Yesterday´s Almanac
Domestic Animals
Cows in the barn was glad to see me at six in the morning They mooed and waited for me to milk them.
Six cows to milk, yes I know it was a small farm and also So very long time ago, yet clear as yesterday.
There was in the barn also a pig sty, a stable for the horse Calves in a pen and they all wanted my attention.
Domestic animals are easy to please, just feed them keep Their winter quarters clean and speak softly.
Domestic animals are so totally I our power without us They would not exist in the form they are today.
In a compound a flock of sheep make themselves heard They are hardy and want to get out snow or not.
So they are our responsibility and we must respect and Love them, even if, at the end, we eat them.
The Will
The trees down the hillside have taken a more sober hue yellow, pale green and brown, despite the weather tries to pretend it is still summer and tourists wear sunglasses when in jeeps they explore the mystic interior away from sandy beaches and summer charming waiters who hope the summer will last forever, without it they will soon be unemployed, yes, like it or not fall is here in all its glory, and it is also the time when I must write my will.
I stop at a layby and compose my testament, the house goes to my wife and money left in the bank after the funeral expenses. My literary estate goes to my brother, which means he gets nothing of value, anyway he hates poetry, so this is my sweet revenge. But I love fall and hope to live to see another one.
Harvest Time
Chemical Weaponry Syria has promised to stop them But we need an army To go in there and destroy them And when job is done We can begin sorting out The chaff from the wheat Alas, chaff creates dust of misery And it will take long to Clear the fields of battles of Depleted uranium, white phosphorus and Other stuff needed For democracy to function Without using a single comma.
Haiku Autumns demure light When plants arouse for a last Display of beauty
Haiku September, the time When pigs get more swill to eat Fattening them for Yule
Senryu A dead horse in the road Berlin 1945 People with knives cutting flesh
Saying Egalitarianism The dictatorship of the people Is anarchy the answer?
Saying There is no democracy There is no state Just the clamour of me, me.
A Dog Called America.
When sailing from Huston, Texas, to Aruba we had an unwanted guest on board, a big friendly dog, the captain called shore and It turned out it belonged to the coast guard. And since we had a small terrier bitch, this was a love story gone eschew. The dog, it really was huge, maybe a St Bernard breed settled in my cabin, this I think because it assumed, since I was the cook, thus must be the pack leader. Days later when the ship docked in Aruba, a man from the consulate came and took the dog ashore. We were sorry to see this gentle giant leave us ‌. Yes, we called him America.
Haiku September drizzle Sombre green olive trees weep Dripping foliage
Haiku Sighing plethora Rain on a Sunday afternoon Heavenly peace for some
Haiku To be obsessed With a gal who rejects you October deluge
Haiku Disconsolate leaves On manicured lawn of opulence Golden oaks lament
November Song
No suitor knocks on her door her hair is white and uncombed children think she is a witch.
Once she had been the belle of the royal ball, spurned lovers in her perfumed air.
Old age came creeping, first slowly than rapidly‌ and now she is quite forgotten.
Prostitution
I never liked horses, oh yes, they are beautiful and dumb and crap in their food on the grassland of forever. Horses are like Romanian women, you catch them, rape them and tamed you sell them in Hamburg as tame whores, who can be ridden by any man for a bit of cash. And all the owners of horses have to do is to serve them weed.
On a Bender.
New Orleans, dawn, woke up on the floor of a hotel room, don’t know why I didn’t sleep in the bed. A shower, vapid water ran slowly down my body like worms they crawled around and refused to leave. In a bar where men sat in silence watching TV with sound turned off. A double whisky and the worms disappeared. Thought I can’t sit here and drink like an alcoholic, I had a bag of bacon flavoured crisps, and to show I was a man of taste I asked for Dutch beer. Time runs fast, when you are drunk, suddenly eight too late for the plane home that left at nine o’clock. One more beer and I will be ok. Got another plane, without my luggage, as I could not remember the hotel where I had slept on the floor.
A Valley in Portugal. I have promised to visit my brother in Spain. I’m not leaving yet, the fall here in my vale is too beautiful to leave right now; it is the wonderful colours and in the meadow rabbits play‌ or used to, I have not walked in the forest for a while, legs tired, but head is young. But I have added a bit of colour too painted the yard beige, the floor painted green; wife worried seeing me on a step ladder. I love the fall, it is so soft and gentle, but we know it will be windy and rainclouds will cross the sky; October will be bad tempered, torrential rain will hammer on roof tiles. I love seeing rain, and see the greening of a sun tired nature. I can’t leave that month either. Perhaps I will visit my brother in January when the sun has lost its power yet looks beautiful when its sets painting the clouds crimson. My brother lives at a tourist resort, swimming pool and all that, entertainers in bars singing about the old days; and bingo. And I will be sitting there drinking too much and think, what the hell do I care about the old day, poverty and belching factories, air smelling as the entrance of hell. No, I want to go home to my vale in Portugal where I lived many many generations ago, and old olive trees still remember me.
Versifier
Poetry is a dream bards can, even if they live in basement flat In Liverpool, which is dank and damp and has rats under the floor boards, paint you a picture of utter bliss because it is the way he sees it.
A letter to A friend
I have been watching a dog program on TV by a Mexican man called Cesar and he never tires of telling people a dog is an animal and not a daughter or as son. I had a bitch (hate the word) for 14 years and watching the program It appears I did everything right. I was the pack leader and she knew the rules, except when I went to bed she jumped up on the sofa which she was not allowed too I knew that, but said nothing after all you have to cut animals and people a bit slack. When a dog loses its human pack leader it can be sent to a family and live happily ever after, a dog has no choice. I miss my dog every day our walk in the woods the glee in her face chasing rabbits( she never caught any.) I know she loved me, but know she would have loved someone else had I not been there.
A Friendly Horse
To get up to the hayloft Dokka, our little horse, had to walk up a short, but steep bridge pulling a heavy load of hay for winter food, she hesitated as she was getting on in years, I whispered into her ears: there will be a big slice of bread for you she pricked her ears and mightily pulled, up I gave her a thick slice of loaf. The farm woman could not understand what happened to the bread, I have to bake every other day she said stroked my head, said; you have a big appetite. I blushed, it was not every day anyone showed me affection, Dokka, the horse, neighed.
The Rural.
For those who have never lived in a country were cattle stays in the shed for long months in the winters, have never seen their joy, they behave like prisoners in dank dungeon let out for the day not quite believing their luck. They run in rings jump up and down before settling to the business of eating spring grass. From time to time they stop munching look up to the blue sky and jump around again. These simple creatures how much I loved them, my problem over the years have never been with animals, but with humanity who often are consumed by hatred by the banality over none intended slights.
The Elegy From Chicago to Washington Guns play their fatal crescendo Not much glissando Too many musicians Or too many instruments?
Competitions
Chefs in the kitchen in a competition, knives are out blood is flowing each wants to be the best, in the process the pleasure of cooking becomes of no consequence. I used to like watching sweet Nigella an English TV chef she ate her own food. Lips like Marilyn Monroe and spoke ever so posh. It turned out to be fake (not the voice); she was an abused wife. Chefs drying sweats with their hands then cutting sweet tomatoes; and frying salmon put it on a plate trying to make it look appetizing, but I rather have meal cooked with a smile. Poetry competitions too is strange it cost money participate but I have never met a winner. Are pens out, does ink flows from fatal insults? Or does the first prize go to a poet friend keeping It in the family? “Red roses for a sweet lady.� Why not! Seamus is dead and I mourn his passing.
He Is Coming Your Way
Be careful; go find a hiding place, when he is poking you with a finger of sudden pain, when you least expected it. You must seek shelter; perhaps play cool and nonchalant, add a new extension to your house or a swimming pool. You can also join a cult that pays obeisance to him and hope to be spared. Seek a religion, that promise eternity but only if…. Atheism is a depressing place to hide I have met a few of them they have no sense of fun and they dribble hatred and contempt to innocent religious people who do not know better. You don’t know when he strikes wear pyjama at night, one with breast pockets, as proof you believe in tomorrow, stay awake till daybreak. Don’t hide under your cosy duvet, keep the bedside lamp on and read a book.
Nation Building
This antagonistic little nation
Held together in the mistaken belief
They are the natural rulers of the world.
This delusion of grandeur
Manifests itself in arrogance,
Living behind big walls thinking they can
Keep out the truth.
They are like cuckoos laying eggs
In nests that do not belong to them.
This artificial nation will implode
And sink into oblivion.
Historians will write about it,
How not to build a nation
On historic lies.
Class Difference
I did, as a boy, fell in love with a girl we went to the same school, but she lived in a posh part of town in a street where every house had a big garden and some houses even had a tennis courts. I carried her school bag till we came to her street, than she took it back and said goodbye and patted my hand. I never questioned the fact that she would not let anyone see me, knew it was because I was poor, but I was still happy to carry her bag. This love affair lasted till she met a more suitable boy, the son of a doctor, I was dismissed. I was downcast for a few days, but soon found another girl who let me carry her school bag. She also had a very nice mum who, when I was fifteen, seduced me. But I learned that class has to do with possessions that is why we still admire the rich.
A Victim of War I Amsterdam once, I met a woman in a bar. She smoked weed and her nostrils flared when she exhaled. This was in 1964 and she had suffered much during the war since she was a Roma and regarded as parasite. She got up and made a Hitler imitation and everyone laughed, alas, she didn’t stop and was thrown out. The last I saw of her she was walking down the cobbled street unable to stop playing Hitler. She fell into a canal, water icy, and she as well past mimicking Hitler. Poor Roma people their holocaust is still not recognized and they are still persecuted.
Senryu The unwritten Is a dream not yet awake A soundless slumber
Senryu Breaths of the unsaid Hangs on an autumnal tree Waiting for the wind
Saying Silence is The continuations Of what was not said
The Secret.
Hand written verses in a red folder decorated with flowers.
She had written them in her youth when waiting to see him walk by.
She read them for the last time and tossed her girlhood into the fire.
A blue tongue of blaze devoured her work, ashes of the past flew upwards.
Up the chimney flakes of dreams winged and weightless landed in the snow.
Yet, she could not erase her poems as they had bonded with her heart.
In a lagoon of old age she floated until her heart and poetry parted.
Refused by Moderators
I may not have walked Softly through life But I never trampled On a flower Or broke a twig of a tree, But I have never Suffered abuse in silence By those of ill will. Those who crossed my path With unkind intentions Unable to see beyond their Small mindedness and Patronizing attitudes, Have not sought revenge Simply forgotten them With the same disinterest As when zapping a fly.
Kismet
He wanted to surprise his wife coming home after voyage walked up the garden path and opened the backdoor. She was making love to his brother. The hush between them was profound and doom-laden, the garden was never again tilled as there was nothing to say, words had lost meaning, the marriage and because of his work, she lived long without a man. Had he rang the doorbell he would not have known, his brother, would have had time to get out they could lived happily ever after. Perhaps her needs had been greater than his and he had been blind because his love was abstract forgetting there is more to love than chastity for a woman waiting for her man husband he has time to be with her. He never spoke to his brother the chasm of silence was too deep and he was he left trying to grasp the nature of infidelity.
Epigram
To have few secrets is a recipe For an untroubled life. But those who have no secrets Must have lived a boring life.
Civil Wars A civil war lasts long in psyche of people Bitterness of having lost festers from one Generation to the next and black America Are still victims caught in the middle of The unresolved.
Bullets. Funny thing with bullets trillions of them are fired every year hitting nothing only pushing air aside for a brief moment. Bullets are not birds that fly and have useful destination, say, catching insects. A bullet’s only purpose is hitting flesh and it is not very good at it, but if there are enough of them filling the air someone is bound to be hit. I saw a forest totally denuded by artillery shells and gun fire, trees looked as hells kitchen, yet when silence as it always will in a war, rabbits came out of their burrows feeding on grass. War is meaningless to animals, but noise disturb them and foxes seek shelter in ruins eating whatever they find, that might be a human eye or a torn off hand. If a soldier only fired his gun when he was sure to hit someone, I do not think munitions makers would be happy, and tell a soldier to shoot and use his rifle more.
The Unsung Great
As a child I learned nothing at school I was so intimidated and shy of other children and unable to grasp anything. So my mother taught me write and read. I often urged my mother to write about her life and childhood, but she was too traumatized by the experience of growing up in an orphanage she would not again think of or re living it. So her working class life goes untold, but it was enough for me the little she said to take a stand against prejudices and the lack of freedom the befall poor people wherever they live in the world. I may be blowing into the wind into a void Of disinterest but owe it to her to try saying what she was never able to utter. I’m as old as she was when she died but Her smiling blue eyes her knowing laughter is with me every day on my journey.
Imbroglio
Syria is no longer in the news the killing continues but world leaders are free of the hook of doing something to stop this carnage Syria, although a dictator ship, can no longer go back to relative security they enjoyed. There are too many interests to see the turmoil continues, and there can only be one winner‌for now. But they have miscalculated and end up with a neighbour from hell. And our cherished democracy means nothing for them who has seen the ugly flip side of the coin.
Man Eater. I was filleting a mackerel when I found a finger in its innards not much left of it looked like a prawn shell with fingernail, I said nothing dipped the fillets in flour and deep fried them served with cucumber salad, boiled potatoes and melted butter, just the way they like it in Sweden. The finger was spotted again amongst all the stuff to be thrown into the bin. great commotion, I said nothing, but have not since been eating mackerels, they apparently feed on fishermen.
The Doorman. When I´m in a shop and see people approach its door I rush forward and open it, this is not to be polite but I was a doorman at a posh hotel fr 25 years. I also opened taxi doors for guests and had an umbrella ready if it rained to shield from too much reality. A posh hotel is an artificial place everyone is polite to a guest and the staff mingling with the posh tend to ,when not working, take on an air of superiority which doesn´t go down well with the kitchen staff. My wife tells me to stop opening doors for all and sundry, but what
can I do? If you train a dog to give paw, you can´t un-train it. 25 years as a doorman, the rich gave me a few shilling, now I get glances from women who think I´m patronizing them
Less Grazing land
The mere on the knoll looked down at the grassland a prairie of succulence where she and her ancestors had lived and died for since time long forgotten. Behind her, her foal only a few months old, larking about as foals do. At the distance she saw human Habitat growing closer, the land was perfect for building creating suburbia, road and gardens where no horse was allowed to graze and be free to gallop without hindrance of fences and cars. She could smell the city, it was foul in her nose, she nudged her foal to go uphill to the hinterland that had less grass but for now was free of humanity. She would do whatever she could to stop her foal
becoming a tame horse, ridden by would be cowboys and groomed by girls of unsure sexuality
Last Man standing
It rains here every day in this small village where a new thought is like calling up Satan. We are happy here men sit in the bar and drink till they come home too drunk to make love, this disgusting thing done in darkness, which is divulged at the water pump talked about with hushed voices and those who have been subjected to a nightly rape are embraced and told to be strong. And one wonders why children are born The priest says it is an act of god, and this disgusting thing must have no pleasure, but has to be endure.
And the men sit drinking in the bar until their lust is gone and they sleep beside their wife who are not being able to say love me, love me now.
A New Beginning Waste of time, I I woke up to the realisation that I have spent 23 years writing poetry no on reads, It is like carrying stone up a hill drop them and see the rolling down and resting with other stones. I could have played golf, or tennis had an outdoor face and amassed many friends been invited to parties told jokes and been liked. Walked through the town and never been alone. Yet I choose to sit in semi darkness writng something no one reads. What made me do this I think it was because I could make a difference not being clear what this was. . Come tomorrow I will clean my golf club and I will be popular again
Rain How easy rain fall by its own weight On a landscape that needs it.
It is October and the sky is lead grey For too long it was uniformly blue.
I walk to the shops and enjoy the sound Rain makes falling softly on my umbrella.
A forgotten lullaby remembered a song Without words just a hush of tenderness.
Senryu
Rain gust on concrete Dripping into a pool of blood Daily life in Syria
Senryu Cyanide in ponds Elephants cannot survive In a world of greed
Senryu When tigers don’t burn When jungle nights are silent
We’ll perish too
Record Breakers. He is 100 and five spends his time in bed his family come up to his room and clean him up, he is windy and it smells like a Chinese egg buried underground for fifty years. And to think Chines eggs are supposed to be a delicatessen eaten only by the rich. He can’t read anymore but like to look at pornographic pictures which make him cackle as it triggers off a memory of a distant past.
He was never a paragon of virtue smoked and drank a brutal criminal who spent much time in prison. All this is forgotten now his family, although they think he is disgusting, want him to be in the Guinness book of records as the longest living man.
Senryu Is poetry easy Like setting out a whelk stall Roses and lilies
The Door of Solitude
It was the door I remember most it had been optimistic green once but now dripped of rots only tears can produce. Like walking into a portal you know if the door opens you pace into dejection and be enveloped by the dismay of people who hated one another but cut not unknot a union bound by threads of misery.
The yard was full of car parts that never would be assembled and batteries oozing sadness no jump lead would bring back to life.
The door didn’t open a bit of relief, like when a stalled car on a dark road suddenly starts. I did see a flutter on a dirty curtain but knew it was too late to help my brother back to sanity.
Caught in the Mist
Driving home the mist came in obscuring the road, switched the beam light on and the fog looked denser. Familiar features had vanished I was in no mans land so near home yet lost in the miasma of depression. What I had taken for granted had lost its meaning it was only me and confusion how could, it become so. The world I thought I knew so well was not there, it had all been a hallucination a strange nightmare. Swirling fog the body less dancing around my car peering into the window pulling ghostly faces telling me how wonderful it was to be body free, if so why didn’t they show happiness of angelic freedom? But I knew why they envied me I was earthbound
and could touch feel happiness and sadness. I could love, an emotion what their anaemic existence had denied them; and slowly the fog dissipated and I could see the stars, the light of my village nestling deep down there in my valley of dreams.
Tanka Faiths are about love Alas, people think their love Is the only right one So they kill and maim all those Who do not love as they do.
After Us. A world without man Can’t exist in its vastness A dream undreamed When great cities are quarries And nights are utter horror
Unrecorded dread Mother elephant trumpeting Survival to day In a time that is godless Phase is seasons of the vain
Will it be better When storms blow without warning
And love is absent When rivers flow and fish wake Words are echoes of the past.
We are not to know As humanity is silenced Savannah grass and lions’ pride Will continue unexpressed No one will hear love’s echo Refugees.
On the coast of Italia where holiday makers go for a swim and rest on soft sand. Body of the unfortunate are floating around Ruining their vacation. So many black people having been ruined by constant exploitation by Europe, we have protected their dictators and stolen their diamonds. This horde of black people, even if many drown on sun kissed beaches, will not stop them coming as they are demanding a share in the riches we stole from them.
Circumcision
To stop Jews, in Europe, from circumcising male children is now called racism by the weird prime minster of occupied land. The fact that other races too practice this, is in a way, beside the point. I suggest that an exception is done for Jews, lest their pack their bags and go to Israel.
This will be tragedy for the Palestinians who will see more of their land gobbled up by settlers. Not even Palestine rubbish dump are sacred the Israel army have closed them down and not offered anywhere else for the unlucky people to get rid of garbage.
This just another land grab where settlers can build houses. Yes this is the ultimate irony the chosen living on top of debris
of the land they raped. I hope the gas, litter of fermentation brings, will make them abandon the stench, the of creation of greed and contempt of others they have brought on themselves.
Epigram When unrequested love ends The heart, will be a lonely place Where only the mundane reign In the absence of sighs.
Epigram Unrequested love Fills the heart with poetry Ink and lament Make for hopeless romance.
Epigram
Unrequested fondness Makes your heart stronger Teach that your devotion doesn’t Ensnare the object of you love
Mysterious Encounter.
We sat in the park a packet of fags and a bottle of wine, on the back of a napkin I wrote her a poem of love.
While struggling to find the right words, I hardly know her, she fell asleep, wine of good quality can be strong.
I counted my cigarettes, had five left but saw the light of a night bar, so I left her there sleeping, went and had a drink.
When I came back she had left, my poem
written on the clean side of the napkin, was on the ground torn to shreds.
Unusual October What can I say about a perfect day in October? a mild sun that appears to be fused with silver. A few cumuli, looking like a bride’s belt, and the sky has a blueness that is not deep rather of mythical haziness, a dream not yet realized seeking understanding of something that is limitless. The garden is full of flowers, it is as a new spring has sprung, wordless and in supple silence I can hear the forest’s animals sigh in utter contentment. I cannot afford to sleep I must catch this very moment before the good days end.
How not to sell a House
When I first come to this isolated village I could not sleep for the barking dogs. I used to out on the terrace and tried to shush which made them bark more. These days it worries me when they are silent and think something must be up. Today a state agent rang; my house is up for sale he took a nice couple up and looked at my home. When the agent showed the woman my kitchen the man asked me why I was selling. I said don’t tell anyone, but the roof is full of mice and sometimes snakes falls through the cane. Later that day the agent rang me, the couple wasn’t
buying my house it was too far away from town.
The Sandy Lane
The road to the graveyard has had a new layer of sand they used sea sand this time and it consists of millions of crushed shells that lit up in the afternoon light like It should be the entrance to a heavenly portal. The lane is flanked by cypresses which seem to stretch towards the sky and redemption; trees will not get there but it is not lack of trying. Only one car is allowed to use the lane, grievers must walk on glittering softness while thinking of lives instability, the constant presence of death in the midst of sunlight and summers. So many flowers and wreaths the last farewell has been made beautiful and assuages grief and the long walk.
Ancient Hamlet
Houses around me are emptying, the old reaching the age of dying, are passing away. A timeworn man went missing on Monday he was found miles away by the police who drove him back home, he had tried to flee didn’t know where and he had no money. Behind locked doors in darkened rooms he tries to stave off the preordained. The sunlight, unbearable reminds him of future suns he will not live to see, or for that matter, the rain that falls. When a car stops he shakes with fear, is it a hearse coming for him? Voices
of happy children are like derision of his elderliness. He longs for peace but fear death’s cruel endlessness.
Portugal in my Heart. I hear a plane afar it is going north high up it flies a disappearing din of a time that was. Ah, my unfaithful heart once I loved my country up north, the love died I shall not go back. Yet the din stays with me awaking memories of my childhood when I lived on a farm. The memory on ice on a pond and skating around I was a great sportsman winning gold medals. Then came the restive years voyaging great oceans, but always dreaming of my place of my own. Poverty had thought that without a roof over your head you are just another lost seaman. More by accident than plan I came to Portugal
and after some lover’s quarrel, came to love it. Yes, I know she can be infuriating endless forms that has to be filled, bureaucracy gone eccentric. I’m a Portuguese now and can live with a bit of officialdom’s petty tyranny. But I have lost my heart here, to people, flowers olive trees and my ugly almond tree that, come spring, turns into a beautiful princess.
The Marriage.
My friend has died it was a Monday morning he moaned and turned to his wife for comfort she helded him tight he didn’t open his eyes and continued his sleep of eternity. A good way to go, but he loved life and would have liked to see another sunrise.
Open casket, I stroked his face he had been such a good friend, but his wife was dry eyed. We know little of other people’s private life, his wife was glad to see him dead it was her ultimate revenge he had treated her like slave, and never did he say he loved her.
Estrangement
My darling girl it is so nice to see you wish to see you every day but you live so far away and your mother is still angry with me after all those years. last time I saw you were fourteen and still liked to climb trees. Now you are a young lady who speaks posh English which put my seaman’s speak in shame. I feel shy when you are near don’t know how to speak to a twenty year old so I’m silent mostly and wait for you say something, when you do you talk about your friends at the university; what do I know of higher education, I smile and nod pretends it interests me. Then it is time for you to leave, the kisses and of seeing each other soon. Although you are a stranger you are my daughter but I do not know how to reach out to you, say, what for you
must sound banal, but I can’t. When a child at the supermarket you got lost and cried daddy, daddy I promised not to leave you, I won’t, yet we are strangers mow.
The Black Phone
A white feather landed on the window sill and wondered who he had betrayed with his silence. Looked into the deep gulch of of his consciousness and found bones of muteness of those he should have called but never did. He looked at the side table, The black monster, quiet as him, and when he lifted the receiver heard only hum of eternity, and what had ceased to matter. Nevertheless he rang phone numbers he remembered, but no one answered; as he
had neglected them they had forgotten him.
Crazy Senryu
A shadowy telephone The feather of a duster Make no house cleaner
At a shooting range Dressed as actual soldiers We kill cola cans
Warm sun and beaches
Do not a summer creates Only makes it hot
Hamburgers
Roman soldiers’ stable diet was field mice which they deep fried and ate with wild rice. Of course they also ate polenta pudding and animals they caught in the field and food they found when invading a country. The higher ups had a more varied diet but that has always been the way of the world.
The army of a modern empire like the USA, has altogether an equal diet, both soldiers and officers eat hamburgers and fries, even the president, when in public, eats burgers. Hamburgers even, if this dish, originated in
yes, Germany has become America’s great culinary gift to the world
Euphemism In Hull and Bordeaux they sat in pubs and bars the social workers. ClichĂŠd kisses blew across rooms, moths trying to look like butterflies a day in October. I saw the skipper of my ship dance with an auxiliary nurse, who also had a day job working at a shipping office, I left before he saw me to save his blushes. This was not in Hull, but Le Havre, the girl a red beret, black blouse and matching skirt, I had met her before he had time to go ashore. Ah, for the good old days when things had proper names and a tart was more than a sweet strawberry cake.
The News
The oddity of truths To shift trough information’s False intelligence Delivered by men in suits Paid lackeys reading from a cue Semitic voices Feeding the airways with hate Compliant press repeat untruths Till we believe Wax lilies in the pond are real
Blood Oranges
On a hill top I saw the sundown, It had gone down, but still made grey clouds the colour of blood orange. Thought of my childhood when rumours had a fruit shop, was selling some and there was a long line. Oranges were called Jaffa and came from Israel a nation born in blood. We’re on Israeli side, hadn’t the Jews suffered much, didn’t they deserve a homeland, not a part of ours, but far away. Anyway, the Arabs, were not to be trusted according to the press and they were lazy. But now we know a different story and the blood in the oranges was tears of the those who had been evicted by the new state.
Agoraphobia
I lifted my glass of red wine towards the lamplight as seeing the light through a dreamy, rosy haze; I saw a dirty glass full of fat finger marks I could not blame the barman since I was alone at home thinking I should have been an actor. I went on stage once an actor friend of mine, Tom Hardy was rehearsing a play, all those empty seat looking at me I was consumed with limelight fear. Tom loved his calling, he never made it big but loved his craft, I saw him play Lesley Howard in a movie made in Portugal and he was perfect for the role-
This really is about agoraphobia which has blighted my life and I disappointed many by promising to appear at a public do and not showing up and feigning mix up of dates. I told Tom, swore he could cure me, by me taking none speaking role in a play. Well, Tom died. My wife’s gone to a party, I’m looking after the cat, she don’t know how famous I could have been.
Old Soldiers Never Die. A neighbour of mine used to be a sergeant in the army, In his living room he had a big picture of himself, In full uniform that had many ribbons and medals on. He served in many countries, Germany, Singapore and so on, not on the frontline, but as head of the army’s motor-pool. Then a day the military let him go, the army is no place for old men, and the best years of his life was behind him. He liked tinkering with cars, once he repaired mine, barking orders what screwdriver he wanted, shook his head over my utter incompetence. It was a day in October, when the weather was hanging about, like a soldier who hasn’t got his orders, he went to bed for his afternoon nap, when his wife brought him
tea at five, he had gone to the military parade in the sky.
The Birthday Party
23/10 ten minutes two twelve when he will be 75, ten minutes can take very long; he can get a stroke or a heart attack, while waiting, he is standing up; few people die when standing up. There was an English queen who when death was approaching, refused to go to bed. For a week she was standing up in a futile attempt to beat death....she lost 11 nil. It is midnight and the twenty four of October. Ok, he made it, but must do this every year, living a month longer is important. Or not! As a child a year took forever, now a year is a windblown leaf scraping along a dreary road and fall comes around in record time. Once a girl said she loved him, but that was 60 years ago it doesn’t matter anymore, but he remembers it well and it is heart-warming
to know this, as a rain drop in a desert, yet the drop was for him it fertilized his journey through the domestic landscape of his tedious life.
Senryu
A year is a breath A cosmic trivial moment For me it is life
Life is not a plateau But a stony uphill struggle The upland is a dream
He stopped dreaming In the middle of the night Death fell soft as rain
No Title Outside my house People sang happy birthday They had lit candles Stood too close The cane roof caught fire I cried And people said this is ok It is your birthday And you can cry if you want to
The people Prevail.
This day dark clouds have been hanging over us they didn’t move, the day became night. The old people in the village said they had never seen a day like this and as good Catholics made the sign of the cross; the end is near. Women here wear head scarves tightly on their heads, to protect their hair from the sun, I remember the queen of England too used to wear scarf, she doesn’t do this anymore lest people would think she has gone all Muslim. The hate against all things Islamic have not yet reach our village.
Jews and Arabs lived in harmony under Islamic rule for 200 years then the Christian horde came and brought murder and starvation. Who is going to rule? For the people this meant little they tilled the soil and prayed to the God of their choice, which today is mainly a deity of strange morality, a pope, and empty promises? At the end of the day clouds dissipated and the night was starlit.
The Pope, Statues and Me Confounded old age, I keep looking at a blank screen a plateau of nothingness, except for this ridicules idea that I must travel to Rome and see the statues I once wrote about; and perhaps have little chat with pope about this and that. I must talk to him now before the Vatican machine brainwashes him into conforming to a glorious robed pope, a person of empty rituals. If I get to meet him, he could dress up in a smart Italian suit, a false moustache and a nonchalant way of walking, we could look at the statues; then over a few beers, Brazilian sausages, with Italian flavour; tell him a secret so deep he might reject it as fantasy by a deluded person.
Dear Brother Frances, your name is Erik, we are twins, shared the same womb, but I was kidnapped by Gypsies, grew up in a camp of filth as an underdog in our democratic society and know how demeaning poverty is and can help you with your austerity program. You are, the bishop of Rome. There will be a stunned silence, either he accepts my story and embraces me or call
the guards; whichever way he will not forget me and the statues of Rome.
Tanka When utilities Are privately owned We are prisoners Caught in a web of avarice Capitalism gone viral
Senryu On the opposite wall The sun shines bright and summery Typical!
Words. When I speak I get lost in the fog of words
When alone I can see forever
Imagination Pre down borealis that had flashed through the dark blue night sky had disappeared .
A light at the ridge a few stray sunrays lit up the valley and the mist of mystery was slowly dissipating, in the clearing I saw a flock of wisents and a few red deer.
The animals stood still as listening for a sign or a message of some kind.
A twig of an oak broke it sounded like rifle shot but the beasts knew better and began grazing.
Animals of the grassland had retreated man had taken over ploughing the fertile soil into fields of wheat. It was day now and pearls on leaves dried.
When the mammals saw me they quickly, as shadows of the unseen, vanished into a landscape of dreams. Domestic Landscape.
There used to many small farms or homesteads around here where I live, they are mostly abandoned now except for some wretched relics unable to move. Acres so small they could easily be ploughed by a mule.
Nostalgia is the name of poverty.
Carob trees and almond trees grows unseemly branches looking like a film set of a horror movies.
The neglected has a certain beauty.
Nature is moving in and so do animals that used to
keep a respectful distance from humans, like shy deer, and wild boars that have been seen crossing the road at night. Housebound flowers too have felt the freedom leaving ceramic pots to the delight of wild goats. Hares too that people thought had been eradicated are competing with the obsequious blue rabbit, in some clearing in the woods. Beauty behold, there is talk of golf course and players can be close to nature.
Epigram When parks have been fenced in and locked And school play grounds shut down Will children be safe or lose their freedom Behind dark curtains?
Senryu Brave new world Reduced to a gossiping village Spying on neighbours
Senryu
Freedom of speech Everyone demands a voice Babbles tower
Senryu Liberty of discourse Channelled through facebook Baby picture
Mistaken Identity
The little Roma girl blond, blue eyed....so adorable. For a moment her face in the papers, had the darksome, thieving gypsies stolen this little angle? But she was a Roma after all and we lost interest in her future. Now she has dirty hands plays in the sand in the camp of scarcity.
Senryu In case of doubt Even the biggest oceans
Have a shore line
Every new movie I see Is a copy of old films In black & white I have seen fifty years go Now in colours But they are not getting any better Meeting the Past. This is not a poem but a strange story if unfeasible tale, my wife and I, was driving along a country lane she saw some flowers she wanted to pick I stopped on this gravelled road and dust covered my car as a silk scarf
A modern car drove past us I thought I had seen the man and his female companion before. He stopped to and both of then got out. The man, with muscular arms came towards me I extended my hand and said I know we have met before. He didn’t answer buts lapped me across my face and I fell into the dust.
Then he walked back to his car and drove off.
What was that for? It was your younger self taking revenge. But should it not be the other way around me slapping him for wasting his youth on trivialities.
When you are old you are accountable for your youth. Who was the silly woman by his side? Don’t know never met before my wife said, inhaling the aroma of flowers. We all end up as Lear and I have written my will.
The survivors Old age is a strange time you have no future and tend to look back to what was is a dream.
How long does old age last?
My wife and I are closer than ever, but are we clinging to a life buoy of eternity?
I look at her, she has problem walking looks st me and we both think the same. So used you to each strength and weaknesses, how is she or she going to survive?
We have come to a point when our arguments are
a declaration of love.
The coward I’m I hope to go before her I can’t cope with the aftermath that can cause resentment that fester for another generation.
And in early mornings I touch a warm body listening to her gentle breathe glad to be alive.
Public speaking Usually October in Algarve is windy and rainy this year it has been sunny with some rain falling gently more like soft tap on the umbrella than a warning of things to come like snow and frost.
This worries me a bit is October being nice does knows something I don´t. This is not a poem more like diary of an elderly man´s phobias and one of them are public speaking.
Once in Paris I recited my poetry to a packed audience, full of Valium and whisky and I can´t remember a thing, my wife said I had looked elegant and deadly pale, poets are supposed to look like they are dying of consumption.
Later that evening I got into a rotten argument with an Israeli poet, it came
to blows and we were both ejected. Come to think of it now it was a cold, day in Paris. This October, however, suffers from a delusion thinks it is April and behaves like over make- up and too inviting tart.
But thought fly on wings of remembrance once I met a girl, in Antwerp her name was October, she said she was working and I told her my mother as working in a factory. Enchanted by my naivety she took me home to her flat, and three weeks later I had the clap.
An Alternative View of Iran Once I was in Iran the Shah ruled and his informers were everywhere. Then came the revolution, much blood, some of it innocent, into the streets. USA had kept the Shah in power and crushed democratic opposition when Mossadegh tried to tame the international oil industry, he was dumped and the dreadful Shah family returned to power. As a result of this radical Mullahs took power and we have to live with our mistake. Yet Iran is more democratic than Israel, they tolerate the Jewish community there and let them live in peace. Iran today lives under the shadow the threat of Israel´s nuclear menace, Israel will never accept any powers those are as equal to hers. It is odd, is it not the sitting Israel government is using the language of Nazi Germany before it invaded Poland. I t strikes me that unless we tame Israel and her excesses she will, deluded as she is, destroy the world as we know it. Yet stupid as we are we will be on the wrong side of this massacre.
Economic Theory A forest is beautiful to look at, it also has animals jumping about not being productive for our common good. So we chop down the trees and make timber, never mind the animals they are dangerous anyway; who wants to risk being attacked by a puma. On the cleared space we can build houses made of the former forest´s timber, this will give employment for many and that is good for mankind.
Tanka If there are no bees There will be no pollination Bees are plants sex toy Dipterous are not up to the job A bee is your survival
Tanka We created god And gave him too much power Mental tyranny Lucifer wanted power too Was expelled and made hell
The Unknown Photography The huddled masses came from Poland, and some from Ireland they were escaping tyranny and persecution. Worked at a beer brewery and the boss Is the man by the door pointing to a glass of strong ale in his hand. The workers lived near the brewery, as was the norm back then Before cars became common, they with their children are dressed in Sunday´s best for this sober occasion. The little boy in the front of the picture, has no trousers on, yet he was the first of the Kennedy clan and became mayor of Boston, and a rich businessman. The beer the brewery made was not to every bodies taste as it was Dark strong and bitter, folks wanted a lighter type of ale and
The business folded, yet its owner went to Texas and became a successful oil prospector. As for the rest few stayed, they travelled far before settling down, continuing their modest life as employees, sending their children to school and dreaming big dreams for them.
The Sober Mistress
She broke up with me I left and slammed the door, played pool in a bar and drank cold beer. Closing time I walked back to her house knocked and she let me in; had a bottle wine, I drank it all. Somehow she dragged me into her car, I can´t remember, she dumped me on the lawn outside my own house.
Woke up and it was dawn and bloody birdsong. Indoors, a shower and black coffee, I rang her and asked why she had dumped me, after all we had a terrific sex life. Yes, but after sex there was nothing more, all you wanted was to fuck me and when we did we were both drunk;
and the people in AA tell me I have to avoid exploiting men like you if I´m going to stay sober.
Hemingway and I.
I do not want re invent myself rather I would like to go back to what I used to be before domestic demands took my time, and dreams became like hole-in-one at a golf course. I had to work to support a family of four and wearing a suit, stole some time from family demands sitting in my garage looking at my car...should I escape this domestic bliss? Once my mates and I climbed trees I sat on an oak branch told them when I grow up I will be a writer. Now that I´m old I have my chance, but so much innocence has run into silt I will never be a Hemingway of letters.
Epigram When work is less paid than social benefits It is not the subsidy that should be cut. But working people should be paid more To make their labour worthwhile.
Senryu Current democracy Is the right of the wealthy To exploit the poor
Au pair women
Works impossible long hours And have few rights
Time of forgetfulness
He had been to my house often likes to come here, stay for a few days, because of the nature where he can walk along overgrown tracks and see how life used to be lived before. Now he could not find my house and called me told me the name of the cafe where he had stopped.
After a meal he went for his walk, but didn´t return and it was getting dark. we found him under an olive tree he was lost, nothing he knew before resembled the forest of dread he was in now. It took a while before he knew me and when he did he cried, the game was up he was slowly succumbing to Alzheimer. In the morning I drove him back to the town my wife was driving in
his car behind us. He spoke little and when he did mixed the past and present.
When we stopped outside his house he thought I was Dali Lama was flattered to be in his presence; we arranged for him to go into a home, but before it could be done he had a lucid moment and cut his life short, as he refused to follow the lane of the living death, a ghost that had no memories.
The Terror Late afternoon they sat on the bus thinking of a good meal and TV. A man entered knifed its driver and two passengers. The murderer dropped his knife in the bus and waited for the police to come, the remaining passengers stood outside and waited too, they cried and were cold. The ambulance came first, could do nothing; they waited also. Finally the police arrived it took them fifty minutes which must have felt as an eternity, arrested the man and drove him to jail. A deadly calm, a surreal scene, but why had the man kill? The mass murder Breivik´s crime was temporarily forgotten, killer in the bus was a foreigner who had lost all reason, had been told that his appeal to stay in the country had been refused. For this and to avoid expulsion he had done this. He´d rather stay in jail for the rest of his
life than facing going back to his godforsaken country. This type of crime, however safe one makes a country horror strikes as lightning. A river of blood, shed by those who just wanted to go home it leaves peaceful people stunned and fumbling for an answer.
Warning He was going home boozed A patrol car passed him He showed them a finger Was shot Police claimed he was armed No gun was found
The Intervention It was four in the morning when I awoke, been sleeping on the sofa, I was sitting there watching a TV that was off. Again I had ended up a place I didn´t want to be, a middleclass neighbourhood in Whitby, in a close that had the name of a conifer tree I shared a fence with a police inspector who wore tie when mowing the lawn. He had two silly daughters and a wife, who never let wind pass between her thin cheeks, a family who had reach the pinnacle of gracious living. I have so easily been seduced by nice houses, I came from poverty but politically belonged to the far left and the injustice of life was something I was keenly aware of and it never let me forget prejudice and needs. It was six in the morning I knew of a tobacconist that opened early rang for a taxi, at the shop I bought two bottles of vodka and a bottle coke thought that it would see me through the day. It didn´t go as plan coming home
the room was full of people; they were doing an intervention on me trying to make me seek help. Told them I drank because they were so boring being drunk was the only way I could stand them, their lying and false pretences: I rang a travel agency and left for a long holiday that is never ending. 15 years later living in a village deep in the Algarve in a house that once had been a stable, and I had rebuilt myself, with local help I got a letter from NHS offering me a place to go to get help for my drink problem . But I do worry about the bottles I left behind, who drank them?
We are ProtectedOn a tiny Island my sister in law And I made furtive love, we never spoke of it There are things one does not like to Be public knowledge. Intrusive cameras was yet to be invented.
Privacy is costly, without it life would lose Any appeal of daring. Lovers on a park bench being observed by Leering security guards, who might holler, Just for the hell of it: you can´t smoke here.
Senryu
The Western world Have succumbed to the notion Better safe than free
Unrecognized War Heroes
My father when he could afforded to bought a bottles of cheap booze, Found a spot at the park near the museum that displayed wild animals of Africa and other dramatic places.
The park was hunting grounds of people were fucking all over the place., and grubby money changed hands.
This didn’t interest my father he just wanted to drink in peace and forget the world. He had spent five years in the merchant navy during world war two, had been torpedoed three times the screams of the dying range in his ears.
No medals, no recognition he was just another flotsam. He ended life seeking the ocean, just another drunk falling into the sea,
Pegasus I saw a big plane coming from Lisbon airport flying high it was a clear night sky and I could see a horse flying beside the plane. Did you see that, the chief pilot said to the second pilot. Yes it is a Pegasus it delivers books to people who can´t read. The pilot called the tower, we are coming back, it appears something is wrong. The chief pilot lit a cigarette and the second pilot objected said it was not legal to smoke in the cockpit. The plane landed safely and the horse disappeared. When the plane was ready to fly again the chief pilot was not onboard he had been reported by the second pilot for smoking on the job.
Divinity Once I saw our blue planets from above yet I will not give you the impression of being a famous astronaut. As I said the planet was blue like a child´s toy and looked lovely in the nothingness of the galaxy. It looked small and vulnerable, peaceful too, and from the great high it seems unbelievable that any wars should be fought there Ok. So I had been invited for tea with god and he helped with the transport. On scones made of soft afternoon sunlight, he said he could not understand what all the fuzz was about and he asked me to read some poems to better understand humanity. There were many seraphs present Hitler, Stalin and an assortment of lesser dictators in their life time had much to answer for, but god had forgiven them. After reading my poems to harp music god asked me what to do, and I said use your power now because good people are beginning to doubt your existence, we have intellectuals who writes bad things about you . Meeting over, god gave me a plate of cream cakes made of cumulus- which I´m eating right now- he promised to do something radical that would make us sit up and listed, I´m still waiting.
They have Got Him Now War is a great adventure, every boy dreams about it. And writers of lies tell stories of sacrifices and great feats of courage. I have done it again being a place don´t want to be, sit seven floors up on a terrace and all I can think of is falling into oblivion. it only takes few seconds the air stream and the noise and the blessed silence. The failure of many failures and I´m living tomorrows and can´t remember the way home, the home of homes where I was born. The wrapping papers of gifts not opened how I can face tomorrow. My cowardice is the only thing left I can trust.
Pre dawn and the echo continues, this is not your world it ended years ago when you knew you are a ghost of childhood past. The boredom is absolute. Tomorrows I will remember home and safe amongst books that I once wrote I shall be safe and relive what I forgot. And wars will go on as they always have but I will not play a part of lives’ brutal carrousel. Seven floors up, in my house there are no places to fall.
The Loss of Innocence
At a school sports day I was running 60 metres, I wanted so very much to win, could taste blood didn´t quite make it but got a bronze medal, which I wore on my lapel with pride.
When I joined the merchant navy and when going ashore I wore it too; no one else had a medal like me. Girls in bars admired it and wanted to know why I had such a splendid medal. I could not tell the mundane truth being a compulsive story teller I spun a tale.
Alas, women are destroyers of young men’s pride they want to possess what they can´t have.
It was in Le Havre I met my downfall, she promised me heavenly delight for the medal, and I succumbed; the delight lasted a few minutes and my medal was forever lost.
The Strange things we remember.
There had been a war, my father came home gave me two bars of chocolate, which was a big deal back then?
When I opened the wrappers there were pictures of famous film stars of the day Hedda Gabler and Clark Gable.
Perhaps I get the names wrong it is such a long time ago.
Big white smiles in black & white, I kept the photos for a long time
And then as most things of childhood, they disappeared and were not seen again.
When I think of my father I cannot help seeing movie stars of bygone times.
Death at Dawn.
Eight o´clock in the morning Phone rang I dislike phones expect the worst You are fired! But the phone kept ringing I answered.... a voice said: your mother is dead. Went back to bed, trying to sink into an unthinking sleep. Took the dog for a walk someone told me it was Christmas Eve.
As it goes
Book burning Such great tribute A pyre for truth
Literary prize winner Revered and put on pedestal Till he wrote a poem Critical of Semites
Book burning is passĂŠ, literature That offends is removed From book shelves at the library And shops selling chick lit.
Senryu Looking for the truth Don´t trust your memories They always tell lies
Veracity confines Stops the spirit in flight Truth is existential
The Date. Sat in a pub talking to a woman of no substance other then she wore a skirt and had boobs. 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 seaman´s hotel she stood by a bombed out church and had damp hair. This it too absurd again I was a place I didn´t want to be. Money changed hand and my loneliness laughed hysterically
The Seer My mother was a utopian communist or rather a Marxist, she had only contempt for the Soviet Union which she called state capitalism gone mad. She believed only communism could bring about democracy where the people controlled the means of production. She predicted the globalization would bring wars, workers against workers, on slave wages. A world where the rich got more affluent, and material success meant everything. A world where workers believe in their own failure and deserve to be poor. And she was right. We are ruled by corporations and our freedom
have been curtailed, we are consumers in a world where even art is commerce valued for its sales potential and not for its beauty.
Chemist Shop At the entrance of the pharmacy a dead sparrow, no one seemed to notice this tiny death. The bird just lied there with folded wings and eyes suitable closed, ready to be put in a coffin. I told a shop assistant about it, she swept the bird with a broom, into the tall grass. There were many women inside, talking about none prescription medicine, for aches and pain, they were mostly middle aged and middle class and had not yet realised that elderliness comes at a price.... pain. Shelves full of revitalizing creams, promising a young glow and sagging faces bought this overpriced stuff, when a bit of olive oil on cotton swab would be more effective, but not smell as sweetly.
Food Kills This is a poetry exercise, write down what´s comes into your mind....lobster. What the Hell? A red crustacean on a bed of lettuce with lemon and mayonnaise sauce sprinkled with parsley.
Can one taste agony?
Dipped alive in boiling water unheard screams, a long tool to retrieve, white meat from claws.
Am I a surgeon now?
The lobster catcher is not guilty of anything he just catches sells them, but cannot afford to eat them.... He has a lobster pet at home, it is sort of brown and lives in tank, calls it Charlie but he says nothing, this trader of food for the rich.
Digits and Words. Manuscript page 100, a digit of colossal abstraction, standing alone, inconsequential, just another zero. When I was five I could count to hundred, stood by the window counting people walking by. It was a small street and not many walked there, so I learned to cheat, counting people twice. Sundays was especially difficult I had to count people three time, when I first saw them, when they were by the window and when they disappeared. Then suddenly I was six and could read, and count to thousand, but by then I lost interest in numbers and fell in love with words that could create visible beauty. But there is no getting away from numbers when my
first poem was published they paid me 5 coronas .
November Wind. November has till now been mild I had a window open suddenly a cold blast entered. I got up closed the window, which when a strong young seaman called a porthole. the top of the TV, which at the time, was showing a program The cold blast, unfamiliar with being indoors settled on of old people´s home and how badly they were treated; abandoned by a family for whom they had become a burden. I switched on the heating and cold air soon dissipated.
Today I bought 100 kilo of smokeless wood, it was a heavy going pushing the trolley to the car, a young man took pity helped unload the load and put it in the trunk of my car.
When I came home I sat down and cried a little, this is what It is coming to, 100 kilo is an obstacle and I have to buy more before winter is over. Freedom is the ability to move and be able to look after oneself; I fear for my future, sooner or later I will be a prisoner of old age, but I will not surrender yet.
Food Banks. There is a cloister up north where you can knock on its oak door and get food parcels. The abbot, a stern man, will give you food if you are nicely dressed, have a house, band are briefly out of pockets. If you are really destitute and dressed in rags- often of Roma origin- he will tell you no because your need is self inflicted, but you can, if not too lazy, go to the winter field and dig up roots; he will bless you and say you are god´s children, go to heaven without a trial and sit by the lord´s side.
If you are old he will also say no, because you have money under the mattress and only pretend to be poor so you don´t have to spend your own money, but he will bless you before kicking you down hill with gentle smile. Once there were food banks in every
town, but now they are hard to find and far away, this because the rich will no longer pay for you extravagance.
The Long Goodbye
When I quit the navy over thirty years ago I didn´t had the heart to get rid of my uniform, after all it was made of good cloth and of hope of going back some day? The uniform kept hanging there a silent witness of work, dreams and my lack of achievement. The call never came there was an issue of my instability, although treatment had been successful. Dark blue uniform silver buttons, three silver stripes on each sleeve, going to waste. By impulse I took it out from the bottom of my closet, put it. Oddly the uniform fitted, but shoulders were too big and my old frame could no longer fill it. The mirror told me I looked ludicrous. Put the uniform in a bag dropped it off in a green metal box that is there for poor people who cannot afford to buy new gears. And thus I severed
the last futile romance of a life as a seaman and officer. But how does one stop dreams.
Understanding Women
For women everything is about love- hopelessnot sordid sexuality, but I have noticed when a group of women happily talk amongst themselves and a man enters, it doesn´t matter the man´s age, suddenly they sit more upright stroke their hair and look disapprovingly at other women. You can go to an old folk’s home and the women there do the same, it is instinct. I´m watching, in Portugal, a morning show run by a woman called Julia she is entertaining and funny,
but when she has to interview a man she gets giggly and says silly things, this I think is because women think love and intuitively want to impress a man, who is blind to the strangeness of women.
Senryu Serendipity There are no masters of fate Only occurrences
A Marine Story It was an early evening on the Pacific sea, the skip was sailing with ease towards San Francisco, the cook was clearing up In the galley and the chief steward was down in the walk- infreezer making a list of food that was left and how much food he needed when the ship birthed. The ship shock violently it had struck a mine and the door into the meat freezer was stuck and the ship was sinking. The cook knew where the chief was, ran down to the store and was able to open the freezer door, they grabbed life jacket each and jumped overboard. Eerie silence they struggled to stay together, then the unholy scream from the ship as it was swallowed by the voracious sea. In front of them the raft used to paint the shipside, scrambled on to it totally shocked and exhausted they fell asleep. At dawn the chief couldn´t wake up the cook, an elderly man, this had been too much for his heart. The chief knew what he had to do, but waited till afternoon before he rolled the cook
overboard, curled up on the raft and closed his eyes, had seen grey fins and didn´t want to witness his friend eaten by sharks. The chief was picked by a passing liberty ship the day after and three day later, he walked ashore in San Francisco. A sliver of war´s agony, of no consequence, for its outcome of the except for the man who had lost a friend.
Lions of Freedom Two lion cubs, their parents were smuggled through a tunnel so the oppressed people could have a zoo. This little enclave that has shore lines, but cannot use the sea, which their tormentors claim for themselves. The lion cubs have become the hope for the future of people who, despite the tyrant´s effort to make their country ghastly as the ghetto of Warsaw; they shall overcome. The cubs will one day grow big and strong, break free of their cages when the enemy is beaten.
Love& Wine
How can I forget her, eyes green as spring water cascading down a mountain side in Norway. Her skin silky as a morning cloud in June and her laughter was like chuckling pearls of joyfulness. So much festivities, wine and song, it took time before I noticed anything was wrong. Rages; tears of melancholy, lover of the night
I became a spectator to a slow downfall. Eddy of too much living I could not go there I had my own demons to battle. How rapid her fall, a woman every man could have and I cursed my eternal cowardice. At her funeral I spoke to her mother we cried for a beautiful woman we both loved, but were not able to safe.
Animal Cruelty
Poor little pooches treated like statement of success like an expensive Gucci shoulder bag. They are forever being groomed in different styles according to their owners whim; shampooed, which every self respecting dog hates. Alas these doomed creatures are not allowed to grow up....Puppyhood forever. But even lapdogs grow physically older get aches and pains; crossly they even bite their owner’s manicured fingers. In fashion world the dog may no longer fit new trends. I don´t think they live long enough to get old, coat not shinning as before and loss of hair due to shampooing that rinses away the natural oil in dog’s skin; a vet will give it a fatal injection and be well paid for that. Canines are not accessories to be thrown away like an old handbag. Poor curs fated to a life that is unnatural and excruciating for them.
The Nuclear Issue. There they sit the high and mighty And their lackeys it is serious Business, who can have them and Who cannot have them.
How important they are these People who dare not think or whisper About the elephant in the room, yet It sits there glaring for all to see.
Confirm or not to confirm, we know They have it. Will this conference fail? Most likely, the enemy of a deal only Wants total surrender.
The Vista. It was a long climb up the mountain, cumbersome too I used golf shoes, bought in a second hand shop, which On reflection will not endorse, but it had leather uppers
It was tiring, yet had no choice it was my mountain, there were dark moment when I felt like giving up, but the alternative was melancholy of the uncompleted.
I finally made it the top had no snow and whirling fog made it impossible to see and hear anything but my laboured breathing and colourless wind of nothingness.
It the way life is, those on the top see little of what is going on, one has to go down to ground level to see and understand that love needs fertile soil to thrive.
Epigram The top stone, on the pyramid, is blissfully Unaware it is only there by good fortune. And is held up by thousands of other stones Those placed there to glorify the top rock
The Theft I went visit a friend of mine it had been a year since I last saw him when he had been at my home. He didn´t look glad to see me but invited me in, appeared nervous didn´t offer me anything to drink, and I felt embarrassed. He bent forward as to say something, but changed his mind. I made my stay short and he was relieved to see me go. I suddenly knew way, when he last visited me some money in an envelope on my desk, for paying bills, went missing; I never suspected him. I got over the loss it was only misplaced cash. Alas, he had not forgotten his theft and it gnawed on his mind and he could no longer bear to see me, like he blamed me for his fall from grace. Poor man if he needed money he could have asked me. As it is I have lost
a friend who is suffering in his own private hell.
Tanka Fifty years dead But the Kennedy myth lives on And historic lie Where truth dare not intrude Lest we lose our innocence.
Tanka
Respect your elders Mother always told me But where are they? Walking up and down the street I see no one older than me.
The System It was a strange little town every house were five storey tall and had the same colour, ochre. The houses were built close together, giving narrow, dark streets and no room for parks or green spots. The well to do naturally lived on the top floor and got some light, but it got darker further down and on the first floor and basement days were forever evening. The few shops sold plastic flowers, cheese, red wine, macaroni and a dark sort of bread that tasted of coal dust. Once this small town had been happy place, with tiny houses and kitchen gardens, but a new leader thought it too chaotic, it also disturbed him that there were so many dogs barking that he had them and cat eradicated. This was a sad town and its citizen had lost the ability to smile, but this ended when a horse belonging to gypsy trotted through the town and for the first time the people saw beauty and laughed, they laughed so much suddenly feeling free, that when their leader spoke they laughed at him too and later shot him very dead with
120 bullets. The town is empty save for some eccentric people on the top floors who hankered for the old system. People have built tiny homes just outside the town; they keep dogs, cats and horses.
Fluctuating Fortunes
There was a brutal dictator, a strong man, who ruled a unruly country with a steel sword that dripped of menaces and blood. For a while he was our ally when he fought a war with a country we didn´t like; and we helped him with weapon and intelligence. Yet there was another side to him, women were not oppressed under his rule, they could dress as they liked and seek the highest education. The Christian community too was accepted, and people could walk out at night in peace; but he went too far, invaded a country that was our friend. Well, we invaded and he was duly hanged and few tears were shed. For the women the revolution was a disaster, no longer can they go out without risk being shot for not wearing a chador and the Christians were falling over themselves to flee or risk being killed. That is the way of the world when there
is a upheaval the minorities and women have to pay the price.
Mystery Car I saw an old pick-up truck driving down a dirt road It was on the way to a farmstead. The car stopped it didn´t want to drive anymore. The driver got out, kicked the car and Slammed its door shut, and began walking back To the main road in a foul mood, and to the nearest Town to find a garage. When he got there the place Had closed for lunch. The man walked into a bar waited and drank a beer, Till the garage owner came back and they drove on A tow truck to the stopped car, but it was not there. They drove further down the road until they came To the man´s homestead, the car stood there with Engine purring softly. I saw the man kick his car again
Our Neighbours. In the darkness of the Ramallah night there is a light An ember of hope, as the world is lowly and begins To see that suffering is not one sided. There is fear on both sides of the eyesore walls one For losing what they have acquired, the other for losing The little they have left. The victors are sensing they are Prisoners too and might be on the wrongs side of The walls as they sink into the ennui of misplaced hubris
Semitic people they are both Moslems, Christians, and Jews, not fundamentalist in the rising tide of intolerance Both sides in the world of chaos can find common ground, They share the same culture, relatives lost in history. May they overcome strife and find neighbourly peace as The wind blows bitter dust in the Persian gulf.
Summer Love.
Her skirt white as silk billowed in the breeze of fragrance, costly as the boats in the bay, danced passed me a zephyr of summer love. Sky blue eyes looked beyond me and far; a ripple of contented laughter followed her. She wore an exquisite aroma of splendour, the holy who don´t know the price of bread. So white her smile, so red her lips.
She entered a Lamborghini, golden tanned its driver was, and she was hit by arrows of love She sat in her room, her dress crumbled, tears ran down her rosy chin, she, a seamstress with
a borrowed dress, had flown too near the sun, a butterfly with broken wings and lost illusion.
Chattering Plants.
The fig tree has lost its big soft leaves and looks like a petrified octopus in the middle of a nightmare. What the hell happened to the ocean? It tells itself”, I´m not ugly as almond tree, looks as rough hewn spider´s web that can´t catch any insects. I belong to the family of Moraceae and we produce the sweetest of fruits, we are the aristocracy in the plant world.” The almond tree heard this and said: “I will be a bride in February cast a spell of beauty on the landscape with my pink flowers. “ “Anyway, I´m a deciduous tree and proud of it, without my nuts - a hint of a giggle from the fig tree- you can´t bake a good cake. People ask for almond tarts, no one ever asks for fig tarts.” A sullen silence falls, then the carob tree, also known as St. John
bread, and bears fruit too; elongated, dark as farm workers fingers, judiciously says:” you´ll both be beautiful come spring.”
Revelation Woke up, electric pulses ran up and down in my mind, there is no death only passing from one dimension to another. This made me giggle for I sounded like those terrible preachers who tell the gullible what they want to hear. A new jolt of electricity, now listen to me, this is no joke you will meet your family there those you think of every day. I sing an Eddy Nelson´s tune: Castles in the sky, and get another jolt for mocking the truth, jump out of the bed the electric blanket is burning. Buckets of water, where am I going to sleep? not in the spare bedroom it has got mice.
Switched on the TV and waited for dawn.
Set the Masses Free. The mark of a society’s success is not the employment of it population to do mundane and useless work, but the freedom to pursue leisure. To sit in the park and read the philosophy and feed the birds. Eradicate work and set the people free. We pay people for making useless things like watering cans made of plastic, a work any robot could do. For this we continue to produce and deplete the world´s natural resources, for if we do not consume the world will come to a standstill, or so we are made to believe. However, those who produce our sustenance the poor farmers in India, Africa and elsewhere and regarded as the lowest of the low, are the true friends of our planet.
Senryu 4
Is graffiti A plague in our cities Or beautiful art?
Life in big cities Is lived on street levels Not in skyscrapers
Was Jesus Jewish? Has he got a birth certificate To substantiate it?
Most drinking holes Are on the ground floor Isn´t that a blessing
Who is a Prisoner Now
My back yard has high walls and is like sun trap, I sit here and get a tan in winters... the walls, cracked, need a lick of paint. I can see a map of Europe, lakes, rivers and open plains where wolves roam and hunt elk, and man shot wolves.
The map changes I now see the Caribbean and the Islands dotted about. When I was on a small tank ship years ago I had a chance to go ashore, visit and explore most of the Islands .... mainly I fear, my interest was to meet lovely girls, of what these Islands have many, and with a few of them swam in crystal clear waters of innocence. I also had the sense to see those pearls of Islands in early morning haze.
So many years ago, yet I remember Teresa, in Curacao, and that
is a great recall, as the Island itself is rather flat and has little to offer of beauty, its only claim to fame is a big oil refinery and the largest camp of prostitutes I have ever seen. Anyway the sun is setting and shadows erase my map, time to go in and lit the fire, but reminiscence of a time gone by lingers.
My Dream Woman
Teresa this silky brown woman her breasts surged upward seeking the heavens. Her hair, a cascade of ebony, reached to the small of back and down there, between voluminous thighs a honeycomb of lustre, not given freely to any bee that passed her way.
She called me a blond Viking – I´m bald now- and we sailed to St. Lucia to meet her parents. Wedding an no expenses were spared, but then disaster struck and I had leave. When I returned Teresa had married am engineer, and I said: how come you could do this to me?
Her answer was simple, the wedding was set and If the groom didn´t show up, she would be a laughingstock on the Island...
and that is why I never married and still is a bachelor forever looking for a woman like Teresa.
The Beast The monster appeared suddenly at the rim of the hill and looked like a row of houses holding hands. Behind the first row other houses pushing the first line down the valley, and the monster rolled over tiny villages, almond and olive orchards and goats.
Unstoppable and when the suffering people complained the world said: be patient do not fight back, but talk to the beast and find a common ground. What common ground do you mean, we have no more land to stand on.
A beast is like a cow in spring if no one stops it eating Her stomach explodes, and that is not a pretty sight. And those of us who cares about the muddled beast´s
survival has to try stopping its excesses.
Tanka They should not worry The poor don´t envy the rich All we want is a job A chance for modest education A waitress likes to be a chef.
Tanka Our democracy, Bought by the highest bidder, Is an empty word We do not need elected crooks We need a new Mandela
The Legacy Poor Mandela his life was over 3 years ago, but we didn´t want to let him go and he suffered greatly. What are we are going to do without him. Oh, fecundity he left a legacy for us to follow, he could do no more. He ended apartheid in South Africa and set us free. Only the illness did not die, finding no succour it moved to the occupied Palestine where it found willing participants for Its mad philosophy, which reads like an Ayn Rand novel. We must mobilize and eradicate this virus and once for all let humanity, the common people rule. We cannot sit down to wait for a new Mandela we must pick up his mantel and free the enslaved people of Palestine.
The Fake Counsellor When I was in my forties I was going slightly mad I was middle aged and had done nothing worthwhile and wanted to save the world from alcohol, mainly because I had read it was bane of the western world. I went back to school took evening classes and got stuck in and read about liver failure and brain shrinking caused by this grave illness. In the end they gave me a diploma signed by some mighty person in the business, and I got a job looking after and helping rich people to stop drinking, I had no empathy to those people who were there only for a rest. Knew I was fraudulent, a counsellor who is supposed to help people to stop drinking ought not to drink himself. On days off from this demanding work I drove for miles to find an inn where I could have a quiet meal with a bottle of wine. I was found out, my false mustachio fell into the tomato soup and I lost credibility and
was fired; that was OK. I was cured of existential angst and continued my voyage through life.
The Cavity I know of a man, who was digging in his field, he had seen China on a map and wanted to go there, and by his estimate China was just under his feet. It I was a cumbersome job and the hole was deep almost hundred feet... and then its wall collapsed- in a round hole there is only one wall- he was never seen again. For many years when someone died in the village the digger came, from it was said that so and so had gone to China. But wait the story of hopeless travail didn´t stop there.
There is legend in Manchuria of a strange man who suddenly appeared in a paddy field pointing to the ground looking for a lost hole, said he wanted to go home which was impossible. Digging a hole for yourself is not a smart thing to do, because when you leave the safety of what you once knew there is no
telling what you might find, a gold mine or a rice paddy.
A Common Ailment
Eleven o´clock in the forenoon I had been to my doctor and was going into the nearest cafe for a coffee, but soon the city dwellers filled the place with the smell of unmade beds, uncombed hair and the despair of lonely nights. The fresh bun I was eating absorbed it all and I could not eat it. Many people live in cold rooms, have no gas and kitchens are full dirty pots and pans.
Apathy sets in personal hygiene suffers, why bother? Sleeping in the same beddings for weeks, socks and underwear grimy and soiled, which results in fatigue
of the mind . Self-esteem is replaced by self-loathing, unless someone speaks up or bangs pot lids together their life will be short, empty of pleasure and light.
Loose Change...Anyone
Now we must be careful and pause not make Nelson Mandela into a Jesus figure. He was a warrior and peace maker, prison made him malleable he didn´t upset our capitalist system; we are free to sanctify him.
A magician who could read two sides of a coin before it hit the ground. How the high and mighty loved him he was not a threat to them, he smiled and laughed like he remembered a joke.
I hope he kept a diary so we can get a glimpse of what he really thought of these corrupt idiots who
throng his grave side and speak with fork tongues; o yes, they are very good at pretending; tears of born actors fall easily.
The Mare and I
Georgia on my mind, I remember a song the sweetness of America, I have never been there but once I was in Huston, Texas, my ship was there for repairs. I rented a car and drove deep into the countryside which was hot and dry Just like in a western movie, I stopped at a dud farm and they gave an old mare to ride. When tired of riding the mare and I walked side by side along dusty tracks and tumbleweeds and I thought of Indians who lived here and left no history behind other than baddies in western movies.
Both the mare and I knew while there might be historic changes and upheaval, human nature remains the same; it is about war and peace, love, hate and jealousy...and finally death. But not quite that, above all there is dignity and respect for life. Texas has a big sun and it was setting. “Home on the ranch� a song remembered. Time to get back to the ocean and admire the dolphins and listen to their song.
The Gays of India
In India gay people can´t get married and that is sad for those who think a ring on a finger is enough to utter love and loyalty. Liberal as I´m I ought to sign letters an express my outrage against the Indian government, but my heart is not in this battle of hysterical expression of democracy. There many inequalities, say, the plight of the Palestinians and now the dilemma of Negev Bedouins who soon will find themselves flattened by this juggernaut of harsh, unthinking quest for security and land; it will not stop, pause or think of a peaceful alternative. How to stop this blitz, this amoral action before it destroys both perpetrators and victims in an orgy of bloodletting. Then there is Syria, this intractable problem this can cast us into a catastrophic null point when someone will use nuclear weapon they profess not to have, in the name of feverish existential
survival. So the gays of India can´t for now get married, what can I say? Carry on fighting for your right, but do not fall into the trap to think the rest of the world thinks your problem is of outmost importance.
The Deception
Temporarily we drove through the night cocooned in its interior nothing could touch us here where asphalt and tyres made ductile, harmonious music. We drove past many villages half submerged by the night, yet spoke of peace, work is done, time to rest and let nature take care, and let dogs too given the right to bark at the pale moon.
A car overtakes blaring horn and laud music, Peace is shattered as shards of glass falling off a towering building shaken in the fatal clutches of an earthquake. Illusory life is, our hold is as puny as a baby´s grip on his mother´s thumb or
frail as an old man´s grasp on his walking stick.
The Curse of Seclusion The emaciated dog so lonely it sought company by looking into a puddle. Afar glittering street light It had been there seeking food and shelter, but had been chased away, even by those who had lapdogs. It heard step, an old man walking slowly bent down opened a paper bag and fed the cure bread crumbs. The dog thought “apparently he thinks I´m a duck, that´s ok, I´m so hungry and lonely it will have to do.”
What´s in a name
Mandela, What a lyrical name Fit for poetry and Group vocalising Wouldn´t it have been A pity if his name Had been Nikombo.
By the River. Souls are gathered by the river, light as seed of the dandelion they try to cross. Alas, some have too much ballast of sins not admitted fall into the river and float into the deep ocean of the forgotten. The lucky ones that make it across will next year be a carpet of Dandelion on green; be admired in summer sun, and thus new dreams are born.
Exploitation of a Name
There will soon be a line of ladies knickers coyly called Mindela, the sanctimonious will deny knowledge of this by those who care to protest? The Mandela name is gold dust and must be exploited before collective memories fail and a child will ask: Who was Mandela? “ Mandela! “Look up Wikipedia”, child. There is good wine made by an estate called Mandela´s, a relation that has the right to use the name. (the great man didn´t drink)
Mandela chocolate, sweets and black puddings, all that can help sell anything, like beer, or booze so fiery it will give you the courage he had- if not for long. I will write a poem just the way the untouchable man would have liked it, of irony and smiles free of bitterness of the years he had to endure
and still lose his name in the churning miasma of capitalism.
The Interpreter
Gently a flake fell past a window, the sign of winter, but the flake was made of soot yet was as perfect as one made of snow.
Snow has not fallen here for years, deadly crystal, blood diamonds, yet of icy resolve to eradicate us by volume and greed.
Flakes of soot, false snow made ideal by a fake interpreter giving meaningless lift to pompous speeches and sham grief.
Prologue January 1940, the water in the harbour was frozen The boy was two years old and enemy soldiers Thronged narrow streets in the small coastal town. The child seeing the strange soldiers had no fear, But he absorbed the alarm of the adults and cried. He remembers only vaguely this war, that have had So many books written about it, the loud noise Bombs made and the warm fire of burning factories.
And that was the extent of the boy´s war, he was Brought to a farm inland far from war and hunger. He was not to know the place of sedition and had Become a mascot for treason. Bullets hitting walls; Other soldiers came and torched the farm; peace.
Indistinct memories and the shadow of remorse.
Symphony for stringed Instrument Grey mist creates a smaller world the eye strains To see beyond the possible, where only the inner Vision can see the unseen for which it can´t blink Close an eye, or turn away from disgusting truths. Dull miasma dreamy as passing melancholy, turns Angel white burnoose at dawn, with a hint of rusty Harp strings, a whiff of green straws, full of tears That will be handed out to children under five.
Aurora, the Roman Goddess of daybreak, when Natural light puts night in a sack and throws it down A well where nights of horror dwell but refuse to Be still forever trying to escape its own darkness, Longing to be back in some ones head, pining to Be formidable and strong, but the day will not let it.
Cantata He stood there on a plateau that only had a tree, And since he had appeared from nowhere there Was no a past to be lumbered with. He sat under the tree mainly because it was Getting hot and the tree had big thick leaves and Beside the tree there was a barrel of cold water. During the day the plateau became shimmering He saw ponies trotting past like a knitted poncho.
Since he had no past only a fragment of a future Instinct told him they were going to the green vale That had grass, shade and a lagoon that reflected The sky, or was it the other way around? He sat there tried to visualise future where he didn´t Exist, but he failed, which made him human.
Sonata It was about noon and I had nothing to do, I had not written anything for a week, not since my girlfriend left me, had deadline an article for a magazine, they wanted something about sharks, like I should know, I had a pint of lager in a bar while reading the papers; and another one, perhaps more while thinking about sharks, my girlfriend and the deadline. I walked to the library to read about sharks. But they wouldn´t let me in said I was drunk. Please let me in I´ve to read about sharks; piercing library silence.
In the park I made notes about sharks trying to remember if I once saw shark fins while swimming in the sea off the coast of Trinidad, but I kept thinking of my girlfriend, so I picked some flowers for her and was promptly arrested. My editor was nice about me faulting the deadline and published an article I had written about Russian wolves, like wolves should know if they are Russians or not.
Old Men´s Greek Tragedy
They used to be radicals storming barricades. Now they renounce their youth And that is bloody sad To be ashamed of the best years when they had ideas Before the gloomy call of reason and degrees came Made them into middle class twerps, A member of the system they once fought.
The Miner
Mining dust in outer space exploited planets full of Holes and an eerie day, workers on strike. 10% ok, but nothing to spend money on except in the company store
The workmen´s shuttle has broken down it will take two years before a new one arrives with shuttle full of whores, which are a long wait for anyone to suffer. Long trek worker, been away for ten years now, children
moved away, wife has a lover.
But he has enough money to buy a car that needs no fuel, the neighbours envy him tell him how terrible life was in the years he was away...lucky guy waiting for the shuttle to take him back to wishful thinking.
The Question of Faith If al-Qaida likes to talk to me they can do through face-book as I’m too old to be a recruit to this splendid group who wants the western people out of the middle east. They see us as colonizers from Mars taking their land, teaching things they don´t want to learn such as bought democracy. For Arabs which have adopted the strange cult of Christianity I feel truly sorry, when we take our chattel and go back to Mars we have to take these lost people with us as they have no raft for them on the Moslem sea. There is a thing I want to ask al-Qaida and fundamentalists worldwide why is it that you religious people are so fond of killing us who do not share your violent god, but prefer to believe in the goodness of man.
The Bay Today The bay is green today like grassland a spring day moments before it´s invaded by cattle and cowboys with six shooters full of dust. Yesterday a tsunami struck filled houses with icy water, to day shopping is free you can buy whatever you desire but Persian carpets are water damaged. Angry water is brown as a hord of stampede cattle unthinking just moving forward unaware of death and its own impending destruction. Friendly and soft the bay is today, like a milk carton cow painted green to better be seen on supermarkets shelves that also have blueberry yogurt on display. A, this inlet forever trying to be apart from the sea, yet cannot stop a storm from spitting foam.
Epigram Days between Yule and new year eve Is a parked car idling outside a supermarket, where a shopper can´t make up his mind. No decision taken yet, has to wait
for a new illusion called New Year
Christmas Day Christmas day no ships anchored in the bay which has crested waves that turn into cream like spray when reaching sandy shores. The crew wouldn´t have minded that so much, as it is they are on ships that rolls and pitches endlessly in the Atlantic sea waiting for Yule to be over when normal trading begins. To day there are no revolts in Africa, and there is no war in Syria, because bad news has been suspended, but there is a movie about a carpenter trainee who became a preacher, but since I have seen the film before
I will go for a walk and try not to think of seafarers´ lack of sleep, or poverty that hides in the nooks of Cascais, a town famous only because a king once spent a summer there,
Yule Tide The day before Christmas it is a murky day high wind and icy showers. I see a woman going to work, head bent down in the wind, she carries a shopping bag and is on her way to clean a cafĂŠ or an office. She is unschooled, belongs to the class of people who are the first victims of hard times. She thinks about her children, the youngest one wants to be a hairdresser, and she has bought a set of hairdressing things for her. the wind blows hard like being slammed by her former husband, thanks heaven he is out of their life, a speeding truck saw to that. The office she is cleaning this morning will still be warm, and later when job is done she will just reach the shops before closing time, then home for a two days rest and looking after her children.
TV. Christmas TV channels are going mad in their hunt for happy Christmas tales, they have visited bald children in cancer wards, giving away presents, which seem to me to please the giver more than the receiver. Interviews with parents whose children soon will be dead, they try not to cry – for the children´s sakeand there is jollity wrappers hiding unbearable anguish. Today the dark side of the moon is not visible it will be tomorrow though, but then our compassion is exhausted by too much reality.