Home invasion

IKEA, the Swedish furniture giant
Is invading your home
Wherever you go homes look the same
all in pine and is a blend of office
and living room
A mother has put her daughter to bed
she sits by a computer and works
(No men in the IKEA world)
No books clutter the space, bookshelves
are for ornamental use a place for toys.
on the wall some friendly print
purposely abstract and tedious
There is no individual taste in a picture
of hygge, a unipolar world, will we drive
a Tesla next?

SATURDAY MORNING

The alarm bell has a modified
Saturday tone
And I murmur
give me 5 minutes more.
A good night’s sleep
A peaceful morning
I doze off.
Give me 5 minutes more.
I get up, make a coffee
The good feeling continues
The world is wonderful
Until the phone rings!

The long life

The knowledge of living forever is already here
all one has to do is renew the old cells for new ones
once a year starting when forty or thereabout when
a person is self-sufficient.
It is also possible to renew cells so often on regress
to infancy and looked after by your son who is unable
to grasp he is changing his father’s *****.
Longevity has its own risk of how to live you can alight
from the Garston, bus nr 9 and be knocked down
by a car, the autopsy will show the person was not forty
But 110.
The best way to get old is to **** someone in Oklahoma
get 200 years in a padded cell be fed by a slot in the wall
and when the conviction comes to an end
refuse to leave the prison, your home on earth.

Meeting Van Gogh

The wheat field is blond as a German milkmaid.
Intense heat, in the shade of an olive tree
I saw a grumpy Van Gogh is glaring at me for
appearing in his painting.
My scooter is electric blue and doesn’t fit in.
Easy now, my painter, pretend it is a mule.
The vine, deep green or dark cerulean
soon bottles of liquid pleasure.
The road in your landscape is like a mamba
sneaking its way, killing rabbits blue.
The afternoon sun is fierce, sweat in my eyes
I fall among thistles, and Van Gogh smiles.

Body obsession

Naked, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror
and asked are you sure this is you?
I’m a fat man with ******* and a big stomach but legs
thin as twigs on the almond tree.
I have diabetes, but that is no excuse, somehow
I eat too much
90% of my food intake is vegetables, not potatoes
no rice or bread, no beer most of the time, so how
could it come to this when what I like is banned?
I like whisky mixed with cold water before bedtime
and now I wait for the health brigade to tell me
Whisky is fattening, bad for the liver and the heart
I will not believe you; too many lies have been told.
I’m body shaming myself. Pathetic!!!

A fine day in Cascais

A beautiful spring day in Cascais, the centre full of people
which I found a little disturbing.
We moved slowly on old legs like weather bitten barges
in a sea of jubilant racing boats.
It was warm, down by the sea, and we were overdressed.
My wife’s niece had the patience of an angle adjusted her
strides to our gaits, not easy I’m sure she is a picture of
healthy living.
We had lunch, theirs was fish, I settled for a Greek salad
no wine though knows from experience unless you by
a full bottle, the wine served individually in glasses tend
to be inferior to the residue of bottled wine of dubious taste.
We drank beer, and the healthy niece stuck to water.

Doomed is the river

Twenty years ago, the river ran 2 meters deep
had trout we caught with a net and fried over
a small fire with delicious fresh food.
Every year I have seen the river getting smaller
even in the winter rain.
Years ago, three children were caught by a wall
of water, their father was arrested, they said
he had fed the children to his pigs but not
a single button was found in the pigs, enclosure
The broken father was set free, and every
summer I see walking along the river’s banks
hope to find his children’s bones, there is none.