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.

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.

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

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.

The Laps of the North
I was going to write about olive trees goats and donkeys
and ancient stones in the holy land but I keep
thinking of reindeer in the Northern Norway
not so long time ago the Laps people where
not allowed speaking
their own language, children, were sent to school to learn
Norwegian and forget about their past
Needless to say with the best intention, this pathetic attempt
to eradicate race's history failed.
The snow and cold stop this advance today the laps are
proud of their heritage schools and a University in their
in their own language. As for the Palestinians, they have to go
on fighting for their right until the world stops this inequity

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 Piano tuner

The blind piano tuner knocked on the door
Where I was a caretaker -like I can afford to buy a piano-
I showed him into the music room and left
to read a newspaper.
I heard some clunking as he tunes; then there was a long
silence, he had fallen asleep with his head on the keys.
When he awoke I said the piano was perfect, but for
some reason, it only plays Edelweiss and similar tunes,
not that I care, never cared for classical music.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

Entertainment
It is eight o'clock the news people have finally exhausted
every ounce of news from the Paris Tragedy. Even people
who were in Lyon at the time have been interviewed.
The local news is tame, they try to spirit it up by reporting
a car crash, but have the haunted look of a man who slept
with George Bush, whose tryst began this pandemonium
that ended in a Parisian working class district  

A performing program takes over, nubile girls who can't
dance or sing, do friends and family clap and cheers.
The program is inept the colours are garish, but they are
not killing anyone just nursing a hope of fleeting fame.

The Damocles Sword

They see it in the sky
In the small
Iraqi town
They walk about
Doing what people do
Except
They never know
When
The trigger-happy Obama
Is going blow them up
This bloodthirsty
President
Perhaps an evening
When he is bored
And there is nothing
On the TV?

Paris
The rat population
In Paris
Has exploded
The rodents have
Left the sewers
Walk for lunch at their
Local waste bins
And wait outside cafés
For crumbs sparrows used
To pick up
They also obey
Traffic rules
As they are not
Like dogs
Colour blind
But tourists stay away
Empty bed
No one goes to Paris
To make love anymore
And be careful
When eating Ragu
In Paris

Restless hands
I look at my old hand
Blotches of liver spots, slow running blood vessels
Delivering old blood so I can fold my hands
Once they caressed a woman's body who moaned
And my hands were firm
Women used to see me and smile now I walk
The earth unobserved and words become a long silence.
if I tell you how much I miss making love
to sit in the park with a girl of and see the moon while
smoking cigarettes, inhale its promise of love to come
the aroma of her hair the smoothness of her thighs
to kiss her libidos and drink her sweet water, her legs
Apart she has given herself to me.
Asleep enfolded we are, tomorrow is far away.
My old hands remember so much I bow my head and try
to inhale from my hands what once was
It is all so hopeless and soon I will be dead

Old Man Smoking

The old man sat smoking a cigarette; he had stopped smoking,
but now and then smoked a couple, he was of the lucky disposition
of liking cigarettes but suffered no craving when he didn't smoke.
When the old man was young everyone smoked, those who didn't
be regarded as queer folks.
He never liked people smoking at the dinner table, but with coffee,
a cigarette was a must. Not so much people die of lung cancer, now cancer has shifted and now attacks other body parts.
There might come a day when medical scientists tell us smoking
is not so bad as long as we smoke moderately.
The old man opens the drawer of his desk; he remembered he had
a cigarette there, he found it broken in half and sighed.

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.

Epigram
Beware of tradition it can be harmful and Intolerant
Hateful of those who do not share your way of life
New ideas will be met with scorn old ways was best.
Not true, don't let convention steal your freedom

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

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 *******

Sisterly Support

I was thinking of my sister she had a blue and a green
eye I adored her when a child I followed her around
“Bormann” she called me and since I was not socially
adept she promised to look after me when old.
She has been dead for forty years
All the women it was like playing poker with cards missing
Kings too posh Knight not my game, I gave up went to
another country and bought a new set of cards…and won
Her eyes are onyx but that was Ok, before her I had met
a woman who had sea green eyes and I nearly drowned in
the embrace as deceptive as the North Atlantic Ocean
I was lucky to make it ashore.
So I made it then to old age take my pills go early to bed
and say to myself: you lucky old ******* you

Animation Senryu
I adore cartoons
Nothing is impossible
Flying is easy

Senryu
I admire cartoons
I can be whatever I want
An angle or an imp

Senryu
I worship cartoons
And saxophone playing elephants
Serpents are charming

Senryu
I venerate cartoons
They show insanity of man
And lightness of life

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.

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

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.

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

UFO

I believe UFO exist it would be strange if they didn´t
considering the many planets in the vast galaxy.
I have not seen a UFO person close up with the exception
of my face in the morning before coffee.
The picture I have seen is always at a distance
and tend to be grainy.
Some people insist they have been captured by UFO,
analyzed and sent back to earth again presumable because
the UFO being found them of no interest.
The UFO world does not call us human but the strange
blubbery beings with a penchant for killings and fighting wars.
They, the UFO is petrified by us keep their distance
hence “grainy photos.”
Still, I believe the UFO people are a friendly sort all we have
to do is to stop wars, be polite and they will come to us
not necessarily in human form, and show us how it is possible
to move so fast through space and defy gravity.

Downfall  of a humble man

Once he wore a uniform he had reached
the apex of his profession had staffs supplied
the ship did the books and administrated.
It was the best of times and too tired to read
to relax and to think about life meet chandlers
and customs official who had stories to tell.
Seen from above his position was modest but
coming from poverty it was an achievement
he and his family were proud of.
The downfall came quickly crews on ships were
drastically reduced soon he was the only on
left in the catering line, he hung up his uniform
back to the galley, cleaning mess halls and toilets
the days became endlessly long, no time to read
only waiting for his stint to be over.
A heart attack caused by the loss of dignity and
long ours his education had come to nothing yet
the illness was the beginning of something better.

Senryu

I’m a cowboy
Herding in reluctant words
To make a poem

Argentina’s pampas
Where wild horses live
Poetry in motion  

The gaucho
Is a free verse maker
On horseback

The Hidden kiss
My niece rang from Russia last night
she knows I love her, and she is immensely kissable.
Between us, there is an ocean of age and nothing
impure passes among us, she enjoys being loved
and I feel uplifted when she visits us.
We are two ships sailing in a stormy sea of love
and not colliding she is my sister.

I have often been worried about her when she navigate
too close to rocky shores of the coast that brings
nothing but divorce and heartache.
She sails in calm water now since she met a three rigged
schooner her age, at anchorage in the bay of love
and I think of Edward Munch's fabulous painting:
“A Kiss by the Window”

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.

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.

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.

Never Look Back

It was the poverty of vision that got to me, the drabness of moving
from one home to another. I wanted sunlight, not the dim light that shines from a basement's kitchen window.
Fled, sought other shores.
I was not able to escape the ghost of the past; letters went unanswered.
The uncle of many children and a father of no one
I should have stayed fought my corner from the base of the beginning.
It is a sunny day where I live, up North snow falls, I feel a deep sadness
of the coward, yet have no regrets

Nature Wonders

The morning
It was a blue
Wild animals
Whished
They had coats
Like the humans
The sun thawed
Raindrop big as balloons
Exploded on
Impact
Many cars
Were damaged
Rainfall
From a clear
Sky
The sun
Dried its own tears
Dogs barked
Came out of barns
The day
Continued as before

The Vanished home

Most seafarers find their way home
others get lost on the way.
One was washed up on the shores of Algarve
and stayed the home he knew was no longer there.
But a memory of log fire and a mother
who read books and rarely looked up to see were
her children had gone.
It is all too late now; the seafarer lives another life.

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.

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

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

This life of Dreams

I have been in bed today, yesterday after taking up waking
I was so enthusiastic that I overdid it took pictures planned
The fell I was going to walk tomorrow had heard I could see
Wild boars there. I got overtired and sat on a stone under
A tree since it began raining. I looked like a scarecrow
A farmer picked me up and planted me in his field, and I hung
There to someone heard my cry for help.

The farmer apologised the Portuguese are polite people
When not driving cars on narrow road then they become
Murderous bullies and shout expletives at people who try
To cross the road with the slowness of an aged person, and
To think the Portuguese young care about their old parents.