Sensual Haiku

With a lump of clay
Her hands erected a vase
Sensual flowers.

Experienced fingers
Squeezes the cow’s teats tenderly
A dreaming milkmaid.

Astonishment

The queen in her gilded coach pulled by white horses
Came gliding on the sea, towards the sandy shore
Where men stood waited to be knighted.

They had done their duty to keep their mouth shut
And averted their eyes to the state’s illegal activity
Now, payoffs a title and membership in a pash club

The queen came ashore, she had a white lion cub
In one hand and a hammer in the other hand
She hit the men over the head; they fell and died.

The queen, a Marxist revolutionary had been silent
for so long, now she was, old the truth had to come out
no horse carriage for her, but she kept the lion cub.

the video

He received a video from his distant past
he played the video to his amazement
people long since dead and forgotten
Walked, talked and danced in the street of his childhood.  
Eerie it was, he knew the people he had overlooked
where on the way to the future?
Later that day, he remembered more, why had he so beastly
To the little girl age, boys do not consort with girl
he couldn’t tell that.
At night the video became a panorama of past lives
he saw a truculent boy and asked why was I like that.
He knew the answer, as a child, he was abused
by the stigma he carried in his heart, suspicious of friendship.
He woke up, didn’t want to remember the past is dead
and can stay this way, nothing more to see.

Discovery

If you find a rusty nail you are halfway there
all you need is cabbage, carrots and a bit of meat
Soup is ready.
Genuinely made from a rusty nail.
This is also a way to write poetry look for an idea in the darkness
and not falling over tables and chairs,
This is an unfortunate mishap that occurs when writing
my eyes are old.
I have between my thumb and index finger a cork from a bottle of wine
from this humble start, I can conjure up a cool bottle of wine.
Jesus did it once when feeding the five thousand
when all he had in his hand was a slice of a day-old loaf.
Imaginary friends, I have many, can be helpful when remembering
their antics, and I can be absolved of sin.
Stick to a rusty nail or a horseshoe, friends are hard to find

the dance of the dead

Forever and ever
You will be my love.
Eternity.
On green meadows, he walks.
Held up by skeletons
On land fit for horses.
White cottontails
Burrows underground
To the bones of the dead
But they bring
Nothing up
It is not food.
Forever and ever
You will be my love.
Eternity.
The stream has clean water
Filtered through
Human bones.
Endless wars
In Europa has not ceased.
Forever and ever
You will be my love.
Eternity.
The victims
An inferior race.
Today it is
Palestine that pays
Red is the sand.
Peace is a world
The void of humans.
Forever and ever
you will be my love.
Eternity

In Kashagan
The silk road begins
I bought
An apricot
From a woman
wearing
A red shawl
Over her black hair.
A yellow dress
She was stunning.
Kashagan
Has the biggest
Outdoor market
In the world
Europe is puny
And far away.
A new silk road
Is being
Constructed
Pipelines and trains
Expanding trade.
that is ok
as long
as they sell apricots

For a few lovers more.

I was driving along on the car radio Rod Stewart
Sang” have I told you lately that I love you.”
Perhaps it wasn’t Rod but someone else what
Do I know about popular music?
Why do I find it hard to say those simple words?
I have practised in front of the mirror, like an actor
who knows his line but lacks imagination
I bought her a car instead.
That made her happy, she meet her lover
come back and kiss my bald head and say, “love you.”
thinking of him.
I met her lover at a party, walked up to him
and said “I love you for making my wife happy.
He was stunned into silence.
She stays home, I think the lover broke it up
because when they made love, he was thinking of me.
the spell, of having a hidden affair was broken.

A writers’ problem

The thing is this when you die; you can’t go back
and write about it.
Those, there are a few, who say they can are charlatans.
We can speculate about death or write a thesis about it
or we can write about near-death experiences
like if a bright light a choir singing soft songs to harp music.
The river of no return.
When driving on the long bridge on my way to Algarve
I think of the bridge falling, but it is always about survival
a story to tell, the one who got away.
Death is the ending of a book you read,
was the book a good read, or was it boring?

This is my Recollection

A salutation to mules, donkeys and horses.
They have disappeared from city life
but without them, no city could be built.
Without the beasts no them, no field to plough
we owe then our way of life.
The beasts were sacrificed in our senseless wars.
We remember them not that saddens me.
There is a hole in the ground, a dot beside an oak
where the mare of many foals stood.
I miss the sturdy beauty of donkeys and mules.
The aroma of their work is gone, and we are poorer
of the vision, we shall not see again

Tanka as Poem

I have been outside
Nature is beautiful they say
It was rather cold
The sun a polished one euro
Clouds are the sun’s flunkies

Inside looking out
Nature looks fantasyland
You can’t lure me out
The wilderness is insecure
And sometimes the wind blows hard.

I’m civilized man
Outdoor is discovery channel
Sharks and dark water
Nature needs a glass divider
Enjoying our inimitableness

Random Journey

Is the inception of a voyage the end of abstract nothingness?
Or the beginning of conscious life as driving to town buying the papers.
I remember a song, “Set sail at Sunset.” humming the words.
A red sun and calm sea, this not the crossing of Styx after sundown
ss it immaturity making fun of me again you can’t sail to Afghanistan?
I can sail there in a balloon and land where the Taliban shoots holes in the sky
smoke American cigarettes, we can drink coffee and have a natter.
The problem is, you can’t see any women like they do not exist.
It is like walking without crutches on a broken leg.
No one reads the “Guardian” in this part of the world.
I sit here and wait not for crossing any rivers but to sail the seventh ocean.

What you Like

I’m not dying to die, but like being slimmer,
be free of this overweight body, this harness of humanity.
It was not always I was young once.
In a way simmered down at middle age, suitable they said
balderdash, I wanted a daughter but didn’t find a woman
fitting the bill, they were too stupid, I wanted my child
to be a genius.
I met a female doctor once we had too much to drink
she refused to be a mother of my child.
Suddenly I was old had no future, no higher grade.
From the old people’s home, they came bathed me
changed wet sheets and said it was ok.
They gave me food I didn’t like flushed it down the loo
and drove to my restaurant, there they know what I like
and treat me like a man.

A letter of love
He is old, ten years ago he was old also
if lesser in years.
She is his niece, but love is like rain
falls where it pleases.
The Rain in Spain has nothing to do with this
as rain has nothing to do with love.
He wrote a poem about her long hair and sleek body
her dark brown eyes as well.
She cast her head angrily; what can he do a helpless mute.
It was not his intention to do anything about his love for her
dictated for his love for her.
Her indignity she was ashamed her uncle had had improper thought
he wrote the poem out of love.
She doesn’t ring anymore, the infatuation was abstract,
not meant to come to fruition that is not reprehensible.
Love has its rhythm like the ocean’s waves.

The soul of Christmas

Now that Hanukkah or Jul is upon us there talk about souls
floating about in listless bodies.
To believe that the soul is an entity a part of the body
is a fallacy the last bastions for the day-dreamers who think there is an afterlife?
The reluctance to accept death as an integral part of all life.
Graves are a gift to florists and those who steal flowers from graves
to make homes charming and festive.
So, what about the soul? does it disappear when Alzheimer comes knocking
one hopes the body will join the soul before memories are erased.

Unnoticed

Reading the papers and seeing the news on TV
the festive season has begun, like an eager blue tractor
little time for those caught up in wars;
We will remember them at the dinner table.
A woman received 8 million dollars in a divorce settlement
she had had aromatherapy worthy of a queen.
New knee caps worthy of Nefertiti’s found in the sand.
The divorcee can afford her hip bones if ever found,
according to the newspapers who live on rumours.
Archaeologists are looking for the ancient queens’ ***** hairs,
Now, that deserves big headlines.

Make it short

Soothing rain on slates
Heal nerves torn to tatters
Unforgiving is life.

Rain is decanting
A transparent carpet of silk
Untouchable beauty.

Rain chased by gusts
Mad dance around corners
A day fit for heroes.

The dread

He had slept too long hours lost
in a dream of deep dissatisfaction down a well of evil failure.
The depth had a silt of regrets and self- disgust.
Getting back up was slow progress
like an eagle flying in a vacuum.
Reluctant awakening as visiting death.
This time of the year makes him nervous it is called the festive season.
Christmas lunch.
Fake friendship from the nearest table by people who hated one another.
There was the beginning of an argument by a guest in his cups.
He had hoped it would last, truth even when not welcome, is delicious.
Dreaming by the log fire sounds romantic,
but he could only afford two bars on his electric heater.
Sitting in a restaurant eating third rate food was worse.

The Abortion

Morning broke in the Sea of Japan
the rainbow was off-colour
A day was born.
Incomprehensible
thought it had power
to charm us
When it was a reflector of the weather.
The rainbow couldn´t hang there
but it was erased by an invisible hand.
the day aborted
into hate and ignorance.
She was in hospital
there was nothing he could do.
The night was bleak.

Argentinian Tango

The night had been crying of icy tears on the window glass
I kissed the glass a thousand guitars played in Buenos Aires
the night Eva Peron died.
From ignominy to a famous mistress, it takes a high-quality ****.
Sentimental fools had lost an icon, a dream, a fairytale princess
who would give the shirtless hope?
She ******* her way to the top and said, all right, Jack!
A grand mausoleum where we can walk around and spin into a golden calf.
In time, sanctified, and padres will tell of her of greatness
the pope will give her sainthood and include her in his prayers.

Love is a pain in the neck

It was an odd week of lovelornness
he kept singing, “born to lose, and now I´m losing you.”
Perhaps it was an Elvis Priestly song.
He sighed a lot, but otherwise slept well.
He had been a victim of his ego.
The song in his head finally disappeared,
there were
So, many beautiful girls around that summer.
He sometimes sang the song “blanket on the ground.”
***** Nelson´s?
Does a sweet song beget love or is it love that begets?
a sweet song?

A Friday from hell

I was writing about consumerism.
What is the point when people get up at five in the morning?
buying tumble driers that use plenty of electricity in a country
where the sun shines nearly every day.
A new computer when they can upgrade the old one is such
a waste of money.
I'm missing the point people like buying shiny objects
like crows drown to the sparkly buying new yes, the newness is the future.
When most of the products are made elsewhere
it does little to stem the mass- unemployment in this country.
The earth minerals to satisfy the useless.
I hear you laugh derisively; he knows nothing.
So, you can have your black Friday, and black it is when loans are served
at the end of the month.
The people are fooled and seduced by capitalism,
therefore, banning credit cards, when paying cash, one is more careful.

Death from above 1953

My uncle
Was ******
Died in Marseilles
A pig on a balcony
Fell on him.
Mother said
He died at sea
When a mine
Struck his ship.
A likely explanation
That served
His widow well
When telling her
husband was
a hero.

Parenthood

My father hung in the belfry
so many called him father, but the old woman in the house where I lived
said he was my father.
When I met Mother superior, her eyes softened for a moment.
The hanging was an accident.
At his funereal, the bishop attended to stop rumours of suicide.
The old woman and I watched the proceeding at a far distance.
I did see the face of the prioress in the window
unblinkingly stern, but in the afternoon glow,
she had tears in the corner of her eyes.
The old woman cackled and said, she gave you to me to look after.
I had a silver cross on my bedside table.
The old woman said it was a gift in case I wanted to become a cleric.

The has been

He sits with his hand folded and unfolding
the only part of his body that moves
his face is in the shadow.
His eyes are watery and blank
he appears tired looking for the dream which escaped him.
Sadness cut deep lines in his face, that of a loser´s
a coward that never took the final step.
It doesn´t matter anymore; life cannot be re-lived.

They are coming to take you away, aha.

I hate corners know he will be standing there
A Parisian Apache, one leg resting on a wall
Of a closed-down factory.
Smoking Gitane a cigarette.
Sharpening his stiletto, cleaning his fingernails.
Or a farmer, stony ground fed up, takes his *****
and cut my throat,
A geyser of blood that will fertilize the floor
it could also happen walking home after an evening
at the pub, falling face down in a puddle where yellow welly floats.
It could be so banal, as falling when going to the loo
with a broken nose, no one hears the muffled screams
dying and not saying anything divine.
I have to buy a coffin it must be wide, sleep in it every night
wake up in the morning dead, with sunlight on my pale face.

The Foreigner

What does one do when your pension is small?
He lived in an industrial town in England not green and pleasant.
Rows of brick houses, a tiny front yard too narrow for a car.
He could not thrive here; going back to Sweden was out
too expensive he would need help from the state to hand him accommodation.
He settled in Portugal, a country he knew little about
low wages, and he could get by with his modest pension.
He bought a ruin, fixed it up, and had a home of his own.
He never learned the language, can go to a café, no need to speak.
He had planned to live out in his house, but elderliness and illness
stopped this dream.
He sold his house moved in with his partner,
she has a big flat
and he helps pay the bills.
Life is good, but when he closes his eyes, his thoughts go back
to his small house and a dog, he had.

Once Greenland
Had bananas
Monkeys sat in trees
Snakes in the grass.
Then it colder
The jungle vanished
Ice took over.
Yet
The Vikings
Did farming
Had cows
And root plants.
When it got too cold
They took the cow
Home
To Norway
In longboats.
The clime
Had changed
Now it is changing
Again.
Will, it ever snow
In New Delhi.

Arguing with GPS.

Pernicious words, hatred spewed in impotent rage
against the female voice telling me to turn left at the first roundabout
“Shut up, silly cow, I know this road better than you.”
“You never follow my instruction is it because I'm a woman?”
“No dear, it is because I know the roads around here better than you.”
  “So, you don´t need me anymore?
  “No, dear is no so when sitting alone in the car it is nice to hear a friendly voice.”
   Sobbing and soft music from the GPS.
  “You have to follow the instruction,” she said, sounding like my doctor.
   He got angry and said, “I can turn you off if I want to.”
   She said you will regret this when driving to Lisbon.”
  When arriving home, the voice said, “you have arrived at your destination.”
  For heaven’s sake, I know.

A happy ending?

A camel and a dog
Tired of performing
Every night
At a circus.
Escaped.
The camel walked
On top of it
Sat the dog
guiding the camel.
They found the valley
Seen on a map
In the window
Of a book shop.
They lived happily
Till the died.
The dog´s tongue
Stung by a bee
Could not swallow.
The camel died too
When the water
In the lake
Got brackish.

The Refugees
The west was a result of its constant interference and war in the middle east
has created the refugee problem we see in Poland.
two autocracies, one is Poland sliding into a fascist state
the other is a communist state Belarus.
Between the as a buffer, hapless refugees, freezing and hungry
waiting to be let into Europe.
The EU leaders are in flux, their incompetence is glaring
and their lack of vision is none existing.
The refugees don´t want to stay in Poland or in Belarus
they have had enough of tyranny.
The EU has a duty to open up a corridor for the migrants
so, they can walk to Germany or France or some other countries
all they want is work, bread and peace.
We in the west created this problem we which must come up with a solution.
It must be done now before we lose our common humanity.

Warped tree, kinked man

Today, I will not argue with Walter on Facebook or Twitter.
I was reading poems from my last collection and was surprised
to find an internal rhythm.
To my horror, I find Walter has unfriended me my friendly thoughts
burned into insignificance.
When I had a motorbike, I often visited the crooked tree
I said:” you look better today, my friend.”
The roots of the tree curled in bashfulness.
At the entrance of the village, an old olive tree they came with an axe
wanted to cut it down, replace it with a signpost.
I protested, so did the other villagers.
The tree is perhaps 500 years old, and we are not
brutish settlers.
But someday, people with no sense of beauty will axe it.

Sand in your eyes

Full moon tonight, a supernova to sound educated
last time was in 1948 when the catastrophe hit the Palestine people.
I was twenty at the time and believed what the papers wrote.
Even the killing of Folke Bernadotte by a fanatical Jew was overlooked hadn´t they suffered enough,
the Hebrew people it was a relief the bothersome people left Europe, the whisperers said.
Where are your hands, Pontius Pilatus?
Now we have killings in Paris and minarets, Europe has a Muslim
problem and no one dance in the street anymore.

Winter 1945

Shote in the night.
White faces
Snow fell
On cold bodies
Killing field.
I knew and didn´t want to know
Someone
Took me by the hand
Carried me home
Innocence confronted
By death.
In the night, I vomited
Must be something
I ate last evening.

The Good-Bye

We walked
To the railway station
Mother
Dressed in an old coat
Fastened with safety pins
waved.
She looked so small wanted to leave the train
Embrace her.
The train moved
I waved
As long as I could see her.
Mother was untidy
Hair
On the sandwiches
She gave me.
At the next stop
I bought a bar of chocolate.

It was love

I sat under a bridge
That crossed the stream
Small fishes
Nibbled at my feet.
Agnes came
My girlfriend
She often annoyed me
But let me
Kiss her.
She threw pebbles at the fish
I bit her arm
She ran home crying
Telling her mum
I didn´t love her anymore.
I said I was sorry
She showed me
The bite mark
Asked her to marry me
She said yes.
It didn´t work out
The age differences
Agnes was six years old
I was four.

Unseen danger

He was fifty- five living alone in a cottage
but how is it possible to explain how he came to fall in love
with a woman of forty and lose his dignity.
We must take a break trying to understand the human heart
or the circumstances of wished for the repellent.
He was a ship navigating without a gyro-compass
in the sea of deceit, this foolish dance of a human borboleta.
When he kissed her, his whole soul was absorbed by her like falling into a cave of endless pleasure.
His anchor got lost in the outer seas.
Suddenly it was over like a dream that ends at frostbitten dawn
a locked door, there was some else in her embrace.
Rejected, he pleaded with the unseemly nativity, had she relented
enrolment would never be the same.
He took his dog and drove up north had wanted to see
the autumn colours.
After a week, he drove home and began his life like starting
all over again, walks in the woods of sanity.

Agricultural words

I was writing words strung together
trying to stack them together and make a little story
not a poem that I don´t care to write
when the electricity took a break.
Not that I minded living inland this happens.
I had a killer ending and wouldn´t let the flame of inspiration die out.
Five hours later, the light came on; I sat too long
in the darkness, the killer ending forgotten.
As I said, I´m not a poet, a worker in the field of words
sowing and weeding, hoping for a good crop.
A farm-hand of words, I do my job and even unpaid
but proud of my cabbage and potatoes.
No, I have no orchids and roses.
Roll a cigarette, lit it and dreamily think of tomorrow
sitting on a stone fence built by heroes.

Falls flowers

On the road to Bolequeime on the way to a German supermarket
that sells proper Teutonic sausages as autumnal flowers blossom,
some of the blooms sit on white plastic chairs wearing shorts.
Sometimes a car stops, no, not a man in a white van, a big car a businessman
on the way from his office stops getting quick blow-jobs.
Best this way no need to undress an act that causes people to stare.
The human blooms have water bottles the gargle; no one here smells like rosebuds.
They used to, in the summer gone throng nightclubs and the beach
but only slow walking men fill the bars and beach.
Like a beautiful ****, they trek inland, sit by the roadside and wait.
The flowers look nice in fading light, but not if you know what love is.
the **** of autumn sits by the verge, sells despondency

Propaganda
  
It is a cold day, no more sitting on the terrace
watching ships sailing by and dreaming of the old days.
With little to do, I watched on Netflix about the making of the **** party.
Time was hard in Germany people were looking for a saviour
****** and his henchmen came.
Sig Heil.
Peoples’ stupidity never amazes me, believed the propaganda
the promises of a better time.
Millions followed him, this man without charisma, but he promised
to make the country great and the people unthinkably followed
to the bitter end.
71, million people in the USA voted for Trump his lies didn´t matter
people preferred lies even when confronted with the truth
they still believe he could lead them into a great America.  
Now we have Biden.
The new president has promised many sane things, yet he
is regarded as weak
He lacks the panache of the liar.
And he, being a member of the political establishment, is not able to cut
the head of the snake
because he is a part of what is wrong with America.
Only groundbreaking revolution of what ails the USA, but it must
come from the people and not highjacked by oratory charlatan, can remedy
this sickness of the soul.
No single person is a god;
we have to turn to the Christian faith, with all its fault finding
the compass to rectitude.

The Cashflow

Money notes like staying in a bank vault
Rubbing against other denominations, or shall we say socializing.
That is why I keep the notes in my wallet as long as possible
Dislike breaking up a friendship, as my pocket is warm, it is a sin to let them out in the cold.
Thrift has nothing to with meanness.
A stranger has no feel for the inner life of money
So, don´t lend to anyone who asks.
The teller in my bank is a fine man with caring hands; he thinks like me.
Counts the money slowly, often twice, before handing them over with a sigh.

Cop26

To Glasgow, they came the high, mighty and the good
tarmacs full of private planes.
They all agreed we have to rescue the world
But first, we have to sell oil and coal
We can´t rely on windmills alone it is cold up north
Norway is set to have zero emissions in a few years.
Norway will still export oil; they have to have an income.
Brazil will stop logging the forest but not right now
Perhaps in 2150 or sixty at a stretch 70.
I was not there at the meeting, but it appears no one
spoke of the benefit of trains reliable prized.
As it is train tickets – since trains are privatized;
cost more than taking a short-haul plane ticket.
I don´t believe that anything they said is possible,
That is because we live in a capitalist thought- sets
grows and income is more important than flooding
and the disappearance of smaller island states.
Nothing will change before we sit fishing for cod
At the slopes of Himalaya.

look-alike

my look-alike
was a book-keeper
I was one too
But got bored,
Joined the navy
I have not seen my look-alike
For forty years.
There is a mirror
In the hall
Tell me of times gone.
He has sent me a thousand email
But it feels like
I have sent them myself.
I want to be free of him
He occupies
Too much space in my head
But, the chain isis unbroken
It has roots stretching
Across the globe.
Finally, we will
cross the river together.

Big houses have tall walls hiding the guarded behind
keep the beauty for themselves
Insects have no problem nor have birds, and cats go under the wall.
It is about keeping people out of what once was their garden and in the shifting political wind they became expelled.
The expelled people do have olive trees if they are not set afire
by a people calling themselves “settlers,” an incongruity.
Sometimes the people on the wrong side of the fence
get their homes bulldozed; yet, they cling on despite degradation.
They wait for the wind will turn in their favour.
One day it will.

Getting old together

There is an unspoken acceptance you share in silence
No need to be entertaining you are boring if you tell the same story twice.
Yet, you do.
They say there is much to learn from soap opera, a lecture I can do without
we have two TV, and I hold my tongue.
She sits in the living room, I sit in my study
we meet briefly when it is time for bed.
We speak about plans for tomorrow and the coming winter.
A kiss of a good night.
She goes to her bedroom
I go to mine.
We live in a peaceful home; the only sound is the ticking clock.

Hunger and horses

Spring 1945
A horse collapsed
In the street
Of hunger.
Skinny men in black
From doorways came.
Long knives
Tore into
Shivering flesh.
Hyenas.
A shot fired
The horse was dead
The hyenas
Would return.
An officer
Who loved horses
Released
The animal
From suffering.

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