potatoes

potatoes

Potatoes

I was on old steamer once it was loaded with

Idaho potatoes and bound for Peru it was not much fun

with the potatoes came rats and insects

but we got rid of them, the rats when unloading a Lima

Port, but there was a plague of crabs

that came onboard in Lima, but that was not the blame

of the potatoes.

I had thought the root vegetable potato was discovered

In Peru and brought Europe, I don`t if this was a blessing

seeing so many fat children

filling their faces with Pommes Frites.

When eating out, I make it quite clear I don`t want

any potatoes having seen a thousand rat dancing on top of
them

but they still bring me potatoes; I used to give them to my
dog

she got fat and had a heart attack

I had one too, but that was caused by smoking.

During the war when the Nazis occupied my country potatoes

boiled with the skin on was the norm, my mother said the
vitamins are

under the skin, it could also be she hated peeling

I remember she was throwing up in the sink she blamed the
spuds

But she was pregnant, and I didn`t know before

I had a younger brother who was fed mashed potatoes 

tiredness

tiredness

Oh, I’m so tired it is hurting me

endless wars and commentators commenting

along the line of their conviction or

the think-tank that pays them.

I long for the autumn colours north of Portugal

a place to heal abused body and

a soul full of distress

I will go for a week or two, drive there myself

and stop when it pleases me.

In the evening at a small hotel I will drink red wine

with my meal, facing away from the TV;

lovely food up north and gentle people.

Algarve where I live has become too hectic with impatient

people buzzing me wanting to go home

to see about wars or football.

Yes, for sure I will go in September and not forget

the camera to record what I saw.  

it is a lovely war

it is a lovely war

It is a lovely war

It is a hell of a war for soldiers

running between ruined building

It is a great war good for sex the feeling of strength

running through veins

blood oozing from a bullet hole

and sometimes into the sand

but that is the other guy`s

This their finest hour defending whatever

it was, not that they care

Wonderful war even if it only

has one colour and is occasionally red

women dream of joining them

as wives only to discover

the men love one another,

 fucking a woman is
like masturbating

into a narrow fox hole

Glorious war something the survivors

can talk about when old and playing card

the name of the buddy who didn`t make it out

He had admired the full moon and lost in reverie

he was always a dreamer

Do they see the green leaves on trees?

Or the flowers

have they lost all sense of beauty

are deaths and ruined buildings forever etched

on their crippled brains 

broken dreams

broken dreams

Broken dreams

Tonight I`m happy and sad

I refuse to cry over lost friends

I`m drunk too

It feels good to up the anchor of sobriety

Let alcohol give winds to my sails.

I`m a clipper buying tea in China

 not useless toys

Sleek the line and the women admired me

let the clipper sail

I don`t care I will stay here and

make love to you.

I`m sorry I left you, my Liverpool girl but

I went to Brazil to harvest coffee beans

Guatemala I got there by chance

the beach in the moonlight

I have not forgotten my promises

one day more, just one day more

but the ship always sails to other shores

and I never got to write

the poem of my life

the escape

the escape

The Escape

A man coming home from work saw a shadow like a figure
leaning against

an olive tree it was Death, polishing his hoof and
sharpening his scythe.

The man said no, not me I`m too young to be harvested he then
took a plane

to Madrid in Spain where got employment in lawyer`s office.

At the first day, he knocking on the door death sat in the
chair and said;

from now on you are my helper. Go back home and dispose of
your parents their

time has come, greatly disturbed the man took a plane home
and death stood

leaning against an olive tree a shadow on a sunny autumnal
day. In the house,

his parents said crying the had just buried their son, they
didn't see or heard him,

and the man knew that henceforward he was Death`s little
helper.

This story is based on a Syrian story of a man riding from
Damascus across

the desert in the night to Baghdad to avoid death but a
drone picked him up

thought the horse was a jeep and fired off a rocket, the man
had to walk, to

Baghdad, but without water and dates he died of thirst and
hunger 

the incomprehensible

the incomprehensible

The incomprehensible

The sun was just going behind the westerly ridge

it had been a hot day, and the sun appeared angry

for a cosmic reason, and we don`t even know our

Mind and what influences it. A young man rents

A truck drives down the boulevard on Bastille Day

for a reason, we can only guess at as it has little to

do with Islam a faith he didn`t  strictly follow like

Most Muslims, a simple principle observed because it

is customary the way it is among Christians too.

An overheated brain little of education, reading

books how badly France had behaved in his land

once upon a time, an easy catch for those who

sow discontent for its own good.

You can have gendarmes and soldiers on every

street corner, bombs and helicopters scanning

dark windows with intense beams of light but you

 the cannot read
people' mind or their feelings.

We can reduce this absurd killing of the innocent

by including the disfranchised into our life listens

to their grievances and respect views that are not

sprung from our culture.

It is deep in the night now dogs bark something

has desorbed their peace but soon they go back

to sleep till the sun rises in the east and a coup

is in the making.

a day of recogning

Blog

A Day of Reckoning

Forenoon, it had been raining during the night

the wizened winter landscape was now green

and amongst olive trees long-legged sheep grazed;

their pastor and, on occasions, executioner, sat on

a boulder casting dreams into the future; man and

beast, rustic peace, pity I hadn’t a camera.

On my way to the village to buy the papers, a sheep

had been run over by a truck, with its stomach burst

open and its content glinting in the sun, it was still

alive. Ah, you dumb animal abandoned by everyone  

it looked at me without any hope of deliverance,

so I reversed my car and ran over its head.

As the skull was crushed its eyes popped out, landed

at the middle of the road that now had eyes to see

with, the shock of this made it shudder a long rent in

the asphalt wench black tears trickled. Quickly 

I threw the eyes into the thicket which was instantly

transformed into a field of tinkling bluebells.

From nowhere a road gang of small, denim- clad men  

with big hats appeared, they were badly paid lived

on road kills. Expertly strewing soft sand on blood, filled

cracks with healing asphalt, and off they drove with

their dinner. Empty road it had no knowledge of what

had just occurred, it was up to me to remember.  

the new feminist as she exist in the guardian

the new feminist as she exists in the

The New Feminist

I was watching a TV play; Hercules Poirot was in it, uproar in India and some British officers,

 killed this caused a furore in the English press terrorists had struck again we know the British

are not racists many aristocratic Indians live in London of the type I would call traitors,

as great wealth tend to make the rich collaborators.

 I was writing about the glass ceiling broken by women working in high finance, they too

are turncoats to the cause of equality the press especially the Guardian think they are admirable

 but they only are nothing more than grabbing pirates in skirts.

I`m thinking of the suffering of Palestinian women their glass ceiling is protecting their children

when their job is to resist an occupying army and help their men who fight intruders to their death.

Anyway, Poirot solved that case it was about money and love

i t always is perhaps we have to ban then both and Poirot can look for stray dogs

affection

affection

The Business of affection

When you couple fall in love

and the love is broken and

not following its natural course

to fulfilment and a union of hearts

that sings from the same musical

sheets of harmony

The one left alone will feel a pain

that is physical in it intensity

no one night stand fuelled by alcohol

can assuage a hearts loneliness

In time the person will fall in love again

and again and leave behind

broken marriages should he be a man

we call him a Casanova and if it is

a woman she is feisty.

But they are lonely people trying to find

back to the feeling of the first love

the less important

the less important

The less important

 Every TV channel
carries

the same news it is as it is sent from a news

central Obama is good and is Putin bad

and no one asks about its verity it is just read

by some nice people who look sincere.

I have been overcome by angst it starts from

the inside going out

my skin is grey and pale and sweat drips on

my T. shirt.  

I should know but I can`t find the source of

its conception, but I try something about

eyes and in them I read surprise of the oncoming

I saw him fall

heard the crack of a broken neck

Walking away nothing I could do but

stepping over an inert body and into boisterous life

the less important

the less important

The less important

 Every TV channel
carries

the same news it is as it is sent from a news

central Obama is good and is Putin bad

and no one asks about its verity it is just read

by some nice people who look sincere.

I have been overcome by angst it starts from

the inside going out

my skin is grey and pale and sweat drips on

my T. shirt.  

I should know but I can`t find the source of

its conception, but I try something about

eyes and in them I read surprise of the oncoming

I saw him fall

heard the crack of a broken neck

Walking away nothing I could do but

stepping over an inert body and into boisterous life

Cracks in the Mirror Poetry & photography - Home

Cracks in the Mirror Poetry & photography - Home

When the aged go wild 

Our hotel in Porto was at the highest point

although we had been promised a room downtown so we

didn’t have to walk so far, fucks then I had paid in advance

across the street from the hotel a big disused water tower

from the time people didn`t bother with showers

every day making us smell like whores a Saturday night.

We decided to walk into town, not a wise choice

she with her hips and my feet we were overtaken by a snail

and it was time for late lunch.

Later we took a taxi, and I noticed a big, but dead rat
outside

the hotel great commotion but as they were getting rid

of the rodent, a car stopped over it.

After resting well, they arranged a trip for us to see
famous

houses and an art museum and a ride along the Douro

we had our evening meal safe place away from

the water tower which suspected was crawling with rats.

The tour bus didn`t stop anywhere just showed us

The places and statues if famous men pointing towards

the east the bus trundled downed to the bloody Douro

and narrows was full of tourist and cars, it represented

all that I dislike me life, my wife fell asleep, but I
managed

take a few interesting photos of a house that had been
pulled down

but you could still see the painting people used  where

the lived loved and it was the nearest I come to art that
day.

when bordello was fun

when bordello was fun

When a Bordello was fun

I sit down with the best intention to write about flowers

and love which made me think the whore houses tend to have

plastic flowers and that is apt as it is

not a place for romance red roses and chrysanthemums

I have had much fun at house of ill repute not only the sex

but also dancing the laughter and the girls liked a young

sailors and the possibility of warmer feelings.

I  know of seamen who
married former prostitutes and their

marriages have normally been a happy one.

Time has changed women victims now of men’s sexual demands

And it has been outlawed in many countries.

Just as well now girls are called sex workers like hire home
help

cold cash on the table the price depending on the position
like

asking the home help to weed the garden, well you have to
pay

extra or that

blessing

blessing

The Blessing  

The is no war

In Syria

The Brexit

Was a dream

By the discontent

ISIS doesn`t

Exists it is

Propaganda

There is

Football though,

Between

Franc

And

Portugal

That is

The only

News today

high finance

high finance

high finance

High Finance

I was staring at a blank screen when the cleaner came

She was late and told me why

I didn`t want to know about her grandchildren and who

Have no work yet have good education

I have many news channels they talk about trade it is as

They live in a bubble that has no sharp corners they wear

Suits and hug each other while talking about trade

I saw a movie where the protagonist said “politicians use

Women as props but they prefer to fuck each other.”

Beautiful rust coloured earth in your hands, flowers and

The bee that keeps nature humming is not trade or high

Finance, I wish the men in suits will look up go outside inhale,

The day even in the rain, does not sit in a restaurant dining

Food paid for by us who think life is more than trade.

the canditates

the candidates

The candidates for world dominance

The contenders who want to sit on the highest branch on the
tree of power should

not be elected because they want it too badly

Theirs are a grab for dominance for its own sake and if
lucky the book of history,

the part where leaders are remembered, we know Saddam
Hussein, Stalin and Hitler

they too are remembered by history and given enough time
will be Admired and

books will be written in their defence

The contenders talk about trade meaning high finance, not a
factory that produces

products and employ people, they mean the banks, money
lenders.

They fear ordinary people but keep us enslaved by debt we should
take a stand

as they do in Palestine, who are spied upon day and night,
yet the truth slips through

 the occupier can
arrest you for a joke.

No one lived here before we came it all belong to us as they
proudly lie to themselves

as they slowly sink into the apathy of a frozen culture and
self-loathing.

Tomorrow it will be your turn to be arrested for speaking
your mind.

a moral sonnet

a moral sonnet

A Moral Sonnet

 A big crow and a
sparrow which had painted itself

In the colour of the big bird to appear masterful became

Good friends as the both suffered from bombastic

Self-believe and they make a pact to kill the ageing eagle

And his brood the did and by doing so killed millions of
lesser

Birds which in despair turned and pecked each other

The sand became rubicund and from a distance looked like

A carpet for kings and potentates

From the eastern states, vultures came to feed and defend

To get the big crow and the pretend one, off their land

The crow flew home the false one had a mud bath to look

Like common sparrows but is of no avail the sparrows that

Had danced with the crow was shunned and travel from

Country to country and is sleepless in expensive houses-.

the scent of sonnet

the scen

The scent of sonnet

I was watching a TV program of Hercules Poirot the heroine in

the plot had no tits and wore an evening dress with aplomb….

Clearly, she had not sat on a carpet

in the forest of spring where the animal of love roams it is

green as spring grass has a pink underbelly looks like a purring

cat or a puppy that softly barks. It droplets of scents

that make lovers enamoured for a day or so sadly there is

always a tomorrow of regrets for some.

If the woman with small tits happens to sit on a carpet in

the glade she will fall in love and pad her bra

and that is ok, why should she not enhance her lack this

bagatelle when there are tringles of love in the air

and if this does not help there is always divorce much a lonely

the man is satisfied with a triangle

goalkeeper

Blog

 Goalkeeper

When there is a football match on the TV I switch it

On the last ten minutes of the match my boredom threshold

Is low and to sit there watching the game for ninety minutes, really!

I used to play football as a boy, goalkeeper of all things then

I grew up and chased girls instead which often was painful

Like accidently falling in love, that happened frequently

Falling in love is painful walking into walls and being nice

To children related to the object of my adoration

Then the pain of being rejected long walks and dark thoughts

Under a night sky, bittersweet flagellation why did she leave me.

This too ended now I`m a goalkeeper again defend the goal and try

To save the ball death is kicking my way

brexit and other breaks

brexit and other breaks

Brexit and other Breaks

This has been a great day for reporters they

have been feasting on Brexit squeezing the last drop

 of misery like a dish
cloth, and the channels have

been repeating themselves and stealing each

others clichés and one wonders is there still a war

in the Middle East.

Tomorrow is the day of the analysts and academics

they will explain for us the reason why Britain left EU

like we didn`t know

 if you ignore the
wishes

of the common man if you think everything is about

money and not the dignity and culture, this breakup

will happen in many countries.

Bureaucrats have charts showing voting pattering how

interesting an exercise in futility.

You let down the working man and forgot democracy is

a double-edged sword, and I say: damn you all because

your negligence has left a hole for demagogues to fill.  

the ex. drinker

the ex. drinker

The ex-drinker

He had stopped drinking looked remarkably well

his wife was proud of him less so his friend who

never saw him in the bar they sometimes met him

in the street but his manners was formal.

Promoted at work, bought a new car indeed his

wife was proud of him as were everyone in his family

They found him hanged in the shed his calm had

been a deep depression, he had everything to live so

why did he top himself? Not easy to say I think it was

because no one had asked him if he was happy how

he felt in this new life of sobriety which they all took

for granted and ignored his silence.

This role he had to play as a middle-class man in suit

was painful, he liked drinking it made him dream and

he wrote them down, but when he began the sober life

his wife threw his dreams into the fire.

The Blue line

The Blue line

The Blue Line

What a week for the international press

Brexit and its endless drips of small minded politics   

The French winning against Germany at last

A vindication of unsolved hatred

To top it up the murder of five police officers In Texas

No doubt there will be a liberal understanding

 Black people have
been killed by the police

So it is ok then.

Not so, there is no excuse for murder

There is nothing here to understand.

The cities of America are awash with arms

It is the citizens right to bear arms

They fear the government may turn against them

The eagle of war has come home

US troops have killed many civilians in Afghanistan

When people are disrespected

When people are seen as inferior,

The soul is poisoned

And uniformed men are killed in Texas

 Is it poetic justice?

to love the self

to love the self

To love the self

My neighbour has four small dogs in the night if they hear

a cat they bark to protect their owner warning the unseen

enemy to stay away. The dim dogs know what they are,

for me, it is a struggle to know myself my likes and
dislikes

are shifting sand the landscape is never the same I wake up

In the night ask what the hell I am doing here.

I meet people who no longer know me I put it down to

their elderliness as I find my old age impossible to
grasp 

I like triangles better than squares and are drawn to see

beauty in the odd ugly shapes fascinates me.

I don`t think the world has changed in my life time, well

perhaps the computers anything else is only redefined

and made easier to access for me this is easy but of course

Looking at myself in pictures going back forty years, I
still fit

 the same suit and has
been modern and old-fashioned

several times and is still in good condition wish I could
say

the same about me my I never really liked what I looked like

and what I think as dreamlike as the Saragossa Sea.

Nepal

Nepal

Nepal

Nepal I know little of this country nestling

Among colossal mountains

It used to be a kingdom, but the king was so

Autocratic that he lost the job.

Later on, I have this from memory, one of the princes

Shot the royal family as they were sitting down for tea.

This didn`t help him to become a king,

I think he is a monk now and get fed by the poor.

Nepal is also a place where Pakistan and India sometimes

Shot at each other when not freezing to death

At high altitude in summer uniforms

A recent earthquake brought Nepal to the news for a day

They have been promised help to rebuild Kathmandu 

As usual in such cases, the money gets syphoned off and
little

Reach the people of Nepal.

To whom who cares Nepal is also the birthplace of Buddhism.

Blo LIZARD SONNET

Blog

A Lizard Sonnet

If you travel to escape the small lizard on your back

You will eventually be outside your parents’ house

Only they have long since go

Someone else lives there perhaps a child sleep in your bed

Dreaming your dreams

You walk down a street where you used to play

But no one knows, and the sense of loss overwhelms you

Swallow hard not to cry because your memory is untrue.

You left to get a small-minded town, poverty and screams

 In the night, but it was worth going back to remain you what

An awful place you left.

I have a small lizard in the kitchen have tried

To kill it because it is grey and without redeeming colours that

Could make it into a pet but it is too quick and hide in corners

I can`t reach so it can live for now. 

Oslo sonnet

Oslo sonnet

Oslo Sonnet

Today I made a vegetarian meal it was not any good, but we
ate it, after all, it was healthy and I remembered the time when I had the idea
of becoming a vegetarian cook or chef as it is called now got an interview in
Oslo and took the night train. Third class and the open carriage was full;
luckily I had a blanket with me I used it as the tent so I didn`t have to talk
to anyone. 

It was a seven-hour journey it was so boring I was ready to
get up a scream but somehow fell into a trance. We arrived at eight the station
café was open I had a coffee and fell asleep. A man in uniform woke me and told
me to leave this was not rest- room for vagabonds.    Oslo was entirely grey, building, people,
the road it was as colours had fled to a tropical paradise and cold coconut
milk first thing in the morning

By now I had lost all interest in the vegetarian thing and
ate eggs and plenty of bacon took the train home but in a first class
compartment. At home, there was a cable for me a job on a ship a week later I was
in Jamaica where the colours in Oslo also had gone. I met a girl we danced to
the music from jukebox something about a blanket on the ground and the night in
Jamaica was blue silk, the moon was full and golden.

a fairy tale

a fairy tale

A Fairy Tale

This skinny lonely wolf reduced to eating worms

Expulsed from his arguing with the leader wolf how best

To catch caribous

Nose to the ground it found an open chest of fifty

Gold ducats and since they shone so bright he ate them all

And heavy was its belly

When other wolf saw his stomach they thought he was

A successful hunter and he taught them how to kill

Caribous and deer too. 

As a leader dog, he was the first to eat from a kill and

Left behind a coin or as they a ducat and a hunter stalked him

To find in his excrete another coin

Fifty times the hunter dug into wolf shift and came up rich

And trekked home but a blizzard came, his was ill prepared

This heavyweight he dragged about

Put the ducats under a tree and tire he came home

When the weather cleared, he found the tree the coins were gone

And a boney wolf was walking away it had a huge stomach.

a landscape painting

a landscape painting

The painting

I remember it well

The dirt road

The neglected

Domestic landscape

Abandoned

Growing wild

Tall

Ongoing battle

Freedom

For the strongest

Tree

I walked

Into the painting

Wore clogs

Yellow dust

Behind me

Going North 

paris sonnet

paris sonnet

Paris Sonnet

 I visited Paris a few
days ago went into a café

And ordered a cream cake, the slice was huge

And had a yellow liquid on top, I was assured

It was sweaty sugar.

Tiny footsteps

No, it was decoration

Made by an artistic baker and a fork

I have diabetes should not eat sugary things

Put a serviette over the cake, drank my coffee and left.

The river Seine was still high

I just this morning read that Paris has a plaque of rats

Discerning taste prefers cake shops and why not

Who wants to live in that dirty river blind lovers

Think are romantic.

painting of oblivion

painting of oblivion

Painting of Oblivion

The canvas is uniformly white  

As a screen depicts nothingness

And there is immobility.

Occasionally a red dot appears

when a mass of void is moved

Into life in the form of a life

A beast or a man?

The mystery is no one knows

Why this randomness occurs

a sonnet

a sonnet

A Sonnet

If I knew you loved me, I would have

killed you before,   a
sentence that makes no sense

keep swirling around my head. William Burroughs

could have said that or perhaps he has.

 I meet I woman once,
not the first, and fell in love

with her, she was or could be my soulmate with her

I felt at ease not straining to be funny.

I was drawn into a black hole of love that could only

end in hurts weighed down by my past.

So I ended it short, brutal but with sleepless nights. 

I met another woman nothing about soulmates; she just

needed a place to stay near her place of work.

That was a long time ago, and now we are two lost souls

comforting each other in the midnight hours.

modern cafe

modern

Modern Café

The café near the local petrol station and taken over

By people who had studied food catering when I opened

The theme was artistic copies of famous paintings and

Trained chef who saw themselves as creators of food art

The waiters wore black shirts and ditto trousers and

Where called sommeliers I think.

I ordered grilled mushroom got five on a big plate

Garnished with shredded carrots and a brush stroke of

A sauce rather like an abstract painting but if I want

To see art, at a gallery is better and much cheaper.

What happen to the guy in the backroom reeking of drink?

At least he could cook a hefty meal for a truck driver.

trees by the lane

trees by the lane

Trees by the lane

By the old road, few cars use stand two trees

the oldest one is leaning on the bough of the young on

Mother and daughter, I take it.

The old tree is blind, and the hearing is almost gone and

leave it to her daughter to tell what is passing.

Not many hunters this year mother and their barking dogs,

just as well the old lady says, I have been shot twice by

hunters mistake my exposed root for a rabbit it didn`t

half hurt and I will not mention what the dogs get up to.

One day two men in a jeep stopped by the trees looked up

to the old mother and said: time to chop down the old hag.

The leaves on the young ones stressed and froze.

What did they say the mother wanted to know?

Nothing to worry about mother they are talking about

some trees further down the road.

The daughter knew soon she would be alone by the lane

talking to no one just standing there as the seasons pass. 

Behind High Walls

Behind High Walls

Behind high Walls

When I opened the door to my cabin was met with a summer day

 that felt like a
lingering kiss by the love that will one day say goodbye.

Sneeze and make a haiku words dotted on paper napkins while

waiting for the bill three glasses of wine and a packet of
fags

At the outdoor restaurant I was trying to remember about my

experiences what I have seen, heard and read becomes a ball
of threads

swirling through space and I try to get a loose thread to
make sense of

my life but I have to act fast the idea I had disappears in
the sand of time

and through the din of stillness, another glass will not
come amiss

I no longer live in a forest I never had a garden, and I now
think about

robot sex with a vulva of silk I will train to love me and
when I die

It will lie beside me in the coffin and when we are found a
skeleton and

 a bit of rust; come
to think of it a dog is a robot in its early stage still

obedient but tries to fool its owner into loving it.

a Friday of gayness

a Friday of gayness

A Friday of Gayness

Today I drove to Faro town I wanted a meal of tuna steak
with

onions at the café I used to frequent fifteen years ago.

The place had gone upmarket and so had the prices one waiter

remembered me but not my wife and she took a dislike to
him 

said he was effeminate; the café has two parts, one with a
wine bar

I mostly sat there.  Oscar
Wilde came in or someone looking as him,

he remarked of what he had observed during the day an intelligent

mind who could recite his own poems beautifully .

I decide to become gay too, to be frivolous and happy, but
avoid

the sex thing the very thought made me shudder.

Alas, I had to drive my wife home I tried to translate some
of

Oscar`s remarks into Portuguese, she didn`t think it was
funny

But that was my fault telling jokes is not my metier so I
was

back being my pedestrian self 

nature park

nature park

Nature Park

In Yellowstone, a man fell into a
spring

A geyser brought him up again alas
by that time he was cooked

And crows came to eat him     

It is a bit like Brexit it is good
for the elite but bad for

The common man who always get
cooked and eaten by capitalism

That understand the rules set up to
blocks democracy while

At the same time preaching equality
and beats the drum of wars.

Portugal, Greece and Spain petted a
bison called EU,

Now forever doomed to bondage by
their rescuers

So never go to Yellowstone and be
fascinated by the flora and

Fauna is a trap and if you have
walked into it wrest yourself lose

And cook your own food. 

finding the needle

finding the needle

Finding the needle

Sit by my side in the small garden
with

Tall trees that cast shadows and
cools the summer

Just sit there at my side and let
me narrate

My story, how a poor boy from a
Nordic country

Ended up in the interior that has
no sea.

From seaman to poet, and yes how
they laughed when

I drunk recited my poems to an
audience of fools

Who didn`t see how exploited they
were

From ship to ship I was always
fired it was the drink

You see, or that was what they
said.

So many harbours and the sat in
bars by the docks

While I went up town to see reality
and not the whores

And cheap drink drowning in
sentimental music

Somehow I was always disappointed I
didn`t belong

And was a rudderless ship drifting
in the ocean of life?

You do not understand but hear the
pain I suffered

Not belonging to anyone. Freedom is
challenging, and

honestly doesn`t give you friends,
so just hold my hand

and let me rattle on till it’s time
for tea  

a pugilist and a whistleblower

a pugilist and a whistleblower

A pugilist and a
whistle-blower 

I never thought much of boxing

but I liked Muhammad Ali`s
forthrightness

steadfast stood against the storm
of

hatred and vilification when he
didn`t want

to join the Vietnam war even though

he was banned from pursuing his
craft for

three years, the best years of his
age.

It took a long time for me to
embrace his courage.

It took time to untangle myself
from the net

of lies and propaganda spewed by a
submissive

press and find the truth and ill
will behind

the mendacities of politics.

Now that the great on good hail him
and mourn

his demise perhaps it is time to
pardon

Edward Snowdon who exposed the
dishonesties

of the establishment

sun fall

sun fall

The Sun Falls

There is a haze over the evening sun I have parked near the dry lake

luckily it is free of brave men in helicopters and the gipsy horses too

are absent this evening their owners have left to find another camp

one near a stream where the water smells of the mountain dew.

I wonder if horses dream, say about pulling a cart of happy children;

yes, these futile dreams I had them once.

When you get old, you lose it all, first slowly then rapidly in the end

the only people one meets are doctors at the hospital.

All you held dearly loses its meaning nothing really matters I regret not

having fought more for as my uncles helped the Jews in the war but

one day they will be free of tyranny a pity it is taking so long.

I fill my lungs and scream like the man on the bridge my frustration is total.

 Had I been a cattle thief in Texas and caught they would put a lasso around

my necks sit on a horse doing the job I lack the courage to do. 

As I start the car to leave I see a man with a scythe cutting fodder for his goat.

evening and horses

evening and horses

Evening and horses

I`m walking on the bottom of an
ancient sea

The bottom is flat and rich in
grapes and cabbage.

The used to be a lake here, but it
disappeared

What is left is a small stream that
gets its water from

Water below. On the lake that was,
and no longer is

Helicopter pilots practice take-off
and landing

Some gipsy horses graze nearby and
ignore the noise

The choppers make- I took a picture
of one going in

For landing, it belongs to the fire
department, many fires

During the hot summer, some fires
need to burn

And some fires are caused by
pyromaniacs.

But never mind I will see my doctor
at the hospital tomorrow

She is like a beautiful race horse
on the wrong side of fifty,

She is forever telling me what not
to eat; she told me curry

Was fattening once and I said
nothing on her desk there is

A picture of her husband he is a
pilot.

the kismet

the kismet

The Kismet

Every life lost is mourned by some

But there are times when a life lost

Is mourned by the many like rings in

In the in a tarn thrown by a stone   

of a person with hatred in his heart

Rest in peace, Jo Cox.

dream homes

dream homes

Dream Homes 

After the sandy beach, the fenland
with birds, foxes, rabbits, woods and ponds,

 unspoilt by developers; but no more, real
estate, condos,

have turned over the land like
rancid butter, green lawns, soft grass, but not a cow

in sight, here only inedible golf
balls fall.

Come buy an apartment good
investment for you and the family, no one loses, why

have one home when you can have
four.

Thousands of empty homes only used
a few days a year watched over by bored

 security guards; poverty is unseen here it has
been eradicated, there is no need for

you to seek places where people
live in shacks and under dirty plastic

unless you are seeking redemption
for living a life of plenty 

stay with me

stay with me

Stay with me

The Zephyr breathes with lungs

unsullied by cigarette smoke,

siesta nap

a lazy Sunday on an afternoon

when flowers wilt sky is recklessly

nude in transparent whispers

of silky clouds.

Breathtakingly the silence

 if it should 
stop

I would fall into a chasm

of pale rainbows,

stillborn moons,

corroded  stars

where words of love

are unheard of a silent echo  

Inhale and exhale my lovely

Blow a gale too

but don’t leave me alone in

city parks where old men sit

tell how old they are.

Filthy homes

Shirts are worn too long .

deception

Blog

The Deception

Beware!

Her arms around my neck were cold

that was because they were
artificial

her eyes shone like a diamond in
the sun

yet with a hint of moonlight
serenade

and her lips like a damp vulva.

Was she an angel

And imp

Or from the netherworld

A Russian spy

A robot

An Israeli honey trap

A failed suicide bomber

 I felt my way perhaps her vagina

was a guillotine

I will not complain

 still got nine fingers left

Bus Shelter

Bus Shelter

Bus Shelter

Driving past a crudely made bus shelter, it looks like concrete box

I took a picture because a mystery story was told about it.

A stormy winter night a man found the shelter it had a bench

glad he was dry and he waited and waited only the bus didn`t

drive on this road any longer.

Years later passers-by found a skeleton the police was called but

the bones had no papers to tell his name and a mystery was born.

My dog disappeared when she found her way home she was

tired and petrified and like the skeleton could tell me nothing.

I think she was lured into the van of a hunter, tied up in his backyard to

be trained as a hunting dog. She got loose and ran and

ran perhaps for days and too scared to approach people.

She overcame this trauma lived a long life and now is a skeleton in

a black bin bag in the outhouse.

'Cracks in the Mirror' Poetry & photography

'Cracks in the Mirror' Poetry & photography: poetry and social comments

Saragossa Sonnet 

There is a place in the
mid-Atlantic an island made of sea tare

and the mist never lifts sea and
storm avoid this island

that in the middle has a pyre that
must be kept alive and old men

sit cross-legged around the pyre
and feed it dry bones

of sailors who have sought shelter
but end up having their throats slit 

hung up like stock-fish to dry on
the eastern side of the island.

They never talk about this but it
is well known that a salted thigh

bone lasts a week and is delicious
with boiled sea-tare.

You can`t see the people who live
there clearly they are  sons

of mist and fog an unholy alliance
sex without pleasure, but they

must go on the pyre must be fed, if
not the sun will break through

and they and their home will
disappear as it never existed

the initiation

The Initiation

It is not easy to be young at 16 I was a galley boy

on a tankship that even then 60 years ago was ancient

crewed by old mariners who spent their free time

playing cards and talking about whores and now the ship

had docked in Le Havre.

It was dark when I went ashore sat in a bar and drank

Pernod I think. I didn`t go in there had promised my mother

to stay away from alcohol and women.

Light rain and the street light was sparse like there was still

a war on, a small girl standing in the rain looking like

a sparrow with a broken wing.

We went to a small hotel, but I didn`t have enough money

I got to keep my virginity for another day.

Walking back to the ship it was still raining and the old men

sat drinking one of them saw me and invited me in I accepted

by now I was so lonely and needed someone to talk to,

it was not like I could call my mother from a cell phone and

anyway, we didn`t have a phone back home.

The ancient mariners carried me on board.

we the stupid | Write Out Loud

we the stupid | Write Out Loud

We the stupid

Bin Laden was buried in

A watertight coffin

Worms shall not eat him

A shift of the earth`s plates

And he will arise

Atop a little volcanic island

A monument

To eastern failed politics

By France and Britain

Guilt is fathomless 

It was never about humanity

Only greed

And power

If you think we have

A Moslem problem

The East has

A problem

With Christianity’s

Interference  

a flat in town

a flat in town

A flat in Town

Tomorrow most of the time there is one, but for some, the unlucky

who died the day before, and rest in a coffin in a cold church, the tomorrow came too late,

I will be moving into a flat on the fifth floor in Loule.

See many roofs and if I stand on a ladder also see the Atlantic Sea and with binoculars

catch a sight of a passing ship.

Life will be so easy take the lift down to the street walk into

a café and drink coffee; I usually make my coffee but what the hell.

There is a park nearby with pretty flowers and tame trees.

The bank manager shakes her head and does some calculations asks me about

my age and before I can push the question away with a joke my wife stepped

in and told her. 

pot plants

pot plants

Pot plants

I have no picked flowers in my home

If I see a beautiful flower by the
wayside

I stop and admire it, perhaps touch
it slightly.

In my house, are there many pot
plants I water them regularly

Some thrive with much sunlight in
the window sill

Others like the shady interior.

If you hand me bouquet of roses, I
can`t think of why,

You are handing me impending death.

Fatima

Fatima

Fatima 

A lady rich, perfumed and dressed
splendidly was driven

by her liveried chauffeur to Lisbon
when she, at a certain

point, asked her driver to stop;
yes the rich also need obeying

bodily functions. Later she looked
down into a valley where

three children were guarding sheep
two of them were eight

the oldest one eleven, the lady
waved her manicured hands

and said something the children
didn`t understand  

except the oldest one who told the
other two it was Virgin Maria

who had blessed them and warned
them of secrets that could

only be told to a priest. When the
children came home, they said

what they had seen, but the secrets
the oldest one told a priest

and the secrets are still kept in
the Vatican.

At the place where the children
have seen Virgin Maria, pilgrims

came the blind, the sick, the lame
and the mad looking for a cure,

and today it is a holy site with
hotels, shops and restaurants.

 Pilgrims keep coming some walk for days to
atone for sins they

might commit sometimes in the
future, what a wondrous thing,

how irrational truth can be a
diamond in the heart of worshipers

the boxer

the boxer

The Boxer 

 




  He had the saddest eyes I have ever
seen

 
hands trembled like a drunkard`s

 
after a fortnight's  bender but a dipsomaniac

 
can always have another drink

 Ali could not Parkinson`s disease saw to that

 This poet of the ring a victim of success

 egged on too long, just another fight my love

 Honours and medal they bestowed him

 it came too late his voice was but a whisper

 In the glade butterflies fly as he once did

 but not as fast as Mohammed Ali.

cloud on dreams

cloud on dreams

Clouds on Dreams

To believe what we see is often a
fallacy on a video

a rat attacked a cat; the moggy
scared ran away but was it so

I think not video and pictures can
be doctored so we are

left with a sceptical mind

Yet in the Sahara, I saw in the sky
a ship sailing upside down

I know what I saw yet it was a
mirage so therefore I can

talk about it without being made
fun of like the day I saw

a flying elephant it was slow and
met a crocodile

 that loved me, of course, it was a mirage

That is why I`m fearless telling
you this; you will think mirages,

was whisky involved?

There mere suggestion will send me
into a rage and I will

never speak to you again.

The cat ashamed, turned around and
killed the rat, just in case

you were curious. In the world, the
strongest win just looks to Brazil 

and what the heck was I doing in the
Sahara?

the news today

the news today

The News Today

Louvre in Paris has closed its door
the staffs stand

on the steps and sing the national
anthem they have

no lifeboats and can`t stop Louvre
being filled with

the art of debris, cleaning up will
be a headache

what is art and what is rubbish.

Meanwhile, 80 million rats have
sought higher ground

occupying rich people’s homes
sleeping and eating silk

sheets and Foie gras get drunk and
aggressive on rare

wine and defecating on Persian
carpets 

Also in the news, a boy in Japan
has been dancing with

bears and eating their blueberry
jam.

The boy says he will be a zookeeper
when he grows up

to put his parents in a cage. The
rest of the news is boring

the routine stuff about useless
wars on sand dunes

cold feet

cold feet

Cold Feet

 My legs are cold turning into lumps of ice

If I get up, they may break off
like icicle on roofs

In Oslo when the spring comes
around

Many people are killed that way an
instant frozen

Diffusion a deep frozen head that
can’t remember

Yesterday, but there is nothing one
can do about it

It is forbidden to walk in the
middle of the road.

Am I a snowman in a big garden left
alone at night?

Don`t people know a snowman too can
feel cold

despite coal eyes and carrot nose a
warm heart

beats and looks in the Guardian to
find a mate, but

the ladies demand too much wants me
to be funny

entertaining and most awful of all
sociable.

'Cracks in the Mirror' Poetry & photography

'Cracks in the Mirror' Poetry & photography: poetry and social comment

Changing weather

There was spring, flowers and green
grass, leaves

 on trees , the lot, and I thought of immortality.

God has thrown everything at me and
I had been

prodded by doctors who all had
eccentric opinions

about my illness and I had
survived.

I looked heavenward inhaled without
coughing

and saw darkening clouds coming
from the north

 an incoming wind had the icy breaths of
Siberia

and the rain came like cold showers
given to boys

at the home  who could not keep their penises

just innocently hanging there.

I came home, was sent to bed, not
for my sexual

prowess but to stop me getting a
cold; I thought of

Stalin mother liked him he looked
so cool, not that

she would have said that it is me
picking up words

 from Facebook and I know how to give five
fingers

not one, I used to give passing
motorists; we live

 in an age of overdoing things.

Tomorrow the sun will shine again I
can go for a walk

and pretend it shines just for me,
the winter had tried

a com back and failed

'Cracks in the Mirror' Poetry & photography

'Cracks in the Mirror' Poetry & photography: poetry and social comments

Of contentment

A musician at Heart

The uphill farmer had three sons who were small

and had gnome-like features they sat in

the wheel -barrow he was exhibiting them at

local fair to make some money, they hissed and pulled

faces their father didn`t care if he was lucky

someone, a circus owner, could buy them.

People like ogling those of odd shape and laugh.

The farmer had good luck that day sold his goblins for

a tidy sum bow he could afford to buy two more cows

sheep and a new horse, the one he had were for

the knackers yard; he could also do what he liked best

playing his fiddle at weddings and so on.

In the night, the barn without a goblin took fire and

burnt to the ground, but he was not down-hearted

he had been able to save his violin; farming didn`t

interest him and now he was free of pixies and cows.

mortal man

Mortal Man

 The water broke

Jubilation

Soon a child be born

The pain

Has gone

The battle

Is done

 Can`t see or speak

 Slowly life

Ebbs

And a life

Is extinguish

Sometimes  

The unspoken

Relief

Is etched

In mourners

Faces

A fable

Lost Riches

 It is so much time ago now that few remember it

the small coastal country that lived on fish and sheep meat

many also kept pork, chicken and cows no one was poor

 nor were they rich except for the king.

Then gold was found on a mountainside a little bit of gold

the mountain behind its grey facade was pure gold and

the population jubilant and they bought big horses from

foreign lands. A horse for every man the slogan went.

Feeling good and mighty they fought battles in places that

had nothing to do with them they just liked flexing muscles

gold became blood stained lost its lustre and a hard time came

the people had to go fishing again and milk cows.

It was a country now where no one was rich or poor but

living in peace just ordinary citizens skating in the town`s

park dam when winter was cold and greed was a thing of

 the past,  a small country  that welcomed victims of war.

Narcissism

Narcissism

Narcissism

A good day the mirror in the hall said I looked smart

 except that, I was bald and had yellow teeth. No,

do not do this the mirror said when I was unbuckling

my belt feared to be whipped said I had nice skin.

The feminine said of me mention lipstick it would not

come amiss; she thinks happiness involves makeup

I flexed my arm muscles and them mirror was mortified

closed its reflection and went blank I walked into

the vacant space turned around my god, who is this old geezer

preening himself?

this day

this day

This the day I will be lazy and not
read and not even attempt

  
to write about  spring flowers
they will soon disappear and bathers

 
 who come to stay have sun and
sand on their mind

  
Flowers do not make themselves beautiful for us but to pollinate,

  
attract bees which we stupidly try to kill with pesticide and we`ll know

 
the shrivel up of nature and hunger.

 
I know of a colony of bees in the back yard but I leave them in peace,

 
but fear their sting: a bee will never be your friend

What happened to the bumble-bee I
saw one big as a helicopter circling

my house it was looking for a place
to rest but the sparrow wouldn`t let it.

No, I will do nothing today except making
a mental map of the world on

the cracked wall on the house
opposite mine

a poet is amused

a poet is amused

A Poet is Amused

Now when we say good bye give me

a promise with your hands and lips

no, I didn`t mean an apple.

Object

Plutocrat

Advocate

That has nothing to do with
grammar.

Who said it did?

The first time I saw naked woman
was a September night

she stood by the fire cleaning her
private part

soapy pubic hairs

overcome by desire, I ejaculated
fell to the ground

in someone else’s garden.

Poets are like whores sell romantic
poems and show

their filthy souls to anyone in
need of a dream.

He goes to the nearest tavern and
has a dram

and doesn’t let grammar get into it
only wishes to live

in a society that ban full stop and
comma.