The whining laughter just will not stop

Three poems by Teemu Helle, translated from the Finnish by Niina Pollari

Fellow Travellers, Discordia Review, and Niina Pollari

Aug 17, 2026

Discordia does not, it turns out, hate everything. Every other week, we share a piece of work from an artist who has earned our respect and affection. Today we offer three poems from Finnish poet Teemu Helle, translated by Niina Pollari.

THE FAIR

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The coffee-pouring angel
has ragged, sooty wings.
The sudden storm
dropped the angel from the sky
straight into the factory smokestack. Then
it swore to never again
agree to night flights.

“In the name of the father, the son, and nepotism,”
sang the cardinal from the Wall Street Journal’s
holy texts. After that we voted
for a new pope, for winter dividends,
for the indulgences that would get us to heaven.

On break the angel noted, to its horror,
that not even holy water removed the soot.
It was as if someone in the darkness
had written on its back with a finger.

DOMESTICATION

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A man sat on the cafe terrace
face turned to the sun.
At his feet a shiny-coated dog
gnawed with concentration on a shinbone.

The waiter’s tray held
a different kind of life,
round and brightly distinct.
The dog abandoned his bone and began to beg.

“Could I get you anything else?”
asked the wind along the boulevard.
The man took the sunglasses from his eyes
without saying anything

handed them to the dog, closed his eyes
and began to pant.

AWARENESS

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I sit in my work room
reading a book on the scholastics
when something stings my neck—

I smack it; death
for this crime
is the right punishment.

The whining laughter just
will not stop.
Is it you?

The words echo off the walls
like something grand about
to take flight.

TEEMU HELLE is the author of eight collections of poetry in Finland; work in translation has appeared in or is forthcoming from *Plume*, *The Massachusetts Review*, *RHINO*, *Cordite Poetry Review*, *The Los Angeles Review*, *Modern Poetry in Translation*, *Solstice Literary Magazine*, *Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine*, and elsewhere.

NIINA POLLARI translated Tytti Heikkinen's poetry collection *The Warmth of the Taxidermied Animal* (Action Books). She is also the author of two poetry volumes, *Dead Horse* (2015) and *Path of Totality* (2022). Her new collection, *Risk Tolerance*, will be out with Autofocus Books in early 2027.

Interested in being a Fellow Traveller? Email your poetry, prose, visual art, etc. to discordia.sucks@gmail.com. We pay (not much), and pieces are collected a few times a year in a small print edition.

Fellow Travellers “Eyes” banner adapted from Opal Louis Nations’ “An Eyeball Alphabet” (1980).