Full Moon in the Calendar

There's a full moon in the calendar

but I can't see the nocturnal seas

or hear the bottomless wail of craters

nothing in the sky but the shipwrecked light of childhood

toes numb from the cold

hands on the wheel

a soldier freezing in a foxhole

his helmet white from the snow

his youth split in half in an instant

like an egg cracked on the rim of a frying pan

the screech of the big whistle

a skull torn apart by shrapnel

its thoughts all bare

the bumpy reddened skin of a goose

please let there be no one out in the yard

I could just strangle my cock

and scramble my brains when I go on leave.

There's a full moon in the calendar

but I don't know how to read

and I can't see how my winter tires makes love to these icy streets

scratching that unsanded back to find free spaces

as if tearing out the man from under his skin

to see what he's really like

to never ever be betrayed

even though we're both here naked

the newspapers fallen from the bed's edge like leaves

the yellowed sea charts of those lost in the sheets

the sneering snigger of the floorboards

infidelity above the clattering rooftops

ships swaying in the wind

like the brunt breath of consummation

love's hopeless battle

the wild rat-a-tat-tat rattle of machine guns on an empty field

a hollow tree in the middle

fingernails blackened

by places, long since gone

whose names in the atlas are changing.

There's a full moon in the calendar

but I still can't believe it

or hear how the reeds are quivering

when the windows of an ageless child mist over

dead flies between the glass

not even the spider wants to move

only the night sneaks in silence

falls on everything like a curse

a working man of few words

and his smooth sauna steam

in the smell of sap and sweat

worn suede shoes by history's cabinets

and the chipped gravel truths of mass graves

fall down on our shoulders

no signposts or maps for this harsh path

where a soldier returns home blind

his lips a whimpering wind, embarrassed

but crooning in lust

one last time.

Translation: Kasper Salonen