sartorial

Sartorial I started work in an office, wore a suit that was cheap and too small. They stuck me in a backroom that had mustard coloured walls and no sunlight. I sorted and filed bills that had been paid, and I never understood the point of it. Yet it was one up from my father, he worked for the council digging trenches by spade- yes it was long ago- when it was hot he wore no shirt muscular and tanned women sighed. My father was married five times and died doing push ups; or so mother said. After a year I understood i was not going to be promoted, became radicalized and joined the merchant navy. In New York I bought a splendid suit that had enormous shoulder padding, I went to the office in the hope of getting a proper job, a woman there gave me her phone number, like I should be for hire! The suit I have I wore seven years ago at a wedding in Brussels a man of sixty five was getting married to a woman too young for him. They were happy for six years then he couldn´t get it up and in despair topped himself. I will wear my suit if someone invites me to a party; it hasn´t happened yet, I suppose it will not, old men, unless they are rich, find themselves alone most of the time...

martini | Write Out Loud

martini | Write Out Loud

A Sophisticated Drink

It stood there on the table a litre bottle of martini stuff

made in a factory in Milan and has nothing to do with

proper wine. The workers are basely underpaid, when

they ask a rise the get served martini for breakfast-.

Or perhaps I´m wrong and it is in South Africa where

sober wine workers get fired because they are unionised

and do ask for a better wage. Martini is a cheap product

that has been given a great write up, a liquid of alcohol,

water and some good smelling herbs.  

 The mystery is not
solved who had put the bottle on my

table? In a book by Somerset Morgan an ill willed woman

 put a bottle of
whisky by a vase of flowers for a woman  

she didn´t like, to find. The disliked woman found and drank

the whisky- straight from the bottle. She now a tart in bars

sits on men´s lap for a drink, as the ambiguity continues,

like cigarette smoke inhaled and exhaled in a deep dream

of a smoker who has recently  quit.

Centenary

Centenary 100 years since that war and the mighty are dressed in their fine uniforms and holding hollow speeches. For some the strutting about is triumphalism, but we cannot say so, but the British and French feel smug. The rusty/ gold prince is there too and his underlings have tearful eyes, he is so elegant and has tons of self assurance. There are many other royals too but the TV dwell mostly on the British nobles, this mainly because they know how to wear a uniform with style. This glorifying of war showing of the latest weaponry buying and selling of deaths while we say things like: “We must not forget.” Forget what! This pornography of violence on our screen day and night, yet we must not mention the reasons, money lent and money borrowed. As for now a river of blood runs in Gaza.

suits

Suits I started work in an office, wore a suit that was cheap and too small. They stuck me in a backroom that had mustard coloured walls and no sunlight. I sorted and filed bills that had been paid, and I never understood the point of it. Yet it was one up from my father, he worked for the council digging trenches by spade- yes it was long ago- when it was hot he wore no shirt muscular and tanned women sighed. My father was married five times and died doing push ups; or so mother said. After a year I understood i was not going to be promoted, became radicalized and joined the merchant navy. In New York I bought a splendid suit that had enormous shoulder padding, I went to the office in the hope of getting a proper job, a woman there gave me her phone number, like I should be for hire! The suit I have I wore seven years ago at a wedding in Brussels a man of sixty five was getting married to a woman too young for him. They were happy for six years then he couldn´t get it up and in despair topped himself. I will wear my suit if someone invites me to a party; it hasn´t happened yet, I suppose it will not, old men, unless they are rich, find themselves alone most of the time...

collaborator

The collaborator He and his wife ran a high class grocery shop and I was often outside looking in absorbing rarefied air of middle class living, that was till his wife saw me and shushed me away. War came, the window display got a bit thinner by now there was also a sprinkling of officer of the occupying army. A grocer hear things and it can, if whispered in the right ear, be advantageous. The war ended and the grocer had money to paint his shop in bright colours, which was nice in a war weary, drab little town. Time is an enemy his wife died he displayed her picture amongst Portuguese sardines. And we all came to look. A supermarket opened and we lost interest in a little grocer shop.

a leonine moment

A Leonine Moment Yellow lion teeth like petals of love I picked in the green savannah grass, it had just stopped raining and pearls, as glass bead around a child´s neck, glinted in the sun that had been hiding behind rain pregnant clouds, thunder and lightening; far away I heard a lion roar, inconsolable was its loss.

August forenoon

August Forenoon There is a sale on in the dress shop bathing trunks reduced up to 40%. It has been a good summer and few local people have died but the price of coffins stays the same.... So beautiful a forenoon, I drove on my moped to visit a carob tree I used to sit under when lonely Its thick branched protected me from the world. Under it now two elderly women -on their knees- picking sweet, black beans. The small farmers around here have aged with me, the women looked up and smiled at this elderly, permanent tourist on his round; he is like a hasty brush stroke on the canvas of eternity. On green vines hung juicy grapes tasted one it was like an explosion of natural sweetness that filled my mouth with yesterdays pleasure, they are ready to be harvested and made into wine, not for the rich but for the local people to drink with their stew.