Elegiac

The hotel was empty no one the reception area
I walked upstairs and all the room where empty.
The restaurant at the hotel had a grubby air
like human activity swiftly fell on plates as dust.
I looked out of the window it had snowed and
snowy footsteps on pavements but no people.
Evening came early, streetlamps came on and
snow fell on the vacant road keeping its knowledge

I got a blanket from one of the rooms sat in
The foyer waited and had no clear idea what
the waiting was about, maybe a phone call.
Then it was morning her funeral was at ten
but this was not a day for a hearty breakfast
the street had people not sharing my sorrow.

Good for Some
Immensely hot day, yet no sun it was hidden
behind a ring of polluted air, a strong wind
came and cooled the landscape but with it
rein fell, thousands of them, broken bones
and crushed skulls, the poverty struck and
dogs had enough to eat...for now.

Then rain fell each drop was a bucket full and
rivers overflowed. Pots and pan left behind;
head for the hills was the cry, shivering people
eating frogs raw, cannibalistic ****** in a sea of
mud caked humanity.
The laps of the north were given compensation
for loss of income.

Clearing the Air

She rang said she was coming with the late train,
Since it was her birthday I had thought she would
Come early so we could go to a restaurant for
A meal and drink some good wine

The train arrived just before midnight, I was hungry
And tired of waiting, she was tired too, I had
Brought flowers, she thought they were nice and
Put them in the backseat of the car.  

We drove home, both feeling wounded; at home,
she made an omelet, I had a drink; later we watched
a TV show in aggrieved stillness. Next day we had
a big row and that cleared the air

From Face to Faith

As Christianity sinks into
ennui of middle class tosh
of an all forgiving God.

Zionists, claim the right
to defend themselves against
the people they robbed.

Moslem zealots are busy
blowing each other up
and playing the victim.

Atheists are hateful of
those who believe in God,
call them deluded.

Gun Play

They haven't got guns in heaven only toothpicks,
but God has got a golden gun given to him by
the producer of James Bond movies.
He toys with it just for fun when newcomers
arrive, but most of the time the gun is on top
of the Bible, he wrote once upon a time.
Not that he has copyright, he will be the first
to tell you, but with the help of strange people
who insisted he had spoken to them
Sometimes when God is alone, he put the gun
to his temple and click…nothing happens
it is all in jest, or is it? Infinity can be a burden.
Now, if you wonder about the toothpicks,
angels like to welcome you with a bright smile

For Fatherland

In a country to near the Arctic Circle
every new generation -men and women- had to
throw pebbles into a lake,
until the lake was full and you could wade over,
Alas, a bridge was built,
so futile the pebbles.
Now they are learning how to throw a hand grenade in Afghanistan
and draw funny pictures of Mohammad,
pity about the bridge.

No milk for babies

I have lost track of who is fighting whom in the overlapping endless wars
in the middle- east, but that is beside the point today.
I was standing in supermarket's till a woman in front of me had bought
a litre of milk and now she looking for loose change.
I was amazed she looked like human dairy; she could bottle her milk
in small flasks and sell it to health freaks.
In the vastness of her bag movements, it was her husband Carlos smelling
Like the inside of a purse
I always like to take him along when shopping and know where he is and,
He has got the car keys.

The Americans have been bombing again making sure there is no milk for babies
because they want to build that pipe gas line across Afghanistan and the Taliban
or is it the Pashtuns are saying no, from my home I see for me a giant in uniform
with a belt full of bombs bestriding the world.

Dogs on the loose

She was a frustrated woman two drunken husbands
hostile sons and a daughter who was sleeping around till
she got syphilis and ended up in a madhouse.
Lived alone she did with five dogs that obeyed her
she was their world loved her entirely as a religious
the person loves his God and asks no question as the god
feeds the spiritual need and thus fulfil them
Then it happened she fell on the floor and the dogs
sensing weakness went for her a frenzied attack biting
at her throat and she bled to death, the dogs dazed
ran for the hills till they were hunted down and shot.
They had broken the unwritten law; dogs are inferior
to humanity this is a pact that cannot be broken.

Grumpy traveller

We are eating breakfast at the hotel,
it has proper breakfast that is suitable for a diabetic person
then we will pack our bags; she will repack my bag
since I crease the clothes.
I will then watch TV and wait.
Then we will pay and take a taxi to the railway station
I tried to get the place in a first-class carriage, but they didn't
have any. I know the train will be packed by noisy,
Tourists who carry more luggage then they need.
The train has a dinner, but I can't drink any wine since
I will be driving home our car is parked at the station
In Faro; I'm not a glad traveller only do so when I must.
Near Faro ten minutes before arrival, I feel quite perky;
it is so good to be home after being away.

Alfred has Arthritis
Since Alfred, the man who strenuously denies
fatherhood got arthritis in his hands, it often happens
when it gets cold. He sleeps to noon take forever
in the bathroom before going to town looking like an artist
in his alpaca jacket and French beret.
He eats lunch in town alone never think of inviting me
and in the evening watches Bulgarian soap opera,
having him here has put a strain I'm thinking of sending
he at home didn't think it would come to that.
He sits by the fire I buy the wood, I will tell him he is not
my father and tell him to leave; perhaps next winter.

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 paper said.
Even Folke- Bernadotte's killing in the hands of a fanatical
Jew  was overlooked, they had suffered so much and
secretly there was a relief to have the bothersome race
shifted to another place
Were your hands, Pontius Pilatus
Communists and Fascist were jubilant holding hands
And dancing in the street. Now that we have Muslims to
contend with a minaret is not enough they want the lot,
the Jews are remembered fondly they were happy with
a synagogue, a school, and our banking system.
Return children of Israel you are fake Jews anyway from
a tribe in Tyrkia, and there is no blood relation between and
the ancient Jews it is a Zionist construction

A Flying Bagatelle

Through the open door
come flying
a sparrow grey
of no distinction
it sat on
the printer
looked at me
quizzically
the phone rang
startled it flew to the
window
caught in the curtains
I got it lose
carried the bird
to the door let it go
that was all
no epiphany
nothing mystical
just a bewildered bird
a ringing phone
and a magic moment

The Hummock
There is a hill behind the houses rounded and soft
I call it a -mother hill- and it welcome you and softly
Murmur, how do you do and leave you alone to sit
On a boulder and think how incredible life is.
If you sit there too long enjoying your sentimentality
It wakes you up the rock get cold and the northerly
Blow that has a fragrance of Siberia, reindeer and *****
So you walk about to keep warm and see wildflowers
Hiding behind stones, but pick them you cannot they
Are not yours will wizen in your hands and bring rain

Walk softly now the aroma of spring is in the grass.
Just behind the hill a hillock grey as October fall, but
Out of sight and no trees grow on it scrawny side it
The mother hill's burden which it bears with fortitude

Short circuit
Why do we do what
Logic tells we should not do
To punish yourself
Or someone else who will
Not know of our act
Of self-destruction when
Logic has been suspended
Still, the question remains
We can't explain it
The great “WHY.”

Testing Water
It began with a sign in a window have your water tested here, I knocked
On the door, they had meant drinking water.
Next day I brought a bottle your water is not drinkable they told me
I rang the water board the ******* water I pay for is not drinkable.
It has not been drinkable for 26 years I was told you foreign swine the man
On the phone said. Listen to me you **** I was in Luanda in 1975 when
The Portuguese army melted away and we from the foreign legion had to
Keep the population safe. SLAM!
Next day the water board came cleaned the cistern, the driver of the truck
Had lived in Norway for five years it was he said living with icicles 4 dead cat
Skeletons and a dog that still had fur on it head, I fed it and it grew a body
But the dog was not happy, when I took it for a walk it trice to tried to throw
Itself under a bus, I learned its name was Prince, one morning it disappeared
And was found in a pond having been dead for fifty year it preferred to stay dead
I understand that having tried to be famous for fifty years it is like waking up
And eating soggy cornflakes in the morning.

Daddy’s girl

Little girl spoilt
by her daddy
likes to be
a little girl again
life was safe.
Sugar and spice
and a few tears
when meeting
life's shadow
the dead of her pony
Daddy bought
another one
Joy tinged with sadness
love should not
be replaced so quick.
She looked at her daddy
eyes filled with tears
when he died
no new daddy would appear,
except of course,
she could fall in love
marry a man
who reminded her of him,
but it would
never be the same.

Flanør

I will not write word today
                                             Not on the blank screen
Perhaps on paper and pencil
When writing I feel closer to whatever
I’m writing about.                          
                                         Only my handwriting is so bad
I practically have to reinvent on the screen the poem
I wrote on a pad.
                                         I look long and hard
to find back to the feeling I had when scratching down
a letter, which is a form of conversation with self.
                                        Writing creates honesty
it also creates thinking I reason better when writing
                                       but, as I said, no writing today.

Farghana Valley
the splendour of a mythical dream.
The fabled silk route
snaked its way through here,
bringing new culture, silk and jade,
and no drones filled the night sky with fear
In this valley of ancient dreams
beautiful horses made the landscape enchanting.
Civilizations come and go; yes, religions too
Those who claim to have the key to the ultimate truth.
Our time will also be cosmic dust in the history of man,
but the valley of Farghana shall endure.

Family life

I ask myself what is wrong with borders well-defined places
with interior freedom and rules;
yes rules, the liberty to do what you want leads enslavement
break- up of families and chaos.
What's wrong with having your banking system and our
money of choice with a picture of a nationally famous, skier
and what Is wrong with discipline,
children becoming a little monster because we are so liberal
We talk about their right…what rights.
Look out of the window in any city what you see is flotsam
People who have no purpose a river of drugged people
Who never learned a thing?
What is wrong in saying a people can only absorb to fit
In refugees at a slower speed,
by all means, they are welcome
we need educated young people, in Europe were women
no longer care to procreate.
The glass ceiling is more important and men to think
their career comes first, and children are neglected
sent to a psychiatrist who prescribes pills knowing well
what the problem is.
But of course, we can say nothing and if we do, are
called  a fascist

French emancipation

French women are free, well-educated and elegant,
but spend much time to attract men.
Easy of virtue, yet frantically look to get married to
a wealthy man, who can free them of distressing liberation.

They will intellectualize their misery, see themselves
as Sagan Melancholic, ye yarning to me middle class
housewives worrying about the price of garlic, meet
other wives and talk endlessly about equality.

Yule and Monte Carlo

While I sit and watch circus Monte Carlo
and get annoyed by the undignified use of wild animals,
perhaps except horses, they are beautiful and dumb and get oats to eat after
the performance,
There is no peace for the Palestinians and their struggle to win
back their country and bullets sing through the night.
I watched a bland concert where Jerusalem was sung by three tenors
but having heard Placido Domingo, they didn't measure up.
Then the ads came on in Portugal they last forever, I fall asleep
and didn't see the clowns.

Alfred

Alfred, the pianist who is also my father
although he denies the paternity vehemently,
was in Hawaii and played the ukulele with
little success and went back to Europe.
Alfred the pianist and also my father, could
get the sweetest tones when he played and
women swooned in other men’s arms,
was when not playing of a rather sullen nature
he spent the day walking around town with
alpaca jacket end French bonnet, he looked ever
artistic and I followed him around; once when I fell
a bollard got in the way; he did help me up
and said; I'm not your father!
Alfred, the pianist and also my father, got to be
ninety-two and in the last years of his life was glad
to have a son even if it was a fake one as Alfred
was fond of pointing out

Be Nice to the Police

It was like watching me on a film clip,
surrounded by four police officers
one of them a woman who yelled at me
for not speaking proper Portuguese.
I stared at her with contempt
It was a tense moment.
A conciliatory officer stepped in.
No big deal he said, a little scratch the car
is insured documents in order
have a pleasant journey.
I have often wondered why female officers
are so aggressive, is it because they are smaller,
land compensate the feeling of inferiority
by being brusque?
I met one smiling woman officer once, black and
six foot ten, refused my offer to marry her so I could
feel safe, was married she said…so what!
Before I forget the rude female officer was standing
behind a car in the dark smoking a cigarette and she
was overlooked by the male officers

On my way to the pub

I was walking to the pub at sundown
when I reach my destination the last pink rays
on the sky was vanishing,
a promise of a sunny tomorrow.
On the road, I was overtaken by a horse
that neighed politely,
on its back, a crow sat using a foul language.
On the way back home I was late had
been playing poker with matches,
I lost a box.
I met the horse it offered to
take me home the foul crow hade gone.
I stabled the horse in the garage
gave it bread and water.
Next morning it was gone.
The crow sat on the window ledge
demanding a silver soup spoon and
an assortment of nuts.

The Culture
Cultural differences, I once was on a ***** ship
that plied the waters between Spain Italy Greece
occasionally France and sometimes Turkey were
most of us felt foreign; there was no easy rapport
between us and the female populace as there was
then a separation between the sexes, it appeared
there were two types of women; **** or nun, yet
I think it was the best years of my life.
Greece has a special place in my heart; it is where
it all began the idea of democracy of which I was
paid by the lovely people of Piraeus.
The western culture to hundreds of years to develop so
let us protect it and not misuse it by writing new laws
that curtail or freedom

The small words

“All that's mean nothing” not my words
but I often think about it, when reading the newspaper
I look for the no-news the filling of space
the news is often there and when **** flies they are taken
by surprise busy reading the headlines.
Being so wrong the want to set aside democracy and civil
behaviour the by- line has become a headline we must
demonstrate denounce the new from the stage or pulpit
by the pompous and incompetent
perhaps it would help to read the alternative press they
have less to lose and don't worry about circulations  and
no capitalist master to serve

The Domestic War

Everybody is dishonest your family too
They scheme and manoeuvre getting an advantage
My house has become a realm where
The aristocracy vies for power giving the wrong counsel
Trying to replace the old king
Now the chief counsellor his right-hand lady has openly
Betrayed him with false information
The ruler could have her expelled or ban her from his high table
He is weak, and the people sense it.
Giggling hyenas ready to attack the living corps
The monarch gets out of the bed call a doctor from afar
The regent becomes a vegan, his strength returns
He banishes the traitors and gets a new consigliere.

The Woods in January


I have a photo that has no colour, of
a forest and a black, wet road rolled out
as waiting for a presidential visit, that
will never come, trees have no vote.

This is not an old forest, the trees, are
winter dark with snow on, those near
the road, look like dangling youngsters
grumpy by enforced idleness;  

but there is a hidden passion, snow has
thawed around the trunks, intense root
touching, and sometimes unwelcome
groping is going on.

It isn’t easy to be a tree if one is placed
amongst siblings, and its roots can’t
touch a loved one, across the road, for  
the future must be bleak indeed    

Yet, trees can take comfort in its versatility
It can be pulped and made into voting
slips or made into paper on which poems
are written.  And you call that solace?

Misapprehension

On my way to lunch
Drove the wrong way
Turned and followed the car's
Silhouette
In front of me
Speeded up to join it
The car caught up with its
Illusion
And became whole again
Lunch at the café
As usual

The American Preacher

It must have been in the middle or late fifties that
a famous preacher was coming to our town,
a big circus tent was erected beside the evangelical church
to acuminate the throng.
This was pre-TV time, and there was no entertainment
except walking in the park and feed the birds,
this man's appearance was rock-star news.
He spoke fiercely in English and a person beside of him
translated; it was so odd many people were
in ecstasy hollered hallelujah, and prayed with the preacher.
He was a gigantic fraud of course, and my mother said so too
but she was a communist and disliked America.
Today, in a newspaper on the net I read he had died at ninety-nine.
Billy Graham was his name.

Rustic Morning
Still, early morning and coarse grass had stopped crying
But the carob tree was still tearful someone had broken its branch
The one that was easy to grab from the lane.
By the stone fence, a mule looked soulfully at me, so I scratched its
Forehead and we enjoyed each other’s nearness, while a cat chased
A rabbit that jumped behind some boulders where it was trapped
The cat came out with the dead animal in its mouth it dropped it and
I imagined it roared than began eating its prey.
Both the mule and I contemplated this rustic happening, we sighed
It began grazing; I walked my way saying: “see you tomorrow old boy.”

Last dance

They had danced to the dunes of a juke-box
dawn, they were alone except for the barkeep
he was asleep, leaning his head on folded arms
on the mahogany counter.
Soon the sun will shine, followed by the day
and they had to face the dreaded future.
Both were married but not to each other  
was love strong enough to survive the day?
They didn’t know the answer.
Just one more dance.
Hell is tomorrow with heartache and loss.
My god, let this moment last forever.

Film Set?
There were many bathers on the beach when a rusty
U-boat surfaced, a hatch opened a man came on deck
he was the captain and wore a German uniform,
a long white beard, sunken eyes yes, he looked weary.
The boat inched into the sand her captain jumped ashore.  
  He walked to the cafe to borrow the phone, had to ring
the embassy but, the number written down on a piece
of paper, was obsolete He sighed, drank a beer said
it was first time in sixty years since he had drunk a beer,
walked back to his boat. Full aft, the U-boat wriggled lose
of the sand bank, found the sea and vanished.

Tanka as a Poem

I have been outside
Nature is beautiful they say
It was rather cold
The sun, one euro polished
Clouds are the suns' flunkies

Inside looking out
Nature looks like fantasy land
You can't lure me out
The wilderness is insecure
And sometimes the wind blows hard

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

Good News Day

Yesterday and it was a long day I’ve edited poems written
15 years ago, spelling tends to let me down, but slowly I get the hang of it
Back from the ecologist, I'm cancer free and that is great.
I had hoped we could eat out, but my wife is frying filets of fish
that has been breaded and look like schnitzel no matter what you with fish
I still don't like it, perhaps canned tunny.
But truth be told – always? - I have to do the dishes when dining at home
the only good thing with hand wash the dishes is clean fingernails.
My mother had so much dirt under hers, it was possible to plant cabbage,
but not deep enough for potatoes; it is fair it was mostly tobacco as she
hand rolled her cigarettes; I tried to but got nicotine fingers it looked
like I had my left hand permanently stuck up my ***.
For the sake of the good news, I will not carp eat the fish and be glad.

The Last Joke
My friend at the old people's home was dying
the heathen had taken a sudden interest in religious
matters, especially the sweet parts of angels and
harp playing on a cloud, the dream of man, tiger
and the lamb was sitting by the lake liquid silver.
He grew, as he weakened, restive asked me to pray
aloud by his bedside, to please him I did.
“Please, God let Oliver be and angel and teach him
how to play the harp…amen”

A howl of laughter from the sick-bed that ended in
a cough, the old ******* had got one over me.
He died that same night with a smile on his face.

Cleaner Air

New thinking of
The old ways
Use horse and carriage
In the city
Faster than
A white van can
And for post delivery
Pony Express
Will do wonders
And the bonus
Horse manure
Is good for the roses

A blanket and a coffin

It had been raining for days, and everything felt damp
now the sun was shining the old man took out his coffin
from the shed, opened the lid and took out the folded
blanket and a pillow to dry it and take out the dank smell.
He sat by the computer and didn't notice it was raining
again, and when he did notice the coffin was full of water,
and the neighbours’ ducks used it as a pond.
He upended the coffin; it would take days to dry it now
hoped the weather would hold for at least three days.
The old man knew he was ridiculous, wanting a blanket over him
and a pillow to rest his head on like he, when dead, would notice,
yet the thought of it gave him comfort;
and that what's life is all about.

Endless is the Road
I have for some time not been eating boiled cabbage and it is
of not the slightest importance unless it has been boiled with
pork shoulder ham. I just say this because we had dinner at
a restaurant  for once I was not driving since  we were taking
the motorway  a toll road where all the crazy people assemble.
Big powerful cars driven by men who have not yet mastered
the mantra my driving instructor repeated: you drive the car it
doesn’t drive you.
I dislike driving on modern roads, they go on forever and I get
the feeling of a prisoner, a man who looks out his barred cell
window and sees only the landscape’s seasons but cannot touch
It inhales the aroma. I shall never be free of a past imagined.
I demanded she stop the car, I was going to walk home, a feat
I’m not capable of, I demanded a cigarette – we don’t smoke-
she gave me 5- milligram ******, as ordered by the doctor, and after
a break, we somehow got home.

The News
During
The Second World War
We had two kinds
Of newspaper in Norway
Mainstream papers
That was ****-dominated
Illegal papers
That got their news
From London
The ****'s tried to stop it
Said they were telling lies
Those caught printing
The real truth
Faced a long time in jail
As owning a radio
Was a crime
Today we call
The truth peddlers
Fake news mongers
So little has changed
Since the war

The Sin
It must be a tragedy to be a man and a ******* what
treatment is there for an unspeakable lust the forbidding
feeling, the dreams, the church which is a wrong place to
confess a priest is not viable he has to cure himself of this
ugly vice. Is it a vice for a child liker for him this is
the sexuality he was given it was not asked for a burden of
always hiding yet goes to places where children assemble
and from their young bodies oozes a newness like a scent
that threaten his social standing should it be known and
should he succumb he will be cast out loose his employment
the sneering people goading him and he will join  the people
of the night.

Resurrection

Then he died
As everyone must
And he entered a tunnel
Pink light
Like a boudoir
Sliding on soft silk
Well, I never!
Pity he cannot write
About it
Doctors resurrected him
They told him
He had smiled
So sweetly when they
Struggled to bring him
Back to life
Crucified
Surrounded
By Roman soldiers
Sigh!
His death had been so banal
A dream of a bordello

The arrival of the vermin
It has now been confirmed there more rats
then people in Paris, I'm thinking of the furry kind
that lives under floorboards and drainage systems.
They have come out from their hiding holes,
walk unafraid up to the centre of the city, sit outside cafes
demand to be fed; dogs and cats have fled fearing
for their life. There is way out of this; we take the most prominent rats
tame them to attack other rats; to **** them on sight.
This new breed of rats will become our pets
some will like them so much they will have
five or six, and of course, there will be competitions.
We will fear our former pets like we fear the wolf
tell stories about them and go hunting them to extinction.

Huldra

In a green valley near a blue lake
where pink salmon swam lived a Huldra.
She was beautiful as seen by human eyes
trolls found her ugly and rejected her.
I heard her desolate song
Saw her shimmering blond as Iberian
sea straw is made golden by the sun.
I saw her tail too.
Before spelling me, I sprinted away.
Folklore has made it clear.
Humans and trolls must not mix blood
because if they do mix, the offspring
will be rejected by both groups
and for perpetuity be lost
walking the strand of loneliness.

(Huldra, female troll in Nordic Mythology)

At hypermarket
It had and ice-rink I wanted
To have go
She said I was crazy
At an Israeli restaurant
I asked for Jerusalem food
They didn't have
The waitress asked what it was
Bless her innocent heart
It is a blend of Arabic and Jewish food
People starred
Apparently, it is no PC to say Jewish
People can be so stupid
No seats inside one can't have old people
Clogging up the place
They had seats outside where people smoked
I could **** for a ***
The day is darkening
My wife has gone to church to sing
And lit candles
Tomorrow I will polite to everyone
More polite than anyone else
As Trump might say  
When I'm ninety, I will look back
And say: those crazy times
When I was eight-two

in Paris
A summer is over the night arrives with
unseemly haste, it was not a delicious season
too spent most of the time indoors
fantasising about  silky sand, the sun and sea
reading brochures of adventures in Thailand.
When I get to a new place, it never is as had
Imagined it to be, say when I went to Paris
I had in mind the way it was at the time of
Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and
Ernest Hemingway, instead it was just another
overpriced city, mind I found the birthplace
of Edith Piaf and the street had a patina of
time went by, so I shall not be invited to
a literary salon, but I got two collections of
poetry accepted at Shakespeare's bookshop
I’m glad I read their books, but I’m also glad
I never met them

A Poet is Amused

Now when we say good bye give me
a promise with your hands and lips
no, I didn't mean an apple.
Object
Plutocrat
Advocate
That has nothing to do with grammar.
Who said it did?
The first time I saw naked woman was a September night
she stood by the fire cleaning her private part
soapy ***** hairs
overcome by desire, I ******* fell to the ground
in someone else’s garden.
Poets are like ****** sell romantic poems and show
their filthy souls to anyone in need of a dream.
He goes to the nearest tavern and has a dram
and doesn’t let grammar get into it only wishes to live
in a society that ban full stop and comma.

Sleepless

O, sleep, why did you forsake me
I close my eyes will me to sleep
Nothing!
Better get up watch an old movie
A western one and you know who
Are the baddie and the sheriff
John Wayne is holding in his stomach.
The fake fight scene with furniture
That breaks easily.
O, sleep, why did you forsake me.

Lonely is the Famous

Once I met Cliff Richard, a sweet little man,
came into the newsagent and bought
a paper-broadsheet- perhaps that makes
him looks intellectual; what do I know?
He nodded my way, smiled, mind, he smiled
to everyone. He is a professional showman,
smiling for him comes easy.

He had plenty of hair, slim no unsightly beer
belly like me, and I was quite envious till
I noticed the cape of loneliness he wore.
Wished I could help moderate the desolation
that dulled his eyes when he briefly let his
guard down. Poor Cliff sits alone at home, sips
his own wine and dream of happy holiday

Goodbye Alfred
  I had not seen Alfred for a while, had been busy
selling off my donkey farm, with this down I drove into town
but couldn't find him and his flat had been rented out to others.
Found him in rundown old peoples home, four old men to a room.
What the hell are you doing here papa? Well, it’s about the money, he said but get me out of here. Alfred who had now accepted me as his son was wealthy his grandfather had been in oil, and he feared Olga- my mother-
Would take the money, had placed most of it in Portugal.
As he had given me the power
of attorney I got him out and into a posh private home for the aged.
Alfred look frail, his wavy hair was reduced to a few strands of
White hair and his unafraid, one could say arrogant, ways had gone
The home had phone number should he get worse.
The call came in his room sat Olga she embraced me called me my son, my son.
Sitting by Alfred’s bedside, I fell asleep only awoke
when a nurse said Alfred had slipped away, strangely Olga had disappeared also, but
in a way I was content, it had not been an imagination, they were real I had a family,
although it must be said that Olga’s vanishing puzzled me and the nurse said there
had been no visitors other than I.
Alfred's last wish was to have his ashes strewn over Portugal I hired a helicopter and had it done. It was a sorrowful time, yet I was
glad that my dreams had come true.