Risto Oikarinen Poems

When you still had a name, you let the ice bite into the bedrock and spit out stones here and there, to the moor and maternity ward. For you so loved me,
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Santa Lucia came to me in a dream: the scratches on God's records are playing in the martyr's stereos, said Lucia and woke me with a kiss, I rose from my bed and spread my mother's queen bee honey on toast, the doorbell rang, a girl rushed into my home,
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A chalk-white bird fell off its orbit, crashed into the ground like a meteorite, cracked its neck and turned into rock in the desert. The sun sunk into a cloud of ash, dinosaurs vanished and my family rose to the desert sand, there by the white rock.
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An autumn sonata on ownership. The birch belongs to the courtyard, the yard to birch leaves, the leaves to the leaf blower, the blower to the gardener, the gardener to the city, the city belongs to the state, the state to no one, no one to human, human to his body,
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Taivas on purettava, puskettava traktorilla portin päältä, vangittava verkkoon varjottomat linnut, elämän puu on pilkkeiksi hakattava, puun hedelmiä nauttivat marttyyrit sekä pelkästä armosta pelastetut, heidät on ensin oksille hirtettävä, revittävä taivaanmaasta lapset, valtakunnan omistajat, varjottomat päivänkakkarat, myytävä maljakkoon isoäidin pöydälle, aina rakastettava, vain parasta ajatteleva isoäiti on pullantuoksuun lukittava. Taivaallinen mummonmökki, ei ullakkoa, kellaria, kuoleman varjoa, on poltettava.
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Heaven must be demolished, pushed through the gates with a tractor, shadeless birds must be trapped in nets, the tree of life chopped into splinters, martyrs enjoying the tree's fruit and those redeemed for mere mercy, they must be hanged on the boughs first, children be torn from the land of heaven, kingdom's owners, shadeless daisies, must be sold to a vase on grandmother's table, the ever-lovable, only thinking of your own good grandmother must be locked off into the odour of fresh bun. Heavenly grandmother's cottage, no attic, cellar, shadow of death, must be burnt down.
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Jumalan selässä on luhistuneita kappaleita,
mustia aukkoja, tuuheita luomia
luomien karvoihin koteloituu toukkia
koteloista kuoriutuu noviiseja, munkkeja, apotteja,
mustiin pukeutuvia perhosia.
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God's back has collapsed particles,
black holes, hairy moles
maggots pupate in the mole hairs
from chrysalides emerge novices, monks, abbots,
butterflies robed in black.
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Tuuli ulvoo, soittaa sahaa, taivuttaa harsoista horisonttia. Pimeyden pupillit supistuvat, sumun keskeltä kuultaa valoa: Lentävä lintulan nunnaluostari puhkoo meren pulleaa vatsaa, mastot raapivat taivaankantta, tähtihaulien rikkomaa. Asukkaat keinuvat keittiössä: abbedissa vatkaa munavoita, noviisi rypyttää piirakoita, nunna nuijii naudan lihaa, veisaa virttä rytmissä, tahdista toiseen, vuodesta vuoteen, he valmistautuvat horisonttiin, taivaan ja maan hääjuhliin, keinuttaa, keinuttaa, pilvet lyövät ikkunaan, minua alkaa oksettaa, haluan lopettaa vatkaamisen, rypyttämisen, nuijimisen, veisaamisen, maailmoitten välissä purjehtimisen.
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The wind howls, plays the saw, bends the hazed horizon. Pupils of pitch-dark contract, light gleams from the fog: The Flying Lintula Nunnery punctures the bloated belly of the sea, masts scrape the vault of heaven torn by star pellets. The residents sway in the kitchen: the abbess whips eggbutter, a novice folds pasties, a nun pounds beef, hums a hymn rhythmically, from bar to bar, from year to year, they prepare for the horizon, for the wedding of heaven and earth, it's rocking, it's rocking, clouds beat the windows, I start to feel sick, I want to stop whipping, folding, pounding, chanting, sailing between the worlds.
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