A tropical island

I went ashore early
It was dawn
Walked up a hill
That was impossible green
And snakes
I man sliced open a coconut
I drank its sweet
Fulfilling nectar
I saw the ship old as a *****
Misused by too many
I had nowhere to run
This was an island
Walked down the hill
The sea was crystal clear
Fins of sharks
Perfection had to wait
A man sells coconuts
By the wayside and
A green hill that is
Poisonous
And has too many snakes.

A troubled life


Her life has become
an agony of anxiety,
of death.
Her brother died
she thinks the knuckled hand
is touch her shoulder
is coming nearer.
Her shoulder twitches
she wills painfulness.
Another appointment
to a doctor
or a hospital
they cannot help her.
She has days
when overactive
she buying a car,
a Mercedes
she can not drive
a hip surgery saw to that  
next day she is in pain
walking too long
her day is spent in bed.
He plans his escape
but has he got the faculty
to do so?

A cook at sea

The sea is restless and white-crested
It moves the ship up and down and sideways
Broad legged the cook tries to keep order
With dancing pots and pans.

He dreams of roses but is surrounded by steel
He knew of better times, south America.

The cruel tempest starts after lunch
When in his bunk tries to sleep but is tossed about,
He has been on his feet since six o’clock.
Hopes the sea will calm before the evening shift.

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

At the end of a fjord

The fjord was long and dark
on both sides, hard granite could not soak up the sun
it was like descending into hell.
But the fjord arm opened and at the bottom
could be seen a small village with red-painted houses,
the people here at been isolated from outside influence
for many years and everyone looked the same,
alas, some were giggling idiots.
I big piece of rock fell off the dark mountainside caused
a tsunami that washed the village away and there
were no survivors, except one who didn't have the brain
to tell what befell, at the time of the accident he
had been high up in the valley to get the cows home.
The village was moved higher up, and new people moved in,
today it has an airport and has joined modern life

At the end of a fjord

The fjord was long and dark
on both sides, hard granite could not soak up the sun
it was like descending into hell.
But the fjord arm opened and at the bottom
could be seen a small village with red-painted houses,
the people here at been isolated from outside influence
for many years and everyone looked the same,
alas, some were giggling idiots.
I big piece of rock fell off the dark mountainside caused
a tsunami that washed the village away and there
were no survivors, except one who didn't have the brain
to tell what befell, at the time of the accident he
had been high up in the valley to get the cows home.
The village was moved higher up, and new people moved in,
today it has an airport and has joined modern life

At the hospital (nurses and doctors)

Been to see the diabetes doctor
first, we had to see the nurse who did the physical aspect.
The nurse said I had lost 2 kilos
which was pleasing to hear; the last time I met her, she looked
worse for wear coming up to the surface of a night depravity
and her uniform looked crumbled.
Doctors, nowadays, consult their computers to see
how you feel tapping away, like a secretary.
My doctor, a small, slim woman, had been to the beach
she had lovely fingers; she wore pumps I didn’t think much of
but her ankles were elegant as her fingers.
Finally, she gave me some new tablets I will probably not use
I noticed she had a copy pen on the desk, given to her
by a medical supplier, not that I mind… My God, those pumps!

At the hospital
I had an appointment
It appears my kidneys are in a bad shape
Due to my diabetes.
Leaving with this glad tiding
I went the wrong way out
And was brutally stopped by a **** guard.
I pushed back
And we ended up in a fight
that was stopped by my nurse
Who whispered something in his ear?
He let go.
I needed a ***, he wouldn´t tell me
Where the toilet was
The revenge of the small people.
I took my ***** out ready to *** on the floor.
They hastily showed me the loo.
The guard said: don´t be so impolite,
And I said do not ever touch me again
And made a ****** salutation.
When this happened, my wife was sitting
In a waiting room trying to call a cab
I told her nothing.
The problem with diabetes it attacks the body
And the mind.

At hypermarket
It had and ice-rink I wanted
To have go
She said I was crazy
At an Israeli restaurant
I asked for Jerusalem food
They didn't have
The waitress asked what it was
Bless her innocent heart
It is a blend of Arabic and Jewish food
People starred
Apparently, it is no PC to say Jewish
People can be so stupid
No seats inside one can't have old people
Clogging up the place
They had seats outside where people smoked
I could **** for a ***
The day is darkening
My wife has gone to church to sing
And lit candles
Tomorrow I will polite to everyone
More polite than anyone else
As Trump might say  
When I'm ninety, I will look back
And say: those crazy times
When I was eight-two

At The Meeting
At the meeting, I was trying to find a horrific tale something
bad I had done when drunk I wanted to get off my chest but
I could not remember anything other than when ten a puppy dog
on the window sill lost its balance and fell into the yard
it wasn't hurt, but I did feel bad.
So I told the story as it had happened forty years in the future
I legless has pushed the dog out of the window and ***** my granny.
Ok, **** can happen but to **** a dog that way was heinous
A few others told their story they could not match mine I had
won hands down, later we drank tea and ate biscuits, and we walked
home feeling in a mellow mood.

At the surgery

Here we are at the clinic's
waiting room,
a fat lady with bandaged big toe,
and an old man leans on his walking stick
he lives alone.

An ancient couple from the upland,
dressed in their Sunday best,
hold hands and look endearing,
a youngish woman who keeps rummaging
through her bag, and me.


Six pairs of feet in a slow shuffle,
Electrocardiography doesn’t
mend tired heart, only tells
us we are mortal

A waste of time

I have been so busy writing
that I have not had time to write.
Ploughing meagre soil
the harvest not enough to feed my heart.
A mountain of words that tell nothing
more than a wall to hide behind.
“what was it all about Alfie?”
A question that has no answer.
My August casts long shadows
and the famine continues.

August night


Dark, starless night sky, a sliver of the moon
golden scythe is mowing down the old.
Harvest time, forgot to close the window,
a chill settles in ancient lungs evil coughs.

Church bells toll the day; the day is hot and
gives nothing away, the old priest is on holiday.
The locum is clumsy, hasn't had a bath for months,
a murmur of discontent.

The cleric sweats there is a smell of *****
a church’s reject; they do take care of
their own. This isn't swine flu nothing to
report, the old dying as they must

August Promise

Every year I say, come August and I will go to Norway
but every you’re the flight ticket goes up, when mulling this over
it is suddenly, September wonder-full is the weather
of the sun, clouds and occasional rain.
The rain in Spain does not fall in my vale the lake is dry has for years
nevertheless, in September, there is a new spring
green grass and flowers more demure in colours
So, what, I hear you say, and I agree beauty does not need to be explosive
as we have had enough of car bombs and other colourful devices
killing people whose only crime is a lack of dress sense – a black bra under a white blouse
and tasteless golf pants.
Long walks for us elderly we look up and for a fleeting moment
Ask rather banal questions,
something told at bible classes we endured at school
“who created this wonder?”
God never gets the blame when storms sink ships, and there is landslide
volcanic eruption, not to forget the endless war the smell of cordite drifting afar.
We have the fallen angel (the devil) to blame for that.

Australia

When I first came to Australia
it reminded me of a colonial outpost.
The officials were pompous and behaved
like little Englanders.
I thoroughly disliked the country, it didn't
help it was so far from civilisation
I was thinking of Europe pubs closed early
and beer was served in small glasses.
There was not much of nightlife I think
the whole nation went to bed at nine
in the evening.
Of course, this has changed now the country
It is modern and the people well educated,
alas, this does not include the political class
who do not appear independent of USA
and align their politics with that country.
Young Australia are getting restless
they want to change.
A quiet revolution is needed and better
care of nature is also on the agenda.
Despite this Australia in my mind, is a boring
And the last place I will wish to go.

The Autopsy

This is a good day cold but with sunshine
and hard soil which with a mechanical digger
is easy to open for a newly dead
When a patient dies, he/she is sent down
to the doctor in the basement who do the autopsy
he speaks into a mike takes pictures writes a report.
The doctor in question is obese, smoke cigarettes
when on his breaks, is straight out of a crime novel
written by Mike Spillane
This is a good day with sunlight and hard soil but
there will be no funeral today.

Autumnal air

The month of October in upper Algarve
with cooling evening and sunlight
begins to fade earlier every day.

Sky is still blue if a shade paler than
yesterday's And has white whispery
strands of clouds near its horizon.

Windless, this day birds on the roof have
flown for a short break in Africa but will
be back in March to start a family.

The man from the forest has delivered
winter wood gave him whisky and
wrote him a check.

Autumn light

Softly they walk on a day in October
The old man and sunlight among olive trees
Planted when his grandfather was young.

On the track hove marks from sheep
That walk here daily on the way home
After grazing upland.

Bits of fleece on thorny bushes
Black pellets and the pungent aroma
Of the woolly-backed still lingers.

He sees the old cottage, warped roof
And bushes grow through the floor
He doesn’t stop; it was all so long ago.

Light is fading time, to leave for him
Autumn evening evenings can be chilly
Not so good for his chest.

The very rich woman

Once at a meeting, I met a lady
Dripping of riches belonging to a posh family in Ireland.
She didn’t have her Bently it was being repaired
I drove her home in my Fiat.
We sat on her sofa kissing and cuddling and ended
Up in bed, she wanted ******* with her on top
And I found myself
With my head in her crotch, when she had an ******
It was like being hit by a bucket of warm water.
There were other positions with her on top too and in
In the end, she fell asleep.
In the morning she asked me to make her breakfast
Which I did, and then she planned my day
Apparently, I should mow the lawn and trim the roses
She spoke to me like I was her servant.
I said I had no time, but stay away tomorrow I have
Guests, that was ok, I had no intention returning.
She rang a few times but I always found an excuse
She lost her temper said I didn’t belong to her class
And she could have made me wealthy, me, I rather
Be poor and free.

A view of the fifties

lifebuoy, A soap a remember well on ships
there was no other soap it had a strong masculine scent
for those who didn't use Floyd aftershave.
We ****** were a clean race always a shower after work
and those who did not were soon persuaded to shower
and keep clean or, they had to take their food outside.
When going ashore in seaports in Britain, it was grey and
it appeared colour had not been invented.
The pubs closed early and were thick of cigarette smoke.
We usually ended up in a fish& chips shop, some of them
had tables made of Formica and not too clean.
What made life bearable was the many women, not prostitutes
but not sparing with what they had to offer.
Since there was nowhere to go, the loving was done in a dark
alleyway standing up leaning against a **** soaked wall.
Going back onboard to a well-lit ship and warm bunk was heavenly.

The vision

The horses, mares and colts that drank cold water
in the shallow river crossing the grassland
looked up a massive plane its wingspan
darkens the valley.
The horses gallop till they are tired and the plane has left
the horses, at ease, can graze again.
The far mountain is like a Canadian blue mountain song
is hazy and shivers like a broken vocal cord.
A lotus swarm of helicopters fill the sky and scared
horses are galloping, again and again, the sky darkens.
Then on the far mountain, a new sun appears it shines
bright for a while, then dies like a comet.
A storm blows, the grass withers and the river are dry.
Dead horses, but the blue mountain is a diamond

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

A voyage to Greenland

Greenland is the largest island in the world, but it is not a continent
I looked up Nuuk the capital up on the YouTube; it is now a modern town
with supermarkets and even cafes.
I was there fifty years ago. Back then it was a rather primitive place
with a million barking dogs and drunk people on the dirt roads,
they used to hang dogs slowly so the hairs stood out and it was
exported as pelt one hopes this practice has been outlawed.
I remember the coastline it was bottle green and for once, still,
we went fishing in a clear stream so transparent and shallow
but when we waded over to the other side, it was so deep we could have drowned.
It was the coldest bath of my life.
Greenland was beautiful, but it was then not a place to remember with fondness,
except for the trout we caught.

Evening and horses
I'm walking on the bottom of an ancient sea
The bottom is flat and rich in grapes and cabbage.
The used to be a lake here, but it disappeared
What is left is a small stream that gets its water from
Water below. On the lake that was, and no longer is
Helicopter pilots practice take-off and landing
Some gipsy horses graze nearby and ignore the noise
The choppers make- I took a picture of one going in
For landing, it belongs to the fire department, many fires
During the hot summer, some fires need to burn
And some fires are caused by pyromaniacs.
But never mind I will see my doctor at the hospital tomorrow
She is like a beautiful race horse on the wrong side of fifty,
She is forever telling me what not to eat; she told me curry
Was fattening once and I said nothing on her desk there is
A picture of her husband he is a pilot.

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.

The whisper in red

I had been watching TV
And as often happen when I watch
A minute sleep only
A wisp of a young woman in a red ballerina dress.
Sat on the floor leaning her head at my leg.
When seeing I was awake, she got up
And disappeared silently as a falling leaf.
Later that evening I watch a French art program
And the lady in red was painted 120 years ago.
Was the one, the expert, spoke about
They knew it was Degas but none knew who she was.

The visit to the past
I took the bus to the village
Only it didn’t stop there anymore, and no buses were going that way.
The only road to my house was a track.
For tractors and mules.
In my absence wartime was hard
but I met a man who for money could
drive to the village for a few Euros.
My old dog sat outside it took some
moments before it recognized me
it was glad to see me. The door was open.
I walked into the kitchen. A man came out of the living room
He was surprised to see me.
He had moved in since the house was empty
The owner had disappeared.
The dog lives in the shed, he said. Not anymore
I said. I have nowhere to go, the man lamented
In that case, you can stay for a few days.
I took the dog for a walk in the woods
On the other side of the track, she liked that
It disappeared, and I couldn’t find my way
Back to the house and the village had gone.
A person with a golf club in his hand told me the small village had been razed years ago
I had no business being here as it was the future.
And there was no way back to the old days
I had nothing to do here, and I walked towards the horizon.

A Winter's Tale

It was clearing up in the afternoon
fingers of sunlight lit up the olive grove
a slight mist and a bizarre story
I saw him the old man dressed
in a soil dark suit, with a jute sack over his shoulder
picking up lost souls.
This time, of the year there is many.
The clouds in the sky have many hues some are black
others rosy
and ephemeral shifting colours with the light,
pushed by the wind
Church bell tolls before noon.
This miasma of ages,
stubbing a toe on the exposed root of an olive tree
when trying to follow the track of yesterday.
It has no future
What was it all for?
Is there a god?
The end is silence

A woman of substance

I'm sceptical of the Dutch
One of them stole my beloved
He was a painter
Made her beautiful on canvas
And she fell in love
I wrote a poem on a torn
Piece of paper-
And I’m not a Lutheran-
Nailed it on her door
The usual stuff of the aching heart
The painter got arthritis
In his hands  
Could not hold a paint brush
She sent him to nursing home
And now she smiles at me

The working day
  
It was dark I had been to a place I should not
have been, when I saw a river of men coming out
of the subway filling the street with silence
and decorum.
Daylight came, neon light shivered and died
this was not a time for frivolities and false promises.
at the end of the day, it was like watching a movie
running backwards, the river returned filling trains
with packed politeness.
They are going home to the mysterious suburbia
and the stress of family life in small rooms.
Some, however, take a later train go to bars drink
beer and sing Karaoke and for a few hours
Forget about the drudgery of tomorrow’s office hours
A tiny ***** in the wheel of commerce.

A WRITERS LIFE
There is on Facebook pictures of dead film stars
like Elisabeth Taylor, who was born in London
and photos of her childhood.
I don´t really care about this. We should remember her
as a great actress, see her movies and shut up.
Then we have Ernest Hemingway, who is one of me
favourite writers, alas, he often appears in the picture
of his life, not so much about his writing, more about
his adventures, which I do not care to read about.
Dos Passos, another great writer, lived a smaller amount
of daring-do, but he surpassed Hemingway in his  
say, The Bridge over San Louis Ray”, not to forget
John Steinbeck, Theodore Dreiser and William Faulkner.
I like American writes, pre-word processor,
and now they are going mad producing toms of too many words.
The thing is this. I don´t want to know about their childhood.

A writers’ problem

The thing is this when you die; you can’t go back
and write about it.
Those, there are a few, who say they can are charlatans.
We can speculate about death or write a thesis about it
or we can write about near-death experiences
like if a bright light a choir singing soft songs to harp music.
The river of no return.
When driving on the long bridge on my way to Algarve
I think of the bridge falling, but it is always about survival
a story to tell, the one who got away.
Death is the ending of a book you read,
was the book a good read, or was it boring?

Bachelor Day
It was father’s day he got up early and
drank coffee near the phone just in case
his daughter rang.

Then it was afternoon and he must have
fallen asleep and he fretted if the phone
had rung and he hadn’t heard it.

He went into the kitchen but left the living
room door open, he had a ham sandwich
which he ate by the phone.

It was now evening and she was not ringing
how could she a product of his wishes,
childless man. she was a figment of your dreams.

Home at  the Ranch
I once had a big ranch in Oregon; technically it is still mine
but I have no way to prove it. One day and far from the ranch
was inspecting fences when a sudden cold storm hit, to
survive I shot my horse cut its stomach open and crept inside
and quickly fell asleep. Woke up when the storm was over
I looked for my horse it was not there perhaps the wolves…?
Trotted home the ranch hands were glad to see me and gave me
carrots, although I neighed they put me in the corral with other
horses that knew who I was and shunned me.
My widow cried, and I stood outside her window that brought
tears in people’s eyes and they gave me apples to eat.
Now that she was the owner and had much responsibility she
used me to get around, it thrilled me to have her on my back
but was careful not to show uncalled for excitement.

Then tragedy struck she got a friend, the foreman on
the ranch a man I didn't like and was thinking of firing.
my intense jealousy made me furious and one day when they
were making love under an oak by the river, I kicked them both
to death and galloped to the far blue mountain as I know from
experience there is no justice for wild horses.

Baku


In Baku ( the then Soviet Union)
I found the individual Russians a friendly people
we drank white wine which was a bit sweet
but otherwise tasted good.
The restaurant looked like 1930 had white table cloths
of course, Lenin and Stalin were looking at us
either as a bust or a picture.
The suits the men wore was also 1930ish but so what
we didn´t have to pay.
The Russians liked to hear theirs was a wonderful country
as I indeed did in, say, Texas wonderful state
and was told the blacks were all communists
Strangely enough, I was more frightened in Texas, so many
guns in holsters.
The individual Texans were polite, well-armed men often are
and we drank lone star beer served cold.
The British took years before serving cold lager.
I live in Portugal now, a good place but I wouldn't say I like the unholy alliance between politicians and the business class.

From a Balcony in Paris

Fine rain
open umbrella
Sitting on the balcony
Of a hotel
Overlooking
Haussmann-Saint Lazare.
Throngs of people
Something has changed
People drink
Starbuck
Eat hamburgers
On the hoof.
Old restaurant closed
Converted
To fast-food joints.
I sigh
Drink from the bottle
Of Bordeaux
To avoid
Getting rainwater
In my wine.

The Balfour


Today in London
They celebrate the Balfour declaration
A historic shame
Israel by its existence
Is a momentous theft,
A catastrophe for the Palestinians

Baltimore.
They came here, the black population, from the south, to get work
In factories and the rate of pay for them the poor from the south,
Was good and a neighbourhood evolved, there was progress and
Peace thriving working class districts. Capitalism is not about safety,
Shifting luck the industry moved abroad where wages are cheaper,
And where should the people go? Boarded up shops, factories and
Broken windows, where should the people go? Restless youth no
One has given them any education, where should the people go?
Being black and suffering the stigma of having been sons of slaves to
Break out of the stigma of inferiority is not easy and often its ends
In frustrated and depressed violence.
The black people of Baltimore are suffering the same contempt as my
Parents did  in Norway simply for being working class. Askew is
The capitalist foundation, force into life a socialist party a force if needed
Without compromise, a political transformation.  When politicians say
they work for the middle-class people; we know the black working-class
is  blissfully excluded.

Baltimore.
They came here, the black population, from the south, to get work
In factories and the rate of pay for them the poor from the south,
Was good and a neighbourhood evolved, there was progress and
Peace thriving working class districts. Capitalism is not about safety,
Shifting luck the industry moved abroad where wages are cheaper,
And where should the people go? Boarded up shops, factories and
Broken windows, where should the people go? Restless youth no
One has given them any education, where should the people go?
Being black and suffering the stigma of having been sons of slaves to
Break out of the stigma of inferiority is not easy and often its ends
In frustrated and depressed violence.
The black people of Baltimore are suffering the same contempt as my
Parents did in Norway simply for being working class. Askew is
The capitalist foundation, force into life a socialist party, a force if needed
Without compromise, a political transformation.  When politicians say
they work for the middle- class people; we know the black working- class
is blissfully excluded.

the bank robber

I, like many others, are short of cash
the idea of robbing a bank at gunpoint is repellent
and I hate guns.
I have a better idea, in the evening when I go for a walk
leaning against a bank-door in the hope they have
forgotten to lock the door.
There are many banks in the street where I live.
To avoid attracting attention, I lean only at a door
of a bank once.
There must be one sloppy enough to forget to close the door, and if the safe is open, I´m home.
I have two plastic bags for this purpose.
Should I be lucky I will not be greedy fill the bags
and go to Spain, no, only enough to pay the electricity bill
gas and rent; and enough for a bottle of posh wine
and change the tires of my car.

the bank robber

I, like many others, are short of cash
the idea of robbing a bank at gunpoint is repellent
and I hate guns.
I have a better idea, in the evening when I go for a walk
leaning against a bank-door in the hope they have
forgotten to lock the door.
There are many banks in the street where I live.
To avoid attracting attention, I lean only at a door
of a bank once.
There must be one sloppy enough to forget to close the door, and if the safe is open, I´m home.
I have two plastic bags for this purpose.
Should I be lucky I will not be greedy fill the bags
and go to Spain, no, only enough to pay the electricity bill
gas and rent; and enough for a bottle of posh wine
and change the tires of my car.

banned

So, it happened again
I called a prancing woman dancing  
Happy that Joe Biden won the election,
“a silly ****.”
I'm glad Trump is going, but I fear.
The new president has unfinished “democracy.”
Like Syria, Iran to bomb into submission.
His for of “American Democracy” leads him.
On the warpath.
We are so happy that Trump lost although
Seventy million voted for him.
There are too many of them, and they are not idiots,
Well, not all of them.
It is about collar workers who have no union to protect
From arbitrary dismissal, it is about sick pay and
And a proper pension, Joe Biden will do nothing.
He is a man for the big pharma and other corporation.
The USA have a racism problem that will be unsolved.
Until the mighty country can learn it has to change,
And Joe Biden is not the man to fix this problem.
Hence my irritation to jubilant ***** who have not
read a newspaper for years.

Banned man

So, it finally happened, of course, Trump gets the blame
but I think this, not the whole story.
For years the workers have seen their wage packet shrinking
and their rights being ignored, no health insurance
nor trade union to look after their interest
As the common man gets poorer, the wealthy get richer
they live with the fear of needing surgery or losing the job.
The two ills go together if a sick person stay away from work
too long he gets fired anyway.
The people revolted Trump fanned the flame that already
was lit.
And it gets worse the big tech firms have banned the president
of the united states and that is an outrage that belongs
to a dictatorship, it has a sinister implication that doesn’t bode well
for us civilian when only what suits the big tech get a hearing
this includes anyone of us at any time.

Bards and society

Poets are gentle people who like to form a group for writers
with an eccentric title, “a thousand poets against war.”
Poetry is only useful for dictators and those who like to demonstrate how literal they are.
Dictators find them valuable if they extoll the regime
If not, you are exiled or jailed.
Poets are subjected to flattery, the lucky one gets a medal before they die
of consumption.
I was thinking of this when lost in a city, with many statues of generals riding an iron horse.
And a bust of the sensible poet in the entrance of a downtrodden hotel.

The Bashful writer

He had been into a bookshop a few weeks ago
had asked the manager if he could place his books there,
yes, that was ok just bring me the books the manager said.
When he had asked the shop was empty, now it was full
of people and he was too shy and nervous, waited outside
for the shop to be empty.
He was a man of little self-confidence perhaps his work
was not good enough to be sold, he had been refused
so often when sending a manuscript through the net.
In a café, he had a glass of red wine to lessen his anxiety,
it helped, but the bookshop was closed for lunch when
he came back, he had lunch came back but the shop
decided it didn't want more English written work,
“Come back in January,” the shopkeeper said.
He took the bus home knowing well he would not come
back for more humiliations.

Basket case

There is a smudge on my computer screen trying to clean it with spit,
but no, perhaps it is finger marks left behind by the strange people
Who sits in the back of the computer shop?
Their diet is cola and chocolate; they are thin, bald and weedy looking
I must whisper to them, or they shrink away.
They sulk if I disagree with their diagnosis, it will take time to get
my computer back.
When the owner closes the shop, they climb into toolboxes, the ones with
the helpful drawing of a screwdriver, maybe the smudge is a camera
watching me
when I have a drink tonight, I’ll pour it in the bedroom then go into
the bathroom and smoke a cigarette
buy a can of coke a bar of chocolate, eat and drink in front of the screen
and they will say, look, he is a basket-case like us.

B&B

Vacancy sign, neon lit in the coldest blue,
cheap room, nylon sheets (easy to wash)
a wash basin, no doubt used as a ******.
commode with a mirror on top…Liverpool
is such a dreary place when it rains.

Lay on top of the bed reading Hemingway
I was boxer Olson the Mafia was out to get.
Steps outside I was full of angst
“Was it them?”40 watt pale light it was
getting dark.
I was only one step away to sleeping rough.

The Beast of Burden

These last words of this collection
Is salutation to mules, donkeys and horses?
They have disappeared from city life, yet without them
No city would have been built
From the landscape to they have gone without a lament
Without them, no field would have been ploughed
We owe them our way of life.
They were sacrificed in our senseless wars.
We remember them not and that sadness me
There is a hole, in landscape a white dot beside an oak
Where the mare of many foals stood
I miss the sturdy beauty of donkeys and mules,
And the aroma of their work is gone, and we are poorer
For the vision, we shall not see again

Bedtime
  
The beginning of the night was hot
I went to bed naked (daredevil.)
On the other side of the bedroom, I saw a naked man who had a big stomach, large ***** and a small *****.
Since he wasn’t me, I did not bid him good night
I switched off the light.
During the night it got cold a foretaste of winter
hastily put my pyjamas on.
I had noticed the man in the other room had a long *******
at least he was not Jewish.
I made a mental note to ask her who he, was as we sleep
in separate bedrooms on account of my snoring.
I was thinking of Carl Jung, was he a Christian or not
some of what he said was right, our western society is steeped in Christianity
as is our everyday speech.
Woke up at eight o´clock walked into the kitchen made coffee
thinking, if the man who was not there was still sleeping.
(Tennyson.)

Bed Time
I should have gone to bed by now it I late
But when head touches pillow in the dark bedroom
I think of death
Not fear, but the feeling of helplessness, not an iota
I have done in my life has made the slightest  
Difference I have not given the world a thing of value.
I remember Liv Ullmann we were both seventeen
I danced with her but could feel I was in the presence of talent
and she became successful she is a someone.
She tells the newspaper in an interview she hopes to die
in Norway, a rather disappointing uttering when you are
dead it doesn’t matter where.
She will make the headlines have her obituary written and
there will be sorrow, but in the end, we will both be equally dead.