The Algarvian

The Algarvian people, not the urban lot are more African than Europeans.
They have conception of time if you are meeting your solicitor at nine he might
turn up at eleven. If you are going to a local fest and it starts at nine there
will be no one there before 10.30
If your mechanic tells you the car is ready at noon it maybe noon next week,
you see to avoid offending people they say yes to everything without
the intention of keeping the promise
As people, they are untrustworthy but charming but it I prefer efficiency.
On the road the true Algarvian comes out uses the horn for a little
reason a cacophony of noise; it ends blood like the African revolution.
And never make the mistake to give workmen money before the job
you will not see them for a fortnight
Algarve also has a rotten clime 10 Celsius in winter and 40 in summers.
But you can survive here if you stop believing what they say.

platinum rays of an
algarvian december sun
touch a magical landscape
that pulses with ancient
life
and as lushly green undulating hills
with orange groves and
olive trees and
scattered red rocks
unfold under
a cloudless cerulean sky
I hear

hono lena’i’ja

a far away echo is stirring
deep within
sending shivers down my spine
awakening akeneic memory
without words
without thoughts –
a silent knowing

my akene explodes in
white hot light
engulfing my whole beingness –
painful almost
it takes my breath
away

wordless feelings
but I know
lemuria is rising

Eja’i Oja’i

© Jasmine Martin, the Algarve, Portugal, December 8, 2014

A village in the sun

There is a small village with a few streets that have no name and houses have no number twelve I bought a small home that had stood empty for years when not used as a stable for the unique Algarvian white long-eared donkey
Retired workers in the village up the road where the shop was located next door to a café where they sat enjoying their beer fixed my house and soon I with my dogs everyone in the Algarve has a dog and I could spend my time writing poetry or walking in the wood
This Idyll was too perfect to last, one day a group of English tourists came to my village, and I, the only one who spoke English sealed the village's fate by telling them what a wonderful this place was and that there were several empty houses for sale the homes were snapped up and before you could say, Adam, the village became English
Cans of beer in the ditches, late-night parties ******* dressed women craving *** and sun the idyll was over it was time to leave my refuge from a noisy place filled with people who said how much they loved Portugal