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