GROOVING
The wind WOO-OOO-OOPS.
In those wild and woolly times
I mused on stork nests in the woods.
Curious how the wind could
oh so vocally – woo-ooo-ooo –
loop the loop
through the screw-loose.
Oh wind!
We can see through
YOU-HOO,
you curlycuer.
Snooping about
rootling around –
whether wind scoops holes in hollows.
Roots and shoots
start to wing it
Wind, unruly wind
with mind-blowing mouth
mindful of horror –
WOO. WOOHOO-HOO-HOOO. WOOHOO-HOO-HOOO
cuffing a kid on the crown
without caution or care
(heedless of fleeing the scene of misdeeds).
The wind
overlooked turnips en route,
entangled itself in taboos
that influence
MYONLYYOU
roof
like a smooch.
I urge you:
secure me the WIND,
moving at the weather vane’s cue,
booming in the ear like a tuba.
Getting word of the wind on the move,
I stitched myself into a flimsy
but fit-for-a-noble robe.
I prefer the negro to the negro negligee
fearless as I am of hip-grinding sashays
or of disturbing birds’ flyways.
It’s time to curb these girls and their
liveliness, right?! – Quite
so I ask again:
when’s the start of the toothbrush parade?
what’s the end of the mazurka troupe promenade?
why do track workers have unions when trains do not?
That’s an awkward gap that gives pause for thought.
Without elbowing on to a ploughed field overseeded with laurel,
we run into a principled apple
(made out of stone; never gold!),
which keeps on whining: “No, this isn’t right!”
BUT … AH, unbelievably yellow butter
stares into the night sky and smirks,
for on a fine far-reaching ray of sun
the moon’s message boy sits
swinging his legs
and musing:
when on earth will the moon,
our daddykins moon,
smooch the grooves
in the huge grey stone?
Will the wind then rise
divine-cum-devilish wind
over frosty fields of luminous blooms
like lips bruised from spring smooching?
MIDDLESBROUGH TROLL
Middlesbrough life is in Satan’s hand
(no one has seen it, so we don’t know
if it’s hard and hairy or not).
But we can say for sure that it’s firm,
divinely firm.
Life gets more lovely, more lively, more cultured.
Before long the yellow-leaved town council will be
holding its Thursday sessions that are open to the homeless
in the historic, circus-themed Nightclub Imperial.
Down in the town council cellar winds of change
are wafting that are natural, not at all plastic.
The changes reach the far side of the railway
under a 140-year-old iron bridge
to the edge of the boho park and the old council clock tower building.
By the way, that clock still shows the right time –
time passes, but the timepiece stays.
Albeit invisible.
Those same winds of change
toss crew cuts into a tangle,
age-old graveyards to the ground,
clock hands off their slender tower.
Dockyard sheds dwindled into Sherwood forest,
leaving only an eerily clear wall,
a rounded oval windowed wall
in the corner of its mouth, shrivelled into madness
sits a smirkingly quiet troll.
The lad sits and is glad that football fans
are singing on the wires.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jaan Malin, aka Luulur (b. 1960), is an Estonian poet, artist, curator, essayist, editor and publisher. He has published ten poetry collections, a book of prose poems, an asemantic novel, two plays and issued one CD of sound poetry and two CDs in collaboration with other artists (2024 and 2026). In 2009 he won third place at the European Poetry Slam in Berlin. Since 2013 he has exhibited his artworks.
Malin has been closely involved with surrealist texts and art and has a particular interest in the oeuvre of the first Estonian surrealist, Ilmar Laaban. He has compiled books on Laaban’s work, including the bilingual collection of translations Magneetiline jõgi (Magnetic River, 2001) and the selection of poems Sõnade sülemid, sülemite süsteemid (Swarms of Words, Systems of Swarms, 2004).
Primarily performing sound poetry, he has appeared throughout Europe and in the USA as well as in Estonia. His performances usually require no translation.