Potato Thief - Pentti Saarikoski

The year was as long and dark as a bed,

I slept between two winds;

the bush was filling with black berries.

I went round two museums,

the first for turn-of-the-century middle-class interiors,

the second for state-purchased paintings

suitable for turn-of-the-century middle-class interiors.

The year was long and dark

the forest was pushing through the museums.

In summer the bush bloomed,

I very nearly bought a car

but then I stole a middle-class person's potatoes

and taught them how to behave themselves. Horrible summer!

Autumn gave us the moist glad eye from afar

and I was excluded from all restaurants.

I read some cardboard cut-out poets

with speech coming out of their mouths like writing;

the poets were sitting on wooden stools

in two forests and listening to the moon.

I slept without a pillow in a long and dark bed,

the police set off after me

and the potatoes thumbed their noses at the police.

The suns were small as black berries.

I hopped on a bike and fled from the world.

I pedalled up a hill and a girl was holding a basket,

a girl in a blue skirt, she sat on the bicycle rack.

At the top of the hill I took the girl's skirt off,

the girl opened her basket and tiny lions leapt straight out

and scrambled under the snow to hibernate.

The police were after me.

I leaped off the bicycle saddle through the moon into the sky.

I yelled, "Last one through's a rotten egg."

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Pentti Saarikoski (1937 - 1983) Finland

Translated by Herbert Lomas

Source: The Jackdaw's Nest