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

Christmas Turkeys

It was long ago before ship - containers were invented
when ships were admired by their design and some were
unashamedly called swans.
A ship now is so loaded with containers it looks like Lego
In a commercial dam of contamination,
but beauty had to leave in the pursuit of profit
I was on a ship a “freezer” the ship was a gigantic fridge
and the order was to deliver one million turkeys to some
foreign troops station in Africa the Brits always have to
occupy something to feel great.
The freezing system broke down, the ship stank and we
had to scuttle and abandon ship, we rowed ashore and was
arrested they thought it was an insurance scam.
We're soon released and sent to a swanky hotel before leaving
In the morning the ambassador laid on a table for us it
was full whole fried turkey, luckily he left to go to a party for
the higher ups, the servants and cooks removed the turkey
and gave us a mountain of eggs and bacon followed by crates
Of beer. The ambassador met us at the airport to take farewell
The press was there too he was a man of enormous vanity yes,
we had enjoyed ourselves but not the way he thought a silly man
hadn't done his homework

Religion and a poet
When I was nine years of age I came to see religion
as a fairy tale and as we know the bible is written
by many scribes during a time, some of them were wise.
I like the Old Testament because it is full
of blood and thunder, the New Testament is a construction
a clean-up of the real thing making palatable for the squeamish.
I think the creator of our world as an overarching intelligence
that when the job was done left its way.
The creator is neither good nor bad for it has no interest in
the world besides creating it, so it is entirely up to us
to make the world a liveable place, alas, so far we have failed.
Mankind have dreamt of extending life long after
its natural cycle even if unseen by the pulsing living world,
that is how some transcribers constructed Paradise so
we can exist into the indefinite and beyond.
To be and not to make no sense other than easing
the fearful heart and comfort the transition into death,
at this point my thoughts were interrupted, my wife
came and told me to do the dishes

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.

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.

The Windy city  
Chicago a city by the Lake Erin
A blanket of white and the wind
Whistles between sky -scrapers
The great city is not what it used to be
Now it is like third world place
Where bullets whistle through the night
Citizens are no longer safe
Those who can move out leaving it to
The hateful and ****** pavements

I remember the 1968 riots and ever since
Chicago looks like an African city
Demanding and intolerant of other folks
Opinion and guns sit loosely in the holster
Of friend and foe

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.

The first Flower

The first winter after a long war was cold
but today the snow was slushy the beginning of spring
It was a poor street house had not been
painted for years, not much food and the ice was
reluctant to let go of its pale grip.
It was then I saw it along a wall of flaking cement
a small solitary, yellow flower the colour so bright
it blinded me it was like I had a moment of clarity
I understood and saw it all.

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.

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)

The Spell

Does pure evil exist or is made by the religious
to scare us and fall into the embrace of a god
that may not have our interest at heart.
It began a few days ago
when I noticed someone or something was
trying to take over my mind.
When parking I scraped another car,
I broke the mirror driving too close to a bin.
It was then I saw it, malevolent eyes
painted outside my house,
I looked up saw the shadow of Satan on a flagpole
his laughter echoed and echoed on my soul, but
I shouted back, called him and his imps ****.
I knew a spell had been cast upon me and took action
I painted the eyes yellow and green,
the water leak in the kitchen stopped.
I had won because my mind was much stronger than
the person who had cast the spell.

Too much Peace

A car stopped outside we closed doors and
Windows switch down the light and TV hiding behind the sofa
Knocks on the door we're silent
No one in a voice said, they never are we only want to read
The meter we have to guess how much water they use
I tried to get up; my water bill is high my wife pulled me back
It is a trick they want you to open the door.
This is what happens when you live in an isolated village
The peace gets so intrusive that ghosts appear at high noon
And the criminal fraternity stops robbing Jewellery stores,
Banks and so on, no they come to rob you my water and
Electricity bill is getting higher we have to move into the city
Listening to police sirens screeching down the street and
Know we are safe; of course it an illusion our fear is death,
Gets the best of us

The broken mind

In the gorge, near the river that died five years
ago and is a pale scar running from inland mountains
and down to the coast,
unheard words of lovers come here to die;
“I love you,”” Come back to me” “I can’t live
without you.”
Whispers in the breeze for no one’s ears but
the intrepid that comes here to conquer his own fear of love.
It is easy to get lost here trees are unfriendly
have thorns and branches snap
when you try to climb  to see where you are,
and wild beasts follow wait for you to succumb,
fall asleep so they can eat your brain
leave you confused, and rescuers will say:
“Poor man has got the Alzheimer.”
The stillness hears fearful screams, the unheard
last effort before sinking into silence

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.

Driving home
Driving back to Algarve we took the long road
more cafés and restaurants by the roadside and not
so many crazy drivers.
The restaurants were full of Portuguese people on vacation
they like their lunch in this country
Grilled chicken
Grilled meat
Grille the unspeakable innards
Stewed meat
Bacalao with cream
Red wine
Fresh fish
Beans in its many variations
Water, cold from the well
The worst of the summer heat had gone good mood prevailed.
People talk in this country
at the same time.
The din of happy, eating people was symphony of summer time
a few weeks of freedom, the paying of bills could come later
I love this country called Portugal even when I’m in a hurry and
the women in front of me and the check-out person talk about
grandchildren.

The dreamless
Old as a ******* mountain
Bony fingers
Covered in parched skin
Between them, moss grows
Once they stroked
A woman's *******  
Caressed her back and
Held a firm hands on
Her buttock
In the night of love
He thought it would last
The kiss of desire.
Arthritis
The unthinkable
Is a reality
What is gone is
Recurring dreams
More pain in the long night
Paying the piper

War & Peace  

We agree most of the time war is caused
By capitalism, nationalism, in fact, any isms
Demagogues and murky propaganda
These entities can't fight wars without soldiers
And there are too many young men who
Simply love the idea of wearing arms and fight
They go to war the survivors are veterans
They know now they have fought for nothing
In despair, they take to drink and drug and sink
To the bottom of the human heap
Aldous Huxley spoke of something in the water
That takes the aggression away….Good!
Only one has to be careful not making them into
Zombies with no ambition to the point the world
Disappear in the morass of apathy.
We can't stop wars happening but we can try to
Prolong peace and make wars more infrequent.

Caballus

I'm a stallion
Once run for miles
To cover a mare

Tamed pulling a cart
Harnessed
I have lost the spirit

When the man whips me
It because he hates his wife
I think of hay.

UFO

I believe UFO exist it would be strange if they didn´t
considering the many planets in the vast galaxy.
I have not seen a UFO person close up with the exception
of my face in the morning before coffee.
The picture I have seen is always at a distance
and tend to be grainy.
Some people insist they have been captured by UFO,
analyzed and sent back to earth again presumable because
the UFO being found them of no interest.
The UFO world does not call us human but the strange
blubbery beings with a penchant for killings and fighting wars.
They, the UFO is petrified by us keep their distance
hence “grainy photos.”
Still, I believe the UFO people are a friendly sort all we have
to do is to stop wars, be polite and they will come to us
not necessarily in human form, and show us how it is possible
to move so fast through space and defy gravity.

Tanka
He died alone
what an amazing expression
we all do
your friend lets go of your hand
alone you enter Hades

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.

Humour?
Where were you when I was arrested at a public toilet for drinking
of a flask of brandy- the man beside me was a police officer out
to catch people like me who needed a drink to survive the tedium of
living in a provincial town in the middle of a landscape of cows

Where were you during the court case when the judge said I was
a disgrace, a plague on the backside of humanity drinking in public
Is a serious crime, the buffoon thundered threw the gavel at me
it hit a guard in the head he who was knocked out

Where were you when I had to run gauntlet of jeering reports
and people pointed me out in the street and a hush when
I entered a café, and the waitress refused to serve me coffee
you went to holiday in Spain drinking red wine.

A Reflective Moment
Now in my late seventies I have left behind me
any vestige of religious feelings, on the contrary
I think religion is bad for humanity.
Death is therefore not an enemy but an end of
conscious life. Then the process of degrading begins
and last till we are earth and the dust that settles
on books that never got read because the TV was
a bigger draw ones taste is decaying.

My lack of beliefs has freed me to sleep and not
worry whether I wake up or not I snooze like a baby
which has stopped crying and should the morning
arrive – I hope it will- and a new day begins, for
when you die the world dies too.

Was it Arizona?

Endless road, in flat landscape of shrubs and sand, no elevations
no distant ridge of a mountain, no coast and sunlight gleaming on
a calm ocean.
Trapped, I drove slower and slower, doomed to drive on this road forever;
the thought of getting out and start running, when I saw a few trees at
the distance, soon some houses too and a petrol station,
I needed to fill up the tank; the attendant wasn’t there walked over to a café,
where an old man sat reading his paper,
didn’t look up when the swing door slammed shut behind him
A fat black woman, behind the counter, was watching daytime soap on
an ancient TV  set
she turned and looked at me; I said: “coffee please.”
She gave me a cup and said “fifty cents,” turned her massive back on me,
continued watching TV. I looked and out saw the attendant, hurried out,
wanted to be sure he didn’t take off again; I never drank my coffee,
not that anyone took any notice.
The man looked foreign, and I said: “must be lonely living out here?”
“Yeah, but it sure beats living in Baghdad, the he murmured.”

The full moon
Is not showing off it shines
For no one in particular
For you and me and caterpillars
Climbing a tree
The new moon is growing fast
A teenager on the make
But when it nearly full it loses
Interest in the near things
And just shines
As it is the only thing, it can do
Reflecting the sun
The moon is a secondary sun
Trying to warm the night
Nevertheless, lovers swoon
And the werewolf lurks in the bushes

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

Night Rider  

I was riding around a pan- handle flat landscape
and as far as I could see it had millions of coffins, some expensive
others looked home-made.

The sun was forever going down but threw rays on white clouds
making them pink as a ballet dress on a girl painted by Edgar Degas
the ground was covered with sheets of black plastic which undulated
slightly in the mild zephyr.

The horse’s hoofs made holes in the plastic and up sprung bushes
that for long had been living in darkness; they were pale now but
would soon be greening by the setting sun.

I came to a small town where houses had false facades to make
them look imposing walked into a bar were Hollywood actors
was shooting each other take after take.

I found a bath-house after stabling my horse and in the tub
dreamt of crisscrossing this landscape of death till it became
green again hiding the coffins, perhaps then the night would
be full of stars and the sun that arose from the east

Epiphany

It was an incredible summer in 1950 the war was over things were getting
back to normal, mother's new boyfriend who worked at a factory had
a rowboat and paid holiday leave. A Sunday early we rowed to a small island
in the bay, mother had brought a blanket, sandwiches in brown paper bags
mostly jam I think and two bottles of soft drink, water and cold milk that sun
went off, and a thermos flask of coffee. The boyfriend gave me a line with
hook on told me to go fishing- telling me what to do is not easy not even for me-
in the shallow water near the pier as bait, I found a worm under a stone thread
the living thing on the fishhook.
the water was crystal clear had tiny fishes that looked like rainbows swimming
about I saw the sky….I was in a trance thought I was what I saw took a step
forward and landed in the water people came running helping me up back I was
in real time mother came running too shouted at me as mothers do and worried
about my delicate health. Rowing back into town again the boyfriend was grumpy
suggested I had fallen into the water to get attention I said little in my defence
how could I explain for a moment I had understood everything, but on the other
hand he could have been right how is a boy supposed to know

Equines
One really ought to start with the beginning only it goes so long back
That it is impossible to remember.
I remember being born but that was just an interlude, cold and
Unpleasant and being kissed by strangers.
I like horses though, but that has nothing to do with my inception.
But then was anyone ever born, we are just a part of a bigger
Broader picture where we but an unconscious number
But I do like horses and would have loved galloping across some
Grassland and jumping over brooks.
And now we have emboli fever which is either over-hyped,
Ten thousand dead by September or it is the new plague coming
To reduce our number ...and yet, and yet I would like to be a horse.
As I wonder if USA will ever be able to live for a whole year
Without starting a war somewhere

The Choice  


She was a lovely middle aged woman,
who mostly only shared her vanity with the mirror.
She is watching her weight
having the strange believe that a man does not like  
women of Ruben like dimension
nevertheless through her modest education she as
able to meet people of economic status as she had
the ability of sit on the greenest twig.
But she must pay the prize of living away from here nearest
In a town that makes her feel perturbed.

The Maniac  

This day has been one of great terror of the mind,
My illness made me hallucinate; my head was exploding
****** bit of brain everywhere
People are calling this a spike, me calling it a step-down
The ladder into the grave without the dignity
And around my grave, they will throw soiled napkins
The padre will giggle laudable and do a jig and
Read from a funny script, he is a stand- up comic
When not moonlighting as a padre.
She, the dictator of the domestic scene, tells me I'm
Hallucinating, me? One of the most normal people
I have ever known.
You only feel sorry for yourself, says the cake munching
Ogre, I get up, but my voice is too weak for words  
But I manage between heaves of fear of imminent death
To tell her of the wood I have carried to the house
I give myself another shot of insulin, wish I had a cigarette

I, a love story in D minor

I had loved you before you were born
I knew you were in the unknown waiting to innate
I adored when you were a child a gift of love
I looked after you in the awkward teenager years
I saw you one day before I stood the woman
I hallucinated, the perfection of my dream
I declared my love for you, and you said: don't be silly Don
I saw you getting married and I cried in the night
I hope you will put red roses on my grave
I love the colour of love

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.

The Odd Narrative

Steamed up window my finger I paint a landscape,
Mountain, forest and a lake; the peak cries into
                   the lake it becomes a vast ocean,
where trees, are made into wooden rafts floats.
Midmorning, there is only an outline left of the crest,
this will happen to Himalaya,
it will be a grassland on a plateau, where horses gallop,
                                   flying mane and all that,
since man won’t be there to domesticate and make them
drag bunk beds and kitchen stoves around the pampas.    

The rest of the world will have sunk into a big sea that is so still
it spends all its time mirroring the blue sky thinking it’s seeing
                                     is so deeply in love with the image,
that doesn’t notice the man in a rowing boat; he’s one time forgot,
                                     he has married a big fish
which he thinks is a mermaid, every so often he  puts his hand in
the sea and strokes the fish’s    belly: “without you,” he murmurs
                                    “I would truly be alone.”

Just writing

My copy pen fell to the floor I bent down to pick it up
Now I was dizzy the rook swayed.
I came here decades ago, and many pens have fallen to the floor
Although I use a word-processor.
Words are my crutches I lean heavily on them to find a meaning
And not knowing what that meaning is.
Just a vague feeling I lost something on my way to the stars.
I write at night now a steady hum tells me I have to make up
For wasted time, but my time of waste was a fun one
Full of women and sensuality

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.

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 unknown couple
Lunch hour a woman was coming out of a bookshop
dressed in a white blouse and a long black skirt.
She met a man outside he wore brown striped suit too big
for him and together not holding hands they walked down
a street that was dusty and had waste papers on a road that
had not seen rain for a long time perhaps never.
I wanted to know who they were and followed them
they hastened their steps rounded a corner and went into
a cheap looking Chinese restaurant.
They ate rice and curry
Washed down with coca cola
She held his hand for a moment
Was it love?
Or did she reassure him about an impending breakup?
I wanted to know their story
how they ended up here in third rate restaurant
spending the hour of freedom from work there and
walking in a shoddy street enveloped by sadness
and lost the opportunity or was I in an Edward hopper painting
I said to myself: I could write a novel about this but
as a poet, I'm too lazy to write one

Beer in a Bucket

The well is almost dry he could hear the bucket scraping
at the bottom and the bucket was only half full when
he brought it up, global warming was true, but he was
not sure whether it was caused by man or by a natural
The shift in the weather pattern, having read the once there
were palm trees in Greenland?
Once the well was full of cold, clear water and he used
to lower a bucket full of bottled beer down it and when
he hoisted it up the beer was cold; of course, he could
put the beer in the fridge, but it didn't have the sangfroid,
about it as everybody had a fridge.
He looked at his watch they were going out to eat she
said, not that he wanted to go out, people went on his
nerves, the good thing was the served cold beer, almost
as cold as the beer in the well.

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

Demise of my Horses

I had been a way for a few days
visiting the aunts of Cascais, and
found my stone horses gone.
Just three cheerless holes were
They had been tethered.
The widening
of the road, they said and for
that beauty must go.
If they decide to make a motorway
close neighbours will be divided.
Sun and rain, spectacular my horses were
before turned into grit.

From The News

The Italian Banking system is in a good shape
At the recent earthquake, churches fell into dust of history
But the banks stood firm
Catholicism is a relic bankers are the new cardinals but
The pope of capitalism lives in the USA, and rules firmly
The one in Rome is for nuns and tourists.
If God wants to win his flock back, he has to stop floods,
Tsunamis and other disasters, make the world cleaner
I think God has been caught napping
In the Wall-Street which now is the new Vatican there
Is a church showing off the wealth of the glorious past
Often paid for by the poorest among us.

When the old man was a sailor

When food was served, before cleaning pots and pans
the old man when young, went out on deck to see the sunset.
A dreamy that is if a tempest wasn't blowing,
gale in the mighty Pacific reduced the bravest to shivering gnat.
The old man was a cook not the loftiest type of work, whoever
wrote a book titled:” The adventure of a ship's cook.”
The old man, when he was young, got up early to see the sunrise
before frying eggs and bacon, not forget baking bread; and receive
the insults by frustrated, womenless ******.
But he was there in all the oceans, their tranquilities and fury,
what was left was serene evenings alone in his cabin read great
novels about audacious voyagers.

Down syndrome
It is like a landscape that labour under dark clouds
when I remember, the call I got from former woman friends
she had broken up with me because she was pregnant
with Dutch fellow from Amsterdam
15 years later she rang me -I'm old fashion do not change
my phone number often- the Dutchman had gone old and
returned to Holland, that his daughter was really mine
if I would come and say hallo.
I went to her house but wisely had my wife with me, my
“Daughter” was 14 and had the Down syndrome, a nice little
person who likes to hug and kiss people, I had no knowledge
whether she was my daughter or not and there is nothing
about this disabled child that reminded her of me except she
has diabetes.
I could have taken blood test to ascertain if it was my child
I didn't want to know the result, didn't want to be bothered.
My wife was angry said I was egocentric, so I agreed to let her
visit us for a few days every month.
The woman I had *** with, twenty years ago says the girl need
this and that, new shoes but, not bought at a Chinese shop
I ignore that and walk her about in the village as I did my dog,
stroke her hair tell her she is a nice girl,
but no, I can't get it into my head that she is my daughter.

The Tasmanian tiger

The last one died in captivity in 1936
and that was a sad moment for humanity,
added to the list of animals we have eliminated over the years.
The Tasmanian tiger was easy to ****. It didn´t know
how cruel we are.
There have been sightings of it by gullible people, but it is an illusion
based on regrets and unspoken longings.
I, also hope, it exists somewhere, but it is a dream,
yet I have seen the animal in clouds formation in the sky
forever condemning us for what we did.

Industrial decline

There were few oak trees left in the valley
they had been chopped down and used in the clog industry,
ash trees were tried to make clogs, but it gave
people foot disease, which manifested itself by causing
webbed feet; excellent for swimming but not for walking.
The Birch was tried, but workers refused to work with this type
of the tree, the clog industry went bankrupt as more and more
people preferred tennis shoes with a posh label.
The valley declined they went to Lisbon to find work and some
studied, became doctors and politicians, one can be both.
It was a Paradise for the donkeys that roamed free from the harness
and the pulling of a plough.

The Endless Road

I'm free today- my mind is on Christmas-
look at a map of Europe and Portugal
it is an old map I used when travel about, before
motorways made it difficult to navigate.
Once I drove from Portugal to Norway with this map,
It took a week but I got there
now one small error on a toll road and we have to
drive for miles to get off and pay for it too.
And there is no one around to ask for help
a café that sells cigarettes and beer and has a ******.
Only endless roads that have no story to tell
it is like driving in a tunnel without a roof.
Get me back on the old country road where
there is a chance to see a flock of sheep or a horse
grazing on a knoll in the afternoon sun.
Or perhaps I'm talking about my youth everything
was easier than even when life was difficult.

The Sentiment

Saw her in a garden, in a street where nice people
live, playing with other dogs and rolling on soft,
grass. I called her name she came to the gate
wagging her little tail; thought she remembered
me, but I was only stranger who knew her name;

she ran back to frolic with the other dogs. I have
seen her since in other people lush estates and
on beaches afar when the sea is calm and ripples
gently rinse grey pebbles till they shine as pearls,
but I don’t call her name anymore

The Christmas Present

I bought her silver filigree jewellery  
A modern design
It was expensive, but it was worth it
She wanted to see it before Christmas
I could see she didn't like it
I thought it was beautiful but had done
A fatal error it was for her
And not my taste in silver design
She changed it next day
For something she liked
It hurts me she did this, but what the hell
Next year I will buy her bijoutries
In a Chinese shop

The lunch café
I'm not dying to die, but I like to weigh less
To be free of this old body this harness of humanity
It was not always so I was young once
And made a drama out of politics and ***
In a way, I simmered down when reaching middle-aged
Then a wanted a daughter by didn't find a woman
Suitable, they were ti stupid, and I wanted my child to
Be a genius be, say a brain surgeon at 15
I met a doctor once we had much to drink I nearly made it
but she woke up and refused.
Then suddenly I was old had no future no higher grade
from the old people's home nearby they came and bath me
change wet sheets, tough women and that is ok,
they give me lunch not what I like; politely I throw the food
into the loo and flush than I drive to my café
where they know what I like.
Big table cloth down to the floor if Flora slips under there
and give me a blow-job ten minutes before lunch
it will be a perfect day