The victim (humor)

I was in my fifties when women found me desirable
And I became a victim of their lust.
The wife of a friend of mine came in as I came out
of the bathroom starkers.
I'm a moral person, but this was an unavoidable situation
So we ended up in bed until she fainted.
Women talk, I got a call from a woman who had a swimming pool
In the backyard, I drove there, but she wanted more
And more she got until she fell exhausted asleep.
I drove home, and my old girlfriend was outside my house
She was drunk, wanted more wine, I gave it to her, and she demanded
***, happily, she fell asleep when she awoke, she thought
We had had ***, she had a shower, and wanted white wine
before driving home, kissing me warmly, asked me if she was
Good in bed reassured her that she was the best.
It was as if my *** life had reached a crescendo, a heart surgery
stabilized my emotional life; I should have taken the women
to court, I had only wanted to be friendly
And they used my goodness to their advantage, but it is too late
But I can complain to the # MeToo movement

The Carrousel of ***

My sister held a party. She lived across the road from us
My wife wouldn’t go; she was not on speaking terms with
my sister, as they often did.
There were many women there, and one was especially and
charming laughed at my feeble jokes, and when it got late
I agreed to follow her home as it was dark and autumnal
We had *** on a park bench, but it struck me as sordid and
I pulled away, said sorry, and walked home.
I was riven by guilt and also anger. This was a trap I, a man,
had walked headlong into. I cursed my stupidity.
Back home, my wife was fast asleep. She had been at the gin
We had breakfast at ten, it was a Sunday, and I was sad
I was still tired and waited for her to berate me, but she didn't.
In the affairs of the heart, it is better to tell an untruth
because women will only believe what they have decided
to be the verity
Years later, after we divorced- for another reason- she said
She told me she had been sleeping with the man who collected *******
every week, and I thought of the woman in the park and my
sister who had a reason for disliking my wife

A tour back in time

I hired a car and wanted to drive to the countryside
where I spent part of my childhood.
By a farmhouse that looked familiar, I stopped
A dog came out of an upended barrel and greeted me,
Is Jason coming home?
The farmer and his wife came out, and 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 the loaf with
Blueberry jam was my favorite 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 past, throwing up dust, and when
It settled the couple
The farm had disappeared into the mist of time.

Living forever

I read in a Newspaper, was it the Guardian
that some world leaders like to live forever 
I wonder what Trump has to say about that
I think he has a moment when I think about
This problem, or is he sure of his longevity
It doesn't matter what other leaders think
Putin and the Chinese leader like to live for
All the time, we understand, they have the power
and all the plans, the thought that someone
could come along is intolerable
They must be hollow inside, soulless inside
like a tree in the forest that is hollow inside

a mystery 

Dumb. criminal and ******
Also courageous, we ask ourselves
Why did we find him heroic
when nearly shot
Almost killed by a young man
We are told nothing about
Political killings happen too often
Perhaps re-selection is
That brings us to another ******
that of Charlie Kirk
Something does not add up
The young man accused of the killing
perhaps did not
Those investigating the ******
are confused
Is there another killer on the loose
If so, we are not informed
We can speculate 
Once he was an Israeli asset, until
He woke up asking questions
The answers he got  were discouraging
They had told him he was property
and do as told
His angry protest got him killed
a female name props up
A moment of glory in the spotlight
Did she know Charles was
doomed

The Actor

When coming out of the building 
facing me is a dentist's office with big windows
Therefore, on one step to the ground
I jump down with an elegant spring
walk quickly to the corner
where my public cannot seem to see me
The scene is over
I can continue walking sedately
A job done, I bow to the public
but does not let the applause go to my head
I remember telling my mother I wanted
be an actor
She smiled fondly, said I was too shy
because when there was a knock on
the door. She had to open 
while I hid in the bedroom

The Valley and Hunters
It was by chance that I stumbled into this valley, protected as it was
by thorny bushes, poisonous snakes, and scorpions, a sting from them
And you had five minutes to scan the sky looking for an answer
Intrepid is my name, and my dog's name is Fearless.
tired and battle-scarred, we came down to the well and drank till
We needed water no more.
We met a 60-year-old camel, a survivor of a circus. I put my dog
between the camel's humps to scan the landscape.
I swam in the pond among amorous crocodiles till the dog barked
and morally reminded me I was a human.
How happy we were back then, thought we had found blessedness
until a shot was fired and they collapsed, blood coming out of
Its nostril ran into the lake, and forever it was polluted
This was the last explored place for hunters that had been breached by a tractor
The Portuguese hunters hated us. I picked up the dog and us
found our way back to the main roads, finding another valley was
not easy, but we had to try… perhaps Spain is not like Portugal
with ****** people who love killing things.
But my dog was not well. I carried it home, gave it water, and it
did not want to eat. In the morning, it was dead in my arms. I think
looking for bliss became too much for her tender heart-

Is time a healer

When they widened the road
A two-hundred-year-old olive tree
was removed
It was a crime.
A crime soon forgotten.
What tree? Is asked
There is a Gaza
What Gaza? Is asked

the fear


The fear that has no name, it is there, churning away
for no reason, until today when awake
with peace in my heart
I used to be angry with myself, which made me disengage
With life around me, I became morose and bored
to serous, no fun to be around
I used to wake up early, sit by the bed for hours, not
getting anything done, getting up, drinking coffee
Shall I eat a cake or not
I had seen that day at the local supermarket
to elderly gents on holiday, they had bought beer and
looked at ease in their elderliness 
That was what I had to do, not pretend to be a pretending youth
But embrace myself, sagging stomach, muscular arm
turned into chopsticks 
What the ****, you silly man, you can write and
express yourself and be fearless of your opinions
With my sanity restored, I slept until eight

the philosopher

The ambulance helicopter
landed on a field near the houses
and upset the mule who was
considering the philosophy of
Bernard Henry-Levy.
It had just reached the conclusion
The man was a featherweight
thinker, but looked good in his
a dark blue velvety suit.
When the clatter of the chopper
subsided, it wondered how many
doctor titles and universities do
A man needs to be careful before turning into an idiot.

The Hope

In a poem I read
Trees are so green
The avenue was full of green leaves
fallen to the ground
Curled up, pale brown and dry
blown by the cold wind
I can hear a whisper
We are still beautiful
Within us, there is knowledge
of a spring to come

A nation'rainbow

It rained and rained, fine rain but persistent 
mountains dissolved, and rocks turned into sand 
When the rain stopped, a smooth landscape 
of peace and camel dung
Before the deluge, people who had sinned were
****** to death since this was no longer
Possibly the sinner had to eat a kilo of carrots
until they turned orange and
were not invited to dinner
or supervised at the supermarket
The authorities thought this was a good idea and 
made a color program,
to better classify
left-wingers
and radicals, making them eat cabbage till they 
turned green and could not hide their socialism 
tendency and forbidden to enter posh restaurants
The government liked this so much that they decided to
Classify all classes, beetroots for the royals 
deep yellow for the middle class, and potato peel
for the working class and pink for artists
Alas, people fall in love across the color barrier
Their children looked like rainbows and were impossible to classify
Therefore, the government declared everyone's
equals, but instead build bigger prisons

When love strikes

Love or the emotion of infatuation 
is a disturbing feeling, making us
willing to risk humiliation
I have met and loved several women
In my life, but I have been in love once
That was when I was middle-aged 
but quite unaware of my years
She spoke English wonderfully
Was it her voice I loved or herself?
The wife I had was English, too
but didn't like to live in Portugal, Liverpool
the place where she thrived
We got divorced, which I didn't mind
thought I had found the love I needed
In the woman who spoke wonderfully
The beginning was a lovely time
I even met her posh mother
The abar was where she drank heavily, but
I sat about rescuing her
To save someone who doesn't want
To be saved is a waste of time
Behind my back, she began an affair
With a Dutch person, why is that
Race tall and wear unrimmed glasses
For a while, I took up drinking, which
I'm not good at it; it makes me confused
I tried to unlove her, but she is still
in my heart as a sweet memory that
Once upon a time, I was young

The Adventurer 

No, I tell you, Elon Musk, I will not
Go to Mars, it is dry, and has pink nights
and wind-blown days

Settlers will live in caves without 
dogs and cats to make life on Mars
livable without caresses

No, Musk, I refuse to go unless your
assurances the cave living will be
temporary and live will last forever

I have found a planet that is lefty
Where right is left and left is right
with a teddy bear for every child

The consolation 

It is fascinating to think
one day we will be dead
not know we ever lived
Years will pass in wars
and struggles for peace
meaningless contracts
signed by the powerful
We'll not know of spring
flowers and romance
But the consolation is
We shall not know that  
We ever lived

1974 and the Guardian newspaper


On a ship, where I was employed, docked
In Lisbon, a few days after the Carnation Revolution
The air was full of anticipation
I took a double-decker bus to the town center
A throng of cheerful people filled the narrow streets
At a paper stall, pornographic mags had moved in
getting the most out of newfound freedom
I ate Fesjoada tras montania (bean stew), drank
a bottle of Sagres beer, and later walked around
streets, but with so much noise, I bought
The Guardian newspaper, which I thought was
a harbinger of the truth
Back then, The Guardian was a fresh, brave paper,
These days, it is rather staid in the political line
pro-American, but it is still a better paper
than the Ghastly "Sun" and the Sunday papers
I still read that paper online, which has good art pages
But politically, we parted ways a long time ago

They came saw and conquered
and plundered other nations heritage as trophies
voices of dissent drowned.
The elite saw themselves as the educated elite
wrote learned books about statues they had purloined
also told of what significance it had.
For the people robbed of their symbols.
The pilferers became ennobled.
Sometimes theft pays.
Most of the stolen culture ended up
in a museum, so the people could wonder
and be proud, although some had an afterthought.
Now that we live an enlightened time
the British Museum is no longer proud of their
possessions keep sending some cultural icons back
to the countries, they were taken from.

The Icon

A famous actor is dead, we viewers 
saw him decorously dead in a bed
I have seen this actor in movies playing
handsome cowboy, nothing rugged
no jaw clenched or hateful snarling 
White smile when on horseback 
The sainted Guardian interviews others
stars, who loved him
An actress, who, during filming, saw him
Every day, yes, he was the greatest
wondered why she didn't fall in love
One worships an Icon

The man who fell to earth

He embraced the conservative dogma, but he was also
like Tucker Carlson, a committed Christian, believing in 
The gospel and God's son, Jesus.
He embraced the duality of Judaism and Christianity
Israel had given him money for his views and loved
by the likes of Netanyahu, and Trump was his friend
Then it went wrong, the suffering of Palestine bothered
His Christian soul that protested
He moved away from his certainties and spoke of his dread
All hell broke out, and it was pointed out to him that taking 
The shilling had to follow a path they had pointed out for
him, he baulked at this and became more convinced
They were wrong
For his unwavering faith, he was shot dead, a martyr who
stood his ground, when he, like many others, did, could
have looked away.
Charlie Kirk was a hero who will be remembered for
a long time to come

When Alfred left me

It was not my fault, I had no shoes, and the police stopped
asking why  I had no shoes
since it was none of their business
I naturally told them to *******.
I was handcuffed and put in a police car,
which was more cooling than the asphalt
It was October in Albufeira, which can be warm
I thought this was a perfect movement, a father defends his son
But Alfred, who refuses to be my father, had gone home
I was left to explain this ridiculous case,
luckily the Portuguese
The police force felt sorry for me and let me go.
The next day, I bought a pair of sneakers in a Chinese shop
Alfred was wearing my costly  upper leather

The English woman

There is an English woman who comes
to our flat twice a week to do housework
She has fallen on hard times, not for me to ask
She has five cats, and I think a man left her
She is publishing a book on Kindle when 
I ask if it is about sweet kittens, and she laughs
My innocence tells me it is about love
She likes coming here, because she is not
overburdened with ***** dishes, my wife
seen to it that I do the cleaning and empty
the bins
She has lived a long time in Portugal, my
wife and her sit in the kitchen talking

Wit

Where were you when I was arrested at a public toilet for drinking
of a flask of brandy- the man beside me was a police officer out
to catch people like me who needed a drink to survive the tedium of
living in a provincial town in the middle of a landscape of cows

Where were you during the court case when the judge said I was
a disgrace, a plague on the backside of humanity, drinking in public
It is a serious crime, the buffoon thundered, throwing the gavel at me
It hit a guard in the head, who was knocked out

Where were you when I had to run the gauntlet of jeering reporters
and people pointed me out in the street, and a hush when
I entered a café, and the waitress refused to serve me coffee
You went on holiday in Spain, drinking red wine.

a liter of wine

Some time ago, before Putin came to power and made Russia
into a modern state, many Russians came to Portugal, trying to find work
They were met with skepticism after years of propaganda about
Russia and communism had taken their toll
The locals offered little help
Every night, when the supermarkets shut, they waited for
the bins are filled with scraps of food, and one gathers rats
went hungry for a while.
One uniformed security guard got the idea of pouring bleach
on the discarded food, rendering it inedible
When people in
The town heard of this outrage, and people protested, demanding that the guard be fired from his job.
The guard's sadism made people look at the refugees with friendlier eyes, and they got temporary jobs here and there.
In front of me, at the supermarket, he had bought a carton of white wine priced at ninety cents.
Counting the coins in his shaky hands came to eighty cents; he looked crestfallen, the shame!
My thought was to be magnanimous and pay for his wine, but that would only make me feel good if he humiliated.
I slid a ten-cent coin onto the counter and said, 'Look, here is a forgotten coin.'
At the exit, he turned and nodded my way.

Woody sonnet


I tried to be a carpenter, soft wood
and a screwdriver to make shelves for
I have many manuscripts that I have not
the heart to throw into the flames
In case what I'm looking for is there
The girl in the shop said I could not
carve a name on the shelves, she 
handed me sandpaper to erase
The titles I had given the shelves
Failure one and failure fifty-four
She, the girl in the shop, gave me
a plastic hammer for free

The Battlefield of Survival

There is nothing that brings out our fragility
to surface like surgery, dreams one has of
success is laid bare under the well-lit light
of an operating table
First time I had one of those growths removed
was seventy-five years ago by our doctor
wearing a three-piece suit with a blue tie
My memory of him is that of a man who 
had a cigarette in one hand and a scalpel
on the other hand, during the proceedings
 he spoke to my mother about the weather
That was inclement, and the Labor Party
He and my mother were communists 
For a long time, I had to take blood tests
which I didn't mind, his waiting room was
full of magazines and newspapers
There is nothing to read in waiting rooms
anymore, apparently, it is unhygienic 
Not that it mattered, one has phones
The surgeon and his assistant spoke 
pleasantly to each other about their work
at hand, I just happen to be there
After the operation, I was led into a room
to rest and dress, no, there was no kind
nurse serving tea

A poet at the supermarket

At the supermarket, yes, we have one near Faro. I met a poet.

The mall is nicely built and has two bell towers.

From time to time, they chime to remind us why we are

Here, not sit on a bench in its courtyard looking up to

The sky is seeing mind-blowing cumulus configurations.

The poet I met had a white beard, wore an old black suit,

a tie with red wine spots on, a black beret that whiffed

Of garlic, I think. You could see that it wasn’t really there.

His eyes scanning the ground, he bent down, picking up.

Half-smoked butts of cigarettes. Ok, not so rich

So what? Haven’t you heard of a poor poet before?

They are not all idle sons of the rich, and with a university.

Degrees in literature. A notebook in the side pocket and

Two pencils in his breast pocket; so he was a poet, ok.

A sonnet to a friend

Lately, every evening, I listen to music on
short clips on the internet
I have not been taking this art seriously
busy as I have been composing unwilling words
trying to create art
How wrong I  was not to hear
It is all there, beautiful humanity
in classical form or popular
Suddenly, as my world is coming to an end 
the beauty I have missed by not listening to
the love expressed in an instrument or in
A human voice makes me long for more years

Secrets in a box

I have a box on the shelf in the spare bedroom
The box has blue and white stripes, I think
It was a shoebox, perhaps bought for a child that
I was not born; my youth is in that box
Sometimes, when alone, I open the box, and it has
many photos of life lived in the seventies
Many friends are smiling for the camera
My ex-wife, too. What they have in common is
that they are all dead
I received a delayed letter from Alex, a friend  
By then, I knew he had died, the letter in the box
unopened 
I look at the photos like a visitor from a past life
I do not feel sorrow or guilt. I was a difficult 
person to live with, even though I had friends
that loved me
I put the lid back on the box. The visit is over
I must go on living in the now.

What music can do 

Last night, all night, I listened to music
and my heart cried not in sorrow but
It flew away and soared in the beauty
of the human voice
No. I was not there in person, but that
Didn't matter; it was about the beauty
of us, yes, we are a great race, so
Why the hatred that is on those
who hate to hear our jubilant voice
I'm a poet dreaming that I once could
Write a poem bringing humanity into
a circle of love

We who loved America 

I enjoyed  America and remember touring 
a Sunday outside Houston (Texas), met in a café
a group of openly armed, elderly men 
They were courteous people one could meet 
I understood guns have cultural meaning
In America, we in Europe don't understand 
I remember a saying, "A country where the populace 
is armed, people are polite."
I stayed on the ship longer than needed, but had
To go home and get educated, I studied management 
and later ran a restaurant 
I was never at ease in my country, not that I suffer
Retromania, trying to escape my past, but
I was back on a ship again, this time as chief steward
plying the waters of America and the Caribbean.

Russet Moon 

The moon tonight had a promise
of turning russet
When I looked up, the moon was
full and yellow and had a smile
on a round happy face
What can I say? Was I too late to 
See what Planet Watchers had 
longed for
Since from the kitchen window
It was the best place to observe
The moon, I made a cheese sarnie 
and a glass of low-fat milk.

The Ending

The only tree left in the  whole world
was opening its leaves to welcome
the day to the survivors 
Among extinct animals
the Tasmanian tiger, beside the Hubro
They had been friends since 1936
There was no artificial light, and the stars
had paled as night became day
Humanity was missing; it had not made
The transition to a planet at peace
dropped heavy bombs killing their own
A war cry, after us, there will be no one
The enemy of peace will be vanquished
even when we too died

Insubstantial
I opened the window in the door, one early morning.
and was met with a face that looked like a cloud; it
blew frost roses on the glass, they were so beautiful,
abstract, and oh, so fragile.
Years ago, by the cloister's wall, I saw some miniature
Looking at roses, I replanted them in my garden, and they
disappeared, I thought they had died out, but this spring
They were by my wall, nodding shyly in the breeze.
As the spring turned into summer, they had no shade
and disappeared like frost roses on the window glass;
And that is ok by me, cause I know they are there just
under the earth, waiting for another spring.

The Breakup 

How cruel I was
cold shoulder against love
no reconciliation 
her heart was as cold
as mine
The night was endless
The day saved by a dog
I had some news beginning
but without her
She was not a part
It ended fairly 
She had a home, but not
near
My aloneness was great
the dog and I, in the forest
unruffled by reality 
Eating lunch in a beautiful
café, she came in and I 
desired her greatly 
I was in love, wrote hot
poems nothing could
ever go wrong
We know, life is perfect 
I had tiered her out;
She wanted to be free 
Freedom is a must, but
When freedom hurts those
We love, we have failed

a letter to my editor
I have tried to get more cash to spend
on introducing me to a bigger audience
I contacted many of my readers on X and asked for
A contribution sent to Hillshire will not come
amiss so far nothing.
I could have asked the man himself, but I will not
He suffers from the insecurity that rich people
People who suffer from that, we like them for the money
I happen to like Elon Musk because he struggles
with a deep-seated shyness like my brother did
So his life is not that easy
So, therefore, just print the fucken book and send
a couple of copies to me, I shall be nothing more
than mulch in the acre of poetry

A day like other days

She, leaving the bus, had forgotten the umbrella
Strolls, her face is more African now
She has a walking stick, says it is for her balance
My love for her has grown over the years
I cannot think of the time we were apart before
We met twenty-two years ago.
We have Christmas Day here, but the next day we travel
a hospital in Lisbon that specializes in hip replacement
We will stay the night in the metropole and have a good meal.
look at things- for my part,  like the grumpy North Korean leader
Then back to the Algarve with trees and big boulders
Tomorrow we are eating at a hotel that serves cabrito
sauté potatoes and a lot of sweets
since I'm driving only water for the journey 
or tomato juice.
It is an ordeal for me to be among people, I don't know
I will take 5 ml of ******,
It will keep me calm until I simmer down and laugh at bad jokes
as told by an exhibitionist.
We can't stay long since we are living in the morning
On a short walk outdoors, I saw my dog, who walked beside me
I bent down to pat her head, but she saw something
and ran into the bushes, I called her
name; Bambi came here when it dawned on me she had been dead for ten
years, and it made me think of my own mortality
but not in a gloomy way.
Sun, blue sky, and stillness, the hunters have gone
drinking in a cafe,  but the visit from Bambi perked me up
So did a cup of coffee when coming home
nothing out of the ordinary yet, I persist in dreaming of tomorrow

Tristesse 

The hotel room in St. Asaph (Wales) was damp
and smelt of spent body passion, I didn’t have a coin
for the gas metre; in the decomposing bed, a woman
Snored, and from the depth of my soul
the beginning of an anguished scream.
The morning was ashen as my face, and fine drizzle fell.

The hotel bar was closed, and I walked with aching bones
for miles while the heavens descended.
Apocalypse Now!
No such luck, when the clouds parted, the hills
where green with grazing sheep is.
Dear God, where were you yesterday when I married
A scullery maid, have you no mercy?

I can assure you

Had a dream while sitting at the edge
of a hole where they had removed a stone
and the mold was soft to the touch
that I had died, but also said to myself that
Were I dead, I wouldn't be able to dream
I have growth on the side, which looks innocent
like the one I had surgery on, the new one
is on my back and tends to be ignored
I must see a doctor again before the ulcer
sprouts a green plant that has a red rose
that needs to be handled, not by a gardener
The hole had turned into a newly dug grave
I didn't care for this dream, wished it would
I assured my frightened self that I was not
dead, and the self said I will believe that if
You wake me up at eight

Unhappy lunch

I could sense as soon as we entered
the restaurant that was a family run business
there had been a turmoil in the kitchen
the servers were father and daughter who
normally worked well together, but to day he
was in the kitchen, his daughter said, when
I asked
There were still many costumers, but they
kept a low profile and spoke subdual when
eating, we had entered a war zone
when our food came it was served on a dish
where my meat was grey like it had been
boiled, fries were uneven remanded of sailor
who had jut made ashore from a sinking ship
falling exhausted to the ground, and the
fried egg had been killed into a hard shell
However the salat, possible made before the
civil war, was good
Needless to say I refused to eat the served
my wife more skilled in diplomatic niceness
told the girl server to pack the food to take home
that I for some reason was not hungry
the lesson is, do not upset chefs in their kitchen

A Middle-class Newspaper

Marina Hyde is a journalist at a newspaper
I officially do not read, but since I had read
That paper has been around for over 60 years.
a habit;  a good or bad habit, I don't know 
but the paper could honor me with a prize
Regarding MH, I have a slight dislike of her
The surname Hyde conjures up evil ******
In a back alley, nevertheless, I sometimes 
agree with her, although she is very social
aware middle-class person, of the strident 
Kind, one tries to avoid at a party
For no reason whatsoever, I read an article
by Jonathan Freedland, of America Today
He used a word I find impossible to spell, but
I agreed with that, based on his words
I wrote a short piece about it for X

A temporary obstruction 

A quiet despair, in a few weeks, I will be very
old, do I tell lies to myself, saying, I dance well
When no one looks, but why do I remember
the Buenos Aires tango in a nightclub in
In 1957, she was in her forties, but with a sleek 
body, I was seventeen, so beat that Macron
Then, in the morning, shots were fired, soldiers
thronged the deck of the ship and running about
in the streets, looking for traitors, the name
The dictator gave those who disagreed with
His fascist ideology
To think that much water has run into the ocean
Yet it happens again, a new authoritarian
regime in Washington
a dark time for America
but I know the Americans will rise and be
free again

How it came about

It is impossible to imagine an endless Room
and no planets, and that one of them had
the possibility of life, planet Earth
A friendly planet not given to extremity, it
also had a temperate climate, sometimes it
could have been millions of years later, but
Since time didn't exist, that is academic 
Green plants grew in soft soil, our planet
was that green fruit in the trees a livable place
without animal life, an abiogenetic period 
That gave the beginning of what we call life
Finally, the emergence of the humanoid
that had a thinking brain that could solve
the problems of daily life and hunting 
It is worth noticing that a creator was absent
But that and its many wars it caused were
endless war between races and their odd
faiths, based on an abstract Paradise 
Not seeing our Paradise is also our planet

A New Planet


For me, it is too late.
But had I been young, I would
Have done my utmost to find another planet
Livable for humans.
Think of it as a planet without borders
Not carved up into countries and rivalries
And threats from states with big land.
Just one continent where anyone could travel
Where they wanted no passport controls
Or unsightly walls.
A planet without religion to upset the peace
And of course, no political parties
No rules set by the mighty, the authority
Who diverts rivers without asking the people?
In short, a planet for the people and
Animals in the wilderness.
Alas, since humans are settlers.
They will take their flaws along
and in time ***** it up

Digging Deep

My dreams are bigger than my talent
The mission warned us against females
Women should be sure 
It was understood that the withdrawal 
from the competition, it is overlooked
It is morning on a gray day, and mist clings
to our old bodies that smell of time
spent in the underbelly of society 
We lost the cruel war to be the master in
The battle of words of truth
I have stopped digging the deep well
It was dry and had the dust of dead air

The walking stick and Elon Musk

I was a galley-boy on an old tankship 
that docked in Liverpool for repair 
I think it was in May, and I was sixteen 
at a second-hand shop, near the docks
I bought a walking stick and happily used it
the stick going ashore to the pub or 
to buy fish and chips, unaware of how odd
I must have looked, no one said a word
Coming back on board, it was the second
The officer who said I looked ridiculous, no one
uses walking sticks anymore, you are not
a ******* lord
Enter, into my self-contained world, what
other people thought of me
I became self-conscious, and it worried me 
What did other people think of me personally
His words brought on a shyness that stopped
My plans for the future
Who knows, I might have become the first
Elon Musk
He has freed himself of what other people
think, or so we believe, but deep down, he
likes to be loved

The walking stick and Elon Musk

I was a galley-boy on an old tankship 
that docked in Liverpool for repair 
I think it was in May, and I was sixteen 
at a second-hand shop, near the docks
I bought a walking stick and happily used it
the stick going ashore to the pub or 
to buy fish and chips, unaware of how odd
I must have looked, no one said a word
Coming back on board, it was the second
The officer who said I looked ridiculous, no one
uses walking sticks anymore, you are not
a ******* lord
Enter, into my self-contained world, what
other people thought of me
I became self-conscious, and it worried me 
What did other people think of me personally
His words brought on a shyness that stopped
My plans for the future
Who knows, I might have become the first
Elon Musk
He has freed himself of what other people
think, or so we believe, but deep down, he
likes to be loved

Lavender

On a milestone in a small town, I sat trying to write
a poem, and a man sat on a wooden bench watching
me; he had a newspaper on his lap. A cat under a car
was watching him; perhaps he gave it something to eat
from time to time. With a sigh, I put my notebook back
into the side pocket of my jacket. No poem today.
The man began reading his newspaper, and the cat looked
away and began grooming itself. A bus stopped two
elderly ladies alighted, bags full of shopping, and all was
back to normal, but I remember the air of summer dust
diesel fumes and the aroma of lavender.

The Stone Pulpit

Norway has many fjords and dramatic mountains
The water in the fjord is deep blue and clear as 
a baby's tears that mirror a part of a mountainside
where a big rock has a flat top, attracting tourists
because it looks like a pulpit
Many visitors enjoy the thrill of sitting on the edge 
of the pulpit, and deep down there is the blue sea
For a depressed person, it would be easy to let go
I would have thought the murderous edges would
be fenced to stop such a suicidal attempt 
I wrote about the danger, only to be censored by
Facebook, which is monitoring my post
I was also advised to seek help for my fascination
of people whose problem I can only imagine

Educating Rachel

Now, let us try this again to write 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 ***.
The fact is that there is a diesel smell at the bus terminal
At six in the morning, when the cleaning lady starts her
low-paid work has nothing to do with anything, had they
They're going to university, they could sit in fine offices
and go 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 farts loudly, and that is ok
But I could have shown some respect. It is odd to think
If all women had higher education and looked up to the blue
sky, who should make my dinner?

The last puzzle

When the last piece of your life's puzzle
finally fits, and you have outgrown the old man
who still crave recognition
He spends his, what might be his last summer
in his den editing and editing 
not to leave alone work done when young
He cannot be what he once was
A new life walking on soft sand and a smile
at hungry sea gulls flying low in the forever
hunt for food, not likely 
He knows he will, read about the politics of our
time to form an opinion and keep it to himself
He has resigned to his shortcoming smile and
Forgive the old man