Campo Alegre re-printed

Under the houses on stilt
That has no sewers
And built for ******
To service sailors in Curacao
A barren island
In the Caribbean Sea
Pigs live under houses
Grew big and ugly
When one is slaughtered
The meat tastes of a drunk
******’s *****
And cheap perfume
That hides
The grotesque ***
In the name of need

Kaleidoscope

A man unsure of how to address women
walked into a tube of colored glasses
and bits of painted paper.

he was brought up as a Presbyterian, were
women were held in high esteem
wore long gloves when going to a ball.

He thought the color in the kaleidoscope
where tartish-like women dressed in red
standing on the pavement near a bar.

Yet he felt drawn to the colorful women
they exited him, unlike the young women
who looked dowdy at the church.

He thought of sin and a moral dilemma
should he pay a woman in a red dress
see what it was all about, the *** thing?

He did and had a hell of a time; he did
time and time again until the day *****
danced on his eyebrows.

The blues affair

I met her where the light was weakening
an enduring twilight had settled on what
was re-lived in the memory of summer
moving out of the convention, tired leaves
in the soft breeze on its final breath.
We spoke of the past but not of the now
the present didn’t matter.
I saw her as a disappearing holograph
dying in the mist of life lived
past emotions could not awaken
she had gone to a place I could not follow
as her face was erased.

The magic hour

The day is ending, and time is one hour back, but
the day still serves early twilight
From the window of a tourist resort, I see the mountain range
I lived beyond, in a village with no name.
So many years ago, when thinking about that time
it appears as movies rolled fast forward the seasons
turns into one was it summer or fall?
I had a dog we walked in the woods every day she chased rabbits
I chased dreams like catching the breeze
The dog, tired of chasing bunnies, retired to the verandah
walking alone in the forest was tiresome
I knew of Serengeti in another dale tall yellow grass were
lions spied, crocodiles in the muddy stream, but when
I blinked; the sight had gone, substituted by grazing mules
and wine orchards, beautiful red grapes going nowhere.
The dog resting its head on my thigh, so tired and weary
in the morning, she had gone.
A dream was over; we had both been defeated by old age.
I sold the cottage, but before leaving, I walked up to the hill
to see the ocean I shall not sail on.
But what I have lost will forever be mine to keep.

When love is a failure

The bird of love sits in a gilded cage, sometimes
it gets out and flies in search of mischief.
Anton, a young student from a middle-class family
sat in a crowded café drinking a beer, when Maria
entered, she had a coffee since the café was full
Anton beckoned for her to sit with him at his table.
Lovestruck!
In infatuation, they had met by chance and nothing
about them made sense; Anton was well-educated
Maria could barely struggle through the headlines
of the local newspaper, but she was of a generous
disposition, eyes that mirrored her warm nature.
The bird of love was back in its cage and felt smug.
Anton’s family threatened to disinherit him,
Maria’s family of Tinkers were outraged that she
loved someone outside the clan.
The loving couple lived in the poor part of the town
Anton had a horse collect ******* and brought
the stuff to the town’s waste depot, he
drank a bit, put him in a mellow mood.
After work, Anton sat in the stable reading books
and newspaper, sometimes Maria came and they
spent the night there.
At home were two sons who blamed their parents
for their poverty and lack of progress, they also
made fun of the mother, who had grown fat and
had rotten teeth, they also stole Maria’s cash
she stored in an empty biscuit tin.
Their love was so overwhelming they had no time
for the children; in the cage, the bird of love grinned.

The boy, the padre, and the abbess.

The padre hung in the bell fry the boy didn’t know
at the time, the padre was his father; this once proud man
reduced to a pathetic shadow of himself.
The old woman, he didn’t call her mother, told him before
she died of a tragic love story.
When the abbess was young, swiftly sent away
when returning, she was pale and drawn and spent her life
in prayers and meditation, asking God’s forgiveness.
She had sinned, but the truth had to be a hidden mystery.
With the help of her God, her si, seen as an apparition
A dream she once had.
For the padre who had lost his faith, it was cumbersome
he was a man of flesh and blood and with nothing
to hold on to take, drank, sitting in his sacristy,
drinking late in the night towards dawn.
He used to go and watch the boy play in the garden
and thought of taking the boy away and to another
town get a job; looking at his white hands, asked
who wants to employ a former priest, and anyway
he lacked the strength of resolve.
He stopped walking past where the boy lived
the old woman stopped him, thinking people might
see and draw the wrong conclusion.
When the boy knew this, he was 19 years old, with
a dead father and a mother hid in the holy
spirit of the catholic faith, he sold the old woman’s
house, left the town to seek the meaning of his life.

the horses

Three horses graze on my land, and one
is still a foal.
In the twilight and with gentle rain falling
they remind me of the horses of bygone
days when I steered the plow that made
furrows in dark, clean soil.
When I stroke their flank, the good aroma
of warm horses arises; dreams are endless.
In daylight, they pretend to be boulders, but
even then, they make the land serene.