The gift Horse

I'm a sensible person
get easily hurt,
when I offered
her car because
because I was leaving
she refused,
had wanted a more modern vehicle.
I sold the car
When she asked for
the car, it was too late
her tears meant nothing
she had made
the cardinal sin looking into the gift horse's mouth.

Wild Horses

In my youth the still used horses
especially for the wealthy.
The leading funeral bureaux had two
lovely black horses, that was too
full of life for the job.
They got the smell of a mare in season
and took off the driver often drunk
lost control and through narrow cobblestone streets
they galloped the wagon scrapped walls broke
shop windows and the casket flew off and finally
the spectacle came to a halt at a blind-road.
They put the dead one back in his casket, got hold
of a sober driver, and somewhat damaged got
to the cemetery, but the dignity was gone it was
more like a comedy show, and we the town's poor,
had something to laugh about for weeks.

The execution

The basement, where cars are parked
in neat little boxes in a row, is cold and creepy.
It looks like a place where the fascists can
execute dissenters those who go on about
liberty for the masses.
There are bloodstains on the wall and cars
are silent witnesses to the massacre.
From the roof of the garage, blood drips of
the tortured on the first floor.
A black and white western on another wall
drown the screams of those who finally realize
there is no escape.
I sit in my car; it is ten years old and is not
forgotten in this horrid time. I sleep a little.
Wake up, start, the vehicle and take it out for a spin.

Military service (compulsory)

Stationed at a camp
The discipline, not too tough unless you had never done up your bed.
They gave us some old German rifle not
Shooting anyone, but for training.
I liked to go guard duty patrolling the perimeter
There I could sit behind a big stone and smoke
The worst thing that happened to me in the
Military service, sitting behind a rock I had
Forgotten my matches and had to cut me
Patrolling short.
From time to time I stayed out too long and it
Ended in a fortnights jail, this suited me to find
Books to read and my room.
The rest of my military service was a waste of time.

Reality check
reality is when a dreamer wakes up
remember bills has to be paid,
a divorcee in a room without windows
and only know it is raining from
a leaking roof, bare fridge and no heating.
How could it become like this?
Execrable state when dreaming
Life was easy.

Tour 1

A man with blue-rinsed hair was the tour’s leader
we stopped outside Edith Piaf’s former home where she was born
The house is still the dwellings steps into the house
were well-trod.
Our leader held up a picture of the lady, a photo I had seen
on YouTube, he told us a fairy tale about her goodness
for a moment, I thought he was talking about a saint.
We retired to a café where he sang, “La vie en rose” and forever
Destroyed the most beautiful of songs.
Tour 2
Fighting my way through the metro and jostling with rude commuters
I found my way back where Edith was born; the street was taken
over by the Chinese wedding, the brides were lovely.
While sitting on the steps where Edith used to live, her voice
came back to me; the offensive man with blue-rinsed hair
didn’t succeed in destroying the song
It was a beautiful autumnal day, Edith and I walked to a park overlooking Paris.,
we drank absinthe and coffee.
At a safe distance, I saw the fabled Eifel tower looking old
yet elegant in glorious sunlight.

Too big a flat

Who are those people whose idea
of posh living constitute a cavernous apartment
filled with unused rooms.
Someone could be murdered in one of these rooms
and not be discovered before the firm
of spring cleaners entered.
No identification on the skeleton and teeth
never interfered with by a dentist-
unsolved crime, the apartment is up for sale
the owner left for Brazil.

Sunday Haiku

Dust on bookshelves
tells of life lived, stillness
Spanish bluebells tolls

Among old olive trees
flowers as yellow as butter
distance is hurtful.

A framed photo
mother hangs on a wall
wordless she speaks.

A white coffin
her face was in harmony
beautiful the peace.

The Unanswered


I look up to the night sky, so vast too big for a mere human
to comprehend.
Why should I be alone in this immensity?
No, there must be something more a ruler of this beauty
How else can I understand?  
Am I, a lone star fading into the universe of none existence?
people seek god, any god, as cosmic loneliness
has no answer.
That is why we turn to religion that offers a simple response
to our foreboding.
Our inability to accept the loss as a natural conclusion
of being born into conscious life.
To know how wondrous the world is.
O, the splendour of the night, what is the beauty I will not see?
In the end, the sun goes on shining, rain falls every spring
flowers bloom as our quest goes unanswered.
What´s left is silence.

For a few lovers more.

I was driving along on the car radio Rod Stewart
Sang” have I told you lately that I love you.”
Perhaps it wasn’t Rod but someone else what
Do I know about popular music?
Why do I find it hard to say those simple words?
I have practised in front of the mirror, like an actor
who knows his line but lacks imagination
I bought her a car instead.
That made her happy, she meet her lover
come back and kiss my bald head and say, “love you.”
thinking of him.
I met her lover at a party, walked up to him
and said “I love you for making my wife happy.
He was stunned into silence.
She stays home, I think the lover broke it up
because when they made love, he was thinking of me.
the spell, of having a hidden affair was broken.

Social Housing

It was a socially correct house each one
Had a window facing out and a window into
The next room, privacy is the beginning
of capitalism; and curtains were out seen as
afire hazards.
A loophole, plants were allowed and people
Planted in front of inner windows and later
Wherever there was an open space.
A greenhouse?
Yes, they began selling the food surplus at
the town’s square and generally behaved like
A new middle-class; it goes without saying
That the right people got a juice tomato
And thus, corruption began and a social
Experiment failed.

Kitchen drama

We were poor
Shared our kitchen with the woman next door
She was in her thirties
I was fifteen.
We met in the kitchen
It started with a kiss
It ended with full ***.
Mother found out
Called our neighbour a ***** gave her a slap
Across her face.
To me, she said.
How could you with that woman!

The Crown
I had the opportunity to see “The Crown.”
and was thoroughly disgusted by the inhabitants
In their moth-eaten castles.
Never before have I seen such a group of useless peoples
talking about their duty,
The only obligation they are concerned about is their survival.
Many snobbish nasty people thought they were above the people
and feared the working classes lest they should wake up
and demand a revolution washing away ancient banalities.
The only person who came across as slightly human was prince Philip, but he was a bigoted racist
and would do well as concentration camp commander.
The sad thing is that the British people admire this dredge of humanity
(hence Brexit). The poor workers of these Islands have been duped into thinking they are somehow
on a higher level than others. I pity them.

The Eve

Today is the last day of 2019
Later people will fill restaurants to eat overpriced chicken,
Drink cheap champagne get jolly and sing in
The New Year makes promises for 2020 that will not be kept.
Wake on the first day, look out of the window and
See the day has not changed.
It has been a fraught year with conflicts nearly spilling over
To a world war and millions of people are desperate to find
A place where bombs do not fall.
For me having lived through it all it is a miracle for which I’m
Grateful most of the time. I had a moment of fear when
I knocked on my wife’s bedroom and she at first didn’t answer
Without her, living would have been pointless.
Tonight, we’ll eat at a small restaurant, go home drink some wine
And watch the unfolding on TV.
To sit beside her, sharing a blanket, the night is cold is a pleasure
No one should be denied.

Quiet despair
getting up
Sitting down,
We are leaving tomorrow
open a bottle of beer
It ain't cold
The fridge is defrosting
I'm old.
Have lived for 30 years
Am I excepted?
to be joyful?
Big flat
wooden flooring
                       I should protest
be a stubborn mule
seven floor up
not a mule in sight
I can lose the car keys
say I will arrive later.
Just now I adopted a cat
it can't come
I feel sorrowful
cried for no reason
this afternoon,
they say I'm a fool
I agree, but know
I'm right.

Riches

Once when the river ran slow sunlight, makes stones look like gold,
I threw into the stream a silver engagement ring, among the gold
it looked trite like a poor cousin wearing leftover clothes.
I saw her kiss another man at a restaurant I could not afford to take her,
my misery was total and my disgrace deep.
How deluded I had been, she proffered gold to my silver.
I looked at my ring in the water it looked like a sliver of leftover moonlight
after the ancient gods, bacchanalia.
Forever I will not speak of this to her, a young man's romantic heart.
The river is now a road, and the romance is dust on a pond,
but in the evening glow you can, among the gravel, see a silvery shine
and my heart is glad.

Slow-burning fuse

A sad day first heavy rain going into mist
it is not an outdoor day, but I had to pay some bills
which was not spiritually uplifting.
This is a Wagner day, never cared for his music
one has to lean to the far right to appreciate
this sort of substantially handed music,
I’m waiting to go home it has been delayed again
now it will sometimes be next week.
Portugal is famous for being a friendly country
but there is an underly of hatred that manifest
itself when we read so many women get killed
by their husbands every year.
Resentment is a rumbling volcano that explodes
and lava flows down burning houses and
the woman who got in the way.

Odd, is the poet

He was the odd boy in the family
in a town that doesn’t rhyme with anything.
He wrote strange words in a notebook
the teacher told him to stop this nonsense
and learn that 2X2 makes four.
Declared he was a poet when eleven.
His mother was shocked at what happens
to my son is turning into a Nancy boy.
He came to England where people are so correct
mowing the front lawn every Saturday in
their Sunday best, their dream was to appear
middle- class.
He came to Portugal, rented a car came to
the village where people said halloo and how do you do
they have a song in their hearts.
When a Faddist sings she closes her eyes, it is like
she is dreaming of her song of love and sadness,
and that is ok because he is a dreamer too and hopes
his wife will understand his jokes.

Parenthood

My father hung in the belfry
so many called him father, but the old woman in the house where I lived
said he was my father.
When I met Mother superior, her eyes softened for a moment.
The hanging was an accident.
At his funereal, the bishop attended to stop rumours of suicide.
The old woman and I watched the proceeding at a far distance.
I did see the face of the prioress in the window
unblinkingly stern, but in the afternoon glow,
she had tears in the corner of her eyes.
The old woman cackled and said, she gave you to me to look after.
I had a silver cross on my bedside table.
The old woman said it was a gift in case I wanted to become a cleric.

It happens

Like driftwood in a restless sea of humanity
is the story of my life, plans I made never came to fruition
the current shifted course, I ended up in a land, not mine.
I lived in relative harmony near a forest and nature
and had an obedient dog; life was calm and easygoing.
There is good times and bad times; I had lived in a cove
where the current doesn´t reach, but a big storm came
and I was back as driftwood no rudder and no plan.
I ended up in Cascais, which I thought was a place for
ex-kings and president, thrown out of their country and
now living off the spoil of their robbery.
Cascais as I know it is a place full of cars driving fast
a few trees here and there, but not a half-decent park.
What do I know, everyone around me wears jeans and
a T. shirt and since this is equality time one of them
could be an ex-king.
As for planning nae, I leave that to the current.

Waiting for heart surgery

Fun is over in the sleepless night
No more jokes about the seriousness of
My friend’s surgery.
it is a stark night the wind has stopped
The stillness overwhelms me
Perhaps he is awake thinking of the future
Or if he has any
Silent tears alone in a strange room so
Many regrets, plans he had that came to
No nothing.
Cold sweats on his brow his fear is palpable
He has not been so helpless, the thought of god
Enters his mind would a prayer help?
He pushes the thought away religion never
Meant anything for him, but in this dark hour
Of needs, he will do anything to be at ease.
Finally, he falls into a restless sleep, soon
It will be morning, providence will decide.

In Kashagan
The silk road begins
I bought
An apricot
From a woman
wearing
A red shawl
Over her black hair.
A yellow dress
She was stunning.
Kashagan
Has the biggest
Outdoor market
In the world
Europe is puny
And far away.
A new silk road
Is being
Constructed
Pipelines and trains
Expanding trade.
that is ok
as long
as they sell apricots

The vaccine is here

The day took a long time coming
the night persisted and only moved across the sea
heading for Northern Norway where the night
lasts for months.
The day was grey and in a bad mood showering
streets with rain making dead leaves slippery.
Every café, restaurants are closed, and the local
supermarket closes at one so, if you have not
bought food for Saturday and Sunday bully for you.
If people stay at home, it will reduce contagiousness
but the COVID-19 is not going away when
the lockdown is over it will, like the unseen wind,
go on the attack again.
Russia has a good vaccine as China has, but the big
pharma industries are against it, and they are more
powerful than a mere government.
For us, we just have to sit and wait.

The Intrepid

Tall Savannah grass, he had to drive on its only road it was narrow
had no pavement, he rode his scooter could see the ears of big cats
listening.
It was noon, the lions didn’t like the smell emitting from his scooter,
animals only eat when hungry.
He stopped switching off the motor he wanted to be attacked by a lion,
be eaten alive he thought life would give meaning to his futile life.
The silence was total heard insects crossing the road sound like a regiment
on war foot.
Now or never, walked into the tall grass remembered lines like
“I’m the master of my destiny.”
What rot! He knows nothing about the future.
The savannah was an oat field, a farmer shouted scared the lions away.
Sometimes we will be eaten by the worms in the soil
that is undignified.

The day I refused

I was joining an old ship like old ships they have been
around the oceans a few times
and survived because they were built to ride the waves
They gave me a cabin smaller than a wardrobe
I had to go out into the hall to change clothes.
The bathroom had a shower that only gave salt water
I mean cold water from the sea
The captain tried to make me drunk
filling a glass with gin topping it with tonic as I have said before
I dislike gin.
The captain fell asleep I walked back on dry land
someone on the deck shouted coward!
Yes, they were right I hate living without dignity.

Another summer
Summer is over the night arrives hastily
it was a delicious season spent indoors
his cancer didn´t like to sun.
To sit there and dream of summer wine and dance
reading brochure of adventures in Thailand.
Once he travelled to Paris, walked the street
trying to get a whiff when Paris was Hemingway´s
Ezra Pound’s Gertrude Stein’s and James Joyce’s.
Instead, it was another overpriced city
but he went to the house where Edith Piaf lived
her name was on the building and the street
where she had lived had a lived-in patina.
He was not invited, to a literary salon but
Shakespeare’s bookshop took in two of his
modest book

The unwanted guest

We are having guests tomorrow
I hate it upsetting my day
Eight people and one of them is a woman
I once loved and wrote poetry about.
It is embarrassing I used her as a muse
But I’m not interested in her personally.
The only good thing is we are going to a posh
Restaurant and I don’t have to pay.
If they order something dear and it is not
Good for my diabetes I will have to say so
And have an omelette with tomatoes.
The husband of the one I used to like works
In the oil business in a poor African country
So wine is out I get loose lips when drinking.
It will be an ordeal I have to suffer not
To upset anyone and leave my political views at home.

The weight
He had written two short books
Wanted to show her, his work,
Not now she said, I’m watching telly.
Around the beam that keeps the heaven’s roof from falling down,
He slung a rope fastened to a scrap iron drum using
Himself as a counterweight.
He hoisted the drum up, but he was too heavy
He carried too much weight of pride.
He cried in the night struggled to get rid of unwanted feelings
The drum becomes lighter, descended until
He was lifted to the top of the beam feeling free
Of false pride and ambition.
Why did you cry so much in the night? He was asked.
He smiled, was at ease with himself, but didn’t answer.

Spiritual

We hear a person speaks fluently with trained ease
which we later find is of little value.
This person is well-liked as he tells a joke and uses irony
when describing people, he does not like.
We can call him witty.
The person is a politician and knows nothing
about spirituality.
But he knows how to pander to our prejudices.

The losing

It was a magnificent bull it dominated
and cowed any upstart bull trying to flirt with his bovines
there was a lean bull that refused to be chased off the field
it came to blows, at first it looked like the big bull
would win, but it lacked stamina, defeated it walked to the
stables the humiliation was all too much
and it refused to come out until the farmer gave it a bar
of chocolate with nuts.
The bull told itself OK, So I lost, but I´m still the biggest oxen
around this neighbourhood.

Nightly awake
It’s three in the morning eczema in my legs
scratches like a myriad of ants and feet hurt
it is diabetes looking for an outlet,
I walk around the flat, a good thing it is large.
From somewhere a dog whines its owner shush
the dog must be in pain but can tell no one
where it hurts.
I hear the lift going down its owner is taking it out
for a night walk or to a vet, perhaps the dog
Has toothache
I think of drinking a glass of wine but since it is
dawn I settle for a cup of tea and a bisque
as the blood sugar is too low, I add a teaspoon
of sugar.
Looking out of the window in my study I can
see a light of a flat from a window in the opposite
the building, someone else who can’t sleep.
I massage my feet, the infernal scratching has
subsided and soon it will be morning.

War in Europa

Never have I seen so many well-dressed refugees
fleeing a country where few bombs fall on people.
Never have I seen a media totally unbiased
stirring up a war that has yet to produce victims.
This winter, the hungry and the cold were stopped
at the border of Poland stopped by water cannons
and dogs.
The refugees came from Libya, Afghanistan, Africa
and most of them were not pristine white one could
be forgiven thinking we are watching discrimination
of the worst type.
War is to be condemned, but the media is suffering
from amnesia, whipping people into a frenzy like it
should be the first and only war in Europe.

Pets

  We should only keep pets we could eat, say, rabbits
  Or miniature pigs when we get tired of them in the ***
  they go.
  In the hinterland of Alentejo, I once had rabbit stew
It tasted strange but was edible later I suspect it was
Cat meat.
I have been thinking of becoming a vegetarian. Have tried
But it never tasted like meat.
There is now artificial meat for sale, alas mostly as burgers
When they come up with a good steak that doesn't fall
Into pieces, I will eat that meat.
As for now I will have fried sausages for my lunch and
Baked potatoes

Goodbye Donald Trump

He has gone now, are you sure thought I saw his shadow.
On the wall just before sunup.
No, no he has gone, and a script is ready an actor, Clooney.
is playing him.
Donald Trump has gone to Florida he is a golf fanatic and
the presiding 4 years has nothing to do with him.
Well, he built a wall the Mexicans refuse to pay for,
it´s an ugly wall, and it doesn´t make the landscape more lovely.
Kind to his friends though pardoned them all.
What will happen next? Not much at first but, he has left.
A legacy of right-wing- extremists.
One thing to his favour he resisted Israel’s pressure to
Obliterate Iran he had no stomach for a real war and,
The question is, will the new administration resist a war too.

The son I lost

  
My sister had three sons she was not in good health
and when her oldest brother was 16, she died and left them
to a father who was cold and distant.
Since I didn´t have a son, I thought of the oldest, Earl, like my son.
Earl worked hard and studied, and moved out as soon as he could
to a flat of his own.
Of his two younger brothers I have little to say as they succumbed
to the narrow confined of a small town.
Earl married too early to an unsuitable woman, but the marriage
produced a son the divorce court gave to him, which set back
his studies for a few years
Finally, he got his diploma and worked for an oil firm designing
rigs and the mysterious world of the techniques I know nothing about.
When he had a difficult problem, he came, stayed at my house
sat on the terrace to late-night till he found a solution.
Years went by he grew and became a leader, although he was naturally
shy, he put that aside when working.
Suddenly, it appears to me that everything happens at the same time,
It was time for him to retire.
I have lost him as a son, he doesn’t need me anymore, and that is the way
It should be.

Morning sight
  
A man and his dog
Are coming out of a house
The man has an umbrella
The dog is not happy.
It stops by the curb
Empty its bowel, *** and
Sniff a tree.
The man, further down
The street calls his mutt
It ignores him
Runs back to the house.
This is not the weather.
For long walks.

We the Humans

How sentimental
How cruel too is humanity
Buster bombs.

A dog asleep
Near its master's casket
We get tearful.
Faithful dog
How sweet.

Children's death
In deep tunnels
Isn't photogenic

The maggots

One morning in the village, millions of maggots
At the cemetery appeared protesting about hunger.
They merged into a big fat pink ball with tiny feet
chanted: we want more corpses, the supply side
has let us down
It had been hitherto a healthy village few people died
those who did were elderly with meagre flesh
The day after the covid struck, the supply was fine
despite nurses and doctors valiant work to stop
this avalanche of untimely death.
As for the maggots, not a pip from, say, complaining
of too much to do.

Envy

Look at this man
he has got a Mercedes. I have not got one
my heart aches I covet this car.
No matter how hard I try, I can not afford to buy one.
But I can take this man´s pleasure in his car away.
I hate this man and his ****** car.
Scrape the bodywork on this gleaming pride, accidentally
run into him, sorry my man, the breaks failed.
Do anything to, he tires of his car and put it up for sale
my glee was boundless when the vehicle was sold.
But what do you know, he bought another Mercedes.

One morning in August

It is early morning, but the petrol station is open
A man stands outside drinking a beer and smokes a cigarette
Not for me to be critical; he needs it to face the day
Before goes to walk in an office on the other side of the road
He is chewing gum; probably he does some tedious work
Repairing computers.
The petrol station is filling up with cars I noticed the prices
Has gone up, others hang outside drinking coffee and
Talking about how expensive it is to drive, but in our society
People often have a long way to drive to work, and it is
Too cold to be sporty and use the bicycle, even the electric ones.
I have had a shower but since my balance unsteady so early
I sit on a kitchen chair inside the tub only get up when
Cleaning parts I cannot reach sitting down.
More and more cars fill the road, and I can’t be standing
Looking out all day long I have other things to do

Clemency

A lifetime of experiences
the struggle is to be willing remembering them
as there are large holes calling certain events
are pushed aside.
What was said or done
in the cusp of youth, I forgive myself
with a shrug.
What was done in the middle years
is a matter that cannot be glossed over.
No, it is not about forgiveness
but the acceptance we are not perfect
and thus, be more lenient
when we are trespassed upon.
I will not choose bitterness for slights done.
The river near the houses is now a trickle
soon it will be an ugly scar
across the landscape.
Once we swam her and made love by the river´s bank.
Blessed is the cynical unhurt striding through life.

Crossed lines
Why are quiet evenings not enough
the mind will not slow down or make sense
in the blinking light of thoughts.
Wine is of no use the brain turns into ruby.
I must hurry, catch thoughts before they
turns into banalities.
The night waits for me to articulate the mystery of art.
I have to nail down words that are always
a bit paler than the ones thought of.
Once again, I have given birth to an ugly duckling
but I will not send them into the abyss of delete,
I will wait till they can walk unaided before sending
them into the world.

The mystery of man
This is the third day after new year and the day
equally dark and miserable as they were before
the new has number changed.
On the Eve of festivity, drunk people thronged
narrow streets hoarse voices and screams
upsetting dogs and cats.
oddly, we celebrate the new year with
warlike gestures like fireworks.
Most of my friends are dead, yes, we too danced
the golden calf, not knowing what life was about
I still don’t know.
On the third sober day, the same old **** bombs
killing people, as arms dealers drink champagne.
Our democracy is for the well to do
for us subjugation and waiting for Godot.

President Jacques Chirac
Was laid to rest today and with him
The Europe we loved, the civility and elegance.
Democracy and decency when Paris
pulsed with life.
These days one has to get to the regions
To meet the real French
Paris has been taken over by foreign tongues
Whose demands are not French but
Adoption of the life they lived on
The hinterland, say Pakistan or Algeria
The hope they would integrate and become
Real Parisian was a dream too far.
We have to accept that the old ways are over
Moreover, who knows? It might be better.

to stop caring

I don´t want to know of the six million dead
they came back and endlessly take revenge on the innocent.
I don´t want to know of the suffering world
I will sleep in my bed and dream of harmony we can otherwise
not obtain.
Why should I care about dead and starving children in Yemen?
There is nothing I can do about it shaking my head in dismay
when feeling nothing about their plight.
Why should I care about hungry dogs begging under the table?
Cringing animals who deep down hate us for what we have done
robbing them of the pride they lost once upon a time.
To survive this suffering, my heart must be made of a stone,
and my soul be of gleaming steel.
Wars have been our destiny; I live it to you, pining for peace.

the future

I have been listening and seeing a program
by David Attenborough about the dire state of our world
listening to his voice, I felt his sadness.
He ended with a hope that we can find a way back
to a sustainable future.
I felt the last lines he spoke about hope was not
reflected in his voice.
I think as humans we are destroying ourselves
the USA and the Russian Federation are threatening
each other with nuclear warfare.
Should Biden win the race it will get worse he is
a warmonger and will confront Russia, unlike
the much malign Trump who has kept a lid on things
despite his showman bluster.
I think the eradication of humanity is imminent.
Nature will recuperate, forests will grow but
I fear we will not be there.

Alone in a Church
First time saw Alfred was in New York, 1955. He appeared on a
Clubs ‘stage playing sweet music. I was alone and frightened
lost in a strange world so my father followed me back to the ship a
night of yellow fog and light rain.
For many years, I didn’t see Alfred busy as I was growing up and
yes, not to forget all the beautiful girls how can a father compete
with that?
In was only in later years when penniless and abandoned he came
back, playing sweet music and listened to my story, just nodding his
head and helping me up. I sat in a church it was warm and in front
of me a big note Enough for a good dinner and a bottle of wine, but
Alfred was there too I had to find a moral middle way so I had me wine and food but went back to the church and put the change in the collection box. Last time I saw Alfred was at a hospital he came to
say goodbye from now on I had to learn to live without him. I cried
so loudly that a nurse woke me up asked what was wrong, I told,
she lost interest, go back to sleep, she said, so why the **** did she
wakes me up in the first place. Alfred ‘s face is slowly disappearing,
erased by yellow fog and light rain.

The choice


I could have been a farmer that was not a choice
the authority sent me there, I think as punishment for being rebellious.
I could have been an academic, but no one like me went to University
so choice never came up as an alternative.
I´m only conscious of a choice born out of necessity becoming a seafarer
instead of working in a factory the very idea of factory work
still can make me shudder.
I spent years at sea and was promoted as an officer,
it was not what I wanted I was a leaf in a stream with little will to alter
where life took me.
Tired of the sea I opened a cafe, not by choice, but I could be my boss
but I had not reckoned with costumers and talking to them, like a barber
who talk to his' about football which he privately hates.
For the reason that had little to do with me, I was a counsellor at a clinic
telling alcoholics how to stop drinking, I think of my stint at the clinic
when I have my evening whiskey.
So my only choice in life was to sit in a library all my life read and eat
a bologna sandwich, while life was going on outside, a decision that
could not be fulfilled, I blame the women for that.

Bitter Love

In the night, I whispered no one love like us
entwined we’re one body a mass of sated lust.
Her room above an ice-cream parlour was
an angle’s boudoir.
I left for work in a cloud of pink infatuation
and felt benevolent to all creatures in the world.
Nothing could touch me now the coast
was clear of underwater reefs.
Suddenly it changed a boyfriend, a fisherman
came back from the sea, it was him she loved
in our throes of ******, her thought was of him.
A fall from grace, total humiliation, the beauty
fragmented into thousand pieces of the utterly
repugnant memories.
She and her lover boarded a ferry to Denmark
and that was the end of our love affair.

The Greek Poet

I’m trying to read the work of a Greek poet
I have tried to read it before until overcome by tedium.
I’m trying again.
I read slowly while pain is dripping, an awful lot of flowers
In her verses, heartache and all that.
Some of her poems are good but they suffer from being placed
Among mediocrity and it is painful.
Her book is too long and that perhaps is the problem with
All poetry is “too long” twenty pages are enough
To keep reader interest, but publishers want longer books
For their own reason. Too many poems spoil the cream
Of poetry.
I've put the book back on the shelf of dust, pick up
Another book of poetry that is mercifully slim, after lunch
I will try to read it.