The Child in us

Outside I see life hurdle past at a speed
leaves vapour trails behind and as I eat my soup, a child
in Rohingya dies of malnutrition.
It is morning after the party, and I try to feel guilty about
the food we ate and cannot, and now as I write a child
in Yemen died of a shrapnel wound to its stomach.
What a sin we commit not given an infant a chance
to live a life of peace, but this, not the full story we in
Europe is quick with the scalpel taking life before it is
born and we feel no guilt, just another lost day at
the clinic of death.

The Non-art
At a posh theatre in New York where ticket  prices
Are more than a working man's monthly wage  
An actor took it upon himself to lecture the vice- president-elect
In a manner that was both offensive and patronising
What is an actor? It is a person who speaks the lines written by others
And if he speaks those lines smoothly he/she is famous
Acting is not really an art form more like a mimicking form it
Comes in the same category as poetry a non-art
What can we say about the publican who applauded this display?
Of vulgarity other than to find them tasteless and ignorant
Actors should speak their lines political opinions off stage the same
Goes for poet to write your dreamy lines but leave your
Politics to  the Twitter pages

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.

The President
Today Benafim got a new president of the local council
he is a stern type wants to do away with meals on wheels
close the old people's home for those who cannot pay.
He promises to reduce taxes to a cheering crowd of fruit
And sheep farmers, this will attract businesses to set
up shop, the local hairdresser thinks he is wonderful.
He is a coarse man speaks uncultured Portuguese, not that
I would know, but that's what the manager of the home
she went to university in Coimbra and had a degree.
Rumours have that he has touched up women fifty angry
females stay outside the post office which is also
The president's place of work. Not that I care, I was posting
a letter, but was blocked by women with placards
I will wait till next week when the anger dies down a bit

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.

The Lunch
We had Christmas lunch at a hotel, so posh floors shone like  
a mirror you could not look down when passing a lady
People sat in little groups whispering, and the silence was
deep when some dropped a spoon.
Festive decoration was absent- we are adults- the music was
subdued the food was good but bland they were catering for
the English peculiar taste in insipid food that has no story to
tell it felt as being a guest at a wake
It annoys me if waiters are too attentive they, not ****** slaves
and should not behave like ******* sycophants. I like French waiters
they hate you and cannot hide it but nevertheless serve you with
Gallic elegance
In moments like this when everything is soo civilised, I like to
get up and make a **** salute just to shatter this inauspicious
politeness that shuts out anyone not belonging to their fraternity.
We left early was driving around sat in a park, enjoyed the sunlight
and everything was right with the world

Erratically you

It was by chance I came to Portugal.
I was a failure in Norway and a bigger loser in Britain.
I could not absorb a culture that makes the working-class
dumb workers and ignorant soldiers.
It was a day in May when I came here, didn´t want to live
by the coast, which was like living in Liverpool with sunlight.
I bought a ruin/stable got local workers to help me restoring the place.
One day I looked up and said: “I´m home.”

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.

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

Europa’s Struggle  
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 of 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,  greed 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.

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.

Tyrkia
Bosporus 1955 the old tanker where I was
A galley boy had anchored waiting for orders
To proceed into the Black Sea rowing boat came alongside
Selling fez which was the “IN” by the ******
They also sold sweet liqueurs which I drank, got drunk
And sick for the first time in my life I was 15, in the old
Days one had to grow up fast and howl with the dogs
The winter weather sunny I was awed by its Byzantine
Mystic just like a fairy tale story; I bought a Fez

And last time I was in Istanbul 30 years later on a ship
Where I was a cook my fall from officer grade had been
Painful, but I did go ashore not very far drank beer but
What I remember the best was packs of dogs by the quay
begging for food they knew I was a generous cook.

No Job


My landlady is in the hall, cleaning stairs
I’m ten days late with the rent,
can’t go out before she goes into her own flat.
She’s near my door if she knocks I’ll pretend to be asleep,
if she persists I’ll tell I have a night job and will pay her as soon as I get paid.
She has gone into her flat, bet the door is ajar; creaking stairs is not helpful.
This place hasn’t got a fire escape,
I’ll report her, this is a fire trap.
Got no ***** or ****, only a cupboard full of empties, if I carry them out in a plastic bag she’ll hear clanking noises, come out, hands on hips.
Quiet; perhaps she has gone out, plays bingo every day,
spending my money gambling! The tight-****** woman, full of money, so
why should I give her my hard earned?

The Bench

Here sits a man in a park
lost for the world,
he was trying to break down banalities.
Not knowing that 99% of our daily
conversations consist of trivialities,
Without this safety valve
people would be trying too hard to say
something sensible
and end up alone in a park

Fatal attraction

The is the sweetest, people friendly poem ever written
it is about moonlight, stars so clear so near you can reach
up touch one of them and make a wish about love, but be
stars can be icicles so cold your finger might fall off.
This a poem about a woman in white floating on a transparent
lake, and it is not Vivian Leigh who is visiting us once again
casting her spell over Sir Olivier should you be a film fan?
No, this is a bigger love story that encompasses all humanity,
but buggers me if I know what it is that no storm can stop
nor flood, this, the fatal attraction of men and women in disharmony.

The Department
I was walking down a long corridor in a Victorian building,
big and imposing stone place I was looking for a licensing
office.  As I passed a door of solid oak heard atypical
tapping of canes I opened the door the tapping stopped
a group of old men glared at me I meekly asked who they
were? Look at the sign on the door they barked I did and
on it was written “Department for angry old men.”
I joined them and was given a cane for free. A wonderful
place here we sit and protest against every invention and
women who work in offices and youth who never do as
they are told, some of them joining ISIS just to make
granddad mad. No respect, a word that flies around the room
and is spat out by old tongues. Secretly we are happy here
where we even can criticise Netanyahu and not be called anti
Semitic old Nazis.

On a sunny day, you can see forever

The U-boat that cast anchor on the silky shore of Albufeira,
the crew was dressed in German world war two uniforms,
and bathers thought they were actors in a movie.

The captain came ashore he wanted to call Lisbon to his
embassy, only the number didn't exist anymore, he had
wanted to surrender, his crew were hungry and tired.

A kind barman gave the captain a cold beer, he drank it
greedily and asked what year it was. 2017, my god,
he exclaimed we have landed in a wrong century.


He walked back to his U-boat a neat man and a hero,
the submarine, rusty, like it had been at the bottom of
the sea for ages, hoisted anchor, and sailed into yonder

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

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?

Haiku
Mirth makes life long
Providing you can laugh at yourself
Not your lame neighbour


Haiku
To travel is fine
Adventures are filling a hole
Where your mind should be

Haiku

*** alone
Can't stop a heart's escape  
Only love can

Haiku
The boredom of ***
Can never interchange
The quiver of love

A Christmas gift spurned

In a busy Christmas street, I saw her; I was sure it was her,
the way she walked, I could sense her perfume too.
Ran after her, touched her shoulder said halloo, she turned
I had been wrong and said sorry.
She smiled and said, no it is only me what you see.
I read an invitation in her dark brown eyes, but I was hopelessly
in love with a blond, the mythical one.
Said sorry again, flapped my wings and flew high into the night sky
so seek her among the stars.
In the cool outer space, I realized the fabled woman was an angel
And I was an earthling I dived back to earth like a Stuka bomber, skidded on slush,
looked in vain for the woman with brown eyes

Dream on a raft

A balsam raft, with a mast and a Latin sail, I built for amusement on summer days on the inner sea,
but I found myself too far from shore, daydreaming is dangerous,
I had forgotten the dark undercurrent.
The shore is hazy; tomorrow it will have gone it’s just me and the blue outer-sea where fog banks are forgotten memories. I and the raft will end up on a blue painted plaster sea, in an empty bottle of *** that sits on a mantelpiece collecting dust particles.  
Till someone lifts it up to blow cigar smoke down its open neck; I’ll be invisible in the scented fog bank.
When the mist clears I shall be gone, the smoker, astonished, will ask:
“What happened to the raft and the man in the bottle? Fearful throw his cigar into the hearth, sell his scrap metal business, buy a dingy, leave his wife, set sail for the outer sea,
where the fly-fish fly like ospreys across the blue sea, he just might find; whatever he’s looking for
it ain't here

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.

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.

The Mirror of Truth  
The face in the crowd worried me it was still
but the eyes were aglow showing an intense hatred
to no one, in particular, a man's who dreams had
been disturbed by reality; this is the way it is and
he is a slave of the conventional and his lack of courage
to break free a man who bullies himself and others,
if not rescued his rage will turn violent.

What bothers him is familiarity of the face he has seen
it before somewhere was it on the surface of the lake
so deep and silty those thoughts sink to the nethermost
conscience; he has long denied the veracity is shocking,
the face is a mirror image of him

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 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.

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

Haiku
Notes of music
Fell into the ocean
Undulating


Haiku
Rain upon the sea
Softly lamented the loss
The conductor died.


Haiku
After great sorrow
Gigantic waves crash the shore
Disharmony

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 long Road
I'm going out for another walk at home the silence
are oppressive most of the villagers have moved away
and some are dead or senile she hates my house,
my home it is too silent, and she wants to move in
to a town and meet people.
I understand her, I partly agree it's only this, I re-built
this cottage and the best years of my life is here
I found what I had lost my self-confidence I knew they
laughed at me  of my dreams I was an eccentric, but
here I healed my broken self.

I walk on an asphalted road it's easier that way. I don't
want to go home and be met with truculent silence
I wish to walk and walk till the roads end or split into
a fork and a sign post will tell me what to do
whether I should return or carry walking northward

Family life

I ask myself what is wrong with borders well-defined places
with interior freedom and rules;
yes rules, the liberty to do what you want leads enslavement
break- up of families and chaos.
What's wrong with having your banking system and our
money of choice with a picture of a nationally famous, skier
and what Is wrong with discipline,
children becoming a little monster because we are so liberal
We talk about their right…what rights.
Look out of the window in any city what you see is flotsam
People who have no purpose a river of drugged people
Who never learned a thing?
What is wrong in saying a people can only absorb to fit
In refugees at a slower speed,
by all means, they are welcome
we need educated young people, in Europe were women
no longer care to procreate.
The glass ceiling is more important and men to think
their career comes first, and children are neglected
sent to a psychiatrist who prescribes pills knowing well
what the problem is.
But of course, we can say nothing and if we do, are
called  a fascist

Wales

I used to live in Chester, a beautiful town
and often walked along the Roman wall and, in my mind,
I saw Roman soldiers sitting by the fire roasting mice.
On Sundays, I liked to drive to Wales a beautiful country of rolling hills
and sheep with coal dust on,
Back then and this is years ago, you could drink tea in a pub,
I once drank coffee and it was ghastly.
I liked this country it had a dreamy quality.
Now I´m watching a crime story from Wales and it had nothing to do with
the land I remember.
This country I see on the screen is dark with old houses and people
who carries a dark secret in their hearts?
What do I know? Perhaps the lovely barmaid had killed her father
dropped him in a deep well only a detective who knew the mind
of Wale's psyche could work out.
As it is I prefer to remember Wales, crossing fords wondering who deep they were, the narrow roads and sheep on hills.
I stick with what I remember, the TV. The program is entertainment.

When the old man was a sailor

When food was served, before cleaning pots and pans
the old man when young, went out on deck to see the sunset.
A dreamy that is if a tempest wasn't blowing,
gale in the mighty Pacific reduced the bravest to shivering gnat.
The old man was a cook not the loftiest type of work, whoever
wrote a book titled:” The adventure of a ship's cook.”
The old man, when he was young, got up early to see the sunrise
before frying eggs and bacon, not forget baking bread; and receive
the insults by frustrated, womenless ******.
But he was there in all the oceans, their tranquilities and fury,
what was left was serene evenings alone in his cabin read great
novels about audacious voyagers.

A sink bucket
Today I forgot to buy milk, black coffee in the morning it is so
easy to remember the past it shines like jewels lost.
It was the winter of 1964, it was dark my brother carried
a big sink bucket and I a smaller one, we were on our way to
the coal depot to- if we found a hole in the fence- to steal coal.
We were caught by a man who wore an armband of the new
people in command and they were taking no nonsense from
anyone least of all seven years old thieves.

I have often seen that you put a uniform on someone who
who never had power and they behave like little ****** sprats.
On the way home with two empty buckets we came across
a wooden fence that had partially fallen down we took as many
planks as we could carry and had a warm Christmas Eve

New Year's eve
Is a gigantic anti-******
When clocks toll
Nothing has changed
The tempest of war continues

The Tasmanian tiger

The last one died in captivity in 1936
and that was a sad moment for humanity,
added to the list of animals we have eliminated over the years.
The Tasmanian tiger was easy to ****. It didn´t know
how cruel we are.
There have been sightings of it by gullible people, but it is an illusion
based on regrets and unspoken longings.
I, also hope, it exists somewhere, but it is a dream,
yet I have seen the animal in clouds formation in the sky
forever condemning us for what we did.

The Ending

This old ***** ship
Rusty and tired
Her engine often stopped
It was a struggle
To start it again
The sun rejected
This ship sailed
In a fog of despair
The crew was
Residue
Of harbour debris
For the officer the last
Chance Saloon
Misfits who struggled
To stay abstemious
Some failed
Disappeared
In the night.
Off the coast of Peru
She died
Sank slowly
Beneath the ocean
With her
Tax avoidance
Flag flying

Wars, the real thing

I like wars, the real thing as it was in Stalingrad
and now Mosul, wish I was there.
War, is ******, messy Sadistic, violent and merciless.
body parts, all over the place bombed out building,
shoot the ******* and if the enemy survives
**** and throw them in the river Tigress.
Their **** ******* ****** had slept with the enemy,
string them up; there is no excuse for youth, hang them
high and let their disgusting corpses twist in the wind
and be eaten by crows.
“Good Morning Vietnam”. Oh, *******!!!
“Saving Ryan.” What sentimental twaddle.
That's why I dislike American war movies, with a love interest.
The colour full explosion in the jungle, do they think it is 4th of July.
I love real wars it gives spectators and soldiers a meaning.
living at the edge of life and death.

The oncoming

The human tragedy is not to learn from the past
The world is in an uproar a nuclear war is coming
The belief is by using a smaller bomb it will not be so bad
So also, is the thinking of the enemy.
Millions of people will be killed and nature already
Devasted will collapse too.
It appears to me that the coming tragedy is ordained
That unknown forces will make it this way, it is uncanny
That we blithely walk around with no care in the world
As the Damocles sword has loosened from it ropes, and
Is about to fall.
What is left is scorched earth circling around the sun
The seasons will come and go in in silence and we shall
Not hear the joyous laughter of the young.

Tanka like

We the classless
seek no revolution, only fairness.
We like quality
a well- balanced diet
And cold German pilsner.
The stinking rich,
one assumes they do not have bath often,
can continue to pong.
We seek no egalitarianism
but cold German lager
and a comma -less life.

A Plea  
Those who persecuted have no home
And starving children, let them come to us
Let us help them to stand up
Accept their plight do not preach or moralize
Always think it could have been you
In dire situation running away from war
And strife, lack of food and basic freedom
If you are a European  your grandparents
Likely where refugees external or internal
Help the poor as you  wished others would
Help you when needed
Arrogance and pride have no place in your
Heart they are cuckoos in the nest of love
A reserve you will need some day.

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.

May Morning

A strange morning, clouds look like they were trying
to put up wallpaper, but the work was too much, and they left the project.
Drips like glue fell into the sea and became flakes of sunlight.
An airplane crossed the sky. It looked old, and it wheels were not retracted
perhaps it was a private plane doing a bit of exercise keeping its owner alert.
A seagull flew past it was a big one hardly flapping its wing, how I envy its flight.
So, why are you not happy?
I have seen so many oceans they are all the same…wet.
The oceans have many colors, grey, blue and grey, and I never saw a red sea.
The building is waking up, lifts in motion, slamming of doors.
Yet, I miss the woodland, the small terns where fish and fairies play; I shall not be there
and ask if they miss me?

Glasgow
The music stopped abruptly dancers left the floor
became paintings on the wall in the closed down dance-hall
in Glasgow's Sauciehal street the old entertainment centre.
We drank plenty of beer before going there, and we were frisked
to see if we had not brought any alcohol into the premises.
To ask a young woman up to dance was painful
The answer was often no, to be refused hurt one’s self- esteem
but luckily there was only one or two who said yes,
the ugly ones were the best to ask they were not so critical.
Later in the evening a few open chip shops and hopefully with
a new girl -friend one then followed to the last bus a kiss and
a cuddle a few promise murmured it was all too boring for word.
Glasgow had many splendid pubs I liked to sit drink and smoke
in one of them, the one nearest the docks.  I remember at these
pubs some elderly women drank gin & lime they were called
donkey women and I never knew why.
The old dance halls have got a patina of romance where
Friendly ghosts soberly dance to the tune of a bygone time.

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
the thing he uses when *******

Religion and a poet
When I was nine years of age I came to see religion
as a fairy tale and as we know the bible is written
by many scribes during a time, some of them were wise.
I like the Old Testament because it is full
of blood and thunder, the New Testament is a construction
a clean-up of the real thing making palatable for the squeamish.
I think the creator of our world as an overarching intelligence
that when the job was done left its way.
The creator is neither good nor bad for it has no interest in
the world besides creating it, so it is entirely up to us
to make the world a liveable place, alas, so far we have failed.
Mankind have dreamt of extending life long after
its natural cycle even if unseen by the pulsing living world,
that is how some transcribers constructed Paradise so
we can exist into the indefinite and beyond.
To be and not to make no sense other than easing
the fearful heart and comfort the transition into death,
at this point my thoughts were interrupted, my wife
came and told me to do the dishes

Good for Some
Immensely hot day, yet no sun it was hidden
behind a ring of polluted air, a strong wind
came and cooled the landscape but with it
rein fell, thousands of them, broken bones
and crushed skulls, the poverty struck and
dogs had enough to eat...for now.

Then rain fell each drop was a bucket full and
rivers overflowed. Pots and pan left behind;
head for the hills was the cry, shivering people
eating frogs raw, cannibalistic ****** in a sea of
mud caked humanity.
The laps of the north were given compensation
for loss of income.

A Vision
Eifel tower the old ***** is lit up again
her wide open legs still drip blood, and
her hips are white and slim and she   has
blue- rinsed hair. She is ready to welcome
the masses people without an ideology
and those who think that having *** in
a hotel near the Seine where millions of
condoms that slowly find their way to
the sea is the heights of romantic living.

Young men came, they had a creed wanting
to destroy this ***** and Gomorrah, but
the **** in the centre of Paris tells us we will
survive because we are Godless and place
lust for life first

Elegiac

The hotel was empty no one the reception area
I walked upstairs and all the room where empty.
The restaurant at the hotel had a grubby air
like human activity swiftly fell on plates as dust.
I looked out of the window it had snowed and
snowy footsteps on pavements but no people.
Evening came early, streetlamps came on and
snow fell on the vacant road keeping its knowledge

I got a blanket from one of the rooms sat in
The foyer waited and had no clear idea what
the waiting was about, maybe a phone call.
Then it was morning her funeral was at ten
but this was not a day for a hearty breakfast
the street had people not sharing my sorrow.