The Cake Shop
There was a small cake shop near the bath-house
If I had money went in there for a coffee and a cake
the girl behind the counter smiled I fell under her spell
and my heart beating too fast made me dizzy
Her name was Berta and the loveliest thing on earth
I must invite her out for a walk in the park.
She closed her shop at five I borrowed brother's tie and
used his after shave. Alas outside the shop stood a man tall
and handsome I walked by and into a deep shadow.
When she came out, they kissed and walked hand in hand
down the road, she said something and he laughed.
Devastated I sank to the ground and bitterly cried how stupid
I had been the burning shame, couldn't go into her shop again
had she told him about me when she laughed?
Found another place where an old lady of thirty served I felt at ease
with her, she laughed and often kissed me.
But life is not sweet chocolate I had to work and with no education
I joined the merchant navy a place for poor boys who didn't want
to work in factories, and left dreams behind. Or did I?

The canasta

We played canasta, club 7 was missing lie on the floor,
but the rules where you couldn’t pick it up invented by lawmakers
who had decided that one part should lose the game of power?
Millions of people protested their concern was not hidden as the system
was rigged to favour one and the missing card became irrelevant
or buried in page number five as a joke.
The card was picked up anyway and used as proof of false performance
since the man who picked up the 7th card was profoundly
argumentative he was wrong until proven right, they continued playing
with a missing card ignoring the consequences.
The rule is quite clear you can´t play canasta with a missing card.

The carafe

Bought a bottle
Of posh red wine
I look
It looks at me
I look
It looks at me.
I get furious
It is empty now
Threw it in the bin
Who wants to?
Look at an empty    
Bottle
If you are not
A collector of labels

The Cash Flow  

Money notes like staying in the bank
Where the meet and socialise with other notes
Of variable denomination
That is way I keep notes in my wallet as long as I can
Dislike breaking up a friendship.
Thrift has nothing to do with meanness it is simply
Not wanting to break up notes, hand them to
A stranger who has no feeling for the inner life
Of a money note.
The teller at my bank a fine man with caring hands
Thinks, as me he counts the money slowly
Often twice before handing them over with a sight

The Casket
I saw a coffin the church
Didn't see the body
The casket was bare
No flowers
They are wasted on the dead
I have no religion
For me, death holds no sting
It is merely the end of life.

The Cemetery

Children going back from school
and took the quick way through the cemetery.
They stopped by a new dug grave.
One of the children said: who was he?
Oh, just another old *******.
One of the children said.
Since my soul overheard their remark
I forgave them,
The truth is we are all *******
And our life is mostly without any consequence.

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 Chosen

Zionism is like Ayn Rand's philosophy about
the right of the powerful.
These days to avoid saying a Jew we say
they are Zionists.
Even if Israel practice a policy of power
There are still 7 million Jews there, a minority

The Christmas Present

I bought her silver filigree jewellery  
A modern design
It was expensive, but it was worth it
She wanted to see it before Christmas
I could see she didn't like it
I thought it was beautiful but had done
A fatal error it was for her
And not my taste in silver design
She changed it next day
For something she liked
It hurts me she did this, but what the hell
Next year I will buy her bijoutries
In a Chinese shop

The woman who comes and clean the house
once a week, has a voice like a foghorn, she speaks with
a Gypsy accent I have to guess what she says,
anyway she ignores me when I say: no need to water the plants
there will be rain tomorrow; well, it is morrow now.
Now rain has fallen seraph-like clouds drift about as they should
have a day off and decide to have a lazy day.
The sun is up to modest now in October, tries to make up for
the summer when it forced me indoors for two months.
The cleaner has tremendous energy, up at dawn and works all day,
my wife has given her a lot of clothes which she and her
husband, a used car dealer, sells at the market on Sundays
When hearing her voice – and don't I hear- she brightens up my day
like sunlight on a grumpy day, and I think she's blessed.

The climate

Is an elephant on *****
Weaned off.
Going berserk
Throwing things around
Tearing the
Polaris into fragments.
Hurricanes
Storms
Flooding.
Scorching summers
Arctic winters
There is no end
To the elephants
Despair.
Slim the elephant
Normal food
It will soften
Its rampage
And trumpeting.

Once Greenland
Had bananas
Monkeys sat in trees
Snakes in the grass.
Then it colder
The jungle vanished
Ice took over.
Yet
The Vikings
Did farming
Had cows
And root plants.
When it got too cold
They took the cow
Home
To Norway
In longboats.
The clime
Had changed
Now it is changing
Again.
Will, it ever snow
In New Delhi.

The cold generation

They don’t dance the tango in Argentina anymore
but you can do the twist alone but keep your distance.
However, the elegant the waltz is out, superb dresses
is not a defence against the virus.
To do the swing is awkward to without a hand to hold
on to, I don’t know about square dance though.
We are becoming a withdrawn society, like the Swedes
they are not famed for warmth and kisses.
That is the way they have *****-industry to make up for
the lack of intimacy.

The collapse

They built an edifice
On a shining hill and
A sandcastle
Here the truth was
Spoken hubristic
One can say
However, they believed in
In the illusion
A man came and stepped
On the castle, it crumbled
Lies and shenanigans
Toppled out for all to see
It was just sand.
The hatred turned to
The truth-teller
He was called a traitor
Rots in a tiny prison cell.

Collapsing world

Isn't odd the world is on the brink of collapse
yet more airports are built sometimes at unlikely places
to get the swarm of tourism in.
It is ok for a traveller to walk in the streets of Paris but
not leave trash at the foot of Himalaya and plastic bags
spoiling beaches.
There was a noise on the balcony a big seabird had
collided with glass partition of the railing the bird
suffered a bent beak but was otherwise looking fine
if a bit shocked; of course it could no longer feed and
slowly starved to death.
A warning to us who fail to see the looming breakdown
of our world

The Colonel

It was early morning and cold
He looked towards the long landscape of sand
the rebels had won with the help of al-Qaida,
and NATO bombs.
Someone somewhere had condemned him to death.
As he prepared to leave the sun arose as did
French helicopters shooting the shreds his caravan
and he was left at the mercy of the terrorists

Colonisation of India

The ****** of the oriental princess happened
as the sun rose from the east.
A dagger, made of gold coins on her back as she slept
on a mattress made of hazy stars.
Her lips dripped ruby, collected by her father,
the potentate, who gave them to the queen of England,
she, in gratitude, gave him a Rolls Royce equipped with
a driver who could sing “Rule Britannia.”
Greed choked the potentate and from his blue lips.
Sapphire dripped.

the colour barrier

There is shooting every day in Chicago
many get killed by stray bullets shattered windows
but there are no headlines screaming
about these senseless crimes.
The gun-slingers are mostly black, and it appears
the police have given up patrolling a particular district
where the majority are dark.
we get headlines about murderous white men
and that is OK, as they fit the new narrative that
white is terrible; after all, they invaded America
and made it a powerful nation.

The colourblind scientist
He was from Pakistan, always wore a blue suit
we were walking away from a ship that sank.
So, I said, what are you doing for a living?
I´m a mathematician, he said currently I'm trying to make
brown into green by using a math formula, so far
I have got grey colours but lack funds to continue.
We came to a park and sat down, I pointed to the grass
said it was green.
That is the problem, he said, why is it green?
If I could find a mathematical formula, I could make
the whole world green, and there would be equality.
He was lost in thought for a while and spoke;
can´t you picture it as a green Himalaya?
A pigeon came flying and sat on his head I fed it breadcrumbs.
The scientist thanked me, got up and left.

The combat in Ukraine

I have a problem; we know that Ukraine is a corrupt country
we also know it has fought a low-level war against
the Russian-speaking people in the Donbas region, so Russia
intervened, so far so good, but what is the next step?
If Russia holds on to the territory gained without having
an army station in the freed territories on a permanent basis
because Ukraine will cry foul and attack when they can.
Russia has always been a magnet for intruders because
of its potential riches and vastness.
There was a time when Yeltsin and his cronies were popular
they grabbed the state's assets and sold them down the Volga.
This was abruptly stopped, to the chagrin of the west
once more; Russia was the enemy.
I’m not partial to the Russian government’s plan, but as I see it
Russia has to occupy the whole of Ukraine and install a regime
that is permanently neutral and let Ukraine be a member
of the Russian federation.
In any case, the war must stop as thousands of young soldiers
die for the wrong reasons and the civilians are bombed senseless.

The Compliment
At the Pharmacy I met Hans, an old friend I didn't recognise
him at first he wore glasses and had a Nordic face I thought
it was me ten years ago; he has a sheep farm, the Germans,
are an industrial people.
At the green-grocer, I met an Irish woman she recognised me
from one of my books she has some of them and I was chuffed.
When I meet someone who has read my books, it is not often,
I take a step back in fear they might be critical of my spelling-  
mistakes I have no self- confidence therefore to meet one
who likes what I have written and does not tell me how to write
I grow a little and decorously blush and go home tell my wife
all about it then we have lunch and I have to clean the dishes.

The compulsive

Autism in the like of Julian Assange
And Greta Thunberg is a force for the good
Their passion can for them be tragic
they go to any length to follow the truth.

I had a tailless female dog, circled to find
the tail, till she got dizzy.

Obsessive people can be tiresome, have
great courage and suffer for their beliefs.
Heroes are for the quest for honesty.
We should be grateful.

The Conference in Davos

Davos, men in classy suits, speak fluently
about the ills of the world-
They tell Greta she has to study economic
and coal will be phased out but slowly.

The young wonder why should they study
to get an excellent job in a multinational firm.

Davos, men in elegant suits, speak glibly
of growths, we don’t want more; we like less.
The young know this, we poor elderly too
and it is their future; those in silk suits fail to see.

The Consequence of Occupation

For all the time you have killed my children,
They know when they grow up they will
Come and slay yours,
Mine have lost the ability to feel empathy.
And you will cry, as I did, swear vengeance
And kiss your bland flag.
We've in common our mutual hatred
A bond of blood that is longer lasting
Than mere love.

Corona-19

Got up at eight this Sunday morning
switched on the computer and the Guardian
was full of the virus and how many had died.
I switched on the TV and watched a cartoon.
I follow the rules, wear a mask and clean
my hands, the rest is up to chance I refuse to
live in fear.
While writing these lines of homespun wisdom
a pigeon sits on the ledge if I wave my hand
it will flay away, and sometimes I wish to fly too
but I do not want to be a pigeon.

The Cow

By the edge of the cliff where the grass is juicy
the cow tried to eat it all the last straw you can say
alas, it tipped over and fell into the sea
and since happened in Dover, it swam to Holland
and joined the Dutch cattle.
This was a good solution till the cow demanded
special privileges such as imported Dover grass,
when it didn't get it will, it swam back.
On the way across the channel, it was run over
by a Panamanian registered tank-ship.
Children had to go to school hungry no sausages
or milk for breakfast.
The ship, the farmer (not setting up a fence) and
the Dutch got the blame, this wouldn't have happened
if we had let, the cow gets its own way.

The Creator

Lately, I think it has to do with ageing
have been thinking of religions, one can say
Exploring them for the best option, they all fail miserably
To the point, I will call organized faith humbug.
The idea that someone has the key to the truth and
If you don’t believe for them, you will go to hell.
My contempt for religions in all its form is contempt
And assault on people’s intelligence.
We know now there are other, planet somewhere
Not unlike our and if they are human life with the same
The problem, should we ever get to one of them it would
Be like coming home.
I can believe in a creator of this, call It god if you like
But if the creator has not any conscious thoughts the idea
Becomes meaningless.
Yet, religions have always been their peoples in the deep
Forest of the Amazon had one, the believed in nature
In trees, flowers and animals in what they see and hear.
The missionaries came and preached their god as the only
True faith and by doing so destroyed the fabric of what
They had believed.
I don’t know how the universe came into being it is an enigma
that has little to do with the right sort of god.

The *******

Limping his way to town he was overtaken by laughing youth
He swore under his breath, sure they were laughing at him.
*******, *******, ******* he said to himself full of self- loathing.
He could have taken the bus, but liked to save money his
Only pleasure in life except when he took the ferry to Newcastle
Where a ******* told him he was a beautiful man, and it could
Have been truth perhaps she saw in him the inconsolable truth
Of a mind full of hatred.
He liked to go to places where the dead were laid out he spoke
To them told them how stupid the looked, but his interest had
Been noticed and he was barred.
His father had died not that he felt empathy with this, but he
Stood to inherit some money and that made him glad sitting
Watching **** in his ***** little flat.

The Cross
It six o'clock Sunday early evening she is in
the church that looks Coptic, the sun lit up
the cross on the top and the roof looks rosé.
A Morocco radio station plays Arabic music
this is quite fitting now that they have been
targeted by a racist who has not read history,
but let us put that aside for now.

In many European countries, the leaders lament
but secretly wish they could do the same, life would
be so easier without this intrusive Islam.
We, onlookers, are guilty too we have not been able
to accept the Muslims on equal terms
The cross is now in darkness there is a murky side
to all religions they produce extremists

9/ 11 the cruel aftermath


Dented western hubris, the mirror cracked
self believes shocked the vanity foundation.
How dare they we are the top predators
our rage will be swift and massive.
Falluja, the western army killed anything that moved
my thought went to Palestine a state of olives
and goat herding, who paid the ultimate prize.
Propaganda is the mixing of truth and deliberate lies
there are those who say Palestine never existed
but old maps tell a different story.
The wheel of the future is ruthless, Israel is tolerated
as the new province of the Caliphate.
The 9/11 is for you to avert your eyes and forget
the mass ****** of the indigenous people of Palestine.

The cry

A warm August day
A child
Drawn to the ornamental pool
A surface of lilies
A mother calls
Her child
A face
Whiter than the lilies
Floats in the light
A scream
Pierces a hole in the sky
A fraction of a second
Nature is silent.
Then it gears up again
Ad nauseous

The Cuddly One

I sat in a café minding my own business trying not
to order a second chocolate éclair when she entered,
a cuddly woman of a race called the children of
the wind, her I gave the second éclair.


She invited me home, she lived in a house where
the forest begins, and on her duvet sat 35 teddy
bears which she lovingly moved, putting them in
in the hall for the night.


When I awoke a big teddy bear was sleeping next
to me; and as bears, so I’m told, tend to be grumpy
in the morning, I silently dressed and tiptoed down
to the kitchen, the cuddly woman wasn’t there.  


I ate breakfast alone, rice pudding with honey,
but when I heard the big bear getting out of bed
I hurriedly left not wanting an argument about
the empty jar of honey left on the table.

The Culture
Cultural differences, I once was on a ***** ship
that plied the waters between Spain Italy Greece
occasionally France and sometimes Turkey were
most of us felt foreign; there was no easy rapport
between us and the female populace as there was
then a separation between the sexes, it appeared
there were two types of women; **** or nun, yet
I think it was the best years of my life.
Greece has a special place in my heart; it is where
it all began the idea of democracy of which I was
paid by the lovely people of Piraeus.
The western culture to hundreds of years to develop so
let us protect it and not misuse it by writing new laws
that curtail or freedom

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?

The Dark Heart

He sits in his cell can't read newspaper or use the internet,
the centre of his mind is the coldest place on earth, and
so much of him is us.
He committed an unspeakable crime killing children,
his mother died for his sins; his father hopes his son will
Will have the sense to commit suicide.
His cell is frosty blue; those who feed him avoid eye contact,
no one reaches out to touch him and former friends,
Even those in sympathy with his fascism have forsaken him.
He cannot hear this he will not hear, he is king of
his mind – a prisoner- and must not stray from his path.
Cosmic Loneliness, if he wakes up from his slumber of
self-delusion and sees how grotesque he is,
there will be no one who will embrace him and give succour

The Daughter

I looked her into her brown eyes and said, I love you,
just straightforward without any hesitation or reservation
I had sometimes taken to get to this point because
I had said this so many times before to other women.
My wife believed me, and when I come home telling
her I have fallen in love with the check-out girl at
the supermarket, she called me an idiot but knows
the girl is the daughter I never had.
No, do not feel said my reason for wanting a daughter
is that I don't want a nurse to look after me when
I get really old. You see my vanity is considerable
I have had an operation in my eyes, wear no glasses.
The next is a hair transplant, I long for the days when
someone thinks I’m my son, but I still dream of
a compliant daughter, and I wonder if this makes me
an anti-feminist.

The Dawn

I have voyaged far, crossed many oceans
I have seen the unseen, the grotesque.
We are cable of, but I have also met kind
people, I never sank into the abyss of cynicism.

I have seen flowers no botanist has, but I keep
it, a secret the nameless will be hidden.

I rejoice, for I have found my modest me
obliquely I was not here nor there confused.
as semi-transparent waiters passing my table
erased me from their memories.

The day Charles's mask fell off.

Charles Rose, a predator? He looks so harmless
on the screen, a person of high intelligence talking to Psychiatrists
like he was one of them, and then he does THIS!”
Men are more predatory than women it is an instinct, look at
the lion, why it kills little lions, yeah that is what I mean it is stupid
But a lion wants all the lionesses, that's predatory.
Thanks to our rapacious predisposition we have gone from using
flint axe to nuclear weaponry; why are men so stupid?
If you think of Israel as a man and Palestine as his long-suffering wife,
you have got it right. Hear her demands to be treated as an equal.
Charles Rose walking naked to his shower in front of women, did he think?
His 75 years old body was ****? Charles, I used to watch your program twice a week when I see you now I can't stop giggling.

The day I met an actor
Father Brown sat in my garden drinking beer
with fellow actors and producers.
Father Brown remembered me he had seen
Me watching him every weekday on Tv.
The actor profession is strictly hierarchical
I could not sit at his table but be placed
among the actor, like the one coming out
of the post office walking up the road and
has no speaking role.
I had a watering can and when watering
A rose bush near him, he spoke to me.
“So, you like to watch Father Brown?
“Yes, sir, I love the program.”
“Thank you,” he said, with that, he turned
to the other casts by the table

The day I refused

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

The pace
  I walked for 50 minutes
Inhaling fumes of cars, it is like
Living in a roundabout
The see air on the seventh floor
At my flat, the air is healthier
But I walk every day because
It is suitable for my diabetes
And it makes me slimmer
Only the walk makes me hungry.
It makes me wonder if
The great and late president Chirac
Walked the street of Paris?

The day of reckoning

A bird with an enormous wingspan darkened the sky
it was a night of horror in the Middle East.
A new country born in sin and filched land arose
blood ran in ancient, narrow cobblestoned roads.
The people fled over a broken bridge, now live far
from the homeland, the dream of returning is alive.
Young men living in squalor are attracted to Islamists
the grim head cutting people, who know no mercy
know they will win one day, and more blood will flow
Into sand and time.
When everything is forgotten, walls erased, the losers
will flock back to Europa, whence they came.

The day that wasn't
  
When I awoke
It was dark waited for the day
It never came, back to bed.
Later I got up, still dark
The day refused to be born.

Switch on the computer
When it came on
It showed yesterday’s news
Wondered if I could find
A ***** channel
But I’m too much of a *****
*** is ok for the participant
For an onlooker
It looks ridiculous.
*** for its own sake ends up
Being sordid and ends in tears
“I thought you loved me,”
Back in bed
When I stirred was met
With a new day
My worries were over.

The Dead Awakens

The elderly man was on holiday up north when he realised
his wallet was at the hotel and in his other jacket problem
he had forgotten the name of the hotel.
Luckily he had a few notes in his watch pocket and loose change enough
to take the bus home, the tour took 12 hours
on a bus that was full job seekers and their children.
At home he remembered the name of the hotel, he rang
through Skype spoke to the reception who said “but you
died two days ago.” Do you remember me the old man asked?”
“Yes, said the man at the desk, but you're dead we saw you at
the morgue.” The old man took the first flight back to the hotel he was hit
by a golf ball were a famous golfer was
showed the crowd how far he could shoot from the Eifel tower.
The receptionist came out and said, “I told him he was dead, but he didn't believe me. “

The Death
I would not like to die in winter
When earth is frozen and will not take a *****
They will dig a shallow grave
Bury me in a coffin without a blanket
Then go inside and sit by the fire
Perhaps they will wrap me in canvas put me on
The hey-loft till spring
And collect my old age pension during the cold season
I don't mind that
Soft soil and flowers on the ground
Dig deep, and I will be a part of spring

The death of love


I knew of a couple
They were in love and happy
Saving money to buy a house.
She became pregnant and
Thought it was best to have an abortion
Without consulted her spouse she went and had one
And since a  woman’s body is her temple
She didn’t think of telling him.
When he knew he felt resentful he had hoped
They one day would have a  baby.
The umbrage gnawed inside of him he felt
Cheated, and their ******* had lost
It's intensity.
They grew apart and they parted, love had
found a backdoor and escaped the misery.
I think when two people live together
The consequences must be shared by both.

The debate


Jordan Petersen the famous Canadian Professor debates
Slavoj Zizek, the equally famous philosopher, is facing off.
The Canadian is dressed in a blue three-piece suit that is too tight
he wears expensive leather boots, looks calm, but his voice crackles.
He thinks capitalism is for good, and I think of Ayn Rand,
he is a formidable debater but has inner anger of something
unsolved on his mind.
Slavoj looks like someone homeless, T-shirt and tennis shoes
He doesn´t belong to any group but thinks Hegel is excellent and often
refer to his saying; Slavoj´s mind is sharp and he jumps from subject
with the greatest of ease.
Jordan is very much a junior in this debate that is about Marx and
the nature of love.
Jordan gives his opinion of Marx but is constrained by his thesis
of capitalism, Slavoj picks his opinion apart; there is a tremble
in Jordan’s voice when he disagrees.
When debating the nature of love, he vax lyrical, Slavoj does not believe
in this at all, he compares lovers’ *** as mutual *******, (often it is)
but sees no wrong in this. Jordan is a one-dimensional professor, while
Slavoj has a world view that encompasses everything  
the world has to offer, he is, in my opinion, a generous genius with
a sense of rude jokes and laughter.

The deepest sleep

He had been sleeping deeply
woke up tried to be awake before the sleep
took him into the depth of death.
He struggled to open his eyes, couldn't.
Knew he had to make it, was able
to put one foot on the floor, the coldness
of the floor made him open his eyes.
He inhaled intensely it had been a close call
had he slept five minutes more
It had been too late.

The deep state
It is not a good thing to know too much
of the private life of the powerful
when things go wrong and the powerful
are threatened they do as the mafia,
**** with extreme effectiveness.
It has happened many times before, but
a good example is Robert Maxwell and
Now Epstein. The next one in their sight
is Julian Assange who is slowly being
poisoned breaking down his healthiness
What can they prosecute him for?
Telling the truth about the criminality
they have been engaged in and the myriad
Of lies, to feed the stupid public with.
Death is the best option in the vacuum
they can pile it up with more lies.

the diminishing

we have not noticed yet, a few old folks dying
they are not being replaced by new births
and then there are fewer people than before the young
remind unborn as older people die,
we take no notice at. First, farms are unattended and
the vegans are first to ring the alarm bell
not be a cause of no cow, but the lack of grain.
The world population is shrinking, like the rivers
and lakes were we used to swim.
The emptying of humanity is unstoppable we are
on the way out we made a mess out of the world
and now the piper wants to be paid.
When only a hundred peoples are left, they will
commit suicide as no one wants to be the last
the person in the vastness of nature-