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Aila Meriluoto |
Turnings
Translations of contemporary Finnish lyric poetry by Doug Robinson
Preface
Poems
Biographical sketches
Contents
Prologue: What happens
Aila Meriluoto
I slept ten nights by a smoking fire
Eeva-Liisa Manner
Dark day, bright night in one
Mirkka Rekola
Spirit of autumn, smoke of autumn's song
Eeva-Liisa Manner
I pull myself tight
Inger-Mari Aikio
The white heat of the fells
Rakel Liehu
Some gave a sense of size
Mirkka Rekola
Autumn's smoke in the air
Rakel Liehu
this morning on my way to work
Inger-Mari Aikio
Who hid among us, couldn't help it
Mirkka Rekola
Yesterday they still called you in to
eat
Mirkka Rekola
every eye's lash
Inger-Mari Aikio
Homeland in the Air
Aila Meriluoto
limping badly
Inger-Mari Aikio
The Kingdom
Matti Rossi
tiny, black, tailed
Inger-Mari Aikio
Night's gloom looms on all hands
Jukka Kemppinen
distant as a dream
Inger-Mari Aikio
The trees are, the nights grow longer
bit by bit
Paavo Haavikko
He stood with his back to me
Eeva-Liisa Manner
Rising to its hands and knees
Mirkka Rekola
One day you'll wade to shore
Rakel Liehu
I ask time for words
Hannu Mäkelä
the rain that pounded the pavement
Inger-Mari Aikio
I light candles astride the winter mums
Paavo Haavikko
When you breathe close
Hannu Mäkelä
Do we shield each other
Mirkka Rekola
your feelings taste
Inger-Mari Aikio
your leaving unlatched
Inger-Mari Aikio
that the feel of turbidity
Inger-Mari Aikio
Driving
Eeva-Liisa Manner
Autumn, old driver, pissing
Sirkka Turkka
We drive beneath the vast night and thunder
Sirkka Turkka
Steve
Matti Rossi
The morning's team
Rakel Liehu
do you feel those long white nails
Inger-Mari Aikio
I'm thinner, I think. But how?
Sirkka Turkka
Close by, deep inside you, some thread
Hannu Mäkelä
I cast nettles in my eyes
Inger-Mari Aikio
I sit in the rain
Inger-Mari Aikio
For years
Mirkka Rekola
If you owe goose eggs, don't borrow
Paavo Haavikko
slowly, distantly begins
Inger-Mari Aikio
This summer even the blackbird
Mirkka Rekola
Imperious goldeneye, waterfowl
Paavo Haavikko
And she moves in a room where there is
nothing but the expectant water
Paavo Haavikko
I lie
Inger-Mari Aikio
And so she nearly stops breathing
Paavo Haavikko
the earth has started to fling
Inger-Mari Aikio
like evening
Inger-Mari Aikio
Pasts have this resemblance, I still
remember them
Mirkka Rekola
Animals hate you
Jukka Kemppinen
They call you an aristocrat
Paavo Haavikko
Indision
Paavo Haavikko
even if you travel
Inger-Mari Aikio
The moon is the heel of a limping shoe
Pentti Saarikoski
The dead sleep frozen beneath the snow
Rakel Liehu
If only this would work, just once
Mirkka Rekola
The sun plays day, night the star
Mirkka Rekola
This time be other?
Mirkka Rekola
Winter
Rakel Liehu
Under the ice onions sleep
Rakel Liehu
So many times more than the stone
Sirkka Turkka
It's snowed
Rakel Liehu
It's no use
Paavo Haavikko
the long winter's night backs
Inger-Mari Aikio
The trees are inside us
Jukka Kemppinen
You are a long sentence
Paavo Haavikko
She burns the lamp mornings longer than
she needs to, she's alone
Paavo Haavikko
I ask the stones'
Mirkka Rekola
Full moon in February and the snow
Pentti Saarikoski
The tree, I wonder at the tree
Paavo Haavikko
Fruit for the trees, juice for the fruit
of the trees, and I said
Paavo Haavikko
The melony moon opens one bruised eye
Jukka Kemppinen
The Unknown Soldier
Matti Rossi
I consider a conjunction
Pentti Saarikoski
Let me lay my hand
Rakel Liehu
The hand that writes us writes
Paavo Haavikko
let time pass
Inger-Mari Aikio
Stone age gone, the gig's
Jukka Kemppinen
In the hairs of the forest birds are
vermin
Jukka Kemppinen
So wide in the middle narrowing a little
your long smooth
Paavo Haavikko
With their tiny tongues
Pentti Saarikoski
If only I could
Pentti Saarikoski
Tomorrow he'll still be the one
Jukka Kemppinen
does anyone think s/he's
Inger-Mari Aikio
Gordon
Matti Rossi
the hunger of another's nerve cells
Inger-Mari Aikio
Staring at the sea
Mirkka Rekola
Captain in Copse, Felled by Friendly
Fire
Matti Rossi
The dark waits. The stranger waits
Paavo Haavikko
I stuffed the trash
Pentti Saarikoski
gusts cuff
Inger-Mari Aikio
Was it true or my heart's simulacrum,
that
Eeva-Liisa Manner
Don't remember
Paavo Haavikko
The road's pocked face
Sirkka Turkka
I have loved the path
Rakel Liehu
Homo Regens
Aila Meriluoto
Happiness is a hazy path through the
woods
Eeva-Liisa Manner
Epilogue: What happens
Aila Meriluoto
