The Medal



I dislike bragging
Once I won a bronze medal
For running
Sixty meters
I wore the medal
Every day
Even when going to bed
Put it under my pillow
One day it wasn’t there
I think my brother
Took it.
It was found
Behind the bookshelf
Yes, we only had one
10 years later.
By then I had become blazê
Gold was the goal
I never got won anything
Since my day
Of copper coloured brilliance.

Byzantium

In August, the heat tastes of dust and desperation
the despot feels that soon a time will change
the power is but in the eyes of the general
The sun senses a mounting revolt, is prepared
will show no mercy but absorb the world in its inner core
where we can burn forever.
August is tired too, he the General gave them a lovely spring
and now the riff-raff is turning against him
The mighty oak tree whispers to the lesser trees about sedition
talks about democracy.
Stubbornly the sun hangs on, till battle clouds like warships
appear at the horizon.
His reign drowns in torrential rain downpour that will
destroy his life´s work.

August Promise

Every year I say, come August and I will go to Norway
but every you’re the flight ticket goes up, when mulling this over
it is suddenly, September wonder-full is the weather
of the sun, clouds and occasional rain.
The rain in Spain does not fall in my vale the lake is dry has for years
nevertheless, in September, there is a new spring
green grass and flowers more demure in colours
So, what, I hear you say, and I agree beauty does not need to be explosive
as we have had enough of car bombs and other colourful devices
killing people whose only crime is a lack of dress sense – a black bra under a white blouse
and tasteless golf pants.
Long walks for us elderly we look up and for a fleeting moment
Ask rather banal questions,
something told at bible classes we endured at school
“who created this wonder?”
God never gets the blame when storms sink ships, and there is landslide
volcanic eruption, not to forget the endless war the smell of cordite drifting afar.
We have the fallen angel (the devil) to blame for that.

War is Lovely

It´s a hell of a war, soldiers running between burning buildings.
It is a great war good for *** feel the strength running through veins
blood oozing out of bullet holes and onto the sand that is the other guy´s
the person called an enemy.
Was this their finest hour defending whatever they have told to defend
Wonderful war brilliantly red, and women dream of joining them
only to find they are out of place; soldiers will rather ******* in a fox-hole.
Glorious war, something the survivors can talk about in the park playing card,
name the buddy who didn´t make it out lost in reveries and full moon.
Do they see the green leaves on trees or the flowers; is it all death and ruined buildings?
Forever etched in their crippled brains.
Oh, I´m so tired it is hurting me, endless wars and commentators explaining the murdering
of the innocent according to what the think-tank pays them.
I long for the autumnal colour in Portugal, a place to heal the abused body so distressed,
facing away from the TV, screen that drips of blood or failing that of football boots.
To walk on old cobblestones and fallen leaves and remember that we live in a beautiful world.

Broken Dreams


Tonight I´m happy and sorrowful
I refuse to cry over lost friends
I´m drunk as well.
It feels good to up the anchor of sobriety
let alcohol give wind to my sails.
A clipper buying tea in China
not useless plastic toys.
Sleek, the line and the women admired me.
Let the clipper sail.
I don´t care; I shall stay and make love to you.
I´m sorry I left my Liverpool girl
I went to Brazil to harvest coffee beans.
Guatemala, I got there by chance
a beach and moonlight.
I have not forgotten my promises
one day more, just one more day.
The clipper sailed to other shores
I never got to write
The poem of my life

The Gazelle

I met a Gazelle in Marseille
she was chewing on my jacket
I took it off to keep her warm.
She was hungry, gave her my jumper
not enough.
In Marseille I was naked
She had eaten my wallet also

Buying a car

I have read and published some of my old poems
what I write these days is more about the everyday
Gone has the mermaid in the forest´s lake.
Sheep endlessly grazing and calling their shepherd
at the first darkening of the sky.
The sheep have lived in peace so long and fear
shadows dancing among olive trees.
The animals graze inside a fenced-in field for security
And for this, they have forsaken freedom.
I´m nonchalant, my dog too takes on the mien of indifference.
She has gone, but I keep her bones in a black bag
when driving around.
On roads covered by asphalt and decaying flowers on sidewalks.
Someday I will write a book of my deleted poems that are forever
circling in my mind.
Perhaps I gave away my best work to the cold stars.
Since you wonder about the title, yes, I bought the twenty-year-old car
It purrs like Walter´s cat.