August forenoon

August Forenoon There is a sale on in the dress shop bathing trunks reduced up to 40%. It has been a good summer and few local people have died but the price of coffins stays the same.... So beautiful a forenoon, I drove on my moped to visit a carob tree I used to sit under when lonely Its thick branched protected me from the world. Under it now two elderly women -on their knees- picking sweet, black beans. The small farmers around here have aged with me, the women looked up and smiled at this elderly, permanent tourist on his round; he is like a hasty brush stroke on the canvas of eternity. On green vines hung juicy grapes tasted one it was like an explosion of natural sweetness that filled my mouth with yesterdays pleasure, they are ready to be harvested and made into wine, not for the rich but for the local people to drink with their stew.

the murder

The Murder Bombs are falling hundreds are killed many of them children and we shake our heads in dismay, something has to be done to stop these atrocities. Yet there is communality about bombing, victims died trying to save themselves, they did have a chance. On a sand dune a man on his knees, hands chained behind his back waiting for his killer to cut his throat and the awfulness of being human hits me with as a grim knife of sorrow. And then I have to endure someone defending his murder by saying it was caused by revenge for our misdeed, I ask, I holler into the wind, have you no compassion? Can you not feel, just for a moment, the lonely agony of the man’s final moment? His end so meaningless - as a life is- and no fairytale can make this revulsion into the defence for psychopaths’ entertainment.

misfortune | Write Out Loud

misfortune | Write Out Loud

The misfortune.

The white sheet moved gently in the summer breeze,

under it a still body we could see his motorbike boots.

The police had done their measuring up stuff, waited

for the ambulance crew to take the body away.

It had been such a splendid summer forenoon, but now

cars drove slowly by the accident scene, like a funeral

procession, we are so fascinated by unexpected death.

And now someone had to knock on a door, these things

can´t be done by a mobile call, and tell his mother that

the light of her life had been extinguished.

Whispers... : Nocturnal Hum--By Jan Oskar Hansen--Portugal

Whispers... : Nocturnal Hum--By Jan Oskar Hansen--Portugal: Nocturnal Hum She sat in her nightdress on the steps up to the terrace looking up to the sky - Full moon and stars so near you only needed a...

From Petersburg | Write Out Loud

From Petersburg | Write Out Loud

From Petersburg

I had cramp in my legs, got off my bike sat on a stone

Beside the road massaging them, when a bus full of

Russian football supporters, stopped.

A  man got out gave me
a scarf and the team´s banner

I put the scarf on – made by his mother- those in bus

applauded. They continued their way to Lisbon where

their team was playing Sporting in a friendly, I didn’t

have the heart to tell them the road they followed led

to Madrid in Spain, coming from Russia with love they

would soon learn Western Europe was not to be trusted.

From Petersburg | Write Out Loud

From Petersburg | Write Out Loud

From Petersburg

I had cramp in my legs, got off my bike sat on a stone

Beside the road massaging them, when a bus full of

Russian football supporters, stopped.

A  man got out gave me
a scarf and the team´s banner

I put the scarf on – made by his mother- those in bus

applauded. They continued their way to Lisbon where

their team was playing Sporting in a friendly, I didn’t

have the heart to tell them the road they followed led

to Madrid in Spain, coming from Russia with love they

would soon learn Western Europe was not to be trusted.

Nocturnal Hum | Write Out Loud

Nocturnal Hum | Write Out Loud

Nocturnal hum  

She sat in her nightdress on the steps up to

the terrace looking up to the sky- Full moon

and stars so near you only needed a curtain

ladder to pick stars as galactic fruit.

She had fallen asleep I carried her to bed and

her dream continued. Overcast and a cooling

wind, the good night was erased and I had been

warming my cold heart on a child´s dream

Nocturnal Hum | Write Out Loud

Nocturnal Hum | Write Out Loud

Nocturnal hum  

She sat in her nightdress on the steps up to

the terrace looking up to the sky- Full moon

and stars so near you only needed a curtain

ladder to pick stars as galactic fruit.

She had fallen asleep I carried her to bed and

her dream continued. Overcast and a cooling

wind, the good night was erased and I had been

warming my cold heart on a child´s dream

The Restless Heart | Write Out Loud

The Restless Heart | Write Out Loud

The Restless Heart

It was a year ago since he came out of hospital, he happened

to be there ill when they brought in a heart that had
belonged

to young woman who had been hit by a truck, and they gave
him

her heart. He was feeling fine now walked every day and ate
well,

but there was a sadness and in the night, he heard sobbing
and

could not go back to sleep again, but spent the night
watching old

you -tube film clips- and then one night he heard the voice
of

a woman who said “And then they put my heart in the cavity
of an

old man´s chest, it is not fair.” Yes, the old man thought
it isn’t fair

so he climbed up on his desk put a rope across a beam made a
noose

ready to do the right thing. Again the voice spoke; and now
he is going

 to kill me too. “He
removed the noose, no Saddam Hussein today,

instead he promised the young heart to go to hospital and
ask if they

could give him an older heart and put hers in a young body? the
voice

 said: “So I´m not
good enough for you, is that it?”

Entry | Write Out Loud

Entry | Write Out Loud



audio poem

the rape | Write Out Loud

the rape | Write Out Loud

The Rape

I met this girl she was tall and walked like a gladiator,

but she was not there when I needed her.

He - let stick to I- had been walking all night now it was
dawn

and I was very tired, young people too get tired. 

By the road a labourers’ cabin the door was not locked and

I went in sat by bench and fell asleep. When I awoke three
men

were leering at me, they were of the type that become guards

at prisoners´ camp and are the willing executioners of tyranny

and killers o innocence and beauty. I tried to get away,

but they pinned me, face down, on the table. Yes they raped
me

and to make the passage smooth they smeared my rectum with

yellow margarine.

Blindly I ran down hill came to a brook dived into it tried
to clean

myself, and on the surface came semen, blood, shit and
pearls of

margarine. Sat on a stone in the sun, knew I could not tell
anyone

about this shame that had happened to me; and worst of all
when

raped I had an involuntary erection. I had been a victim of
rape,

yet it took long before I could forgive myself  

sand, sun and nuclear insecurity | Write Out Loud

sand, sun and nuclear insecurity | Write Out Loud

Sun Sand and Nuclear Insecurity

Today I will not hear, see and listen to anything

that has to do with war I will watch sun rays on

the floor and dust particles that dance in stillness

of an absent breeze. Harmonious whirling, old

as life itself, as dust is the beginning and end of

everything. And I will dwell upon acceptance and

know of the demise of life, that is not failure but

the continuation of life in another form.

Eventually I will read about a strange people who

have never felt at ease and secure unless they can

dominate others and enslave them, yet this will not

be enough, their collective insanity will  obliterate

them too in a cloud of dust and void; this to trash

the perceived enemy out to eradicate them.     

the cancer ward | Write Out Loud

the cancer ward | Write Out Loud

The Cancer Ward

I had an appointment with a doctor in Lisbon as the roads

are crowded and quite unsafe for elderly folks we took

the bus and that was ok as it was air-condition and a lady

pretending to be stewardess served coffee and overpriced

sandwiches. In the seats behind me two giggling young

women, one was dark voiced the other feminine, they spoke

about sex, of the kind that is unknown to me except what

I have read of in books.

At the hospital´s entrance, some staffs were smoking under

a sign telling it was not allowed; but then, there is a
streak

of anarchism in the Portuguese.  The waiting room at a cancer

hospital is a great leveller; I noticed an executive type, a
lower

level banker perhaps, in suit and tie, he soon took off his
jacket

and sat beside a woman who was covered in cancerous warts.

Finally my turn came yes it was malign, but not aggressive,

operation scheduled for October.

Glad, we had lunch I ordered a glass of wine, then another
one

and I got very tired; we took a taxi to the bus terminal.

Old Lady in Black | Write Out Loud

Old Lady in Black | Write Out Loud

 Lady in Black

In my town winters in the fifties were darker than now,

there had been a war and austerity covered the town

in a fog of poverty. It had snowed during the day then it

rained, thawing snow, in the evening it froze over again

and roads became slippery for adults to walk on.

An old lady fell on the ice we ran over, helped her up, she

was small, as an old porcelain doll so frail she could break

into bits by the lightest touch. She had nosebleed took out

from her lacquered hand bag a monogrammed silk hankie.

 Droplets of blood on
white fascinated me.

Holding on to my arm I followed her to her gate, she offered

me a sweet, thinking of the blood, I refused.  I didn´t see her

again. Perhaps she sat behind laced curtain too afraid to
leave

her house. A memory of no value had opened up an everyday

occurrence in the life of a boy I once knew.

My Twin Brother David | Write Out Loud

My Twin Brother David | Write Out Loud

My Twin Brother David

I had a lump in my stomach it was just there

and being afraid of the knife I didn´t do anything

about it; but lately it had been growing and had

to be taken out. Inside the lump the surgeon found

an embryo, one of an old man with a paunch.

My twin brother who had followed me from childhood

to old age yet had not been giving life; an” it “to be put

in a jar, curiosity for medical students.

I took my brother home named him David put him in

a metal box, the one I had used when collecting rare coins,

coins I gave to a friend when he said they were worthless,

 buried him under my
almond tree. I can see David´s grave

from the window and wave, it is nice to have friend,

the one I gave my coinage to has disappeared.

 

the victorious

the victorious