Marjo Isopahkala: 4 Poems

Poems by Marjo Isopahkala

KALLE AND I

Kalle was my boyfriend.
He had carrot red hair,
blue jumpsuit and a cap always crooked.

When beach balls rushed to the sea one after another,
Kalle comforted me and said
that they have a good heart.
They go over the bay to a land called Sweden,
which is such a poor place
that they don´t even have beach balls.
That now there are many happy Swedish kids.

After that we started
to send balls of different colours to that Sweden.

Kalle had another girlfriend, Olga.
She had long, poison red pig-tails,
always wore some fancy light green dresses
and she was half a meter taller than Kalle.

This Olga was a jealous broad,
at nights she came to my bedside and stared.

One day a big jackrabbit took Olga away.

I was happy alone with Kalle, 
until my little brothers decided,
that he was really Kalle Päätalo*, and hanged him.

* Kalle Päätalo – Celebrated Finnish Author. (1919 – 2000)

***

THE HAPPY ONES

I have a Merc
and an ass to go with it.

My hair is golden
and my pet fox of silver.

She fights with males
and my uncle fixes her limbs,
she eats only fried moose and lingonberry porrige.

We girls drive together to the sunset,
to an abandoned house by the northern river,
to the most secret hiding place in the forest.

In the trunk an axe and woollen socks,
a Bulgakov and a car tool catalogue.

We lack nothing.

***

TO ALL YOU SHITHEADS

fucking cowards.

first you rape me for over 10 years, 
then, when I say
       that I need you now
       this night and completely,
you say first we should get to know each other better,

that SEX IS A SERIOUS THING.

why didn´t you get to know me
before you started to stuff your cocks 
into this little girl´s soul and mind and body.

I am tough
I am sensitive
I am a man
I am a woman
I cry
I laugh

and always I am too much for you.

you cannot handle
your own actions.
you cannot handle
a real person.

you marry a small blonde
whose hair is neither too short nor too long
who isn´t too skinny or too fat
who is sexy in a decent way
not too bright, funny or vulgar
and least of all manly.

I would tell you to stick it up my cunt
if it wasn´t too good a place for you.

I would wish your cocks to shrink
if I hadn´t already seen it happen

and know

that even when I´m 6 feet under
I´ll still have a bigger one
than you.

***

What a tall-looking man,
says father
coming back from lumberjacking
and there is a groom waiting
in a suit and black tie.

Mother is ballooning with joy,
planning a wedding at the end of the pew.

I´m wearing a pink skirt,
my hair is in a bun.

They are trying to make me normal.

First published in The Flesh of the Bear – Bilingual Anthology (Ek Zuban 2004).

 Translated by Andy Willoughby, Bob Beagrie and The Flesh of the Bear poets.