THIS POEM WAS UPDATED
Where is your heart, Riikka Purra?
Did you throw it away in a trash can?
Or did you hungrily devour it
after you saw your first refugee
The bricks that line your political path
will turn red hot and melt your shoe soles;
even if you can only be tall for now
by forcing others on their knees,
your days are counted and you will lose
because the people you kick around today
will kick back, and hard.
Timo Soini is chairman of the nationalist populist Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party. After the most recent opinion polls showed that the political future of the PS is bleak to say the least, what will Soini do after his party returns to the minor political leagues? Will he start to sell used cars?
Would he sell used Halla-ahos or, maybe, Immonens, Eerolas, Elos, Huhtasaaris and Slunga-Poutsalos at rock-bottom prices?
Would you buy such a used car from him and would you trust his promises?
Continue reading “Migrant Tales Literary: Would you buy a used car from PS’ Timo Soini?”
Leo Honka
Folks! We’re not going to visit a traditional peep show with women or men but one where all your bigotry, hate, and racism undress before you.
Social media peep show sites like Hommaforum* are such places. People visit them anonymously and get all excited by their lewd thoughts. They too undress but with the help of their racist comments.
A poem on a social media peep show wall once read:
Dedicated to Eila Kännö (1921-2009)*
By Leo Honka
I lived in this land of Finland
from a long, long time ago
before it heard your steps
when it could kick the shit out of tolerance
and walk away with impunity with intolerance
in the streets
as soverign master
Over anything that moved.
You’d be shocked by the things I’ve consumed
with my eyes and ears
and devoured in one gulp
by a thrusted spear through the heart:
The fight to maintain Finland white back then
was pretty easy
all you needed were two sentences:
To keep criminals
and the human trash away.
* Head of the Aliens Office of Finland during 1970-84. Finland got its first aliens act in 1984, or 66 years after independence. Before this the authorities could detain and deport a migrant with no right of appeal. Some claim that Kännö ran the Aliens Office like a state within a state.
Leo Honka
A well where dreams flourish
splashing with ease
on a slow poke painted summer afternoon
which I wear with the help of a restless bow tie
just before stepping on a country path
that blushes
from my weight.
By a gentle pond that turns into serenity
warned by towering trees of my presence
swaying with the help of the wind:
It’s where I’ll build my home,
right here,
where hope spreads roots.
By Leo Honka
Six sparrows in the woods
fly through the soul
but all is not lost
there’s plenty of room in spring:
goose is exhaled,
duck now enters, learns to stay an image
hare now hopes in.
Late to an appointment
sadness rushes out of the door
as toucan paints the scene
with its mighty colored beak
final image before departing
By Leo Honka
Are you now the universe, grandfather?
Grandfather grand…How many planets did you see
on the day you turned to dust.
Did you see gliding stars in the ethereal silence?
Is death a place of fleeting regrets?
Did you find those days you threw overboard?
Your moribund eyes, now
like an inflamed meteor
speeding away
to horizons that turn themselves off to mortals.
By Leo Honka
The racist shows off
his rabid dog
on a short leash
footsteps and gleaming eyes
speak of satisfaction
on the pavement and media attention
thanks to his rabid dog.
Like flies on flypaper
struggling to survive
the racist too owns a rabid dog.
On a short leash he walks, walks
but doesn’t know
the true nature of the beast
that knows no master
and can bite back, hard
like Anders Breivik.
What should we do!?
A racist and his rabid dog
in our midst and on our streets!
Send them both to the municipal racist pound!
Give them a shot of tolerance, a possible cure!
So the racist
will no longer show off his rabid dog
on a short leash.
There’s a place by the heart,
possibly nearer to the soul,
where eyes gasp for air, in their own pain
Amid arid and warped hills
Grass blades sagging like broken horses
on desolate plains expanding endlessly in all directions.
Abandonment is a lonely place where I long to be.
Despite the masochism, the empty chants inside your head
rooting you on
your deepest pain and loneliest hour.
When confronted by so much adversity
you usually roll with the punches
and die in an instant.
I’m now here in this wretched and fridge-weather place
If you granted me one wish
I’d certainly ask you to cover and warm me like a blanket!
