Waiting at Helsinki Airport

26 September 2011

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki Airport best airport in the world in 1999; Alko, Heureka Shop, Luxbag, Moomin Shop, Stockmann, Reader’s, Timanttiset, Santa’s Gift & Toy Store; silence is understood in this country or you have to pay; to the left and to the right angels waiting for their flights; I should get some more postcards; it is very expensive here; a little princess has lost her eye; the tall man with the broken glasses is rummaging through his bags; there are places we will never know exist; the flight to Frankfurt has been pushed back; the Tibetan Book of the Dead also speaks to the living; my first television memory The Beatles in 1963; the hands clasped in prayer like the embouchure of a trumpet player who sets the mouth; like the startling discovery that in modal music C is where F should be; the low drones of the didgeridoo the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues; shadows fall over surfaces becoming part of them; we take our great secrets to the post office and to the grave; I have enjoyed reading Thomas Tranströemer; spiritual imagination can transcend theology; matrix mechanics and quantum jumps; Saint Patrick was a Scott; detective novels are everywhere; John Klimakos’ stairway to heaven meets Led Zeppelin; a weeping Beethoven clutching pillows to his ears; “The man has done his task” (Arthur Schopenhauer); I need more coffee and would like another chocolate croissant; there are lots of handsome people in the Baltics; lust robs of us of our most creative years; last night I dreamt of birds and flying suitcases; a young barefoot woman making eyes at the boy is perjuring herself on her mobile; two friends are exchanging gifts and promises which one of them will not keep; Peter Williams’ J. S. Bach: A Life in Music is beautiful; Muddy Waters wrote his own story; please, Lord, let me find those answers to my questions; mental health can make all the difference; I must send Les more translations; we all carry a book with a big story; Vikram Seth did not like to be called “Vicky”; the ruined temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion writes poetry during the hours of eventide; in Sumer words written in cuneiform were left out to dry; reading used to be a performance; I must stop worrying myself over Martin; Maximus the Confessor lost his tongue; “Say it, no ideas but in things” (Williams Carlos Williams); may I never, never have thought of überveillance; four more hours before I board for Hong Kong; maybe I should have spoken to that ABC reporter; stop… stop… stop… stop… 12 1234 12 1234 12 1234; Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan; … stop… stop… stop… stop… 12 1234 12 1234 12; Cobalt Blue, Electric Blue, Midnight Steel Blue, True Blue; a little girl with a bald doll is arguing with her Mother who dropped their passports; lots of things are underestimated like the beauty and value of paperweights; and the French horn trying to break into jazz; I need to polish my shoes; the Pope wears red slippers and can fly a helicopter; an old man has fallen asleep with a half-closed book on his lap; when will this flesh be controlled that pure prayer might stand a chance; Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name; please do not abandon me; an impossibility like a little book on Chinese motifs; the Finns epic poets and rune singers of the Kalevala; “Between the motion/ And the act /Falls the Shadow” (T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men); electricity is fuel; electromagnetism and electrochemistry; Albert Einstein loved both Spinoza and Faraday; a star is a gigantic glowing ball of gas; see Burton’s anatomy of melancholia; In the beginning was the word.