the actor by oskar

the actor by oskar

the actor

When I was a child, my uncle played a police officer
on a stage impressed ,I addressed him as Sir?
Mother said he was an actor
When in my twenties, I wanted to become an actor
Not tiny roles and say one line, open a door
and say. "This way Madame."
No, I wanted to play heroic figures from history
not a starving cobbler in a black and white movie
there are many everyday heroes like
a man high up on a ladder painting a house should
he fall, I would break a leg or killed.
Take a cook who, after making the millionth burger
does not scream, but they never make it to the screen
Mind, I think it was Al Pacino who played a cook who
was an alphabet and couldn't read what was in a tin
it could have been rat poison.
He was sent to learn basic reading skills and met
a lovely girl, and his wonder when a magic world
of literature was his to enter, a walk-in role for me.

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