the escape

the escapeThe Escape

When Rudolph the red nosed reindeer wanted to

Be normal and join the flock on earth, Santa got depressed

Sat by many of Finland’s lakes contemplating his life

He too was tired of flying through the air and gets a cold

He wanted sunlight and a sandy beach.

He got hold of a tame water buffalo and an unemployed

Drunk from Helsinki and for a while they got away with it

Till an elf with a grudge told a newspaper about it and children too

Had long wondered why Rudolph had two horn, not antler and why

Santa was late, swore and kept falling off his sledge.

Santa had to come back from Thailand and sort out this corruption

He told twitter he was sorry, but fired blabber mouthed elf.

He had to look for a sober man to act as Santa and train a new reindeer,

Because Rudolph and had got the taste of the high life. 

epigram

Epigram

I don`t want to wait long patience is not my virtue

But when it does happens it will happen too fast

Just as I want time to slow down.

Geography and Racism

Geography and Geography and Racism

I have only seen

Africa from the deck

Of a ship sailing by

What I know comes

From books

White men meeting

In darkest Africa

The merchants followed

Soldiers

And colonisation

Racism is contagious and

It settled in the mind

Of Europeans

The illness widened to

Include everyone not white

Now we live

With our trespasses

It truly is a burden

mystery tour

Mystery Tour

I hired a car wanted to drive to the country side

where I spent part of my childhood.

By a farmhouse that looked familiar, I stopped

a dog came out of an up ended barrel greeted me,

Is Jason coming home?

The farmer and his wife came out, he patted me

on my head, and his wife gave me a hug and said:

“a little boy once lived here.”

In the kitchen, they gave me two slices of loaf with

blueberry jam on, my favourite food as a child.

The couple had not aged in fifty years and their

eyes I was that little boy

 I took my farewells and promised to visit soon.

A bus drove passed throwing up dust and when it settled the couple,

 and the farm had disappeared into the mist of time.   

Misapprehension | Write Out Loud

Misapprehension | Write Out Loud

the fest

The Fest  

The Christmas Eve began with smiles and laughter,

where I come from Christmas day is a hanger over day

after excesses the night before.

Plenty of food and drink, aquavit and beer this was long

before wine came the in thing to drink and we sang and gave

presents and had a jolly good time for a while.

Someone made a sarcastic remark that was met with

a bad-tempered answered, suddenly everyone remembered

a slight going back twenty years ago and more

A fight broke out the yule tree ended up in the snow

police were called to calm things down and mother

came out of the kitchen serving coffee.

Next morning my father went out and collected tree decorations,

 good for next year`s Christmas party he wearily said,

and for once no once no one was arrested.

Bio Mass

Bio Mass

Bio Mass.

I have had an intimate connection with effluence or

to use the more proper word, shit of the animal kind

I could by the aroma alone know which animal had

passed the track. Most animal dung smell is sweet

except dogs they have lived so long amongst us they

even crap likes us, but dogs love their own excrement

so much they even eat it. Horses` evacuations are like

rare wine and you promise yourself to buy a horse

when you can buy a bigger garden or vines that

 have been fertilised by foals’ morning pee. Having had

your hands  in the muck nothing  can offend you.

  

birthday

birthday Birthday

A day of sadness and wasted years a poet who

has to pay to be published how pathetic  is that?

We, my companion and I found a restaurant and

for lunch she ate something  African.

I had  a schnitzel  that looked as the white meat of

a rat that had taken the pledge lost my appetite.

Instead I had a double portion of fresh cut salad

followed by a tomato salad with a bit of mozzarella.

I lifted my glass of water saw the eatery  through

tears not shed, the few friends I had in Algarve

have all gone they could not stop in time.

The conversations, wit and bottles of red wine  

 kept flowing, it had to stop so I took the bus home.

Now it is only my beloved and I left and every year

I love her more. At night with a heart full of dread

I snuggle up to her, she strokes my somnolent head

until I fall asleep again and sadness drifts away.

condoms in the pond

Algarve Mon amour

Algarve Mon amour

Algarve Mon Amour

When I first came to Algarve after having spent

years alone in my cabin, a seafaring monk who had

left youthful indiscretion behind him and now

read books of serious nature; decided to become

a more sociable man and soon I had many mostly

English friends, a laughing jolly lot.

But something was wrong they had no money and

I found myself paying for a glass of wine here and

a beer there and all those small loans that never

were repaid. The women, old slags from the seventies

went to bed with anyone for a dinner and a bottle

of wine ending in her bed home for a fuck she pretended

was lovely while I was in the bathroom cleaning my

 flogged penis with
scouring soda.

Away from these life losers, I fled to my hidden dale

where I found contented peace and a woman`s love. 

Alfred a father I created

Random intifada

Random intifada

 Random  Intifada

the enemy can be anyone walking

the streets. The Israelis are nervous

power alone cannot stop this there is

two Israel one for the European elite

and one for the poorer class who feel

betrayed by their leaders and fanatical

settlers, low wages hovering just about

poverty, alas we do not hear from them

and their isolation in a sea of hatred

and they have nowhere to go should hell

break lose other trying to be friends or

find an adaptation with the Palestinians. 

now let us try this again

Now let us try this again writing a document

With one letter marching nicely in front of the other

Like adding instead of using numbers to give the written

words prettiness, even if the theme is about unnatural sex.

The fact is the diesel smell at the bus terminal

Six o`clock in the morning when the cleaning lady start her

low paid work, has nothing to do with anything, had they

bothered going to university they could sit in fine offices

and gone to the hairdresser at nine a woman who can just

read and write luckily for the ladies she skipped school.

The driver of the bus enters he farts loudly and that is ok

But I could have showed some respect. It is odd to think

if all women had higher education looked up to the blue

sky who should make my dinner?

Faiths

Faiths

Faiths

When I grew up there as only on religion available-

choices are better now- Christianity. We had bible

classes every week and I found it entertaining, 

but I never got the message, I simply lacked

the gene that makes people believes in the impossible.

There was a time when I was around sixteen when

 met a Christian girl and went with to meeting, sang

and prayed, while preying on her, but it never got

more than holding a damp hand. I went to the movies

instead Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman now

that is a reality for you. I`m old now and set in my ways

I now I shall die, but an abstract god play no role in

the drama of my death, that role is reserved for me.

the lunch

the lunch

The Lunch

Today I ate the worst meal for years, dry fried liver

and burnt onions with a salad that tested of fish because

the cook had used a fish knife to cut the lettuce.

I didn`t like to make a fuzz but left no tips and on the day

sun was too hot and I felt miserable.

There was a time in 1946 when poverty washed the cold

shores of my country that I would be happy for a meal like this

it was a time of mass migration and I remember a mother

and child I think they were Slavic dressed in rags,

there was no work and had to go newspaper rounds to make

a little money, yet she did the couple a few coins

Europe was awash with migrants, there had been a war but

people were protesting they had little food and didn`t want

to share any of it yet there was no open hatred.

Is it not odd to think that my country that is rich now and its

people are full of hatred against migrants

and a right wing party shares power with a fascist one, yes

it is sad when we lose the ability to be human and show no

sympathy for those who flee wars in the Middle East and Africa.  

forgotten sex | Write Out Loud

forgotten sex | Write Out Loud

Forgotten sex

As we were eating an omelette with tomatoes

I asked my wife if we ever had sex because I had

difficulties in remembering it or rather picture it.

She said yes and said I was quite good at it which

was flattering like being a good driver, I was once

offered a job as taxi-driver but said no too boring.

Then slowly I remembered something I had to

do late at night when I would rather read a book

as there was no TV back then.

I remember it as a sweaty embrace, the fumbling

and the ridiculous positions and then to be careful

pumping along till she was ready and at ease.

She wanted to sleep close to me her hair in my face

and I was thinking if lucky it will take a week before

I had to do something with her peculiar needs.

The Marshland

The Marshland

 The Marshland

In the middle of the fen where the soil is full of rotting
foliage,

roots of tree from the time the land was a forest,

a dam where ducks swim and as is the way of ducks noisy in

their chatter with each other, social bird with no
musicality

I mean have you ever heard of an opus titled:

“When the ducks sing in Covent garden.”

Yet they like it here and can spot a Cheney miles away and

thus avoid getting water-boarded. We used to go there

the farmer and we dug into wet soil square sized turfs

which dried in the sun and in the fall we had carts full and

primordial roots that burned bright when snow fell out
side  

magazines

Magazines

I used to read Readers Digest

it was like the Fox channel

 before internet

and we believed yet thought

 something was wrong,

Israel was great in a sea of hatred

 and the magazine never said

a thing about Palestine whose land

 was stolen.

Arabs want to kill Israeli

Bastards we thought forgetting about

holocaust   which happened in our

back- yard. But then we grew and

read books

giving us a different view, yet we

sensed that being successful we should

keep our innocence of mind

we had when reading

“Readers Digests” and its odd sense

 of humour which we were asked

to be serious about

a farming couple

 The Farming couple

The farmer and his wife

is harvesting almond

 a net around the tree and

a long stick

she picks up the nuts and puts

them in a bag.

She is not wearing gloves and

her hands is that of

an old salt.

they  go home for lunch

home- made bread and cheese

she does the washing up

while he snooze a little 

in the autumnal sun.

Lemon tree very pretty...

Lemon tree very pretty...

Lemon tree very pretty

it was a summer night many years ago

woke, thought I heard the whimpering

of a baby, thought it was a dream,

Woke up again my wife was not there

by my side but in the garden where she

had made a hole under a lemon tree

 She put what looked like
a shoebox in

the hole filled it in and placed stones

on top of her buried secret. Next day she

didn`t get up stayed in bed for days and

I looked after her but said nothing.

When she got up she looked slimmer

and took up jogging to stay slim.

The lemon tree grew too I got a man to

chop it down but left its root, she got

upset loved this tree and when unseen

wept. I used to long for her to tell me her

secret, but not now with the tree gone

 I do not care to know.

a slum outside Paris

A slum outside Paris

A cardboard city thrives a place where no one has

to pay the rent and electricity are purloined.

is it impossible for middle -class folk to understand

but the Roma thrive despite living by a city dump

where you dump your trash wash your hand and are

happy to live in a block of flats and house the rules.

Now they want to get rid of this illegal city that cost

nothing to run and need not tramlines. But they are

not like us do not share our values, no they are not

like us the do not deplete the world`s resources and

when the last car has stopped the Gypsies will as they

always have done crossing the landscape with their children

women and dogs carried pulled donkeys on ancient carts.

And the man with a wristwatch and finery will offer

them riches for a lift to better times. 

street cleaner

street cleaner

The Street Cleaner

He is not a lucky man, but he is happy but one day he won on
a lottery ticket,

not a not a big sum of money but enough to by wheelbarrow
got permission

from the local council to keep the town`s streets
clean.  Happy, telling himself

 he was self- employed
and could sleep till nine in the morn  if
he wanted to.

A busy bee a busy bee he was till he collided with Mercedes
was taken to court

and his wheelbarrow was confiscated to pay for the damage.
He had a bike and

got a local garage to put a two- wheel contraption to fasten
to his bike, the town

got rid of its trash again until an officious policeman
asked him if he had a licence

for this he didn`t and it was confiscated. Now he had a jute
sack slung on his proud

shoulders and a walking stick with a nail attached, a weapon
a police officer said

  he was carrying a
weapon in public and he was prosecuted. 
He didn`t show up

to the hearing and when the law came around, he hung from a
rafter sometimes

 even serious
optimists give up and with no cleaner the town sank into misery,

plagued by vermin the population fled, a town given into paper
napkins pizza boxes

and burger wrappers and the poor who had nowhere to go. And
if this reflects

the life of a typical inner city of our English speaking
world it is purely incidental.

   

love not spoken of

love not spoken of

The love not spoken of

Newcastle and it was summer I had been paid off

from my ship and sat a the train station waiting for

a train to take me to Liverpool when a young man

came and sat near me. He was beautiful the nearest

I have been to human perfection and we spoke

about life, we were going to a cabin somewhere in

 a Scottish hill but
he didn`t like to be alone and his

large brown eyes looked mournful and I was ready

to join him, but said nothing because he if I followed

the boy would turn out to be human and demanding

a type of attention I could not give without corruption  

His train left before mine I waved and that was that,

when I arrived a Lime street station I was drunk and

spent a night with a prostitute and she killed a beautiful

man sitting alone in a cabin in some god- forsaken dale.

spooked

Spooked

Driving along on my scooter seeing the familiar

landscape there was a time disturbance

the landscape was the same but the trees small

and there were fewer ploughed fields.

mystical shadows and a murmur of voices sounded

as an echo and I felt spooked.

I stopped and waited perhaps I had a funny turn

slowly the warp panned out and I was back at

my own time, yet I sensed an unease I should not

come back to this place that had layers of old time

that had yet to melt into the clarity of a white water

that has no story to tell.

the sin

the sin

The Sin

It must be a tragedy to be a man and a paedophile what

treatment is there for an unspeakable lust the forbidding

feeling, the dreams, the church which is a wrong place to

confess a priest is not viable he has to cure himself of this

ugly vice. Is it a vice for a child liker for him this is

the sexuality he was given it was not asked for a burden of

always hiding yet goes to places where children assemble

and from their young bodies oozes a newness like a scent

that threaten his social standing should it be known and

should he succumb he will be cast out loose his employment

the sneering people goading him and he will join  the people

of the night. 

Senryu and Tanka

Senryu and Tanka

Senryu

A lie is

A poetic way of telling 

The truth

Tanka

There are many truths

Fanatics think they have a monopoly  

Their version is right

There are many religions too

Each on the keepers of the truth  

vita contemplativa | Write Out Loud

vita contemplativa | Write Out Loud

Vita Contemplativa

We do not live our lives in the now but remember

it as a passed and what we did not do when the past

 was now and disappeared as an ant`s breath   

as there is only one beginning- birth- we are shackled

to the past we didn`t choose but was pushed on us as

we had no ability to anything in the now

senryu

senryu

Senryu

A poet adores love

Not the practical one

Dinner at five

The moment caught

A memory to remember

A face in the crowd

The killer of love

Is the despair of loneliness

turned into disgust  

Phobic conditon

Phobic condition

I woke up it was afternoon and I had made

guest appearance  in my dream.

it was winter I stayed on the sunny side

of the road watching you struggling with your emotions.

I shook my head and told the swans flying to Africa,

on the way he never gets past sixteen and his wings

are not properly developed.

Stop making excuses we have seen him fly, at night

he lacks the courage to make it in public

if you leave him alone and stop worrying he just might

make it to the podium  and speak his poetry

a new love

a new love

A New Love Story

I had stopped at the rural cafe for a coffee it was a day
when I was

not feeling a day over seventy she was around fifty and
incredible

young her waste was that of a waif at the beginning of life.

She was so beautiful and she smiled inviting me to sit by
her table

 and I was only
drinking coffee. I told her amusing stories of my life,

mostly lies- and she laughed, not a bored mirth while
looking at

the time thinking of the right moment to slip away the
clutches of

my unwanted attention. Good time has me has a limit, so much
and

not more, her husband came in he had been to the garage, had
the car

fixed and he told me all about it down to the smallest dreary
details

A nice man with oil on his hands and I hated him, but I
could not kill him

and claims his wife as mine, the thought faintly amused me,

and they drove off. I loved her immensely and she reminded
me of

my wife`s niece I love her too, perhaps it was her but I was
too old to see

as handsome faces take on a mask of a smiling Janus

the bus trip

The Bus Trip

We are driving to Cascais on Sunday my wife wants to take

the bus she thinks we are too old to drive 300 miles.

On the bus, you might risk sitting by someone who can`t afford

water or soap that is a low grade working person on his way to

use a spade and whatever to build a trench that keeps the water

away when it is raining

I`m  a tonic water socialist and read the Guardian, crystal glasses

and a sneaky fag on the loo. To meet a proper working class person

would shatter my illusion and bring back a memory of my father last time

I saw him it was on a bus and he was drunk.

I will drive- anyway- not long from now I will not be able to they are

putting up obstacles to stop us old ones driving 

a none writing day

a none writing day

 A none Writing Day

The freedom of not writing anything is an illusion

today I will just sit there and listen to the news

Turkey is having problem and it has nothing to do

with me although a poet friend of mine Erken may

be upset several police officers killed perhaps one

of them was her son and I can`t send flowers in

case it is not so. I only like Portugal in the winter

when it is cold enough to put an extra jumper on

when sitting indoors....that were the days.

What do I know? Perhaps Erken is a Russian spy

who speaks five languages perfectly  without fluffing

neither a line nor breaking the wind when talking to the pope.

Knows the sewers of Istanbul like the street going home

 and analyzes the shit falling from the American embassy

When it is discovered that the US envoy suffer from

diabetes she will be promoted by Putin.

end of democracy | Write Out Loud

end of democracy | Write Out Loud

End of democracy

I think we are witnessing a historic shift

the page has turned and our ideas about

democracy is regarded with suspicion

because it is in inclusive and give too much

freedom to the individual. This idea that

a person could have his own faith instead

of a faith that included all and those who

cannot conform must die.

This philosophy flies in the face of us who

has fought for this goal, only to find this is

not what the people want and you cannot

fight the future. For me this will be a bleak time

murderous and peaceful, but it will not last

the conservative forces will not prevail.  

Murder he wrote

Murder he wrote

Elderliness and murder

I`m at the age when you can do anything

when can kill someone

and the state will feed me

because I`m too old for punishment

and live long enough

to see my defence lawyer die

and the state prosecutor dies of cancer

at hundred and five they will let me out

by I will tell them

I will kill again

this morning they are serving a tomato

 omelette my wife
never got it right

so I killed her. My defence said had I had been

a faithful husband which it true

I have not had an erection for fifty years. 

Come home

Come  Home!

I dislike Israel but accepted her as a historic

happening and a place where Jewish culture

can flourish undisturbed foreign culture, and

thus can sink into navel gazing.

But it cannot be so Europe without Jews and

the Jews without Europe`s culture is a script

of disaster that is not yet written.

We in Europe need the Jews as scientist and in

the arts , but the Arab World does not need

 resentful Jews who brought an iron heel to people

for crimes they have not committed, but  guilt that

lives in the culpable images of the Abraham’s people.

Benefit Street

Benefit Street

Forgotten lives.

Happiness is an odd thing I have been watching

a program called “Benefit Street” where poor people

try to make a living out of poverty and chaos

Roma, English, Irish and Polish people live there trying

to make a living out of old iron.

There are laughter and smile and occasionally anger

but they survive and now we want their dignity by

reducing any help by those who keep the nation

falling into utter despair.

Because one day soon they will come knocking on

your door throws you out and move in. You can treat poor

people badly a long time, but not all the time

 they will back and  crush you and your privileges like

a smeared paper napkins flying in the wind 

the setllers and a lion

The Settlers and a Lion

Ceci,l the lion was shot by a dentist and the twitter world

is in an uproar find him, pull out his teeth and kill him,

the dentist will go down in as a

 historic footnote of

ignominy and his many children have to change names.

A Palestinian child was killed by Israeli settlers and for

a brief moment the people of Israel woke from their stupor

 their leaders were aghast like it has not happened before.

so many houses bulldozed so many olive trees chopped down

yet the Palestinians stay despite being killed slowly.

And in a few days this atrocity will be forgotten and there

will a shift the victims get the blame by a press who tries to

be even-handed but know who foots the bill.

love is odd

love is odd

Love is Odd.

She is in the kitchen cooking something for tomorrow

I do not criticise what she is doing

when I did she shouted like a tempest and silenced me.

we spoke and I promised not to make comment on

her frequent use of the washing machine and I promised

when peeing in the night to keep the stream in the pot

which is not easy three in the morning?

My wife went to see a doctor today, and she has seen

many but I made no sarcastic remarks, she has exhausted

all the doctors in our town and the net widens.

Love you see it tolerate your partner`s obsession and

dutifully listen to her symptoms. I do this without shouting

although a valium helps

As the days cool

As the day cools

It is getting a bit lonely here

as I`m  not a member of the expat set

and my Portuguese friends have died

or moved into town, living in a village that

lack what elderly people need

and has made into town`s to be near

the family.

The local English newspaper here that

used to take in my poems and opinions has

got a new editor and strictly commercial

I tried years ago to play golf, but I found the clubs

pretentious and also expensive

and my comments about this vast waste of time

was not welcome.

It is difficult to be a socialist around here, for

my wife, it is as bad as having a dog in the house.

I have been thinking of getting an elderly dog

as a companion, one that has suffered loss

to give it a few years of happiness doesn’t sound

like socialism to me. 

over fifty

Over fifty

When you are over fifty divorced and want to meet a woman

– there may of them about- they all have a daughter who will

not let your late romance in peace and you will always play

the second fiddle the phone will ring late at night some trivial

drama you have to take an interest the daughter who doesn`t

 care about your feeling it is her mother`s love she have to make

sure she is not forgotten by the beast of a man she has met,

and demand unspeakable sex acts my mother has to perform.

Yet they need your money for education and often for doing

nothing and sleeping to twelve and expecting to be fed.

Middle aged man all women of over fifty have a daughter who

who will never accept you as a dad, but only as a provider.

the gay agenda

The Gay Agenda

The green bushes of the vine those that were

avoided by bees are fluffing about in the summer

breeze wanting to be recognized for their charm

even thought they were not fertile they kept

nature amused on sunny days, but they can

be no more than fluff, nature`s clowns which we

need in times of hardship and as for their banner

they will never find the rainbow and how much

they try will always be the joker in the deck of cards.

sparrows just like us

The sparrows just like us

He fell from the dry, hot sky first the male

sparrows, it could be because he was older than here

and had developed a habit of hunting near

the large chimneys at the chemical factory and it was

up to the young widow, she had been a fledgling

the year before to feed and bring up five hungry chicks

and if the weather was not cooling she to would

folds her wings and fall on the bonnet of a passing car

and snakes and crows would be moving in.

The famous actor Omar Sharif has passed away, he will

 be remembered but as the demise of a family

of sparrows will like us be forgotten not be missed in

the lottery of life 

Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel

Angela  Merkel

I have seen Angela Merkel naked
it was on a nude beach

in East Germany and she was a
young  communist

member of the party, the only
way one had to go if not

being stuck in a factory job.
Angela back then had

a rounded body not quite Ruben
but a body that had in

had the frame of a
middle-class Germanic sexuality.

She had by then staked her
political future and she had

no time for suitors which
belonged to no party?

And she did right when East
Germany went into freefall

she was there taking note and
agreeing with the west.

But Merkel is history less, she
has disregarded her past

yet  her socialism
instinct must give her sleepless nights

Greece cannot be bought by
German Marks and they are

not disciplinarian by nature
that can be cured by

a bracing North Sea
beach. 

words in my mouth

words

Democracy

is like poetry

only nice

when it flatters us 

French culture

is about the female believing

she is beautiful

Perfume

even the expensive one

is not about cleanliness

the Louvre

had everything

except a proper loo

Small hotel in Paris

hot water for shower

on  Saturdays 

Planets

Planets

Planets

Pluto the charming little planet has got snow

not that anyone is going there soon it is good

to know how useless information pleases us.

a cat is not wise it only makes us feel good

to think Pluto is a cartoon dog and not a cat.

The grapes on the vines still need another month

before they can be harvested and that is ok by me

it is a beautiful day and far away from war,

treachery and the vanity of man.

Cold and alone Pluto can hang there as a faded

lampshade while we should try to discover more about

ourselves and the world we live in. 

a summer remembered | Write Out Loud

a summer remembered | Write Out Loud

Summer Remembered.

It is odd in a country where winter last 8 months is it
spring and summer

we remember and there were not too many of the good days
either.

We took a ferry boat to a small Island for bathing now it is
connected to

a bridge and parking spots take up the most land. Mother
liked to go

there on Sundays she enjoyed the water, she swam like a seal
and floated

like a wine cork thrown from a yacht, I was waddling in
shallow water

collecting shiny objects that had the ability to lose its
gloss when we came

home. My mother divorced at the time her lover was the ferryboat
skipper

I think he wore uniform, it is jeans now for everyone and
anyway with

a bridge who needs a boat, but they did go on camping
holiday together and

I looked after myself. Mother loved him and he wanted to
marry her but didn’t

want me it was silly of him to ask a mother will always
choose her children.

Anyway it was winter approaching and Norway sleeps like the
brown bear for

eight months if not going to boring places like Ibiza back
then.

the watershed

The Watershed

There was a time when 45, I thought life had passed me by

I had spent too much time seeing the night train leave.

Through the rain, soaked train windows saw people reading

some looked into space and there were those who tried

not to cry. My friends had drifted away and my old mate

Trond had found God and to think we sat all night long

talking about books and in the morning we went out in his

boat fishing drinking cold beer and falling asleep as spring

the sun danced on the blue water in the fjord and wind from

the dark mountain didn’t blow.

The best women too lost patience and took the tram home

to mum and dad waiting for you to grow up.

At 45, your parents begin dying the impossible happens and

you are a floating iceberg lost in a glass of whisky.

And just as wheels on suitcases are invented you grow up

polish you shoes and find that little cabin in a hidden valley

it has a leaking roof and has been waiting just for you.

the racial issue

the racial issue

the village | Write Out Loud

the village | Write Out Loud

The Village

 When I came to this
small village in the interior of Algarve

there were animals’ mules and pigs and children played in

the road, barking dogs and chicken looking for worms and

I dreamt of becoming a rustic poet recording a vanishing

way of life. The change came so quick the children became

adults moved to Lisbon tractor instead of mules and we grew

old as letters of refusal piled up I married a hypochondriac

who faints when I inject insulin into my stomach.

It was not to be like this she should be by my side when

I received prizes and the applause was for her to enjoy.

I thought it would be easy people would buy my work go

and be more moral and my poetry would be jewels of love.

Balderdash! The truth is I`m happy to be alive the dream

belonged to someone else an idiot I used to know, 

black shiny shoes

Black, Shiny Shoes.  

The EU dictatorship has crushed Hellas Germany and the banks won-

The French to their helped the Greeks writing a new tax system and

for once the tycoons have to pay tax as well and for the Hellenic

people they need not buy new shoes every fortnight, let the cobblers

 mend your shoes. I remember a time when buying shoes was a major

 investment, they were always black and bought on credit book.

You may call it thrift I will call it poverty when you are poor everything

cost more as the Greeks soon will soon notice. And in case you wonder

the money the loans go straight to the lenders banks and one wonder

who many times they have to pay for the airport in Athens a German

steel company built? The Greeks are hard working people, with bad elite,

the next one to will be Portugal, Italy too are feeling the clammy hand of

capitalism and then it will be France`s turn to taste rigour.

What about EU then?

surplus to eequierment

Surplus to requirement

My wife was her aunt a lovely woman of forty-four,

then she divorced her husband a man with a title,

a baron, because she felt bored by him – he was

tedious all style and  a small brain- she took a

course and got a medical job that brought her far and

wide, in the world and she also got a new man and

we were happy for her, she was approaching middle

age entitled to some happiness

She stopped ringing us and when my wife rang her

 she was always busy, she disappeared from view

and the silence became a chasm on unsaid words

But we know she is doing well has friends her age.

I said to my wife last time we saw her she looked

so remote we had become too old for her

  

an unfashionable opinion

an unfashionable opinion

Why do we let this happening these endless lies and distortion

of history and without shame wrapping themselves in the bloody

bandage of victimhood they are special and we must not think

otherwise to upset an historic  untrue yet also a truth.

Mass killing is wrong twenty million Russians lost their life but this

 is smoothed over it is the magic number of the seven million we

have to remember and atone for But why were they singled out,

what make them different from other Russians other than their

refusal to be absorbed by Russia. to be at one in the culture and

a country the temporarily  dwelled in.

 A Jewish person is only true to his tribe the rest is a pretence.

Because the Jews are despite their European veneer just another

Middle Eastern tribe trying to dominate the region. 

confession

confession

The Disappearing act

Hellas has vanished from Europe, they are looking

 here and there but it
cannot be found on any map.

Banks are in a frenzy they have lent money to

to a Greek tragedy an illusion, the only thing left is

“A Big Fat Wedding” a movie played by Jewish actors.

A trick of the eye grapes on the vine is a chimera and

Germany is taking a haircut.

the disapproving act

The Disappearing act

Hellas has vanished from Europe, they are looking

 here and there but it cannot be found on any map.

Banks are in a frenzy they have lent money to

to a Greek tragedy an illusion, the only thing left is

“A Big Fat Wedding” a movie played by Jewish actors.

I trick of the eye grapes on the vine is a chimera and

Germany is taking a haircut.

the plot

The Plot

It was after eight o`clock in the evening before it got cool

enough to go for a little drive my interest the savannah

like grass made golden by the falling sun, it was then I saw

the eyes of lions keeping an eye on me. Lions around here

 are not bigger than a cat you can take one home but it

scratches your furniture is untidy and bite.

I had a beautiful girlfriend, let me hastily add years ago,

she was intensely jealous going out with her was an ordeal

I had to look at her or the table it was like she wanted to be

inside of my eyes to see what I saw.

One day she broke up with me and slammed the door shut,

her friend came asked me to take her home since it was dark.

She invited me for a coffee suspecting foul play said no thanks

The day after I dried my feet on the town`s doormat took

the bus down to the coast and re- joined the merchant navy.

 I dint’s come near the place for years. Yes, I learned then it had

been a sordid little plot.     

It is beautiful driving around her as the shadows get longer

I stop the bike and the stillness is beautiful nature doesn’t

play tricks it just is and I`m not burdened by age this evening

and there are no poisonous snakes here.

how long is a life time

how long is a life -time

A life Time

How long is a lifetime it cannot be measured in years

my brother died young yet left behind five children

and I was born a weakling – he will never grow old

doctors said- weak heart and pacemaker, I’m kept alive

by modern medical science and have lived to get old.

I know the end can strike anytime anywhere, but I will

not think about it. However, long my life -time it has been

short as I leave nothing behind to be remembered for

“As my father said”, a made up lie, no one will have to

make up stories about me  

Great American literature

Great American Literature

Our book shelf groaned under the weight

of American Literature and my mother was

principally a communist.

An American Tragedy I read at fourteen,

and my fascination with A bridge over San Louis Ray

was endless, and so it went on.

I joined the youth wing of the communist party

of Norway, it lasted a month, they kicked me out

I knew too much to be useful.

The plight of the poor concern me I bristle when

seeing injustice in short I will fling my arms around

a horse that is about to be flogged yet one doesn`t

need to be a communist for this. Kindness is not

political and doesn’t carry a flag you have to pledge

allegiance to, a friendly smile will suffice. 

when news was easy

when news was easy

When The News was Easy

Most of us know more now than we did before when news

was simpler such as Soviet Union-bad- and Mao in China   

swam across the river I have just been reading about Sinai

 a place I thought
consisted of sand, goats and Bedouins on

white horses, but there has been a slow war there going

back a long time. We didn’t and were not told that Islam has

 many aspects and
sects – just like us- and there is fighting

 amongst them, usually
about power and money, religions is

the glue that binds together the rest. The young Muslims in

Europe, who go to fight for IS they are fooled into
believing

they fight for a cause and the will be dispensed of when no

longer needed. In Sunnis eye they are foreigners.

 We live in paralysed
world we don’t which way to sway do

let us follow the money whoever is in power.    

meeting an old friend

Meeting a Friend

I met my old friend Joao at the pharmacist today

a place we old ones go to buy medicine and to

meet friends still alive, it occurred to me the pharmacy

and the cemetery is only five minutes, walk away

from each other. Joao had gone thin he used to be

a house builder with a big muscular frame and now

before me an old man who had lost his ready smile

and a funny riposte to any argument.

But I saw something else in his eyes, a dread, it was

as he realised the finality of his life, a pleading to

to nature that he was the one who escaped to

the paradise island where the word death does not

exist in the local language of the tribe who live there,

but there was no succour; he had lost the battle. 

POET ROAD

A  Poet Road

Now that it is hot and the sun has turned from

a warm friend to a raging enemy, what did I say

to make it so burning hot?

 I`m up early and drive around stop and take

pictures of growing plants before the rampant

sun makes them lose all colours.

Then before I know it is ten o’clock and time to

sit indoors watching the miserable news

and trivial entrainment programs.

The bush fires of terror are something we have to

live with until we learn to clear the undergrowth

and when needed...brutally weed.

I’m thinking of a man who has a small field of

the greenest vines and every day he tends lovingly

his bushes, you see we should not be too kind.

On the other hand, we cannot poison the land

with pesticide just to save a plant we like, and

forgetting that all life has its place.   

    

The Undying soul

The Undying soul

changing class

Changing Class

Sitting around a table laden down with pints of beer and

football was discussed, I got up and walked home.

A navy academy accepted me I studied English at home

and had a private tutor for math taught by a girl who

loved me, two years it took it could have been longer but

I wanted to change my life, so much so I changed the way

I spoke, which on reflection was a mistake as I ended up

speaking stilted and my natural irony and humour was shy

but not for all time. So there I was a purser on a liner, 3 silver

stripes  having supper with the rich and I found the especially

boring forever talking about real estate.

I had to be social dance and often fuck one of the widows on

the cruise. Back home I was a misfit I didn’t belong anywhere

I used to say I was classless, that is not true.

My loneliness drove me to drink and finally, sleeping rough

rejected by two classes, until I saw the light, and borrowed

money- from my mother to buy a typewriter.    

Jobsekers

Jobsekers

Job Seekers

After being unemployed for a long time I got

a job as a cook in a cafe where people came

for the beer, but the local law demanded

drinkers had to order something to eat before

drinking. Usually it was a burger or a cheese

sandwich. If a sandwich came back uneaten

it was moved to another plate and served again,

but I had to open look under the cheese to be

sure no one had put something there, like

the butt of cigarette and so on.  I knew the game

having been a drinker there until I lost my job

of putting a lid on tins of sardines and mackerel.

 To be working class
when time is good is Ok, but

but sooner or later there will be a downturn

and without proper education poverty beckons. 

Jobsekers

Jobsekers

Job Seekers

After being unemployed for a long time I got

a job as a cook in a cafe where people came

for the beer, but the local law demanded

drinkers had to order something to eat before

drinking. Usually it was a burger or a cheese

sandwich. If a sandwich came back uneaten

it was moved to another plate and served again,

but I had to open look under the cheese to be

sure no one had put something there, like

the butt of cigarette and so on.  I knew the game

having been a drinker there until I lost my job

of putting a lid on tins of sardines and mackerel.

 To be working class
when time is good is Ok, but

but sooner or later there will be a downturn

and without proper education poverty beckons. 

the Neighbour

Your Neighbour

All the wrongs done

by these people of strangeness

will be their right

and if you think they are wrong

you will be punished.

ghosts

Ghosts

When I wake up a two in the morning

I hear his one hoof slipping on the cobbled

it didn’t use to be like that it was a sandy lane

easy to walk on but inland tourism is big now

hence the uneven stones, he stops outside my

house I shiver in the heat, but then he walks on

chuckling darkly he has the comic timing of

a comedian who hates his audience, himself and

the whole fucking world.

Sleep impossible I walk barefoot into the kitchen

open the fridge a cold beer never fails to bring

coolness and a rethink, but I sense shadows around

my desk when I look up only cold air blows and

my contempt for my ghosts is total never do the have

the courage to show their face 

Ruben, the teaser

Ruben, The Teaser

I knew it was her when she entered the cafe

had seen her before in a fake painting behind

a bar in downtown New York this Rubenesque  

a  woman only this time she wore a short frock.

those thighs could so easily strangulate man,

and through her dress her nipples were big and

visible. She had a glow in her face of a woman

who had just made love or was going to

Forty years too old, a sigh and I concentrated on

the schnitzel I was eating with salad and no spuds.

Bachelor days

Bachelor Day

It was father’s day he got up early and

drink coffee near the phone just in case

his daughter rang.

Then it was afternoon and he must have

fallen asleep and he fretted if the phone

had rung and he hadn’t heard it.

He went into the kitchen but left the living

room door open, he had a ham sandwich

which he ate by the phone.

It was now evening and she was not ringing

how could she a product of his wishes,

childless man, she was a figment of your dreams.

 ,

my horse

My Special Horse

She was a little fjording horse not much bigger than

a pony. And she liked human company and she had

a soft spot for me who was a lad no more than ten at

the time.  When she was out grazing in the long hazy

spring evening, she came up to the fence and I could

mount her and ride bareback through the evening,

only she continued grazing she only wanted me to sit

there and talk softly about the great things I was going

to do when the sceptre of youth was handed to me.

She- dokka her name- never had a foal, perhaps she saw

me as the substitute. A child is powerless, and my horse

was sold to a horse dealer, the farmer bought a tractor

 it was blue and noisy and often broke down that was

because the farmer didn’t understand the working of

the gear and he lamented selling the horse.

The best of time we see when looking back and I know

now the best of time was sitting on the horseback dreaming.

   

Myy Special horse

My Special Horse

She was a little fjording horse not much bigger than

a pony. And she liked human company and she had

a soft spot for me who was a lad no more than ten at

the time.  When she was out grazing in the long hazy

spring evening, she came up to the fence and I could

mount her and ride bareback through the evening,

only she continued grazing she only wanted me to sit

there and talk softly about the great things I was going

to do when the sceptre of youth was handed to me.

She- dokka her name- never had a foal, perhaps she saw

me as the substitute. A child is powerless, and my horse

was sold to a horse dealer, the farmer bought a tractor

 it was blue and noisy and often broke down that was

because the farmer didn’t understand the working of

the gear and he lamented selling the horse.

The best of time we see when looking back and I know

now the best of time was sitting on the horseback dreaming.

   

Sausage factory

Sausage factory

Sausage Factory

 On my travels on the countryside I saw this disused road

with weed sprouting through cracks in the asphalt

Followed the road and came to a village that was empty

of people, domestic animals, cats and dogs, with one

exception of an old couple sinewy with faces of leather.

there used to be a small factory here making sausages

owned by two brothers who suddenly moved away.

I asked the couple where the people had gone, France to

find work was the answer I got. The old guy giggled, we’re

 too tough! What did he mean?   In a hidden small valley

 another village is slowly being emptied, there is a small

 factory making sausages until it is time to move away.

 “Salsisias” the name of the firm, I recall buying a tin once

nice meat but a bit sweet for my taste.

     

looking fora poet

looking fora poet

Looking for a Poet  

In Alexandria, the town before Washington, I waited for

the bus, it didn’t stop, but then it did and my face was the

whitest one on the bus. I had the address of a bar where

a famous poet used to frequent, but he was not there he was

at his yearly stay at a mental institution.

I had brought some poems with me wanted him to read,

this was years ago I was young  and thought I was unique.

Blessed days do no rob a young man of his dream.

After a few pitchers of beer, I got up and tried to read me

work, but the noise and no one listened.

I was ignored like someone walking naked through town

and no seem to notice. I was told to leave. The police,

 criticised now, drove
me to Alexandria and to my ship.

I shook hands and with the police officers to give the
impression

of fame. In the crew’s eyes, I was famous but the skipper

was still a teetotal ass.

just another Sunday

Just another Sunday

On my travel along country lanes

this Sunday afternoon I saw a tree

on yellow sun burnt field, that had

its limb cut off by a crazed axe man

A surgeon named John, had put

a bandage on the stump, but sap

or white blood, had seeped through

the bandage and I could sense its

agony and there are no hospitals for

wounded three.

 So much death on a peaceful day I saw an

old oak that had died from an enormous

tumour on its trunk, leaves had fallen off and

gray branches were seeking heavenward,

a gesture of futility. A car ran across the lane

and I spat twelve times for luck

  

Just another Sunday

On my travel along country lanes

this Sunday afternoon I saw a tree

on yellow sun burnt field, that had

its limb cut off by a crazed axe man

A surgeon named John, had put

a bandage on the stump, but sap

or white blood, had seeped through

the bandage and I could sense its

agony and there are no hospitals for

wounded three.

 So much death on a peaceful day I saw an

old oak that had died from an enormous

tumour on its trunk, leaves had fallen off and

gray branches were seeking heavenward,

a gesture of futility. A car ran across the lane

and I spat twelve times for luck

  

Charleston dance

Charleston dance

Charleston Dance

In white America there is a fear of black people the slaves

that dared answer back it has its heart in the idea of

white supremacies. Sometimes I think to be black in USA

is like being Jewish in Nazi Germany, killings and arbitrary

arresting of people who look different.

A TV program: heavily armed police descend down a black

district, they look like an invading force it is easy stop people

 and since most of them have marijuana in their pockets and

cars, the handcuffs come out and guns are drawn for what is

technically a misdemeanour.

And then the big insult, the police parking a posh car in a poor

district with keys in the ignition and open doors and since

the poor of America are mostly poor some uneducated idiots

are likely to try stealing the car. Of course they are caught and

more blacks fill what are mostly privatized jails. Something smells

bad and you need not be a Hamlet.  This great country we know it

is an illusion in fact USA is a country where the gun rules, but such

is its propaganda by press and TV lords it gets its poor people to

fight its wars. 

charger sonnet

Charger Sonnet

the horses on the pampas are more

friendly than the Russian horses on the steppe

and not as cold.

A Russian horse hates mankind and never expect

preferential treatment  and will kick you

if you show leniency thinks you have an agenda.

An Argentinean horse is easier to tame, trained

 right it will do the tango.

The Russian horse will kick you if you approach it

from the rear as it doesn’t like surprises.

it will never trust you and it has to be tethered,

yet it is a strong horse if ridden right.

The Argentinean horse will be pleasant and kind,

up to a point because it is so easily led astray for

an extra nose bag of  hay.

slow progress

slow progress

Slow Progress (a long sonnet)

In the last seventy years, little have changed

of technical innovation.  we had radio, then

TV and now computers, all in natural sequence

airplanes still fly as before a bit bigger and

faster but the principle is the same.

And for cars they have not changed their appearance

for the last seventy years, except for  cosmetic

more colour and easier steering , yet they

still break down at regular intervals.

Politics and money mingle as before corruption

thrives and we the people pay the price.

Privatization is the latest buzz word, but we have

been there before and we ended up with poverty

so bad, the state had to socialise the health service.

Forgive me the news that man has reached the moon

do not impress as much as man has found fraternity

 which has been languishing in a basement in Lyon 

  

Waterloo

Waterloo

200 years ago Wellington and Blucher with soldiers

made up of ruffians and ISIS type henchmen, beat

Napoleon’s army won and that was sad kings and

the nobility continued to rule unelected and setting

back an European revolution that could have saved

us from a world one brought fraternity and equality

to a reality which is not today where aristocracy do

as they please while paying lip service to democracy.

And I saw them today the crowned head and nobility

safely under canvas protected against nature wilful

play, the privileged people talking about equality  while

they want nothing of the sort if they cannot control its

outcome. Flags and salutes they like uniforms and men.

Yes, for this is a male oriented celebration.

senryu

Senryu

I’m a cowboy

Herding in reluctant words

To make a poem

Argentina’s pampas

Where wild horses live

Poetry in motion  

The gaucho

Is a free verse maker

On horseback 

REWARD

Reward

To live in the misery of the past unable to let go

of childhood’s unhappiness but let it fester and

grow till adult life becomes unbearable, demands

of recognitions and compensations, because their

suffering must be taken up polished and with time

a jewel to show the world. This you owe us and we

deserve what you give us, although it will never be

enough even when the gem drowns in blood by those

who got in the way of the righteous path.

Never forgive or forget, let hatred be your leading star. 

women who deink and sex

Women who drink and sex

It was in Livorno and it was a cold January night when I met her

in a bar- where else does one meet women, in the salvation army?

What she was doing in Livorno beats me as she was an American

woman far from home, I was there waiting for my ship to come in.

We were both drinkers and felt empathy for one another and when

the bar closed she came to my hotel. In the morning, I had a shower,

she was still asleep  woke and asked what I was doing in her room

I told her it was my hotel room she cried; worked for the consulate.

We had breakfast, but she needed a drink to feel normal. Saw her go

 into a taxi looking like an efficient functionary   going to work, I knew

she could not keep it up the day of estimation was near, she left

a hundred dollar bill on my pillow I was both offended and pleased,

being a low paid seaman, my silence would be absolute. If she wrote

a book about this encounter I will somehow get the blame hinting

a book darkly she had been abused by me. But this is not true what the lady

long for is not being able to make love with  abandonment  and blame

 it on the booze.