29 July 2011

Drive to madness



early morning sounds of traffic beam outside as we lay on a huge bed after a night of reading books out loud to each others. I rest my head on the tanned stomach of an old friend, reading poems by dorothy parker. my slow and rusty voice vibrates to my chest, to my cheeks,

if I abstain from fun and such, I'll probably amount to much
but I shall stay the way I am, because I do not give a damn

an ambulance helicopter flies over the building, making the huge bay windows tremble. I feel weak and left behind by the world outside, and do not know where does the capacity of my mind to know in advance come from. seeing the future is the wrong way to put it, for seeing is active. what I experience is a passive, uncontrollable sense of remembering something not yet happened, as if everything meaningful enough to define time could overcome it and show its effects beyond it.

tonight I remembered how, in an apartment with tall purple walls, I woke up late one afternoon to fall from my bed onto a wool carpet on the floor. it was spring time, two years ago, and the friend now pondering on the words of dorothy was living with me, playing the role of a lover in my dreamlike den. 

I laid naked and nearly catatonic on the chocolate brown carpet for a long time, shocked by the dream I'd had. for the past winter months I had taught myself to believe, to know, that the relationship I was in was the one, the one that would last from those confused times until we were both wrinkly or dead. the reason for my stance was the uniqueness of the love I felt. I could not imagine myself to love anyone else, nor could I imagine anyone else to understand, accept and love my bipolar being. that is why I was bewildered to wake up bearing love for a mysterious figure from a dream.

in the dream I was in a boundless world and for no reason at all went into a crowded pharmacy. from behind a small counter I found a blond man, who I immediately knew myself to love. I can't remember the conversations we had when he accompanied me outside into the boundlessness where I got to know that after just two years we would meet in real life.

I crawled on the carpet to face my mirror leaning onto the purple wall, and looked at myself for a long time, as if trying to look for answers. when I told the dream to him who lays here with me earlier tonight, he said,

“oh girl. what would you ever need from a drugstore? did you meet somebody last spring who worked behind a counter that really serves your needs? don't answer me, because I know you did.”

I have known for a long time that the only people who understand the depths and the heights of my mind are the kind who have a similar spectrum of perspectives on life. yesterday, when walking in a park, I was talking on the phone with my father when I fell to the grass and cried silently for no reason I could recognize, but I guess he did. now, from the sounds of morning traffic underneath my window, I know without looking it to be the horn of his motorcycle that calls me out for a ride.

there are no words to use to describe a sense of life based on something so complicated and profound as to drive one regularly near madness. those without experience of such varieties tend to feel but resentment towards us, and I bet they have no idea of the tranquility and sheer peace we feel when cruising through the city. the center of helsinki is surrounded by islands with beautiful housing areas, and as we drive for tens of kilometers with only crossing the city's borders to drive through tapanila I feel my chronic escapism relieved. 

moving through scenes of life while sitting comfortably on a bike I am taken out of all the contexts driving me slowly insane in their arbitrariness. I could not be more happy than I am to have come from a person who on some unconscious level knows the quality of our shared lunacy and how it can be relieved, even if just for a moment. our way is the highway.


22 July 2011

Arsy




“the problem we have with arsy is that he is what he is. an asshole. you know what is the most annoying thing about assholes? their behavior escalates, because they cannot honestly face themselves but instead blame all their wrongdoings on others. and if not consciously blame, then on some other weird level they experience at least resentment towards those who have been more or less willing partners in their behavior, or merely around them. why? because they cannot face themselves on any level.

back some weeks ago I took myself out at night to spend some time on cliffs overlooking the city, smoking and photographing. as I sat there while bats flew around me in rapid patterns I thought wow, am I happy to be in my company. not alone in the company of somebody else. not in the company of an asshole. if I would be like arsy, those moments alone would be just filled with my mind lying to itself about itself in order to hold it all together in the company of myself. hold it together for what, well, to have a good time I guess. 

I think there is some sort of a logical contradiction going on in arsy being so social. he is good with people, like they say, always finding something common to discuss and brave enough to look everybody in the eye. maybe, just maybe, his sense of self is so fluent and all over the place that it is actually easier for him than for most to adjust himself to a variety of characters. and that very arbitrariness might extend to his values, to his sense of morality, and when combined with the amount of people he adjusts himself to, constantly, he actually does not know between right and wrong at times. he steals, lies, cheats, all of those things, but not daily. just you know, sometimes. 

well, in those times when he is the most far away from himself, I like to believe, because I do think he is a great laugh.”
“I want to say something and I promise you, I don't know what I am quoting;

program yourself to feel, with depth enough to know what's up and heart to sense the real.

18 July 2011

Celebrations & Sassari






back when living in an island of africa, I spent my 21st birthday inside a haunted house napoleon once slept in, trying to find a small piece of something worth 1500 euros from a huge pile of old furniture, motor parts and tens of boxes of fake flowers. I was accompanied by three sardinian men, all either too old or too ignorant to pay attention to my magical day. 

after not finding anything tangible after hours of digging in the dusty room, we returned to the small village where I lived in a four story house as the ninth weird member of famiglia. on the fourth floor, in a room with huge poorly isolated windows, I had a sofa-bed to share with a punkabbestia I had fallen in love with during one cold winter night in helsinki almost a year before my very 21st birthday.

after eating the dinner that evening, with all nine of us around one small square table, I climbed upstairs to lay on the sofa-bed and smoke. the house shared a wall with the church of the village of lingering houses built wall to wall to form a huge maze I easily got lost in when walking the blind bitch pitbull of ours. laying there, I could hear the church's bells sing for midnight, the hour of my birth. drinking from the mouth of a bottle of white while crying out of sheer happiness, I knew where I was from, where I was now, and in a weird way I knew where I was going.

now, late on a friday night of helsinki I am in in the company of '88, '89, '90 and '91 born mates, celebrating the 21st birthday of one of them. all of us, except for the one not turned the magical 21 yet, agree it to be the best age there is. gathered around an oval table, we eat cherry cheese cake and salt-dried vobla, and drink icy cocktails based on egg liquor, russian champagne and dark beer.

I could not be more happy as I am when sharing the space with amazing storytellers. for years we have formed an unofficial group of people who know what the term markku refers to, and thus gather around frequently to analyze its effects upon the world.

markku is a term attempting to define the kind of people who go on living their lives in the cloud of positivism. markkus lead their lives believing firmly the never fully analyzed view of life being about progression in the material domain. they are our engineers, our salesmen, our professionals. going around with the belief of saving a piece of the world everyday, they possess the sort of a logic behind their being that is worth a gift bag from all us sardonic. 

tonight, we yet again share stories of encounters in the revolutionary world of markkus.

“when I picked you up today from kisahalli I remembered that some weeks ago I delivered a two liter oxygen bottle there.”
“for the people working out in the gym? pumping all the oxygen out of your body will do stuff to your brain I hear.”
“no, for the drunk tank.”
“imagine when, after a drunken night you will never in your life be able to remember anything of, you lay on a concrete bed dry as this vobla with your numb brain too lazy to properly control your breath. then, like angels appearing from a door to light two police officers enter the room and place an oxygen mask gently on your face. full of gratitude and bursting with newly found life, you vomit into it and the next guy they hand it to will smell your gentle fucked up breath.”
“a kiss from a drunkard to another.”
“speaking of medical equipment, I had the most david lynch moment of my life some time ago when I had to go and buy a special suction cup for a glass eye from the only place in helsinki where you can buy one. I found out online the place is in mikonkatu, in the same building where the casino is. in the lobby I looked up where the office of the company was and took the elevator to the top floor. I have been to many elevators around helsinki, but that elevator was the fanciest I have stepped into here. it looked as if somebody had rubbed it clean from top to bottom just a second before I entered.

the elevator doors opened to a long white oval room. I looked around for a reception desk or something which I could walk to and present my case, but all there was were three doors on one wall, a meter from each others, and few chairs. on them there were two retards, and a guy with an empty eye socket. I asked from him what I should do, and he said “just wait, they will call you out by name.” 

so I sat there for some time, knowing that it was only slightly possible that my employer who needed the suction cup had called and said I was coming. suddenly, the middle door opened and a woman looked around without saying a thing. I stormed up to her and presented my case quickly, and she let me into the office.

it was one big room with huge windows facing the railway station square with a view over the city, to the west. when I entered I noticed all the three doors lead into it. the people working there can choose, based on where in the white waiting hall with chairs only on one wall a customer is sitting, to open the door number one, the door number two or the door number three and welcome the customer to walk straight ahead across the room from his seat to enter the office.

the view was really amazing, and I kinda felt sad for it being lost most of the time from the eyes of a man who in the corner, under some delicate instruments, was filing a white ball between his fingers.”
“so, in short, you are speaking about the best office real estate in the city dedicated for pedantic handicrafts and the ones who lack distance vision or sight altogether?”
“yeah. there are so many places in this city you could never dream to exist.”
“I work in a corner office on the third floor of a jugend building. on the street level there is a legendary tailor shop that has been there for decades. back in the eighties, the owner of the place took two young apprentices straight out from school. in the years that followed, he frequently stood leaning onto the drawing table without saying a thing as they hurried to finish suits for politicians working in the parliament just a couple of blocks away. often enough, he leaned closer and while leaning his head to his left hand he used the index finger of his right hand to tick his glass eye. tick, tick, tick, like the time ticking away.

at other times, he stopped all the work at the height of the hurry to have a meal at his house. his special dish was rabbit stew with red wine. he said, there is no bargaining with food.

after twenty years of apprentice, the master died, and bequeathed the shop for his apprentices. another earthly heritage he left was his glass eye placed in frames on the wall of the tailor shop, forever looking over the work being done.”
“now when I know that I am sure there will be a day soon when I will enter that shop with my camera, looking as if in the need of something tailored asap, only to ask if I can take a picture of the eye.”







15 July 2011

Lonely Hunter



a lonely hunter from inner dunes
the curse's cycle same as the moon's

driving through the city's big parks in the rain
“hey! beautiful!” plea those never to be seen again

a variety of different characters have inspired me this week
the strangers, the colleagues, the friends, the family, the loved

a sense of happiness has been rising within me like tides licking a cliff
and today I will share it with a birthday girl like I share a well rolled spliff



11 July 2011

Suffering


wasted days spent
wasted in solitude
with stories inside
my head spinning
their way towards
an empty piece of
paper that's never
made impure with
ink in this messed
up reality being so
intangible and lost

scenes of
life never
but silent
echoes in
our abyss
where we
just dwell
confused
and filled
with tales

the label crazy suits those
who stretch reality toward
supporting the tales which
gush somewhere between
all the moist ears attached
to heads varying in shape
and size together with two
sockets for vacant staring
eyes made quite common
by processes of evolution
triggered during cambrian
explosion beginning some
five hundred thirty million
rounds around my sun ago

I know myself to be surfing underneath the surface of the sea
and as you might imagine things look pretty different in here
where one can be reminded of the quiet option of descending
to obscurity by just looking down at the silent lingering mass
of dark blue hue tempting in its promise of existence in a void
of anything resembling the experience around the concepts of
time and space which even I used to accept as the two guiding
principles of life learned from those years I spent on dry land
searching for meaning from all related to tales which felt as if
they were defying those physical laws in their very being like
fossils of dinosaurs or books by long ago dead men or sweet
promises of everlasting love whispered from tender lips with
redness signifying how the life giving flow of blood goes on

04 July 2011

Eur


in eur, the part of rome built under mussolini to embody fascism, music is played from the headset of a young finn updating the crm of a given global software corporation, typing away while staring at the ceiling and in doing so catching the eye of the ceo from her glass walled office. spending time in it just a few hours per week, merely to show her presence, she sits there hoping her native italian hr manager would spare her the joy of hearing his chauvinist jokes.

across the penthouse space, from another glass walled office, the statistics team emails their monthly report to team leaders, managers and executives. delighted for having something worthy to read through when in front of a wide screen instead of just her blackberry, she focuses on it. summer months are the toughest for b2b, creating a difficult time to reach true decision makers. yet, from all the teams one stands out from the others in regards to its overall lead count - scandinavia.

after some data mining she learns that there is a single individual accountable for the result, so she emails him to come to her office after lunch.

later, at the terrace of the restaurant downstairs she picks on her cesar salad, pushing the croutons with a fork to the edge of the plate. enjoying the smell of grana padano, she reads her favorite blog.

I was sitting between a man and a woman, crowding a couch of a familiar apartment. I could not concentrate on what they were speaking about, because I was almost passing out as I tried to sit up straight. my muscles were tired of all the cycling I had done around the city, and my mind was weary from all the sensory stimuli I had had. but, passing out in company before it is appropriate does not belong to my way of being.
 

I sat down onto the floor to feel more comfortable, having my back against the two on the couch. he, who I admit loving, touched my shoulder and said, 

“you can lean onto my knee.” 

as I began to drift away from my consciousness I felt myself filled with joy of being able to relax, especially so after realizing that with the back of my head and neck I was really leaning onto his knee. I still could not hear what was the conversation continued on the couch, but I could sense from the tone of his voice that he was comfortable. he was ok with me leaning onto his knee.  

for some reason after my body had relaxed my mind became more alert, and I had to ask myself several times without finding an answer how had I gotten there. I could not remember. as far as I knew I was banned from his company, from that apartment of his. without moving a muscle on my body or making a sound, I began to realize that there was love in the air, that there was love in between us. I guess he realized it simultaneously with me, because at that moment he wrapped his arms around me, pressing his chin to my forehead. 

there were no distractions, no issues, no questions, no nothing but the love I felt, so I had to open my tired eyes to look at the hair hanging on his face as he crouched over me, just to be sure of his reality. I looked at him and I looked at the ceiling behind him for a long time, and I could not have been more sure of what I saw was real. I was sure I was not dreaming, and that very certainty drove over me like a train and I knew everything was right. I was happy in a way one is expected to be in the moment of “the end.”

before letting myself fall asleep I knew I had to use the toilet, so I got up to walk through a corridor, knocking down some empty beer bottles on the way. as I looked at myself from the bathroom mirror I gazed into my eyes, and that very moment I began to see what my eyes really saw - the empty bed I was laying in.

she sips the last drops of her merlot and lights a cigarette. from a table filled with men in suits across the patio a man of seventy catches her eyes, and winks his left. decisively, she gets up to return to the office.

sitting on her saddle chair, she waits to see an unfamiliar man enter her office from the  flow of people coming and going to lunch or wherever. instead, a woman wearing stylized equestrian apparel walks in and seats herself to the chair across her desk. she has a pair of startlingly observant, dark blue eyes.

oh, her, sighs her mind silently at the sight of the long blond hair which makes her realize her to be the same girl who did the typing without looking at the keyboard earlier today. this is not the first time her first language's weird habit of dividing nouns into gender categories causes confusion - she had thought the name aino was a man's.

“I think we have not been formally introduced.”
“I know your name and position, miss ferraci.”
“well we are all set then, aren't we. according to last month's statistics you have done amazingly well. almost more leads than the whole scandinavian team combined if excluding you from the count. now tell me, what is it in you that appears to be lacking from all other lead generators in regards to overcoming the challenges we have during summer months?”
“I am aryan.”

without giving out anything in the form of expressions the unmarried thirty-something miss ferraci hesitates for a second, but realizes quickly that there was a hint of irony in the voice lacking an accent.

“I think you have a point there. during a holiday in india some years ago, I got to rest my gaze in call centers reaching as far as the eye could see.”
“wow, I never thought I would be lucky enough to work under someone who knew what I am on about. I am sure I am not educating you about anything new when I step it up a little, and maybe our current context will help you form an opinion of what makes me be what others are not based on what I will say. may I quote from the chapter the aryan-ness of the doctrine of awakening from your country man julius evola's book the doctrine of awakening with the subtitle the attainment of self-mastery according to the earliest buddhist texts from my memory without the further references?”
“you may.”
“the man who was later known as the awakened one, that is, the buddha, was the prince siddhattha. according to some, he was the son of a king; according to others, he was of the most ancient warrior nobility of the śākiya race, proverbial for its pride: there was a saying, proud as a “śākiya.” this race claimed descent, like the most illustrious and ancient hindu dynasties, from the so-called solar race, and from the very ancient king ikṣvāku. “he, of the solar race,” one reads of the buddha. he says so himself: “I am descended from the solar dynasty and I was born a śākiya,” and by becoming an ascetic who has renounced the world he vindicates his royal dignity, the dignity of an aryan king. tradition has it that his person appears as “a form adorned with all the signs of beauty and surrounded by radiant aureole.” to a sovereign who meets him and does not know who he is, he immediately gives the impression of an equal: “thou hast a perfect body, thou art resplendent, well born, of noble aspect, thou hast a golden colour and white teeth, thou art strong. all the signs that thou art noble birth are in thy form, all the marks of a superior man.” the most fearsome bandit, meeting him, asks himself in amazement who might be “this ascetic who comes along with no companions, like a conqueror.” 

not only do we find in his body and bearing the characteristics of a khattiya, of a noble warrior of high lineage, but tradition has it that he was endowed with the “thirty-two attributes” that according to an ancient brahmatical doctrine were the mark of the “superior man” for whom “exists only two possibilities, not a third:” either, to remain in the world and become a cakkavatti, that is, a king of kings, a “universal sovereign,” the aryan prototype of the “lord of the earth,” or else to renounce the world and become perfectly awakened, the sambuddha, “one who removes the veil.” 

legend tells us that in a prophetic vision of a whirling wheel an imperial destiny was foretold for prince siddattha; a destiny that, however, he rejected in favor of the other path. it is equally significant that, according to tradition, the buddha directed that his funeral rite should not be that of an ascetic, but of an imperial sovereign, a cakkavatti. 

the awakened one is “a proud saint who has climbed the most sublime mountain peaks, who has penetrated the remotest forests, who has descended into profound abysses.” he himself said, “I serve no man. I have no need to serve any man;” an idea that recalls the “autonomous and immaterial races,” the race “without a king” - being itself kingly - a race that is also mentioned in the west. he is “ascetic, pure, the knower, free sovereign.”

these, which are frequent even in the oldest texts, are some of the attributes, not only of the buddha, but also of those who travel along the same path. the natural exaggeration of some of these attributes does not alter their significance at least as symbols and indications of the nature of the path and ideal indicated by prince siddhattha, and of his spiritual race.”

Poems



this week started with poems exchanged via email

everything's blurry
since last night waking up to an aching need to pee
i even fell to the bushes during my crouch
head boiling with fever
trying to create
cause I know i can create
where is it
something like a stupid fever can take it away
when it's needed
but you cannot force, i know
but today, just a moment ago
i opened my e-mail and
there it was
a reply i didn't expect
cause sometimes i'm a total fucking pessimist
who doesn't believe that anything will ever happen
but there is now a mail that broke the agony
she liked my mail
and she'd like us to come
to her wooden little house

love you, maybe no work will be done but i'll just put up pictures of a nigga bob

> > > > >

pessimism leads nowhere
the decision is to bang your head to the wall
or let the wall bang your head - and laugh!

I know you're into absurdity, babe

you will rule any little house
be the divine mother of fire and wood
I can already see myself sleeping on your floor

I am sitting at the office
have had dreams of love in the past two nights
please tell me they are real?

no matter how tough the shit gets
you have the biggest balls I've seen
and I bet the past winter made you stronger

I love you for you know how I really am
unlike many others who only see a shadow
like they see the ghost you've turned into

and I know better, too!
you are the ghost
roaming in our forests
but when you return among men
you will again prevail as the lion king

booo-hoooy!
nigga nigga nigga - boooooob!

03 July 2011

Love 11

a tired body exchanged a lot of love with helsinki
during one of those days when the sun does not set








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