A view from our Kallvik balcony in 2012, hiding more than it reveals. The park hidden behind the trees is called Mustakivenpuisto (Blackstone park), and the sky belongs to Rastila (in English one could say Crossville). But it is a vague reference, because the houses visible are in Kallvik and only the horizon takes the watcher to another kind of X.X.X.X. There is also a meaningful shape drawn on the ground below, unseen to the eye in this picture, but concrete as logic in holy geometry, and referring to something truthful, as well (a triangle, with two open triangles on its sides and a square on top). I came to know what it feels like to be in somebody else's visionary dreams, taken into another individual's consciousness and plans. Ever since, I've been even more careful with my own poetry, and the ones I write about. God knows what's good and right for others.
The title reminds of a duet I like, with Johnny Cash giving a beautifully conservative edge to Bob Dylan's 1960s folk protest ways. I'm an old-timer and my views are like that, in part at least. For I've always been an oppressive kind of guy, too. I'd like to underline it's making the cross heavier. Maybe that's why I like to see them get (along) together, these differing views and times. We are on a forward march, and there is no going back. However, the spirit of truth.....
"Malta, Valletta, in October 2011. So, there is a right time and a right place for everything. If I had gone to Malta before, I would not have liked it the way I did. Had I gone later, it may not have been the same, either. This was the hour for that place. Maybe there will be another time. But some things will never change. These photos are nothing but stills from the sunshine and the romance of Malta."
"There is a whole story and quite a different reality behind them as well. During the fall of that year I thought I was going to break down. But somehow I didn't. This was not the first time I've been in trouble, but it made it to my all time top three list of 'breakdance'."
"Courage
in Malta, with my back against the wall. I stood there in the city
built by gentlemen for gentlemen, as Walter Scott so eloquently put
it. Churchill said Malta must be kept no matter what. Hitler wanted
the island at all cost, but the fortress witheld. I saw Francis Ford
Coppola's film Youth
without youth just
a few weeks before my journey. For blessed Gerard."
The three romantic quotes above were written and published on this very site a long ago, then taken out and now replaced, as time ever flows on and on, in a circle, a line and even beyond itself. Pictures taken by Antti Filppu and Laura Vilva.