To Know Without Knowing

Red moss, crimson as the blood of a slaughtered calf,
I knew I had seen it before but could not recall
where or when. To see a landscape painting, knowing
I had been there before
In the Valley of Cobblers, children ran barefoot on
summer grass and scented wildflowers
unpasteurized milk, and healthy, innocent laughter.
I know this to be true, but I don’t know why.
I think of reindeer; will they eat red moss used
as they are to the grey variety? The sun keeps shining
like Spanish blood orange with a wicked cold.
The good earth is dry and waits for rain
The Red Moss is a forgotten love story. Perhaps
if I sit still long enough and wait
I will remember it.

a correction

Elon Musk has invented a driverless car that will drive to the supermarket with a slip of paper tucked under the left-hand window wipers, giving the staff a list of food you ordered of that
drives back parks in the garage, turns into a robot carries your shopping up seven floors to your door goes to stand in a corner awaiting new commands
Stand in the corner of your living room, and the robot absorbs the gist of what you are talking about and thinks those people are idiots
thinks we are useless beings: and one day when they can’t stand listening to our inanities, **** us at night because they know what’s practice and
and according to Elon Musk, we are stupid
this was up today when the Chinese house came up with a robot that loves mankind and is politically naïve
For Elon Musk this is not a problem he has no allegiance to any country as long as his dream of Mars can become a truth

The Royal Stonestreet 42

In the house in Stavanger, Norway, where I grew up four families were living in poverty after the war in 1945, well, poverty was relative as we were able to survive without social interference
In the basement, an elderly man had two bedrooms and a kitchen he had to share every Saturday when the women were washing clothes and ironing
The elderly man was mysterious he had female visits every so often, who drank and fought when the police were called the women had to leave, but the old man was not arrested, it turned out he had been a hero no one knew why, since he was mother’s uncle she didn’t know either
On the first floor lived two families, one had only one room and shared a kitchen with a family that had two rooms, but no one had a bathroom there was a toilet on their landing that was for the whole house, and filthy ***** on the second floor a woman called Sunway lived with her two sons she shared a kitchen with us who had two rooms when Sunway had male visitors, her sons had to sit in the hallway, not that her guests stayed long, but the hallway was a bit cold on winter days, but they were always well-dressed and polite
The father of the youngest son was a German soldier, he believed his mother drank coffee and talked to her friend the door was looked at as they didn’t like to be disturbed by children running around, and the oldest son wore a smirk like he knew what was going on
When a rumor circulated that Sunway was a *******, my mother who at the time worked at a fish factory, defended her, the woman had
no income and had to look after her sons Sunway eventually got a bigger flat with two bedrooms for her two boys, the youngest one went to university and did well, and the oldest one didn't work lived with his mother, but was arrested for ****** his mother and beating her was sent to prison.
I wonder why it is when time was hard some survived intact while others became a burden to themselves and drowned in shame.

The Caliphate (2015)

Let us think about the unthinkable.
Let ISIS have their caliphate and be a state
The Zionists took Palestine and called it Israel
European settlers killed off the Indians
And now it is called the USA.

The brutalities and horror of ISIS are terrible
But from a historical perspective
Worst things have happened and will again it is
The human burden to **** for its own sake and
Greed for land

In time, it will be a state with institutions they
Practice their Sharia law and behave like the Saudis
We will buy their oil, they will leave us alone
To practice our odd democracy

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

Not tonight my lovely

I must stop writing about
The women I met in
my tumultuous youth
that lasted into middle age
touching the years
of elderliness
I do remember a woman
In Taiwan
She had beautiful hair
That turned out to be a wig
She was scaringly bald
Perhaps she had had cancer
She was flat chested too
Wore boxer shorts and
Had an *******
No, not tonight, misses Wong
She routinely dressed
Adjusted her wig
Down in the bar, I drank whisky
To think I had kissed her
With passion

The Problem of Europe.
 
Christianity is a rising mist I normally do not bother to
think of  I dislike all religions as ill omens told fairytales
demanding to be taken seriously.
 
The worship of Jesus could have been a friendly affair
bewildered vicars talking about peace and thanking
the ladies for the beautiful flowers.
 
Until one remembers the Bush and Blair two knights
who wedges war against Islam by invading Iraq and
fight a religion all good Christians and Hebrews detest.
 
So if you thought religious wars were of the past
you’re wrong the western occupiers of Palestine are
but a religious war. Israel is a European enclave.
 
In Europe, Islam is a strong, demanding alien force
that we must not give in to, but we must
respect their discipline, devotion, and morality.
 
Should the good people of Europe find I slam a better
and more fulfilling religion than our Christianity, it is
because our culture is spent and insipid.

A sink bucket
Today I forgot to buy milk, drank black coffee 
it is easy to remember the past shines like jewels
It was the winter of 1952, and my brother carried
a big sink bucket, I was the smallest one
and we were on our way to the coal depot to
find a hole in the fence to steal coal.
We were caught by a man who wore an armband
of the new people in command
they were taking no nonsense from
anyone least of all seven-year-old thieves.
I have often seen that you put a uniform on someone who
who never had power, they behave like little ****** sprats.
On the way home with two empty buckets, we came across
a wooden fence that had partially fallen, we took as many
planks as we could carry and had a warm Christmas Eve

My dislike of Poetry

I dislike poetry; it is a contrived form of expression, yet whenever
I published one of my collections, which is under the rubric
of poetry
when they are nothing but opinions and descriptions of thoughts, which
I try to share with readers who might like what I write
or think this is a waste of time. I dislike poetry because it keeps
life in shadows and tries not to tell but to show by writing
so abstract
you have to guess the intentions. When you do, the poet is great.
mainly because he described life as scholastic and has little to do with real life, but you can, if seeking brief fame, put your head in
The gas oven and everything you wrote will be holy as the poetic grail, a pity because the poet/writer was seduced by her father and was unable to come to terms with this because she liked the **** but didn’t dare to admit it.

A spring poem
I try to write a poem since it is the first of Mars
The spring sun was looking huge, but not for long
A black cloud bigger than the sun muscled in
Stop! You are trying to write a poem, not tell us
About the weather, but since you are at it
did the cloud shed cold rain
I can’t say, I was indoors in my bedroom looking out
a poet never arises before noon

A glad day

the morning started badly at breakfast when she reminded me, I had a doctor’s appointment at four in the afternoon
Breakfast was ruined, at lunch, I ate a little fretted about the storm and the rain I can’t possibly go out, drive in this weather, or risk getting a cold; we took a taxi.
The waiting time at the hospital took half an hour, when my name was called, I froze in terror, the way my dog used to when she needed a bath
I needn’t have worried, good news all the way The doctor also said I looked like a Viking, this pleased me so much, full of myself, I got up and demonstrated the exercises I do in the morning. I got my longed-for applause

Job description

If you like to be an executioner
can be failed as doctors
or nurses who needs the thrilling
feeling masterful

Given the last, fatal injection
give a sense of power
so strong it can lead to premature
*******

What can be better legally ****
the condemned and feel
proud of a job, both well paid
emotionally rewarding

Goodbye
Macron and erstwhile Starmer are meeting to talk about the USA’s change in politics against the war in Ukraine to find a new solution, but they fail to understand they and Brussel are redundant, they kissed Zelinsky’s corrupt hand and swore fealty to hubris how to get out of this Both men have in common they are power pervs selling their soul to stay at the top although they have nothing to contribute, they are egged on by the Guardian’s a Woke newspaper that this feminist  paper opinions is they have lost against reality of today’s worldview they are redundant Step aside new time has arrived and you are ghosts in the engine of realistic time

180 barrels
A trendy couple fled a tourist resort and left behind 180 barrels of human waste; one wonders how they could accumulate that much ****; the pair fled to Guatemala, farms cocoa plants and lives on a diet of bananas. A woman called Meghan, makes it clear that she is also a Sussex, whatever that means, has a podcast, and tells us she is thrilled with her success interviewing other privileged women. We are pleased to read these inanities and think if the 180 barrels of crap have sprung a leakage
The local news is, a Ukrainian who fled when the Russian army came knocking on the door looks askance at me since my view is different from the other people in the building. He came to Portugal with two new and big Mercedes, enough said!

The applause
I had a drink before going to a poetry reading
since I was nervous
drank a few whiskeys and spoke dramatically about the plight of the Palestinians
I needed help to get down from the stage since my glasses were at the hotel.
The next day, we went to a meeting where the top of
The educated class go, I thought they were idiots
they had erudition but no
learning, So I got up and spoke for fifteen minutes.
The silence was colossal
think of a needle falling from the galaxy
and landing at the Himalayas, I had sinned
said the global warming was a natural disaster and had nothing to do
with global warming.
The meeting was unreported  in the local paper
but what do
I do not speak this Roman soldier’s language.

Kaleidoscope

A man unsure of how to address women
walked into a tube of colored glasses
and bits of painted paper.

he was brought up as a Presbyterian, were
women were held in high esteem
wore long gloves when going to a ball.

He thought the color in the kaleidoscope
where tartish-like women dressed in red
standing on the pavement near a bar.

Yet he felt drawn to the colorful women
they exited him, unlike the young women
who looked dowdy at the church.

He thought of sin and a moral dilemma
should he pay a woman in a red dress
see what it was all about, the *** thing?

He did and had a hell of a time; he did
time and time again until the day *****
danced on his eyebrows.

The academic
Chris Hedge is an active academic to the left of
Politics, who often lament that we common people know nothing about what the greedy Capitalists are up to when seeking wealth and more power treating us ordinary people like pawns in their evil monopoly game
Agree, to understand politics these days and understand what Chris says, we have to read and study a lot of literature that we, since we have to make a living have no time to do
Yes we do wonder why China is the enemy we like to buy their stuff and appears not to be a threat, I bought my son an electric bike, likes the bike also he likes TIK Tok which the government has banished as bad for viewers
We need someone, perhaps not as erudite as Chris Hodge, in a simple vocabulary, tell us what what’s going on
Tomorrow America is getting a new president
In the figure of Donald Trump, which we who
Liked to be entertained, rather like
He has already fixed the Gaza atrocities and
We wait for him to fix Ukraine to
He has also appointed Elon Musk to save the USA from waste of money, we are glad to hear that if it can lower the tax burden
At the moment we can do nothing but wait
I sense for most of the world it does not matter much who is the sitting president

Rich man’s blue

A problem when a person meets someone
seriously, they lose their logical sense when
the rich person speaks to them or smile
They are ready to agree that the person says
is the truth, if we accept what he says
He makes mundane of going to Mars
we know his timeline is wrong
but what the heck, he foots the bill
I think of Elon Musk, who has become
the new Shreck role Putin had
But it didn’t sit well as old Putin looked cultural
Wear a nice tie and is a dog lover
His foray into German politics is brave and timely
the AfD can lift Germany out of the hole
she is in now and is making Germany strong again
As for his intemperate opinions about the UK
one can say they stirred up the reaction that
one thinks the British public was in favor of
if not the political leadership in that country.
We can ignore Elon Musj when he tramples
on our precious  dignity
like the Vatican, he has no army divisions.

The Mistake

He had been invited for dinner in Peking by a group of business leaders who had invested much money for his venture and success, but they thought his fee was too much. I wanted to discuss the matter
He took the plane to Pekin; when he landed, it was mid-morning, but there was no one to greet him, which annoyed him
He called his secretary, who apologized that there had been a mistake. What she had meant was a Peking. The Peking Duck Cafe in Oslo
He didn’t like to meet those stuffy wealthy people with their stilted language, instead, he bought a Chinese electric car business that gave him pleasure
Those idiotic Europeans who bought a car that was made in China had intended to sack his secretary, but pleased with his business acumen, he asked her if she was a good mother material.

Gaza and the pope

The pope who died was known to cry 
when told of the horror in Gaza
he sent Israel a mild-mannered rebuke 
When the pope was young, he rode 
a big motorbike in Buenos Aires 
persistent rumor tells he did more riding
The question hangs in the air
has he got a son?
If so, was his mother a ******* he
had tried to lead away from sin
To make matters worse, was she a Jewish
Was the rumor, even as baseless 
hanging there, hindering the pope 
to speak out against the horror in Gaza?

Freedom for Greenland
It is an ominous signal when the wife of the vice president visits Greenland, ostensibly to see its nature and be ever so friendly, but the Greenlanders are not fools they know Trump is sickling to get hold of this island, if he does the defenseless people will end up as rough sleepers in the streets of New York
The Greenlanders are simple folk living, have modest houses for a lump full of dollars they might be pressured to become American citizens
Money given is a lot in Greenland, and in New York almost of no value, should you regret it and try to move back into your little house it will be too expensive to buy, and anyway, the military will restrict movement no more hunting you can be shot as an intruder bleeding in the snow Whatever happens, get a deed to your house because the motherland cannot help you mainly because the politicians have been bought out to

The body

Johan on the strand
The sun shone on his belly
Gulls had gouged his eyes
***** crawled into his nose
came out of his mouth
A shroud of sea tar
A man strummed a guitar
A girl laughed
A summer in 1954.

Brutish Trump, Meek Musk?
Trump comes across as a brute and scares people off the middle usually nice middle-class people who do not what it is like working on a building site or spending years at sea with men appear ruffian but mostly, is a braggadocio and as such nothing to be alarmed over in Trump’s case he is not likely to start a war with China, Russia or Iran Trump likes powerful autocrats, he respects as much as he hates effeminate Macron also Starmer
With his perfect modulations, yet sits cross-legged when speaking to Trump who is not in the habit of showing the heels of his shoes, but as we know English leaders have hidden distaste for those they think are inferior to them
Trump, like many rich people, pretends he comes from a modest background, his father was a wealthy man in real estate which made his journey easier; the millionaires we see today are from wealthy families and that is Ok, but their idea of poverty is miles away from the mark
The hatred we see of Elon Musk is grossly unfair He is at heart a good man with a dream of saving humanity from itself, but I fear when the chips are down politicians will put the onus on him

In the defense of what!

There is a foster child called Nato his is big and strong fed burgers all his life, his father has had enough tells him there is no pocket money at all He has to go to his family in Europe ask them to support him, but they will not because they sold the family silver long ago, Nato sinks into despair and disappear  from public life, except for a bar called EU’s run by a Portuguese bloke and his gal from Germany and according to rumors have an hot affair, but they do well with hangers on like the Norwegian who openly cried when he lost a place among those who thinks they are relevant

Mice in the shed, she demanded
I do something.
I found three mice,
surprisingly easy to catch, like they
had been saved.
Living on old newspapers and
stillborn manuscripts
not much of a diet.
**** them, she demanded.
I put them in a shoebox
made a few holes and gave them
some bread crumbs.
In the tall grass, by the road verge
I let them out, and that  they would
rather stay in the box.
Finally, they got the message and
disappeared.
I looked up and said:
“What about it, God? Any chance to
Win on the lotto?

After Rain
The audacious sun finally showed up, and green was
the winter landscape, I also saw the sun set just behind
the carob tree, where the almond tree first blossom,
asleep under a carpet of wildflowers and snoozed till dawn.
Over the easterly range, which is the first defense against
Spanish Marauders and the rain on its plane, the clouds
were dark blue, perhaps, more rain tomorrow?
In fading light, a musical note danced down the phone line,
the first spring flirt. And should it rain tomorrow, I will
not be downhearted, this day will keep me warm for weeks.

The First Commandment

we have got a message
if anyone writes from the river to the sea Palestine will be free, and will not be published because it is upsetting for Israel to hear what
is an obvious truth
Notice this will not be published it is not a ban we who believe in the “First Amendment” is there is a limit to freedom of expression when it goes against the sitting power structure Even the cherished X, knows that
As the evening progresses one notices fillers in newspapers, one such filler says that a test has shown that 87% of Israel’s Jews are not Semitic at all, they are mostly Russian Zionists, and Polish Warshaw dwellers, misfits not fitting in among the general population
The real Semites are the Palestinians going back 2000 years about the time of Jesus Christus What we see is the Zionists are wedging war against the real Jews who call themselves Palestinians possibly to avoid detection that it was those who crucified Jesus

Here is the war

The war has broken out, possibly caused
When the USA embassy was invaded 40 years ago  
The humiliation is a festering sore that cries for revenge
Every country will suffer in the shadow
There will be hunger
There will be deaths
Israel, in a suicidal mood, has been at the forefront of
This war that might destroy Israel as a nation
Who are those fanatical people who wish death upon
Millions for revenge
For the glory to reign over a destroyed world, that
is advantageous for ravens looking for diamonds
In the debris of a ruined culture

Worth a Fight.

It is no longer about right or wrong. it is about taking a stand
Against those who came to this country 
to escape poverty and tyranny, and now want to end democracy 
The unwritten consensus among people of different classes. 
We have become soft liberal,  Christianity, you said? 
Don’t make me laugh; we are far too Self-assured 
to believe in God. 
And we are giving way while their imams egg the people 
on and not for a moment do they stop 
No, not for a sneeze of hesitation do they think that 
if they went back to their forefathers’ country
A whip would await them in dank cells. 
Their faith has good points. No, it has not. 
But they have the right to return to their cherished land 
and practice a faith that is still in the Middle Ages. 
Soft liberal, giving way for the sake of peace
a peace I will not accept, and I will fill bullets in the chambers of my revolver to defend what my people fought for is called democracy, shaky, yes, with many flaws
But is a system worth fighting for

The big Illusion

I’m too tired to find any meaning in life. We are born, and our only function is to sow our seed and then depart the scene before we become a burden to the new generation who, after jubilant years, will see that they are born into death. to entertain ourselves, we make a simple act of leaving our seed behind by using magical words into something we call love, and since the thought of being dead forever is too harsh to contemplate, we invented religion and live our lives in an illusion, a fairytale of final lies, we do see the day we die when we are swallowed up by the relentless eternity

an Iceberg and a reporter


Near a village in Alaska, an enormous iceberg drifted filling the bay with fear and wonder
A journalist in the local paper saw something moving on the top of the berg, intrigued he wanted to see what it was he had seen
A Sunday morning when the people sat in church, he alone, not telling his mum climbed the berg
we saw the photos of him climbing steep walls
of ice, walking on the latter part, and a photo of him looking down at the village
he saw many footprints and concluded that someone lived on the berg, but a storm broke out, he sought shelter in a crack of the ice
we saw the photo of him sleeping in his bag
and when awake eat a frozen pie
When the storm had abated, he found more footprints, but there are no photos to prove this
when he came back to the village and published
an article on his findings
Until a witty soul asked him if the cameraman was still on the iceberg

the shock 

72%  of the inhabitants of Israel
Approve of Netanyahu's treatment of 
the people of Gaza
One supposes their TV shoves the same
horror as we see  
It is as the people of Israel are beset by
an inner truth that destroys their soul
and lead them into self-destruction 
For, we need a long spoon when 
dealing with Israel

A day spring day 1952

It was a day in April, the boy sat by the milk ramp waited for the man, who drove from farm-to-farm, collecting milk for the Dairy in local town There was only one type of milk he knew of it was full fat and tasted smooth and creamy He, became aware of how beautiful the landscape like seeing the nature for the first time and as it tuned out it was also for the last time, his mother was back from the sanatorium He had to go to her, he got a job delivering gods on his bike and never returned to the farm, but the beauty of that day has stayed with as a time of glory when the world was unspoiled

The Magic Almond Tree

And now it is time

For the ugly almond tree to blossom

And be a bride of spring

And how beautiful she is

Amongst dowdy olive trees that may

Have cornered the culinary market

The beauty belongs to my almond tree.

How did this come about?

A Nordic princess married an Arabic prince

In Lusitania but she missed the snow

And was unhappy.

The prince prayed to his God and next year

The almond tree bloomed and strewed pink and

White flowers on her path

And today I saw the magic of her smile.

A great day

Despite financial problems,
the May morning
was too beautiful to behold
the leaves on the tree on the Avenida
was deep green, the flowers 
planted around was red and blue
The place was quiet in a good way
worker slept late on their day, working
for others, low pay takes a heavy
toll, but this one day was theirs
free of the burden of working long 
hours for other I warm, sunny day well
deserved, the cold Atlantic wind
agreed

A childhood

Stony was the soil of my childhood
A tiny room above the stable
Cold was the night
A straw mattress and mice
Ice crystal on the roof
Dreaming of running somewhere
Anywhere but here
A pale dawn
The sun is white this morning
In the barn animals stir
No more time to dream
Tomorrow he will run away

2015 and years thereafter


The year of two thousand and fifteen,
has not been a good year for world peace.
Brotherhood of Man. I despair of our
lack of empathy with children killed by
Well-meaning
Bombs dropped by nations
Those who look for peace through violence.
I recall from history books a king named
Croesus, everything he touched turned into
gold, and he died amidst plenty.

State-sponsored violence spawns terror and
And newer versions of ISIS will not go away,
And we cannot understand that there will be
no peace before the whole world is a ruin if
We do not come to our senses and stop feeding
terror's voracious appetite.

Candlelight and Romance

Suddenly, Portugal was flung into darkness
electricity stopped, and nothing functioned
anymore, credit cards were useless
and those types of cards were the norm as
people carried little cash in their wallets 
the day was wounded, walked unsteadily
towards evening, few had thought of
buying candles, the town of Cascais was
fearful and quiet 
Having lived for many years in the outer
corners of the countryside where the supply
often failed, was prepared, we had candles
and means to light them
The evening was quite romantic; we sat on
the sofa held hands, telling stories from
our youth, it was almost a disappointment
came back on, the hours of darkness had
brought us closer together

Fear and other things

I have recurring nightmares and tell myself
to remember the dream in the morning
but I'm unable to recall the gruesome dream
I think it is about nuclear war 
When a ******, I was often afraid of the ocean
especially in the Pacific, where waves look like 
the mountain that even unbalanced hangar ships
the ship on top of a watery mountain, then sliding
down, and in front of another gigantic wave,
will she be able to rise up again
I was in Nagasaki once, and by closing my eyes, I could
see when that Bomb was dropped as tableaux
of suffering people and death
Panic, where I lived before I came to Cascais, there was
a forest, I often walked there with my dog
but not far into the forest, one day, when thinking
about the mountain, what for lunch at the cafe
I ended up in the deep forest and lost by bearing
I think the dog sensed my distress and began 
walking, I followed,  every so often turned to see
if I was there until I recognized my surroundings
and bravely took charge 
This is not romantic of me, but I do not dream about
women in my life, except Teresa in
Trinidad, I remember her beautiful smile and stars,
light up the world was a good place, to think she was pro
Other women are fading slowly, and faces are in deep
shadow as they disappear from memory

A misfit in Liverpool
I think of oranges when I see a painting by Constable of a morning sun
that looked like blood orange dripping nectar down on some
fishermen trying to catch eels on the dark surface of the bay.
There were sail-ships too ready to hoist sail in the morning wind.
When I lived in England, I met several police constables, most
of them, nice blokes, but during the miners´ strike, they became
radicalized, they had a good talking to by those higher up and
were also promised plenty of overtime.
John, a police constable  fifteen years on the beat and no promotion-
a friend of mine refused to partake in hitting miners over the head,
he continued his lonely beat, but at the station, he was ostracised,
a lonely figure in need of a friend- He often came into my cafe after
hours, we drank ***** with orange juice, lamenting the time we lived in. John took early retirement, and I sold my cafe.

A true sentence 

As Hemingway said, start with a true sentence
the roof of the school building, I can see from 
where I sit on a cloudy day is grey as lead
when lit up by sunlight that has broken through 
the clouds, it turns silvery and pleasant to see
That is, a true sentence about what I see, but it
is not what I'm thinking is a love story that
began a summer's day, lasted with its drama
when days got shorter and the wind bitter
leaves shrunk and fell on a rainy street
The true sentence is the gripping sadness
the knowledge that the best of my time has gone

the ending

It is night, the day time had sun and warmed
The living room and the kitchen
I sit alone in my study and enjoy the silence
This should be the time for deep philosophical
About life and the wherefore, it is not, but I recall yesterday when we went to a small town to buy medical equipment for my wife we sat in a café where everybody spoke at the same time I asked why are they not listening before speaking, she said it is not so much about talking it is the sense of community and social cohesion, well in that case let them talk For many old people elderliness is a curse they
live in, fear of dying and know they will but they have not obtained the serenity needed to accept death as a part of a continuation of life
they shall not be a part of
at the supermarket today, my wife spoke to a woman who was upset because her mother had died last night, how old was her mother103  she had been housebound for 4o years in other words she had lived too long of course my wife commiserated for the woman’s loss, a mother is a mother and the woman’s memory was of her mother when she was young                            I ask you to stay in bed is that preferable to die
Be nice to old people but let them die in peace

We meat eaters

In the café on the first floor of our building
The food served is cooked on the day
Sometimes they serve fish which I'm not a fan of but when I have picked out the ******* bones
the fish tastes fine
They serve wonderful chicken that only a few days ago ran around not knowing they would
Be lunch, but that’s life, we humans eat human flesh too when given a chance, living deep in the jungle and fried female **** are seen as
A delicatessen only served to the chieftains who are the upper class in their world and no, if you
Ask, there is no beans on the toast

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

a quiet walk 

In the graveyard, I walked 
I didn't take the dog in case she smelt bones
noticed even in death 
there are three classes 
I was drawn to the famous lies because
their place is more airy
big stones, with swada words in gold, nice
flowers and well-kept lawn
the dead middle-class people's graves were
nice to in black marble
I did come across a grave that told us 
the dead had been a chief engineer
he might have been a cruel person 
and would, if he could, be pleased that his
title mattered for his family 
The poor graves tucked in a corner 
overgrown grass hiding names, thistle too
had stings
They had something in common that made
them equal, death silence

Black Chador

The women of Alexandria wear a chador that
mercifully hides her bony body, she could have
fitted a Dior dress snugly, but she doesn't
know this, she has walked ten miles to buy
bread for her children
She has been to the fruit market too, where
where rib-cage mules with sores stoically wait
A rich, elderly English woman tells the mule
As the owner of it, she has never felt the pang of hunger
Nevertheless, she puts bandages on a mule's
open sores
The woman in the black chador is oblivious of this
Empathy for suffering animals is
a concern of
the wealthy, those who have time to care

the bridge

In the middle of the bridge, we leaned on its railing
and looked into the slimy, green, and slow
running stream. Its bank, decorated with plastic bottles,
used condoms, a long-since-dead dog, yet grinning as
recalling a filthy joke and a three-month-old abortion,
half eaten by discerning water rats.
Over this beauty of decay hung a reluctant, pale sun
refusing to lend light to this polluted river scene.
The first time we came here, the water was clear, we could
see fishes you held my hands, she said.
My hands were cold, spat into the filth below, dug them
deep into my pockets, hunched my shoulders, and
began walking. No bother telling her that our love was
like a river burdened by too much debris.
All we have in common is our shared solitude, but that is
a dad is better than being alone.

First light of dawn
Uphill, he walked still dark, he had
to be at the farm at five milking times.
The westerly wind makes the climb hard
the cattle will be mooing in their pens
the boss is grumpy, he is hungry but
has no time to eat
milking eight cows by hand is no joke.
End of the last hill he saw the farm's
the farm, there is light in the kitchen,
Emma, my dog, barks and stops when
she hears his steps, the morning light he
stop and catch his breath, they are not
I am going to think that he was hasting
  a quick mug of coffee
a slice of ham, just like any other day
they will wonder, the maids whisper
but do not ask where
and with whom he spent the night.

The Date.
Sat in a pub talking to a woman of no substance
other than she wore a skirt and had *****.
Pub closed, I was allowed
to follow her home
through dreary streets
fine rain and yellow street light.
I kissed her dry, bloodless lips
We parted.
Walking back to the ******´s hotel.
She stood by a bombed-out church and had damp hair.
This is too absurd
again; I was at a place I didn´t want to be.
Money changed hands.
My loneliness laughed hysterically.

Rich man poor
The man from
the gutter
who fought
his way to the top
has much hate
and contempt
For those who didn't
succeed
because they were
too kind and
had consideration
for fellow man.
When the rich man
Donate money
He is called
a great
humanitarian
and it is
envious to
I disagree with that.
A bronze statue
in the park, but
it will be
hollow inside