horrified woodland

3 haiku

Haiku

Wet leaf in a pond

Ants abandoning sinking ship

Shore line yonder. 

Haiku

Tsunami brewing

A child wading in the puddle

Escaping tadpoles

Haiku

Ornamental pool

Floating red plastic bucket

Eerie silence 

changing world

Sombreira poetry

Changing World  

The island it too low and the ocean is

a stalking monster,

washes the village road at high tide.

Coffins come up from damp ground

set sail at sunrise, only stone crosses

remain like ship-less anchors and

 names are slowly
washed away.

It is hard to leave your ancestral home

romanticised and dead.

A summer full of sadness, a longing

for other summers drowned by the sea.

brooding river

Brooding River This winter saw a lot of rain the river near the houses Is still running clear and lucid giving its soul to the ocean On the old Roman Bridge I asked the river to stop wasting its precious sweet water to the salty sea, one cannot let thirsty horses drink brackish liquid after having hauled a cart full of dead sheep up to a mountain top, offerings to a god that only exist in the mind of an idiot savant. The river hears me not its job is to run dry during the summer and when fall arrives be reborn. But beware of a river that has no fish those who haughtily laugh will be turned into frogs, the banks are full of them. Only a princess can make them into human again. But they will still have frog souls. Alas due to hard time the princess is a dancer in a Spanish nightclub knows nothing about emails and she is not on facebook.

end of politics

end of politics | Write Out Loud

End of Politics

 I sit on the terrace
in the sun, its forenoon and not too hot

A dog in the road barks looking up I ignore it and it leaves
sits

in the shad and wait. I feel guilty get up walk down and
feed

it two slices of ham. I refuse now to write political poems
its

quite useless, but it shocked me to learn that in 1952 ex
nazi

officers had and army ready to defend West Germany against

the Russians; they didn´t attack. The Russians never do as
we

expect, and now the fascist thugs in Kiev, with the help of
CIA,

are baiting the bear. Nor will I bother to write that I
regard

NATO as a war machine gone mad, by the lack of a apt targets

to bomb; in a way it is USA´s forbidding, foreign subdivision.

On the white wall opposite my cottage the shadows made

a map of Europe then as the sun got higher on the cerulean
sky

 it erased the map,
was that an omen?     

zen and co | Write Out Loud

zen and co | Write Out Loud

Zen

Haiku is

 Lucidity

Unseen

Senryu

A sightless eye

Does not see the deep night

Blindness has no hue

Haiku

The shrub by the road

Is full of dust thrown up by cars

Discarded dreams

the raven

The Raven

He was back from hospital but could

still feel the scar made by claws of

the raven of death.

Now that he was better he got out

the motorbike and went for a ride along

along country lanes he knew the spell.

 His heart was not
there in harmony with

nature so insignificant he was and knew

his presence meant nothing...vanity.

He didn't belong here had no business

Revisiting the past and the olive tree

was just a tree seen a thousand times before

 The past is not a
better place.

He should have been jubilant but sensed no pleasure.

Why had the raven let him go?

Had he been cheated of the quick finale

only to linger a few more years?

 His bike is
collecting dust the helmet hangs on the wall

while he waits...

The Raven

He was back from hospital but could

still feel the scar made by claws of

the raven of death.

Now that he was better he got out

the motorbike and went for a ride along

along country lanes he knew the spell.

 His heart was not there in harmony with

nature so insignificant he was and knew

his presence meant nothing...vanity.

He didn´t belong here had no business

Revisiting the past and the olive tree

was just a tree seen a thousand times before

 The past is not a better place.

He should have been jubilant but sensed no pleasure.

Why had the raven let him go?

Had he been cheated of the quick finale

only to linger a few more years?

 His bike is collecting dust the helmet hangs on the wall

while he waits...

communal holiday

Communal Holiday.

The holiday home for children

was near a cold lake

flanked by two black mountains

We children swam there

every morning at seven

before the sun warmed the lake.

Breakfast at eight, mainly oatmeal porridge

and stale bread.

Boot camp for children.

Three weeks of this then we were let loose

to roam a town of summer dust

and trees in the park we could climb up

to get away from adults

who had forgotten their own childhood.

language lesson

Language Lesson

I spend most of my time alone or with

my wife; she sits in the kitchen watching soap.

And I didn't know how lonely I was

before I ended up in a hospital

and shared a ward with six, like me, elderly

men who had lived unhealthy

and now had to pay the piper.

Modest, I said nothing, but they sort of dragged

me into their conversation

 It was great fun

I spoke Portuguese without worrying about grammar

and we laughed a lot.

I´m home now sit writing these few words,

the TV is on low and my wife sits in the kitchen

and I miss the old men. 

The Conversation

I sat on the roof reading a book

and eating a banana.

But as the day progressed

I got hungry and

tried to get down by climbing

up and over a low wall onto

the kitchen terrace.

Legs wouldn´t let me.

In the struggle I lost the book

it ended on the road face up.

My neighbour came

helped me over the wall and asked:

“What were you doing?

“I was reading Jose Saramago

In Portuguese and I read slowly.”

“Well, it is ok then.” He said

“But I didn´t like him he was

a communist and ex car mechanic

went to live in Spain after

winning the big literary prize.”

small hill

Small Hill.

Perfect Blush

I´m a man but want to be a rose

not a tiny one for your lapel, but

a rose atop a thorny bush for all

to see my magnificence.

And I will let a harvest mouse

Make a bad amongst my soft petals

safe from cats, sleep in sunlight

wake up and fall asleep again.

Those who try to pick me will bleed

I´m not for a suitor to pick.

But I will when time is right

With a bit of foliage, lie upon your pillow

 

sun rays dance on my bed

Sun Rays dance on my Bed.

sunlight arrives early

A few friendly rays

Sit on my duvet warming it.

I pat the sunlight

Still half asleep

Trying to remember the night`s dreams,

It is difficult,

Before they slip under the radar

Of my alertness.

 I do not write anymore deep poetry

Only light things enter my mind

Water in the car

checking the oil using the dipstick

And air in tyres.

To think a week ago my heart stopped

But the ambulance people

Got it ticking again.

Spring and sunlight, yes this will be

A beautiful day.    

small hill

Small Hill.

In a landscape with many hills there is a flat part

that has a small hillock by the road.

Two olive trees and four flat boulders arranged like

furniture in a living room and a carpet of soft grass.

Is it an abandoned movie set where the moon is

a balloon? How many takes did the scene take?

In life there is no retake we are expected to get it right                

reading from a script not yet written

When building the road they put stones in a heap,

dust and bird droppings made it into a small knoll.

That´s the way it goes.

perfect blush

Perfect Blush

I´m a man but want to be a rose

not a tiny one for your lapel, but

a rose atop a thorny bush for all

to see my magnificence.

And I will let a harvest mouse

Make a bad amongst my soft petals

safe from cats, sleep in sunlight

wake up and fall asleep again.

Those who try to pick me will bleed

I´m not for a suitor to pick.

But I will when time is right

With a bit of foliage, lie upon your pillow

Syria

Syria

In the ugly streets of Homs I lied on my back snipers´ fire hit

 walls and filled my nose with cement dust and the horrid

smell of early death, the aftermath of abused young men

who have only murder and agony as a leading light to their

 short future that holds no promise of peace.  

Beside me a box shaped as a heart I knew it was a hand

grenade about to explode, soldiers came the grenade was

defused. They carried me in chair to the ocean- strand.

High tide came I was free to join the dolphins, I had tried

life ashore it was fun for some time, but I always longed to

join my tribe, where I need no speak and just be.

We swim between the Azores and the coast of Portugal and

I`m bored to tears, which happens those who have grown out

of their old culture, but nevertheless I falsely warn dolphins

not to leave the sea, be tempted by the dry land´s pearls made

of tears spilt by us who will never get home, kitschy neon light

and New Orleans´ jazz like it sounded in 1964.  

Inception

Inception

From under my shadow

And into sunlight

I´m a raven waiting

For a newborn child

Eat the embryonic soul and take over

The body.

And people will say:

This child has an old soul

The mother will cry hug the child

Love me

Till I can walk and disappear

Into the world