Snow in April

Snow in April

Snowfall In April

 The snowflakes that
fell this morning were big

and descended slowly and with sadness they knew

that this was the wrong time of the year – April- and

the morning sun will melt then into oblivion and

water that would fill ditches already overflowing.

Ejected, the mother cloud was too heavy to get over

the mountain and a million snowdrops were scarified

so the cloud could sail to the tundra in Siberia.

One million volunteers, first there had been a pause,

but a few thousand walked forward others followed.

They got a blessing a white miniature cloud each and

a promise that one day they would be reborn as flurry

on the South Pole, a mass wedding of snowdrifts and

they would never be alone again 

food and love sonnet

food and love sonnet

Food and Love Sonnet

Today is my day off I’m not writing anything so I’m

free to think of the time I fell in love with the woman

In the cake shop, I was only twelve and a half and

often she gave me a hug and an extra cocoa macron 

I had plans and knew who I was going to marry, alas

I should have kept the plans to myself and not told

mother who in turn told my aunt and soon everyone

knew my secret.

Deadly shy and embarrassed so I never got back to

the cake shop again but found one in the other part

of the town the girl there was equally sweet and

often gave a slice of 
fresh bread with goat cheese.

Food and love often go together...and why not both

are vital parts of life? I don’t eat much food anymore. 

  

Tanka

Spare a minute

For the co-pilots parents

Grieving for their son

Who is also a mass murderer

Forgotten sit in unlit rooms.

Then Years without My dog

Ten years without my dog

Mornings are the worst

no one demands my time

I feel not needed and

in a way loveless

She did love me even after

being fed

she liked to sit on my lap when

I was watching TV and she

was an expert in the silent fart.

 It began with her sleeping

at the end of the bed,

But it ended with her hogging

 my pillow and duvet

and when old, woke me seven

times a night for a pee.

No consideration,

she didn’t deserve my love

But the last thing she did before

she died was

licking my hands. 

haiku and humour | Write Out Loud

haiku and humour | Write Out Loud

Haiku

By the impossibility

A chance of a life time

Birth of a child

Deep in slumber

The impossibility of dawn

End of a dream

In your Ear

Sixty seven he said

So he got a job emptying bins

Until it was noticed

Seven before six

So he got fired for being innumerate

the creative painter | Write Out Loud

the creative painter | Write Out Loud

The Creative Painter

The painter gets up early sometimes a bit late

Depending on his mood

Dark clouds when rain is in the air

And sometimes storm clouds that give

Impression of moving.

The painter likes nothing better than

Painting the sky blue

And make bands of white silk like clouds

The sun is easy to paint but if it gets too hot

He blocks the sunray some with cerulean

Filter to protect bathers’ delicate skin.

A saw him up a tall ladder once, a bit unsteady

No doubt after a few beers

He was painting the new moon a sliver of silver

Strewing paint around with his big brush

And it was a starlit night.

when the moon blocks the sun

when the moon blocks the sun

When Moon blocks the Sun

The sea in the bay was restless slapping over

the pier, salt spray on the dog, she was

not amused and sought shelter behind the car.

She had not been herself for days

the moon blocking the sun I didn’t know it

affected animals.

Perhaps a residue of a disaster that happened

years ago and can easily happen again,

a meteor hitting the earth and not a dignified

end of humanities and their loyal slaves, dogs

the donkey and horses.

A gust of winds also called a squall made me

sense the dog’s fear. We drove home I lit the fire,

a dog doesn’t like changes. The peril over,

 she woke me up ate
seven needed a pee and all

was well with the world.   

the creative painter

the creative painter

The Creative Painter

The painter gets up early sometimes a bit late

Depending on his mood

Dark clouds when rain is in the air

And sometimes storm clouds that give

Impression of moving.

The painter likes nothing better than

Painting the sky blue

And make bands of white silk like clouds

The sun is easy to paint but if it gets too hot

He blocks the sunray some with cerulean

Filter to protect bathers’ delicate skin.

A saw him up a tall ladder once, a bit unsteady

No doubt after a few beers

He was painting the new moon a sliver of silver

Strewing paint around with his big brush

And it was a starlit night.

Dream Reality

Dream Reality

Dream Reality  

They gave him a pacemaker

a few more years of life to hang on to

even if life is restricted

and cha, cha is out of bounds

and it is easier to walk on asphalt-

He sees the nature trail he

once followed to a small forest lake

but never tells that once he

saw a mermaid there and she

had no fishtail.

Truth and fantasy have merged

in his mind.

Only when sadness hurts do

he looks up and sees the rope hanging

from a beam.

A rope fit for a tyrant,

only the finest hemp.

Pacemaker, to be kept alive

by a battery...he smiles.   

The Semitic Puzzle

The Semitic Puzzle

The anti-Semitic problem is one of the most difficult

problem I struggle with. There is a duality in my feelings

 I’m aware of the holocaust and will defend any Jew

against the onslaught of hate. On the other hand

I’m painfully aware of the pain of the Palestinian people

who lost their land and what is left is being built on by

aggressive Jewish settlers and he Israeli state are

unwilling to interfere to protect Palestine. And for those

who want a Jewish purity this has only one conclusion  

the destruction of the Palestinian people. Should this be

the only experience drowns from the Shoa----surely not.

But my time is short I wait for the famed Jewish deals.

I know it is there in the offering what is needed is

A statesman to put the puzzle together.  

the boat trip

The boat Trip

 I had bought a crate of beer, my friend and I was going

 out fishing, he had a motorboat in the middle of the boat,

 a smelling thing but it brought us forward.

Only he had devious other plans, came with a girlfriend and

her friend too and I was stuck with the ugly one.

We crossed the fjord and in a bay on a small island sat

drinking till the crate was empty. He went ashore with his

girlfriend to have sex behind some bushes I sat there

and was not romantically inclined to flirt with the girl who

only a mother could love but not an eighteen- year- old.

The silence of us two on board was deep but not meaningful

I felt rancorous and she perhaps felt the same.

But I remember we were drinking Heineken and for some

reason the beer was called Berlin, I still wonder why?

The boat Trip

 I had bought a crate of beer, my friend and I was going

 out fishing, he had a motorboat in the middle of the boat,

 a smelling thing but it brought us forward.

Only he had devious other plans, came with a girlfriend and

her friend too and I was stuck with the ugly one.

We crossed the fjord and in a bay on a small island sat

drinking till the crate was empty. He went ashore with his

girlfriend to have sex behind some bushes I sat there

and was not romantically inclined to flirt with the girl who

only a mother could love but not an eighteen- year- old.

The silence of us two on board was deep but not meaningful

I felt rancorous and she perhaps felt the same.

But I remember we were drinking Heineken and for some

reason the beer was called Berlin, I still wonder why?

living with diabetes

living with diabetes

 Living with
Diabetes 

In street traffic and dealing with idiotic drivers I have at
times

 been so frustrated I
have stopped my car gone out and

shouted at everyone. Normally slow traffic doesn’t bother me

It is only when the beast within me scream I behave
irrationally.

This I now learn has to do with low blood sugar and I have
been

struggling to keep it low to avoid stroke, but it appears I
have

overdone it. So how am I to know when doctors are confused?

Perhaps many diabetes is not caused by sweets or too much

food, but it can also be a mental illness that manifests
itself in

the form of diabetes, type two. I’m not medically trained
and

will not discuss this with a doctor principally because they
are

so patronising when a layman has a medical thought, yet fact

is when I have written a poem the blood sugar is normal I
have

released something from my mind,  a poison that stung from

the snake of lack of learning, it often bites me and I’m
doomed to

write of the near things in life, what you take for granted but
is

a wonder to me, who rediscover a new world every day, often
it

is a world I dislike being a member of; I can take a pill
for this but

prefer to be angry and not too commonsensical.  

a tough cookie

a tough cookie

A Tough Cookie

On the surface of life, my mother was a tough cookie

of three children she lost two when they were fairly young.

Tearless she attended their funeral and people thought

she should have cried more.

I heard her tears the pain from her heart that could not

be stopped, an ache so painful that no pills could stop it.

One night I went into her bedroom in the hope of stilling

her grief, she had a pillow over the face to stifle her
yammer.

told me to leave the grief was hers alone.

 My mother kept her
sorrow for herself she was unable

share her grief with anyone least of all me who for reason

I shall not understand she kept me at a distance and I had

to watch as she sunk into the mess of alcoholism, this was

her answer to a world not of her creation. A contrarian

 few came to her funeral,
those who did has been blessed

with the good fortune of understanding that life has many

expressions and you are free to have your own.    

the dignified doorman

the dignified doorman

The Dignified Doorman

In the thirties when fish factories in my town closed, the
sardines

didn’t swim near shore, they swam further into deep the
ocean.

Perhaps collective memory told them not to go near the coast
line.

Like the war, it was forgotten when old sardines died out
and the new

generation swam too close to shore again, but that was after
my

two uncles had gone to America to find work. In New York one
of

them, a young man with an immense dignity got a temporary job

as a doorman at a swanky hotel, but he stayed the uniform
was

smart and the ladies were very kind to him, free food and
lodging.

 After twenty years, he
came back home and bought a house, cash,

of tips given to him by hotel’s clients and he got married
which was

expected of a man with greying hair and a fairly new
bungalow.

In the meantime, there had been a war and he got a job as a
driver

for the boss of a brewery a job he kept till he retired. A
placid man,

more than Domingo, his wife had affairs in the hope of
shaking him

out of his placidity he turned the other cheek. Talking
about cheeks

when his wife died he moved in with his friend and both of
them

lived to be old men, who had found love, if a bit late in
life. 

o Prefer Life

o Prefer Life

the Angler

the Angler

The Angler

I’m an angler

In the lake of my mind

Sometimes I hook

A big, shiny Alaska salmon

But most of the time

I live on tinned sardines. 

Instant Memory

Instant memory

It was my intention to go home had seen

A picture of the harbour of my town when the sea

Was so clear you could see the sea floor.

The big day was when the liner “stavangerfjord”

Docked and her captain saluted the public.

Hustle and bustle and we could see who had done

Well in America, and the not lucky, going

down the same gangway.

A rich uncle who had been important in the hotel

Business smoked camel and had chocolate in his

Overcoat, he stayed with us but, he drank

And my mother threw him out.

I digress, there were other entertainments like

Going to the railway station and see the train from Oslo

To come in, locomotive steam and eager voices.

After all this excitement, we congregated at a kiosk

And if possible – could afford to- had a hot dog.

No, I will not be going home after all, I never made

It big and my mother has long since gone.

to see or not to see

to see or not to see

 To see or not to see

To know what you know

Needs no deep reflection as it is evident

That you stopped thinking 

Being so sure, unrespon

sive sure

That when it hits you

What you knew was wrong

That new thinking is needed

If you are lazy just ride if and insist

You were right

Saves time

And in hundred yours whatever it was

Is forgotten.

A whale of a time

Swimming in arctic water

Oh man that is deep 

my dislike of poetry

My dislike of Poetry

I dislike poetry it is a contrived form of expression yet whenever

I publish one of mine collection they are under the rubric of poetry

when they are none but opinions and description of thoughts which

I try to share with readers who might like what i write

or think this is really a vast of time. I dislike poetry because the keep

life in shadows, try not to tell but to show by writing intellectually so

you have to guess the intentions and when you do the poet is great,

mainly because he described a life usually scholastic and has little to

do with real life but you can if seeking a brief fame put your head in

the gas oven and everything you wrote will be holy as the poetic grail,

 this is a pity because the poet writer was seduced by her father

and was unable to come to terms with this because she liked the rape

but didn’t have the courage to admit it.  

retired sea master

Retired Sea Master.

Brilliant sun, cold wind from the Atlantic I’m standing outside

the hotel by the car while my wife is arguing with the staff,

apparently we had been overcharged but I had already paid

the bill and they were reluctant to return the money.

I felt guilty too many beers last night, this morning doing

a blood test my hands trembled and I spilt blood on the sheet.

I was standing there wanting a beer, but I was the driving,

it is a long drive, and my wife gets nervous on the motorway.

She came out they had paid her ten Euros to avert a scandal

as a bus full of Danish tourists were pulling up, mostly old

couples. When I asked if they were fleeing Denmark because

of the shooting troubles in Copenhagen I got angry looks,

my joke had fallen flat, and I decided never again

telling a joke unless it was against me, but I’m not funny

just an ordinary man who tries not to drink during the day

and also in the evening when I try work.

 So you call this work? Yes, it is I’m telling it just the way it

is not trying to be a hero or someone famous,

just the day in the life of a nobody who used to be listened to

when he was a captain on a cargo ship. 

Euthanasia

Euthanasia

As it is now called putting a patient into a deep sleep

that ends in death and end of suffering.

This induced sleep can last for hours and soften days.

My question: does the dying have dreams? If not, what

is the point in this deep sleep?

I saw a film once, were old or sick people could go into

a privately run hospital, and listen to favourite music

watching a preferred movie in a tastefully decorated

room and the poison served by lovely ladies. But if you

were broke the gutter would be your last pillow, which

it is for many as the winter dawn awakes.   

We all have two lives one of them, the conscious one

we know, but our other world is dreams, and I would not

like to be robbed of my dreams.

 I died once – heart stop- I know there is nothingness;

so let people keep their dreams to the last.

cold coffee

Cold coffee

On the black cafe table a packet of sugar it was red and

advertised a coffee brand, besides it a tiny silver wrapped

caramel. The server had removed the coffee cup and

the small bottle of water, perhaps she thought I wanted to

take the offering home. The table looked like wood, but

when I touched it was lifeless and cold; another fake thing.

I like wood when you touch a table or chair made of timber it

comes alive. From a forest to the carpenter and when it rots

it goes back to earth again. Plastic is born dead and will exist

in all eternity and that is sad for everyone.

This happened when I sat in a cafe waiting for my wife to

conduct business, I wasn’t thinking of lumber, but way

I have an instinctive dislike of people look cold as plastic

and shaped beautifully like Formica kitchen table.

 

A Pint od lager

A Pint of lager.

I did my best

To be a middle-class person

 Drank good wine

That is what people of elevated taste do

I never liked wine

Upmarket vinaigrette

I only drink beer these days

Finding my way back to my roots

Those day, when we drank big glasses of lager

And criticised a fine writer

Someone as holy as like Knut Hamsun.

We wanted to impress the girls, I wore

A French beret a serious intellectual who read

Every article I could come over before

Voicing an opinion

So we said many stupid things

But you cannot be wise if you have

Never been a dolt.

I have lost my precious mien it is so

Tiring to be serious about oneself,

And now I’m going to drink a pint of lager.

the pyjamas

The Pyjamas

And you have your pyjamas on and think is this the way they are

going to find me tomorrow so you get up change into a clean one

The green one that looks lively like someone about to join a party

that was delayed by a sudden death.

“Doesn’t he look lovely? Did you know his tan came from a bottle?

Vain but otherwise he was ok, his habit of folding a sock in his

crotch to give the impression he was well endowed, ludicrous should

someone showing an interest. Nevertheless, he always gave me a lift

when I was going into town, he asked for nothing only that I let him

touch my breasts, he gave me 20 Euros.

I didn’t ask for the money- I’m not a whore- he just liked me.”

Look at him in his casket my sister used to clean his house once

a week and take clothes to the laundry, she always doubled the bill

I think he knew but never let on he did.

Then it was morning, I had a hot shower tested the blood sugar

Normal as usual but I’m bored of eating so much cabbage. 

the possibility

The Possibility

At a monastery along its forbidding walls, I saw in a March

month a delicate blue, airy flower seen as  a shimmer, one

is supposed to feel more than see it.

 I dug up one plant with its earth,but it didn’t when we are

told that 99% of plants and life during time has died out

I do wish the air flower had not been extinct.

 Now you know how blue air looks like think of it as a physical

thing air you can touch and cherish but not claimed as

a product as air no aroma only the privilege of seeing

the unsinkable a shadow of beauty hidden by slowly driven roads

even old people can traverse, without being flung into the air

and a great moment of joy before pain and white coated trying

to keep you alive till they see you have no insurance and gently

let you slip away.

The Possibility

At a monastery along its forbidding walls, I saw in a March

month a delicate blue, airy flower seen as  a shimmer, one

is supposed to feel more than see it.

 I dug up one plant with its earth ,but it didn’t when we are

told that 99% of plants and life during time has died out

I do wish the air flower had not been extinct.

 Now you know how blue air looks like think of it as a physical

thing air you can touch and cherish but not claimed as

a product as air no aroma only the privilege of seeing

the unsinkable a shadow of beauty hidden by slow driven roads

even old people can traverse, without being flung into the air

and a great moment of joy before pain and white coated trying

to keep you alive till they see you have no insurance and gently

let you slip away.

Grecians

Grecians  

Hellas and the port of Piraeus hold a memory

in my seafarer’s heart, civilised people, no

they are not leaders of efficiency but you can

talk to them and expand your knowledge.

Not forgetting whores, they had time for a drink

sharing of a joke and didn’t hurry you.

In Hamburg it was never thus, no smiles, no foreplay

efficiency ruled; money on the table, the trousers

down fuck fast and get out, no need to take your

shoes off. Yet the Germans are the admired but

when they have nothing to export the Hellenic people

who will go on smoking cigarettes and being civilized.    

Family roots

Family Roots

No. you are not alone no one is

the roots of our humble beginning

cannot be erased,

From one generation to the next

the same face appears.

Long has my brother been dead,

Yet in the face of his children I can

See him, myself my mother and other

Relatives an amalgamation of

merging clans . of which my brother’s

strong personality shines.

He was the first born the boy who knew

and he had the human touch the ability

to have many friends

His demise was mourned by many.

A cannot emulate him

but it is of great comfort o me that he

admired me. 

the end of trees

the end of trees

They have built a big dome big as five foot ball pitches

 full of trees and jungle plants so we can see how

the world looked like once upon a time.

Tree stealers came- there was still money be made in timber-

 it was on a warm day burnt down rare plants and stole

 the trees burnt down tall Now is sepiated pictures of how jungle

and forests looked like before we cut it all down in the name

of progress, this name, “Progress” is misused and has greed

as a heart. and somewhere in the basement of a castle a rich man

sits alone thinking of the pleasure of having the last tree

 Father what did you do?  when all trees were axed.  

not a sonnet

Not A Sonnet

 When I was a child I used in winters when windows had frost on

the inside too, paint picture of faces that slowly thawed as

the morning progress to noon. Moody drawings and after some time

I only drew eyes and saw them cry.

Mother thought I was morbid I walked around in big black shawl put

flour on my face to look pale, I was home from school had

tuberculosis and was of a delicate disposition.

From the window I saw other children playing snowball wars, and

thought if i go down there and join them they will all be infected

and die in the most horrible way.  When not doing this I read a lot

of books and some poetry I disliked because it was too boastful and

nationalistic, had a little country feel, having read Russian literature

 I was discerning; cured now I was allowed back to school again and

since I was not a prodigy preferred snowball wars. 

useless tale

An utterly Useless Tale

On a big round oak table in a living room a vase, in its small crack

lived two house ants. They were sitting outside considering a box

of matches on the table top. “if the box was empty I’m sure I could

push an inch or two the first ant said”. “Yea” the other snorted.

A man came into the room took a matchstick out of the box and

put it back the table, this time by its edge and walked out.

The first ant giggled and said: “If we both push the box it will fall on

the floor and no one will know how it ended there.”

They traversed the vast expanse of the table pushed the box off

 the table hurried back into their crack and laughed heartily.

They had been frightened too, people usually kill house ants at first

sight. The man came back saw the box on the floor shook his head

picked it up and placed back on the table, our ants were in stitched

guffawing. They were tempted to push the box on the floor again  but

the risk of someone coming in with a duster was too great but they

were happy ants that tired went to sleep in their crack.