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

I look at my old hands
Blotches of liver spots, slow-running blood vessels
Delivering old blood so I can fold my hands
Once they caressed a woman's body, who moaned
And my hands were firm
Women used to see me and smile, but now I walk
The earth unobserved and words become a long silence.
If I tell you how much I miss making love
to sit in the park with a girl and see the moon while
smoking cigarettes, inhaling its promise of love to come
The aroma of her hair, the smoothness of her thighs
to kiss her libido and drink her sweet water, her legs
Apart, she has given herself to me.
Asleep, enfolded we are, tomorrow is far away.
My old hands remember so much, I bow my head and try
to inhale from my hands what once was
It is all so hopeless, and soon enough I will be dead.

Restless Summer heat

It is odd how we forget we live on a restless planet
the talk of the melting ice cap is true enough; it melted
before when Greenland was a hot house for plants
In Spain and Portugal, the impression is two lands
are burning tragedy we blame people for
but we overlook that there was a serious fire in 1823
so nothing is new on the planet
Flooding in Pakistan has happened for a long time
where people work on land, that is the path of
flooding and avalanches, not every inch of land
is suitable for mankind; we are on borrowed time
Earth will shake us off like a louse on a dog's fur

Cold is the wind in Europe.

It is a stormy evening, brown leaves flying in the storm
dank and dry, torn from the mother tree with hatred 
I'm thinking of Macron, the president of France,
extolling globalization. I'm a nationalist, from
a country that has naturally evolved, has its own culture,
and an unspoken agreement on how people should perform.
We don't want a global nation with one culture, one language, one thought as dictated by newspapers owned
by the globalists.
It has been tried before under the dictatorship of Stalin.
Macron is, in the words of Oscar Wilde,” Deep down he is
a shallow thinker.”
Migrants are welcomed in my country if they are willing
to accept our culture and not demand changes 
But have accepted the system as it is.
Mass migration is a manufactured phenomenon; it could
be avoided by investing in the countries they hail from and
It is political to sow discord in Europe.
We see how the USA, a beacon of democracy, has been turned
into a semi-tyranny helped by the opaque forces of Zionism
They want globalization to serve their end, that is, to enslave
and bend us to their will.
The working class in Britain gets it, and the ditto Germans
to see the way their countries are going, and the protests
because of this, know a new war will come, a war that can
benefit the Zionists.

Shoes shopping

I dislike wasting my time shopping for shoes
The man who wrote Wasteland, a famous poem
He 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 the Wasteland
a domestic landscape growing beautifully wild
I don't see it now, 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 buy a pair of walking boots.

The Italian language

I would like to immigrate from Portugal to Italy
After ten o'clock at night, I switch on the TV 
and watch an Italian soap opera 
I don't understand a word of what the actors
say, but it is the way they say it, no hard 
Consonant, no one is asked to stand to attention
For a comma, a full stop is a mere bagatelle 
Not understanding what actors say is not 
important, it is about ****** expression and screams
So many pleasant surprises, last night's program
about a man who looked scruffy, he looked like 
an evil character, but as it turned out, he is a police
inspector and arrested the man who looked like 
matinee idol for the ****** of the girl 
All this happened in a modulated language where
crass consonants, dare not enter

Frank Sinatra

In front of you, a cocktail glass with
melted ice and a pink straw, she wants you to come 
You are going home, but on your way out 
You meet an old friend 
So you have another drink
Before you know
other friends arrive, great fun, and we sing
It is four before you get home and crash on the couch 
And you know when you wake up at noon 
She will not be mad, you  will be sad; say it with flowers
and a promise to be home every night 
Before the Ed Sylvain show
The phone rings, and an old crooner is having his last show
You can't miss that
His wife can come along, it will be fun, but we can't 
We have to behave around Nancy

Double yellow lines 

I sit inside a massive fog of nothingness
plays on my imaginary piano using one finger
a ditty, sun outside, sun inside, sun only sun
I feel massively and supremely untalented 
Now that the amalgamation of writers, poets
dancers, trampoline ladies, and painters that
lived inside of me, has turned into a block
immovable zero 

I look at a black dot ringed by a grey cloud 
If I stare at this long enough, the cloud might
disappear, only it is not, it turns into a dervish
The amalgamation has fractured, and I sit on 
a rowing boat on a green sea, watching gulls
white as angels fly upward into a hole in
a void, at last, there is silence, and I'm at ease
With my vastly incompetent self

The bordello camp 

Morning in Aruba, the ****  has crowed three times
Men get out of beds that hundreds have slept in 
of other men, they are silent, waiting for taxis
to take them back to their ship
Sad men, there is no jubilation here, cigarette smoke
A cold morning beer while waiting for the transport
A ******, overcome by the tardiness, tries to run away
There is nowhere to run; the ***** camp is in the desert
on a desert, sand, bushes, and snakes.
The madman, plied with alcohol, is sleeping.
The other carried him onboard.
In the courtyard, a woman swipes the dance 
floor, doesn't bother to look up, when this day ends 
They will be back again, or someone like them
will come, here, drink, dance, and pay for ***

Sauntering


How does one go about writing 
a lovely poem, one that does not have lines
like comparing her eyes to a crying 
Morning rose alone all night in the garden

I like olives, not the plant that is, rather
boring, but it's fruit, in a jar with the pips
taken out and free of bother, going through
pages finding a word that fits with olive

I wrote a poem themed on Oedipus,
But the site that prides itself on publishing
Everything, you can find the poem unless
You are prepared to look to dawn.

Let me say something trite: I'm happy 
to have a roof over my head, but if the
The roof is not yours, one has to side with 
those in power of the day.

The Failure

It is about vanity, a need to see one's name in print
The shortest of glory, five seconds, ten?
Switch off at that point of glory, and the fame can last
until someone else demands to use the tablet 
A book of poetry, published in a small town in India 
61 pages, and the editor and owner of the press 
tells us the poems are great, not panegyrical, but ok
Sitting down to read one's thoughts only to discover 
misspelling and less elegant sentences, what 
The eyes had not seen before glared up with a smirk
Oh, the shame of this must keep it a secret, not tell
Should anyone ask,  say the book was not published 
this year and turn the talk to something  else, like
the high electricity prices

My Indian books

How many small books have I written 
perhaps something between 15 and 20 books 
all of them short, between 60 and 70 pages 
Published by Cyberwit. net in India, and as far
As I know, not a single issue has been sold 
I have been reading the young man's work
it is full of love and passion and demands to be
taken seriously, alas, there are many misspellings
lack of commas and sentences that are not 
structured according to English grammar, but the passion
It's like an open sore of hurt that still bleeds 
Yes,  I know, I was young once and wrote many books
I can't understand why Cyberwit.net never tried
to sell any of my books

Baku and the Swedish cook

It sounds impossible, but 72 years ago, I was
a galley-boy on an old tank ship loading
oil for Iceland, a country with watery beer 
Baku, I remember the long avenue, empty
of people and poorly lit.

The cook and I had gone ashore, and we were 
the only one who dared me, because I had
not been brainwashed, and the cook who 
was Swedish, Stige Hellander, his name, and
a communist

There was a party somewhere near the men
Who wore a double-breasted suit to grow in
and padded shoulder, making them look odd
Oh, yes, they were party functionaries
Stige, the cook, enjoyed himself with free *****.

They put it in a corner with a bottle of  milk
and bars of chocolate, until it was time to go
back onboard, Stige, the cook, sang rude songs
Now, seventy-two years later, I learn that Baku
is not in Russia

Nostalgia 

there is nothing in my past
I like to re-live 

I remember my childhood
in every painful detail

I have no nostalgia for 
a mythical time that never was 
 
Living with scars that
will never heal 

Exploited at every level
feeling every sting

I'm glad that time is gone
welcome maturity

Paradoxical revolution  

Enough of this, I have been standing still far too long
I shall become revolutionary, not murmur descent
For fine-tuned ears, no, I will scream my hatred to 
the ruling elite with a megaphone, cultured dancers
Delight, amaze, waving a wand like I'm a magician, and
wish for the capitalists to sink under the sand
I shall spare no one, least of all the friendly billionaire 
the only wealthy man whose flaws are open 
For you to discover, he is a poet of the heart, and his businesses are a sideline while waiting for the magic
of words
I shall demand that Facebook and X must stop selling
****, they will be closed down
Get me right, an equal society must become unequal 
for the sake of the common good.

To have, or not to have

Many people are from the outside, beautifully formed
with a mind that can absorb empathy and warm sympathy
but life itself makes us harder around the edges, as it is 
It's not possible to live fully, shall we say, without knocking oneself free of cultural norms
Can friendship exist between the classes?  
Yes, but it can be a strain
The wealthy can be sentimental watching a movie on TV
about poverty, but they will be hardheaded when making political changes that make classes more equal
Of our three classes, I have been through them all in my time
born into poverty, rising above its self-loathing tendencies 
despite its richness of local wisdom, funny memes, and
often jubilant humor
Finding myself among the middle class who are stuck between two cultures, don't manage well, show contempt for workers, and loathsome dripping respect for the better off.
With this, I mean the royal household. I can't think of a more 
An abject group of people, who, when paraded in public.
I have a very wealthy friend who suffers from being unsure if
people like him or not, I tell him to give me his money, it will
set him free, I shall bear the burden, whether people like it or not, alas, I have not been able to convince him

The Danish Mermaid 
 
The famous mermaid of Denmark we know well 
a grey figure, the color of seals with ******* 
That was not seen as a threat to anyone's sensibility  
I have described the old mermaid, I didn't know
There was a new one, whose large, **** **** had 
caused uproar among the female population in
the democratic kingdom of Denmark 
The spokesperson for women claims that women
do not look that voluptuous and want the statue 
removed from public display, shielded from eyes 
of lust of men who know what, 22 years old
looks like in  hushed evening light
The women of power who run the charming land
have prudish tendencies and will not upset their
sisters showing what a young woman looks like
**** and full of life

A Fable

I was spending an afternoon with a billionaire 
On our walk through town, we came to an art salon 
on its wall, a painting I liked but could not afford
The billionaire offered to buy it for me, but reserved 
The right to take the artwork back should I die
because he is an art collector,
The salon refuses to sell to the billionaire, who buys the salon
and everything in it, at a price no one can afford to
refuse; my rich friends hand me  the painting
that I no longer want, because I liked the idea that 
something costs more than I can afford 
The wealthy man shrugs as he has made a good deal
This afternoon, later that day, he paid for a burger 
and coke, and I don't mind him paying

We are not cynical

She had been married once or twice and lived among
the rich, that was what happened to air hostesses when
there was a frisson about this job.

Her last husband came from Amsterdam, a doyen of
the fur trade, elegantly dressed, and a walking stick
With a stick, one assumes he was quite elderly.

He had bought her a flat with many rooms, too many
one of lesser background would think, then to her 
surprise, he suddenly died

So what was a girl to do, sitting with a flat not all
paid for, sensibly, she rented out the flat to people 
Who could pay and keep the heating on come winter

Then she met her final man just as her legs were
getting tired, he would do, she thought he had a car
and doesn't bother about a high-flying life

Thus, a love story blossomed, if not a lady and a trap
Yet, a love story of a sort, he needs her to do the talking
So he can sit in his room and write

The Will to War.

We are living in a difficult time for European  leaders
They are preparing us for a war that will go on forever
beneficial for the manufacturing industry
They don't want a real war, but need psychoses 
of war and steal our democracy 
people in the Nordic countries are asked to buy
food to reserve at home should a crisis occur  
What are they talking about? Most of us live from
paycheck to paycheck
Furthermore, we are asked to zeal our homes 
And stock up on ion tablets, do they think that
Everybody lives in a suburb, and most of us have
flats, often cramped, in big cities 
Our right to speak our  minds is undermined by
those who are social democrats in name
There was a time in the sixties and seventies 
when democracy in the north was vibrant and
alive, although you could freely shout **** 
without being censored, but we could open  
a business or settle somewhere else without 
Should you feel aggrieved, the X will listen
If you disagree with your missives

from the news


A tomato met a non-tuber plant 
sweet music
a birth to what is known
as potatoes, these days also called fries
Just think if the tomato had not 
been so unfaithful trying it on with
any passing plant
What would  our diet be like 
without the beloved spud 
I read this in a paper that extols the free press
With the mild hand of exceptions 
These days, the paper has fallen on hard times
and had sold out to real estate
not the two-up and one bathroom 
houses in the millionaire class, after all
One has to show class
This morning, an article about jellyfish, that
In my youth, there were plentiful along the coast
of Norway, some of them stung
Now we have to go to the Outer Hebrides to
Find one in shallow pools
What I took away from the morning paper
was of potatoes, tomatoes, and the selling
of posh  houses

Who Knocks

"Who knocks so quietly on the cloister's
port a poor girl from a land afar."
We sang that song at school and always
made me emotional, I could picture this
poor waif seeking shelter 

Now we know what happens to  the poor
and pregnant women seeking shelter at
at a convent run by brainwashed nuns 
The woman from Donegal told us when
She came here at 17   and was pregnant

How was she to know this nunnery of
sexually frustrated who had taken a vow
who, in hatred, had turned this a sin worse 
than death

When the time comes for our girl from Donegal,
to give birth, she was ill, and they gave her a sedative 
Then, as a child was born, she heard a scream
of one drawing of air for the first time

They told her the baby had died; had she 
dreamt, no, but there was nothing she could
Christianity is a good religion, but why is it
When it becomes an institution, evil enters
through the front door, while saintliness is
out of the back door like a shroud

Superintelligence  

If superintelligence is about collecting data 
to find out why young people run, some people don't 
and based on this information, invent a mobile bike that
has 3 wheels and runs on a battery. I'm skeptical of 
Superintelligence is like your mother's brother who
is divorced, moved into your home, and is telling everyone what is best for them; a snippet of what your dad said
"No wonder his wife left him."
I see it is possible to write your own autobiography, your
name and address, that's it; the book with your name will
be in the post, they have the nerve, superintelligence 
Intelligence is most of the time used for evil purposes 
Adolph ****** and Josef Stalin were not duces, not to forget
Netanyahu, who has led the children of Israel down 
a disaster, made the people into uncaring monsters like
The Germans felt about the Jews
If superintelligence knocks on my door, I shall not open it because I get so easily impressed that I might be an eager fan.

To love your enemy

I should not say this, but there is no way to hide
I had a wonderful childhood when our country was
at war and occupied  the mighty German army
walked in and out of an army barracks, riding on their
enormous horses, dark chocolate, drinking morning milk
until peace broke out, and it was back
to stark poverty that felt as if the daylight had been
switched off by an unseen hand 
Headlong into communism, almost a humorous but
That, too, had its sell-by date, and a cold war began
As a ******, we were in demand moving American 
made gods around them had moved their industry
abroad and only exported wars
Once upon a time, I loved the USA, and I still have a pair 
Of the jeans bought in New York, the jeans have shrunk
But I keep them as a memory of a glorious past

The  Gunman

In Montreal, in a bar frequented by shadowy 
people who used French phrases, making money
fraud and mayhem, I bought a revolver that still
had five bullets in its chamber
The next morning, our ship was bound for Japan.
I worried about the gun, perhaps used in a heist
where someone got killed, and there was
The Kennedys are still in our memory 
Chief, they said, you look absent-minded, what's
Wrong, nothing is wrong. I have a slight cold.
Near the Sea of Japan, I threw the weapon overboard
because I knew if I had a gun when I was growing up 
I would, in my anger, have used a gun
I threw the revolver overboard, and an hour later, the 
cartridges I didn't want they to meet up 
The next day, I was my old self, free of guilt

Pots & Pans

We see on the net a dust bowl of horror called Gaza
people with remarkable pots and pans begging for
food around an open kitchen; the thought is, do they
keep the poets and pans so clean, do they take turns
licking clean any vestige of nourishment of the said
utensils, which tells me there is a Palestine under 
the ruins and there will always be a Palestine, if not
Today, but tomorrow it will be the day the flag will
hang from every ruin, free of Israel's hatred, and
endemic caused by the malicious influence of the USA
From the time America was influenced by the people
of the Old Testament

The Pleasure Remembered.
I saw her in a cafe yesterday; years had not been kind to her
her hair was matted, her skin was dry, and her lips were a sullen grimace,
not quite hiding her miss- coloured teeth.
Once, we slept entwined. I kissed the body and often burrowed
my head in her honey *** and drank her love juice like divine nectar.
She was sitting there, a lonely woman, thinking of her youth,
lost in thought, and her tea was getting cold.
It made me think of the nature of love; there must be a physical
Attraction first, loving the person comes later.
If I met her for the first time today, there would be no physical
attraction, but perhaps she would have had something interesting
to say. I just heard her cooing and ****** rapture.
The thought of sleeping with now was depressing, and for doing
that...no. But we did fly on wings of passion too high for us, and
we burst into flames, only ashes left.
She looked around but didn´t
Recognise me, why should she
A fat, bald man reading a paper?

The first attempt

This is the first poem I try not to think about.
It is like crossing the plateau of Alentejo
I see the tarmac road that stretches miles ahead
must follow the lines of the road
or, fall off and sink into oblivion
Poetry is not unlike arithmetic; using words instead
of numbers
The hope is that the writing has an inner logic 
That defies jumbled words  
The instrument has a hidden note that tells us
That two is not four
I try  telling you what I  hear, it is easy, our obligation
to love our fellow beings 
This request can be obtained by honest feelings

Apocalypse 


I saw the storm approaching. It had a look of evil intent 
People were seeking shelter in the town's only café
I didn't like to share the place with so many, and I had to find my dog before the storm hit
I found what had been a bus shelter, a bunker from a war 
only remembered by historians, or a would-be writer 
The storm hit with a roar of death and insane destruction 
When it was over, the town had disappeared 
A field of sea green grass had taken its place, the stillness 
so acute I could hear the grass incessantly whispering, that
made my dog nervous,  we moved and walked on the sand
of the newborn 
We could not stay still, walking on in the hope of finding
a past that could be helpful when we arrive 
where the future was,  not sure if the old past and the new
The future would merge into a seamless whole

Cowboy poem

Cityscape, tall building, and smog-filled evening sky
In New York, no one sleeps here; a camel smokes
a cigarette and no one  finds that unusual
The big apple, tall women, and juicy scandals, what
else is there to know
Prosperity, even a bus driver can make it rich
be frugal, collect his mother's pension long after 
She has died or gone to Galveston
I knew a man in Nevada
He won on the lottery, bought a horse, and a guitar
makes a living writing lyrics 
It proves you don't have to go to New York to 
make it big, with luck, you can succeed, but if you 
still hesitate do try New Mexico

Architectural and Dogs

A large house on one floor with a multi-shaped roof
a myriad of inside doors fit for slamming when
House guests occupy all seven toilets
The owner of this house is a semi-retired person
Who, after creating a human, fails like
Elon Musk with his exploding rockets
The gorillas were such an attempt, but he was 
kind and let his mishaps live in the deep jungle 
Well, his foray into the architectural business failed
He took retirement but kept an eye on his dogs
Dogs? Yes, he created dogs for humans who 
might find loving another human, not wanting
to **** the other, find ample time for many hugs 
and cry proper tears at funerals

The flying lesson

White as a shroud, the virtual paper in front of me
I wanted to record my first flight in a Dakota plane 
Inside, the aircraft looked like a bus, reaching under
my seat for the parachute, the steward said
there wasn't, but he handed me boiled sweets which
I didn't eat in case it was a drug keeping us 
asleep, that made sense since many were drunk
Turbulence, like driving on a badly maintained 
country road, I threw up in a paper bag 
The plane landed in Sweden, and the flight had taken
less than an hour
Nonchalant, I walked across the grey tarmac, gave
my passport to an official who stamped it
here comes a seasoned traveler

God's Acre

In a field, not far from here, I see millions of lit candles 
But only at night, during the day, it is a potato patch
A man, you can call him God if you like, walks along 
The candles and, every so often, snubs out with his
thumb and index finger, a lit candle, with fingers
sore from this arduous work
He is heading for the part of the field where
The candle wax has burnt out, but the wick flickers
like grey smoke in still air
When dawn appears on the eastern mountain
The field turns into a potato patch
Where a man is harvesting spuds

The illusion 

In a small park ringed by gloomy trees near where the factories used to be, was the bust of a man on a splint
made of bronze, a mesen, she liked to use words like
that in a desperate world of poverty, tinned sardines
 in olive oil and mackerel in tomato sauce
The Mesen who owned the factories had created this
park for his workers, where they could sit and relax on Saturday afternoons.
The whole day on Sundays, otherwise the park shuts
during weekdays; that made sense, one could not have workers there on days of work
A  boy climbed the fence and drowned in a dam of algae
The park, among damp factory walls, was eradicated.
The foul-smelling factories disappeared as well; the time
had changed, people could buy cheaper tinned stuff from Portugal  
When pockets of oil deep under the North Sea
A country was suddenly rich, and people built modern housing where the factories stood.
No one in a town like ours talks about the good old days.

The  Necktie

He woke up fully dressed, minus his tie, in the lumpy bed
of a third-rate hotel, which had a fridge beside the TV
The last semi-civilized place, one up from sleeping rough 
The room reeked of depravity, and a dusty curtain 
protecting the inhabitants from the cruel world outside
The news was about a woman who struggled with a tie
He sat up, and he had lost his tie
The tie was green with black dots on it, should he ring
the TV station and ask what color the tie is? 
Or should he remorsefully and fearfully sober confess 
to a ****** he could not remember having committed
The fridge rumbled, he got up, opened it, in the hope of 
finding a cold beer; there, wrapped around a bottle 
whisky, a red necktie

Oddballs in New York

The strange people who want to live
until they are 200 years old and, if possible, forever. 
Needless to say, these people are also rich
I saw the leader of the odd people, who tells us
He goes to bed at eight and rises at five
shift workers to have a similar routine, not they
wish to be a shift worker forever
The leader and his follower do not laugh as
Laughter might upset the blood and stomach
That has to be at ease at all times
Of course, they have no religion as they try to
outlive good and miracles
It is a pity that people should love and live now
Do not wait for an uncertain future

The tryer


in short bursts, the quiet expresses 
a need to communicate about work
done but not published

Self-critical, raked with doubts 
with no connection to the world
of publishing 

Offer from publishers is that he will pay
them, is like paying for ***; it leaves
behind self-disgust, this unbecoming
need to see one's words in print

The hard part is to admit to the lack
of talent, what else is there to do
other than collecting old stamps

Summer and a dog

Pure sunlight on a forever blue sky
beaches full of laughing people and
Happy Holiday, by Cliff Richard
Out of the sun glare came a cur
an emaciated dog that had walked
and walked for many miles to reach
a goal, finding the way home
Under a bush, it collapsed, and I gave her
water, found food for her, yes, She
probably she had been looking for 
her babies, they had taken away
It was all too late, she had died, it's 
Untold suffering had come to an end
Wrapped her in a plastic bag and left
her by the bin
The sun was blood-orange the day
had ended, deep shadows we could
see again, the sun had been blinding

Not a Democrat

Is democracy good for individual freedom
a year when spring sprang early
he bought horse and cart and made a living 
moving people's ******* to the town's pit 
He was not a man working from 9 to 5 in 
a factory where underpaid workers slaved 
putting macaroni in tomato sauce, into a tin
he had many children, but was not a pater
Familia, the children grew up with varied
success, some failed while others thrived 
Besides, he liked gardening, in the poor 
A section of the town people came to see his
display the beautiful flowers
In the night, people came picked the bloom
to give color to their meagre homes, that 
It was what he had wanted 
He lived a long life, and his wife loved him dearly
No, he was not a democrat

The fidelity 

the sin of the flesh, why is it a sin
sexuality is a strong and natural desire
but often the downfall of the great
who lacks respect for lust
treats it with a low moral attitude
There are the monks of Thailand
naked feet in sandals, and one assumes
naked bodies under burgundy
robes, can so easily fall prey to when
a lady of easy virtues comes along
this could and probably has gone on
for hundreds of years, but it became
a scandal when money came along 
I understand the monks, but reserve
my contempt for the likes of Trump and
Dershowits

The Awakening

My first wife's house was very small
her bed was narrow to
after ***, she told me to sleep in the bathtub
In the night, I got up, opened the window
The sea-washed moon came in
I have seen that moon many times before
from many portholes 
I was always enchanted by the pool
of stillness
I walked out of the sleeping house, by
the steps, my dog, I patted her head
but she refused to come with  me on my walk
By a lamppost under  a circle  of light
I waited for a bus that would never arrive

A new future

To wake up in the night and sense the awe of life is
light from street lights tells of other sides, as does
a car driving by at two in the morning 

Living forever is a punishment, but some people 
write a self-biography in the hope that when they
Die, they will be remembered 

To be blessed in the night, feeling the soul has
been free of the body and become everything 
that has a meaning

No, there is no flying away; the pain of life is
What makes one whole, to understand others
to give our earnest gifts 

We have absorbed into our hearts that there
It is a beautiful future, a rebirth, if not conscious 
That will bring harmony

The most important

Fine drizzle over the bay, falling slowly and hesitantly
as preparing for a proper deluge  
Who knows, perhaps it will not happen, and the sun
will shine even if it is a day older
Dry slippery cobblestone pavements for the aged
Since it is Saturday, the ships' tugs are at their anchorage.
as they want to be nearer the shore
One vessel has run out of meat and potatoes, a stable
Diet,  the chief steward, had bought a lot of cakes 
because he was depressed at the time and needed
cheering up
To mollify the crew, he told of a famous woman who
said when the people were hungry, "let them eat cakes."
The crew didn't think that was funny and threatened
to throw him overboard
From the shore came a motorboat  loaded with pears
oranges and cabbage, but no potatoes and no meat
The chief steward was trying to swim ashore

monday morning

woke up at eight, it was a splendid morning
cool before the day becomes serious and
demanding attention 
belonging to the 1% of people born before
the second world war, I'm often awake 
in the night before falling asleep again 
my first thought was not profound, but
about coffee, I had to drink it black since 
I had forgotten to buy milk
switched on the computer, reading the news
scanned an article about the lack of sleep that
only spoke to the middle classes
to those who sit in nice offices filling in
forms and are unspecified planners of
something they think is  important
not about building workers, or about those
who begin their day at six, shift workers
were overlooked, ditto the army of cleaners 
a psychologist from Leeds had a word in 
he had nothing relevant to say other than
he had a doctoral degree in sleep
not to be undone, an article about X that
was tendentious with no understanding
how important is it for our future
Dismayed, I went back to bed thinking
how idiotic the world is, full on self
important people and their tiny world

the date

it was late when my date entered
the kitchen closed, but the waiter served
We had gateau with white wine, but he refused
to give me red wine as it doesn't go
well with cakes

she drank a whole bottle and got giggly
at an outdoor kiosk, I bought two
hot dogs, one with mustard, the other
with ketchup, I ate both; she was in
the back throwing up.

I was not in a good mood when she
refused to come to my flat, the rain
didn't help
I walked her to the bus stop, and she
caught the last bus back to her parents

at the pharmacy

ome books in my bookshelf are unread 
and can stay the way, I need not read 
everything printed

depression hangs over the landscape like
dust on windows tells me the obvious
come clean me now

When finally going ashore, I had floated
like an ant on an oak leaf, I was baffled
electricity bills have to be paid

the pharmacy is open, but I will wait a bit
it is full of middle-aged women talking
about their illnesses 

there had been a storm, *** plants 
had fallen to the floor, the weather
is getting worse every year

the apothecary is empty. I walk in
to get medicine for diabetes, but
I no longer ask why me

Nagasaki

There are nights when things become clear 
when the Pacific Ocean lived up to its name 
I sat on deck, listened to the heartbeat of
the vessel, which ticked faster when an engineer 
opened a door and came out on the deck
Laughter in the mess hall, no, I was not at ease
in their company, too old at sixty
I have tried the swagger, the misogyny, where 
Women were either ****** or mothers
The ship was bound for Nagasaki, and I had
been here before when looking for a graveyard 
where Portuguese sailors had died when
Japan was an unknown land
When walking down the gangway,  didn't 
to say goodbye, it was dinner time anyway
before flying back to Europe