their way back
TO THEIR BIZARRE TWINKLE EYED NIGHTS
(WHICH WERE REALLY DAYS,
THE WITHERED STATEMENT OF
THE COLLECTOR OF CURIOSITIES)
I'm sure no one figured that out
but yes, you know those Rimbaud-literate punks
on the backyards of stations, the beaming ghosts
who have rummaged through all the parties
and licked all pussies and swept the bottom
of every single gutter and slept in jail and asserted:
WE LIVE
Bugger
the deacon devils are coming this way,
do I have time to hide, no
they yearn to help
after they heard our money is scarce,
I am so temped to kick them to their kneecaps
oh you poor thing, let us help you
how they would rejoice if they were allowed
to donate a bagful of pastries
Please, you do not understand
in this village we have so few of you poor wretches
the vibes we get from giving!
and our assistant sextoness, that strange
concoction of sledge user and seamstress
she wanted to help me most intimately,
she asked to carry me in her renovated Buick
TO LOOK AT HER FURNITURE
Wish that car runs over the sexton
I hope with a good conscience, he said
once, you know
when a Camaro almost lucked,
Oh, that was a close call,
such a joyous corpse you were about to get
And that measly hag,
that vintage slime, Lady Comrade
wanders a slide rule in her pocket,
measures minutes to the next coffee break,
she manages flowerbeds,
she left her home, so she tells,
once upon a time in search for money
to claim her own, came here to spend a year
and stayed a decade, poor Lady Lost
Nowadays she is bound to go ballistic over trifles
she fights over power with the sexton
and never gets it
but she can still bully us with her tongue,
she wraps it around our heads
and over our ears, she hexes us, she homogenizes
When the free birds sing
and the mind soars
like the rake by the sunny, red ochre wall
she strikes! – hauls herself after you and flows
slowly over your head
Its so hot,
Watch it
You will loose that zeal
Yes, that is so,
You see,
Namely so
I now keep a stash of bog roll in my pocket
I roll earplugs from it
I AM WAITING FOR A NEW SPRING,
AND IT WILL COME
OR THE END OF THE WORLD, IT –
PERHAPS THESE STONES
RISE TO WALK NEXT NIGHT, PERHAPS
THE INFATUATED GRASS WILL SURGE SOON,
perhaps you will take my mind from me
All the movements hasten the dubious outcome
gravel rolls in the slope,
my voice carries beyond the night
there is still some future left
every single step wears its sole
and when this day has run dry,
I will vanish into my hut in the grove
do not come
Again
I am startled awake
as the sun hits its needles into my eyes
infuses this foliage with fire
eye splits open
one step,
and I descend to the valley,
to count the stones and to dig
In the café
there is a phone booth,
a slimy prism all quiet, no tinkle
in Camaro are the dudes with their pop machines
thump, thuddy, thud: life on debt
heck, let's just steal
they are about to face a wall
on top of which are sitting
the ancient Elders who state
you shall not pass
The Old, chained to rock,
the windless, sneezy heroes
utter their foul vocabulary silently,
in all seriousness
I also want a new tomorrow
and a player and into it ten metric tons of Ministry
Crows, friends in their black capes
ranting in spruces
caw, caw,
awk,
I clap my hands and they quieten to listen
Get back to work!
the sexton roars,
Move
No sitting there
I wasn't sitting, dammit
I have pushed this mower
for two hours now, I thought I pant a little
on the pretext that I am filling this basin
he looks sideways
and then comes to whisper
listen, I don't mind
even if you rest sometimes, I am not a monster but
not when there are people here
do you mean the woman who was just here, yes
Did you know
that EMOTION does not move stone,
hide that warmer hand to the pocket
bite your jawbone, now we tackle the real waltz
O Fiskars
The sexton heard, felt, calculated, that is,
he inferred everything in his youth
he calculated the odds like Pascal
and invested in the eternity
apprentices such an ancient doctrine
and now he speaks the lexicon of stone to us
and grinds mere chaff and scabs to our soles
No matter
this is the real deal, the master league
the sexton is familiar with
the charm of the absolute power, he tells us
about the graves
to which the church has sold eternal care
But from those care contracts though –
What about them?
One should get rid of.
Oh, how can you do that?
By annulling the agreement one-sidedly,
he says and grins
In the afternoon, Zeke personally,
the chief executive
of all the cemeteries of the city comes to scold
come here, got something to tell you
I am walked into
the cool
of the parish meeting hall
to confront a full jury, very serious
you have reputedly been loafing
no I have not
and been telling women what to do with it
seriously not
I've already formed an opinion
about you take care it doesn't –
(right, just as me about you)
I will indeed start dawdling,
if this is the name of the game
I return home,
I wonder what has happened meanwhile
I can see the transformations
but how morphs all that I cannot see
the job, the family, a child,
this all was chosen just out of curiosity
would you like, the woman asked, I don't know
what will it be like, I asked
you will find out
fine
So we got our stuff together and started moving
as car combat trucks, on adjacent rails,
pedal to the metal and machine gun
resounding in the face every day
that's the spirit
the heat dissipates as the years add up
not giving up yet, though
Is it an expedition, one which cannot be excused?
Are you still aboard?
How about your camera? Broke it?
Yes, I'll try to explain to myself,
what I'm doing here
I invent a good tale, really quite fine
Night falls over us and in the morning
I will leave the explanation behind
and step forward
(as you aren't going anywhere else)
watch: and what you see is altered,
the attempt to describe remains an attempt
and that is all you got, a fragment
This is a silent
the sun falls from its track
the adventure looses its momentum
and sticks in a marsh
and nothing is real but Revolution
(do not trust that either;
do not expect a blow
from the anticipated direction:
the one who then hits you, cheats)
I eat canned food, cardboard, anything I have here
I am scornful, witty and resourceful, I play chess
I put a gas mask over my face
and stuff the plugs in my ears,
I pass by, rattling
yes we are building this country
with the healthy hobbies
we fight the old men, we sit in the pool caves
get drunk and throw sticks
put on black tights and
engage in rhythmic physical exercise,
martial arts mayhem
Earth and Moon
Rest comes as part of seven day series,
attention, at ease, Earth chasing Moon
around wanton axis thrown into space
(the breathers will be paid the next day)
you have the night
I have the day
no, wait
it's night here too
In the evening, together, we relocate
equipment and microbes, chick and dude, thus
and then we go watch the BOX or knock the backs
of the books hunching peevishly in the shelf : hello
browse through a page or two,
and slip into slumber
(yes, yes, your embroidered worlds were retrieved
but OUR genius is unrivalled)
To the voids,
prominences, dreams
ha ha ha
nothing is permanent, still everything
is still the same
such is Revolution,
I am altered just like you, and the nipper
the henchman of the chaos, two years old
in our time line
That little boy,
I cannot see, the motion is too quick to be sensed
AS THE MOTION OF STONES
AS THE SPEED OF PLANTS
I stand on a deserted station, my compass
filled with water
at some aloof rails, far from the WIDER paths
and somewhere out there
are the Whitecaps
No bearing
only environments I find likeable
this morning the light arrives again unchanged
and the rational monkey escapes
into his caves to scrape lottery tickets
and his old, blood-red drawings with steel wool
DID YOU SEE
THE FERTILE LAND, YOU INFIDEL DOGS?
The colleague
sits in the cockpit, shakes
according to the laws of mechanics
I am tailing, I handle
hydraulic arms and change my spot
MY EYE RESPONDS TO THE PRESSING OF
THE PEDAL! I AM STEEL, I AM VULGARIZED
RUBBER AND SIMULTANEOUSLY THE
BALANCE INDICATOR KNOCKS NUMISMATICS
TO THE RIGHT EDGE OF MY COGNIZANCE!
(just rust in peace the small nagging appliance
which I tried to lose carefully, somewhere, to forge
the question of why and whereto from here)
And finally,
after countless steps I can lower my hand
to a device
manufactured by anonymous machinery
which I connect
as part of the industry that is my life and say:
this is MINE
In the pale green sea of buds
the elder lady from the village
a priestess (the cleric's missus) passes by, stinking
of old habsburgian
fragrance and surely does not remember
how many drops of sweat
and frogman's skins were required
to raise her goo from a sunken galeas
From the hill one can see the hinterlands
lead-grey lake, devoid of swimmers
sucked for drinking water to the fallen,
to the stalks of grass, to the framed roses,
to the transcending trees
amidst where the tractor
is dancing its insane dance
Behind the bell tower the bunnies
are bounding happily in the heather
while on the road the motorists bound forward
or maybe backwards, as time is just an agreement,
they look very small and somehow
helpless (hospital beds also boast with wheels)
I just do this
sure aren't Hungarian aluminium sledges these
and the extremes of heat, and the sparkling light
and the soil is so hard
like fossilized bone and tractor tires,
the spade thumps
to the dense bottom under a thin lump layer,
Hey, boy! laugh the hoes in their Chevies
laughs King Whopper on his way to the world
when you have torn bark from those birches
enter, and forget
enter the world
when the machines have traversed these lands,
and left their traces,
absorbed oat, nectar and fragrances,
so that now, my friend
(you may not notice,
but you walk on an ancient land)
the soil is brittle
and lifeless
and the dreams of mountains
harden to stone and talk to you
like the Originals talk at night
Yes, we strive for ecological friendliness
Good, then you know
mulch would be perfect for those –
he pretends not to hear, walks farther
– JUST SAYING THAT
FOR THOSE BUSHES, BARK MULCH –
he sneers, quarrels with Lady Comrade,
the matron lifts the tank
on her back and starts to spray
A short coffee party
in memory of the man who dropped off a scaffold
after the devotional, cake and gingerbread,
the cleric gets up to lead the chanting,
man in his fifties, bald,
white square covering the apple
a docile teddy bear robe hiding the hot temper
The village patriarchs stare
at the summer helps
at this undisciplined,
incompetent plastic generation,
they watch
searching for a grip and tire
this weather taxes resources, the youngsters know
(and still hardly on their trip yet)
bit of cake, hymn and away
what? the birds chanting too, scoundrels
with their toothless mouths?
At the stop
I am waiting
with my honourable bag beside me
this fatigue, this repose, these rare eternities
are, and will be paid
with the sweat of seventy times seven days
there's a salt stone for you, you lick that
AND WE RUSH TO THE STREETS,
TO THE PARKS TO DANCE
TO SHAKE TO SWAY
INTO THE MEMORY BOMB BLUE HAZE
You bastards
ready to fly, comrade, wings cut, Friday night
fever in Tula or Tampere or Wherever
I WAS ABOUT TO SOAR!
I ATE FROGS FOR SUPPER,
I TRAVELLED WITH MY BODY
UNVEILED THROUGH THE FIERY NOON
I WAS A SHREWD MADCAP,
I SAVED MY WORLD
I GLIDED OVER THE EASTERN SEA, I WAS
THE LEADER OF ONE THOUSAND BIRDS,
I WAS BEYOND THE CLOUDS
IN THE BURNING SKY, I WAS AN APE
IN THE DEPTHS OF SUMMER
The night turns its blind eye on us
twangg, the mad
voodoo popper plays obscure French porn pop
with two pastel soft tit guitars hanging
around his neck, I marvel what that suggests
I have been now
awake since three
the stones were dreaming me and I woke
flinching: no rest for me
in the darkness, any more?
Let me be a barnacle
at the feet of stones, let me be
a flea at flea market in the land of plantains
YOU, THE GUILTY ONE, COME OUT! I shout
the chick kicks me out of bed:
get busy, let me sleep
(duller than her television
slower than her car)
but this is not a fair game
or is this a game
YOU BLUDGEONED ME WITH WOOD,
SHATTERED TO THE SEASHORE,
THERE I SOLD MY PRECIOUS TIME
AND LEFT, TO BUY IT BACK
AS SMALL FRAGMENTS
later on, these times will be different
Not doing too well if you start liking work like this,
comrade says first thing in the morning
HOW SPACE AND DIMENSIONS
FLOW WHEN YOU WALK
a howling piece of world hurls from the radio
into my lap, "however, a piece of three metres was snapped
in a March storm", was written in it
I JOURNEYED TO THE MOON
DURING THE COFFEE BREAK
in what storm,
I do not know,
I have not heard
is there a storm here
I cannot repair the dreams
turned over by the furiously flailing branches
the sexton fucks with me, says
that my missus likes me for sure
how so
since you do everything so slowly
on the road, toddlers
shamble to the Sunday school
such a strange village
And the chosen ones
marry to fuck the fellows of the Cross
thinking only about it, on tables,
on leather sofas on a Sabbath,
on holy divans, fuck the fellows of the Cross,
wear their brown skin like shampoo
On office tables
pushing erasers, rubber bands, binders, and
phones to the floor and fuck fellows of the Cross,
groaning on the linoleum, hunting for you
to rush to the green sources,
to spread over all earth, and they know
intimately your woman who is Fertility
in their arched office residing in utter silence
(and I traced you
to the sunset, all in vain)
as the fire and the world in us
and we have two worlds
and we were given The Choice and The Equation
and in the equation
there were a billion unknown stars
and we made our decision
I go to a gas station
and have a coffee, I look at the video games
living dead are blasted there
they seem to splash into smithereens
just like anyone else
the air returns everything, nothing sticks to it
just try
our last joke, and you don't have a clue
you lungfish
let us burn the Earth
scorch with fire into dwellings,
let the smith forge
in his workshop wonders for the markets
while we fall, torn, through the fluffy air
In the evening on the streets
the work goes on
the walk method will probably lead somewhere
(meticulously, left, and right – it is an advantage)
(as a stranger here, quite without bounds,
unwilling to return
to retrace to the crossing where you
stepped on the roadless and went astray)
women whose wombs are waiting for the seed
whose lips curve to a smile
a plastic bag rustles
in man's hand, in the bag a lonely melon
the man weighs too much,
his trainers bruise asphalt, don't
you remember how I helped you, the sea asks
no, the man replies
On the bus
a skinny girl gnaws an apple, quietly, timidly
crosses her arms and sleeps
only in her dreams she has might and grace
when the truck drivers trample through all her days
and we,
when we ask for a home, we are given
one hundred metres of corrugated titanium
although we do not know what it is,
or what we should do with it
my head aches
the storm is coming,
They will soon rope us to the roof,
to guide the union of heaven and earth
back together and whole
for as the ring does not break
so will not break the strongest link of the chain
comrade in the afternoon
comrade in the sun of the afternoon, hurries
through the series of movements, disappears
comrade knows well
when we will end up
as lightning rods on the roof ridge
he has worked long and hard on these lands,
very long
old hardy, he knows
Now Lady Comrade has snitched on old hardy,
said he has been idling on the site
he was promptly demoted to clean rose bushes
the tractor weeps black diesel tears in the shed
man longs for his grease nipples
(I have never loitered at work, it's all bullshit!)
I walk under spruces, I look at an ant hill,
they build and then some more,
have one
second breaks, what are they thinking
(who has passed through these paths, who has
toiled these monotonous gestures for decades,
knows the steps and can tell the rhythm
it must be possible, You can't tire so easily
those too are still moving
they are alive, roughly)
The sparrows twitter
in the bushes, they inform, from that
hyperdupermall you can find sunflower seeds
the sexton
clothes himself in his dwarven stockiness and grins
(he noticed me exiting the thicket)
stealing time I see
and pushing the carts
with such a diligent look, he mocks
He comes to mess up along,
gives advices and swings the tool
like an ordinary man
(for the sake of fitness you know,
while you inspect and trade quips)
then he
grabs a machine and wanders around the fields
while others are pulling harrows
Look now he mucks up all the paths
Right, so what are you gonna do?
I adjust pebbles, decorate flower nests, spray
mowers, hit the gas and no fingers to the blades
scrupulously and rapidly, straighten headstones,
300 kilos of granite
barely misses the metatarsuses
the decoration is pried back up
we start looking for remnants of the geraniums
and still the larder appears to be empty
it is empty
Do you realize
without compromising
the thought the heart the arms
fall in poem, fall in thinking, merely fall
I am here just leaving traces, so
STEPS IN THE SAND, SUCCUMB!
STEPS ON THE COASTLINE,
EARN THE ETERNAL GREEN BEYOND!
STEPS BY THE EDGE OF SPACE, COME TO US
WHEN THE STONES ARE COVERED
WITH WRITING! (and they will)
And still we share the seats in the same lifeboat
somewhere,
in the midst of its nature, the monkey sleeps
and wanders
insanely happy:
I AM BRILLIANT! I HAVE DISCOVERED!
I AM ALIVE! AND HEAR, O blind,
deaf and numb!
your bright blade has hit the darkness!
Do you still expect us to decipher
your math homework with you? WRONG
your enumerable days, what are they to me? my
imaginary lights are interspersed
among the calculated ones and decree
the number and substance of them, their bearing
Perhaps these steps will disappear without a trace
do I wish them engraved to this rock, no
it will not happen, the waters come and go
tone the muscles and retard their genius
no, that will hardly come to pass
I see myself too surprised in the mirror
I descend in the current deeper , every day
dozing,
I wake up
when my bus spits me out watyumbleh –
In the city there is a chick who has mid-calf boots
and mini skirt
and she sits on the opposite
to change her flea market boots
legs spread out and boy she really takes her time
good old city
the gloomy, old, proper shit pile
well, we came here to cheat time,
there is no degeneration here, at these crossroads
and if incidentally there is, it is disguised
as a babyface
O city, press me between your tits
you can be old, I don't care
(I can hear
how her nails reach out far, groping
dirt and life and the sun and time
from where it is so swift it seems stopped)
Tonight I will walk again
imagine I went to play heliotropic bridge
if it makes you feel more beautiful
there is sort of truth to it
I move my feet around in smoky rooms
clank my mugs
in search for glitter
are there bombs in the jukebox?
who's gonna blow my mind?
can I sell my my gland buzz today?
hey, can I get some heavenly light here please
that
is heliotropism
Ask by all means,
only you don't really want answers
but answers that sound lovely
and I perform already pretty well I think,
break patterns at times, slake lime and mummify
stay steadfastly in bed
(oh, how I slept in again today ...and the nap...)
The calendar was invented in courtesan's embrace
AND WE ARE BREEZE
AND WILLOWHERB CANDY FLOSS
AND FANTASIES OF THE AIR
and there is a Letter in my dream
and in that letter there is a stroke in the stone
I bend down to study the writing
and right away someone hurries by me
and cries: HEY, come to play with us!
he has a doomsday device
under his arm, levers and joints
I am still, I watch, and wait, and see
how the cry gets written to the stone
I rise exactly the right time,
I continue my journey, frolic
I pull trucks with my teeth, spoon the bitter soup
from the same bowls as others, cross out to mark,
and simultaneously I sense how
IN THE SILENCE OF THE FOREST
THE STONE WRITES ITS WILD LONELINESS
never responds although all to the woods cry
go there,
my friends (and the rest of you, especially)
Take the time machine
see, your bayonets are all rusty
bury them in the ground,
or you drive them through your guts
do you hear me (my love)
this is the spoken language of the stone
these sentences can break darning needles
perhaps you know:
if you pace on a cliff, your feet will get its shape
but how can YOU walk
with such impeccable ease??
Difficult to see
yesterday I visited the old man's house,
there were relatives there
I saw such a reproachful silence
in the eyes of my cousin
when she recognized a consanguinity
something memorable, which has been forgotten
carelessly, deliberately
(it's all fabrication for me and nothing more, so foreign)
Today we are among ourselves,
the armours are sleeping by the road
and it's a warm, mirror calm evening of June
you carry a glass of wine with you as we talk
and the children are swimming
and we are catching up with reality
they run, three girls over a long pier
headlong into the lake splash, splash,
splash,
more children on another side of the strait,
three as well, they dive likewise
I will remember this
when I am gone my memory will persist
and keep carrying this with you
and I will remember:
I too lived here
this I would tell up against the eternity
if the divine herald came to me, to state:
your words will stay
that I TOO LIVED HERE
Stroke
in the colours in the sounds in gravitation
our dreams
&nb
sp; in the virtuous thoughts, in the wicked ones
and after you are crammed
through the omnipresent crystal shredder
you can hardly discern one from the other
In the soft curves of breast
in booze jugs, stars long neglected by gods
our sleep
when they come to inquire
do not listen to what they say
be mindful,
they are writing to the stone just like you
and most importantly,
ANSWER VERY SLOWLY
AS IF IT INDEED
HAD SOME SIGNIFICANCE TO YOU
The crow swarm takes flight
from an old, wooden (abandoned) pharmacy
behind the chemist's shop there is the lake,
it is large
and hundreds of church boats have cut through it
back when we still worshipped
the ground the cleric walked on, and listened
to the BIG voice
A woman and a man rise from the shore,
in the gentle willowherb candy floss rain
the woman with young, blue hair
the man with shaken, grey power,
he glances fuzzily around
with a resemblance to a hastily dressed coat
if I only had a small craft here
and on a thwart a kantele
and the large inland lake before me,
like an ash-grey storm
Thunder
is it still that severe Dude
of the midsummer? Or the one more tired,
aged August rumble drawing away?
No – He still hurls hammers,
listen,
how the air
the monkey breathes,
breaks, and boils
See how it tears its way, in angular lines, vertically
up from the ground towards the ink blue clouds
for which, by the way
we still do not have wings
—
I am sitting
and listening
this is a natural way to be
to sit somewhere, to be done
preferably devoid of thoughts
the child comes
asks what are those are bugs there on the window
Well, they –
Musca domestica
Aglais urticae, Anax imperator
Coccinella septempunctata O amagad
UNSHACKLE UNSHACKLE UNSHACKLE
—
About Agluppos:
Agluppos writes mainly in Finnish. This is translation of the Finnish original, called 'Duuni'.
Other Books by Agluppos:
The Art of Deathmatch
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