South Africa

The rainbow paled in South Africa
the end of apartheid has ended, freedom for all.
Not quite, the poor in Soweto are getting poorer.
The difference it now consists of white poor as well.
The new leadership behave like the old one corruption
and shade dealings.
South Africa is practically a democratic one-party state.
Or was democracy and equality brought on too early?
It takes time.
What is there to say when people riot and burn down
the places where they buy their daily bread and have to walk for miles
to buy milk for their children, other than an act of despair.
Big business is doing well, thank you.
But nothing has been done to alleviate the suffering of the poor.
The rainbow state has lost its lustre.
If you wonder why the poor ran amok was the jailing of Jacob Zuma
Despite his failings, he has an African heart, which the new elite, dipped in white culture,
failed to see.
He is the chieftain dethroned and Africa bleeds.

Sparrows never rest
On the bush, I don't want to know the name of was full of sparrows
picking leaves for their nests; the bush looks like a balding man.
It is seven in the morning; the birds work hard
soon it will be hot, and their toiling stops,
but they will be back in the late afternoon working
hard to finish the building of nests.
The small thieves resent me standing on the terrace
twits in unison to shush me away.
It is too quiet I have dressed going to the local hospital
tor a test at the hospital, then I realise it is Sunday,
I'm hungry as I'm not supposed to eat anything
before the test. I go into the kitchen and the sparrows
continue working.

Spawning


  The children, in the street near the factories, looked unfriendly
  avoid them, and my brother said their mothers where ******
spawning Nazis during the war.
Their mothers had haircuts at the police station, bald as eggs
serves them right they and their children should be
sent back to Germany.
The street, also ours, was typically working-class no gardens
no colour anywhere like living in a maze of greyness and damp.
My brother had his knowledge from listening to the adults,
men who had done nothing under the **** occupation except
trading with the enemy for cigarettes and ***** and using
their wives as bait.
Now they were heroes pulling the headdress of the unlucky
calling them ******, but like so many things that too ended.
Hair grows back beautiful women in the street, and the Norwegian
are blessed with short memories.

Speculation

What is the best time to die?
A beautiful summer’s day
or in the winter when it rains.
There is an untimely satisfaction
that mourners - if there is any-
will be wet and die of the flu.
Sitting in the antechamber
discussing where we are going.
My plan is clear its Saragossa
where the dream of life continues,
because our conciseness was
a flash of light in the darkness.

Spiritual

We hear a person speaks fluently with trained ease
which we later find is of little value.
This person is well-liked as he tells a joke and uses irony
when describing people, he does not like.
We can call him witty.
The person is a politician and knows nothing
about spirituality.
But he knows how to pander to our prejudices.

Spoken Poetry

I woman was reading some of my poems
They sounded like mine, but not sure
I thought they were too good, I have never
Regarded me on the top shelf of poetry
But occupying a crack between poetry and prose.
The voice made for poetry came from
Poetry hunter, I tried to thank her but she
Didn’t wanted comment.
Perhaps I was wrong
A wish to write as good
As the poems she read was wishful thinking.
From my part.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed her clear, impeccable voice.

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.

Haiku

A Stygian poem
can be  written in daylight
by the deadly lake.


In the lake of love
she was dead as an unsaid poem
the sun too drowned.

Seven dead nuns in a boat
had succumbed by a sea of prayers
oars dripping tears.

Hunting for sport

  It is hard to be a little fox
They have many natural enemies in the forest
Where they live in the hole of an uprooted tree
They have no umbrella for when it rains
No sofa and a TV, but they do have a loving mother
That tries to protect them till adulthood.
Now men on horseback and howling dogs try
To **** them for sport.
Who are these unsightly people chasing a fox?
Till it can run no more and is torn to pieces by
“Man’s best friend “
For this sport, the hunters dress in a red coat
At the table boat how successful they have been
And no one calls them stupid.

Sportsman

I don’t care so much about football
that fills the screen so often in this mad country.
I do sometimes watch the highlights but
not the whole game which has long dull moments
when the players pass the ball to each other
and nothing dramatic happens.
I played football too as a boy, goalkeeper I was,
I took it personally when my team lost and walked home alone.
I didn’t want to play, but the others said I was good
didn’t feel like this when the horde came running to
my part the field, wanted to run away and the ****** ball hurt
when saving a goal.
One day I took my uncles gloves he wasn’t pleased, but let
I pass he couldn’t use them again to impress the ladies.
Finally, I found sanctuary in the local library they never thought
looking for me there.
I disappeared in the maze of books friends never found out
it was a great time, so much I had to discover,
still does, come to think of it.

spring

This is a beautiful day,
the sea-breeze is softly embracing me
and I think of a bush that grows by the wayside into my village
only angels can spin such a bush for us to enjoy a day like this.
The finely spun bush stays for a few days but take off a nightfall
not to be seen again before next spring.
The rose bushes are hanging over the fence in a symphony
for the eye and aroma.
Yes, spring is here, a time when everything is eternal before
the cruel burns the landscape yellow and dry,
and we dream of the sea.

As the time of spring beckons
                        

We all have this moment of clear-sightedness
when we see we are of little importance other to the world
and clear-eyed grasp our smallness.
We can in our tiny ways push the world forward an inch
perhaps to a fairer society where children do not die under
the rubble of concrete.
We can do nothing to stop these people who will push
us into an Armageddon, and will they somehow think
they can avoid the calamity when there is no one to blame.
There was a time when one could travel unmolested
in the Arabic world, then the smell of petroleum and
the white man came and destroyed the peace for greed.
No, not us the lesser people, we are victims too of their
hunger to dominate and enslave us in mortgages and loans
that can never be paid; so we watch and wait and when
the day of disaster comes shall I help the ruffians to my lifeboat.

Spring

I was listening to Chopin’s “Spring.”
It was coming back, the spring I saw and felt
when I lived inland in my old cottage.
The flowers of blossoming almond trees,
the black soil and the greening of trees leaves,
the flowers on the roadside and
the intense aroma of nature.
Living in an apartment high up seasons come and go
I thought I had forgotten.
But Chopin had brought back memories.
Before I die, I would like to hear his music
again, it gives me harmony in my mind.

Sputnik and other vaccines

The pandemic is a time when humankind is attacked nations should work together. Instead, it has become
a business propositions.
Who will sell the most vaccine (not necessarily the best)?
Who makes the most money for the Pharma industry?
And not the cost to the people who need it.
In an article in the Guardian several pharm/chemical
industry and to my amazement the Russian vaccine called
“Without irony” Sputnik was not mentioned, here politics
enter the stage while we wait for the ending of this scene.

Spyware

It was no surprise reading Israel run this practice
and sell it to anyone with money to pay.
Israel, this enclave in an Arabic world, is an anomaly
its inhabitant lives in a bubble they call democracy.
It brokers no criticism, not even in its mildest form
and calls people who they find disagreeable:  
antisemitic or haters.
They picked up a golden nugget called victimhood
to the point, they believe the whole world hates them.
Israel is not a victim but a ferociously aggressive state
what will never give up its shabby mentality,
But it can be remedied if other countries stop all trade
with land, whose psyche needs an adjustment.

Stavanger Communist Party

The local communist party of my youth was a fun place
they had frequent parties with music and dance and
illegal ***** in the bushes, in the dark unpainted years
after the war when entertainment was tambourine and
bible thumping. My uncle spoke at meetings he painted
a picture of utopia for the workers a short working week
and jobs for the wheelchair bound, like other members he
lived in a naïve cocoon that had little to do with real life.

As the country shook off the grimness of the gloomy years
there was work for all, and the party shrank in a short
time disappeared; there were so many places to dance.
I can still hear my uncle's voice talks of “the dictatorship
of the masses”  equal pay for all; we are getting nearer
but there are those who try to take it away from us.

Stay at you lest

In the working class district where grew up
Stay with your lest
most boys began working in a factory when old enough
they married to a nice wife had a little flat and children.
they continued being solid workers till the reached
pension age got a watch and a picture in the local paper
dressed in ill-fitting suits looking solemn and proud.
They had done their life’s work and could now
sit in the park or feed the ducks and wait for dinner.
I didn't want this went to sea and later at catering academy
but I was a lousy ****** spent most of my time reading
and when I had reached the pinnacle of my profession was
utterly bored and rebellious I was not wanted and
took a job on a ship anywhere in the hope of finding what
I was unable to define. I tried writing, prefer the vignette style
used English or the Norwegian language, it was a slow going
liked to do what I did even though, I was rarely published.
I sit in a small cabin far from home and know I should have done
as the other boys become a reliable worker with a nice wife,
They found dignity in their place I should have done the same.

stillness

On this calm day
the reflection of a ship in the bay
a mirror of tranquillity.
Meanwhile, not far from here
A lost war continues
the order is to hold on.
Wrecked cars litter streets
of battle
like broken dreams.
So, many things flying through the air
the heaven weeps.
Is the calmness deceptive?

The Muir

As a child living on a farm during the war
had a pond on peatland, the pond’s water
was fenny and dark.
Slow swimming trout that tasted of mud
Swam, near the surface of the pond.
My friend and I built a boat with sails,
It sunk, I clung to the mast, Peter swam
didn’t make it, screamed before being
dragged under by something atrocious.
The adults came running, they didn’t find
Peter, the pond had endless silt, lukewarm
infinite, its foundation in the maelstrom
of conflicting horrors.

The stone casts of the life


The journey has not ended
since I had a fall on the terrace the dream was over
I had been holding on selling my old home for a slushy reason.
No, I have not resigned I will not give up on anything
it is just I have to find other alternatives.
No, I have no firm plans they never came to fruition.
I have had the fortune to live a dream.
Now I live in a flat too big for me four bedrooms and
I only sleep in one of them.
The next step I live to what life gives me I don´t need much
when I was a ******, I had a cabin, books and a bunk.
I never dreamt of a castle.
Except for recurring depression, I´m quietly contented.

Stone Stallion

A big rock in the field
He dedicated
Twenty years of his life
To make it look like a horse  
When he gave up
The rock looked as beautiful
As the first day, he saw it.

Storyteller

Now, as spring light fades into
a soft blue night, I turn to you and ask
Tell me more.
The river doesn’t run rapidly as before
The lake is dry
No wind blows away broken dreams.
Tell me more, if you can before, the light
Is an empty space
The stillness has lost its echo.

Story teller

Now as spring light fades into a softly
blue evening, I turn to you and ask?
If you can tell me more.

The river doesn't flow as rapid as before
the lake is still dry, no breeze blows
away dust of broken dreams.

If you can tell me more tell me now
Before light is a space and
The stillness has lost its echo

Strange summer

This has been a curious summer
few insects around and the bees have disappeared too.
It didn't use to be like this I had nets in all window
I could have saved the money this year.
Not that I'm fond of insects, but it is frightening should
they disappear altogether.
There is a small beehive in the backyard the hive
it is still there but looks like a poorly built house drying
out and pieces are falling off and is empty.
Without insect here I include the pesky dipterous there
will be no spring and no harvest.
I blame the Chemicals used on the land, and inside houses
it is poison; we must stop this attack, stop using chemical
and accept a smaller but healthy harvest.

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.

Underneath the lamplight

There was a time I danced under street lamps
The music was in my head and pole dancing
had yet to be invented
                                      I didn't dance in moonlight the sky overcast
                                     Or I was life sober and in bed
My jubilance over life sometimes tired me out
Even a clown needs his rest when not blowing
His trumpet and take his funny trousers off.
                                        I never dance anymore seeking no audience
                                       My stepping was better than Fred Astaire.

Street Walker in Oslo

As the black-winged night occupies my balcony
and spread its wings in triumph and shop lights
try in vain to illuminate and gladden a grubby street
I see you leaving your flat and begin your night shift
As you walk past splashes of yellow light,
I can see your white powdered face has not yet
settled into its customary inviting grin and your
lips are a machete slash where blood has coagulated
into lumps long ago.
Dressed in red tonight in the hope of attracting
rampant lust, but since you are an old bird
you are reduced to service those with a putrid need
for violence, but even in your disgrace I know
your heart is pure.

STRANGE FRIEND

I had a friend both on Facebook and meeting him in person
he often sent me words of wisdom said by a famous person,
about loyalty and honesty, I often find these saying rather
banal and self-evident.
His dream was to be rich and have a big car, but like me, we
didn´t have the talent other than buying a lottery ticket.
I think he was selling things and made a modest living,
I tried to write and was equally unsuccessful, but we tried
in our clumsy way to find a road forward.
I often thought he didn´t really like me that much he was,
I think jealous of my relaxed attitude to life's strange ways
And the disinterest in money.
I think he found me arrogant for calling a ***** a *****,
people do not take the truth lightly, do I?
Suddenly he unfriended me on Facebook and declared
he didn´t want to see me again.
This tiding was pleasant I no longer had to pretend he was boring
and his range of conversations limited.
I have lost a few “friends” on Facebook, but it means very little
perhaps I should tone it down a little, be all friendly, that will be the day

The stupid working-class

It is odd is it not, the working-class
have no idea of how powerful they are.
Can you think of a world where no one cleaned the office?
Build roads and keep street passable?
Yet we treat them with contempt.
Can you think of a couple who needs four jobs?
to pay for the ever-increasing bills
While rich thanks to their toll buy yachts?
The most obscene of all, we buy magazines with photos
of them and their riches, and we admire them,
Not for one moment do we think we could make them
penniless and homeless by stopping work

Suckling pigs  

In the time of the Vikings
when a baby girl was born in the winter
put her naked on a shield
carried her into the woods where she
was eaten by wolves or froze to death.
Piglets are little darling suckling the sow
but not for long they are slaughtered and
roasted and sold for our table.
I ate suckling pig for lunch today the flesh
sweet and soft, the crust tender it was like
eating a baby (which it was) a cruel meal
I rather eat an old goat full of meaty flavours.

Suggestible me


I had ended up in a country with a strange pub culture
and obsession with the class which I found restrictive.
No posh pubs if the working class and not slumming it
if you were middle class, and the rich lived in Bermuda.
I was full of terror and uncertainty this world was
not of my liking to get through the day I drank a lot
mainly at home or in the park.
My new wife said I was an alcoholic and a nice man
from AA came and took me to a meeting where people
sat around a table talking about themselves and how much
they had suffered, while I am just getting out, was a full
of the terror of agoraphobia.
I suddenly had many friends, but they were mates only
as long as I went to their meeting, that over time became
repetitive like reading the same book a hundred times.
I stopped going to their gatherings went to the library instead
and spent happy days reading, but lost my friends.
Finally, after a nervous breakdown, I got much help from
a psychologist to confront my fears.
But I was never at ease in this country I left and is blessed
in Portugal where no one knows my name.

Suicide

I have lately been contemplating taking my life
The question is, how?
I live on the seventh floor with a veranda
The falling is not bad I shudder by the impact
Also, upsetting people.
A shotgun in my mouth blowing my brain out Is too ghastly,
Ernest Hemingway did it shoot himself
Blood and gore all over the place.
A 22-calibre pistol should do it, but I dislike
Weapons.
To take a handful of pills will not do I would
Throw up and sweat profoundly.
I wish there were an injection that made me
Disappear from the face of the earth.
No funeral
No flowers
Few tears
Only an enduring question
Where the hell did he go?

Summer night in Rome


In the Fontana Dei Guattro Fiumi in the piazza Navona  
I had a cooling dip after coming out of a smoke filled
bar, I stripped but modestly kept my underwear, on and
watched over by an elderly patrolman, who wasn’t looking
for promotion, he knew everyone on his turf and when
needed he didn’t see a thing which was good for keeping
the peace. Dawn and the local market opened, I had oven
fresh bread and cheese; coffee, also a grappa to stave off
a slight chill after a bath. I sat there eyes half closed
listening, the voice of humanity and it were fine to be alive.
Walking back to my little hotel I saw the police officer
again he was spoken to a *******, he smiled and said
good morning I did like-ways; it’s handy to have a friendly
lawman on my side. I went to bed, window open and white
curtains moving the breeze, listening to the outside noises,
and drifting on the ocean of dreamy sleep, I knew I would
wake up at noon by the aroma of Italian food

The summer Island
On the island in the fjord where we use to go bathing
there is now a bridge over, a parking lot and you have to pay.
There are toilets- no peeing behind a bush- and kiosk selling
soft drinks and cigarettes, asphalted lanes to walk on and
signs, plenty of them, telling you what you cannot do
Last time I was here with my aunt and her lover the island
had bunkers and rusty iron bits from a long bitterly cold war.

A marina had been built and had a restaurant but you needed
to be a member and wear a blazer with golden buttons and
a white sailor cap; they resented local bathers it was no longer
a place for us workers, they strive to make life better but end
up privatising what used to be free

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.

Summertime

When I was young, and it was summer
we went to the beach with a bulky gramophone
a stack of vinyl records and a bag of beer.
We drank and sang the modern tunes of the day
of the type, the elderly scoffed at and we
had to keep an eye on the police as it was
forbidden to drink beer at the coastline
(In Norway back then most things was banned)
In the night when the grown-up had left
we made love, and it was not needed to force
the girls they too came for *** and to choose
the man they wanted to marry and did.
I was a ****** then and when I came back
my most of the gang was married there were
only two left we didn't bother with the music
but brought three bags of beer and talking about
how lucky we had been avoiding the marriage
trap, but knew in our hearts we were losers.

Sunday

Long is Sunday, empty streets
a tunnel of silence,
damp pavement, water trickles
into gutters.

Burnt matches, *** butts and
yesterday leave form a rust
brown ****, it bursts and floods
tiny pebbles-

flowers on the window sills
admire sift rain on glass.
A life spent in a *** fear
no **** and see no evil.

A black cat decides not to
cross the road,
a child in yellows wellies
dreams of tomorrow.

Sunday
The sun vainly warm white
plastic tables.
Sunday closed café.
I wrote my name in a dusty surface.

A nearly empty bus drives by,
inside two old ladies
vacantly looked into a memory.
A child sits on the curb,
plays with her dolls
while the subdued moped
leans against a flaking wall.
The day of rest in Iceland.

Sunday and sermon


Sunday morning Tv is full of Brexit ad Trump
I switch off. The computer has cartoon time not much
Different from TV but funnier.
From the living room, the drone of a priest talk *******
Some ladies sing mournful songs.
Why this seriousness the message of hope should
Be joyful clapping in God's name.
A ritual that was set down a long time ago is still the same.
The congregations consist mainly of od the elderly and
Of them mostly women.
The few young ones look solemn to even when they steal
A glance at the wristwatch.
The message ends in gold and glory they are fancy-dressed
The men of God and like to show off.

Sunday Evening
It is getting dark but in the west the sky is pink
The setting sun is beautiful to look at
I sit outside the church waiting for someone
For whom the mass is important, a father is coming
Out with his little daughter, she couldn't sit still
She sees the sky and asks her father why the sky is
Like this, he says something, and she giggles
It is six o'clock more people are coming out of church
A couple of beggars wait by the door
And there she is her African face smiles she wears
Bright colours as always
I start the car, and we drive home in good silence

Sunday Forenoon

She is listening to the Catholic mass
On TV and I’m banned from the living room
She takes her religion serious
And will be spared of any sarcastic remarks
About how the Padres are dressed and me
Wondering aloud if they believe what
They say.
We are going out for lunch, the sermon has
Made her hungry and we will have chicken
Killed in Jesus’s name, fried to perfection.
Me! I prefer Portuguese bacalao burgers
Fried to perfection, with a salad and later
drive along the promenade people watching.

Sunday Haiku

Dust on bookshelves
tells of life lived, stillness
Spanish bluebells tolls

Among old olive trees
flowers as yellow as butter
distance is hurtful.

A framed photo
mother hangs on a wall
wordless she speaks.

A white coffin
her face was in harmony
beautiful the peace.

Sunday morning


I like to go home
to the village in the mountain
and the dog that loved me unreservedly
but she wanted to reinforce our bond
stroking her head whispering sweet words
I like to look back a whole lifetime for a dog
she was proud of me, a couple for a stroll
through her life.
Looking back I think this was my best moment
the creation of true friendship.

Got up early went down to the garage
practised to driving the car out and reversing it back
four times, I did that until I was able to not
hit the furniture at the end of the garage.
Drove around the town by avoided the centre
I dislike the strange people who throng the streets
usually dressed in hideous shorts, white socks
And sandals, walking in the middle of the road
Taking pictures of old buildings.
Drove along the outer layer of the town and
looked for shops that could be useful.
It is peaceful to drive alone and not having
anyone is telling you how to drive.
I have to go to another town tomorrow where my bank is, followed the coastal road
and found it. Practice makes perfect.
I bought a big bottle of beer for my six o'clock
Drink, but my wife and the cleaner had
Drunk it all since they had been busy put
Clothes on shelves, I know I will not find a thing
Women's sense of order is different from mine.
I had been a splendid Sunday, but now I have to
go out and buy another bottle.

Sunday morning
Quiet as a shut church
Closed for lack of parishioners
And the padre hangs
From the bell tower.
I will go outside and holler
Open up the church
You sinners, it is after eight
Wake up your dogs
Let them bark at nothing
To create a sound
That doesn’t drip of stillness
Bur brings life, a promise
That you are not chained
Forever, there will be a day
Of freedom and the laughter
Of a child once more heard.

Sunday somewhere safe

My fingers itch to write
but it will not be about the moon
it hangs there like a balloon.

I refuse to turn on the news
but a big liner was in trouble on
the coast of Norway

going to sea in winter sea
thinking they were safe in a big ship
you wouldn't get me on a cruiser

I have read the news Palestine
wants NATO to protect them
an idea met with ridicule by Israel

soon there will be no Palestinians left
removed to the outer fringes
herding goats and taken pictures off

the way primaeval people lived before Israel
came, an old culture was snuffed out, fluff
for historians to write about

Short verse
They thought him asleep
Rose thorns’ cut his jugular vein
Beauty of crimson

Sun Fall

It had been a good day
I saw the sun go down
Over the ocean
When I was sick and wished
Not for another day
I hoped not waking up
“I hate to see the sun goes down”
A song I think
I was glad to see the sunset
On the other hand
It is a wish without substance
A brief look
What I will miss when dead
I laugh knowing
That death is an eraser
Nothing will be
Recorded
Our generation was
Whisper on the strand
Of Nirvana
And there is no one
To record our strife

Sunglasses

We parked around the corner from the ink shop
I wore sunglasses, they are no good for seeing details
didn´t see the shop.
I walked and walked till I could not walk more
no shop, I had to walk back whence I came.
Mild panic set in, am I so old I need a label so people
people can take me home?
I rang my wife, “I sit in the car near the ink shop and can see you
sitting on the shop´s wall.
Then I remembered.
“What took you so long,” she asked?
I witnessed a collision between a horse and a mule, the horse
broke a leg and a police officer had to put it down.
-----long pause. “you got lost!”
With all the contempt I could muster I stayed silent.

Sunlit Cascais

Today the sun shines
Over the bay, a pilot boat
Is going out
To take a small coast ship
into Lisbon.
In the night
the couple upstairs
made robust love
Plaster fell as snow
on our bed.
And that was ok
******* is better than war
I know the woman
often see her in the foyer
she looks haughty and chaste
and unsmiling.
Not that I would tell
about her nightly desire
but the falling plaster
it is a worry.