Alicante

Alicante

The Friend

I dislike morbidity the end of the world prophets,

yet there was a knock on my door, they were clearing

boulders from the field where I had buried my dog

between to big rocks, opened the bag a black bin liner

she was there ok, white bones and

This was a perfect Hamlet moment, but I’m not Yurok

and to use her head as a letter press was not on. 

There are no secrets in a hamlet, they knew the dog

remains belonged to me
and I left the bag in the shed

till my wife discovered
it. For the time being the dog’s bones

are in the back of my car, when driving I often see her face

in the back mirror,
she wants closure. What we had is

memories something of no consequence the love

we shared, the flash when dog and man are in harmony

Alicante

Alicante

 I do not like the Spanish language and is sceptical to its people when

they talk very fast they cover you with spittle a breath  of wet,

well, chewed garlic. If you to a bar in the evening they serve you with

small platters of food that all are drowning in mustard mayones

In Alicante where thousands of Norwegians live, they now nothing 

of the life of the Spanish, only socialize amongst themselves and

from some houses you see the Norwegian flag snapping in the wind.

The Spanish take in this with a spitting humour, the people who have

bought houses here can so easily lose them again, and they have little

impact on Spanish culture as they have nothing to offer. When, snow

falls in Norway, the sun shines in Alicante, only  the evening is cold and

damp caused by cheaply built housing and those with bad lungs should

go somewhere else, but the Norwegians can live on as long as they

Can see the sun and think they are middle class. But should I talk living

in Portugal that is really a feeble province of Spain with  a population

too meek to take on big business and corrupt politicians.

Alicante

 I do not like the Spanish language and is sceptical to its people when

they talk very fast they cover you with spittle a breath  of wet,

well, chewed garlic. If you to a bar in the evening they serve you with

small platters of food that all are drowning in mustard mayones

In Alicante where thousands of Norwegians live, they now nothing 

of the life of the Spanish, only socialize amongst themselves and

from some houses you see the Norwegian flag snapping in the wind.

The Spanish take in this with a spitting humour, the people who have

bought houses here can so easily lose them again, and they have little

impact on Spanish culture as they have nothing to offer. When, snow

falls in Norway, the sun shines in Alicante, only  the evening is cold and

damp caused by cheaply built housing and those with bad lungs should

go somewhere else, but the Norwegians can live on as long as they

Can see the sun and think they are middle class. But should I talk living

in Portugal that is really a feeble province of Spain with  a population

too meek to take on big business and corrupt politicians.

Parisians

Parisians

Parisians 

Paris is often on my mind, she was a pianist in an unfashionable

night-club had a smoky voice- at least 40 a day- she looked like

a night without sex was a paltry end of her struggle to keep her

skin, the glowing youth of remembrance. Our eye blinks collided

trolldom? She was a hex and I was drawn to her charm.

In the morning I heard her in the kitchen she was pouring a drink

that if water is added looks like milk- She went into the loo and

had a pee and I was quietly grateful it was not a dump. 

I drifted off to sleep and only woke up when she awoke me having

made toast and coffee- She wanted me to stay, but I had a date at

twelve reading English written poetry for a group of Parisians

middle class twits, who would lamely applaud while thinking they

could have done it better in their legionary accent they thought was

an elevated a form of expression and we dumb people meekly have

accepted as a truth, the accolade of refinement. My French, elderly

seductress was from  Morocco and her father had been an officer in

the army who when he came to France was offered a job as a doorman,

a job he refused he went home and shot himself.

Yet I love the underbelly of Paris, it is where the poor and loses live

and if one of the succeed Paris middle-class will claim them and say

they were typical Parisians. 

Accountancy

Accountancy

Accountancy

Sunday I was driving around and had my camera handy

but I was not in the mood, the plain, my little savannah

was and has always been a flat piece of land between

two hills that looks as belonging to a desirable queen’s

bejewelled bosom.  So I didn’t take any photos instead

I counted trees. When fifteen I worked in an accountant

office, this mainly because my mother wanted me to go

to work in a suit. It was boring work and to relive it

I made individual numbers into people; I was fired and

the suit I had bought on credit was handed back to

the second- hand shop. I went back to school and became

a cook, which after two years bored me too. Back to school

and I became the officers who do the books.

200 bushes and trees before the bridge

My job is superfluous now ships has a few crews and they

are normally  badly paid, Technology it is called.

From the bridge to the village of Benafim I counted 400

olive trees, 245 almond trees and sixteen Carob trees.

Accountancy

Accountancy

Accountancy

Sunday I was driving around and had my camera handy

but I was not in the mood, the plain, my little savannah

was and has always been a flat piece of land between

two hills that looks as belonging to a desirable queen’s

bejewelled bosom.  So I didn’t take any photos instead

I counted trees. When fifteen I worked in an accountant

office, this mainly because my mother wanted me to go

to work in a suit. It was boring work and to relive it

I made individual numbers into people; I was fired and

the suit I had bought on credit was handed back to

the second- hand shop. I went back to school and became

a cook, which after two years bored me too. Back to school

and I became the officers who do the books.

200 bushes and trees before the bridge

My job is superfluous now ships has a few crews and they

are normally  badly paid, Technology it is called.

From the bridge to the village of Benafim I counted 400

olive trees, 245 almond trees and sixteen Carob trees.

beauty the sight

beauty the sight

Beauty, the Sight

My heart is a block of cement pavement, sadness

my poetry is prose and little more.

I have written collections of poetry but in the end

they are mostly political musings.

Yet, concrete cannot stop nature, through cracks

tiny green grass grows, or you may call it a weed.

Perhaps I have got something written that in the mass

of words there are pearls of poetry.

Once I saw a motorway not yet open for cars,

a caravan of gypsies, with their carts full of children

small horses and dogs, traversing in peace.

I know they will be there when cars are a curiosity

living a life of quiet contentment and they will

take little interest in the disappearance of the white

A race who thought
they could have it all,

and that was exquisite poetry, beauty and the random

A kismet of faith, a man trying to be God.

the loving feeling

the loving feeling

The Loving Feeling

This is page 99 the way my wife and I sleep

and during the night when I half wake up pat

 her side of the duvet
to be sure that I’m not

reduced to a lonely 9.

There times when she can’t hear my breaths

she shakes me and ask me a daft question and

I know why, it is good to be loved, she to dislike

the idea of waking up alone in a bedroom. 

We do bicker during the day, she doesn’t like me

driving around in my scooter, I think she spends

too much time doing housework  and re- arranging 

which makes me fall on a strange object in the night?

Love is at time irritating we worried too much about

the one we love and I get annoyed if she badgers me,

but come bedtime we are friends again, and hope we

both will be there in the morning

the race thing

the race thing

The Race Thing

My ignorance was total, xenophobia in Africa; no, not

white people against black but black on black.

One sided I thought, mostly reading western history

that xenophobia was white against coloured people.

No I’m not shocked if surprised and I do not applaud

  but somehow make me
finally understand that Africa

has many races and many faces and are as different as

the Portuguese from The Swede, we get that we get

that and when we do xenophobia in Africa too.

No, this knowledge is no getting a white person off

the hook because white anti racism is built on fantasy

that we are so much better than them.

We who invented fascism a fever we now see seeps into

Israel too and make the people there think they are superb.

and have contempt for the rest. 

Athens

Athens

Athens

This time I was in Athens and met a woman in a park,

she promised me sex a moment of greatness I would

come back to her begging her for more.

I was in my late thirties, knew that sex with a prostitute

was like masturbating, a fantasy only more expensive

I declined, we got talking, and she was like me a communist

she had a university
degree in philosophy having no money

she sometimes sold her body,
but she could not go uptown

in the case she was
recognizable, it was a great night we sat in

a bar drinking ouzo and spoke to early morning and it was

time for me to go back onboard my ship and cook breakfast

For the crew. I don’t
know what happened to her but with

her education she eventually got a good employment and

joined the middle classes and a well to do husband who never

knew of her past yet enslaved by her sexual foresight.

recorder

Today  I took some photos of yellow flowers

in  a field that used to be a battle ground

The locals know little about it, but I think it had

to do with access to the salt mines, and to think

today we try to avoid salt, but back them salt was

a way of preserving food. But naturally the war was

not for commerce, soldiers fought to defend freedom

and they were given the spiel how brutal foes were.

Today it is about oil and we are given many accounts

yet we have many people like the “Sniper” whose

murderous conduct was made in  the name of freedom,

when it was fought in the filthy black mass of horror, but

the photos I took showed a field of yellow flowers and

where the word coward is a compliment to those who have s

seen the amalgamation of dreams and the possible

Meandering in Piraeus

Meandering in Piraeus

Meandering in Piraeus

Sunday in Piraeus, a
line of people outside a church

I joined the line and was inside given a bag of cakes.

The old woman behind me was refused a bag of cakes

it appears she had joined the line three times,

I gave her my bag.  I
didn’t think much of priests who were
mostly

 soft faced and fat looking.
The old woman had no teeth

I bought her a soft drink to swallow her cakes.

I sat in the park nursing a Dutch beer the local beer was

not to my liking, when the old woman came demanding

money I refused and
she screamed rape. The police removed

her from the park. In the park a grotto, by paying a few
drachma,

 I could go in and
there was an in a glass cage a likeness
of baby Jesus

as only a disturbed person could have made, the eyes of baby
Jesus

were full of malice and he had an erection big as a smithy’s
arm.

spring sonnet

spring sonnet

The vines are greening and the old man who owns the vines

was busy trimming them although it was Sunday and church

bells chimed He is very old 92 last year, and it was father’s day

a few days ago. He never married, but every bush is his child

And he gives them equal time. He is in many ways a lucky man

the vines love him, he knows that, leaves softens in his caring

hands that carry a promise of everlasting worship.

On father’s day, I never left the house, sat by the phone waited

for a call from my daughter, she is everything I never achieved,

my futile dream of respectability.

A whisper of a wind came through the open window, gently told

me that my cherished is a figment of my dreams of perfecting.

Then an irate storm cast rattled the window, your real daughter was

born in poverty in Kingston, Jamaica, the child of a prostitute and

she became one too.

spring sonnet

The vines are greening and the old man who owns the vines

was busy trimming them although it was Sunday and church

bells chimed He is very old 92 last year, and it was father’s day

a few days ago. He never married, but every bush is his child

And he gives them equal time. He is in many ways a lucky man

the vines love him, he knows that, leaves softens in his caring

hands that carry a promise of everlasting worship.

On father’s day, I never left the house, sat by the phone waited

for a call from my daughter, she is everything I never achieved,

my futile dream of respectability.

A whisper of a wind came through the open window, gently told

me that my cherished is a figment of my dreams of perfecting.

Then an irate storm cast rattled the window, your real daughter was

born in poverty in Kingston, Jamaica, the child of a prostitute and

she became one too.