Author: stevekuusisto

Lyric consciousness is “stripped” consciousness. The word is menacing because the world is invariably opposed to youth, sexual freedom, multi-racial identities, disabilities, the poor…

autumn in the boat

wind peaceful, 

leaves and images falling–

I reckon every time

life forsakes me

clouds are bright

and there’s water on both sides…

–Niilo Rauhala

(Translated from the Finnish by SK)

I just go on writing poems. Shadows in the weeds. Everything fragrant. Late summer. In general my life has been composed of mistake after mistake. When I’m feeling kind toward myself I say this is “being human”–but every minute has a different name for sorrow. “What about joy?” you ask. Joy has ten fingers and once face. Peek-a-boo. A few thoughts in the morning garden. Miracle trees and clouds. I laugh like hell at a sparrow who looks like James Cagney. I’m blind. How do I know? I know. 

I’m writing today’s name:

broken footed table. 

I carry the table into tomorrow’s garden

where sparrows walk over it. 

The poet Issa said “I wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind” and today I’m waving my skinny arms. Waving and flapping. For I’ve just watched speeches from today’s “Fiftieth Anniversary” of Martin Luther King Jr’s march on Washington and Lordy I’m hearing from the MSNBC pundit crowd that nowadays civil rights means more than just our ethnic identity–it means LGBT and Latino. And no one says the “D” word. Disability wasn’t spoken from the rostrum or in the talking heads section. I was not surprised for neo-liberal culture has a hang up with disability and that’s nothing new. But I’m flapping out here in the wind. Will probably do it all my days. 

As Issa would say: “before birth, after birth, that’s where you are now”–let’s just keep shining out here in the meadow like a red hot autumn chrysanthemum. 

Morning custom:

keep with dream-prayers,

whisper, look into the lake.

Hold fast, don’t be troubled,

sadness waits in the library.

**

When Easter comes

a quiet sorrow 

wakes in the leaves

sun enters the branches.

I go to my secret garden

dig up my flute.

**

Meeting the only people

who are colder today

than yesterday…

**

poems provide,

preachers take

**

Come in and go over:

Night’s rain…

Such a young face

and the sufferings of old age…

**

green 

night sky

black clouds

flock

toward dawn 

rising

on light wings

and the ocean, the ocean…

**

night sounds

rain like hard footfalls 

atrial meter buzzing

child dreaming

laughing in sleep

best moment of day

Suppose I put you in a story

You grasshoppers

You could continue forever

Not thanking me

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for the simple reason

that many may think otherwise

I listen to my heart

–Niilo Rauhala

translated from the Finnish by SK

In me are the seeds of future life

You too

But they’re also in the wind

Look Birds are eating tomorrow

I believe that magpie has eaten all of next year

Now that the wind has stopped

on the great waters;

Now when I look at the sails

and sense my journey,

I see the stars and ocean

are close together.

–Niilo Rauhala

translated from the Finnish by SK