October Friday
This morning was green and a mild wind from
Morocco blew I was in Casablanca once
bought a pair of slippers it is what one does
when going to the market there.
The weather- man on TV said Africa, but Africa
is a continent and many other things.
A man in the next village had killed his wife it
is for women getting married a perilous activity
the lottery of life is littered unlucky females.
The sun shines over Mosul too and Iraqi officers
are paraded on TV, they are having a break now
before the big offensive, sounds like propaganda,
we see tanks fire at something over the horizon
but where is the enemy?
400 hundred IS fighters killed by bombing not
a word about civilian casualties we reserve that
for Aleppo where, they are actually  counted
and given a name DEAD!
My neighbour has a nagging wife she needs *** or
Be made a fuzz of lack of it makes her scream a lot
and when she does he saddle up his mule and goes
for a ride  into the woods of happy memories.

Nothing happens here

In the next village, a man was trapped under his tractor
and in another village, a man fell out of an oak tree
No one asked what he was doing there but his
trousers’ zip was open which caused endless rumours
he also had binoculars, so he was a bird watcher then
only most birds have flown to Africa this time of year.
Emma, the nurse, lives nearby, and she always keeps
a window open when she does her aerobics in the ****  
My left leg hurts I have to use a crutch had a fall you see
but not in our village nothing happens here.

Ploughing
                      I have been ploughing
The field of nothingness
A furrow at a time,
With an elderly mule that farts a lot.
The soil is unyielding
It is cabbage and carrots
I want
You can't eat flowers.
I have the carcass
Of a goat
But needs vegs
To go with it
All I need is for you
To see
I can cook a good meal of words
So far I have two
Who are willing?
To partaking
But my table has a place
For twelve
So I will wait
Till I find
Someone who likes
Cabbage
And never mind
The flowers

The Disappearing act
Hellas has vanished from Europe, they are looking
here and there but it cannot be found on any map.
Banks are in a frenzy they have lent money to
to a Greek tragedy an illusion, the only thing left is
“A Big Fat Wedding” a movie played by Jewish actors.
I trick of the eye grapes on the vine is a chimera and
Germany is taking a haircut.

Naïveté


It is cold; sea spray painted the ship white,
light green is the Nordic water
a mighty cocktail of clinking ice cubes.
I scratch a happy face on thick glass on
The porthole, we will dock at a place
where warm people sits around a fire and
give a **** about sailor’s miserable life.
Seascape paintings hang on gilded walls;
look at that sea, so verdant, delicate brush
strokes too; the artist died at a mad house.

Remember Grozny

years ago it was
bombed to submission
like Aleppo
The Russian troops
walked into
a devastated city
They found a sixteen
year old boy
hanged him on a lamppost
That is what
happens in wars
it makes us into beasts

the godless Dawkins
The Professor Richard Dawkins had stroke which made him say
when feeling better: “There are things we will never know.”
I think his sudden revelation or insight is gratifying.
For those who do not know the professor he has written books
about anti-god and made fun of those who do believe in a religion
God is an abstract figure which I knew when nine years of age it
is easy to laugh at vicars and women wearing crosses, but for me
the subject of god is boring

The Fear
Now that it is Christmas, Nordic Jul or Hanukkah
there is much talk about the soul
like it should be an identity floating about
as a body less person.
To believe in a soul apart from body is a fallacy
the last bastion for dreamers,
those who believe in an afterlife
the will to accept death is the end of life.
Whether you put hundred on a grave
it doesn’t matter for the dead only
the florist thrives and
those who in the night steal flowers
for a lover; body and soul are
inseparable but there are times the soul
disappears first by Alzheimer
one hopes the body will join the absent soul
before memories has erased
the life the remembered.

The Hidden thought

It is said our unconscious fear of death
pushes us forward to achieve something before
the great Nothing descends,  
for writers this is prescient they struggle to leave
behind words on paper, and not erased
as leaves on trees when the cold wind blows.  
Others skydive from mountaintop cheating
the reaper, yet hope to live long enough to tell
their story of daring do.
Architects fear death too, that's why they built
the tall skyscrapers that will stand the test of time
and celebrate their foreverness.
The chef in his kitchen thinks of death when he
prepares a meal a signature dish where his name
will appear in cookbooks.
As it is unconscious, most people are not troubled only
when waking up at four in the morn before
birds sing and you can taste the stillness of death.

Redemption
The dogs barked hysterically in the night
Not a normal warning of a dog trying to sneak in
Dog do not know charity unless thought by man
to show sympathy.
Light came on people of faith crossed themselves
something like a wave had passed through the village
it was the ghosts of soldiers who had fought
and killed many civilian, now seeking redemption.
Unforgiven forever marching trying to find a sanctuary

Love is a pain in the neck

It was an odd week of lovelornness
he kept singing, “born to lose, and now I´m losing you.”
Perhaps it was an Elvis Priestly song.
He sighed a lot, but otherwise slept well.
He had been a victim of his ego.
The song in his head finally disappeared,
there were
So, many beautiful girls around that summer.
He sometimes sang the song “blanket on the ground.”
***** Nelson´s?
Does a sweet song beget love or is it love that begets?
a sweet song?

Fisherman's cap

There had been a storm and a 100 years wave
had struck many fishing vessels sunk
I found on the beach a yellow southwestern cap I wondered
if the owner of the cap was on deck
when the mountain of water hit and splintered his boat
into pieces that would drift ashore collected
as winter wood for the poor  
Had the wave knocked him out, and he died unconscious
of the horror of the raging ocean no time to think of
his wife or friends left behind, and fishes would eat him
Maceral are fond of human flesh, I found a finger
once when gutting a maceral, it read “from Maria forever.”
I took the waterproof put it on a stone
perhaps a passer-by might find it put it on his head
not knowing about the tragedy at sea.

My Way
I saw the three tenors sing “I did it my way” mind, the fat one died,
and the two others hate each other and never appear in public if
they can avoid it. Of the two one looks like an aging matinée idol
the other suffers from being mobbed at school  and looks scared
has nightmares and takes to tears before going on stage.


I still like Frank Sinatra's rendition of that song better he sang
it so relaxed with a clear diction and  made me think of a man
with a six pack ambling on his way home  he too is dead to
“My Way” is about human hubris we think we are masters of our
destiny when we are leaves blowing along a wet asphalted road
in the autumnal half-light.  

Thinking back- I can afford to- I never got a thing my way which when
young caused me bitterness the highest prize eluded me kismet knew
I could not handle illustriousness it would have made me look absurd
a swaggering fool hated by colleagues, on the stage of life. Yet, when
dancing the tango at a nightclub in Buenos Aires 54 years ago the applause
I received still rings sweetly in my ears.

The Paratrooper

I was falling through the air couldn’t see a thing, opened up
my ******* umbrella and descended in an orderly fashion.
A scythe of a moon gave enough light so I could see the coastline
and the dark, menacing sea just waiting to fill my lung with water.
By manipulating the umbrella's ribs, I landed safely on the beach,
folded the collapsible and got away as foam and horrid sea tried to
drag me under. To get home I had to walk through a monocultural
nightmare of pop music, endless Fado, and orange trees the bore
nothing, but yellow fruit no one bothers to pick up as the land
is drowning in sticky juice and no gin. Anyway, supermarkets sold
virtual orangeade. I was walking uphill now, downhill too, but
mostly uphill. From a hilltop, I could see my cottage; noticed the yard
light was still on and hear the desultory din of an aeroplane circling
looking for a lost passenger

When Satan Ruled
The intellectual class writing words on paper
has one truth, the class who are bent over a plough
has one truth too and think the devil with a long tie
has many things to offer like work and a decent standard
of living, the high-brow lot scoffs at this
saying the ploughmen are misled and don't read the facts
but facts depend upon what one reads into it.
Some states ignore this seek an audience with the man
of a thousand deals and are willing to sign a pact with
a bloke too crude for their salons, yet when it comes to money
are willing to give him a blow-job, while secretly plot his
downfall and churches tell of parables of the devil and sin.
The trade unions have embraced him
and not burst into flames,
will bring them paying members, they will be mighty again
as before the liberal class will bend to his will and find
a logical expression for doing so, woolly enough  to say when
the show is over; we never liked his politics.

A Bus Ride
I had bought a newspaper in town and was taking the bus home,
a half an hours ride up to my village.  I looked at the headlines
and noticed the paper had no date, were I reading yesterday’s
today's news or tomorrow's?  The bus was empty this afternoon
and it struck how silent it ran could only hear the swishing sound of
rubber against the asphalted road.
Then the bus stopped for the first time on this journey near outside
my house, so many flowers now in November, my dog sat on
the steps waiting just for me. The bus door opened with a hiss,
but the dog didn't run towards me.  I hesitated something was wrong it
was the same house, yet not the same this one looked irrelevant
the flowers were pale, yes; this was a copy or a painting forgotten at
a rural art exhibition. Not my village, I said to the driver and sat down
“Are you sure?” the driver asked I didn’t answer and the bus rolled on.
Opened the newspaper it now had the right day and it was Monday.

Lack of Privacy

In Lisbon
Between parked cars
A man defecated
I wondered if he had
Loo paper  
Probably not
I turned away
Drunk or sober
This was his private moment

A War Hero  


The big gull stood on its realm, ocean cleaned rocks
of the outer sea, snowy white chest, blue/grey wings
that spanned big as an osprey’s, yellow beak and
clear green eyes, but when a hint of red anger in them
gleamed other gulls flew clear.

When the ocean is irate and breaks over rocks it
take abode in a coastal town where it is well know
and famous, for once it shat on Adolf ******’s hat as
he strode from his yacht and a band of Quislings,
played Austrian oompah music  

Domestic Nazis went to the shoals, tried to blow
them up, but the sea was white topped their boat
sprung a leak and they had to be rescued by local
fishermen, who were told not to speak of this affair;
an impossible request… of course.    

The seagull became a symbol of resistance and
also showed how banal dictatorship can be when
it puts a prize on a gull’s head and hunts it with
flying machines. Vanity is silly as pride and fools
silver, fishermen and war heroes know that.

China & USA
In the shadow of banal news,
Russia and spying on elections,
lurks a threat that can lead to
nuclear war and the long night
drops by drips our mine is being
prepared for a war and hatred
this because two giants are on
collision course as the plates of
the earth are shifting, a political
disaster for the sake of power.
We who do not want a new war
are drawn into fake propaganda
learning to dehumanise a people
a war without winners bar those
hiding in caves underground with
their gold and worthless money

In Defence of Donal Trump

He is a crude person, not one I would
like the share a coke with, but he has galvanised
the working class (middle class) which was
shunned under the previous administration.
The class forgotten by other parties have found
a voice someone who talks for them
and more Americans are at work as never before.
He represents an America that is not glib and
university educated but merely want a job and be able
to feel they are listened to.
He is a reckless president does not understand
foreign politics and don't care to know, but his group
do not care about Afghanistan, Iraq or other places,
he is delivering want they want.
This is what an American president is for.

They are coming to take you away

I dislike corners I know he will be standing there
A real Parisian apache one leg resting on a wall of a closed down factory
he is sharpening his stiletto and cleaning his fingernails
Or a farmer after digging stony ground has had enough cuts my throat
With his *****, a spray of blood and the land will be fertile again
I could also walk home after an evening in the pub fall face down in
a rain puddle where a yellow welly floats
it could be so banal falling in the night when going to the loo
a broken nose and no one can hear my muffled screams dying and  
and not saying anything divine.
I have to buy a coffin it must be wide sleep in it every night wake
up in the morning dead with sunlight on my face.

High tide
May, warm sunlight, mild breeze and under
a parasol casts a cooling shade.
The hum of insect
A barking dog
White clouds on blue velvet
The peace is restless a sense of danger
the big powers have been banging on their war drums
conditioning us
we are being groomed for war
It is like psychoses, we want war now
fight for the fatherland against an enemy not defined
the noble death
The song contest in Europe has done a coup, but it
Is not enough
Two jet fighters streak across the sky they are flying low
piloted by flinty eyes.
Perhaps the coming war is a natural progression
a bloodletting that happens in regular intervals
nothing can be done like Thor's hammer it strikes
when it want to
evening now grass are asleep
the shade has become night
we can't but wait

Senryu

A poet adores love
Not the practical one
Dinner at five

The moment caught
A memory to remember
A face in the crowd

The killer of love
Is the despair of loneliness
turned into disgust

Selling books

A friend of mine who used to be my editor,
until I discovered she was bewildered by commas,
has gone all mercantile, if you buy one of her
sweetly decorated books with flowers, you also
get a doll presumably made of plastic.
The child had no memories yet, only that he loved
his mother, father, grandfather and aunts.
The Israelis will say he was paid by the “Hamas.”
to go play in the sand.
If you buy one of my small books at Kindles, I will
send you a picture of a dead Palestinian child.
Truth is a costly gift, but in general, a doll is more
popular and cosy.

The Burden of youth

She was seventeen, and her boyfriend had left her
Life is more intense when you are young she wanted to commit
Suicide so he could see how much he loved her.
Filled her rucksack with stones and waded into the bay, but
The water was low only to her chest when she reached the other
Side she was glad to be alive.
She met a young man also unlucky in love he took her rucksack
Filled more stones into it and waded into the sea, but now there was
High tide the young man disappeared under the sea.

A few seagulls shrieked otherwise silence as the girl waited for the bus
To take her back to town, block out unpleasant thoughts she said aloud.
My father is a communist, the bus driver who was a fascist stopped
Pulled out his gun and shot her dead and women on an outing clapped.
This as her father was letting the red flag fly in the street of Utopia

Rainy Day Sonnet.

It is so quiet here in my village when it is raining
dogs in outhouses are overtaken by melancholia.
It appears so useless to bark and their dream might
be of an otherworldly nature knowledge they are
unable to share the sense that their servitude status
a clown for us to laugh at is not dignified.
Once they were equal to other beings that roamed
the forests and plains the camaraderie of the flock
now their existence is in your hands, and it is a burden
we must carry gently

Yes, light rain makes me moody, my loneliness hurts
yearning for a mythical past, I think like the dogs there must
be something more to life than sitting in a cabin waiting
for the sun to shine and warm old bones.

Monday Morning

When I opened the kitchen door the fridge had an attack of the shakes
then feel into dejected stillness which bayed in my ears.
To break this force of nothingness I spoke and sounded like a duck and
the beer bottle held in my clammy hand fell
with a foamy splash on the floor; wordless
Fear…why me?
The fridge rattled again but there was nothing of worth on its shelves other than bacon, eggs, cheese…Stop, I feel sick.
Turned on the tap and fat maggots dropped into my glass, that too ended
on the floor; fled, outside people, starred at me because
I was dressed in a red bathrobe with Hotel Astor stamped on the back.

Idle Hands
I’m looking at a screen with blue edges,
The screen is not so white it has millions
dots of black hidden I the vast whiteness
I try to write down words or two,
let them fly and find their own way, but there
is nothingness that has a past or future
Before when writing in the night I had a beer
or two to help push me forward, draw
and Idea out of me, now unkind stillness.
I get up can’t sit here wasting my time
I try to read a book it is usually an overlong mess
written on a word processor fit for a secretary.
Poetry too is self-indulgent and some are full of words
so rare as written by on academic to another,
Do not let the people in. Anyway I have retired from
poetry and the tyranny of show, do not tell
I'm free as the none appearing bird on the screen-

Love at first fall

When I first met the girl, who had fallen off her bike,
she was ten years old, and she said to herself I’m going
to marry him and I was not a party to her plans.
When we met again I had been unhappily married and
happily divorced, I fell in love with her but worried
about the age difference of about 15 years.
This made no difference to her she had loved me all along.
From thereon she took charge I liked to go out drinking
I loved smoking, but this ended.
She loved me and I her and that was enough even for
my bewildered soul.
We have been married for forty years, and I have no clue
what to do without her and I don't really mind but I still
wonders how a ten years old girl could be so sure.

Botany

Have you had a shower?
Yes dear, and changed my t. shirt too
you see, my dear, when I was in the amazon
collecting rare flowers, the local tribe called
me “the man who hates his face.”
Did you find a rare flower?
Yes, my lovely, I found you.
But the botanist whom I was carrying his luggage
refused to accept the human rarity
that is why your name is in posh books about
botany

The Matador

I was thinking of taken the bus Seville
But don't know what to do when getting there
Unless I run into a female Toreador
I once met in Seville she was good at killing things
She had once worked at an abattoir, alas, too many men
Surrounded her, she didn't see me
That was long ago she must be 70 years old now
And probably glad to see a man who remembers when
She cut the ear of the of her prey and held it aloft
And the spectators were ecstatic.
Perhaps she has turned away from this slaughter and
Become and protector of all animals.
Did I tell you I was in Seville ten years ago with
A drunken girlfriend?
In a bar, she got up pretending to be a matador,
This was embarrassing
I had to get her out and to the hotel
But, she was in a festive mood
and disappeared in the night.
There are idle moments when I wonder what happened to her.

Love not deeply
It was an odd week of lovelorn
I kept singing “born to lose and now I’m losing you.”
Perhaps it was an Elvis Priestly song
I sighed often but otherwise slept well it was more
An ego thing she left me.
The song in my head finally disappeared there were
So many beautiful girls that summer
I loved them all, but I sometimes sang a line from a song
“a blanket on the ground.”
Willie Nelson's I think.
Does a sweet song begets love or is it love that begets
A sweet song?

Passing misgivings
There are moments in once elderliness when
the flowers of the mind, the silver of remembrance
is but a cracked black  & white film.
Old age and wishes blend into a golden patina of
illusion, disappointment  seeps in melancholy
lower the tired head and doesn’t let it look up to see
the sky or sense the wind or rain.
This tristesse where has the laughter gone, the charm
of friendship and the beautiful women are
but ghosts in a threadbare past.
The squall doesn’t linger colours become visible there
is no time not to enjoy what's left in the time glass.

Wildfire

Fire, we fear flames seeking to obliterate
to cleanse forest and plains so the land can grow
again green shoots the world has been
the cycles can start again
having cleared the undergrowth that hindered
the freedom of samplings
There is a flower that only bloom after a fire
fire ephemerals can cover mountainsides
in a multicolour of wonder.

We feel a strange attraction to the flames
we wish it could rinse our sins, yet, we have
a great terror of the fire of hell

The fire we dread the most is the fire
in mans' heart it can be wonderful but so easily
became ruinous and manifest itself
in greed and destruction of what is good
There is a wildfire raging now and the Nordic
tremble and fear they might be consumed
by the firestorm.

A Dipterous

Walks across
The screen
Older than
Methuselah
For an insect
I blow
A lungful of air
To hasten it
I pick it up
Carry the fly
Outside
Put it in a flower ***
Dandelion
And leave it
To die in peace

The Pope and statues

Confounded old age, I keep looking on a black screen, on a plateau of nothingness
Except for the ridiculous idea, I ought to travel to Rome and see the statues
I once wrote about, and perhaps meet the Pope, and we can talk about this and that.
I must meet him now before the Vatican machinery brainwash him into a Pope
wearing glorious robes, a person of empty rituals.
If I get to meet him, he could dress up in a smart Italian suit, and we could go for
a walk and look at the statues together.
Drink beer and eat Brazilian sausages with Italian flare; tell him a secret so deep
he may think me deluded.
Dear brother Frances, your name is Erik, we are twins, shared the same womb,
but I was kidnapped by the Roma people and grew up in poverty the underdog
in our democratic world; and you are the bishop of Rome.
There will be a stunned silence, either he accepts my story and embrace me
or he calls the Swiss guards; whichever he will not forget me and the statues.

Immigration

I walked along the old road it was replaced in 1951 by the new road,
Nothing much left, it ends at a stone wall. Yet, one can still see the mark
the cart wheels carts made and if you look closely you can see the hoof
track of man’s best friend the donkey and if you look over the wall
you can see man and mule ploughing the soil one furrow at the time.
The people here was a robust race those who survived the hardship of
a childhood lived to be old as the stones in the field.
They had nothing in the fifties but wanted more so they found work in
the industrial France and their women  cleaned houses when coming
returning they built houses big as the highborn but their children stayed
in France, they had embraced modernity.
For them, as they sink into indifference, the valiant struggle of their
race is forgotten as the hoof mark in the sand of time: until one asks who
Am I, where do I come from? And the answer is as silent as the passing
of time and they will see the ruins of their grandparent humble abode sit
down and cry, caress the stones and lament the loss.

Moonlight Romance

It was in Peru
And the moon was full
Working long hours, I went early
To bed and didn't see the moon that often
I had gone ashore where I met Maria in a bar
We walked down to the beach
Sat on an upturned rowing boat looking at Luna
Naturally, we made love on satin sand
Slept entwined
She walked back to the bar I walked onboard
Happy and thinking how wonderful life was
Five days later I needed an injection of penicillin.

New leaf

I dream of sleeping in a bed of rose petals
like an Indian potentate waiting for his favourite concubine.
I know as I wait the petals will be crushed cling to my
body and the bed will stink of decay.  
I drive my motorbike across the Alps, the cows don't bother
to look up they have seen elephants.
I Swiss hotels are expensive and cold and smell of edelweiss,
but I don't care, not since I bathed in the Ganges.
In India there is a temple for rats, I like to go there
it may cure my fear of rodent.
Jasmine flowers are permanent virgins only open up
at night when the world sleeps.
I will not change any plant for my almond tree it
flowers every winter and I dream of snow

Indian Summer

As I waited the first cold morning of
the year awoke, streams of sunlight
came over the ridge;

so it began again, and as we cling to
our entities and hold on to our life, we
must surely hear the unsaid;

spoken by a saddest of hearts: we are
mere mortals, new days will arise and
fall long after we have gone;

and from my old school’s window,
a child will see the blue mountain and
wish he could see its other side.

The balancing act

New Year’s Eve how fine it was
Red wine and grilled meat
An exhibitionist dance alone
On wooden legs
Fell into a lake of wine almost
Drowned till someone pulled the plug
And he waded ashore to the strand of
Safe temperance
Today he sits in the corner of the restaurant
A plate of soup and a bottle of water
Around him, tables are full of revellers who
Try to stretch
The New Year Eve just a bit longer.
He looks at the people and wonders
Who will be alive next year?

A Bus Ride
I took the bus into town today its passengers were
mostly elderly, old women and generally fat as women
of the land tend to be, busy feeding the family they
spend too much time in the kitchen yes, I was the oldest
but would not like to have slept with any of them
and according to their lack of interest in me, it was mutual.
That is ok; they are good at putting flowers on graves.
I was not buying much just wanted to get out of the house
I will be moving there it's good to know where the cheapest
lunch cafes are situated, that's where the Portuguese
bank staff and workers go both groups are equally bad paid.
Going home three hours later the same women on board they
were animated had bought skirts, blouses, and shoes at
the Chines shop less than half the price of ordinary shops
theirs had been a good day.

Religious cooperative

When I do- as a liberal should- defend Muslims and
their religion and the right to worship as they wish
yet I think Islam is holding the people back as it is
too self - obsessed putting the absolute demands    
of this subversion of this eastern religion that is
a comparatively a new religion with elements of
Judaism and Christianity, yet Islam is despite what
we have heard and the excesses of the fanatics, who
contrary to true Islamic thinking, spew hateful lies,
a peaceful religion as we see practised by
the Palestinians.
Both creeds Christianity and Islam reject the idea of
free for all ****** norms of Judaism and before we are
dismissed of anti- Semitism I still think we are right

Rigor

The pond in the village had a film of ice
and the snow under the elm tree had the aroma of
roasted nuts and sweet honey
there were no old women in the village they had been
melted into lard, and old men were salted and put in barrels
they would last for years.
It was a place where survivors live and to do that one had
not to eat your own new-born.
Cabbage and carrots and the spindly arms of old men
Kept the village alive while bankers skiing in the Alps
The British full of discontent waited for the US
To rescue them Anglophone, never mind the rest.
The old hatred between the French and the Germans
Was making Europe healthy again with Belgium and
Holland with costmary cowardice sided with all

Manuscript for consideration

Now let us try this again writing a document
With one letter marching nicely in front of the other
Like adding instead of using numbers to give the written
words prettiness, even if the theme is about unnatural ***.
The fact is the diesel smell at the bus terminal
Six o'clock in the morning when the cleaning lady starts her
low paid work has nothing to do with anything, had they
bothered going to university they could sit in fine offices
and gone to the hairdresser at nine a woman who can just
read and write Luckily for the ladies she skipped school.
The driver of the bus enters he farts loudly, and that is ok
But I could have shown some respect. It is odd to think
if all women had higher education looked up to the blue sky who should make my dinner?

The Rage  
Wish I could control my temper
I know when a storm is coming days before
The banality of morning news
White smiles and lies frivolous they are
I refuse to let anyone in
Today I had to see my cardiologist we
Had a shouting match I called her a ****
She called security
The storm blew over I can't really help it
Tomorrow I have to see her again
I will say sorry, but not too convincingly
Why does she not listen to me I’m the patient
And know where it ******* hurts

Fragment of dreams      

When I awoke it was still raining
the roof still leaking
a sense of emptiness.
          Not dreaming much
horses galloping across the Pampas
           flaring nostrils
            flying manes.
Too close to a dusty town
Corralled
Broken to nil
sad eyes look to the Pampas
Yes,
                sailors by the shore
seeing the sea
                 the far ocean
they shall not sail on again.


published in THE Rue Bella

Summer night in Rome


In the Fontana Dei Guattro Fiumi in the piazza Navona  
I had a cooling dip after coming out of a smoke filled
bar, I stripped but modestly kept my underwear, on and
watched over by an elderly patrolman, who wasn’t looking
for promotion, he knew everyone on his turf and when
needed he didn’t see a thing which was good for keeping
the peace. Dawn and the local market opened, I had oven
fresh bread and cheese; coffee, also a grappa to stave off
a slight chill after a bath. I sat there eyes half closed
listening, the voice of humanity and it were fine to be alive.
Walking back to my little hotel I saw the police officer
again he was spoken to a *******, he smiled and said
good morning I did like-ways; it’s handy to have a friendly
lawman on my side. I went to bed, window open and white
curtains moving the breeze, listening to the outside noises,
and drifting on the ocean of dreamy sleep, I knew I would
wake up at noon by the aroma of Italian food

Their Future
The was a sea in Russia that disappeared sand dunes,
rusting ships and rib cages of sailors sticking up out of
the ground as a warning, fight nature be prepared to lose.
The Aral Sea it had fish aplenty, now it is a ghostly place
Was the wind stirs extinct sea into a colourless pallid
greyness that tells us how the world will look like in about
a hundred years. The Aral is far from our light fantastical
it is hidden the cadaverous vastness of Russia, The land
around may have changed names, but it will always be Russia.
Do not walk across the sea at night the place is haunted and
you will see the future that is too awful for a mere human
to take in, after all, the suffering that will be visited upon your
grandchildren, your soul will ever find peace as there are such
a thing as ghosts scaring souls... it is your grandchildren they
will not give you peace and no grave is deep enough to hide
you from their wrath and the world your greed destroyed.

The price to pay
There is a problem it might appear as a sideshow
Now that Europe is averting their eyes
Thinking of Brexit.
Prime minister Modi of India has the plan to turn India
Into a Hindu state, this sounds remarkable until
We realise it is fascist by nature, pure race and all that
Hatefulness that follows such thinking.
There 180 million Muslims in India.
Modii’s thinking is inviting civil war by two nations
With the nuclear capability.