Philosophy Giants  

So here we are motley crew of Facebook writers
We rattle our cages spew our anger on the Persian rug-
In our imagination- but, in reality, spew against the wall
Of an Indian restaurant staying open late
Catching any passing trade.
We think we are so clever expressing words with flourish
While we are on dimly referring to Nietzsche, a man
So scrupulous he thought truth was his domain, and we
Refer to this man from the safety of our democracy.
The books we read,
pulling us in the different direction
seeking our ear till we think they speak the truth
“Let God be dead” in the philosopher’s day so daring.
Philosophy is only needed for those who can't let
Go, the end of life means nothingness.

Discontent
Dissatisfaction, perhaps I need a drink, driven by jealousy
they are so successful live on a green branch
of the new shoots of the tree, I saw burning on
                                            The pampas, I got sot on my hands.
Do I write because I have a talent or is it desperate holler?
from a man alone in a landscape, not his, and wants to;
                                              go to a pre- natal place or simply someone to talk to,
as it is I have the echo of Twitter and Facebook help through the long silence
before bedtime, I have been lied to, her daughter was in town they had
dinner and that is ok, but why keeping it a secret.
                                                 What do I know of the bond between a mother and daughter?  
                                                 I like to converse with to someone who speaks my language
                                                 Whom I can listen to or argue with if needed
A pity really they haven't got a speaking clock anymore, but
A donkey’s mental ability is quite clear first food 80 %, making
Friends is 20% and that is how they survive, yet you can never
get an *** to pole dance.

Adolf ******

My mother had an Uncle Adolf who after the war changed his name to Dollen. He walked funnily because he froze his toes off in the Arctic. The real Adolf was an evil phenomenon life throws
at us, but he didn't exist in a vacuum.
After the First World War which he fought with bravery he
nevertheless was a nobody trying his hand as a painter
selling them in the street of Vienna.
He became interested in the National socialistic party
attended meetings and was asked to speak.
His voice was hypnotic when he spoke of injustice
and the bad influence the Jews had in the society he was
a man the masses understood, but he spoke of hate.
His dream was of a greater Germany, but the Jews stood
in the way he wanted a race clean Germany and approached
the mufti of Jerusalem to take them he refused to claim
Jews would destroy Palestine. But for him, the Jewish question
was a sideshow he wanted to rule Europe and defeat Russia,
millions of Jews were murdered as were Roma people
and Russians. He lost the war we should be grateful for that,
in the end, he shot himself and Germany in ruin.
A mystery remains, who financed this ****** to commit a crime
we must not forget because if we are not careful, it can
happen again, and we see the inception of this hate in Israel.
(Adolf ****** 1889 – 1945)

There are forces

That tries to plunge us into a war
A super- natural energy
Who wants absolute power?
Enslave mankind to be sure
They cannot
Be challenged or obey any law
Their dark heart of hatred
Is based on lack of confidence
They envy our ease
Has an inner hunger that will not
Be satisfied
Before it destroys them
They cannot live
In harmony
With themselves
Or others
Are they of this world?
Or the work
Of beings, from another
Planet
Trying to look, human
Wanting to go home

Changing weather
There was spring, flowers and green grass, leaves
on trees , the lot, and I thought of immortality.
God has thrown everything at me and I had been
prodded by doctors who all had eccentric opinions
about my illness and I had survived.
I looked heavenward inhaled without coughing
and saw darkening clouds coming from the north
an incoming wind had the icy breaths of Siberia
and the rain came like cold showers given to boys
at the home  who could not keep their penises
just innocently hanging there.
I came home, was sent to bed, not for my ******
prowess but to stop me getting a cold; I thought of
Stalin mother liked him he looked so cool, not that
she would have said that it is me picking up words
from Facebook and I know how to give five fingers
not one, I used to give passing motorists; we live
in an age of overdoing things.
Tomorrow the sun will shine again I can go for a walk
and pretend it shines just for me, the winter had tried
a com back and failed

Underneath the lamplight

There was a time I danced under street lamps
The music was in my head and pole dancing
had yet to be invented
                                      I didn't dance in moonlight the sky overcast
                                     Or I was life sober and in bed
My jubilance over life sometimes tired me out
Even a clown needs his rest when not blowing
His trumpet and take his funny trousers off.
                                        I never dance anymore seeking no audience
                                       My stepping was better than Fred Astaire.

The Rising Sun
There was a place in Curacao not far from
the town of Willemstad you could stay there till dawn
when the ****** had gone to sleep and the pigs in
the ditch full of human detritus didn't grunt.
When the beer was drunk enjoy the cooling moment
of time well spent take a taxi out back to the ship look
back and remember: Campo Alegre (the happy camp)

How it is so insane

There is a hardening of empathy in the blood vessels
of the Western world has peace lasted too long, if we
regard bloodletting as a natural cycle like the seasons
and now it is blue frost winter in the heart of man.
We have always been killing each other, the USA was
born by eradicating the local population and indeed
in Latin America, the conquistadors killed 90%
of its people and now we have Israel repeating
the long history of ******; not to forget the Rohingya
people escaping being slain by Buddhists in Myanmar.
Now we see a crescendo of mass eradication of plants
and animals, the very foundation of human life it is as
we are at war with self, committing suicide in our quest
to dominate others and thereby us.
There will be no place to hide whether we live in a castle
or in a cave when the world is red-hot bullet hurtling through space, and there will be no history to tell.

In need
When I feel lost and in pain, I think of the armless man
who came into my café he needed a *** badly
Everyone looked up to the ceiling I had hoped a nurse
would stand up, where are the nurses when one needs one.
I'm no hero, but I helped and since he was armless
I washed my hands.
Later I gave him a coffee which he drank with a straw,
they were going to fit him with artificial arms, he wore
his belongings in a rucksack and he smiled to everyone
as ****** dared people often do who wants to help them
I hoped he would leave before he needed to evacuate,
but I should have asked him why he travelled  alone.

Elderly tourists
  In Alte, today buses were full of elderly people
  enjoying the fine weather, some wore shorts which they
  for the sake of good taste, I wish they wouldn't.
  Alte has higher up the hill a posh hotel with swimming pool,
but they weren't going there like me they had a modest
pension and preferred the cafes that sells tea and cakes,
taking pictures of the church and admiring the charm of
a small town tucked away in the hills before Alentejo begins
and away from the tourist traps by the coast.
I enjoyed the tourists’ gladness I used to be impressed by
by the same, but now that I live here the allure has become
an everyday occurrence that at times, bore me, because
with so few young people here, they mostly find work abroad,
the town may be petrified into a postcard.

The Talent

He often wonders where it comes from this need to tell stories;
there is nothing in his upbringing or schooling
to give a hint, he can hardly write it is a struggle to find
the grammatically right word.
He thinks of water trickling up from the ground running
along the stony earth on a mountainside, falling on a lemon tree,
beautifully yellow fruit, not for the roses.
Sometimes the well dries, little rain has fallen, the groundwater
is hidden in a deep cave and he accepts that,
the world changes, but he has always got the almond tree
while waiting for the sound of trickling water.

Grateful


The club was called the checkers, painted black
and elephant tusk, two middle aged Spaniards stood at the bar
talking to a hard faced barmaid.
The talk was amicable enough, but had an underlying tension,
something about lust and the price of love's pretence.
Two birds dressed, in yellow feathers came down from the loft
told the Spaniards how much they loved them.
The barmaid asked if I was lonely too.
No thanks, I came here for the beer.
My answer impressed she shut the club for the night.
In the morning I said: I'm sixty today.
she cried a little and gave me a milky coffee.

A lonely house

Waiting for someone to occupy it
It is facing bog land
And the farms behind
An old lady lived here she stood
By the window dreaming
About the man who had promised
To wed her
But he somehow faded away
Long after she died
People said they saw here in
Afternoon light
Waiting
As the house does now

Working class Poet

It had been a long day at the factory but
when there was a break he jotted down a few words
and during the day it became a poem- he always
had a pen and block ready words were so flighty he may
forget what he wanted to write if he waited too long.
Coming home told his wife
I wrote e whole poem today I think it's good
his wife asked if the poem was about her, no he said it was about a tree
the one at the entrance of the village.
His wife went back to the kitchen the slam of the door was sad.
The poet came out of his cocoon, said to his wife:
all my poems are about you, my muse with you at my side
I can't write about the old tree at the entrance of the village.
They kissed and made up they both lived long had good death
blissfully unnoticed by the world.

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.

Beware of Poets
Don't trust a poet' s declaration of love
it is the words he means, the turn of a phrase
you just happen to be there as he looks you in
the eyes thinking; I have to write down that
before I forget it
Sometimes he finds a serviette borrow a pen
writes down words you thought was meant for you.
Drinking coffee with you, he appears restless
because he wants to go home and
fill out the poem he composed, alas he is not
thinking of you but of a wider audience

Mare Nostrum
On the coast of Augusta, in Cecilia this wonderful sea,
the bluest of turquoise, transparent and I saw fish play.
Blood and bloated corpses have made the sea less pretty
and fish nibbles on cadavers of those who tried to cross
the sea to escape the lunacy we created in Libya.

A president short of stature but with inflated ego plus
philosopher idiot, two men were responsible this disaster
of a war just to get rid of a dictator one of them had lent
money of the other who should not be left out of his confine
of academia, he should have in hidden in a university writing
books only historians take a passing interest in.

As it is the impossible vain man get feted, all because he is
an intellectual and wears a velvet jacket and clean collars.
My old Mafia friend Thomas the knife, has invited me to
Augusta, I will go there but not swim the hazy sea, but we
will eat langouste, drink child wine and talk about the days
when philosophers and presidents left us alone to **** only
when needed and never the innocent.

Unforgiven

The house was surrounded by a tall wall that had broken glass on top
the gate was made of clunky ornamental iron and easy for a boy to negotiate
we did and took apples from his well-stocked garden.
The man had been a **** and was shunned by the public so in a way
Stealing from him made us feel quite heroic.
He, the owner, had constructed his own Spandau
Years later I peered through the fence the garden was overgrown
He sat on a bench looked up and smiled like he knew me, he had paid
a heavy prize for being politically wrong.

Not hearing

The old Canadian poet of Jewish ancestry
tall and elegant, wore his hat in a jaunty slant
reminded me of Alfred, my imagined father
the poet had a winning personality.

Remember the comma, they told me and write
about love, beautiful women and wine.

I used to wear a six-pence; Alfred made fun of me
learn to play the harmonica, he said
and leave your depressing poems; that was long
time ago before the Canadian was famous.

They **** Horses too

Spring 1945
a horse collapsed
in the street
of starvation
from every door, men in black
with long knives
cut into the beast
before it was dead
meat any flesh
would do
soldiers came
shot in the air
the black-clad men
scurried back
A shot in the head of
the still alive animal
The soldiers left
their officer loved horses
During the night
the civilians came back
at dawn
blood and gore
on thawing snow

Nothing

Two o'clock this Wednesday afternoon protected by high walls
the sun is too hot I will have to wait till three before going back
out sit for half an hour getting a tan, my vanity knows no limit.
I do not want to write today weaning myself of this feverish drug
this internal conversation argumentative as an old Jew I once knew
in Leeds.  I will think of nothing but sadly fail to stop this stream of
lava bubbling from its crater the smell sulphur of rejected thoughts
that will one day prove me wrong and plants shall grow.

But I stray from the subject thinking of nothing, what is it like? since
it can't have any shape, form, smell or colour. Get up from my
chair in the sun too quickly collide with the door and fall unconscious
into a void, so know I know that nothing looks like nothing.

Let the bear sleep  
On the sunny side of the road going down the hill
An almond tree dressed as a bride and I thought what will
Happened to you when the frost from Siberia comes  
The bridegroom will not arrive in time, and you will be left
In a cold church a vicar with a cold, and shivering guests
Fortitude I say the wedding cake will last to spring
Living in the corner of everything we hoped winter somehow
Had forgotten us but its rage encompasses the best
The nicest person and the apple thief with an ulcer
We are entering a new world that is highly dangerous whatever
We do we have to do a slow waltz and not upset the bear
An animal that does not attack but reacts to our aggression not
Wanting it to eat blueberries in peace

A Day of Reckoning


Forenoon, it had been raining during the night
the wizened winter landscape was now green
and amongst olive trees long-legged sheep grazed;
their pastor and, on occasions, executioner, sat on
a boulder casting dreams into the future; man and
beast, rustic peace, pity I hadn’t a camera.

On my way to the village to buy the papers, a sheep
had been run over by a truck, with its stomach burst
open and its content glinting in the sun, it was still
alive. Ah, you dumb animal abandoned by everyone  
it looked at me without any hope of deliverance,
so I reversed my car and ran over its head.

As the skull was crushed its eyes popped out, landed
in the middle of the road that now had eyes to see
with, the shock of this made it shudder a long rent in
the asphalt ***** black tears trickled. Quickly  
I threw the eyes into the thicket which was instantly
transformed into a field of tinkling bluebells.

From nowhere a road gang of small, denim- clad men  
with big hats appeared, they were badly paid lived
on road kills. Expertly strewing soft sand on blood, filled
cracks with healing asphalt, and off they drove with
their dinner. Empty road it had no knowledge of what
had just occurred, it was up to me to remember.

The summer Island
On the island in the fjord where we use to go bathing
there is now a bridge over, a parking lot and you have to pay.
There are toilets- no peeing behind a bush- and kiosk selling
soft drinks and cigarettes, asphalted lanes to walk on and
signs, plenty of them, telling you what you cannot do
Last time I was here with my aunt and her lover the island
had bunkers and rusty iron bits from a long bitterly cold war.

A marina had been built and had a restaurant but you needed
to be a member and wear a blazer with golden buttons and
a white sailor cap; they resented local bathers it was no longer
a place for us workers, they strive to make life better but end
up privatising what used to be free

Nirvana Beckons

There are times when overcome by tiredness
not because of artistic dejection one live and prosper on that
but to have one's old age pension diminished
and not being able to travel anywhere because the money is
has to go to paying another person's bills.
I lived in the illusion that in old age I would get help when needed
by family near, but I find myself burdened down by people
that are not of my blood, they tell me I don't care but without me
they would be living in the street.
I try to be free of them as a dog with ticks now is the time to escape
drive to Spain find a room it doesn't need a view wake up alone
not listening to a woman peeing in a ***
The freedom to die alone not have vulture watching my last
breath the machine showing a straight line, the nurse
who unhook the apparatus that served to lengthens the agony
the squabble about meagre belongings  
I know of a cliff near here it is smooth and I can see my Savannah
To be able to fly if just ones and welcome Nirvana

The Stroll
Walking along a long road in a 1950ish industrial park
high walls and closed down factories; dark brown,
And no green weeds in pavement cracks.
At the docks all ships had left, cranes stood in silence each one
ensconced in the terrifying loneliness of the soulless that knows
of no existence.  
I found the office I was looking for, needed someone to stamp
a document, it was empty I waited till light faded from pictures
of stern-faced men on photos on walls.  
This place had no real sunshine; a haze hung over here
making summers a pale affair, only in August did sun
penetrate drowning shadows in a white unpleasant light.
Outside, in the street going south, there were many me,
young ones, middle aged and some were even older than
I, which I thought was a good sign and secretly smile
For a moment I felt nostalgic wanted to look back, but
desisted we had, all of us, agreed that we must walk on
Never look back as the past holds a fatal attraction.  
sooner or later the road must end and open up to a vista
of olive and almond trees, lemon coloured straw, faraway
blue mountains and pastel painted summers.

Idle Thoughts


When I write of a rose should
I add the adjective beautiful
I have never seen an ugly rose. Therefore, all roses are stunning
But we can argue about whether we like red or white ones.
When I kissed her tender lips was
It since she had kissed a lot before?
I held around her waist tenderly- a new adjective- and she gazed
At me likewise well I'm not a Russian given to bear hugs.
Her ***** was like a fairy- tale
I ask you, not a moist ulcer then.
Fairy tales is about *** starved princess's with long hair in a tower
A prisoner of her father's idea of chastity and no knitting needle  
The curvature of her lower back
Struts out like ski-jump in the Alps
Petals falls of roses one by one and blinded by irrational by love
We see again after an operation cataract and daylight seeps in.
The road surface too potholed
No one asphalts my road anymore.

http://rochakpublishing.blogspot.in/2012/10/jan-oskar-hansen.html

Morning before daylight

The summer is waning, still hot
But daylight takes longer to appear
it gets dark earlier than a week ago.
The Twitter this morning is full
Of Jeremy Corburn, the fightback
Has begun and bless him for this
He is a great man dedicated to
To the people.
Should he win there will be a mass
Exodus money flying east or west
By birds of prey that had money
to spare by plundering the people.
I sent a poem to twitter about dogs
It drowned by other voices.
In our time, poetry is not on the agenda.

The visitors
A knock on my entrance door, I opened up
and seven people came in one of them looked at me
like she should be in love, perhaps she remembered
me 40 years back in time. The house had been rebuilt
the steps leading up to the second floor were outside
the girl when they marched out kissed my hand
and I thought: am I a pope now?
She looked like the Palestinian girl – unarmed- had been
shot by a female ****** who did this foul deed in
the name of her country she had been told  Palestinians
were out to **** them, the female shooter was defending
her blood dripping country.
I knew the six others too one was my brother
the other my sister and the rest old friends but none
of them recognised me.
The ladder up to the second landing was long I saw
them disappearing into a cloud closed my door I was
suddenly cold, went in and sat by the fire.

Dysfunctional Family

When we came to my brother’s house,
the family was out, but the dinner was
still on the table and warm, thought of
the mysterious schooner, Mary Celeste.

Slamming car doors and my wife’s shrill
voice had alerted them of our arrival

They were now hiding under the vines
that grew sour grapes, but were red and
nice to look at; the garden looked dry, so
we turned the sprinklers on before leaving.

Old man looking back in time


He remembers it well when the Mediterranean was
rich grassland had many lakes and the people
living there never starved.
A mountain ridge between Spain and Africa kept
the Atlantic Ocean away, but a seer had been on top
of the ridge and seen the mighty ocean, and felt the strain
of the mountain and took to warning people to move
upland; only a few listened and moved to Cadiz.
Earthquake, big fissure in the mountain keeping the ocean
at bay; it took forty days and forty nights, only a few people
with their chattel escaped.
The new ocean was now called: “Between Land Sea.” and people took up sailing,
trading and warring, later tourists came who
had no interest in the passing of time, and that is ok, I understand
that most goats ended up in Spain and the donkeys in Tripoli.

At the surgery

Here we are at the clinic's
waiting room,
a fat lady with bandaged big toe,
and an old man leans on his walking stick
he lives alone.

An ancient couple from the upland,
dressed in their Sunday best,
hold hands and look endearing,
a youngish woman who keeps rummaging
through her bag, and me.


Six pairs of feet in a slow shuffle,
Electrocardiography doesn’t
mend tired heart, only tells
us we are mortal

Alfred and the wilderness  

Alfred, who with the greatest of ease tells,
Me he is not my father and I went for a walk across chlorophyll filled field.
Alfred who is a musician and never ventures out in the landscape
saw some grazing sheep and wondered if they were dangerous,
no, I said they are sheep and born friendly
as God created them, to this Alfred called me a crypto-Christian.
A little Lamb came up to my father it was so sweet,
as only a lamb can be he lifted it up which the ewe disliked,
and it butted him in the rear.
Alfred was shocked, got up and demanded I bring him to safety
in the nearest town; never trust animals they are all out
to get us he said while limping to safer ground.

The Sea

Silent sea dark and deep,
on your surface, I skimmed
for years, feared you too sleepless nights,
mountainous waves when
my only defence was luck;
romantically thought that you had secrets to divulge
when hearing whispers in the tropical night.
Now I know it isn’t so
and that makes life sadder than it ought to be,
endlessly wet you are Saragossa ****, fog and
terrifying sharks;
like everything else, you suffer from advanced
pollution    
but when I hear the melancholic fog horn sing,
late in the night, I wish I were skimming your surface
again.

B&B

Vacancy sign, neon lit in the coldest blue,
cheap room, nylon sheets (easy to wash)
a wash basin, no doubt used as a ******.
commode with a mirror on top…Liverpool
is such a dreary place when it rains.

Lay on top of the bed reading Hemingway
I was boxer Olson the Mafia was out to get.
Steps outside I was full of angst
“Was it them?”40 watt pale light it was
getting dark.
I was only one step away to sleeping rough.

The two-timed

I know of a man who drove his wife to her lover in Faro
when it rained as she was afraid of the dark.
He waited in the car reading a paper when she came
out from the house of tryst she purred like a kitten,
he was happy too she would make him a good dinner
She died, the lover and the two timed stood by the grave
mourning her in their different ways and since they were
both alone, the lover moved in he does the cleaning and
lit the fire while the two- timed makes dinner and cakes.
Together they grew old and died in their sleep.

The Oppressed
Time is churning us in a mass of confusion
But something is forever the need to side with the downtrodden.
Two of my uncles, ordinary working class lad,
Spent time in jail and tortured because they helped the Jews
because they were in need.
Israel today doesn't want or any use for men without education
Help was not political it was just human.
When I see the endless cruelty committed by Israel, I take side
With the Palestine people and try if not by heroic deeds but by words
To help the oppressed people, not for a political agenda
But a human one.

A Sonnet to Women
I woke up one morning and was free of my intrusive sexuality
for years this was a problem when viewing glorious paintings
of women and not thinking about having them, the wonderful
statue of Venus didn't escape armless and helpless she was still
ogled upon by my eyes of unbecoming covetousness. Freedom
at last, I can now talk to women without  feeling a hankering to
see them naked committing immoral acts in my bed.


I love women I have a friend who paints women as they are not like
the dumb blond some want them to look. But beware they can be perilous
if thwarted and cheated in love, they can tell a man what he wants to
hear they are great in acting having been subjugated by men for too long,
they even got the blame when Adam and Eve had to leave the Paradise

The Oppressed
Time is churning us in a mass of confusion
But something is forever the need to side with the downtrodden.
Two of my uncles, ordinary working class lad,
Spent time in jail and tortured because they helped the Jews
because they were in need.
Israel today doesn't want or any use for men without education
Help was not political it was just human.
When I see the endless cruelty committed by Israel, I take side
With the Palestine people and try if not by heroic deeds but by words
To help the oppressed people, not for a political agenda
But a human one.

The song contests

I came across an apple tree it looked like
a child’s idea of this type of tree, big red
apples and a blue sky; when I realized I do not like
big red apples have farinaceous and taste
like they were dreaming of becoming potatoes
and not picked at by bird.
I joined my wife she was watching the final
Of a song contest, the finalist were two women.
One was buxom and belted out a song with full voice
the other one sang sweetly like opening the window
and letting a songbird and sunlight in.
The ample woman won, but we loved the sweet one.

Dresden

As the war was winding down
it was decided to bomb Dresden
It had no industry and had no military target.
the bombing was vengeance
Ten thousand people were killed that night
mostly burnt to death as the attack created a firestorm.
This was ******.
The killers got medals.
With the war on the thought was a dead German
is a good German.
I think this outrage prolonged the war.
It took years before the atrocities saw the light of day,
excepts India and Kenya, few knew Britain
could be party off mass ******.
The Albinos has been revelry to many carnages and
gotten away with it.
It is time for an apology to Dresden and her people.

Just before dawn

It is late at night, almost morning; the silence is as noisy as high
tide washing over the pebbled shore. Gloom hangs in the air like
a horse blanket covering a nag's rain-sodden back.

Tomorrow is the first of October; years have been piling up on me,
This quiet messenger of spent youth and yesterday’s ghosts I have
done my best to ignore, are back mocking me.

Dawn, a cockerel crows I hope my neighbour will **** it and eat it
for his Sunday lunch. The intrusive unvoiced is like watching
a black & white reel of my life, a litany of failures.

Sigh, I didn't get to meet Marilyn Monroe. This moment when I
Should take stock of my life, all I can think about is to buy
for the fire Monday morning

South Africa

The rainbow paled in South Africa
the end of apartheid has ended, freedom for all.
Not quite, the poor in Soweto are getting poorer.
The difference it now consists of white poor as well.
The new leadership behave like the old one corruption
and shade dealings.
South Africa is practically a democratic one-party state.
Or was democracy and equality brought on too early?
It takes time.
What is there to say when people riot and burn down
the places where they buy their daily bread and have to walk for miles
to buy milk for their children, other than an act of despair.
Big business is doing well, thank you.
But nothing has been done to alleviate the suffering of the poor.
The rainbow state has lost its lustre.
If you wonder why the poor ran amok was the jailing of Jacob Zuma
Despite his failings, he has an African heart, which the new elite, dipped in white culture,
failed to see.
He is the chieftain dethroned and Africa bleeds.

Life is a thread
When my aunt
Told me when
Mother
Was pregnant
With me
I was not a welcomed
Addition
Mother had been
Told skipping
Could bring on
A spontaneous
Abortion
She was rather sedate
Soon gave it up
I was born
There are things
We should
Not be told
I never forgot
But she was
Working class
And poor
Life or no life
The line is
As precarious
As a skipping rope

The Merchant seafarers' war

When world war two started Norway was
neutral but unsure which side to stay on.
The English thought occupying Norway
but they were too late the German army had
done the occupation.
The British sent a ragtag military force to Norway
trying to cut the country in half to stop further
advances but were told to pull out.
Norway had at this point a big merchant fleet
It was sequestrated and used bring good and weapon
for the allies.
This left thousands of ****** nowhere
to go those go tried to flee was arrested and sent
back as crew members of any merchant ship.
They the crew lived under a constant pressure
(one out of ten) never made it home can you imagine
how they year after year lived in constant fear
a tank ship full high octane for planes with the enemy
U-boats lurking about. When the war ended and
they could go home they were treated with indifference
like shirkers who had avoided the war.
These seafarers where heroes of the highest order
but the government ignored them, they let down the pride
of Norway, one can say without them the war might
have lasted much longer

Time.

While statues fall to dust and nothing is remembered,
we fear you not Ozymandias; it was a poet who brought you back into history.
Words survive the onslaught of time,
for each generation of poets words are written differently,
but the message is the same: Do not forget you are mortal!
Beauty and power are ephemeral.

Sunday Evening
It is getting dark but in the west the sky is pink
The setting sun is beautiful to look at
I sit outside the church waiting for someone
For whom the mass is important, a father is coming
Out with his little daughter, she couldn't sit still
She sees the sky and asks her father why the sky is
Like this, he says something, and she giggles
It is six o'clock more people are coming out of church
A couple of beggars wait by the door
And there she is her African face smiles she wears
Bright colours as always
I start the car, and we drive home in good silence

The bar

Red plush stools neatly at the bar waiting for opening time
last night had been tiresome
restless people getting up or sitting down
some had fallen off, and there had been laughter.
Now the silence is deep of those
Who does not care for garish colours and mirrors?
Empty bar smells of yesterday’s despair
speak nothing in particular and contains no memories

Failures' hiding place

I have done a lot of work even been an officer
With shiny buttons but never succeeded in the world
Of practical work ended up on my personal skid-row
Sleeping rough people look at you with contempt some
Ignore you other shouts hurtful remarks
Poetry is a good place for losers of the race here they
Dream, write words on paper build a shiny citadel and
Have the key to unlocking wonders.