love that once was

love that once was

Love that once Was

When I met her she was spring flower and pretty

as the zephyr undulating gently through a field of

tulips. But there was no denying I was September

and set in my bachelor way, and my bashfulness

stopped me from approaching her.

Twenty- six years later and she is slim and pretty

in a waxy way, in her eyes I read unhappiness life

was harder than she had imagined her husband had

left her for France, leaving her with two children

and a small grocery shop.

  

We drank some wine, she cried because she too

had been too shy and she still loved me. I told her

 loved her too, but I was
not true it was her youth

I had loved and the newness of her aroma, but it

was too late and I left her to the memories.     

dangerous encounter

Dangerous Encounter

It was a June Saturday after dinner I walked along the docks

and noticed a man I knew putting crates of beer on his boat that

had an outboard motor. He lived on the other side of the bay and

invited me to come along and I accepted. In the middle of the bay,

The man slowed the motor his face was white as Arctic icicles, eyes

like burning lumps of lava, I felt cold and was in immense danger.

The man said: “if the boat capsized I could swim ashore, could you?”

His boat had oars I picked up one and placed it across my knees.

The man looked as he was making a move, I said: “I would not do this

if I were you.” At the pier I helped him taking the beer ashore, I didn’t

accept his invitation to come up to his house for a drink.

 While waiting for the regular ferry, I had coffee at the local cafe and

noticed my hands were still shaking after my narrow escape from

a man who had murder in his heart.   

Ex. seafarer

Ex. seafarer

Ex. Seafarer

As a former seafarer I have been to most countries that

have a harbour, but I have not been to Nepal or Tibet and

I have never wished to meet the great Lama a man wearing

handmade boots . Once in Japan i went to the movie and

heard John Wayne speaking Japanese, I laughed out loud

and was politely asked to leave.

There was a time when I thought of settling in Costa Rica

but it didn’t work out a love story gone awry; no not so

it was too far from Europe and there was much more to see.

I lived in the industrial belt of North/west of England for

a time and never got used to the social life of pubs, where

it appeared to me people took pride of being   ignorant.

I live in Portugal now, we sometimes drive to the coast and

ogle the tourists who pay too much for everything.

animals and madness

animals and madness

Ruins

Ruins

Baltimore

Baltimore.

They came here, the black population, from the south, to get work

In factories and the rate of pay for them the poor from the south,

Was good and a neighbourhood evolved, there was progress and

Peace thriving working class districts. Capitalism is not about safety,

 Shifting luck the industry moved abroad where wages are cheaper,

And where should the people go? Boarded up shops, factories and

 Broken windows, where should the people go? Restless youth no

One has given them any education, where should the people go?

Being black and suffering the stigma of having been sons of slaves to

Break out of the stigma of inferiority is not easy and often its ends

In frustrated and depressed violence.

The black people of Baltimore are suffering the same contempt as my

Parents did  in Norway simply for being working class. Askew is

The capitalist foundation, force into life a socialist party a force if needed

Without compromise, a political transformation.  When politicians say

they work for the middle- class people; we know the black working- class

is  blissfully excluded.

Kathmandu

Kathmandu

a quaint, romantic name,

had wanted to go there now it is a dream.

Nepal, this small mountain country

often used a golf ball between big countries

for purely selfish reasons.

Thousands of people killed and classical

palaces are reduced dust covering

mountain tops

as a fog of sadness 

Cry my lovely I can only offer you friendship.

But for the tourists who evacuated on

Himalayas’ sacred top.

Filling valleys with empty cans of beef

 and toilet paper flapping in the wind,

I have little empathy

rich tourists that had to bestride and befoul

a holy mountain.

useless money

Useless Money

I often get petitioning letters so many people trying

to find a place to live and only receive a bitter refusal

and see their children die of thirst and hunger.

I wish to help them, but no money in the world is

enough to stop this flood of humanity seeking a haven

flotsam, the wreck of the unfortunate and we can do

nothing but looks another way.

Overwhelmed by the misery I can do little about, but

the woman from Myanmar who won a medal for her

tenacity, choose not to speak. The friendly Buddhists

are killing Muslims in their midst, they have become

refugees; the woman from Myanmar is voiceless.

 She, the upper-class daughter of a Burmese general

Who aristocratic behaviour impressed us deeply,

But I ask why she is staying silent now.

War & Peace | Write Out Loud

War & Peace | Write Out Loud

Mare Nostrum

Mare Nostrum

On the coast of Augusta, in Cecilia this wonderful sea,

 the bluest of turquoise, transparent and I saw fish play.

Blood and bloated corpses have made the sea less pretty

and fish nibbles on cadavers of those who tried to cross

the sea to escape the lunacy we created in Libya.

A president short of stature but with inflated ego plus

philosopher idiot, two men were responsible this disaster

of a war just to get rid of a dictator one of them had lent

money of the other who should not be left out of his confine

of academia, he should have in hidden in a university writing

books only historians take a passing interest in.

As it is the impossible vain man get feted, all because he is

an intellectual and wears a velvet jacket and clean collars.

My old Mafia friend Thomas the knife, has invited me to

Augusta, I will go there but not swim the hazy sea, but we

will eat langouste, drink child wine and talk about the days

when philosophers and presidents left us alone to kill only

when needed and never the innocent. 

Home alone

Home alone

Middle East future

Middle East Future

I have not written anything today, why should I? The future

in the Middle East is clear there will be a rapprochement

 between USA and Iran, naturally two countries are surprisingly

alike both sublime and with a streak a tendency to violence.

That leaves us with it will leave the before the Palestinians will

refuse to be Bantu state and we will have an Israel stretching

from the Mediterranean to Jordan, most of the people will

 Be none Jews and since Israel is a democracy it will have to accept

this new situation. Israel will in the future become just another

Middle Eastern state that has nuclear weapon they cannot use

without erasing their own people as a race a be a bitter irony if

they did what the Nazi tried to do.

Saudi Arabia can go back being a kingdom with ten thousand princes

that have just moved out of the tents, but Jews will survive in Iran.

So there is nothing to write about except the vines are greening and

I’m taking a car dealer to court, it has taken me since 2004 to get here

because I can’t afford use a lawyer, justice takes time and is costly.

the last forenoon | Write Out Loud

the last forenoon | Write Out Loud

our future | Write Out Loud

our future | Write Out Loud

Easter remembered

Easter remembered

The Diner

The Diner

the unsung | Write Out Loud

the unsung | Write Out Loud

The Unsung

 The bus home stopped
at a fish factory, women entered 

they had been working overtime and the smell of their

 work was
overpowering  and I said nothing because
this

was way my mother was reeked when I was a child.

The women were noisy as to demonstrating they right to

 be here which they
had. Low paid and no proper place

to have a shower they had to carry the small of a labour

for a week. And I understand them well I was fifteen before

knowing how a shower worked. Yet they are the people

that keep our coastal town alive., but in the town’s square

there is a statue of the man who started, and not a word

about the women who made his dream come true,

 mother’s meagre
income sending him to college. 

the gay community

the gay community

Skin Cancer and Ayn Rand | Write Out Loud

Skin Cancer and Ayn Rand | Write Out Loud

the man who hates Israel

The Man who hates Israel

Today we had lunch at a restaurant called Israel and,

 yes it was Jewish but I didn’t see an Islamist bomber

ready to blow himself and us up to King David come.

The food was good and later over coffee I noticed they

served food fit for diabetics.

What amused me was that one of the dishes, hummus with

something was recommended by lady Gaga which I take

to be a cross-dressing singer. Where are the Jews?

Finally, an elderly couple arrived she looked like Isaac Rabin’s

wife and the man a scientist, to my chagrin they left

the food was too Middle Eastern for them they spoke English

with a Dutch accent. The Hollanders are really mean, I gave a lift

to a prince of the house of Orange he lived quite far from me

 but didn’t even offer me a cup of coffee.