Goodbye Alfred
  I had not seen Alfred for a while, had been busy
selling off my donkey farm, with this down I drove into town
but couldn't find him and his flat had been rented out to others.
Found him in rundown old peoples home, four old men to a room.
What the hell are you doing here papa? Well, it’s about the money, he said but get me out of here. Alfred who had now accepted me as his son was wealthy his grandfather had been in oil, and he feared Olga- my mother-
Would take the money, had placed most of it in Portugal.
As he had given me the power
of attorney I got him out and into a posh private home for the aged.
Alfred look frail, his wavy hair was reduced to a few strands of
White hair and his unafraid, one could say arrogant, ways had gone
The home had phone number should he get worse.
The call came in his room sat Olga she embraced me called me my son, my son.
Sitting by Alfred’s bedside, I fell asleep only awoke
when a nurse said Alfred had slipped away, strangely Olga had disappeared also, but
in a way I was content, it had not been an imagination, they were real I had a family,
although it must be said that Olga’s vanishing puzzled me and the nurse said there
had been no visitors other than I.
Alfred's last wish was to have his ashes strewn over Portugal I hired a helicopter and had it done. It was a sorrowful time, yet I was
glad that my dreams had come true.

Driving home
Driving back to Algarve we took the long road
more cafés and restaurants by the roadside and not
so many crazy drivers.
The restaurants were full of Portuguese people on vacation
they like their lunch in this country
Grilled chicken
Grilled meat
Grille the unspeakable innards
Stewed meat
Bacalao with cream
Red wine
Fresh fish
Beans in its many variations
Water, cold from the well
The worst of the summer heat had gone good mood prevailed.
People talk in this country
at the same time.
The din of happy, eating people was symphony of summer time
a few weeks of freedom, the paying of bills could come later
I love this country called Portugal even when I’m in a hurry and
the women in front of me and the check-out person talk about
grandchildren.

Beer in a Bucket

The well is almost dry he could hear the bucket scraping
at the bottom and the bucket was only half full when
he brought it up, global warming was true, but he was
not sure whether it was caused by man or by a natural
The shift in the weather pattern, having read the once there
were palm trees in Greenland?
Once the well was full of cold, clear water and he used
to lower a bucket full of bottled beer down it and when
he hoisted it up the beer was cold; of course, he could
put the beer in the fridge, but it didn't have the sangfroid,
about it as everybody had a fridge.
He looked at his watch they were going out to eat she
said, not that he wanted to go out, people went on his
nerves, the good thing was the served cold beer, almost
as cold as the beer in the well.

The Last Joke
My friend at the old people's home was dying
the heathen had taken a sudden interest in religious
matters, especially the sweet parts of angels and
harp playing on a cloud, the dream of man, tiger
and the lamb was sitting by the lake liquid silver.
He grew, as he weakened, restive asked me to pray
aloud by his bedside, to please him I did.
“Please, God let Oliver be and angel and teach him
how to play the harp…amen”

A howl of laughter from the sick-bed that ended in
a cough, the old ******* had got one over me.
He died that same night with a smile on his face.

Blindness
I think I'm going blind
Have walked around the house blindfolded
Having lived in my hut for a hundred years
I know where everything is
I can put clothes in the washing machine and
And put a capsule of liquid soap into it
When it is finished, it bibs saying it is done
The tricky bit is to open the gas oven I tried today
And burnt my hands I kept it over the ring
To check if it was hot
Having a shower is easy I know my body intimately
The problem is how to call the gas people when the bottle is empty
My wife wants me to move to her flat on the seventh floor
I will sit on the terrace and not see the view of the bay
The sailboats and ship at anchors and I will never be able
To talk to friends on the Facebook
She and her daughter will be tired of me and push me
Out of the terrace and for two seconds I will be flying and
Be incredibly happy to be able to fly and in a trance not
Notice the impact; they will when looking out see the dent
I made in concrete and ask someone to resurface the spot.

Sleepless

O, sleep, why did you forsake me
I close my eyes will me to sleep
Nothing!
Better get up watch an old movie
A western one and you know who
Are the baddie and the sheriff
John Wayne is holding in his stomach.
The fake fight scene with furniture
That breaks easily.
O, sleep, why did you forsake me.

Whistlestop
There used to be a train station here it was busy
and many came from the village to see who was leaving or arriving
that was ok; it is nice to wave goodbye or
welcoming a relative that has been away too long and might have
picked up big city manners.
Then the ghost of privatization came, and the line was closed, but
there is a bus arriving twice a day, but lack romance
bus travel is so common everybody facing one way and no stretching
and pacing in the hall.
The train station was sold off as a dwelling and the terminal a garden
where, as we speak, a tourist was told to leave
he was pacing waiting for the last train to take him home and to
the airport; he had waited for twenty years.
Not that the wife of the house minded, she was a good hearted woman,
as long as he stood still he kept birds away and she
didn't have to take him in when it rained he had an umbrella and was
happy when she bought him leftovers – she didn't like dogs-.
Then a twilight day it happened a train stopped the tourist boarded,
a whistle-stop you might say, the train never came back.

The Great Detective

Hercules Poirot stood alone
the lovers he had saved from the gallows
had departed.
He had tears in the corners of his eyes
and said: I, Hercules Poirot, the most famous detective in the world
I cannot understand the nature of love.
I concur.
My wife and I have been together for twenty years.
I love her dearly; she does not care about my writing; it might
upset people.
Her female logic makes me knotted in despair, but what can I do?
We have grown old together, and my nightmare is to live longer than her.
She is the practical one. I see conspiracy theory everywhere.
When Hercules Poirot could not solve the problem,
I give up too and go on loving her.

Equines
One really ought to start with the beginning only it goes so long back
That it is impossible to remember.
I remember being born but that was just an interlude, cold and
Unpleasant and being kissed by strangers.
I like horses though, but that has nothing to do with my inception.
But then was anyone ever born, we are just a part of a bigger
Broader picture where we but an unconscious number
But I do like horses and would have loved galloping across some
Grassland and jumping over brooks.
And now we have emboli fever which is either over-hyped,
Ten thousand dead by September or it is the new plague coming
To reduce our number ...and yet, and yet I would like to be a horse.
As I wonder if USA will ever be able to live for a whole year
Without starting a war somewhere

Endless is the Road
I have for some time not been eating boiled cabbage and it is
of not the slightest importance unless it has been boiled with
pork shoulder ham. I just say this because we had dinner at
a restaurant  for once I was not driving since  we were taking
the motorway  a toll road where all the crazy people assemble.
Big powerful cars driven by men who have not yet mastered
the mantra my driving instructor repeated: you drive the car it
doesn’t drive you.
I dislike driving on modern roads, they go on forever and I get
the feeling of a prisoner, a man who looks out his barred cell
window and sees only the landscape’s seasons but cannot touch
It inhales the aroma. I shall never be free of a past imagined.
I demanded she stop the car, I was going to walk home, a feat
I’m not capable of, I demanded a cigarette – we don’t smoke-
she gave me 5- milligram ******, as ordered by the doctor, and after
a break, we somehow got home.

At hypermarket
It had and ice-rink I wanted
To have go
She said I was crazy
At an Israeli restaurant
I asked for Jerusalem food
They didn't have
The waitress asked what it was
Bless her innocent heart
It is a blend of Arabic and Jewish food
People starred
Apparently, it is no PC to say Jewish
People can be so stupid
No seats inside one can't have old people
Clogging up the place
They had seats outside where people smoked
I could **** for a ***
The day is darkening
My wife has gone to church to sing
And lit candles
Tomorrow I will polite to everyone
More polite than anyone else
As Trump might say  
When I'm ninety, I will look back
And say: those crazy times
When I was eight-two

Night Rider  

I was riding around a pan- handle flat landscape
and as far as I could see it had millions of coffins, some expensive
others looked home-made.

The sun was forever going down but threw rays on white clouds
making them pink as a ballet dress on a girl painted by Edgar Degas
the ground was covered with sheets of black plastic which undulated
slightly in the mild zephyr.

The horse’s hoofs made holes in the plastic and up sprung bushes
that for long had been living in darkness; they were pale now but
would soon be greening by the setting sun.

I came to a small town where houses had false facades to make
them look imposing walked into a bar were Hollywood actors
was shooting each other take after take.

I found a bath-house after stabling my horse and in the tub
dreamt of crisscrossing this landscape of death till it became
green again hiding the coffins, perhaps then the night would
be full of stars and the sun that arose from the east

Wilderness

I dislike wasting my time shopping for shoes
the man who wrote wasteland a famous poem
is known for this; he did like boots too for walking
He did indeed and many other things too
I, when I had a bike, cycled through wasteland
a domestic landscape growing beautifully wild
I don't see it know there is a distance between
me and the dream I had, the touch the aroma of
nature is also a memory of horse manure in
a field verdant as the sea around Greenland.
I need a wasteland a place where I can lose myself
without it, life is an endless trivial repetition.
Tomorrow I will go buy a pair of walking boots.

Lonely is the Famous

Once I met Cliff Richard, a sweet little man,
came into the newsagent and bought
a paper-broadsheet- perhaps that makes
him looks intellectual; what do I know?
He nodded my way, smiled, mind, he smiled
to everyone. He is a professional showman,
smiling for him comes easy.

He had plenty of hair, slim no unsightly beer
belly like me, and I was quite envious till
I noticed the cape of loneliness he wore.
Wished I could help moderate the desolation
that dulled his eyes when he briefly let his
guard down. Poor Cliff sits alone at home, sips
his own wine and dream of happy holiday

The Odd Narrative

Steamed up window my finger I paint a landscape,
Mountain, forest and a lake; the peak cries into
                   the lake it becomes a vast ocean,
where trees, are made into wooden rafts floats.
Midmorning, there is only an outline left of the crest,
this will happen to Himalaya,
it will be a grassland on a plateau, where horses gallop,
                                   flying mane and all that,
since man won’t be there to domesticate and make them
drag bunk beds and kitchen stoves around the pampas.    

The rest of the world will have sunk into a big sea that is so still
it spends all its time mirroring the blue sky thinking it’s seeing
                                     is so deeply in love with the image,
that doesn’t notice the man in a rowing boat; he’s one time forgot,
                                     he has married a big fish
which he thinks is a mermaid, every so often he  puts his hand in
the sea and strokes the fish’s    belly: “without you,” he murmurs
                                    “I would truly be alone.”

The first dance

My outing into the big world was to go every
Saturday to the local cake shop eat cakes and drink coffee
But now I had to go to a dancehall
I noticed there were several women no one asked to dance
I asked one of them she said no, I asked the second one
She said not too, totally destroyed I looked for the exit.
Surprisingly there was a woman by the exit who said yes
Without being asked.
My dignity restored I danced with her several times
There was an alehouse near she wanted to go there
And I was only too happy that a woman spoke to me.
She drank several beers and when I asked to go back
She told me to *******.
I walked home alone

A Friend of the Mouse

Outside on the bottom wall of an old house
I saw a tiny mouse, picked it up it didn't offer resistance
I looked the small life with wonder
It had lungs, eyes, a beating heart just like me, and a brain too
But of course its world view was
From a perspective of the place it occupied the election of
Trump not its concern and the feeding frenzy of the mass media,
The hysteria and wrong conclusions not to forget the hatred
Of those who thought they deserved to win.
I put the mouse down, it disappeared into a hole, and it will
Perhaps say to its friend:” God held me in his hands but let
Me walk in peace, I feel blessed.”

The Good-Bye

We walked
To the railway station
Mother
Dressed in an old coat
Fastened with safety pins
waved.
She looked so small wanted to leave the train
Embrace her.
The train moved
I waved
As long as I could see her.
Mother was untidy
Hair
On the sandwiches
She gave me.
At the next stop
I bought a bar of chocolate.

The Death
I would not like to die in winter
When earth is frozen and will not take a *****
They will dig a shallow grave
Bury me in a coffin without a blanket
Then go inside and sit by the fire
Perhaps they will wrap me in canvas put me on
The hey-loft till spring
And collect my old age pension during the cold season
I don't mind that
Soft soil and flowers on the ground
Dig deep, and I will be a part of spring

Lower class

When children we were poor, and that was ok,
we knew  hunger,
it was not so much not having much living in unsanitary houses
no bathroom we all lived like this and thought nothing of it,
it was that our life was staked out by authority
our job after
seven years schooling was to man the factory, some went
further and became welders and others electricians which
the nearest we could get to being middle class.
Most children when young accepted their future life and
after long years  in a factory got a watch from the administration
and a picture in the local newspaper.
There were many losers some became drifter didn't want to
we called them lazy some became ****** while other sank
into alcoholism and they were the clever ones
no one saw their talent, and the gifted didn't know how
to set themselves free living in boarding houses walking in
the shadow, luckily many of them died young.
Life is better now we have a better chance there never was
a time of the good old days.

The pace
  I walked for 50 minutes
Inhaling fumes of cars, it is like
Living in a roundabout
The see air on the seventh floor
At my flat, the air is healthier
But I walk every day because
It is suitable for my diabetes
And it makes me slimmer
Only the walk makes me hungry.
It makes me wonder if
The great and late president Chirac
Walked the street of Paris?

The Complicated Scam
I met a man in a bar he was a monk dressed as civilian
to study the world and he painted me a picture.
How wondrous life was behind a wall, a cell each a habit a
and a pair of sandals. Regular meals of the healthy kind
Monks never got diabetes or heart diseases, and the wine
they drank at each meal was home made.
We had another drink followed by more it was closing time
I rose to leave, and he began crying  
He had nowhere to go, he said, what about the cloister, no they
will not open their doors I drank too much wine and seduced
A novice. I suggested he should take a photo prostrate in the front
Of our Saviour. He thought that was a good idea, but he had
No camera, I gave him mine -  he was a monk even a fallen one-
I never saw him again, but saw my camera for sale in the window
of a second-hand shop

**** Time
Uniformed men with ice blue
crystal eyes marched up and down
our street.
Bomb fell, the earth shook
and I was two years old.
An officer with steel rimmed glasses
and thin cruel lips said; this child is an Aryan.
Proudly clicked my heels and ****** my thumb.
Went to sleep, while mother sang
sentimental leider and dreamed of becoming
the Kindergarten's Fhurer.
To my regret peace broke out and life
became rather dull for a while
until I was circumcised and could pea
higher up a wall against the wall
then the other boys, this made me
a natural leader

The Ballerina and the *******

The Ballerina, at the left in my Degas print it hangs
in the hall and I have neglected to look at it for some time,
has moved to the centre stage where she goes through
her warm up routine.
She teaches little girls to dance now that she is married
and have three children; she had to go back to work
as her husband was a sloth; but she is still graceful as
a leopard when r it is chasing lesser pray on
the Savannah, or gliding up to kiss the Popes ring.
She sees my argumentative mien, but will not be drawn
into a fight when I suggest Degas was a *******.
My dog, although it has no business being there,
enjoy the attention it gets from girl ballerinas that
crowd the print with chatter and eager sincerity.

Demise of my Horses

I had been a way for a few days
visiting the aunts of Cascais, and
found my stone horses gone.
Just three cheerless holes were
They had been tethered.
The widening
of the road, they said and for
that beauty must go.
If they decide to make a motorway
close neighbours will be divided.
Sun and rain, spectacular my horses were
before turned into grit.

Not a *******.

The nun in her habit sat on a rock near the river,
when I came by she smiled, with lips that had never tasted
a kiss, asked if I wanted a *******; taken aback of
what, coming from a nun, sounded like a sick obscenity,
a shocking blasphemy, I left to tell my wife.

She demanded a divorce and got custody of our only dog which,
in triumph, bit my thumb; I went back to the river since I had lost everything,
better let the nun does her job;
but she was floating down the river like a black
bin liner full of newspapers reporting telling of atrocities.

Just writing

My copy pen fell to the floor I bent down to pick it up
Now I was dizzy the rook swayed.
I came here decades ago, and many pens have fallen to the floor
Although I use a word-processor.
Words are my crutches I lean heavily on them to find a meaning
And not knowing what that meaning is.
Just a vague feeling I lost something on my way to the stars.
I write at night now a steady hum tells me I have to make up
For wasted time, but my time of waste was a fun one
Full of women and sensuality

Atheism

When I grew up
I stopped believing in God
Toys belong to the young
And Santa fanatics
Yet
I leave small light on
In my bedroom at night
The fear of darkness
Never left me
Yet
I know Christianity had
Taken hold of me
The darkness of the sinner
Never left me
Yet
I believe in the day
The truth must not be hidden
In Churches' recesses
Yet
Blood splash on walls tinsel
On the ground
New Year Eve in Istanbul
The fear never left
Yet
I saw a happy child play in a puddle.

A day in a Market Town

The café had a big window facing the street, it was almost empty
except for three scientists, they were talking about trees
I noticed a dog running up and down apparently it was lost and
tired of listening to the- none of my business- I walked out spoke to
the dog, come with me to the park plenty of trees there it followed
Me at a distance. In the park I sat down, I had biscuits in my pocket
gave them to the dog, it was thirsty, so I lifted it up so it could
drink water from the fountain, quite happy it ran around and peed
on trees leaving its marks: saying I was here with a human.

The scientists came into the park also now they talked about the string
theory until one said he would rather discuss marine biology
The dog was chasing squirrels as the day seamlessly slid into evening
I walked to the car wondering what to eat tonight would it be
meat cakes with stewed cabbage and boiled potatoes.

The Repairman Cometh
It was the sweetest of morning all I had to do was to pick up
a car from the garage nothing is simple in the Africa’s stranglehold
on Portugal, its relaxed attitude have seeped into the very corner of
what is called the Portuguese endearing soul
The car stopped I called the garage, alas it was lunch time which
is sacred,
oh yes they promised to come,
the man I spoke to was
chewing on a bone, I waited for three hours which is the time
a lunch break takes.
I was left sitting on a road far from a nearby café, but that is
beside the point, many call this attitude charming folkloric even
I think it demonstrate a lack of regard for Fellow man especially
if he is the foreigner and it is a well-known fact the Portuguese are
fine people,  they tell us so in every booklet you care to read
But there is another picture of Portugal on my mind
The atrocity their army committed and the following cowardice
By the leadership is forgotten in a common amnesia and the young
will ask a question; Father: what did you do in Angola besides poring
cement down hotel drains out of pure spite.

The interior landscape

Here in the landscape of bushes and crippled trees
silence speaks of the final peace.
Grotesque dead trees with grey boughs stretching upward
appealing to a fairytale God:
“Give us today a new life.”
There is only one god with many names
you can't trust him to hear your whisper in the wind.
Those who do not understand this are doomed to endlessly
going to casinos or nightclubs, unable to be alone the noise drowns out the ghost of god.
Pale faces seeing a horror behind you or into a void which
is the biggest punishment is to be forgotten.
I shun not this landscape as it has been abandoned by man
can only be peaceful.

A friendly Story
He the modest farmer was cutting green juicy spring grass
those that had spring flowers entwined it was for his donkey
that had been in the stable in the winter
He put the fodder in a jute sack and when it was full carried
it home to the donkey now in the yard
The animal ate and ate alas there can be too much of a good thing
its stomach full of gas it took flight over the mountain to Spain
where it landed outside the famous cathedral in Seville
Its arrival caused some uproar the believers looked up and said
but where is Jesus?” An *** and Jesus they had read their Bible.

For one day there was not a word about presidential election
In the USA, but a story of a beast that had eaten too much spring
grass and was full of gas but the story ended well the donkey was
sent back to the unassertive farmer in Portugal

The Maniac  

This day has been one of great terror of the mind,
My illness made me hallucinate; my head was exploding
****** bit of brain everywhere
People are calling this a spike, me calling it a step-down
The ladder into the grave without the dignity
And around my grave, they will throw soiled napkins
The padre will giggle laudable and do a jig and
Read from a funny script, he is a stand- up comic
When not moonlighting as a padre.
She, the dictator of the domestic scene, tells me I'm
Hallucinating, me? One of the most normal people
I have ever known.
You only feel sorry for yourself, says the cake munching
Ogre, I get up, but my voice is too weak for words  
But I manage between heaves of fear of imminent death
To tell her of the wood I have carried to the house
I give myself another shot of insulin, wish I had a cigarette

When Alfred was witty

Alfred, the pianist who insist he is not my father
Told me he could walk on water,
to prove it we went to where the water is shallow
he sank slowly, legs, torso and his head
I was not unduly worried,
at the bottom, he walked back to shore
and I gave him back his alpaca and French Beret, but I said nothing
he hadn't stepped on water only walked on it.
He borrowed my shoes to get home I; his son had to walk barefoot
and he never returned my shoes

Drones
The agreeable weather persists it worries me sitting in the yard
I was going to read the papers, but cramps in hands prevent me
so I study two flies circling they could be miniature
drones sent there to spy no, stop this persecution complex now
the political editor of the Guardian is not spying on you.
There so many drones now the grey cloud one sees are drones
flying in formation and the sun is a giant mirror.
There must be a regulation the government will demand to fly
wherever they want for security, a word loaded of falsehood
and lies what they don't want you to know is called security.
We the people may get a small drone that only flies 50 metres
over the house and not be weaponized “the right to have drones.”
Is not in the constitution
Do not make love to your wife on the patio or in your garden the eye
in the sky sees you and you will pay a hefty fine for lewd behaviour  
We will have to suffer drones
till some clever clogs find a way to shot down drones with a laser
rays or turn the drones, so it goes back to base and blows up
the hut where the controller sits pressing abort, abort to no awhile
desperately throw himself out of the window and run.
The two flies – drones- have disappeared, this makes me annoyed
so I'm not worth spying on , is that it!
On the roof, sits a seagull it is one legged used to be the king of
a cliff in the outer sea, it was dethroned and came here  to live
out its retirement on leftovers, at night it shrieks in despair

Mean Machine

The locomotive was an old mean machine
only used for carrying gods at local stations along
boring flatland. Once it had been a young and
the President of Portugal rode on it, not only him
but many other high up all the way to Lisbon.
And now? It wanted to go hiding somewhere dark,
but where does one conceal an iron horse?
The train passed near the parking lot in Faro
I was out with my dog, and there I could let her
run free. There was a hole in the fence were
the tracks. Naturally, she jumped through.
She saw the train that seemed to speed up with murderous intent when she jumped clear it
was too late. I had her buried and the following
days were long and full of sadness.

The occupied

Never negotiate
With the conquering invaders
He will think
You are pathetic and ask for more.
He will respect you
If you refuse him
And have contempt
If you give way.
If he built a house in your garden
Is constructed on your land
Eventually, it will be yours
You sign no contract
You gave no ground
In the end
The occupier leaves
Defeated
By your steadfastness.

War & Peace  

We agree most of the time war is caused
By capitalism, nationalism, in fact, any isms
Demagogues and murky propaganda
These entities can't fight wars without soldiers
And there are too many young men who
Simply love the idea of wearing arms and fight
They go to war the survivors are veterans
They know now they have fought for nothing
In despair, they take to drink and drug and sink
To the bottom of the human heap
Aldous Huxley spoke of something in the water
That takes the aggression away….Good!
Only one has to be careful not making them into
Zombies with no ambition to the point the world
Disappear in the morass of apathy.
We can't stop wars happening but we can try to
Prolong peace and make wars more infrequent.

Walls
And the foolish enemy, sons of fools and grandchildren
of idiots build a wall in the desert to protect them from
The horde of poncho-clad hombre In sombreros seeking work
Taking with them the culture of a failed state with Salsa music.
The enemy of freedom forgot about nature and over
The desert sand flew stopped by a 12-metre fence, it blew and
blew and sand dunes grew and grew, buried the wall
Till it was forgotten, the Salsa music won.
Jericho’s wall blew down too was rendered into a parable, yet idiots
And the fearful defend this continuing building of walls by
Those who have forgotten history

Love story

Her kiss tasted of iron railing a frostbitten dawn; my lips bled.
Her eyes were frozen stars in a deadly
galaxy of tranquillity.
A beauty flawless.
Her body…unbending, unwilling, an ice maiden in a winter forest.
Her blue lips had spots of cardinal crystal,
my futile attempt of resurrection.
My love, I laid by her feet, struck a match in the vast night of silence.
Ash and ember I was free.
In the glade among roses of gold,
my new love waited…hand in hand
we walked to where the day begins.

The Choice  


She was a lovely middle aged woman,
who mostly only shared her vanity with the mirror.
She is watching her weight
having the strange believe that a man does not like  
women of Ruben like dimension
nevertheless through her modest education she as
able to meet people of economic status as she had
the ability of sit on the greenest twig.
But she must pay the prize of living away from here nearest
In a town that makes her feel perturbed.

The Lady on the Island

She lived in a big villa with servants, on an island
connected to the mainland by a bridge, she had house arrest
wanted free elections and democracy.
A hero of the west and she got a medal for her tenacity.
The military junta set her free yet kept their power, she accepted
after all, she was a general's daughter.
As a de facto president, she turned out to be a racist, didn't defend
The Rohingya people who their villages burnt to the ground and
had to flee the massacre by the army, she stayed silent and lost
credibility, she was just elite racist didn't want to be a leader of
people who were not of her blood.

Haiku
Norway, a glazier
Trapped inside a glass orb
Shake it and it snows

Haiku
Christmas again
Seventy -seven ****** times
Spring is far away

Haiku
I wish for April
Intoxicating apple flowers
And rain softening soil

Winter-poem


On the way home I had bought winter-wood, only buy
a little at a time this because I’m so ****** old and can't carry much.
The supermarket was nearly empty I liked that people make me nervous and grumpy.
I bought a bottle of wine with golden horse; the wine is from Alentejo
We all have a penchant for lions; Norway is full of stone lions some
of them look scary and much bigger than the real ones.
It was then I remembered the poem, I think it is of the intellectual sort,
deep ploughing and full of dictionary words. Alas, after unloading
the wood I had forgotten it,
but I will remember when I get the first line right.

The pseudo-science
    
Cooking is not rocket science but would be cook has to
learn the basic after this he must discover why some
food doesn’t go well mixed with the wrong ingredients
The rudimentary is salt, pepper and butter and then
spices depending on the dish.
The food on the plate should look appetising but not
over-decorated, a cook should not aspire to be an artist
for that, he should go to an art school and paint Pretty pictures.
To put a bit of full-fat cream in some gravies
Is ok, but the dish should not swim in grease.
Always serve fresh salad and go easy on the potatoes.

The Fable of Jesus

Jesus was skeptical of his tribe, as a trainee carpenter
so lousy couldn't even make a bookshelf, they kidded him
for that and Jesus took umbrage and criticized
the priests who served the Romans.
He took to hanging out with a group of radicals of the day
and since he was good with words, became their leader.
They had groupies too, one of them was Magdalena and
Jesus took a shine to her without saying so, but them all
knew from the way he looked at her.
Being admired by his flock, Jesus thought he could take
on the establishment, like when he chased money lenders
out of the temple; he was wrong.
When the Romans mocked him and crowded him a king,
he thought the people would come to save him, no such
a thing happened, he was strung up (Crucified).
The women came to his rescue, healed his wounds and
sent him to France where he took the name of Pierre,
married Magdalena had seven children and was
a much-respected Goldsmith

Abortion, an opinion.

  I sat on the terrace sun was flooding obliterating whiteness
 escaped into the living room, observing four ships anchored in the bay.
Through the binoculars, vessels with long lines made to carry bulk loads  
like grain, rice or coal; I spent many years on crafts like these.
This reminded me if abortion had been informal, I might not be born
in the time before World War 2 when abortion was hard to obtain  
not, relaxed, with a quick visit to the hospital and a cup of coffee.
My mother (before women’s rights, was all for women’s rights) such as
equal pay and respect, but she thought abortion was morally wrong.
Since we lived in poverty, her sister showed up with a skipping rope
that might help induce a spontaneous abortion mother was not
into sport and preferred to read lengthy novels.
I cannot condone abortion on demand; I know the arguments
about a woman’s body is her own can do as she pleases.
A better reason must be given before the purge of the unborn.

A flat in Town

Tomorrow most of the time there is one, but for some, the unlucky
who died the day before, and rest in a coffin in a cold church, the tomorrow came too late,
I will be moving into a flat on the fifth floor in Loule.
See many roofs and if I stand on a ladder also see the Atlantic Sea and with binoculars
catch a sight of a passing ship.
Life will be so easy take the lift down to the street walk into
a café and drink coffee; I usually make my coffee but what the hell.
There is a park nearby with pretty flowers and tame trees.
The bank manager shakes her head did some calculation asks me about
my age and before I can push the question away with a joke my wife stepped
in and told  
What I cannot tell anyone if the loan I need is refused, I will look mournful  
yet relieved that I do not have to write poetry  about the colours on flat roofs
and the sea is forever green I do not need a ladder to know this.

The combat in Ukraine

I have a problem; we know that Ukraine is a corrupt country
we also know it has fought a low-level war against
the Russian-speaking people in the Donbas region, so Russia
intervened, so far so good, but what is the next step?
If Russia holds on to the territory gained without having
an army station in the freed territories on a permanent basis
because Ukraine will cry foul and attack when they can.
Russia has always been a magnet for intruders because
of its potential riches and vastness.
There was a time when Yeltsin and his cronies were popular
they grabbed the state's assets and sold them down the Volga.
This was abruptly stopped, to the chagrin of the west
once more; Russia was the enemy.
I’m not partial to the Russian government’s plan, but as I see it
Russia has to occupy the whole of Ukraine and install a regime
that is permanently neutral and let Ukraine be a member
of the Russian federation.
In any case, the war must stop as thousands of young soldiers
die for the wrong reasons and the civilians are bombed senseless.