Brooklyn

Salt beef with onion
sandwiches.
Goat cheese made
near the wailing wall
The waiter
is a scientist.

Intelligent eyes
behind thick-lensed glasses
do not dare to leave a tip.
The burden of my ancestors
weighed heavy on my mind.

The chicken soup was excellent
I shan´t return
Before
Palestine is a sovereign state

parable sonnets

I was flying high, yet it was hot my wings tired
spotted a well flew down and sat by its side.
By leaning forward, I could see my reflection
in the clear water.
A dark shadow pushed me, fell into the well.
I looked up but, the evil was not there
and the sun was westward bound, taking with it
the daylight.
I had sharp talons clawed my way up to the rim of the well.
Night, evil sat by the fireside reading a book of magic.
I tore its eyes out, the scream brought thunder and hailstone.
The evil ran outside to cool the eyes he no longer had.
It fell into the well and called for help.
What could I do a bird with silky feathers?
I flew up to the sky, the scream of anguish bore the suffering of humankind
echoed through the galaxy.

The best weather

After a cold, dehydrated winter spring was declared
It made its entrance with torrential rain and thunder,
And so the bad weather has continues
In a way, it is not bad weather the land was parched
And the water level in dams dangerously low
For us people of the land, we know it is unpleasant but we
Also, know without rain the summer sun would burn
Everything to cinders, which would give temporary happiness
For the tourists but leave the country in ruin

How far is far?

To travel on horse and cart from Algarve
To Lisbon took days, but there were Inns
For a traveller to rest and stable the horses.
Not that many trekked from Algarve
seen as a throwback
From the days of the Muslims and poverty.
It was the British ex. Colonials, in the dwindling
Empire, who settled here; the Algarve is now
famous as a tourist destination.
I drove around, before motorways, with my dog
Portugal is a beautiful country.
On the motorway, there is nothing to see
Except for the rush of destination,
And Portugal is smaller than it used to be.

A horse
                       My faithful fjording
Go into toy stable the day is over
The little boy will come and stroke your neck.
When a boy is a man he will
Sit on the cart, but not load
It too heavily
And when you and he plough the field
He will give you rest
A slice of bread or an apple
If the cart is full
After shopping in the village
He will get off and help you pull.
When the day comes
When you are too old
He will set you free on a field of green grass.
He will visit you often
You will be glad and try to jump on ancient legs.
The day will come when you can't get up
He will kneel beside you and give you rest.
And when it is over
Man and horse alone
The man will cry for no one to see.
You will become a star and shine on the man
Who made you happy.

Suggestible me


I had ended up in a country with a strange pub culture
and obsession with the class which I found restrictive.
No posh pubs if the working class and not slumming it
if you were middle class, and the rich lived in Bermuda.
I was full of terror and uncertainty this world was
not of my liking to get through the day I drank a lot
mainly at home or in the park.
My new wife said I was an alcoholic and a nice man
from AA came and took me to a meeting where people
sat around a table talking about themselves and how much
they had suffered, while I am just getting out, was a full
of the terror of agoraphobia.
I suddenly had many friends, but they were mates only
as long as I went to their meeting, that over time became
repetitive like reading the same book a hundred times.
I stopped going to their gatherings went to the library instead
and spent happy days reading, but lost my friends.
Finally, after a nervous breakdown, I got much help from
a psychologist to confront my fears.
But I was never at ease in this country I left and is blessed
in Portugal where no one knows my name.

Forever lovey


The mannequin in the dark corner
of the shop shows bathing suits a la 1948.
She is beautiful in her own eyes
and made of Jade.
Dust on lips who cares?
Not a sultry type shows little interest in flirtation.
When the shop closes and she is alone
She secretly smiles and is forever 1948.

Rumblings in the night

I was trying to write the words on the screen turned
into spatter of blood, darkness descended
A woollen mass pressing me down, I screamed
Of fear and my brother came and laid beside me.
A young woman. who had been thrown out of her?
Uncle’s house came with a tray of bacon & eggs
I grabbed a piece of bacon, but the woman said
It was not for me but my brother because
He had been dead for many years and therefore
Must be hungry.
I went into a Chinese restaurant where the owner
Shouted “table for one” I don’t want a table like
To see the men” no need he said it is all the same
With different sauces “Table for one!”
I couldn’t find my way out; there were many doors
leading into coolers where cooks had committed
Suicide in memory of Anthony Bourdon.
Finally, I found a door out the led me to freedom
Where nature was unworldly and my brother
Said: did you know if you are on a spacecraft and
Pass all the planets behind you. The emptiness
Will turn into a purple fog and before you know it
Will you be back to your living room?
Table for one, the owner of the Chinese shouted.

Time lasts long in Portugal

Got up early had a shower and close shave
Put a white shirt on, bank people like it when
Their clients look prosperous.
My bank is in a nearby town I followed
The coast road has fewer cars a strict speed
The limit is vigorously enforced.
The bank was closed.
A man told me banks are shut on Sundays.

for contact: Jan Oskar. hansen@gmail.com

Senryu

Endless summer heat
In January when cars won’t start
I’ll dream of summer.

One by one
Rose petals fall like old dreams
Heartache is your name.

Whirling dust
On summer empty lane
Melancholy.

A new head
I walked on a hard earth track, but the earth shook
And turned into the silt, I sank into the mum only me
Head was above ground, after some time the raven
Came and gouged out my eyes, much later the fox came
Ate my lips and ears. They were chased away by the boar
Who ate the whole head.
As the soil hardened I was able to get up and as you know
We have two brains one is in the stomach and is
Rudimentary but well enough to guide me home, my neighbor
was astonished, “Have you lost your head’
He drove me to the hospital where I was fitted to the head
Of a newly dead person, and his thoughts were pornographic
And foul.  I shave this face every morning and tries to
Alter its brain waves, which is a bit of a job as he often falls
Back to his old behavior and swear at people.
Not tell people to ******* because they haven’t what you
Asked for, here the other day the waiter said he had
Only octopus with rice and ate it, went blind for
Half an hour while telling my new brain that too
Much starch is bad for diabetes and it tries do not follow
Its instinct, but adjust his food intake, of course sometimes
It forgets gets gluttonous and eats chocolate cakes.

The disgrace

She lives in a shack
five children,
the sum of five broken promises.
A TV station
gives her a bag of food
and a washing machine.
To help people in need is a duty,
but poverty as entertainment
                       is ****
                      to make us feel good about ourselves.

The exile
    No matter how far
    To the other side of the moon
     if you like
    Sadness follows an exile.
    Never at ease
    Thinking of what is forsaken
    Finding it impossible
    To find the way back home.

The lonely cabin

I knocked on the door of the small cottage
the window steamed up I drew a childish picture
faces of children, that when the sun came erased
the drawings and, I thought of childhood.
My brother had lived here, his children refused
gave the cottage to be a gesture of goodwill.
I knocked on the door; it fell in a cloud of dust
the cabin was empty a floorboard creaked in pain
unused being walked on.
I turned to leave, the door arose and blocked my way
I promised the cottage, a man from the village
will come and paint inside and outside I will
move in here with my dog.
The cottage relented, door and window opened
letting in fresh air and sunlight.

It is a plant’s life.

Up in the continuous night, I saw a streak of light
a dying comet’s last hurrah.
Bedroom in darkness couldn’t sleep too much death
for one night.
Got up and read a book about plants speaking
to each other.
Warning, “heavy-footed human coming your way.”
“Duck, a lawnmower is going amok.”
Amputated roses and tulips chafes in a vase kept
alive for a few days, admire the agony of flowers.
Carrots scream when pulled up from the soil,
good for your health the dietician says.
Everything we do hurts someone, especially plants
except a few that can poison you.
Is my dentist a gardener of my teeth?

Flanders

In the dawn over Flanders
Wounded horses move no more
And dead soldiers look small.
The stillness is fragile beautiful.

Soldiers in dugouts smoke
Eat from cans
Waits for another the fighting
To commence.

God sighs deeply
He had given us a free will
He had been rash
Regrets his frivolities.

Palestinian Chaos  
The dream interrupted
By the people of darkness.
Ramallah
A pink cloud appeared
God came out eating an apple.
The soldiers
Fell on their knees and
Dropped their weapon.
One soldier gave an old man
Ice cream
The old man had a brain freeze.
Mike Pence came declared
Palestine a Christian nation
Including
The province of Israel.
The pope moved from
The Vatican set up residence  
In Jerusalem.
Netanyahu
Was declared the snake
In Paradise.
Meanwhile the Islamic  
Kept being Muslims
Christianity
And Judaism
Was not their problem.

When I’m eighty-five

Once upon a time, when I was sixty-five
my hair turned grey, bought hair dye.
Blue rinsed looked like a stern teacher
of the type of women doing good work
among the poor.
She said she loved me, remembered
a song “when I’m sixty-five.”
We are old, take our love for granted
she calls me darling I call her sweetheart.
I will sing you a song when I’m eighty-five
full of cakes and ale.
I bet someone will say, who was the Beetles?

Chimbote Peru

I was a pilot on a transport plane when
it landed in Chimbote I worked for a small air transport
company “Vanilla Air” who accepted med despite
I wore glasses when waiting for cargo back to Rio
walked around the town. At a café, I met a well-rounded woman  
and sparks flew between us, she, Sophia was the widow
of train master who had accidentally been run over by his own train,
The pension she got from the state was paltry.
at the hotel, she told me her dream was to go to America and
I confessed my wish to write like Hemingway.
We had a few lovely days together, but then the company rang
the cargo was ready to be shipped to Rio.
The co-pilot had disappeared, and I had to navigate and fly solo,
the plane was old and overloaded it took long to get high enough
to fly over the Andes. (Douglas 47type of aircraft)
In Rio I had a few beers and thought of Sophie, a love story was
over there no sequel.

The great change
I have a mask made of plestic glass covers the whole
face to avoid touching my face, of the type dogs, were
not to scratch their ears.
Surgical gloves are must when going to the shop, there
is nowhere else to go.
I don’t think the virus is going away this year or next
we have to ignore it and walk in the park.
Go to the beach swim a little and sit in the warm sand
drinking a beer and hotly kiss a girl.
Either that or sit naked on the terrace waving my **** around
no that it will scare anyone, **** and *** into the town.
I can sing “they are coming to take me away” until the police
knock down the door and take me away.
A smooth cell and no ****** mask “are you feeling better.”
Aa white-coated man asks, they now I’m diabetic and prone
to an angry outburst, but he has a needle for that.
Once there was a law not hiding your face in public, now
It is the other way around.
Many things have changed the padre stand in an empty
Church, there is not an altar boy to ******, he lifts
up his cassock and ******* in front of the statue of Christ.

When old sailors go

A ****** sees death as an ocean of tranquillity
no storm will upset his raft he can safely sleep
Through the ages of time, fish can swim, whales
Blow a rainbow fine, and sharks can **** seals
It does not bother him; the course is set
For the Island of Saragossa where his friends wait
to say: halloo old man, remember us?
And they will help him make his raft into
a beach hut where there is always sunset and
the whisky bottle never gets empty.
He sighs, home from the sea at last.

Was it, Trieste?

An odd place half dour Russian and half lively Italian
I sat in café drinking beer and waiting for a tall American woman
she smoked cigarettes, which back then was a novelty
for a lady to smoke outdoors.
I had never met her but was sure she was a spy.
I was told she was at the railway station when I got there
the train had gone, but there was a picture of a lady smoking
A cigarette called “Monte Carlo”.
Walking around I saw a small lady carrying a heavy suitcase
I offered to help her thinking she lived nearby.
We walked and walked the road was muddy and the ****** luggage
heavy, we walked out of town Trieste was behind us when the little lady
stopped outside a house said she lived there and invited me in.
By now I was sweaty, tired and fed up, said no thank you and walked
back to Trieste. Later someone said she was a famous actress like I should care
The suitcase was so ******* heavy, and perhaps she was a spy.
Back in Trieste, I sat drinking beer when a ******* came and sat down
she was telling hilarious jokes about the men she had met in her life it
was funny but not flattering for the men.
We had something to eat and switched from beer to wine when a man
came and talked to her and she had to leave for business.
She asked me to wait for her which I didn´t do the thought of her
having had *** disturbed my sensibility, I drank the rest of the wine
and found my way back to the hotel

inland waterway



I joined the rowing boat in the middle of the dry lake
when a dust storm came whirling around screaming nasty words
and the shoreline disappeared.
The captain came down from the bridge wanted his lunch
but he had to wait till the wind stopped which it did
in the afternoon.
I walked ashore, at the cafe, they knew about the order
the captain had sent a text message.
I eat the food here, and I said no point wrapping it up-
Driving home helicopters were using my lake as a training ground
no, there would not be an inland waterway here
no matter how much it rains the lake will only be a soggy hole
but how to explain this to the captain.

Friday  Rain.

The café facing the busy street has big windows
I see umbrellas walking by, some of them stop,
fold wings, shake water off backs and enter.
I remember my childhood in black and grey when
umbrellas were stygian; and a lady
umbrella was a bit smaller, yet imp-like,
had frilly silk borders, but was sable too.            
Rain shades are of all colures now.
                      cheerful a sharp breeze, they turn inside out and that’s ok;
                     it is the festive hues against
the inundation I like.

Summer evening  
The day is gone
Darkness is moving in
My day
Correcting poem
Writing new ones is over
Time for TV.
I have read the news
Not uplifting
Seeing Trump
The elected dictator
Triumphant boasts.
Why are the Americans
So stupid
Can he not see
He s shyster
Dragging you into
A new war
Marching happily
Into war for his benefit
Thousand of your soldiers
Die painfully
For his honour

A view of the fifties

lifebuoy, A soap a remember well on ships
there was no other soap it had a strong masculine scent
for those who didn't use Floyd aftershave.
We ****** were a clean race always a shower after work
and those who did not were soon persuaded to shower
and keep clean or, they had to take their food outside.
When going ashore in seaports in Britain, it was grey and
it appeared colour had not been invented.
The pubs closed early and were thick of cigarette smoke.
We usually ended up in a fish& chips shop, some of them
had tables made of Formica and not too clean.
What made life bearable was the many women, not prostitutes
but not sparing with what they had to offer.
Since there was nowhere to go, the loving was done in a dark
alleyway standing up leaning against a **** soaked wall.
Going back onboard to a well-lit ship and warm bunk was heavenly.

An Experiment
Yesterday evening I tried to be a vegetarian
Ate a soya chop and the stomach rumbled all night
In protest.
In the morning a pressing evacuation, too much
For the toilet flusher, I had to take out my gift to
Flowers and trees
Using a plastic bag and gloves.
Today I will eat, fried sausage with onion
And mashed potatoes
The vegan food didn’t suit my stomach

reborn
I have answered the most questions
and what I know is only the truth and love prevail.
When I set sail across the ocean of time
will you remember me with love in your heart?
Grieving is waste of time.
I like you to smile and laugh again.
I don’t know if the voyage will be long or short
since time is endless, I need your love
to sustain me through choppy water.
When the great spirit of the universe asks
what did you do in your lifetime?
I can only answer truly, I did my best and am flawed
but my honesty made me lose many friends.
The ruler said you are a good egg.
Did it mean I will be a duck?

The absence

He was trapped on a carousel
that went around and around, never stopping.
For him, every day was a new day
he had lost the ability to remember yesterday.
A woman, who said she was his wife
gave him coffee and breakfast and which made him happy.
Every day he watched the same movie and it was for him
a new movie he must have seen hundreds of times.
There was a family meeting, his wife was so old and tired
he had to go to another home, this distressed him greatly.
In the afternoon he sat in a room with many elderly people
watching a movie, his brain told him he had never seen.
In a clear moment, a light was switched on, it dawned on him
this was not his home.
He cried then, before sinking back to his absence

*******
I like ******* in my infancy I didn’t get
To cling them, the mother was ill and I was sent
To home run by the salvation army.
I stretched my tiny arms up to touch them
But they hastily withdrew.
In my young years, I suckled man abrest
Some of them liked it.
I was never a ***** man for me it was just
A damp hole to discharge my desire.
Big bums are nice too especially when on a bed.
Given a chance I can suckle wrinkled, low hanging
*******, even small ones. I no longer care
Brests are best, those without one are of little
Interest although they look good in a bikini.

I remember
Thinner and thinner
He became featherlight sinking into Alzheimer
He had forgotten me.
All his life he had worked in a factory
Something about canning fish.
And it was the only thing he could remember.
He thought I was a fellow worker
And asked if I remembered this and that
I played along he was happy
Till the next day. He had forgotten me.
Perhaps his ghost stalks the old factory
Standing there an empty building waiting
To be bulldozed.

August in Athens is always confusing
I spent the evening looking at a white wall the moon had lit up,
waiting for the movie to start.
Staggered into a church where bearded priests handed out bags
of yesterday’s cake.
The elderly lady behind me got none, it was her second time
she had been in the line
I gave her my bag and felt good about my act of charity.
In the deep shadows of the park, I found a grotto displaying
Jesus in he looked like a sleeping angel, one painted by Caravaggio.
The painted Jesus opened his eyes smiled like an urchin selling himself to a paederast.
Behind two nuns giggled and I fled this religious horror.
Came to a lone bar run by a horse that had fled a Russian circus.
As Alice Walker said,” horses make the landscape more beautiful.”
I drank ouzo, she had hay.
At midnight we rode through the summer night.

The time gone

Do not spill my blood.
On wasteland
Do not bury my last scream
In a grave.
I will walk softly
Across the screen
Leave no trace.
Only a whisper.
In the years to come
You will hear an echo
Recalling my name.

The Bashful writer

He had been into a bookshop a few weeks ago
had asked the manager if he could place his books there,
yes, that was ok just bring me the books the manager said.
When he had asked the shop was empty, now it was full
of people and he was too shy and nervous, waited outside
for the shop to be empty.
He was a man of little self-confidence perhaps his work
was not good enough to be sold, he had been refused
so often when sending a manuscript through the net.
In a café, he had a glass of red wine to lessen his anxiety,
it helped, but the bookshop was closed for lunch when
he came back, he had lunch came back but the shop
decided it didn't want more English written work,
“Come back in January,” the shopkeeper said.
He took the bus home knowing well he would not come
back for more humiliations.

Newspapers

I read a few people read the newspaper anymore
I have in the shed the English written publication going back
twenty years also have some copies of the Guardian
which no longer sell their broadsheet abroad.
Regarding the local newspaper that first was run by a Canadian
It was fun to read they even printed my eccentric views
but it has – the paper- gone down it
is aimed at the affluent
and those who play golf and the little they have of news
is invariable right winged and that is sad, and I think of any more
good dammed self-satisfied than the English community here
but the paper has its use some supermarkets give it away
for free and it is an excellent way to lit the fire in the winter.
But I lament the passing of the Guardian as broadsheet it was
more liberal than it is now and it wasn't Russia-phobic
I read the Guardian in line every day as it is their politics
and their harping harridans aside a good newspaper.
But I'm getting off the point which is that what is written
on papers endures what’s on the Internet disappears in a cloud.

The hummock

There is a hill behind the houses round and soft,
I call it a mother hill it welcomes you and murmur
How do you do?” and let you sit on a boulder
to enjoy the peace.
If you sit too long enjoying your sentimentality,
it wakes, the boulder gets cold and hard to sit on.
The wind suddenly blows, has a fragrance of Siberia and *****.
So, you walk around to keep warm and see wildflowers
hiding behind big stones.
You cannot pick them if you do? They will wizen and bring rain.
Walk gently now the aroma of spring is in the grass.
Behind the knoll, it is October grey and out of sight where no trees grow.
It is the mother´s hill burden concealed from the world.

Heavy Rain

After Christmas, the angels have a bath,
they also have a bath in the summer.
There are more angels now than before the rules for getting in are relaxed.
It is no longer about being a Christian, but about leading a good life
helping others and so on.
Even Moslems are welcome.
It is no longer needed to have an angelic smile. look cherubic and asexual,
golden locks and a fairytale attitude to life.  
Heaven is getting a bit crowded, thus, when they all have a shower
it rains for days and causes flooding.

Lemon tree very pretty

I lived in a village where the neighbour had a lemon tree
it was on rich soil in the small garden where chicken roamed
In January, it was full of perfectly formed fruit, beautiful shining bright
with an effervescent hint of green.
I wished someone would take the tree to an art gallery
as an example of perfection.
At an art exhibition, I saw a painting of a lemon by Gunther Grass,
it was beautiful looked real in its yellow lushness; he won a Nobel prize,
not for the lemon but for his marvellous authorship.
Near Ramallah, there was a similar lemon tree greatly admired
by the locals, but the settlers came burned down the tree.
This is what happens when the brutes rule.

Set sail in the Sunset

When the world was big
and the ship I was onboard left Trinidad
sailed to the Panama Canal.
We crossed the Pacific Ocean, and we were alone
in a world so big.
Then the Indian Ocean, the world was endless
finding an island, a needle in a haystack.
It was long ago, long before Apollo made the world
into a small planet in the vast universe
and the moon was a balloon, as David Niven said.
Our world has shrunk, it is a tiny place, yet we fight
for religion or some silly political views.

Defeat
There are times one must admit to being crushed
By life itself, I moved back to my old house
Far from the crowd only to find it was
Overwhelming me, the house is built on a rocky slant
So every floor is on a different level, which I found
Charming but now I fall over them.
I had this romantic idea I could do some repair work
But I haven’t got the strength.
With a heavy heart, I have put the house up for sale
And move back to Cascais.
I have done my best turning what was a stable into a dwelling
It looks eccentric and but suitable for one who
Seeks solitude he/she will find tons of it here.
If I can’t find a buyer I will let it rot dreaming it own dreams
We had a good run but everything comes to an end.

Race riot



In an English town a young black man
was arrested in his home and taken to the police cell,
something about the young man who had been involved
in a brawl.
In the morning he was released without charge.
He was not his jolly self, coming home, his mother said.
He went to bed early fell asleep the slumber
continued forever.
The police got the blame, and perhaps he was beaten,
a neighbour woman said, he had bruises all over his body
as usual, when people tell lies, she talked too much.
The black community came out stood outside the police station
shouting about police brutality.
Violence arose.
There was talk of compensation for the mother´s loss.
I have a dislike of uniforms, but in this case, I believed the police
They had nothing to do with the young man´s death
The newspaper published a picture of him
He looked rather bland and ill.
I know what the verdict will be he had a weak heart and died in his sleep.
But this is not what the people will accept; the riot will go on
until the authorities, for the sake of order, pay his mother some money
and soon, the young, black man is forgotten.

Maggots
  
If ******* *****
From millions of seafarers
Over a hundred years.
Think of this floating loneliness
had met up and formed
An Island.
And up from its depth
Sprung the unborn
Like larvae
Whose only contact
With mothers
Depended
On what the ******
was dreaming at the time.
Not a new Atlantis emerging
But an island
Of tedium
And tired desire.
Not on a chart
To see its existence
So, be careful when dreaming.

Serious now

A man knocked on my door
He was collecting laughter
Mournful he was when living
Empty handed.

The Alternative view

Nature is not democratic
It doesn't listen to the call for democracy
which as its name applies is a rule by the majority
and when the masses take the lead
They lead us into a one party one thinking Identity.
Be like us, and you can write what you want
as long as democratic lines are followed
Capitalism,
Communism,
Nationalism,
Socialism,
Belongs to the twenties century, big political parties too
are on the wane.
Politics, as we know, is local and decisions should be local
and we favour a structure the human into consideration.
We must never let one ruler lead us if we do
we get a Putin or a Trump, two equally bad examples
one is cynical the other is a fascist by heart.
We need an alternative and do away with the left or the right
this schism is leading us into a new war and we must
Not be afraid to sensor states that brutally suppress
other people not like them.

The surgery

I’m waiting for a friend of mine
He is having heart surgery tomorrow
And it is lonely not having friends around
The day before a serious surgery
We’ll not talk about illnesses’ and other
Subject related to hospitals.
Not talking in hushed voices but about
The calm sea and seagulls: I know it is
One of my favourite subjects.
Talk about everything else to keeping
His mind of tomorrow.
The hospital is in Lisbon, and he lives
In Algarve and have to take the bus
But that is ok; busses are modern now
And have a toilet and an ambulance will
Take him back.
Having had the surgery also I know, how
It feels like being alone, so I wish him well.

Too much sun

it has been a hot day the sun
is an enemy spying at me
through cracks in the curtains.

The sun has given me melanoma
Twice and now it tries again
To lure me outdoor.

Not this time Gonzales, I have
Learned my lesson, but  my warnings
Go unnoticed.

Sporting a deep tan is in today
The deeper, the better, melanoma
Waits to strike.

Bug

On my blue-lined writing pad, a tiny ****** walk
It appears hesitant and lost before crossing a line
Lost in the vast wilderness. of the unwritten.
I try to blow it off the paper, but somehow glues
Itself and will not budge.
I cannot touch it, tiny as it is I will surely squash it.
Nothing I can do for now leave it to its own device
Go and watch TV.
When returned the insect was gone, a sheet of paper
With nothing written is a lonely place, no story to tell
But leaving behind a nagging question, the beginning
Of depression and the sense of futility.

The Apprentice

Every morning he took a short bus ride
to the factory where he was learning welding
a thing to know if you are building a ship.
One day he missed the bus got lost and began
Walking, took the wrong turn and the vista
a new life of adventures opened up.
He has done many jobs, like being a cowboy
in Montana, a tourist guide in Peru,
a short-order-cook in New York and running
Errands for the local  Mafia.
He sailed on every ocean, worthy of its name,
been in love a hundred times, yet he hankers most
for the girl he met in Honduras, her father was
the fisherman Hemingway wrote about.
50 years learning curve, but sad to say he
can’t weld two pieces of iron together, and guess what
my life has been a hell of a ride

The Consequence of Occupation

For all the time you have killed my children,
They know when they grow up they will
Come and slay yours,
Mine have lost the ability to feel empathy.
And you will cry, as I did, swear vengeance
And kiss your bland flag.
We've in common our mutual hatred
A bond of blood that is longer lasting
Than mere love.

Sleepless again
It was a night without sleep
I had seen the movie “The Jacal.”
Twenty years ago
Ripping stuff!
Then I went to bed and saw the movies again.
Scene after scene
So young, the actors were.
I liked the inspector the best, he with a bushy moustache.
Not so happy about the ending
Of all the police on duty, he asked the right one?
The general could have been hit, say, in the foot.
Couldn’t get the movies out of my head
Had to breakfast at six o’clock.
From now on, JB Fletcher will do; it is predictable.