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

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.

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.

Cognizance
When I consciously aware of myself at two years old
in 1940 when we sat in the basement of a school
and listened to English bombers
looking for the airport, they didn't find it but dropped
a few bombs anyway, hit some houses and a fish factory
the bombs were quite puny then
it looked at my hands I was me, what I did today I would
remember tomorrow I had a will and used it when
needed and often lost in the world of adults  
Freedom, the liberty of thoughts was mine no one could
take that away even when I had to pay lip service
to teachers and so called religious leaders, that is the reason
I shift opinion when needed.
What I fear is if old age is going to rob me of my awareness
of what I'm and what I was.

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.

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

The full moon
Is not showing off it shines
For no one in particular
For you and me and caterpillars
Climbing a tree
The new moon is  growing fast
A teenager on the make
But when it nearly full it loses
Interest in the near things
And just shines
As it is the only thing, it can do
Reflecting the sun
The moon is a secondary sun
Trying to warm the night
Nevertheless, lovers swoon
And the werewolf lurks in the bushes

Magazines
I used to read Readers Digest
it was like the Fox channel
before internet
and we believed yet thought
something was wrong,
Israel was great in a sea of hatred
and the magazine never said
a thing about Palestine whose land
was stolen.
Arabs want to **** Israeli
******* we thought forgetting about
holocaust   which happened in our
back- yard. But then we grew and
read books
giving us a different view, yet we
sensed that being successful we should
keep our innocence of mind
we had when reading
“Readers Digests” and its odd sense
of humour which we were asked
to be serious about

Fillers overlooked

Reading the papers and the news on TV channels
the festive season has begun like an eager tractor
there is little time for those caught up in wars;
we will remember them at the dinner table.
A woman was given £8 million as a divorce settlement
she had had aroma - therapy worthy of a queen.
The knee caps of Queen Nefertiti has been found
glinting white In the sand. Now there is a hunt for
her thigh bones and perhaps a tuft of hair where
her ****** used to be.
The finder would be the archaeologist of the year
and have his/her picture in the paper plus a story  
to tell of daring do and near misses and a place at
the board of the Guardian which made me think
if the highborn has classier knee caps the rest of us.

Forgotten faces

We only get one summer to remember,
the rest ends up in a blur.
This one had lasted long and the girl
I loved lived across the river, a beautiful little stream
that serenely floated down to meet its doom.
September, still summer though I knocked
a neighbour came, said she had gone abroad, a Dane.
Unseemly haste! I smiled, shrugged my shoulders,
women! And I suffered the longest night.
Daybreak brought a chill; dark clouds congregated it rained.
Years later I was in a bar in Copenhagen an old woman with too much makes up
on her haggard face, but those eyes, a memory stirred.
Her hands shook when pouring beer into my glass,
long nights, she said, and swiftly left, and a younger woman took her place.
I left too,
outside I looked up and saw
the curtain on the first-floor move;
those eyes.
I had seen them before but refused to remember.

Working-class and Teachers

I'm working-class and proud of it
grew up in the damp shadows of fish factories
we played in grimy streets the sun was
the lamplight after six
and always the persistent drizzle and mist.
School was not much our teacher disliked us
thought to teach us was a waste of time.
By luck, by pluck and ******* stubbornness I got out
saved by the sea breeze I had to be
my own teacher who was stern but not arrogant.
These half- baked teacher they didn't know
Cuba and the sand made in heaven, little bureaucrat
thinking they were intellectuals
I'm still working-class, but my interest is not the same
It has broken down the wall of misery but
The roots are with me I know where I came from

What if…

The Oost, behind cloud  belt, stretches
like a damp horse blanket
not forever, in the infinitive, it does not exist
As there are no limits
For argument's sake let us say there is a border
what would it consist of, surely not?
The shattering of the famous glass ceiling, broken
glass on an expensive coiffeur and the hairdresser cried.
It could be an elastic material that if you cut, it opens
the whole universe will collapse like a balloon  
at a New Year party or a used ******  leisurely thrown
on the floor picked up by the dog that ran outside  
thinking it was a marrow bone.
Curiosity and knowledge are of great value, but there
are moments when ignorance is blissful

A none Writing Day
The freedom of not writing anything is an illusion
today I will just sit there and listen to the news
Turkey is having problem and it has nothing to do
with me although a poet friend of mine Erken may
be upset several police officers killed perhaps one
of them was her son and I can't send flowers in
case it is not so. I only like Portugal in the winter
when it is cold enough to put an extra jumper on
when sitting indoors....that were the days.

What do I know? Perhaps Erken is a Russian spy
who speaks five languages perfectly  without fluffing
neither a line nor breaking the wind when talking to the pope.
Knows the sewers of Istanbul like the street going home
and analyzes the **** falling from the American embassy
When it is discovered that the US envoy suffer from
diabetes she will be promoted by Putin.

Sun Fall

It had been a good day
I saw the sun go down
Over the ocean
When I was sick and wished
Not for another day
I hoped not waking up
“I hate to see the sun goes down”
A song I think
I was glad to see the sunset
On the other hand
It is a wish without substance
A brief look
What I will miss when dead
I laugh knowing
That death is an eraser
Nothing will be
Recorded
Our generation was
Whisper on the strand
Of Nirvana
And there is no one
To record our strife

Faiths
When I grew up there as only on religion available-
choices are better now- Christianity. We had bible
classes every week and I found it entertaining
but I never got the message, I simply lacked
the gene that makes people believes in the impossible.
There was a time when I was around sixteen when
met a Christian girl and went with to meeting, sang
and prayed, while preying on her, but it never got
more than holding a damp hand. I went to the movies
instead Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman now
that is a reality for you. I'm old now and set in my ways
I know I shall die but, an abstract god play no role in
the drama of my death, that role is reserved for me.

Sunday

Long is Sunday, empty streets
a tunnel of silence,
damp pavement, water trickles
into gutters.

Burnt matches, *** butts and
yesterday leave form a rust
brown ****, it bursts and floods
tiny pebbles-

flowers on the window sills
admire sift rain on glass.
A life spent in a *** fear
no **** and see no evil.

A black cat decides not to
cross the road,
a child in yellows wellies
dreams of tomorrow.

Quiet Despair

In a besieged town
In Syria
Snow falls
People starves
Children die
We are powerless
Against
Those who are
Wrong
And those who are right
Snow falls
Silently on
Quiet despair
I think of
Leningrad

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.

Bless China and Mao Zedong

I have partly decorated my Christmas tree bless the Chinese for the blinking fairy light,
blue and yellow strings I think symbolise angels’ hair
not that I have seen any angels with blue-rinsed hair.
I haven't put up any baubles this year it is a bother to put them on the twigs.
My shoes are bought in the same shop they are ok, but don't last long,
I feel guilty now my socks and undergarment are made in China
that is how you destroy a country's economy buying from abroad; it's cheaper
for us on the low income, it is a vicious circle, more people get laid off they have
little money and had to but underwear and socks shop at a Chinse shop.

The wage for workers in the USA is now so cheap Pakistani factories are moving to
Detroit and Michigan, but for it to succeed the Americans have to build better
roads and new bridges. I digress the tree is fit for purpose comes in 3 sections and can
easily be kept in the shed until next year.
So bless the Chinse for making our Christmas possible this year too

I have been to my heart doctor
she noticed I had been smoking and banged a delicate
fist on the table and her stethoscope danced over her
firm *******,  she was furious,
did not listen to my lame excuses that a cigarette  
was given to me the day before and polite as I'm
couldn't say no. She was not mollified.
What do I know perhaps she is worried by her son?
who doesn't want to be a doctor.?
The tests I had shown no avers affect, she calmed
down and I gave her a copy of my latest book:
“alternative poetry and political opinions.”
I promised to not smoke again and gave her my latest book.

A rose poem
A walking cobbler came to Yasmin valley
That had a small brook with swimming ducks
Even though since everyone wore clogs
He decided to settle down in this pleasant vale

The cobbler was educated in Frankfurt and
As we know the Germans are astute workers.

Recuperating after hitting his knee on a boulder
On a bed of Yasmin, he reclined and fed by maidens
Some inhabitants came to him with clogs as a gift
Exponentially happy he cried and was a happy man.

The assistant
At the doctor's surgery, he had a young girl
training to be a diabetist; she had Chalcedony eyes
that shone brightly as onyx, her skin alabaster
without any blemish, a shy smile played upon her lips
a Mona Lisa unpainted.
I was a witness to perfection a beauty that can't last
time will wear her down she will get a line between
her pert nose wrinkles around her eyes, of sadness
or laughter one hopes for the latter
Will the world fall into a devastating war and her
a victim of either hunger or radiation.
This didn't mirror on her face only her glorious youth
and I was lucky to be an observer to the twinkling when
time stood still long enough for me to admire an ideal.

The broken mind

In the gorge, near the river that died five years
ago and is a pale scar running from inland mountains
and down to the coast,
unheard words of lovers come here to die;
“I love you,”” Come back to me” “I can’t live
without you.”
Whispers in the breeze for no one’s ears but the intrepid that comes here to conquer his own fear of love.
It is easy to get lost here trees are unfriendly
have thorns and branches snap
when you try to climb  to see where you are,
and wild beasts follow wait for you to succumb,
fall asleep so they can eat your brain
leave you confused, and rescuers will say:
“Poor man has got the Alzheimer.”
The stillness hears fearful screams, the unheard
last effort before sinking into silence

The hotel room in St. Asaph (Wales), was damp
and smelt of spent body passion, I didn’t have a coin
for the gas metre; in the decomposing bed a woman
Snored, and from the depth of my soul
the beginning of an anguished scream.
the morning was ashen as my face and find drizzle fell.

The hotel bar was closed, I walked for bone aching
for miles while the heaven descended.
Apocalypse Now!
No such luck, when the clouds parted the hills
where green with grazing sheep on.
Dear God, where were you yesterday when I married
a scullery maid, have you no mercy.

Rubbed out

I stopped at a low stonewall
on my slow progress  
saw before me a landscape painting,
ten sheep and twelve lambs.

I thought who that painter might be,
a sudden blur in the air,
when the picture cleared there
was a mare and her foal

five sheep had disappeared;
the painting looked better,
but I didn’t linger,
I wouldn’t like the artist to
think I was a part of his picture    
wanting to erase me
for the sake of the prettiness.
of the landscape

Circus in Town
It was a cold February day when the circus came to town
animals ink cages, except the elephants –four of them-
and shockingly naked on a day like this,
tail to trunk elephants with small ears they are Indians
someone said
My mental picture of an Asian was disturbed when I see an Indian
I think of elephants the naked ones marching on
a cobbled street in a small town up north.

I did not go to the circus didn't want to see animals be made fools of.
it was the Karinis I came for and yes, when in their
enclosure their backs were covered with a big blanket,
why to let them walk naked through the town as the westerly blew

What, no moon    

Where is the moon
it was here last night
the heaven looks like a blank canvas
not even a star to break its ennui

there are many heavens, the near one
the outer one and the one
beyond the horizon it is there
but we lack the vision

if you wake up in a dark bedroom
keep your eyes closed
you can see the astrosphere
and be close to the creator.

It could have happened


The lane is empty siesta meanders forever among olive trees
and tempting almond flowers, but far I see an ominous shadow
coming towards me knife in hand.
Is he psychopath out to **** someone and not being caught or
a Farmer wanting a sample a twig with many flowers to take home
to his wife who is preparing the Sunday roast?

I stand stock still think of judo – something to do with feet-
no point outrunning him bring his undercurrent of hatred to a boil
then killing me with the pleasure of the hunt.
I pick up a stone he looks tense when passing me I pretend to look
at the sky can't have him plunging his knife into me.
He is running now, don't know why was it the stone in my hand?

You are putting yourself down
No, I'm not, but I know you want to have a go, so I deflect
your sarcasm your words fall on stony ground.
The public laughed off my self-disparaging and your words
embarrassed you, I fenced off your attack.
As a run in the family, I learned to be the one who told
jokes about my bullies, yes, my tormentors in a way
they didn't get the meaning before the next day,
and they could say nothing without exposing their stupidity,
but it came with a hefty price I don't if praise sent my way is
meant to belittle me to make me look silly in my attempt
to be known as a comedy writer

Long Term Solution

It has come to my attention that the moon is capable growing green
bananas, goats and sheep but not cattle as they emit too much gas
into the planet's thin surface can live there.
if we send refugees there as pioneers they are forbidden to smoke
tobacco although, to the great surprise to the first moon lander found
an empty packet of Camel which of course was planted there by young
Putin to blame the USA. Also should the Settlers who make life difficult for
the Palestinians, should run out of land to a new Jerusalem can be built
in one of the moon's craters.
Europe has like Pontus Pilatus washed her delicate hands of the refuge
problem let us construct spaceships that must be paid for by migrants,
but beware they can one day switch off the light.

The Fest  


The Christmas Eve began with smiles and laughter,
where I come from Christmas day is a hanger over day
after excesses the night before.
Plenty of food and drink, aquavit and beer this was long
before wine came the in thing to drink and we sang and gave
presents and had a jolly good time for a while.
Someone made a sarcastic remark that was met with
a bad-tempered answered, suddenly everyone remembered
a slight going back twenty years ago and more
A fight broke out the yule tree ended up in the snow
police were called to calm things down and mother
came out of the kitchen serving coffee.
Next morning my father went out and collected tree decorations,
good for next year's Christmas party he wearily said,
and for once no once no one was arrested.

the Night and Rabbits
After an obligatory hour on my training bike
I walk outside the was a xanthous haze  on the sky
that slowly faded as the sun went down
It was an evening dark blue silk of the harem a night
for love, the moon  was a crescent luminosity and
I bathed and inhaled the beauty of it.
Saw them in half- light five rabbits by the verge of
the road they were enchanted by the sky and when
they saw me retreated into the thicket and burrows
they had taken a big chance so they could see what
I had seen we had a secret and that made me glad

The Misogynist
I wish I could remember the first day when
opening my eyes saw the world for the first time
****** sheets a sweaty mother grinning nurses look
at the size of his little ****, the child screamed
in horror and could see the rain and the dark sky he never
told me about that I had to re-live his revulsion
he was a child in his crib that didn't scream much observing
the foul world and his mother making love  
the bilious smell of love they thought the child was pure
and knew nothing of the lust of the *****
these early experiences he could not remember made me into
a whoremonger forever ******* anything in skirts
only to experience the loneliness of all animals after coitus  
only old age saved him from this ritual  disgrace
In the rocking- chair he sits and the **** is asleep this slack
thing he uses when *******

Suckling pigs  

In the time of the Vikings
when a baby girl was born in the winter
put her naked on a shield
carried her into the woods where she
was eaten by wolves or froze to death.
Piglets are little darling suckling the sow
but not for long they are slaughtered and
roasted and sold for our table.
I ate suckling pig for lunch today the flesh
sweet and soft, the crust tender it was like
eating a baby (which it was) a cruel meal
I rather eat an old goat full of meaty flavours.

The Twilight Zone
In the nearest town and close to all amenities
such as hospitals and funeral parlours my wife
and went to look at an elderly people’s hotel
where people of a certain age get a small flat to
live in, yet it has a café for the social evening with
where young ladies who have gone to university
and studied geriatrics, sing and give the recital of
something suitable not to offend and often
a priest comes around and talks about Jesus.

Sunny Lodge the place was called, and we thanked
the manager we should think about it and was given
brochures to read. Driving home my wife cried, she
has a daughter who is no quite there I have no offspring
we decided to live in our cottage as long as possible
egoistically, I hoped to die before her it would save me
the funeral and sorting out and throwing away my private
collections of bleakly second-grade poetry, blowing in
the dusty wind of forgotten time.

Love that once Was

When I met her she was spring flower and pretty
as the zephyr undulating gently through a field of
tulips. But there was no denying I was September
and set in my bachelor way, and my bashfulness
stopped me from approaching her.

Twenty- six years later and she is slim and pretty
in a waxy way, in her eyes I read unhappiness life
was harder than she had imagined her husband had
left her for France, leaving her with two children
and a small grocery shop.
  
We drank some wine, she cried because she too
had been too shy and she still loved me. I told her
loved her too, but I was not true it was her youth
I had loved and the newness of her aroma, but it
was too late and I left her to the memories.

Europa’s Struggle  (new version)
Like life wars go on and on, it is in our genes under layers of prattle there is a murderer
who wants to **** the different what we do not understand and loathe .
This influx of a foreign culture has demanded too much of our self- preservation as a race.
Destroy them now!
We tolerate crime in our society but what we read is crime committed by people
we have given succour we baulk somehow they should not be criminals.
They hate our way of life we call Christianity that now is a liberal culture that blathers
about forgiveness. They came to us because we could not let them starve it was our duty
but we do we feel our duty as a burden.
If we follow the call of our ethnicity should we not stop them coming into our life
making us think about if our values are  ossified that we should give up without
a fight and let Europe be a sect for whom death is glorious.
I don't know; I'm old I will not live in the new Europa will it bring peace, no,  
our genes, screams for war by people who are backwards  in time and only know
old hatred for whom progress is not a teaching approved by their book and music
is a call from an elegant tower Not to forget their cousins who worship Mammon
and will go to any length to satisfy their blood lust, immoral,  greedy and try to enslave
us with their slimy ******* and a main- press printed by bought editors and
sycophantic journalists. When those in the name of another faith vandalise Louvre or
places of beauty will we find our strength and push them back as we did before.
We cast these negative thought away we are mensch we help the less fortunate and
Above all fight fascism and defeatism in equal measure.

Half of a mirror
I have a mirror in the hall it is cracked
two mirrors in one but prefer the left part
see an elderly face in peace with self
Not the peace of death, but of one who has lived well.
The right part is altogether different
A face old before its time
I'm not a Dorian Grey my sins is not of excesses,
but rather of frugality and perpetual boredom
A sour face that has absorbed every perceived slight
that oozes out through loathsome pores.

Too much to bear I will remove the right part and
keep the part that makes me looking friendly  
even if it is not telling the whole truth which is
not needed now that truth is for the naïve

Miserable Landscape
The scene I knew as child was undulating flat
and the ocean of straw that mirrored the sky, light
and dark, punctuated by islets of farms peopled by
folks who lived a life of conformity when not driving
to a town that sold ***** and gets sinfully drunk
scaring wife and animals, and skulking morosely in
the barn was looking for a bottle that is not empty.
The bottomless pain of silence and the message
that so and so had hung himself in the rafter and
Thinking if I have to endure another winter…
The wind always blew clouds hurried across the sky
nothing here, but the endless sulk off the hapless

Surprise
The queen in her gilded coach pulled by four horses
Came gliding on the sea and towards shore where a group
Of men waited to be knighted

They had done their duty kept their mouth shut and
Averted their eyes to the state's illegal acts and now
Pay off a title and membership on a board

The queen came ashore she had a white lion cub in
One hand and a hammer in the other and with it hit
Each man over the head they fell to the ground…dead.

The queen a Marxist revolutionary had been silent so
Long but she was old, the truth had to come out
No more horse -drawn carriage, but she kept the lion cub.

Burundi
Elusive it is the dream of peace
and the Burundi the president is seeking a third term,
but the people say NO, and fight for
a fair election, in dusty streets.
Africa has had enough of presidents who will  not
give up power and lucrative ill-gotten gains.
People of Burundi, I salute you.

Brexit me here

The more I read about Brexit in mainly
English papers I detect an unsavoury aspect
that is a sense of (perhaps) an unconscious
the feeling of superiority taking orders from
foreigners; the so-called free press has been
hammering away against EU rumours and
blatant lies, this because of the “Free Press.”
Is not free its leadership has an agenda
that is to destroy the benefit an EU membership
brings to Britain, and that is how 49% elected
to leave by readers who believe what they read
and vote contrary to what is best for them.
But not the perfidious Albion has a hidden
plan, they dream of a sovereign England
ruling the world. It is a futile dream and not based
on how the world is today.
England( I exclude Britain) is a small island in
the sea whatever greatness she achieved in
the past is welcome but ultimately forgotten.
The point is another nation could care less if
England is in our they don't write about it skip
the pages that have the name Brexit as an internal
affair that is a bagatelle in the world.

The oil of life

when one writes about minorities
no one wants to know, the next page is about knitting, please.
We do not like to read about losers
and our responsibility for their failure.
A tsunami came rolled over the landscape, changed it
and the language, unstoppable misery for the people
who lived there, but it brought us the automobile.
The Palestinians have lost most of their land and now
they are losing more, except their dignity.
We don´t want to know the next page about knitting, please.
Let us read about the super-rich and their yachts
and Rolls Royce, we like to see the pictures of them
in magazines, their villas and life mode-
we dislike the truth, and it demands us to sit up straight
and think about the world and the orangutan losing
their habitat to palm oil.

Changing  world



Where the woods of unruly domestic trees on
The other side of the road has not always been there
It used to consist of small homesteads and poverty
People left for France or America never came back  
Nature moved back and trimmed olive trees and
Carob trees took on a surreal form the undergrowth
Was left to grow a paradise for animals and birds
The kestrel catches mouse and the eagle catches hares
I know what I see will change not in my time or yours
Nothing is static it should be so if you look at a map of
The Europe you will see how it has changed and in
The middle- east Israel is just an interlude for a bigger
Change that will shape our future if it is for the worst
We will not be there to know.

Fatima  

A lady rich, perfumed and dressed splendidly was driven
by her liveried chauffeur to Lisbon when she, at a certain
point asked her driver to stop; yes the rich also need obeying
****** functions. Later she looked down into a valley where
three children were guarding sheep two of them were eight
the oldest one eleven, the lady waved her manicured hands
and said something the children didn't understand  
except the oldest one who told the other two it was ****** Maria
who had blessed them and warned them of secrets that could
only be told to a priest. When the children came home, they said
what they had seen, but the secrets the oldest one told a priest
and the secrets are still kept in the Vatican.
At the place where the children have seen ****** Maria, pilgrims
came the blind, the sick, the lame and the mad looking for a cure,
and today it is a holy site with hotels, shops, and restaurants.
Pilgrims keep coming, some walk for days to atone for sins they
might commit sometimes in the future, what a wondrous thing,
how irrational truth can be a diamond in the heart of worshipers

Flashy Snobs

Flaneurs are not only people of leisure
flitting from café to café chatting about the scandals
and what the dancers did.
It a life of glitter and glam the shine of chandeliers
on sparkling copper lamps
Flaneurs are artificial pales towards dawn, a room
at a cheap hotel and waste the day sleeping till noon.
I'm a show off too walking among olive trees telling
tall stories jokes also the like like laughing, waving their
leaves and even if the jokes is not funny they still laugh
polite as they are they have lived long and are tolerant
Have you ever heard the joke about? An almond tree
wanting to marry an oak” this joke always bring wafts
of laughter, I tell it in a low tone as not to upset
the almond tree; I go back to my house it’s full of golden
memories and a washing machine full of ***** socks.

Winding roads


The table, light catches a singular drop of
the blush on the carpet which doesn’t respond,
no more than a road would do to a street light.

Asphalt is grey at night, not black, full of spilt ale it felt adventurous,
curled itself up and splashed into the landscape where roads had never
before dared to a thread.

How happy they were animals and tractors until they discovered
the road ended by a river,
too deep to cross in winters and too stony for sore hooves in summers.

This problem was overcome when someone found a nugget of gold
and the landscape was full of prospectors who survived, by eating
their mules slowly.

Fire Hazard
When bringing in the hay that had been
drying on the fields, it was fodder for the animals
in winters, the farmer strewed salt on the hay
in the loft, so it didn't get too dry and self-ignited  
From a devastating war, the refugees fled
the thousand who had lost everything and sewn
valuables into their clothing to be converted into
money wherever they settled, a new start with
a little bit of savings
Europe is an aging continent; we need new blood
but we had not prepared for fire, and it burns
several places, we have to be quick put the fire out
before people of narrow sight take command and
Blood will be spilt for an unworthy cause.

The Death of Poetry

The grey coloured straightjacket of poetry
I have like a Houdini freed me of this shackles
flowers and loveliness and lies
an unbearable burden I was getting buried
by a tonne of rotten blooms
I'm free!
Fly from tree to tree not seeing its foliage
soar higher than anyone before so elevated
the blue planet is a bauble on Christmas tree
and land on a potato field not seeing
its ordinary colours and brown soil
when flowers from Amsterdam are in season
I'm free to wade in a muddy rain-pool
wear yellow wellies towing on a string a tiny sail boat
which in my dreams become a three mastered schooner,
all this because I ain't no poet but a writer
and I can without hesitation use a double negative.

Senryu

Bending trees in storm
The resistance of survivors
Another winter gone

Senryu

A sandhill removed
The oak had no protection
Roots in sandy soil

Senryu

Glowing almond tree  
Do not resist the tempest
Unfused let it pass


Senryu
Upset almond tree
Someone called it a bush
****** botanists