Zola gets into Vanity Publishing - Preparing for next Hospital visit. Anyway the government sent me a memo : keep those Awks busy and off the streets it said.



The Elemental - Nocturnal Prolongations - My Dear Leino

To take a slow walk by the great Oulu lake-sea-sides, near Kajaani, in a summertime holiday mood, is to gently drift with the thickly, moving, impressions of a poetic place,thick and thin and full,with tradition. Eino Leino springs to mind here as being a still sprightly spirit of Paltaniemi. A solid sense of impishness is at play in this small hamlet with this peon pen that provoked the dance of life and death. His poetry still inspires some young Finns and old alike. He is dead and gone - he has joined, his own words, the - "scrubs of the deceased" - but, yet still so moving, he remains a bohemian as his texts continue to tip-toe through summer-nights and romances and us all. We the most unlikely ones. We the petty "will-o-wisp vanities" personified, glorified, to the point of extortion and unbelief. We the latest lost generation seeking to be big idols and yet refusing idealism. We, the latest example of that slave-trade culture of a mere risk and culture industry-for-itself. With such cultural bagage I walked gently into that good summer night with Eino Leino and he told me a little something as a gift-like happening.

First he "wispered" warmly the words : " Do as I do, beam like me and give blissful givings to the singer." He willed-me-to-power, that is. So as this wise old poet crept up upon me I dreamed my way into a kindred appreciation with such words, indeed.I replied to him as best I could in a summer-night-fever of intensity. I do follow his advice and I reply as I build as I labour with that kind of love which springs, naturally, with an Eino Leino poem. "Nocturne" (1905) is a good example - and I said to myself, at the time, god-damit, I will give this a bash. I would try and excel at the useless too. I was on a holiday ( my symbolic-freetime?) so all was up for grabs. So I tried a little something. A re-write of that Eino Leino poem. I tried to hang onto a dream. He lived as a collective unconscious meandering, spiriting, through and with the free-floating fields of vision as an elemental elf at play. Leino impelled me thus into experience. I was enthused to speak with worded worlds that denied not the speaking. Leino impelled me into an impish musical adventure. Leino helped me beat the city-devils and their sylvan satan.

Nocturnal Prolongations

Evening song; in my ear, corncrake calling, singing, under floodlights; Staged by a full moon.
Straw stooks standing, upright, swelling; as fodder-fields, landscapes; As my mind.

My summer night with so many warm hearts beating - yes.
Elemental My dear Leino.

Wood-smoked valleys appearing, drifting, as distance becomes, Alive, as time, as place, flies by.
As lakeside-fields fuse into twilights of peopled-times,
Fused by peopled-places alive now here and well.

I am not overjoyed ( romantic I am not) but yet neither am I so over sorrowed ( fatalistic I am not) to have followed this way where dark, still, woods still serve my own, full well, though veiled with the shifting moving shadows that beckon the new returning day which is always before and beyond just now.

Cumulus clouds, berries, blossom a yellow-red ending of a day, falling, sleepy-sometimes-all-times-well.
With shadows on the water-ways, streaming unto stillness, slowly, with the rested wind.
A little resting now yet still restless.
A Being as Being unto death which has no dominion.

Through blue-grey hills by blooming meadows,
Smelling, faintly strong,
A summer night edures, endears.
Out, within, those warm wild beginnings hearts hone well,
An end-home in the big song and I.

Why?
Why the melody?
Dark forest fevers, shadowy lake-sides, dusk time-settings?
Musical Adventures?
Serenity?
Why dance?
Because!! I believe, I feel, I am simply with.
I AM-with.
Elemental my dear Leino.

Because the proud leave only mere shadows of separations.
Because good young butterfly dreams waft along with life.

Why???

Why translucence, meek blue-greys and hills, beckon, alongside, faint fragrances,flowers, meadows, so strong in faintness?
And why, as the corncrake croaks and as the corn stooks stand, by,
Some sounds of music, as a crex-crex, are hard, brittle and warm?

Elemental my dear Leino.
The before and the beyond, as nocturnal prolongation.
We belong, just here and there and all,
Without possession, within.
Betwixt and between,
Dionysus dancing with Apollonian harmonies.
The wine is there to give life to the ordering,
Of things, just so, My dear.

But the primrose path is but a poor beauty without the wines of dandelions. The puff-balls frolic with the wind but such a flight of fancy is rooted. Youthful travels are but seeds branching out with their past-within. Betwixt and between, destiny, alive and freedom well. The wherewithall flourishes, seriously, at play.


Song? I sing, with,
That song which is no slave.
Songs not possessed.
That which cannot be owned and sold is sung.

My dear Leino, I have followed your advice.
We do not own our words unless we are to be slaves.
You never wanted us, sentenced, worded, slaved in prisons.
We cannot make poetics before and beyond the executions.

My dear Leino, aristocrat, expert of the useless,
Rose-bush-thorn,
Thou art master of intrigue with good reason-to-be.
You embrace, you travel-with,
Differences,
Far away to the centre.
Away from deathly indifference,
However.
Into moral metaphysical guilt.
But far, far, away from hubris.
Away from feigned fickle fancy.
You are a variable rainbow of delight where a wet sun smiles again.
As we wake with each new exotic morning,
To be a Diff-Errant.


My evening sings a deep serenity, faithful, as a summer hay-sweet male-maid-end song, singing no fatherland-motherland fickle feat.
I believe as, musical melancholy, an adventure glows and ... ,
Swells, ever fresh and green, in a still, strong and yet still soft, voice with-in.
The labours of love, an oak-leafed garland, thrives, translucent-true,
Displays,
The green and brown and blue and the white and ...

I will no longer chase the will-o-wisp vanities,
I find my home, here, my Being, here, elemental.
I will no longer be blown by the fake cold winds of war.
I leave behind me now, Idols, the culture industry, the fickle, The fickle image, cash nexus all.

I throw my little stones into warm still waters and watch and learn.
Concentric circles move with my imagination, bounced, back,
From The rocks.
All eccentricity is moved to shallow waters, as always,
Weather-cocks, are always, dead-asleep, as they spin around,
And around.
In dreams we spin a tale or two as the harsh and cackled crex-crex, eternally returns and ...
The crex-crex, corncrake, straw stooks standing, pave a path,
Before and beyond and ...
With those good intentions turning.
Philosophy in a nutshell my dear Leino.

Time is resting, well, now, with me and my own.
What is before returns, as I move, beyond peradventure again.
Eino - you have travelled yet again and I, for another, feel OK.
Why? Because we move even when we peer out, from a small window,
A sauna, box,
Screen.
Your view.
Elemental my dear Leino.


********************

My reply with Eino Leino might be but an impish reply from a bohemian "Jack-O'-Lantern". Indeed I have no claims to the "A.B.C" of expertise. But may I say here that Eino Leino tempted me into an "unknown room" and I felt like singing too. Perhaps I had no choice in the matter - I do not know. But I do care. If I have stolen gold from the devil up high I will be, no doubt, brought to new order. The good bohemian Leino would well forgive my virgin-adventures into and with the unknown. Fate is, I guess, always much more than we merely think it is !!!

Note : Eino Leino ( 1878-1928) is considered to be one of the Finnish poets that remains significant in the national identity stakes. His poem "Nocture" was first published 100 years ago, in 1905, in the book "Talvi-Yö". Today with this anniversary year in mind it does no harm to show some humble respect. The recent death of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas ( famous for his infinity of the infinity theme with the elemental) is also significant here in my attempt to allow the self-same happenings to find re-creation(al) displays. The professional philosopher, however, might find my interpretations to be a little to impish but such is the price we pay today for such summer-night frolics and jolly jaunts with the most necessary wild-side. Maybe Leino was a little child-like at times and maybe I write as I pick the petals and say "the philosophers like it ; the philsophers don't, the poets like it ; the poets don't ....". Maybe I write to publish thinking that Eino Leino might well like.

( END )

SOME FINAL COMMENTS FROM FINLAND 2006

As Finland passes on the EU leadership to Germany we found Foreign Minister, Erkki Tuomoja sharply criticise the whole ugly Iraq affair. It is already well know that he is disliked by Condi Sleezey Nice of the USA especially after he told her that he thought the USA should get its own house in order before crashing around the world stomping on other places in the disguise of freedom and democracy. Again this straight talking truth talking man is another example of the big difference between Finland and the UK and the USA.

Concerning again President Tarja Halonen one of her farewell 2006 comments was, to Zola, heartenening. She said that migrants and "foreigners" should never be only seen as in the numbers games of the market. All are human she said and deserved to seen and treated as being human first and foremost. Both Halonen and Tuomioja are long time friends, since university, and long time active social democrats. It is good to see that the social democrats remain leading in every poll taken this far over the last year.

WHAT ABOUT THE REAL FARMERS IN FINLAND?

Today in Finland a few little things MIGHT be revealed. You may have heard that Finland is voted by some to be the least devious and most open EU country in things like freedom of the press and government. Let us wait and see.

As greedy pundits from the globalisation gang constantly hit farmers and agricultural folk we might, today in Finland, see just why. Agri-Culture has been branded as traditional and out-of-date in this global risk mis-economy. The State itself has been blamed for this mess. Oh dear me what does all this debate really mean we ask.

But Finns learn ( hopefully learn more soon) that many of the biggest ( secret) deals under the European Union for subsidies have been going to big business leaders. That is the TRADITIONAL ABSENTEE LANDLORDS. Bosses from big companies that own farmland seem to benefit as Finnish farmers ( real working farmers) suffer and are abused by EU and newspaper propaganda as being traditional. Traditional? The power elite remains in power I suggest. Power Elite tradition benefits here !

But today in Finland is a test case for any freedom of information act.
The State run news service, YLE ( a bit like the BBC), needs patience here and much support especially as their budgets keep getting cut.

Does this story ring any bells to anyone else out there?

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF IT ALL
As December 6th comes around again there are some things that do not change. Over on the good Yellow Duck site the old Nick ( the Santa of Holland) is remembered as a kind of life and death thing. The kids there in the Netherlands needed to be good if life was to continue well for them. On another celebrated site, at Szwagier and the Pirates lair, it becomes today all existential. Not only is Szwgier feeling "unwell today" but the old pirate ponders upon sickness and health. Still moving around the ring of awkwardness we find Anticant swimming firmly in the deep waters of real illness or sickness or the existential shocks that relate to a human body that knows it is not well. I guess somethings never change in life or at least I guess a few basics remain.
No matter the ways that sickness, or illness or whatever the correct term is, is sometimes made into a nasty stigma or a label of untouchableness - no matter these matters - there remains something deep and difficult here. Easy to fool around with or make black ( dark side) jokes about but this life and death existence itself is the only wise smile about.

Finland today, December 6th, is a rather special day for so many. Indepedence for Finland was and is no easy thing but Finns are a very independent lot. Tonight about 18.00 hours, damn it a six, Finns will by the thousands and thousands gather around at different cemeteries throughout the land. It will be dark and usually with a full white snow cover. Then the candles will be flickering. Hundreds of candles everywhere. A foreign visitor is usually amazed at this sight. It is an atmosphere that has power and emotion. But the point is this. This atmosphere is one of respect for those now long since deaprted. It is a new life being given through the memory with death.

This may be called a religious or spiritual experience or not. What I have felt from this dec 6th night of candles is really a respect for life and death itself and a warm feeling for others. Connection is the word that springs to mind. I cannot give another interetation as I am not a member of the church.

But tonight around 6 on the 6th of December I will join the candle burning folk.
There maybe be some that might sense a black-act at work - but no I will not light six candles.
I will however be impressed again to remember and connect with folk and life and death.

In Praise of PEA SOUP
After a bad weather Monday, yesterday, this blog would be wise to stay nice and dry today. But lessons are there to be learnt and as a final comment ( a free pee ) on yesterday let me respect those old poets of the past who knew what to say and where, when and why. In the old trains, before the 1970s in the UK, there would be posted an official notice on the wall of the toilet. It read : " Refrain from urination when the train is in the station". Much better that than today methinks. Today? "Piss only when running". No mention of the wind direction or ...... Anyway let me get serious again. Learning procees.

In praise of PEA SOUP.
Pea Soup is one good Finnish tradition. It used to be, not so long ago, that pea soup was always on a Thursday. Alas that has mainly gone now but the pea soup thing remains still strong. It is not good to try and blog yer way into stardom but I must claim a certain expertise here. In the 1980s, in Finland, I was featured on TV because of my pea soup recipe. Nearly 40 minutes of fame ( beats that 15). But the main point is that pea soup is a saviour. If you do not believe me then just ask Finns.

December 6th in Finland is Independence day. It is a celebration of those men and women who went against the might of the Soviet Union and Stalin. Finns had the guts to say a very BIG NO. That history remains in many hearts of folk even young folk today. To fight against a huge army and to basically win ( with many pay-back consequences ) is still today respected as a tradition. December 6th also is a memory of winter warfare. With no disrespect here I ask those that are interested to look at the history books and stuff. But just think what even living in winter is like at minus 25 or 30 or even 40 degrees centrigrade? Then an idea of survival and "will" is slowly forged into mind.

One of the basic foods for survival was PEA SOUP. Not however the pea soup that I displayed on the TV because that was namby-pamby stuff fit for spoilt aristocratic brats like myself in contemporary times. No this pea soup for survival was with the minimum of peas and the maximum of hot juice. It was rumoured that Finnish soldiers would search with their spoons for the peas in the soup. Fate was the master of this act ( just like finding dry salt packets in UK Crisps or finding a salt packet at all in those good old UK days) but the juice remained. Finland battled on against the might of the Soviet Bear from the East and pea soup helped the victory.

Today whenever I feel a little down and out I can help myself with pea soup. OK I add a few bits of mint and i add a few chuncks of meat and a few slices of carrot but the feeling remains good. No I will not give you my famous pea soup recipe that was on TV before cooking programmes were just the thing for cheap broadcasting.
I know it is Tuesday but I celebrate pea soup today anyway.

Pea Soup Rules OK

HELLO TO ALL THAT... AGAIN
This time it is Finland. The brutal and nasty truth that is war memory returns to haunt many folk. New photographs "emerge" from the archives of government and military and newspapers can no longer ignore bad and sad facts of war. After the recent freedom of information act in Finland people ask : just how much more can we take?

The biggest newspaper in Finland ( Helsinki Sanomat : an on-line English language version is available) is one of many influential news reports that are asking the question : "What is to be done" now we know more of the truth of our war?" and indeed this question is a big one. But the bigger question is this -- why cover the bad and sad and difficult bits up in the first place? What many local folk have known for generations ( executions and awful happenings from all sides of war) the news papers today take more seriously. The internet is a part of this and so is the changes brought about by government legislation on freedom of information over the last few years. But what Finland is today asking about in public is no Finnish thing. We only need to have a few young German or Austrian friends to realise that.

My own past contacts with the UK taught me many a lesson. I doubt even today that there is reliable information available there concerning the killing of British soldiers by British soldiers and especially the murder of British officers by the rank and file. In Finland too executions were happening. i have one working friend who wrote that he was lucky to be alive and owed his life to a fairly big business boss of a factory. You see his grandfather was waiting in line to be executed ( he was too left wing) but the business boss stepped in and said that this man, the grandfather, was an excellent worker and should be saved. Stories like this are so common that we must ask why the newspapers and official news reports fail in the truth stakes.
OK : there are overt and covert actions at work here both by organisations and by individuals. But there is also something equally ( perhaps more) scary. There are "Structures" out there which move against truth in war or truth in everyday life. It may some time before we can say Good Bye To All That.