Magazines

Magazines

Magazines

I used to read Readers Digest

it was like the Fox channel

 before internet

and we believed yet thought

 something was wrong,

Israel was great in a sea of hatred

 and the magazine
never said

a thing about Palestine whose land

 was stolen.

Arabs want to kill Israeli

Bastards we thought forgetting about

holocaust   which
happened in our

back- yard. But then we grew and

read books

giving us a different view, yet we

sensed that being successful we should

keep our innocence of mind

we had when reading

“Readers Digests” and its odd sense

 of humour which we
were asked

to be serious about

A farming couple

A farming couple

 The Farming couple

The farmer and his wife

is harvesting almond

 a net around the tree and

a long stick

she picks up the nuts and puts

them in a bag.

She is not wearing gloves and

her hands is that of

an old salt.

they  go home for lunch

home- made bread and cheese

she does the washing up

while he snooze a little 

in the autumnal sun.

lemon tree

Lemon tree very pretty

it was a summer night many years ago

woke, thought I heard the whimpering

of a baby, thought it was a dream,

Woke up again my wife was not there

by my side but in the garden where she

had made a hole under a lemon tree

 She put what looked like a shoebox in

the hole filled it in and placed stones

on top of her buried secret. Next day she

didn`t get up stayed in bed for days and

I looked after her but said nothing.

When she got up she looked slimmer

and took up jogging to stay slim.

The lemon tree grew too I got a man to

chop it down but left its root, she got

upset loved this tree and when unseen

wept. I used to long for her to tell me her

secret, but not now with the tree gone

 I do not care to know.

a slum outside Paris

a slum outside Paris

A slum outside Paris

A cardboard city thrives a place where no one has

to pay the rent and electricity are purloined.

is it impossible for middle -class folk to understand

but the Roma thrive despite living by a city dump

where you dump your trash wash your hand and are

happy to live in a block of flats and house the rules.

Now they want to get rid of this illegal city that cost

nothing to run and need not tramlines. But they are

not like us do not share our values, no they are not

like us the do not deplete the world`s resources and

when the last car has stopped the Gypsies will as they

always have done crossing the landscape with their children

women and dogs carried pulled donkeys on ancient carts.

And the man with a wristwatch and finery will offer

them riches for a lift to better times. 

street cleaner

The Street Cleaner

He is not a lucky man, but he is happy but one day he won on a lottery ticket,

not a not a big sum of money but enough to by wheelbarrow got permission

from the local council to keep the town`s streets clean.  Happy, telling himself

 he was self- employed and could sleep till nine in the morn  if he wanted to.

A busy bee a busy bee he was till he collided with Mercedes was taken to court

and his wheelbarrow was confiscated to pay for the damage. He had a bike and

got a local garage to put a two- wheel contraption to fasten to his bike, the town

got rid of its trash again until an officious policeman asked him if he had a licence

for this he didn`t and it was confiscated. Now he had a jute sack slung on his proud

shoulders and a walking stick with a nail attached, a weapon a police officer said

  he was carrying a weapon in public and he was prosecuted.  He didn`t show up

to the hearing and when the law came around, he hung from a rafter sometimes

 even serious optimists give up and with no cleaner the town sank into misery,

plagued by vermin the population fled, a town given into paper napkins pizza boxes

and burger wrappers and the poor who had nowhere to go. And if this reflects

the life of a typical inner city of our English speaking world it is purely incidental.

   

spooked | Write Out Loud

spook

ed | Write Out Loud

Spooked

Driving along on my scooter seeing the familiar

landscape there was a time disturbance

the landscape was the same but the trees small

and there were fewer ploughed fields.

mystical shadows and a murmur of voices sounded

as an echo and I felt spooked.

I stopped and waited perhaps I had a funny turn

slowly the warp panned out and I was back at

my own time, yet I sensed an unease I should not

come back to this place that had layers of old time

that had yet to melt into the clarity of a white water

that has no story to tell.

the sin

The Sin

It must be a tragedy to be a man and a paedophile what

treatment is there for an unspeakable lust the forbidding

feeling, the dreams, the church which is a wrong place to

confess a priest is not viable he has to cure himself of this

ugly vice. Is it a vice for a child liker for him this is

the sexuality he was given it was not asked for a burden of

always hiding yet goes to places where children assemble

and from their young bodies oozes a newness like a scent

that threaten his social standing should it be known and

should he succumb he will be cast out loose his employment

the sneering people goading him and he will join  the people

of the night. 

Phobic condition

Phobic condition

Phobic condition

I woke up it was afternoon and I had made

guest appearance  in
my dream.

it was winter I stayed on the sunny side

of the road watching you struggling with your emotions.

I shook my head and told the swans flying to Africa,

on the way he never gets past sixteen and his wings

are not properly developed.

Stop making excuses we have seen him fly, at night

he lacks the courage to make it in public

if you leave him alone and stop worrying he just might

make it to the podium 
and speak his poetry

a new love

A New Love Story

I had stopped at the rural cafe for a coffee it was a day when I was

not feeling a day over seventy she was around fifty and incredible

young her waste was that of a waif at the beginning of life.

She was so beautiful and she smiled inviting me to sit by her table

 and I was only drinking coffee. I told her amusing stories of my life,

mostly lies- and she laughed, not a bored mirth while looking at

the time thinking of the right moment to slip away the clutches of

my unwanted attention. Good time has me has a limit, so much and

not more, her husband came in he had been to the garage, had the car

fixed and he told me all about it down to the smallest dreary details

A nice man with oil on his hands and I hated him, but I could not kill him

and claims his wife as mine, the thought faintly amused me,

and they drove off. I loved her immensely and she reminded me of

my wife`s niece I love her too, perhaps it was her but I was too old to see

as handsome faces take on a mask of a smiling Janus

the bus trip | Write Out Loud

the bus trip | Write Out Loud

The Bus Trip

We are driving to Cascais on Sunday my wife wants to take

the bus she thinks we are too old to drive 300 miles.

On the bus you might risk sitting by someone who can`t afford

water or soap that is a low grade working person on his way to

use a spade and whatever to build a trench that keeps the water

away when it is raining

I`m  a tonic water socialist and read the Guardian, crystal glasses

and a sneaky fag on the loo. To meet a proper working class person

would shatter my illusion and bring back a memory of my father last time

I saw him it was on a bus and he was drunk.

I will drive- anyway- not long from now I will not be able to they are

putting up obstacles to stop us old ones driving 

a none writing day

 A none Writing Day

The freedom of not writing anything is an illusion

today I will just sit there and listen to the news

Turkey is having problem and it has nothing to do

with me although a poet friend of mine Erken may

be upset several police officers killed perhaps one

of them was her son and I can`t send flowers in

case it is not so. I only like Portugal in the winter

when it is cold enough to put an extra jumper on

when sitting indoors....that were the days.

What do I know? Perhaps Erken is a Russian spy

who speaks five languages perfectly  without fluffing

neither a line nor breaking the wind when talking to the pope.

Knows the sewers of Istanbul like the street going home

 and analyzes the shit falling from the American embassy

When it is discovered that the US envoy suffer from

diabetes she will be promoted by Putin.

Come Home

Come  Home!

I dislike Israel but accepted her as a historic

happening and a place where Jewish culture

can flourish undisturbed foreign culture, and

thus can sink into navel gazing.

But it cannot be so Europe without Jews and

the Jews without Europe`s culture is a script

of disaster that is not yet written.

We in Europe need the Jews as scientist and in

the arts , but the Arab World does not need

 resentful Jews who brought an iron heel to people

for crimes they have not committed, but  guilt that

lives in the culpable images of the Abraham’s people.

forgotten lives

Forgotten lives.

Happiness is an odd thing I have been watching

a program called “Benefit Street” where poor people

try to make a living out of poverty and chaos

Roma, English, Irish and Polish people live there trying

to make a living out of old iron.

There are laughter and smile and occasionally anger

but they survive and now we want their dignity by

reducing any help by those who keep the nation

falling into utter despair.

Because one day soon they will come knocking on

your door throws you out and move in. You can treat poor

people badly a long time, but not all the time

 they will back and  crush you and your privileges like

a smeared paper napkins flying in the wind