Winner takes all

He sat on the sofa feeling disgruntled, watching TV
about a young woman who read a poem about hill climbing.
I have climbed many hills, he said to himself,
but there was always a steeper hill to conquer.
Take sport, he said, women win everything you care to mention
even football and ice-hockey the last bastion for men has been invaded
to the newspapers delight, of course, the editors are women,
as are the contributors; it isn’t fair.
His wife enters. She has been on the treadmill for an hour,
asks him if he has done the dishes? No! He says folding his arms in protest.
Do them now the cleaning lady is coming, she may think badly about us.
Triumph, at last, he thinks, typical female worries about silly things.

…And It Was Her Summer


“Go back to the children’s home, she said I have no work and
can’t afford to keep you” Late June afternoon she sat on a bench
with a man, I didn’t know. The man smiled I didn’t like him, but
took the coins he gave me to buy an ice –cream for; I was still
hanging about so mother got up and slapped me across the face.
” Get lost you, stupid boy!” My face was burning I threw the coins
into the lake and ran away. When I stopped running it was night
and I could see sheep in a field, I was tired and cold, thought of
seeking shelter in a little wooden church, but it smelt of fear and
I thought of ghosts, so I walked on till I came to a workman’s hut
near the road, it was easy to get in; here the smell was of coffee,
and kind men in overalls, perhaps one of them were my father?  
It was morning and warm sunlight when they came, they were not
angry, but gave me milk and bread and showed me the quickest
way to get home. The sky that day was enormous and from a hill
I looked down to the town, I could see the school building it must
have been early, no children in the yard; but I just sat there and
could not understand why my mother didn’t want to see me.

A moment in time

I remember a hot summer night
unusual hot for a Nordic country
all windows were open.
My mother, brother and sister sat around a table
drinking coffee.
It was a glorious moment
my happiness was so intense I cried
I knew this moment would not be repeated.
My brother kidded me, I take so quickly to tears
but I could not tell him the why
Without them, I feel so utterly alone, and they died too early
there was no time for a farewell.
I live in a foreign country the past is a treasured memory.

The horror of the night

I had rented a room in the town of Puerto Lemon
in wonderful Costa Rica.
I was going to have an affair with stewardesses
but since the crew came from one of the ******
gossiping little coastal towns in Norway,
we had to be discreet.
From the darkness of the night and into the light
in the room, flew a wonderful insect.
It was made of gold and the size of a cockroach,
the unsightly insect that once had been human
but had committed a grave sin and in his anger
God had turned them shuddering ugly creatures.
Out of the cracks in the floorboard burly ants came
attacked and ate the golden beauty.
It only took a few minutes then they disappeared
back to their hiding places.
I awoke the woman who was fast asleep,
we walked back to the ship, she first, I took longer.
Needed a drink at the nearest bar to overcome
the horror I had witnessed.

Getting old together

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

wars we like

Do we like wars as long as it is at our doorstep
the Russians fought in Afghanistan and lost hands down
the USA took over this unwinnable war so far it has lasted
Twelve years with no end in sight.
The USA lost the Vietnam war, but Hollywood came
to the rescue made movies of brave soldiers whose every
bullets hit a target, yet they fled from the rooftop in Hanoi
it was a sickening sight.
In the meantime, the French are fighting a war against the rebellious
in central Africa to defend and give the presidency
to those who are most corrupt in the name of oil and precious
stones and metal.
The French keep their war entirely; it is not headline news.
Now, the battle is coming home its fought in our streets
there are no heroes here and no movie to make for now.

Green Umbrella
We were out driving it began raining and the window whiskers didn’t work.
My wife went out of the car walked in front
I could see the umbrella it was green, but the progress was slow especially up the hill and we had to stop many times.
At home, I dried her hair and washed her tired,
sore feet made her a cup of strong tea till she
was ready to make my evening meal.
Green Umbrella
We were out driving it began raining, and the window whiskers did not work.
My wife went out of the car walked in front
I could see the umbrella it was green, but the progress was slow,
mainly uphill and we had to stop many times.
At home, I dried her hair and washed her tired,
sore feet made her a cup of strong tea until she was ready to make my evening meal.

Astonishment

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

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

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

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

The pursuit


Three blackbirds
Are chasing a young seagull
In circles, they fly
Until the gull
Find an opening
It flies
Toward the ocean.
The blackbirds
Cannot
Following the gull
There.
They return
Sit in a tree
And squawks
Among
Themselves

from a day

Remember there a good time when we thought “Reader's digest.
Was high literature, the teller of the truth?
When I was propagandist luring us with fine words
in lies.
When we got older we learned and these days even the Guardian
follows a political policy skirting the truth.
There are the lie and the truth, but convention stops us from telling
anyone how it was.
I wrote a story of sea life and young men the story was met
pith d deadly silence because I used the language of a time gone
when a ***** was not a ***-worker.
People feel offended when met with untarnished truth,
write about the green sea and not of mass- ****** of old people
in Sweden.
An editor wrote me a long letter of refusal when to simple
words like “******* “would be better and less insulting.
But that is the way it is better to be kind than truthful.

The Battle
There was a hell of a fight in heaven, Lucifer wanted
to share power with who would have nothing of it and banned Lucifer
from heaven. But Lucifer who knew of the human weakness
and gladness of shining pearl told them to consume and consume
and we were blind oblivious of the beggars and the victims of famine and war. Only when our oceans become a pool of waste and plastic began to react but we were not ready to
blame ourselves, but the producers of plastic bottles.
God is senile and there is no Putin to take charge to put a cork
In the evil spirit called Lucifer.

We have got him now

All the Politicians of the republican persuasion
who defended Trump by being silent?
And they waited to the last moment just in case he was able
to overturn the election.
When all was lost, and Trump was finished
washed up and had his innards removed, did they turn and said he was a crook.
These cowardly enablers.
We cannot give them a free pass, and they are as guilty as Trump
by holding on to power as long as they could.
And the businessmen/women he had made rich, what will they say
they were in it for the money.
They will say they feared him; they did not, they took him for an idiot
who had gone bankrupt many times?
If we want to get rid of the swamp, we can start with the corrupt people
Who would (had Trump won) continued defending his actions?

Once a summer

Like a beached whale the rowboat lies on its side
its bottom had been tarred and the aroma mingled
with ozone of the sea.
When the tide turns the boat will float again and look refreshed.
Seen from the wooden pier the sea is crystal clear
looks emerald.
Small ***** and tiny fish feed in the shallow.
When the sea slowly inhales and exhales pebbles softly fizz.
The sky is the sea´s lover, doomed to forever be apart.
The sea pulls me closer it is hard to resist no be absorbed
by its beauty.

Sand in your eyes

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

The great Grief

A black man was leaning his head against a wall crying  
Other somewhat whiter people came carrying flowers.
a day of mourning not for frolicking
On the other side of the river, so many deaths and
A princess was murdered in a tunnel.
Mass grief I was caught up in, full of sadness eyes
Full of tears, I dried my eyes on a laundry slip.
On this day it was allowed to cry lest some should
Think one was overly sentimental and embarrassing
Passers-by.
Meanwhile, I have a mental picture of some strange
People, on the other side of the river of sorrow. laughing
And pointing fingers at a gloomy sky.

Sunny days

This is a beautiful warm day after a cold night
I chanced it and went for a walk to the woods
the track was now widened for cars.
The pace ended abruptly by an iron fence.
I could see no house, but someone had made
a statement – nolle me tangere.
I found another track the lead into the next village
but it was too overgrown, and without my dog
to lead the way, I gave up.
  I strolled across a field where sheep were busy eating
  All the red flowers, the scene looked like a painting
  I leave it up to you to guess who?
Saunter among olive tree; they are so old make me
look like a tenderfoot; my feet were back on the asphalt
Road, tired they were needed a rest, so, we strolled home.

Wherefore

There are a question philosophers and goat herders
has in common with the rest of us the modest multitude
the query is, what is the purpose of our life
from a single ***** cell to fighting it way survival and life
and we ask for what purpose?
We know the outer shell of what we are is based on
the environment we live in, such as education. friends
we meet and dreams.
But the question remains, why are we survivors and what
is the purpose of life that often changes unplanned by us.
The cynical among us have an easy answer,
but they cannot tell you why they become suspicious and
why Adolf became ******.
The nearest answer I can think of that life is a prelude
to a new existence an astral life form free of ego, and ownership
will not be asked, we are free truly
liberated of the life that weighed us down on earth.
God is not in this picture, an abstraction we give thanks to when a war ends
and pray to during a new war which is like wildfire
there are always conflicts that are not planned but just happen
on life on our planet.
Humanity is like a lost child in an amusement park, the colours
of the blinking light are a warning, and outside the park it is dark we look for guidance but cannot find the answer.

Sleeping sun

The audacious sun finally showed up
and green was the winter landscape; I also saw
where the sun sets, behind the carob tree
soundly and snug under a carpet of wildflowers
the sun snoozes till dawn.
Over the easterly range, which is the first defence
against Spanish marauders and the rain on the plane
the clouds were dark blue, more rain tomorrow.
I the fading light musical notes dance down a phone line,
The first flirt of spring?
Should it rain tomorrow, I will not be downhearted
this day will keep me warm for a week or so.

The Aged
If young people knew
How hard to be old
They wouldn't use their car horn
So much when seeing
An elderly driver.
To drag your old body
To the shower
Remember which medicine
Is for what
Yet we the old cling to life
As we know nothing else.
It is a good thing
The young don't know
What it is to be old
If they did, they might jump
Off a cliff
And get it over with

A waste of time

I have been so busy writing
that I have not had time to write.
Ploughing meagre soil
the harvest not enough to feed my heart.
A mountain of words that tell nothing
more than a wall to hide behind.
“what was it all about Alfie?”
A question that has no answer.
My August casts long shadows
and the famine continues.

Old lady dead

The old woman had died had been
a friend of my wife long ago.
I had only seen her once when she
aid in Portuguese “he looks a bit old for you.”
I do understand the language but often
Pretend I don't understand, more comfortable that way
Save me from talking about useless things.
She had elected to be cremated it was cheaper
that way as she never liked spending money.
It took her a long time dying about a year her daughter
was irked she inherited the flat.
She, the daughter has moved into the flat
and has a great idea about the kitchen and
new, modern furniture.
Yet her death had upset me, in the night
I thought about worms and other insects,
cremation was a good thing for those who
didn't want to share their rotting flesh
with anyone.

the video

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

Critical of a poem

I never express a critic of a poem, because I don’t know
what the poet was thinking of when he/she wrote it.
No one, to my knowledge, sets out to write a bad poem.
Therefore a poem written and published is a good one
even if the penmanship might be a bit shaky.
I do not care so much about spelling I can correct it
in my head, the only thing that angers me is if
the poem is dishonest in its intention, but I let this
pass, since I might be mistaken and it may be something
unresolved in me I have reacted to,

Togetherness

It was not my time to speak today
I must rest as much as possible, need a new
battery for my reserve heart and have to do
with my damaged heart.
My feet are swollen challenging to walk, but drove
my wife to the cemetery and the ashes of
my wife´s brother was placed beside his
mother´s coffin
I was driven there an uphill walk got a lift.
Nene, his name, rests beside his mother, he was
her favourite son both words together on a glass door
it was a touching moment.
Drove my wife home slept for two hours and had
a restless dream.
A skeleton and ashes one has to be religious
to believe the two will ever meet, but for now
they are together.

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

The weather is agog


For those who don´t get it
nature is revolting
drowning island
flooding cities.
New York is the new Venice
rowing boats are in.
The top floor
is where the rich dwell
drowning of those
lower down is common.
The lady of liberty has lost her head.
Sharks in Wall Street
what´s new?
Refugees in the Andes
they are poor and white
Americans.
The clime is heating up
bananas from Greenland
still, we haven´t got it
calls it freak weather.

A happy ending?

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

Arguing with GPS.

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

Armageddon

As I was coming out of the local shop
with bags in both hands, I do this to keep the balance
as I’m elderly and not a steady walker,
When the heatwave like a shimmering wall was
coming towards me.
I turned my back to the inferno of heat as horses do
When the winds blow, but there was no respite.
I believe we have degraded our planet; this is proof.
I struggled home not far was near, but the going was slow
Finally, I entered the building exhausted and dizzy.
The porter took the bags and helped me up some stairs to the lift.
At the flat windows were shut to keep the heat out.
I knew, had I been less fortunate, say, without an abode
the heat, would have killed me.
Sudden heatwaves, unexpected frost freezing fog, hurricane
and burning forests, it might be too late to save humankind.

Furtive meeting

We sat in the park a packet of ****
a bottle of wine, on the back of a napkin
I wrote her a poem about love.

While struggling to find the right word
I hardly knew her, she fell asleep,
wine of good quality can be strong.

I counted my cigarettes had five left
saw the tempting light of a night bar
left her sleeping, went and had a drink.

Coming back, she had left my poem
written on the clean side of a napkin
was on the ground torn to shreds.

War Memories
We see the pomp and circumstances
Old soldiers with a modest medal, the queen
And Donald Trump.
The real winner of this war Russia is on
This day overlooked, and history as we see
It displayed is a historical falsehood.
The old soldiers fought ok, kudos to them
In a war that was real.
The war didn’t end it continues in Palestine,
Syria, Iraq and other places, democracy
In no longer on the agenda- unless we
Talk about as a total subjection as a  democracy-
It is about oil and power.
It is sweet to think the only nation who tries
To stop this Middle East carnage is Russia we
Hesitate to get them as the enemy.

Morning in the bay

This morning the water in the bay
is in a whispering mood, mellow and no temper
at crashing waves on the shore.
There is, near the water, a mysterious building that looks like
a luxurious old passenger liner without a motor
I'm told famous people live there, I don´t know
why they are famous, but I think they are of the type
which endlessly are interviewed on TV, talking about the obvious.
Or they are from families who can trace their ancestors
back to when Cascais was a fishing village.
I don´t think many actors live here they are too pedestrian
reducing the tone of inherited leisure.
Young people on the beach believe in eternal life
none of them wears masks, death is what happens to the old.

The re-read (poet)

Hemingway was a writer suffering from a disabling inhibition,
the conversation he had with women in his books are based
on wishes and not reality.
Women in his life were stronger than him, he tried
to compensate by ***** behaviour, it always ended with him
stroking the cat and she going back to the USA.
Ernest Heming way was an alcoholic who made his hero
take care centre stage.
At times he wrote like an angel there, are lines in his writing
that is high-class poetry.
After reading his work, setting aside his bragging
he was a great poet.

The beauty of lies.

Darling tell me lies tell them gently
Lies are so much softer than the cruel truth
that leaves behind the cold taste of winter storms
demanding the truth, we rather forget about it.
You slept with a man two days ago, I have been told.
if it was a sudden fling,
we can laugh about it and for a good meal.
However, if you tell me, you have been seeing him behind
my back for many months, I will see it as a betrayal.
I will not condemn you, but you will be ignored, for all time
I will never speak to you again.
While I walk the streets and crying roof panes,
wondering why I had done to let you down.

Skating


Two skating sisters, one was brilliant
The other just middling and that was not good enough
In a world that demands perfection.
The average sister raged planned retribution and had
A pair of skates made of gold, but with a hidden flaw
They broke on the highest jump.
So, it came to pass at the skating finale in New York
When the brilliant sister took the highest jump
The golden skates broke in half, and she fell, so hard
On her back, she could nor skate no more.
Now it was the mediocre sister’s hour; she came in the ring
To finish the act, but the cruel public booed.
The evil sister’s fate was to push her brilliant sister around
In a wheelchair, the rest of her life.

Sensual Haiku

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

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

Is Tanka a poem

We the classless
seek no revolution only fairness
we like quality
a well-balanced diet
and cold German lager.
The stinking rich
one assumes they do not bath
can continue to pong
we seek no egalitarianism
only German lager.

Hong Kong

Should you be in doubt
it is Chinese through and through
not a British colony
who reluctantly had to give it back?
They introduced democracy which as
false as the American kind,
China is not a democracy.
but they
have got rid of poverty and corruption is a hanging offence.
The students in Hong Kong have led
people astray, they need a good spanking,
dreaming of an independent nation was
criminals can hide like it should be Israel.
So, let us repeat Honk Kong is Chine.

The wild beast

On the savanna runs the spring-bock not easy to catch by lions,
but as it gets older and slower, it loses out and becomes a meal
for the predators.
A million years ago my ancestors hunted them too, the killer
instinct is in our blood.
Portugal remembers the past in Fado the sadness of time lost.
On a farm with brown and white milking cows, one of them
gives birth to a male calf, it is slaughtered after a fortnight
there is no point feeding it.
The male spring-bock is luckier it gets to copulate and run
free for many years.
We struggle to live long some people buy bikes in the hope
to live to a hundred and four, if sounds long it is not
only blink by a star.

I don't know why I wrote this

You must remember this, a kiss
is not enough I have to pay the maid
as time goes by.
Tomorrow she will be back and do my den
it's full dust flying in the breeze like half-forgotten dreams and projects never done.
You must remember this I was not good at dusting shelves
this because today I feel old but tomorrow I will be like Tarzan and not believe
that life will ever end.

The rancorous people

There is a country we are not allowed to mention
lest we are banned and silenced if telling the truth.
Once they were an oppressed people who by default
got a country of their own and set about eradicating
the people who lived there.
Their viciousness is despicable. I cannot think of any
a country that would have gotten away with this.
They are hated by their close neighbours who pretend,
for the sake of money, to be allies.
Now, this country of moral degenerates are using
the COVID-19 as a weapon to stop the oppressed people
from getting the vaccine and hope the plague
will do the job, as their army is to slow and takes
its toll on young minds.
The power, the appalling state has today is only transient
sooner or later the hand that holds the whip will tire and
the country will drown in its blood.

The Human Dilemma

   We say children are born innocent but not for long,
   waking up in the nursery alone and in the dark night
   it naturally cries the baby get attention this discovery
   is not and for parents' sleepless nights.
   A baby's first thought is born.
   With it, a personality evolves, darkness or light
  a conflict that will always be there; when it is an adult
  and darkness sometimes overshadows the lighter side.
  There is an inner voice in us all tells us when we have
  been wrong a voice we too often ignore.
  If we delve too deep into this mystery, we end up
  in a sort of religion that will not give us a proper answer
  other than being a follower a disciple of a sect.
  We must accept this dual personality within us and try stay on the light side and be honest about our failures.

Unwanted affection

I’m writing a play about an older man who was helpful
to a woman crying in the street and he thought that
was the end of the incident.
At night a knock on his door, the woman wanted
to thank him and before he could turn around, she sat
on his sofa insisting on holding his hands and him
felt her hand was like a wet haddock.
He knew she mentally disturbs but didn’t like to say so
the worst thing was he was watching his favourite show.
He feigned tiredness got up to open the door,
she offered to stay he froze by the horror of the thought.
She left after kissing him on the cheek.
He rang the porter and told him never let in this ****** woman.

Long for the Ocean
  

   The old man sits as usual on the terrace overlooking
   the bay of Cascais, the weather is hazy to today take
   his reading glasses off, still cloudy but less so.
   Three ships anchored waiting for a pilot to navigate
   into Lisbon, Cascais has no harbour but a marina
   full yachts and sailboats belong to the wealthy, he went
   there once and was not impressed, too expensive
   for his pocket, ok, it is possible he felt a bit resentful.
  The old man sighs he spent 30 years in the navy
  and the oceans were his friends most of the time,

9/ 11 the cruel aftermath


Dented western hubris, the mirror cracked
self believes shocked the vanity foundation.
How dare they we are the top predators
our rage will be swift and massive.
Falluja, the western army killed anything that moved
my thought went to Palestine a state of olives
and goat herding, who paid the ultimate prize.
Propaganda is the mixing of truth and deliberate lies
there are those who say Palestine never existed
but old maps tell a different story.
The wheel of the future is ruthless, Israel is tolerated
as the new province of the Caliphate.
The 9/11 is for you to avert your eyes and forget
the mass ****** of the indigenous people of Palestine.

Today is the impending

Christianity appears tepid we do not think of it
as a centre of our life.
I dislike all religions they are fairytales for adults
that demands to be taken seriously.
Ladies decorating the church with flowers while secretly
lusting after the vicar.
We remember Blair and Bush both are Christians
in its name, they invaded Iraq and killed thousands
of perfectly innocent people,
The Christians have for hundreds of years and foisted
their version upon masses who already have a god.
The occupiers of Palestine belong to the western culture
and they will be the biggest losers when the weakness
of our insipid culture cracks as the world implode.

Cell-phones
I sat in the doctor's waiting room
while my wife was (as they used to say) under the doctor.
The room was packed everyone sat looking at their phone
and there were no magazines to read.
I stole a glance at the cell-phone a lady next to me
was looking at, family photos from yesterday's party
Everyone was taking a picture of everyone else.
At the party, did they have time to eat the food, someone
had taken pictures of that as well it is frightening to
think people don't know what is real unless they can see
how good time they had at the gathering.

Critical thinking

We are all tame liberals now we speak the same language
we believe in niceness and the brotherhood of man our way.
God is a liberal too, and the great ghost will not strike us down
if we sin but forgive us as a matter of liberal routine.
You are free to express yourself if you follow a few guidelines
accept the political drivel the newspapers serve you as truth
and stop believing you are better than us.
If you do, we have our way to bring you back from your rough
ideas, you cannot be a contrarian in our world.
We'll ban you from writing, we own all the outlet cannot tolerate
any views that do not follow our democratic ideals.
Critical thinking has no place in our wonderful world.

An oil port

He is looking on to shore and sees an oil terminal
waiting for the pilot, he may arrive today or tomorrow.
Well he is not going ashore at this Arab port it is
usually boring full of men smoking water pipes talking
excitedly about the next revolution and he knows
as a white man, he viewed with suspicion.
He never understood a culture where women are cattle
sit indoors and wait to be pregnant again.
This is a society of men, and as such, they make a mess
of daily life.
It takes 12 hours to load the ship with crude oil, bound
for Antwerp, which is more like the home he understands
the people there can have a beer in a bar and not starred
at with hatred.
Mind, he knows well the white people have done much
the harm in this part of the world, nevertheless he dislikes
their culture, but he doesn´t care to understand them.

The Ending?

Not quite, but Palestinians have had enough.
They were thrown out of their houses to get space for Israelis.
They are resisting so much. so the IDF has called up reserve soldiers.
But Palestine cannot achieve this alone; it´s up to the world
To finally wake up and see Israel is a pirate state the
Practices apartheid as a matter of politic.
The Gaza strip has been sending a puny homemade rocket
Into Israel, rockets that break a window or two and is big news in the USA
Telling us how terrible the Arabs are.
I despair I watch Portuguese news, which consists of football
And old men sitting around a table analyzing the matches.
Bless Portugal, and football is better than war.