epigram and Tanka

Epigram

Only in our world of unrestrained freedom
And middle class lunacy, do we let farmers
Plant sugar cane fields to make fuel for our
Costly cars, instead feeding the starving



Tanka

With high cost of rice
The poor face great hardship
But it’s not all gloom
A pair of solid Chinese boots
Is still within their budget.

What happened to Elmer?


In our dreary costal town, Elmer, the boy with a wooden leg;
was the beacon in a townscape uniformly grey. Irreverent he
was singing and joking his way through the town he seemed
to be everywhere at once. We loved Elmer:” Did you hear
what Elmer did and what he said to the chief of the police?”
Then one day he wasn’t there: “Where’s Elmer?” his urchin
face was greatly missed especially by us kids. But time was
moving forward, or is it us that walk forward till we find, on
the desert of time, our individual exit sign? My uncle had
bought a car and even mother looked up from the book she
was reading and came to the window

Years, later when station in a garrison town, I saw Elmer in
the street, he had a proper artificial leg now, so good that he
only had a slight limp, but his gamin face was almost the same.
“Hi Elmer, do you remember me? He did, we shook hands.
He told me he had a good job here and he had also found Jesus
who had saved him from the wicked life he had lived.
I looked into his eyes; they were filled with blandness, Elmer,
the boy had left ok, in front of me stood a thin little man in hat.
I never spoke to him again but saw him often sauntering along
evening empty streets always at a distant walking away from
me, disappearing back to my childhood.

What Happened to Elmer

What happened to Elmer?


In our dreary costal town, Elmer, the boy with a wooden leg;
was the beacon in a townscape uniformly grey. Irreverent he
was singing and joking his way through the town he seemed
to be everywhere at once. We loved Elmer:” Did you hear
what Elmer did and what he said to the chief of the police?”
Then one day he wasn’t there: “Where’s Elmer?” his urchin
face was greatly missed especially by us kids. But time was
moving forward, or is it us that walk forward till we find, on
the desert of time, our individual exit sign? My uncle had
bought a car and even mother looked up from the book she
was reading and came to the window

Years, later when station in a garrison town, I saw Elmer in
the street, he had a proper artificial leg now, so good that he
only had a slight limp, but his gamin face was almost the same.
“Hi Elmer, do you remember me? He did, we shook hands.
He told me he had a good job here and he had also found Jesus
who had saved him from the wicked life he had lived.
I looked into his eyes; they were filled with blandness, Elmer,
the boy had left ok, in front of me stood a thin little man in hat.
I never spoke to him again but saw him often sauntering along
evening empty streets always at a distant walking away from
me, disappearing back to my childhood.

video 8 poetry, humour and text

battery failure

Battery Failure.


The owner of a bottle green jaguar had chest pain,
after dinning on Irish stew, bravely drove himself
to hospital, parked, locked his car but forgot to
switch of its light; at the reception hall he collapsed
and the experts in medical emergency went into
action. Later the hospital’s sentinel noticed this, but
could do nothing only watch as the light got dimmer
and finally at five the battery was so weak that
the lights ceased; at the same time as its owner died.
this greatly disturbed the sentinel who thought there
must be a sort of connection even though he lacked
words to express his concern. But he learned a lesson
that morning now he keeps his battery on his own car
topped up and never forget to switch off the lights

the great potato voyage

The Great Potato Voyage


The ship was so old that she had wooden deck, great to
walk barefoot on when it’s hot; try that on an iron deck
and you get blisters. I was peeling potatoes across
Bay of Biscay, down the coast of Portugal and into
the Mediterranean Sea. The Suez Canal I saw in its early
morning glory while holding on to the peeler, the red sea
and the Persian Gulf I took in sitting down, just had to
take care that the tubers had no eyes, the cook lost his
temper then and shouted all the way across the Indian
Ocean till we docked in Nagasaki, Japan.

Sometimes the ship stopped in the middle of this vastness,
for a rest, and everything went a bit spooky, we whispered
as not to upset unseen forces, like being in a church, no one
swore and our hands were ready to be folded into the act
of preying should a bishop come along. The roaring forties,
only it was a calm day, the captain came told me not to
whistle, laugh aloud or sing, and keep my fingers crossed.
“Will we ever reach the shore”, I said. “You will young man,
but remember this: when you’re old what you will miss
the most is the sea”

Senryu

Senryu

Death is brainless
Commits senseless acts of harm
Just like a hooligan

Let the night commence

Let The Night Commence.


The drops that fall from a leak on the roof
down into a bucket on the floor, are not equal,
because each one has a different ping and
vibrating echo, but each drop harmonizes and
together make enchanting water music.

No concert should last longer than two hours,
more and the mind numbs, this ignominy can
be avoided by putting a towel in the bucket,
(sotto voce) and the business of sleep can begin,
because that is what nights are for.

But before going under, not knowing whether
I’ll wake up or not, I think of the loves of my
life: Edith Piaf and Marilyn Monroe, both
unobtainable, both tragic heroines; so should
I not ask myself why I love famous losers?

Perhaps I should but not tonight, beside I’m
not a psychiatrist with a diploma on the wall,
only a tired, elderly man who has to go to
work painting other peoples houses at dawn,
to pay doctors big bills for my longevity.

So bring the light then

So Bring Light Then



My body had been interred in the prairie
landscape, I stuck a steel rod down soft
soil till it met the lid of the coffin; so it was
true then, yet it was eerie that I was here
above ground while my body was slowly
absorbed by the earth.

There are many red Indians about, they all
have droplet horses and one, small as a pony,
nodded friendly, yes, I had seen it before in
western movies it had been especially good
at falling, so I mounted it and of we trotted
away unseen by the indigenous people.

Further on men in jeans and big hats, called
cowboys, were fencing in a watering hole,
they were men with secret desires that were
biologically a blind alley, but the only time
they touched was when they fought in the bar
or when sharing an Annie-get-your-gun.


The prairie was as big as an ocean and at
the horizon I saw a bright yet welcoming
light that I noticed the Indians was walking
towards, bad on my feet I kept on riding till
I was inside a light that was free of mortality,
and it was good to be amongst the braves

Dawn

Dawn.


I closed my eyes and saw
another universe,
millions of stars,
red and green planets,
gigantic faraway eruptions and
clouds of cosmic dust.
No life there, eternal night
and empty silence.

Opened my eyes and
saw through curtains
a square of light, dawn was seeping in,
a new day, a beginning, renewal
and the hope of peace.

Winner & Loser

Winner & Loser


Cycling along a pathway in a stony, dry bush
landscape I saw a hawk lose its kill, a sparrow,
the unfortunate fell in front of me, alive but
badly wounded. While the hawk sat on a tree,
an almond tree that had no business growing
here and it showed no one had tended to this
domestic plant years.

This bit of violence was none of my concern
I shouldn’t have picked it up the sparrow, but
now that I felt its nervous little heart beating
in my palm and its blood dripping on my hand,
it was hard to let go. I put nature’s victim on
a big boulder, sat still on my bike till the hawk
swooped and reclaimed its quarry

flight of a bird

Flight of a Bird


A heron flew low across the motorway, alas too low,
it collided with an ice-cream van that was on its way
to a suburban school to sell its freezing and delicious
products, it broke a wing, but managed to get on to
the hard shoulder of the road. A driver, in an apple
green jaguar came speeding along, swerved and tried
to kill the bird, didn’t quite make it though, but now
the heron had two broken wings; confused and in pain
it crawled back on to the road. In the afternoon only
a few soft feathers drifted aimlessly on the left bank of
this manmade river of blood and loss.

The home turf

The Home Turf.


The enclosure’s gate was left open and led by
a tall, black stallion, a natural leader, the horses
escaped and soon galloped to the freedom of
open land. When tired they settled down, grazed
or just enjoyed the day. They were not wild and
when the light faded, on this great land that
casts no shadow, the timid horses thought of
the safety of the ranch, got restless and scraped
hooves on the ground and blowing through their
nostrils. Reluctantly their leader began trotting
back, and as the day became evening the flock
was in the coral they knew; the gate was firmly
shut behind them, as it will be tomorrow and
the days thereafter.

morning and the mythical

Morning and the Mythical.


On the hazy field a white stallion, with steam
rising from its back, was grazing and I thought
of the lady who used to ride naked through
the night. The horse seeing me cycling slowly
on the village sandy lane came to the fence
neighed softly and looked endearing.

I stopped spoke to it till it began grazing, but
when I tried to leave it neighed again didn’t
want to be alone. A man was letting sheep, on
to the field, eighty-five damp wooly backs,
(counted them and nearly fell asleep,) I could
leave now my presence was no longer needed.

the struggle

The Struggle

I have struggled for decades not to sink into
the morass of years, had been holding on to
a branch of the tree of learning, but when
asleep I lost the grip and now see the underside
of its leaves, they are pale and tells me that
learning gives yarning and ambitions for
a wider horizon, but without education, a title
that tells us who we are, we will continue work
as garage hands, or peel potatoes in a café.
It’s easy to let go slip into old age, to forget
and to be forgotten by the world

September travel

September Travel


I’ve packed my suitcase ready to go to Norway in
September, extra jumpers, wooly socks and two
bottles of whisky; well, I’m only staying there for
four days, but there might be a war breaking out.

Booze is very expensive in Norway so I can’t go
into bars, but sit in a tiny hotel room drink good
whisky from a glass in the bathroom, the one used
to brush ones teeth in the morning.

I will be walking around in streets where no one
knows me, there will be rain and I have no umbrella,
and I will end up in one of those expensive bars,
just standing there drinking and talking to no one.

I have unpacked my suitcase, and opened one of
the bottles and sit in my favourite chair drinking
a drop, I will not be going back to Norway this year,
the dog is old and can’t be left alone in a kennel,

4 haiku

Haiku

Snows only purpose?
To make my garden look good
Four months a year


Haiku

Shadows and light
In an unseemly embrace
Foolish April Dance


Haiku

In the middy heat
Mules seeks shady carob trees
Man seeks the beach.

Haiku

Morning sadness
Rain trickles down the window
Grey October sky.

Mother's last day

Mother’s Last Day.


When I came to the nursing home mother
fretted she wanted me to drive her down
to the bay she wanted to see the sea again.
I was getting wintry but the nurse brought
some extra blankets and of we drove.

It was a blustery day and sea in the bay was
white topped, she sat there for a long time
saying nothing, then she spoke of her father,
who had been a master of a schooner and
sailed all the way to USA and Argentina.

Going back we stopped at a café ate Danish
pastry and drank hot chocolate, she also
smoked a forbidden cigarette. At the home,
she didn’t want anything to eat, had been
to a café with her son.

I sat with her till she fell asleep, they rang
early in the morning, she was the last link,
with the past, snow covered flowers on her
coffin, her time had run out, from now on
I had to walk the rest of the way alone

mother and the singer

Mother and the Singer

I first heard Edith Piaf on the radio in 1954,
her songs were translated into Norwegian
and mother used to sing them when peeling
potatoes or frying fish cakes.

Today I came across Edit Piaf, on the net,
singing her heart out, I thought she looked
like my mother, and I hadn’t been thinking
of her for a long time, small, old fashion
and ungainly, but with a big heart.

So there I sat riding pillion on a great voice
back to a time that had glimmer of gold in
songs and in books to relieve days of fear,
and the insanity of poverty

summer with my mother

Summer with my mother.


I t was the best summer I ever had or can remember,
mother and I had cycled to the beach, that is,
I was riding pillion. It was a hot day mother, a strong
swimmer swam, to the small islet nearby, it wasn’t
far, I sat on her back, like a little monkey people said
and laughed. Later we ate sandwiches she had made
before we left and tepid tea from the thermos flask.

She gave me coppers and sent me to buy ice-cream
it was a long way off and going back the ice-cream
melted. I ate mine of mother’s there was only a wet
cone left. I must have fallen asleep. Mother woke me
said it was time to cycle home, I was very happy that
evening that when my sister called me a mother’s boy
I didn’t mind but said I knew who her boyfriend was.

Before going to bed I told mother that I would never
leave her; she gave me a hug, and that was great, she
wasn’t much into hugging people. Then she had to go
back to work, putting sardines into tins and smelling
of fish when she tired came home.

The mortification

The Mortification


The famous widowed singer, a titled living icon
worshiped as a demi-god, married again, this time
with a woman the same age as his daughter, who
called her stepmother a brazen gold-digger.

And in the sewer system of the famous, poisonous
rumours seeped all the way to the gutter press,
the new woman in their heroes life was tart and
didn’t deserve him.

And to make matters worse, the singer still loved
his dead wife, everyone knew that, and soon tired
of the new one; so he changed locks in his houses
and started divorce proceedings,

And the press gloated when the humiliated wife
trashed about in distress and uttered words that
didn’t make much sense, and showed picture of
her posing in an unbecoming way.

So she got her money then and is it: good riddance
then? No quite she has got a gift the singer has to
forego, his baby daughter and the snubbed wife is
going to live far away

a farm cat

A Farm Cat.

The cat sits on the steps outside the scullery
watches with indifference maids clean urns
and separate cream from milk to make butter.

It has had a saucer of cream and is tired after
a long night of wildlife, violence and murder
that goes unseen by sleeping humans.

So it curls up on the steps and warmed by
the spring sun thinks of nothing in particular
except, perhaps, of another saucer of cream

Unwanted

Unwanted

Coming in from the sunlit lane, where I had
been stalked by a shadow that wasn’t mine,
it was as a cave under the solid branches of
a thick leaved carob tree.

Yet the tree emitted an unnerving one tone
sound just like a telephone before it is dialed
and when my eyes adjusted to the darkness,
I saw ants coming up from a hole.

They began eating my leather shoes, there
was nothing I could do, not with the surplus
shadow hanging about, wanting to join me
since it’s own owner died this morning

The ants were now eating my socks, soon
they will start eating at my toes, but luckily
the sun is fading, as is the lost shadow, and
now the ants are nibbling at my feet

It’s dark, ants’ gone back down their hole,
the lane, in moonlight looks, as a silk scarf,
and by the verge I see, calf-skin boots; and
sharp pebbles hurt my bare and bloody feet.

Alluring is the pull, I touch the boots, how
soft they are, but I see the shadow, curled up
in a ditch, waiting. No, I’ll not try them on
I refuse to wear a dead man’s shoes.
.

The inedible

The Inedible

The bush in the corner of the garden
carries berries that are pearl shaped
pale red and looks nice in sunlight.

They hang high up on and taste bitter;
the birds ignore them, to make jam of
them one needs a ton of sugar.

Yet this bush grows in my garden and
gets bigger every year, it is not for me
to ask what’s the point of it all.

animal power

Animal Power.

The cat, on the terrace, is black and it isn’t mine,
it used to run away when it saw me,
now it ignores me, wants the terrace for itself and
waits for me to go back in, but I defy its unspoken
dislike and stay there as long as I want to.

I don’t stay very long, no point hanging about just
to prove that’s it’s my terrace; it’s not like a tiger,
jaguar, panther or a cheetah, no, it’s a regular feline
that I can’t get to like me, It’s really pathetic, but
the animal makes me feel like a loser.

saying

Saying

“The night has no morning”
For a man ambushed by his
Own shadow when going to
The loo before daybreak.

The ending

The Ending

The far history is 2000 years old, and we have
no kinship with those who lived before that time.
Near history began 700 hundred years ago, and
feels like yesterday, through paintings we know
what people looked like then, their culture and
so forth; names of those who were famous then.
“A million years from now”, the learned man on
the TV, said, “the sun will implode and on earth
there will forever be night. Should I be worried?
By then what we know and find important today
will be forgotten and since there is no memory,
humanity never existed. Perhaps a cry undulates
through the dark vastness, lamenting the passing
of a god that disappeared into its own void.

An obsolete emotion

An Obsolete Emotion?

What happened to laughter, last time I looked
it walked along a lake and giggled at the antic
of ducks; the birds have gone and the lake is
polluted so what’s so funny about that.
Serious venture in a grim factory by the lake’s
shore, ducks can’t compete with that, somber
house prices, grave problem with the sewer and
you have the making of gloominess.
The factory is closed and a house is no longer
an asset but a cold shelter where people waits
for the bailiff, as some people, chuckling and
giggling grimly, buy up defeated domesticity.
Yet laughter hasn’t been fully eradicated it
lurks in a child’s face ready to come and play

solder Hero (rewritten)

Soldier Hero

They are so proud of their son, the war hero,
and now he was given the highest accolade
a soldier can receive, from a grateful nation.
In the great hall they met generals who said
it was an honour to meet the parents of a hero,
they had brought up a fine son, (post mortem
medals are as soft plaster on ulcers of grief.)

Music and red carnation, chocolate cake and
tea; the nation’s president shed blameless and
manly tears, his lachrymose for us to admire;
pity the hero wasn’t there. Time to go as low
paid cleaners came, gobble up the remains of
the cake, drank lukewarm tea, and idly spoke
about the weather and the high price of gas.

soldier hero

Soldier Hero

They are so proud of their son, the war hero,
and now they were given the highest accolade,
a soldier can receive, from a grateful nation.
In the great hall they met generals who said
it was an honour to meet the parents of a hero,
they had brought up a fine son, (a post mortem
medals are gentle plaster on the ulcer of grief.)
Music and pink flowers, chocolate cake and
tea; the nation’s president shed blameless and
manly tears, his lachrymose display for us to
admire; pity the hero wasn’t there. Time to go
as low paid cleaners came, ate the remains of
the cake, drank lukewarm tea, and idly spoke
about the weather and the high prices of gas.

Getting to know you

Getting to know you

In the mid Atlantic, where spoken English
takes on an American twang, swells give
birth to waves that grow very quickly and
dreams of getting as big as Mount Everest.

Alas, there are rocky shores that cut them
down to size, in a froth of white blood and
fish-finger ignominy, an experience they
are unable to pass on the next generation

indisposed gardener

Indisposed Gardener


Today I want to write a poem it’s spring you see,
and green weed with blue flowers along the house.
I’m reluctant to remove them they have been
around longer than me and will continue long after
I’ve gone; when I die my little gesture of kindness
towards fingerless dog and despised weed will not
be forgotten, if asked what I have done in my life to
look back upon, I will mention this, if the man is not
impressed I will tell him it the unseen kindness that
counts, the big bravado things only bring satisfaction
to the beaming do-gooders who, for all we know,
may go home and be malicious to his wife if dinner
isn’t ready on time and shame her by peeing out of
the window when drunk. The blue flowers only last
a week then they’ll wilt and my backache… gone.

the forgotten remembered

The Forgotten Remembered

It’s so long ago I’m not sure whether it was a dream,
it happened at quiet a corner of a land where, although
occupied by the enemy, war’s cruelty hadn’t reached
yet. There was a prison camp nearby, Russians I think,
guards let me feed them scraps of food as they looked
benignly on at this scene of sweet innocence.
A cold early morning many shots had been fired but
no one knew why and after dinner I went to feed
prisoners leftovers; the camp’s gate was open and they
lay on the ground, some with eyes open, yet unseeing
and there was blood in the snow. I must have been there
long time it began snowing again and flakes of gentle
crystal covered their faces and I wondered why.
A giant soldier with his rifle slung across his massive
shoulder, came, took me by the hand and led me back
to the farm; whispering voices, they put me at the front
of the log fire, I was very cold, everyone was so kind
that I began crying gave me hot, sweet cocoa to drink.

Unrequited Love


The street and the clapperboard houses flanking, it was the same
only the street had a layer of asphalt and the houses had been
painted. It was here it all began when I fell into confusion, or as
they say, love. Walking by her house, but on the opposite side
of the street, her home was green and had pretty curtains, flowers
on sills and oozed of small town decorum. I noticed people inside
and stopped, by a little shop that sold knitwear and wondered how
a tiny business like that can ever make a living and its window reflection saw her house; she came out, walking across the road,
and I recognized her at once even though she must be sixty five,
to be invisible, didn’t want her to think I came here just for her,
I put a yellow supermarket plastic bag with holes in over my head,
it worked, she walked by me into the needle & thread shop where
she bought a pair of shiny knitting pins.

Coming out she stopped said I looked daft in that xanthous bag,
(she is fond of using unusual words) I took it off, very was hot
inside it anyway, said I wasn’t trying to hide but was looking for
a gold ring and I didn’t see as well as before. Overcome by lust
I grabbed and passionately kissed her, till she lost her pins: “let’s
go and make love” I hoarsely gasped, but she pushed me away
and said: “Are you mad, I have to knit a jumper for my grandson
before winter, and have to go home and cook my husband’s tea,
you must have better things to do than follow me around as you
did forty years ago when you camped outside the house; mother
was very upset worried if the neighbours thought I was common
a tart.” Upset, by her hard words, I put the sad bag back over my
head didn’t want to draw attention to myself when crying tears
of humiliated rejection.

The Master Mariner

The Master Mariner

Last night I was a master once again,
stood on the terrace easing my errant
house that pulled at the anchor she
wanted to drift towards the open sea
and safety from knife sharp reefs and
torrential blinding rain.

When first light broke storm ceased
and I saw houses that had broken
anchor and slammed into one another,
bad seaman ship but said nothing as
I inspected my house and noticed that
a few roof tiles were missing.

this year's springtime

This year’s Springtime.

Spring used to lift my spirit,
this last one, however, seems
intrusive, it thrills and loudly
reaches towards the sun;

for no reason I can think of,
as I grow down to a ground
that is an open cast mine
decked with flaccid flowers.

Horseshoe for luck

Horseshoe for luck


There was a wooden bridge, near the farm,
where I lived - a few years- as a child,
I often sat under it looking at the clear, soft
flowing water and I could see tiny fishes
swimming about, sometimes they came to
the surface to have a look at me; when horse
and cart crossed the bridge fine dust fell and
shimmered as gold. This was my secret place,
I kept things here like rusty nails, a whistle,
coloured stones and a shiny horseshoe

When I came back here years later, no one
could remember a river, I must be mistaken
it was said; mind there used to be a tiny
stream here, but it was filled in years ago.
The farm had been replaced by a business
park, people with hard dreams worked here.
A petrol station, tarmac roads and cafés, yes,
the future had won “Never been a farm here,
they said. In a ditch I found a rusty horseshoe
and knew my memory was not a dream

Once a summer

Once, a Summer.


It was a special Nordic summer, its night was
short when walking home to change and go
to work, no one about so early, but a cat going
home after a night of murderous pursuits, there
it will drink a saucer of cream, curl up on a sofa
and its owner would never know what a vicious
killer she had in her house.

I was in love, the taste of her still clung to my
hungry lips, it was the best of times to be in love
and after work I would see her again and again;
she was so lovely this morning, and in her brown
eyes I read nothing but true love-: “Come back
soon darling,” she had whispered by the door,
before gently closing it.

She wasn’t there that evening: “gone to another
town to work,” a neighbour said, “with a man
in an Oldsmobile car,” (and in her brown eyes
I read nothing but true love.) The night misted
hasting towards autumn, trees shed green leaves,
and as cooling rain drizzled my short summer of
innocence was over.

Fear by the sea

Fear By The Sea.


On the beach alone, there is a dark silence
the sea has inhaled and is ready to blow a
wave my way drowning me; and there is
no seagulls they have disappeared behind
the horizon following a ship, waiting for
the cook to throw overboard left overs.
I sense movement behind a sand dune it is
an assassin ready to shoot me; defenseless,
I should not have forsaken my friends.

Who can I call now to get me out of this?
A dark shudder on the grey skin of the sea,
pallid as the sky, they are waiting for me to
scream in fear and beg forgiveness for my
sin of omission. If I get off the beach alive
I will extol friends’ virtues and compose
a lyrical song for a family I could have had,
but is it not too late? As I flee I hear bullets
shred the air into find strands of wonder.

Global warming

Global Warming

Senryu

One wonders,
Will the last thawed ice floe
Inundate New York?


Senryu

Was it a raindrop
That caused the disappearance
Of an atoll?

…………….

Senryu

In a blind man’s eye
His wife is forever young,
This makes her happy.


Tanka

For a writer to
Rage against injustice
And be heard
Depends on an editor
If he rejects
Dramatic words turn to dust
In a shut drawer of gloom

After The Storm

After The Storm

Now that the spring tempest is over and the ground
is littered with twigs and juicy, green leaves flung
off mother tree long before they should, it gladdens
the woods that the old oak still stands although it is
almost hollow inside and is home to a family of foxes,
myriads of insects, and a 40 years old bachelor hawk.
It is the oldest wild tree around; there is an older
one though an olive tree that still remembers when
Roman soldiers marched through here and the young
centurion who rested in its shadow, fell asleep and
dreamt of becoming a new Cesar. Whether he made
it or not the olive has no way of knowing. The reason
other trees were glad the oak endure is that that its
presence gives them the hope of longevity

haiku

Haiku.

Sunlight and shadow
Ran up and down a hillside
Till rain stopped play

Before The storm

Before The Storm


Deep silence except for a fly that keeps bumping
its head against the window, but when I open it
the dipterous takes fright flies off and walks on
the ceiling, wish I could do that

Trees stand, unmoving, as petrified, there no birds
fly about, we are in the eye of a storm and when it
does shift and hit the oldest ones will be uprooted
and many others will lose limbs and leaves

I open the window; give the fly its last chance to
seek freedom, before I put shutters on and hunker
down, but it refuses to come down so I do nothing
but keep a rolled up newspaper ready to swat it.

Sentimenatal attachment

Sentimental Attachment


There is a mosquito in my room, it’s is slow and
Fat when it comes near I’ll kill it even if all
Life is equal; the damn thing may carry Dengue
Fever and, anyways it isn’t possible to have
A meaningful relationship with an insect and feel
Distraught when it drowns in your coffee.

My neighbour has a lamb in his shed, it’s baaing
All day, misses its mother, the company of other
Lambs, to jump in the air, on a field, and looking
Cute; now it is being fattened up for slaughter in
About six month’s time, I’m looking forward to
Be invited for dinner, I have made mint sauce.

Dogs, would be difficult to eat though, there is
Something cannibalistic about it, they have been
Close to us through history emotionally they are
A part of us, this is partly true, people in China
Eat dogs, only a few through, the rest are like us
Give their pet silly names like… Fofino.

Riches

Riches

Dark clouds hang over the valley this morning,
there will be rain ok; I also hope there will be
a rainbow too, I have a silver spade ready and
leather boots as well.

Last time I found a nugget of gold, where a multi
coloured arch got stuck in the ground, my brother
stole it, he lives in Bahamas now, pays no taxes
and have seven servants

He wasn’t happy so they sent him to Betty Ford’s
clinic where they teach him to accept his guilt and
stop beating himself up because of a trifling
culpability, attack of remorse can happen to us all;

forget your sin, sobriety is bliss, god forgives and
speaks English. Should I be rich today I will not tell
anyone, but keep my money under the mattress, live
like a pauper and enjoy my solitary treasure.

My Garden


I need no garden, live in a middle of a field of
flowers that have the hue of homemade butter
produced by the milk from cows that have name
like Rosa, Daisy, Buttercup and Rosemarie
(the farm in mind is small.) On big farms a cow
is a ruminant …is, and so on. Gertrude Stein?
Yes. She told everyone she was a genius, yet all
we remember of her words, is that a rose is a rose
till the cud chewers come home to be milked.

“What does she knows about my flowers,”
the rose bush said and stung me cruelly when
I picked one of its offspring for my lapel, I had
an appointment with my doctor and wanted to
look healthy. Next week the field will be purple,
my colour and I’ll regret not being a cardinal.
Yes, I could have been, hadn’t kissed a Marilyn
sister’s lips and embraced her voluptuous body,
till the Vatican became an impossible dream

Senryu

Senryu

Theft alarms
Keep neighbours awake
When you’re in Spain



Senryu

When a sunny wall
Shines luminously clear
Shadows live in fear.


Senryu

The precipitation
That falls on fields of love
Is a blessed gift


Senryu

In dour winter light
Cars parked near a clinic
Looks fatally ill

a Day at The opera

A day at the Opera.


It was winter when I came home, had been in Spain
for twenty years; cold and snow and I wore sandals;
asked mother for woolen socks, she wouldn’t give
me any since I didn’t lived here anymore. My sister
who was there too, agreed. Having no home I went
to the cinema to see Casablanca, got lost and walked
in a maze of empty streets where everyone sat indoors
watching TV, I could tell by the flickering blue light
on curtains. When I finally got there, it was an opera
house, and premiere, plenty of horse drawn carriage
outside where the famous were being photographed
and interviewed by a sycophantic, yet resentful press
that hoped the horses would bolt. “ I’m an opera
lover” I said and sang an aria from Madam Butterfly,
still they wouldn’t let me in, the sandals you see. So
I walked back home, only it wasn’t there anymore,
but made into a parking lot; served me right for being
away too long

the widow

The Widow


The man on the trolley was fully dressed he had died in
the street and brought in to the hospital; his face at ease
wasn’t peace but nothingness, a story yet to be invented.
His wife had arrived, looked at his face and said:
“a good man always saved money for the day he could
retire, he had so many plans, today he went to cash his
first pension check.” Her life hadn’t be easy, always
watching the pennies and it struck her that now she could
go buy a new dress, coat and shoes, for the first time in
years; but would she? After years of saving money it had
become a habit hard to brake, and then the children, grown
up now, but they would come wanting money. “You cheep
bastard, she murmured angrily, you made my life a misery
and when no one looked slapped his face… hard.