The AucklandPoetry Chamber

2009-10-24T06:34:00.001-07:00

various poems 2

2009-09-11T14:22:00.000-07:00

Tanka

Because of love
I became a bottle of rum
Mixed with cola
I can make you dance tango
And dream of Argentina

Tanka

In Buenos Aires
I bought an old circus horse
Pampas here we come
Large circles getting smaller
Cantinas and guitar music

Father...Dear!

When my children were small I played with them, I was
a good father, carried them on my shoulders, but when
they became teen agers and truculent I lost all interest in
their silly arguments, paid for their education and went
abroad to live in our second home in Spain.

My children never write or ring, their mother, who didn’t
come to live with me, says it is because I had forsaken
them. I paid for their university used my influence to get
them well paid jobs, yet they feel I should have done more
I think they should be ashamed of themselves.

It was me and my actions that made them independent
beings who can look after themselves; and I know after
I`m gone they will understand, I’m not the cuddling type,
but I made them whole; and yes, I think of them often,
love them very much, but will not seek their approval.

And if anyone of them read this and think the old man
has gone soft and send me letters of love I will, without
a second thought, tell them to piss off, my money will go
to my second family in Spain, I have young children here
and I carry them on my shoulders every day.

Our World Unseen

Late August it is getting a cooler I can sit outside now and
enjoy the afternoon sun. The night is calm the hot wind that
blew turning leaves into nasty daggers has ceased, the moon
is four days old, makes tired straw look golden and vital, like
they should be fodder for donkeys, but, alas, they have left
the Algarvian landscape; straw is for the wind to play with.
I once slept on a mattress filled with straw, yellow beautiful
and crinkly; mouse liked them too when April came around
the mattress was wafer thin and eleven mice had died, from
starvation. Man, whether he swats an insect or walks across
a field will always kill a life he didn’t know existed.

The Theft

A big black bike, with frugal rubber tires
and an old fashioned handlebar,
is leaning against a whitewashed wall,
this morning.
Someone had nicked it on the way from
the bar last night:
so the thief lives in one of the stone cottages
around here.
The bike, it looks catholic,
isn’t telling,
made of hollow steel tubes, chains and rubber
it really doesn’t care who rides it.
It didn’t used to be like this, years ago
I often found a donkey grazing outside
the houses it seemed to be a normal thing,
friendly animals didn’t care who rode them;
nowadays if a tractor goes missing
...police and questions asked.
Me? I rather walk home from the bar.

The Last One

Tall building afire, no exit
he fell and fell it only takes a few second
but also lasts forever.
The asphalt street became a river
of clear water he remembered from times past,
the woman in the car looked up and smiled
she had forgiven him.

The Mistress.

Mary Jo where are you know? Dusty bones in a cemetery?
A dashing man drove you through the night, over a bridge
that wasn’t there, into the water and then you were alone
breathing through pockets of air in the car, waiting for him
to come rescue you. Didn’t you hear his steps, on pebbly road,
as he was ran away? And your tears became the sea`s

Mary Jo I have not forgotten you, the man who betrayed
you is dead, they gave him a great send off, a president and
the great came to his wake, wonder if anyone thought of you?
Even your parents were paid off, not to talk of you in public.
Yet I do remember and think of you now the charming man,
the brother of brothers, has gone

Bus 8

On the bus 8, to Garston I met my future wife I was going
to meet someone at the British Legion there, something
about a job on a ship. At an outdoor we bought cans of
coke and also bottle of rum, the job thing was forgotten
I thought she was the most understanding woman I had
ever met. A fortnight later we got married, people I didn’t
like much, brothers in laws, came to our reception.

Dreams never last, like a worker’s money, woke up one
morning; no smell of coffee from downstairs she had gone
out and left a note: “Get a Job!” Took a bus to Albert Dock,
a ship there, going to Murmansk, needed a cook I didn’t
hesitate, signed on, every morning made my own coffee
and everyone else’s. I would still like to know if she, when
coming back from Garston’s shopping centre, missed me.

Working class poet

I feel I lack gravitas ought to write about the sorry state
of the world, wars, famine and so much killings.
When I read, say, how the Palestinians are treated, by, are
they Israelis or Jews? A primitive rage, mainly from injustices
of my own childhood, stirs but I will not let it come to the for lest
they will call me an anti Semite. I know about loss I’m the only
left standing, all my siblings died young. When you want to
be an artist and the teacher laughs, and say, go mend shoes
as your father did. I know how it feels like when a posh lady,
at a meeting, said when told I play golf; “Does He Play Golf?”

Well, actually no. I only played so I could piss into their
manmade lakes and pretend I was a lawyer. Yet, when
I remember the past I also recall sitting in a workman’s bus
when jokes had number so we didn’t have tell them, when
a bleak industrial landscape had a haunting, hazy beauty,
far removed from the bucolic one. Tired men going home
from their shift, sleep, but little else in the offing, and I see
survivors tucked into their elderliness with nothing else to
be proud of, they offer harsh critic of the young and make
their own passivity into a heroic struggle for justice

Mass Funeral

There had been so many deaths and funerals, when my
dog died they congregated and became one. Mother had
died the year before at Christmas, and since I could get
there before after the funeral I didn´t go.

My old dog had gotten on the railway tracks and when
the train came she was too old and slow to jump clear.
She was suddenly so heavy and there was blood dripping
in the back seat of the car. “Why didn’t you put her on
a blanket” People can be so smart. Heavy rainfall it was
a damp night, the vet didn’t do funereal, so I drove up to
the village where she was born got a spade from a farmer,
tried to dig a hole in hard soil; on my knees remembered
mother sister and brother and cried my heart out.

The farmer came, dug a hole put Bambi in it and covered
the hole with stones. On my way home the rain stopped,
moon was nearly full lit up the dirt road and I thought of
all the good times we had shared

The Son

When I sit down to write I needn’t think if I`m
better then my father or, to torture myself, try
equalling him. My old man was a cobbler soling
old shoes and never wrote a thing, but he did
say funny things, over his lest. Customers laughed
but often failed to pay him.

His friends came, after five, “closed” sign hung
on the shop`s front door. Laughter and stories
told, often for many day. I can write without
the fear of being a lesser writer then him, yet it
nags me that I shall not be as good at telling
a story the way he could.

A Sigh (Tanka)

A cape made of wool
Not for elegance but warmth
Oscar Wilde frowns
Woolly socks and winter boots
I`m a jobbing poet

The economy (Tanka)

As markets pick up
Petrol prizes are going up
Many cars are sold
New and bigger airports built
Global warming, be damned.

Senryu

As quiet rain fell.
In a pond ringed by quartz,
A modest swan swam

Senryu

A pale human swan,
Love poems and vitamin pills,
Sighs under eiderdown

Senryu

A moody cygnet,
In the calm river Avon,
Wants to be a tern.

Senryu

Like a wingless tern
A becalmed a schooner sways
In the bay of Bombay

(Ps. Tern is also a three masted schooner)

Tanka

My virtual friends
Clamour for my attention
Their unripe fondness
Turns my thoughts into triteness
Fit for facebook tedium.

Tanka

Up from deep thoughts,
What has been buried for years,
Comes stinking manure
But the forward thinking
Knows it is good for the roses.

The Ageless Beauty

There is a mannequin,
in the dark corner of
the hall, showing off
a swimsuit 1950 style.

She is beautiful, in her
own eyes, which are
made of coloured glass
...sea green.

Dust on lips she doesn’t
care, not of the sultry
type, show no interest,
in sexual matters.

Spooks guests, when
they have gone she
smiles at her image
that is forever 1950.

A Country Road

I sat on the milk-ramp by a road that had
yet to be covered in black, weird asphalt.
Sunday, the sky was eternally blue, could
when I stood up just, see the ocean it was
azure too. Fed up now, but I didn’t want
to leave before I had seen a drifting cloud
across the immaculate sky.

Saw a tall-ship cross the sea; for a time
it balanced on the horizon, sailed upside
down till it sank into a void. Fell asleep,
awoke just as the sun disappeared too;
a car stopped, driver offered me a lift,
but I imperially waved him off, wanted
to keep my reveries a little longer.

Travel with Bambi

I was going to Seville, it’s not far an hour`s drive- I live
in the south of Portugal- had no one to look after my dog
she came along too. It was winter she sat inside the car
resting when I walked into galleries looking at paintings
visiting churches, yet keenly aware of her left in the car.

Guiltily bought a roasted chicken with chips, she ate it all
but what she really wanted was to go for a long walk.
Walked we did through roads no one knew existed, empty
houses broken down walls what history they held; the dog
was quiet but her little tail wagged.

We saw rats, cats and stray dogs which she quickly put
in their places; finely she was tired, I had lost my way let
her lead the way back to the car, where she curled up in
the back and snored. It was late I was hungry but could
only find a grotty pizza parlour still open.

Algarvian September (Tanka)

From the tallest tree
With pale bark and lucid leaves,
Dripped pure sunlight;
Birds bathed, streaks of sunbeams
Flew west as the day ebbed.

Summer Sea.

A blue rowboat lies on its side, as a beached,
weak whale, its bottom has just been tarred
the aroma mingles with the ozone of the sea,
but when the tide comes the boat will float
and look refreshed.

Seen from the wooden pier the sea is emerald
yet crystal clear, small crabs and tiny fish feed
in the shallow, and as the sea calmly inhale and
exhale pebbles softly fizz.

The sky is the sea’s lover, they are doomed to
never embrace; no one around this morning,
the sea pulls me closer, captivating, it is hard to
resist -not to be absorbed by its beauty- and
become its prey.

Snowman

I’m going to Sapporo next year to build a snowman
and win a prize, get my picture on the news and
be interviewed by David Frost.

I will not be arrogant and look down on ordinary
people, but everyone will notice that inner glow and
say: Truly there walks a famous, yet humble man.”

For I know, as you do, come spring my snowman will
melt, and only you admiration for the famous will
prevail, until someone builds a bigger snowman.

The shyster

He was a charming young man I lent him money,
he never paid them back...disappeared.
Too smart and arrogant for his own good he ended
up in prison. When he came out he was bald and
obese I hardly recognized him. He walked past me
at the super market, I put my foot out he fell and
had nose bleed, staff came he said it was an accident
and he limped out. Never mind the money doesn’t
matter anymore, we are even now and will l leave him
In peace. He has a shop that sells handmade soap.
How do you test handmade a soap by washing your
face and if it foams it is ok? His father, a famous
musician, had spawned a futile son, in a way I’m glad
my dad was a common drunk.

Leavings

On the railway platform, trains leaving, white
steam, suitcases and a throng of thousand eyes.
Worried humanity and relieved ones too; to be
free of oppression he is leaving to seek work far
from here. Men in uniform looking important
carrying green and red little flag, waving one of
them and blowing a whistle: All onboard!”

I dislike departures there is a change, nothing
will ever be the same. People walking home in
silence, words have lost meanings. lies have
been told dignity and pride have been sacrificed
in the quest to look happy; the night is endless
full of unanswered questions that streaks through
the night avoiding answers

Melancholy

On an impulse I went to see my daughter, who lives in a hilly town
with bad roads. My ex girlfriend walked in, she is an unfinished love
story, sun tanned and beautiful, but she had been drinking, and
didn’t see me. She wanted to drink some more, people tried to stop,
her, she shrugged them off unsteadily walked out to find a tavern or
two. Later that evening I booked into a hotel and could hear her tipsy
laughter in the bar didn’t join the set, but went up to my room.
It turned out she had a room next to mine and later I endured her
having sex with a man she had picked up somewhere. Met her in
the breakfast room next morning, her casual lover had long since gone
and she appeared glad to see me. We chatted about the old days,
held hands and her eyes were sea green. We made love in my bed,
she was warm and giving as always; tremor in her hands she had
a whisky and fell asleep in my arms.

Norwegian Poem

Stormy night lesser stars were torn off
their heavenly anchorage and splashed
into the ocean, spindrift, ships ran on to
reefs and in the Ragnarock human voices
went unheard and sailor died in silence.
Black sky stars retreated into the safety
of the galaxy, the moon and sun too and
the winter night was endless, and a hush
fell on earth that looked like a snowball
on a slag heap till spring came and sheep
fearlessly grazed on steep hills fazing
the western seas on grass fertilized by
the futile hollering of bodies slashed to
fodder for crabs that grew big that year.

Ragnarock. “Doomsday”

Vanishing Islands

Classic sea, almost antique, slow swinging oars
rowing towards a balmy island with lazy palm trees.
Everything could have been so perfect, hadn’t been
for the rising sea and the diminishing shoreline.
There is a smoking mountain in the middle of
the island, soon fishermen will sit on cliffs and be
anglers, sing song remembering times when their
island had a sandy beach; but for now oscillating oar
blade dips into liquid happiness, disturbing briefly
the azure sky that preens itself on an ocean it regards
as a mere mirror.

Senryu

Perfect rose shivers
Fears being picked at dawn
And fade in a vase

Senryu

Perfect attraction
Breathless, ravenous sex
Some call it love

Senryu

Perfect marriage
One is fondly remembered
The other wears black

various poems

2009-08-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

India by Chance.

India, Madras I think, our plane landed for refuelling, I was
member of a crew going to Japan to join a new ship, this was
seen as honour, although we were low paid, (it was easy to
fool us back then.) At a hotel near the airport we’re told to
stay in our air conditioned rooms that stank of air that had
gone through hundreds of travellers lungs. Wilful and bored
I broke rank, walked outside, got lost in the mêlée of poor
people and warm humanity. Drank tea in tiny shops and read
poetry I had hidden in my heart, away from sarcastic teachers
and mocking, giggling siblings. India has changed, so have I,
now it has the world biggest middle class, I read; but the poor
still sleep on pavements, drink tea and dream timidly of being
a part of new wondrous times, while half listening to the blind
storyteller’s yarn of yore.

A Sonnet (San Suu Kyu)

Aung San Suu Kyu the fragrant daughter of a Burmese
general is a scented lovely lady. Four years ago when
she was 60 I wrote her a poem and it disappeared into
the www. It’s her dignity and silence I find compelling
I wouldn’t mind waking up in the morning and find her
face on the pillow beside me. Yes, I know call me what
ever you want, had she looked like Hillary Clinton, I
would have protested against 18 month house arrest
but my heart wouldn’t have been involved; now I feel
as I’m losing her forever and I will never meet her and
and say the three words I have waited so long to say.
She is a symbol of peace and democracy, ok so I leave
the politics up to you, all I want her to do is to see me
smile and recognize my love for her.

Lost in Athens

Athens, confusing in August, what with the heat and pollution I had spent
the night sitting on a park bench, looking at a white wall lit up by moonlight,
waiting for a movie, any movie, to begin. Forenoon, staggered into a church,
joined a queue, a priest was handing out paper bags of sweet cakes, the old
lady behind got none since she had been in the line three times. I ate a cake
and gave the rest to the lady. Grateful she ate the cakes blew up the bag and
hit it against a tree and we were surrounded by an anti terrorist squad.
The lady, a known ,would be terrorist, had been blowing up paper bags all
over town, was arrested, they were going to arrest me too since I had supplied
the bag, but since I was a tourist they let me go with a warning.

Deep in the park I found a grotto, walked in and saw baby Jesus inside a small
aquarium, he appeared like a dead angel as painted by Caravaggio, his Jesus
opened his eyes smiled like, a street urchin selling himself to pederasts, and
began masturbating, chocked I took a step back and collided with two nuns who
laughed hysterically. Escaped, found a cellar bar drank ouzo served by a woman
who looked like a horse; she was a pony that had escaped from a Swedish circus.
We hit it off I have always been fond of horses, especially since according to an
Indian chief in, an Alice Walker’s poem I have forgotten the title of, who says
horses make the landscape more beautiful. Midnight she shut her bar, bareback
we rode through Athens mysterious night.

A Famous Garden

Montreal Gardens, tame nature we want it to be, a happy place
where nothing stings bees are friendly myopic insects.
How very nice it is, hedges cut to look like camels, animals made
of flowers, and ducks that forever are taking off as they too are
made of plant stuff and never crap on green grass.
I walk in a landscape untended by man, some trees are ugly and
some are beautiful; hedges are wild growing bushes with thorns
the size of tigers claws, rabbits, foxes and boars are made of flesh
and blood and many of them die come hunting time, but I would
not trade the Montreal Gardens or the Kew’s for the real thing,
a nature that makes no compromise; will not turn self into a sort
of middleclass gardeners’ dream of an adult’s Disney land.

Dance Nocturne

August night is a hellhole, hot as the day and
wind that blows comes from a fiery furnace.
Open windows in dark interior primal the cry of
lovemaking, sounds like hate, and wrestling
sweaty, wriggling bodies produce a child that
soon will die, but first it has to go through the same
sick ritual as its parents, what we call love, but
is a primitive urge, copulation the planting of
a seedling before sinking back underground,
spent forgotten; in mass graves of boredom,
decorated with flowers that radiate the smell
of deaths to come. The Tasmanian tiger howls
to the moon, vanishes forever into an ancient
forest, but man dance and fuck the night away.

Senryu

Armageddon has gone
When it arrived I slept
Did I miss much?

Tanka (without rules)

In US, the rich live long
The poor die young,
This is quite normal
Why should the haves feed
The not haves?

Tanka

White foam on azure sea
Spindrift, brother of the cloud
Spins a magic rug
On which we can forever fly
Till fairytales come true

September Rain (sonnet)

Most days, on my way to the bar or grocer`s
I walk past an old man who sits in the shade of
an oak, on a creaky sofa that has lost its place in
the lounge. I usually stop and talk to him, he can’t
remember me from one day to the next, tells me
the same story about his parents, and where he
grew up; Portugal of yore. He isn’t here today, only
the mantle, he wraps around himself when there
is a chill in the air, is flung on the old sofa; a zephyr
whispers that he will not be back. “Will I be that old?
I ask the waning sun. I sit on a sofa on the terrace,
a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, scan the sky,
in the vale where I live and my parents too lived,
we wait for September rain.

NHSIn Alexandria (US) I met a man by the docks
he had a grows in his stomach, belly full of
water, cancer, surgery acute. I tried to raise
some money managed only a lousy hundred
dollars in crumbled unwilling notes.

Saw the man again in a club, I was feeling
sorry for him. He hadn’t cheated me,
the money was not enough, so he spent them
drinking Ca champagne; died from an illness
he did, only money could cure.

Erection

August heat I sent in a comment to an article in the Guardian,
dislike many of their readers, but it is a good paper, even if it
tends to lose its nerves and waffle a bit when the pressure is on.
I look to see if anything is written about lack of erection, not long
ago my member could carry a beach towel, a party trick for one
witness, now it will not even carry a paper napkin. I could write
and ask the woman who is married to a comedian and has a sexual
healing column in the Guardian, only I don`t like her much I think
she’s fraud; and the comedian she married stop being funny after
he dastardly divorced his first wife and married her. When working
class people are successful they tend to marry “up” that is because
they meet lots of new and well spoken people, who flatter them,
but they are wrong they will be sandpapered down lose their strength
to suit the middle class taste; rich they will be, so who cares?

Lonely Is the Famous

Once I met Cliff Richard, he came into a newsagent’s
bought a paper, a broadsheet, perhaps that makes
him an intellectual, what do I know? He nodded my
way and smiled; mind, he smiled to everyone. He is
a professional showman for him smiling comes easy.
He had plenty of hair, slim, no unsightly beer belly like
me, and I felt a sense of envy till I noticed the cape of
loneliness he wore and wished I could help moderate
the desolation that dulled his eyes, when he briefly let
down his guard. Poor Cliff, sits at home, alone, sips his
own wine and dreams of happy holidays.

August Tanka

Heat cracks the phone pole
Lost voices seep down as tears
But dries in the sun
White streaks of intense sorrow
A lover`s words go unheard.

The Successful Angler

By the river I sit a bamboo pole and wriggling
worms to thread on a hook, but I hadn’t got
around to it yet. I don’t like fishing, bloody trout.
why do they do they have to bite my hook?
I have to pull them out of the water wring their
neck and be a superman.

Others are amazed, wants to know my secret
But I have none. I let the wet worms escape in
the grass. Anglers are coming down to the brook,
I throw my bamboo into the water and escape;
fish eyes have been crowding my dreams too
long, I want to be free.

Selling Poetry

Painting exhibition tonight a seven, I came before
the show they let me leave some poetry books
behind. “Just put them there”, a man said pointing
to a shelf, I will tend to your stuff later.” In the kitchen
a cook was making elegant canapés, hungry I left.

Next day`s paper said the exhibition it had been
a great success, I rang asked if any of my books had
been sold; they said some books had gone missing,
possible stolen, none had been sold though; grateful
for small mercies, I secretly thanked the thieves.

August Night

Black, starless late August sky, a sliver of moon,
golden scythe mowing down the old, harvest
time. They had forgotten to close windows and
chill will settle in old lungs, spitting of blood.

Church bells toll the day is hot and gives nothing
away, the old priest is still on holiday, the new
one is clumsy, hasn’t had a bath and a shave for
days; unspoken murmur of discontent.

The cleric sweats, there is a smell of brandy, one
of the church’s rejects? But they do take care of
their own. This isn’t swine flu, nothing to report,
just old people dying as they must.

Tanka

Opened the curtain
Dawn’s light got stuck in my eyes
Intense brilliance
Furniture became the foe
Slept on the carpet till noon

Tanka (boredom?)

Lived in dad’s house
He had fled the August heat
I looked after it
Little to do, drank brandy
And dynamited his abode

Friends

A black cat wears a fixed smile, watches
as an express train, that has no doors,
runs into a tunnel where concrete and
water fall from the ceiling.

It is very cold the cat wears a silk scarf
and its best friend is a tame shark, that
lives in a pond, is cold too; starves also
it has bitten off the hand of its feeder.

We, the smart people, avoid door-less
trains, we fly instead and, like donkeys,
suffer in silence the indignity of airports.
where stars are tinkling cell phones.

The black cat meows it sits in a shoe
made of tiger shark leather, feels comfy
since it is raining outside also a tad sad,
the shark used to be its best friend.

Tanka

Because of love
I became an almond tree
Ugly in winters
Come spring I wear pink flowers
And strew them on your path

video

2009-08-11T11:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBRDSdjSmUU

bank Robber

2009-08-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

Bank Robber

A man, in a small Texan town, robbed its
only bank, then stuck his gun in his mouth
and took himself hostage. Outside, when
asked to free the hostage, he took the gun
out of his mouth to answer and was shot
dead by the sheriff.

senryu

2009-08-10T12:00:00.002-07:00

Senryu

As a lone street lamp
Sways in wind and winter rain
A drunk, staggers home

Senryu

Yellow bellied moon
Timid hid behind a cloud
‘Cause an owl hooted.

Senryu

Fuming August sun
Feels bitterly let down
By life it created

senryu

2009-08-10T12:00:00.001-07:00

Senryu

Destitute dog
Snoozes on the graveyard’s lawn
But leaves at sunset

Senryu

The Carob tree’s fruit
Strong elongated and black
Cotton pickers’ hands

Senryu

On a vacant beach
A bottle of suntan oil
Can be seen for miles

lovers lake

2009-08-10T11:59:00.000-07:00

Lovers Lake (sonnet)

The lake we swam in was manmade, not a big lake
consisting mostly of rainwater, insipid to bathe in,
but it didn’t have unsafe undercurrents or unsavoury
things in its profundity. In May and June the tarn
was grey/blue but as summer lasted and little water
flowed into it, the mere turned muddy and by August
it was as brown as the leaves on the almond tree.
May is a good time to fall in love Trine and I used
to sit by the loch’s shore and talk about her future,
she had great plans that didn’t include me, but she
mysteriously vanished, gone overseas it was said.
Winters with no rain followed, the lake was reduced
to a hole in the ground and used as landfill; an odd
love story had come to an end under tons of debris.

Paratrooper

2009-08-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Paratrooper

I was falling through air so dense I couldn’t see a thing, opened up
my big, black umbrella and descended in orderly fashion.
A scythe of a moon gave enough light so I could see the coastline
and the dark, menacing sea waiting to fill my lungs with water, but
by manipulating the umbrella I landed safely on the beach, folded
my collapsible canopy and got away as foam of greed tried to reach
me. To get home I had to walk through a mono cultural nightmare,
a forest of orange trees, every dismal plant the same height, dark
green and silent, they bore nothing but yellow fruit no one bothered
to pick since the land was drowning in sticky orange juice and no gin.
I was walking uphill now, downhill too but mostly up, from a hilltop
I could see my cottage; noticed light was on in the yard and in
The night air heard the desultory din of an airplane circling around
looking for a missing passenger.

when lov e strikes

2009-08-06T14:41:00.001-07:00

When Love Strikes.

It was a one sided love story naturally it pleased her to be adored
but it was not me she really wanted, I read in her smile and in
her loves sigh a story I was not a part of. And I was blind didn’t see
the subtle signs, the dreamy looks she had when she mention
another man’s name too often.

August moon at the marina, he was dressed in blazer and had a
a captain’s cap on, he looked dashing and asked me if he could
dance with her, they danced forever and I could see how happy
she was, there was plenty to drink and eat and fairy lights made
me quite dizzy and when dawn arrived I sat alone on a pollard
and saw the morning sun dance on calm water.

I had a long walk home and thought both of them had been quite
Dishonest and my anger and resentment swelled, but I could not
Help see her eyes had a shine of love, so I had to let it go

august Mood

2009-08-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

August Mood

Rumours has it that she has died and
I have not the courage to go find out.
What I remember of her goes back
fifteen years and the world is no longer
the same; especially not here, in this
transient tourist place, where no one is
remembered long and misfits settle till
they find this place is no paradise and
seek other shores for their impossible
dreams. I will rest easy in my cowardice
and do nothing. but remember her and
a summer of yore.

various stuff

2009-08-06T09:05:00.000-07:00

The Seeker

I saw a bushy tailed fox, running rabbits and
a boar in a bush landscape one can so easily
get lost in, I once did and panic stricken
stumbled about till I fell on to the main road.
I was looking for words or sentences, today
something that can make life easy, all I have
to do is to go home, write down what I have
found. Should I be so lucky!

There are many individual letters, strewn like
pebbles on my path, hang in trees like leaves
falling dawn in the wind. Clouds, on the blue
sky, made letters too, a B here and an A there,
saw a Q near the horizon; BAQ? Means little
to me, perhaps it is an Arab word for peace?
Struggled up a hill sun is heating up the day,
for lunch I’m having alphabet soup.

Drones (wingless pilot)

Breakfast was served by a man without teeth when
he smiled and wished me good morning I thought of
burnt out villages in Afghanistan strafed by a drone
steered by a pilot who sits miles away; he presses
a button, blows up the cottage where the terrorist
lives with his family.

The guilty and blameless die together, it doesn’t
matter as long as the bad guy was taken out.
The drone’s pilot goes for his lunch in the air force
canteen; in the evening, after a day’s rebel hunting,
goes home make love to his wife and play video
games with his children.

One Man in a Boat

In a rowboat on the south Atlantic sea, a vast expanse
that appeared to slant downwards and towards Argentine.
A big, beautiful seabird sits at the bow watching me, dogs
can have kind eyes, never met a bird that has, and this
particular bird was dissecting me wanted to slurp my eyes
and wondered how my liver looked like, boozy if you ask
me. It’s getting dark I see a big liner- the birds sees it too
and flies off to a richer feeding ground -, lit up like fairies’
garden party, full of people who think they are audacious,
I hear dim echo of music the ship’s band plays a bordello
tango. If the ship’s radar sees me and I’m rescued the rich
and bored will have something to talk about, applaud her
captain and when the ship docks he will be given a medal,
his name and photo in the news, but will anyone bother to
ask what the hell I, all by myself, was doing in the middle of
the South Atlantic Sea?

Senryu

An Agnostic’s nightmare
Wakes him up every night
He dreams god exist

Senryu

An orange tree
In an apple orchard
Isn’t overlooked

Senryu

Since giraffes have
Sixteen litre lung capacity
Let them sing opera

Senryu

Everyone loves
A lemon tree
In an apple orchard

Nature’s little Helper

Right there on the track, by my feet, a boa constrictor
was rolling around squishing a hare, it was not
a loving embrace. I stopped this murderous scene
and separated the two. The snake hissed balefully and
crawled into the bushes, the hare sat there stunned
not knowing if it was alive or dead. But something had
snapped in its head for it turned and attacked me; I had
to fight it off with my cane. The snake, the only witness
to my humiliation, decided I was a total idiot, it came
slithering back nabbed its prey and began crushing it to
death again. Wait there is more, an eagle swooped took
the snake, up in the air they all went, the snake had to
let go of the hare, which fell down in front of me; and
I, to avoid further indignity, killed it with my cane.

Ornaments

A big stone under a carob tree, full of holes made
by winters rain, through some of the holes plants
with tiny red flowers grew. Partly in the shade but
sunlight filtered through leaves; beings made of
day and night, danced a sinful tango on the stone.
I look around want to share this moment, but I’m
stubbornly alone, except for the carrion that flies
above me, it waits for me to stumble, fall or get
lost in the arid landscape. A work of art wanted to
take it home, the stone was too heavy and, anyway,
I could not recreate the dancing; I left it for other
walkers to find, admire the stone, but not taking it
away thinking it would look nice as an ornament in
the garden.

Senryu

Is verbal parsimony
Masquerading as haiku
Vacant poetry?

Senryu

Is, in pale moonlight,
Lilies in the garden pond
Ghosts of sailors past?

Senryu

The depraved rose
That shines on a man’s lapel
Is cast off’s at dawn.

Tanka

If you see the poor
In your leafy neighbourhood
Buy them a bus-ticket
So they can see our great land
And settle somewhere else.

Senryu

The demise’s grief... is
My total inability
To retell it

Bio

Jan Oskar Hansen is a Norwegian, but not a Norwegian poet.
he has written several collections and his poems appear in
many anthologies. Mr. Hansen has written all his work using
English words and has ended up with a language which has
The flavour of the language used and how it echoed in
narrow street and up unpainted factory walls of his youth
Mr. Hansen has no poet who was his ideal, except Hemingway
and he wasn’t a poet, so his work only echo his own thought
and he has never attempted to belong to any school or style
of writing . When you read his work you will find his grammar
and syntax different from what you are used to, but when
you realise that no attempt has been sought to please you,
I think you will enjoy his work

likely

2009-08-06T09:04:00.002-07:00

A Likely Story

She was a swan the way she tackled the swells whether on
Atlantic Sea or the Pacific Ocean, alas she was old had seen her
best days, but she was nicely painted and for us she was home.
Wouldn’t that be a nice story to tell? The owner didn’t want to
spend money crewing her, what we got were harbour rats, and
her officers had gone all the way down from new ships, to this
last chance saloon. Tired men, no way back, fuck this job up and
there is only the cold sea; so we struggled from one obscure
port to the next often in a mist of rum. Seafarer, of the fairy isle,
close your cabin door, bow your head and cry.

Yes, she was our home which we also shared with five million
cockroaches and no money for insect spray; keep the light on
man, they only crawl over you face and up your nose in the dark;
and then she was sold to the Greeks and we’re made homeless.
On the docks of Piraeus a group of men with quivering hands,
old fashioned suitcases, and suits in need of a dry cleaner, what
now my friends? Never saw them again, but when I opened my
suitcase at the B&B hotel two roaches had followed me ashore,
they were alive and quickly found dark corners, like me they had
voyages the seven oceans and lived to tell a tale.

assertivesness

2009-08-06T09:04:00.001-07:00

Assertiveness

It is very hot I have switched off the air-condition and
opened up windows, it is supposed to be hot in July.
I hadn’t wanted to buy air- cooling in the first place,
I’m too placid and get swayed to do the wrong things.
I sit on the terrace in a plastic chair that is easy to
move around I used to have had a chair of real wood
before I liked more, but it was given to someone poor;
I think about it and get upset I ought to put my foot
down and say: No! Summers past I sat in my heavy
timber chair and smoked my cigarettes, the burn kept
mosquitoes away, now it is frown upon and I dastardly
quit, but I do have a packet of fags in the desk drawer;
maybe if I get pissed off enough by the virtuous, I’ll lit
up and enjoy my August nights.

senryu

2009-08-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Senryu

Slept all night
Long dreamless hours
I feel cheated

Senryu

For my roses
Mild precipitation
Is liquid love

Senryu

After the cremation
We smoked cigarettes
Smoulder and ash.

Senryu

Uniform orange plants
In a Florida orchard camp
Covet lemon trees

a summer night

2009-08-06T09:02:00.002-07:00

A Summer Night.

A Bergman movie had an old man running in
the hall senseless, gripped by an irrational fear
of death. I sat by the bed pearls of sweat ran
down my butter coloured body, summer, but
all can hear is the ticking of the kitchen clock.
To witness a day’s passing gave me no pleasure
this insistent march towards timelessness and
there is nothing to hold on, a moment’s respite,
or love to assuage the vortex’s relentless terror.
Dog awakes, hears steps too light for my ears,
a night visitor and I’m alone and without a god.
No, not here, the cur loses interest goes back to
sleep. Night is an enemy; the shift is nearly over,
I walk out on the terrace and wait for the day.

a village in Iberia

2009-08-06T09:02:00.001-07:00

A Village in Iberia

Drove to the village where I was born, hadn’t been there
for forty years, the lane was muddy and houses deserted;
this village had been abandoned long time ago; what was
I thinking of coming here? A tree had grown right through
our cottage, roof smashed now walls were tumbling down.
Puny human dwellings, here today and gone in less than
Ten decades, the tree seemed to say. What a nostalgic fool
I’m, this idea of returning, rebuild the old house and live
here in happy retirement.

This was no longer a village but a graveyard, houses were
tombstones of a past that had nothing to offer but poverty,
glassless window resembled crosses of a defunct faith.
I sat on a stone smoking a cigarette the aroma of wafted
through the drab silence, from behind a broken wall a dog
came, young, and it looked eerily like Stella the dog I loved
all those years ago, don’t tell me she has waited for five
dog generations, to return from the wasteland of eternity
just for me?

“I’ll call you Stella”, I said and stroked the dog’s head.
She knitted her brows together as to say, “What else?”
I opened the right hand car door, Stella jumped in like she
had done this a thousand time before, drove off and didn’t
look back once, the only memory I need of my childhood,
was alive and snoozing in the seat beside me.

the cruise

2009-08-06T09:01:00.001-07:00

The Cruise

At a corner, in the inner harbour where unseemly debris
tend to float about, three men- in a rowing boat- sit and
drink beer. It is a lovely summer evening they fall asleep.
In the morning there are only two of them the third must
have gone home. The two agree that their friend was old
so they go ashore with the empty crate of beer and buy
some more beer. Midsummer now and it is good to sit in
boats, with a friend drink beer and talk about old days.

Daybreak, only one man left in the boat, the lone one
shrugs, his friends have no stamina so he lugs the empty
crate of beer for refill to the shop. This summer is endless,
the weather holds and a boy spots a rowing boat with no
one onboard except an empty crate of ale which he takes
to the shop and sell. At the bottom of the sea, in the inner
harbour where unseemly debris tend float, three old men
sway in the sea’s gentle heave in an everlasting summer.

the huntsman

2009-07-24T05:25:00.001-07:00

The Huntsman

Today I saw a bushy tailed fox, running rabbits
and a boar in a bush landscape one can so
easily get lost in, I once did and panic stricken
stumbled about till I fell on to the main road.
Today I was looking for words or sentences,
something that would make life easy, all I had
to do was to go home and write down what
I had found. Should I be so lucky!

There were many individual letters, strewn like
pebbles on my path, hanging in tree like leaves
and falling dawn in the wind. Clouds on the sky
too made letters, a B here and an A there, I even
saw a Q near the horizon; BAQ? Means nothing
to me, perhaps it is an Arab word for peace?
I struggled up a hill sun was heating up the day,
for lunch I’m having alphabet soup.

a likely story

2009-07-24T05:24:00.001-07:00

tanka

2009-07-24T05:23:00.002-07:00

Tanka (The Eclipse)

Cycling in Chennai
The day turned into night
And I was fined
Had no light on my bike
And collided with a rickshaw

Tanka (memory)

I saw Jack Dempsey
Outside radio music hall
Year 1957
He looked a true hero
And I loved America

senryu

2009-07-24T05:23:00.001-07:00

Senryu

If I saw everything
There would be no mystery
Just endless ennui

Senryu

The August moon
Stole a kiss from cold blue lips
At Necropolis

Senryu

Tango conquest
Pointless subjugation
To bordello music

the gallery owner

2009-07-24T05:22:00.000-07:00

The Gallery Owner

He had been to the doctors
nothing could be done, they are
not magicians and he had
a painting exhibition at his
gallery tonight.

Sat in his chair leaning left,
less pain that way, some thought
he had had too much to drink.

In the night he was saved
from further agony,
a sudden heart attack.

Many people came to his
funereal, a lyrical lady singer
sang about love and loss;
there were tears;

...and then the silence began.

asseertiveness

2009-07-24T05:21:00.002-07:00

senryu

2009-07-24T05:21:00.001-07:00

summer night

2009-07-19T04:51:00.001-07:00

A Summer Night.

A Bergman movie had an old man running in
the hall senseless, gripped by an irrational fear
of death. I sat by the bed pearls of sweat ran
down my butter coloured body, summer, but
all can hear is the ticking of the kitchen clock,
to witness a day’s passing gave me no pleasure
this insistent march towards timelessness and
there is nothing to hold on, a moment’s respite,
or love to assuage the vortex’s relentless terror.
Dog awakes, hears steps too light for my ears,
a night visitor and I’m alone and without a god.
No, not here, the cur loses interest goes back to
sleep. Night is an enemy; the shift is nearly over,
I walk out on the terrace and wait for the day.

a village in Iberia

2009-07-17T01:00:00.000-07:00

A Village in Iberia

Drove to the village where I was born, hadn’t been there
for forty years, the lane was muddy and houses deserted;
this village had been abandoned long time ago; what was
I thinking of coming here? A tree had grown right through
our cottage, roof smashed now walls were tumbling down.
Puny human dwellings, here today and gone in less than
Ten decades, the tree seemed to say. What a nostalgic fool
I’m, this idea of returning, rebuild the old house and live
here in happy retirement.

This was no longer a village but a graveyard, houses were
tombstones of a past that had nothing to offer but poverty,
glassless window resembled crosses of a defunct faith.
I sat on a stone smoking a cigarette the aroma of wafted
through the drab silence, from behind a broken wall a dog
came, young, and it looked eerily like Stella the dog I loved
all those years ago, don’t tell me she has waited for five
dog generations, to return from the wasteland of eternity
just for me?

“I’ll call you Stella”, I said and stroked the dog’s head.
She knitted her brows together as to say, “What else?”
I opened the right hand car door, Stella jumped in like she
had done this a thousand time before, drove off and didn’t
look back once, the only memory I needed of my childhood,
was alive and snoozing in the seat beside me.

the party

2009-07-17T00:59:00.000-07:00

The cruise

At a corner, in the inner harbour where unseemly debris
tend to float about, three men- in a rowing boat- sit and
drink beer. It is a lovely summer evening they fall asleep.
In the morning there are only two of them the third must
have gone home. The two agree that their friend was old
so they go ashore with the empty crate of beer and buy
some more beer. Midsummer now and it is good to sit in
boats, with a friend drink beer and talk about old days.

Daybreak, only one man left in the boat, the lone one
shrugs, his friends have no stamina so he lugs the empty
crate of beer for refill to the shop. This summer is endless,
the weather holds and a boy spots a rowing boat with no
one onboard except an empty crate of ale which he takes
to the shop and sell. At the bottom of the sea, in the inner
harbour where unseemly debris tend float, three old men
sway in the sea’s gentle heave in an everlasting summer.

the road

2009-07-17T00:58:00.000-07:00

The Road

The road going into a town I don’t know the name of
is only used by people too poor to drive cars and by
those who can afford cars but hate them.

Part of the road was going back to roman time it even
has steps on its verge where the road is steep, and
there are wayside cafes at regular intervals.

Animals to use this road too, mules made homeless,
turkeys that had escaped thanksgiving, ducks and
an emu that used to be a part of a variety act

The animals keep the road verge trimmed when not
begging for stale bread and cake crumbs which are
freely given, it is begging children we dislike.

Yet there is something odd about the road and its
users, it is forever leading into a town but not getting
there and everyone is going in the same direction.

Some walk fast other leisurely, yet no one stops other
for a meal and something to drink, it appears they
have a common destiny whatever that may be.

tanka

2009-07-17T00:56:00.000-07:00

Tanka

Wouldn’t it be nice?
If rats looked like squirrels
And squirrels like rats
Hunt squirrels to extinction
And have a house full of rats

ten euro

2009-07-17T00:55:00.002-07:00

Ten Euro Note

The old road into town is only used by walkers
now, weird people, who would look out of place
anywhere else and Marian Hyde, who writes
about alternative lifestyles, in the Guardian.

I had found a wallet with a twenty euro note,
photos of a posing nude woman, it belonged to
someone named Carol. I asked around, they all
knew her, a pro who often walked this way.

A handmade and of real leather and on and
impulse I added a ten euro note and wondered
if when I caught up with her she would notice,
or was my motive more self serving?

I met up with Carol at a road side pub gave her
the purse, she opened it counted the money,
said nothing, but she was talking to a footballer
who wanted to be tennis professional.

I walked where I was accosted by a Liverpool
comedian who couldn’t stop telling jokes,
I soon stopped laughing, smiling and listening,
but my disinterest didn’t matter anyway.

Carol came out, joined us, she had bought me
a beer and was in a good mood, the comedian
had fallen asleep, she knew the why of my ten
euro note and I knew of her nude pictures.

the war never forgotten

2009-07-17T00:55:00.001-07:00

The War never forgotten

It has been on my mind all day, eighteen years old
soldier died in Afghanistan, I know he loved going
there and they had giving him the spiel about making
the world safe and at his age you do not understand
death. Shouldn’t those responsible sent him to a safer
place or the British army so stretched that they have
to send boy soldiers to the front? Of course he was
working class they are the ones who do all the dying
and it is only when the sons of the upper classes die.
and poets write about it, that monuments are erected.
So many wars, so much suffering so many deaths of
the common man, the Afghan war will be forgotten
too those who died were not famous, and more books
will be written about the First World War when sons
of the aristocracy also died.

harvey's brother

2009-07-17T00:54:00.000-07:00

Harvey’s Brother.

I paused in, the shade of a carob oak, to smoke a cigarette,
when a rabbit crossed the track, stopped sat on its haunches
and sniffed the air. Do not come nearer, my furry friend
the temptation will be too great and I’ll shoot you. It didn’t,
but I shot it any way, gutted and skinned on the spot, hoped
no one heard the bang the hunting season had yet to start.
At home I cut it into nice pieces added, onion, garlic, parsley
and with butter gently fried it in an iron pan, then I let it
simmer with red wine for some time. I went into my study to
read the papers, the rabbit sat on top of my desk eating
yesterday’s poetry, nice animal grey and blue, with silky fur,
and I thought of a movie called “Harvey.” Back in the kitchen
I put the stew in a dish and gave it to the neighbour’s dog.
Harvey has gone now he doesn’t even appear in my dreams.

no title

2009-07-17T00:53:00.000-07:00

No title

Man fell into
a vat of
hot chocolate
and drowned.
His widow
looked
sweet in
her creamy
rich and
smooth
black dress.
The boss,
at the plant,
sent a wreath,
but didn’t
send, as he
usually does,
the widow a box
of chocolate.

the south American Way

2009-07-10T02:12:00.001-07:00

Vacation Time

In a field alone a carob tree has grown wide and tall
it preens a bit, but I sense its loneliness. In the next
field trees jostle for space, roots entwined happy
poverty? Yet In the noon heat it’s under the big tree
sheep come to seek shade, I joined them sat on
a stone smoked a cigarette, a ewe sneezed pointed
to a sign on the tree: “No smoking, bad for the wool.”
I spat on my cigarette, can’t risk a bushfire, opened
my lunch box, gave an apple to the ewe, and since
my coffee was black I milked it. I told my flock that
the sheep in Honduras, which give the whitest wool,
has taken the best grazing land, and no one seems to
care. They chewed and chewed, some even burped,
but no one made a comment.

the omen

2009-07-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Omen

I heard the sound of a plane looked up
a big carrier going north, it was white
and had an orange tail.

In one of its portholes my brother sat
looking out he had a serious face and
I think he was day-dreaming.

I waved he took his glasses off polished,
put them back on and politely waved
too, but I don’t think he saw me clearly.

The plane vanished into a cloud of fine
woven air, I listened to its silence till a
crowing crow in a tree broke the hush.

Paraphrase

2009-07-07T04:42:00.001-07:00

Paraphrase

Translation, easy I thought and set about
putting my English poems into Nordic suits.
Pale verses I got like watery coffee and
stale croissant, till I change the setting to
the street I grew up in where our parents
worked in fish factories, smoking herrings
or putting sardines into little tins.

Laud and healthily vulgar, my verses were
reborn, red cheeked and strong; no one
speaks like that anymore in a world where
everyone has gone middleclass, yes, even
the bloke who sleeps in a cardboard box in
the doorway of the town’s toyshop, mind
his language when told to move on.

Jyly rhapsody

2009-07-07T04:41:00.000-07:00

July Thoughts

The summer morning’s breeze is cooling and the sun
warms my face later in the day it will be the enemy
and fiercely burn to the landscape wilts and gasps.
The air is clear I can see forever or to where the last
mountain is fuzzy blue and the abstract world begins,
a place I can construct from my own thoughts

A friend sent me an email from Bombay where the city
waits for the monsoon, it is late this year, he says but
walks around with a big black umbrella just in case.
I stood on the fuzzy mountain will I see another fuzzy
one and another till I come back to the beginning which
is not where I was born, but long before.

Not even in the momentary glare of joined up humanity
in the heat of a night hotter than Bombay before rain,
and mournful and gloomy as October rain.
A startled rabbits jumps, flees along a field, escape is
its only defence; the origin of the species, what do I know,
so I let my own speculation escape.

How naive I’m the rabbit didn’t flee because of me, I look
up and see a beautiful eagle soar among silk thin clouds
that looks like shrouds for the rich and trendy to die in.
And by the sunny wall old women dressed in black sit and
knit they come alive and thrive when someone dies, when
the devil walk past them he carefully hides his limp.

And so do I, tuck my cane under my arm, like a parade
officer, jolly wish them a good morning and lift my feet
well above ground; wingless carrions, be gone.

city Jungle

2009-07-07T04:40:00.000-07:00

City Jungle

Barcelona has been invaded by wild boars,
(I do not mean footballs fans, but the real
thing) the woods are too hazardous for them,
full of men with guns. If you feed them well
they will grunt for you and let you stroke
their coarse neck hair and you will feel as one
with nature, till they crap on your doorstep.

Wild animals are now moving into towns for
safety and for food, the sparrow hawk knows
that the park’s trees are full of pray and on top
of skyscrapers the eagle nests and catch doves
and spy on the fox that hunts rabbits. Rats, cats
and dog have long known the safest place to
be is in the midst of humanity.

the last journey

2009-07-07T04:39:00.000-07:00

The last Journey

Summer day, Fred at the old folks home, made
a couple of sandwiches put them in a plastic
bag and sat out on his lives journey on an electric
wheel chair. On the hard shoulder rolled didn’t
care where as long as it was out of town and far
away from the home. He travelled till the battery
fell flat, just before a steep downhill. Fred ate his
sandwiches and drank booze from a flask he had
hidden from the nurses, released the brakes and
the journey began. Faster and faster cars swerved
drivers cursed and Fred sang a bawdy song; eighty
he must have done, as old as himself, a bump in
the road, above traffic, into the hills, into the sky
and into a haze of disbelieve old Fred flew.

on a day like this

2009-07-02T03:05:00.002-07:00

On A day Like This

The track I followed this morning in a landscape that
once was Eden but, since the gardeners were fired
had gone to seed, was dry and exuded unrelieved ire.
Leaves on bushes were rusty shaving blades, tried to
cut me up and drink my blood; neglected olive trees
tried to trip me up with sudden exposed roots wanting
to absorb my body so they, full of revulsion, could live
for hundred more years. Dead rabbits in the glade they
had been stabbed by blades of grass sharp as a mafia
assassin’s stiletto; furred creatures shivered in their
burrows. Bloodied I made it to the main road where
a red-cross lady waited, plaster, and a soft bosom that
had the aroma of motherhood, she was my friend and
lover, but, alas, as virtual as my friends in the facebook.

the brook of reflection

2009-07-02T03:05:00.001-07:00

The Brook Of Reflection

A thought, striking as a rare butterfly, sat on a twig
tried to catch it but in my hand it turned into fluff,
and I can no longer remember which colour it had.

The thought was a river I cupped my hands tried to
catch some wisdom, stem its flow and turn it into
a poem that flies like a butterfly

The rich are seen as successful and say banal things,
newspapers print their moth eaten views, we read
and thoughtlessly nod; so find me a new river then.

I wait for another thought, one that floats, like leaf of
fall in a brook, and tells of eternal truths that are as
beautiful as rare butterflies

strand of time

2009-07-02T03:04:00.000-07:00

Strand of Time

Went to the beach sat in the sun, cooling sea breeze;
but it got too hot I tried to get up could not and sank
deep into the sand; up to the neck and left to die as
mad eyed seagulls circled near.

Three bikini clad girls helped me up, brushed sand off
my back and found my cane. They didn’t giggle before
I had left, tinkling silver bells. When they are old they
will remember me.

execution

2009-07-02T03:03:00.000-07:00

Execution

Ann had killed two men, for that she was fated to
die, there had been many appeals, they were in
vain; the governor too, not a man of much emotion,
had turned his manicured thumbs down.

Ann had been in our prison, five years now and had
become a friend and it was us, her keepers, whose
task it was to end her life, this woman who felt safe
in our jail, but she had brutally killed two men.

She asked us to be in the death room with her and
we spoke to her as she was injected with lethal drugs
and slipped away. A murderess that had killed her
father and brother, but refused to tell anyone why.

I was alone in the office when the phone rang,
the governor himself on the line, it was his birthday
and if it wasn’t too late her life could be spared.
“Too late? Ok! A killer, guess she deserved to die.”

ententainers

2009-07-02T03:02:00.002-07:00

Entertainment

Where I grew up the landscape was flat, the sky wide
and Christianity, demanding. The nearest village didn’t
have a cinema but sometimes a travelling preacher
came along and the meeting hall was full.

They were good the old preachers, spoke about sin,
forgiveness and the saving of the soul. Many cried
came up to the podium spoke of their many sins and
was forgiven, many came it was a good meeting.

Our neighbour was there being saved, the farmer
told me that he was always saved but it didn’t last
long, he tended to look embarrassed for a few days,
then he was back being his old sinful self.

The farmer’s wife, Alice, stirred restless in her seat,
her eyes shone she wanted to get up there and
confess her sins; I still wonder what sins that might
have been? But the farmer, Torvald, held her back.

Back at the farm Torvald had a dram his wife sat near
him, and at milking time next morning she was half
an hour late, said she hadn’t heard the alarm clock;
the farmer didn’t get up before breakfast at eight

Yes, they had warm, caressing voices the preachers
of old, and sometimes they thundered about sin till
we deliciously shivered, and when the collection box
went around we kindly gave more than old buttons.

the death of peter pan

2009-07-02T03:02:00.001-07:00

The Death of Peter Pan

Peter Pan used to be black, he could sing and dance
and make jazz hands. He was so good that it made
sense to make him white, the world embraced him.
Everyone had a stake in him as he was transformed
into a pale ghost with a plastic nose, no one laughed
too much money at stake. Peter Pan liked children
too much for normal society to tolerate, but money
smoothed the way, but do not do it again.

Peter Pan was fragile doctors were always at hand to
give him injections that lifted his spirit and made him
feel good, and he needed more of it now that he was
middle aged, yet trying to look fourteen. His handlers
thought there was more money to wring out of his
tortured body. One, two, three, Peter couldn’t breath
collapsed in heap, and that’s a pity now that USA has
a black president and he could be himself again.

the friendship

2009-06-26T02:44:00.001-07:00

The Friendship

Sven and I were best friends sailed on the same ship together.
he as a third officer and I as a cook. We were both interested
in reading, cinema and politics, and we liked go dancing when
our ship docked. One night in Kingston, Jamaica, we met two
girls at a beach cafe, I liked my girl there was an easy repartee
between us and we laughed a lot. Back onboard Sven said my
the girl was not suitable for me, I smiled, thought it a joke.
Next day was Sunday Sven went ashore after breakfast, going
to the beach, he said, I had to stay onboard and cook dinner.
He came back in the evening, when I was ready to go ashore
and meet my new girlfriend; Sven said he was very tired and
wanted to stay onboard for the night. When I met my girl at
the cafe, she appeared startled looked around and behind me
but said nothing; told she had been to the beach all day and
was quite exhausted, the easy talk between us was gone and
the silence was awkward, so I wordlessly just got up and left.
Back onboard, Sven sat in the mess-hall drinking coffee and
reading, he looked up said halloo but continued to read;
In my darkened room I looked out, full moon and the lights
of Jamaica looked alluring; I also saw Sven go ashore again and
it was well after midnight.

2009-06-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

Senryu

I sought liberty
The starkness of full freedom
And reaped loneliness

Senryu

Total victory
Leads to corruption
Of the soul

Tanka

Hear me Palestine
When a free state again
Love your neighbour
A unhappy, rancorous land
Needs human enlightenment

a seafarer's life

2009-06-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

A seafarer’s life

I didn’t want to work in a factory and get my hands dirty,
be locked inside grey walls six days a week, as everyone
else in my street was, so I got a job selling books from
house to house; only I was so terrible shy.

The first doorbell I rang was also my last, the woman who
opened the door was kind enough but she didn’t want to
buy anything, I nearly cried, and didn’t have the courage
to press my finger on another doorbell.

Selling pictures of farms, taken from a helicopter, was
my next job, out all day taking the bus to the countryside
only the day I got there it was raining I had no umbrella
and the first farm I came to was also my last.

I took a course training to be a waiter, in white jacket
and golden epaulet I looked handsome, so my sister said.
I did well at the course and got a job at a posh restaurant;
but my hands shook I dropped plates and was fired

Finally I got a job on a tank-ship, in her galley hidden from
view, washing pots and pan, and hid from the world for
thirty years. Now, I write poetry about a sea I hardly saw
stuck inside a ship’s quarter seven days a week.

shining light

2009-06-24T09:19:00.002-07:00

Shining Light

Sometimes light in Algarve is too sharp I can see
the lot at once, the future, past and the landscape.
All is white, have I been where I’m going, or I’m
coming back from where I have not been?

I sit in the shade under a carob tree and watch ants
going down a hole with bits of twigs preparing
for a nuclear holocaust, and the catastrophe that
befalls all groups of people sooner or later.

Light is no longer white but amber and a magazine
editor says I’m Danish, yet published my poem; it
doesn’t matter that I have lost my old identity, he
could have called me a Palestinian for all I care.

worker ants

2009-06-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

Worker Ants

Parallel along the path I followed an ant track.
I joined the ants, there were many all carrying
bits of straw so I picked up a piece of dry straw,
and man was it heavy. The other ants laughed
said will get the hang of it in time, soon you’ll
be able to carry two. Maybe four too, I rashly
said. No, that will break your back.

I kept falling behind as I timidly scanned the air
for predatory sparrows and wondered if rabbits
eat ants. Where their track ends by a hole, their
home, I threw my burden to the ground and
jumped back on to my own path. Hard work kills
the soul, and all you get at the end of it is cheap
pocket watch.

writing folks

2009-06-24T09:18:00.000-07:00

Writing folks

It took three hours to drive up to Lisbon to meet
a group of poets and writers, I had wanted to take
the train, but my wife wanted me to drive since my
car has got air condition. Splendid lunch and much
wine was drunk, eager talk, if a bit unsteady, about
world literature and so on. It also took three hours
to drive home, not that I’m complaining, it is nice to
meet people who write, but doing so sober is a bit
of a strain; I think I’ll take the train next time.

the scent of love

2009-06-22T10:52:00.002-07:00

The scent of Love.

The tank-ship’s deck was glistering red,
the sea was a translucent, marine blue
mirror which only function that day, was
to mirror the sky; existential love made
the ocean’s ozone, sweet to inhale.

The tankers empty tanks had not been
aired, a build up of gas that had nowhere
to go. Boom! The ship split open like a tin
of tuna, and the sea foamed as she sank
to where darkness is constant.

Soon the sea settled, as champagne in
a glass not drunk, the sea mirrored
the sky again as witness by an albatross,
and the Pacific Ocean’s love for the sky
was as always so sweet to inhale.

uprising

2009-06-22T10:52:00.001-07:00

The Uprising

My shoes were made in China and therefore have no heels
and that is ok, when the Chinese take over the world I’ll
not be taller than anyone of them and be “inconspicuous,”
I misspelt that word seven times before I got it right.
the Iranian middle and upper class youths do not accept
the result of a recent election, mainly because their man
didn’t win, and since they are the sons and daughters of
the elite, they just might get their way...and yes, it doesn’t
make much different for the poor they are a minority in
a middle class world. Me, I find this happening a bit sinister,
planned, I would have said, now that the western world
should concentrate on giving statehood to the Palestinians.
It may be some time to wait before the Chinese Mao’s
children are here to save us from our sham democracy, and
that’s why I find it difficult to believe that the children of
the 1979 revolution want to sell their country for western dross.

old repentances

2009-06-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Old Repentances

The track I follow, in the landscape of bushes with
leaves sharp as shaving blades, mainly because it’s
void of people and only used by sheep their guardian
and executioner didn’t give me peace today.

The lock, on the box where unwanted memories are
stored, sprung open and before I could stuff it all in
again and repair the lock they were all over my mind
producing thoughts and regrets that made me suffer.

I’m my worst critic, merciless, give no quarter, whip
myself till I admit I’m the scum of the earth. But with
the unwanted back in the box I giggled, I sometimes
sound like a pompous old head teacher.

paris poetry

2009-06-22T10:50:00.001-07:00

bonjour
votre beau poème est sur le site http://www.poetesaparis.fr
rubrique ESPACE POETIQUE OUVERT

YOUR POEM IS ON TE SITE
PLEASE LOOK AT : ESPACE POETIQUE OUVERT

once an ocean

2009-06-18T09:38:00.001-07:00

Once an Ocean

Ernest, the marine biologist, is walking with me
today my old friend died many ago, but he is in
my thoughts I listen as he tells how this place,
where we walk, used to be the floor of a sea.

Algarve blue sky, evergreen bushes and dry clay
soil and I try to think of myself as a lobster walking
in the seaweed, and the circling eagle a shark, but
a fleeing rabbit breaks the illusion.

So everything disappears, our passing lasts a cosmic
second, all that has been written will be forgotten
new religions will appear they will tell of love, yet
ban or kill those who disagree.

That knowledge is not an excuse to roll over and
do nothing, we have to do our best speak for those
can’t, defend those who have lost their homeland
and try free ourselves of bigotry.

Ernest has gone back to Saragossa to study drifting
seaweeds, and where old track ends my dog sits and
wait for me, she had no heaven to go to, so we both
drift along on my dreams.

end of the line

2009-06-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

End of the Line

Old man, yes, you who walk near the houses on the pavement
down the street using a cane is there something wrong with
your hips? Hey! Old man when you see a group of youngsters
standing by the corner you feel fear, and if they make fun of
the way you walk you pretend not to hear only try to walk faster.
It didn’t used to be like this you looked the world in the eye as
you broad shouldered swaggered down the street of life, no one
dared to challenge you then; you didn’t know it was going to end
like this. Hey! Old man your life is behind you and your future is
the grave, and your walk often takes you to the cemetery where
you often go and read the names of people you used to know.
You live in pain- tell me way- most of the time, watch irrelevant
news TV, while drinking a little whisky. Every Saturday you go
the café and drink beer with other old men, only there are so few
of them now. Hey! Old man with a foot in the grave, in your dream
you are still virile and when you wake up you feel young until you
see the cane or your face in the unforgiving mirror. Yet you go on
living your loveless life in the hope of seeing another spring and
see the blossoming of the almond tree.

summer precipitation

2009-06-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

Summer Precipitation

The cup of old sadness is full; there is little I want to
know, the banal pilfering of politicians stirs me not
into moral ire, they did what people try doing daily
if they can, small time thieving we understand and
therefore can be virtuous about it, while big banks
crimes are too complex and are quickly forgotten.
Summer rain the earth smells of freshly dug graves,
don’t pick the flowers in the glade though, they are
for June weddings and not to be wasted on old men’s
graves. Spill not, drink your hemlock; get up walk in
the rain listen how nature sings and greet s you, all
while you remember a June bride gone. The nymph
had blond hair and green eyes, red lips that tasted of
rose’s dew, till bad magic turned her into a housewife.

failed coup

2009-06-15T09:31:00.002-07:00

Failed Coup

The rabbit, a man scared off the glade on his morning walk,
attacked and tickled him to death. Their leader shouted:
”Today, the forest tomorrow the world, we are not scared
by man or beast anymore. Flushed by success the leader
ordered a morning raid on the nearest village, he wouldn’t
listen to wiser rabbits that didn’t think it was a good idea.
It was a bloodbath, dogs are not ticklish nor cars or sturdy
farmers with shotguns, the rabbits’ leader ordered retreat
left his fallen comrades behind and the village feasted.
Deflated the rabbits met in the glade where a noble rabbit
of the famed Leporidae family explained that being scared is
not cowardice but survival technique it allows them to live
and breed. “We are not cowards, but gregarious burrowing
mammals” became a new slogan; soon the forest was full of
happy rabbits and sweet bunnies that quickly run off when
hearing man or barking dog, and live to breed another day

june picture

2009-06-15T09:31:00.001-07:00

June Picture

In the enchanted dell, where grass is forever green,
I saw a carpet of summer birds, yellow as real butter
before it was made low fat to suit a slimming fad.
They took off, dispersed flew slowly on silent wings;
amongst thorny bushes that are seven hued green,
waiting for a lumbering troll to pass.

Last time I saw a yellow summer bird, it was sallow,
late September it had lived too long, sat on the sill
rain fell and it as soaked; opened the window to let
it in, could sit by the fire till spring. Too late, in my
hand it turned into fluff, blew dust off my hand and
I saw each particle disperse and fly on silent wings.

Butterfly (summer bird.)

stygian rhapsody

2009-06-09T10:48:00.001-07:00

Stygian Rhapsody

It struck me late at night that I could not remember
how my house looked like inside, and if I didn’t, how
could I find my way to the loo? But I could recall
the inside of every other house I had lived in, opened
doors and was met with intimacy, but the last door
I opened led nowhere; saw a blank screen that had
yet to be written on. I opened my eyes the darkness
undulated with a tiny ball of light, residue of the day
gone by. I tried to get up, but my lethargy was so
immense I could not move, feared I had had a stroke.

Sweat ran down my forehead across my mouth I felt
as I was going to drown and was ready to confess to
anything. Yes, sir I killed them all. Finally I was able to
move an arm; flex my fingers, and life seeped back
into my body. I got out of bed, but since I didn’t know
the inside of my house I collided with the wall and fell
back into bed again. I didn’t want to open my eyes but
had to if I was going to conquer my fear of darkness;
reluctantly I opened them again dawn had crept in and
I heard bird song there had been a stay of execution.

the amazement

2009-06-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

The Amazement

The track I walked, in the thorny landscape, was full of loose
stones that kept coming up from ground trying to trip me up,
where the track narrowed amongst unkempt trees, boughs
tried to push me over, and in the undergrowth I heard snarls
of animals too vicious and hideous too appear in the flesh.
Overcast day and the wind that blew had ice on its breaths,
I shivered alone in the enmity of a landscape gone feral.

But I staggered on unwilling to give into phobias and fear,
suddenly stones went subversive and the path was soft as
a carpet, unseen animals disappeared and trees welcomed
me with fluttering leaves; even a love hungry zephyr
whispered sweet words. In a shimmering glade- smooth as
a rich man’s lawn- a plum tree, full of juicy fruit, I picked and
ate some; they tasted of magic and sweet marvel.

Dizzy with pleasure I sat on a stone, formed by ten million
years of rain, like a throne, saw fauns dance to Pan’s flute and
swim with sunrays and moon waves that hadn’t made it home
and had to wait for night, and mother moon to come pick them
up. Fell asleep when I woke up a boar, with her seven piglets,
drank water by the lake’s far shore. White clouds on blue, time
to go home and remember not speak of this to anyone.

a democratically elected dictator

2009-06-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

A democratically elected dictator

He’s a modern democratic dictator he quells dissent
not by sending in the army but by dispensing cash
and corrupting his adversaries to death.
He is a seducer of men, who wish they were like him,
money to spend, facelift and an orgy of women,
adolescent they dream and let him corrupt them.
I see his face a clowns grinning mask, his eyes partly
hidden in excess skin the surgeon’s knife has yet to
remove, and behind the mask there is another one.
and another, a Russian doll of masks than ends in nothing.
This man has no soul and he thinks he is going to
live forever with his new hair, but his heart is seventy
and more years. This great Mediterranean country has
lapsed into utter vulgarity, this country of elegance and
style, pasta and parmesan, how could it come to this?

real art

2009-06-06T02:00:00.001-07:00

Real Art

I woke up a blue neon light outside my hotel room
kept lightning up my space, I looked out and saw
a man in a cafe sitting by the counter eating a burger,
he had hat on and looked ca 1948.

Knew I was in an Edward Hopper painting but didn’t
want to be a part of his bleak cityscape of lone men
who live in cheap hotels and drink coffee in a cafe,
whose clientele are lost soul like me.

I splashed water in my face adjusted my tie put my
hat on and walked out, a cab drove by looking for
a fare, opened the cafe’s door, the man with hat had
gone, I drank coffee and ate a doughnut.

The Obama Speech

2009-06-05T05:18:00.001-07:00

The Obama Speech

The great orator spoke in Cairo, told those
who had lost their land to stop warring and
seek a peaceful solution.

He told those who had done all the stealing,
from the bereft, to stop taking more and be
a bit more helpful.

Yes, our Obama knows how to do the talking,
but I don’t think the land grabbers give any of
it back to those they took if from.

transformation

2009-06-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Transformation

She used to brush natural curls out of her hair
wanted it to be straight and in a pony tail,
stayed out of the midday sun, bad for the skin,
she said fighting an impossible and tiring battle
against nature.

But all this has changed now, her hair is curly
she goes with me to the beach, my tan is envious
of hers. Obama is a hero, because she no longer
has to hide in the shadow of white pretence and
can be her lovely self.

make-believe

2009-06-03T06:43:00.002-07:00

Make-believe

The olive tree had three trunks Siamese triplets?
It was old and gnarled, some of its branches had
no leaves and it was lost in an abstract cosmic
dream and not aware of its surround; I touched
the perennial and thus gave it soul.

A mild breeze blew, a fluttering of leaves and
the three could see the blue sky where a silvery
bird flew northward glinting in the sun. It could
also see how cute other trees looked, aware how
plain it was dawn dew dripped from leaves.

wished it could be a cosmic dream again and
no sense of time and place. But look, its tears
had fertilised the ground and around its trunk
flowers so rare they had still to get a Latin name,
sprung up from red/rusty soil.

They are my creation I have created beauty out
of my distress, the plant whispered as in awe.
My children, must shade them from the hot sun
and bitter winter rain. Vanity be gone, and see,
on its naked branches green leaves grew,

Eternal screen

2009-06-03T06:43:00.001-07:00

Eternal Screen

It`s too hot to go for a walk, I stare at a blank screen
Its afternoon, in my cabin and silence is intrusive,
a low one toned hum of doom.

Intense white screen, but when looking closer I see
myriads of tiny black squares, a mask that will not
let go of its dark secret.

I try to rip it open with a volley of words, but they
bunch back, and reduced to banality of what have
been overstated a million times.

Exhausted I erase words send them into the bleak
world of Delete, a place where surplus words and
emails are sent to shuffle in obliquity.

I read the news 228 people have fallen into the sea,
hasty words fell out of them too and into silence.
Cooling breeze, must get out and hear the day sing.

nice guy

2009-06-03T06:42:00.000-07:00

Mr. Nice Guy

Saw her stacking shelves at the supermarket, my instinct
was to take her in my arms, away from all this, and ask
her marry me. But I remembered we had been married
before, how she had wanted a divorce because I had no
ambition, a mere short order cook, and how the court
secretly had sided with her, and treated me with dislike,
and yes, I had to leave out flat. Later she married a man
who sold Mercedes cars, he wore a suit to work and had
shiny fingernails, but he used too much au de cologne of
the type who doesn’t bath often and rarely changes his
underwear. He stole money from a the till and ended up
in prison, and me? I’m a manager now of a burger bar,
perhaps I should offer her a job for all time sake?
No, that would be rubbing it in, so let her stack shelves.

haiku

2009-06-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

Haiku

Sunset
Empty asphalt road
Black mamba

Haiku

Lyrical silence
In our domestic landscape
Rabbits don’t cry.

Haiku (after a painting)

Brown city puddle
Mirrors an abject Sunday sky
Stray dog sees itself

too late

2009-06-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Too Late For Love

Knock on my door, she stood there, the woman
who had caused me untold sorrow, to tell me of
her love for me.

After all this years, lone night and despair, now
that love is a tiresome cliché, how pathetic she
looked in her red raincoat.

I closed the door, walked into my enchanted
garden, where yesterday appears in soft focus,
and played Sibelius for my pet rabbits.

poet laureate

2009-06-03T06:39:00.000-07:00

Poet Laureate

I’m back on a trail I used to walk thirty years ago,
now I use a cane and have no dog to keep me company.
The trail is still used by sheep, droppings on ground and
wool on bushes, and I’m not a pathfinder. So Ann Duffy is
a poet laureate, and she also has a living room full of pillows,
I read; I sent her a poem once, so now I can boast that
I have been rejected by a poet laureate.

Thirty years of refutations, and now I’m as old as
the great, still living Irish poet, I ought to be more
humble and take up golf, tried it once it was so boring
that I undressed, it was a hot day, and I swam in a lake
near hole nine and was banned for life, which was
meaningless since I wasn’t a member, too expensive,
but had climbed over a fence to get in.

A tiny rabbit on the track, it looks confused I pick it
up it is incredible beautiful, can’t take it home though,
put it under a bush and hope it finds its own lair.
I look up to the sky the noon sun is glaring at me
as poetic carrions circle low looking for a chair, in
the academic glade, to sit on. Time for lunch so I leave
this thorny landscape to its own lyrical silence.

failed musician

2009-05-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

Failed Musician?

My uncle died, he was on holiday in Piraeus when a pig fell off
a balcony, he left a piano and since his wife didn’t want it in her
house, mother took it, only because it would lend an impression
of high culture, and no one else in our neighbourhood had a piano.
I played on it day and night, picked up tunes on radio and played
them on the piano; people where impressed, mother too, but she
needed her rest worked long hours at a canning factory; one day,
coming home from school, a big empty space, I cried mother gave
me Danish pastry, they were a day old but still tasty. I’m glad she
sold the piano, though I might have ended up a restaurant pianist
driving from town to town playing evergreens as background music
for bored diners

tre talk

2009-05-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

Tree Talk.

Tomorrow, Monday I will go for a long walk in
the bush landscape, so dense that if a boy gets
lost he can disappear forever.

I like Mondays weekend is restrictive walking
about in the boredom of no work, I used to milk
cows, they do not wait for Mondays.

I have many friends in facebook, they send me
picture of themselves playing guitar or football,
and I have no idea who they are.

It’s important to have many friends, something to
do with networking, but I rather have few friends
I can just talk to without preconception.

I hope for rain tomorrow I like sauntering in
the rain, the earth smells good after a good soaking
and makes the old landscape look new

Once I wanted to be a poet, an oak was a tree to
wax lyrical about; now perennials are friends
that kids me about my old passion.

Don’t overdo it I tell them, I might just find
the words which describe you so well that people
will come; chop you down to preserve you.

2009-05-24T07:30:00.001-07:00

Camera Angle

We have
been
to Rome,
look here’s
a photo of
St. Petersburg’s
square.
Isn’t that’s
in Russia?
Is it?
Sorry,
we have
travelled
all over
Europe
been so
busy taking
pictures,
never had
time
to see
a thing.

4 senryu

2009-05-24T07:29:00.001-07:00

Senryu

Stunning was sunset
But they hadn’t brought a camera
So it didn’t exist

Senryu

Beautiful horses
Cameras clicked like rainstorm
No one saw the day

Senryu

Busy taken photos
I’ll have to see what I saw
When coming home

Senryu

Barefoot on the lawn
We danced with dawn’s shy light
No photo needed.

the nap

2009-05-24T07:28:00.001-07:00

The Nap

It’s time you wake up. I have slept long dreaming.
Yes, you have been sleeping too long most of your
life has passed by and you know little of this world,
how it works, not like your talk of equality which
cannot exist other than as cosmetics the icing on
the cake called democracy.

You must wake up now I don’t want you to go to
your grave a fool who thinks animal rights is a big
deal; yet eating beef; these obsessions with rights
belong to the well off middle class who can afford to
eat expensive no meat food, and too dense to know
that if you are poor, you eat cheap burgers

Wake up sentimental dreams, do become a man
your age, your mother has died and so has your dog,
tears are misplaced in the cold light of truth, so come
now you are not a boy, life is not fake, poetry made
to make you maudlin and forgiving; I want to die
bravely like Saddam Hussein did.

Wake up now do not pretend to be asleep to avoid
the final truth which is what you long have know
to be true, your mother knew that and on her death
bed refused to play the conventional game of tearful
farewells they thought she was cold, but she had
nothing to regret, she lived life her way, so you can do.

No, no. no for you who read this I want a beautiful
death with candlelight on my side, not for me
the truth of sobriety, what so wrong with a little show
flowers and moist eyes. a mahogany coffin is much
classier that one made of cardboard, style, means
a lot to me, I was never an emotionally sober man.

peaceful beginning?

2009-05-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

Peaceful Beginnings

On an island on a big ocean generals walk about
and think they have killed a dream and they call
sullen silence peace. The vanquished will go on
dreaming till they get what they want, perhaps by
then their vision has become a suffocating dream.

Nearer home, in the Middle East, the mighty are
trying to kill a dream by bulldozing it, they too
had a vision and should know that dreams cannot
be eradicated. Now they want power, and call it
peace; but there are those who call it a nightmare.

Of course in the immeasurable future there will
be colossal amounts of peace, the sun will cross
the heavens and the world will heal in silence; till,
on the strand of pristine sand, the sky and sea give
birth to an odd creature and a scream is heard.

the peacemaker

2009-05-21T06:17:00.002-07:00

The Peacemaker

The animal stood in the corner of the room chewing on
a bail of straw, dung on the floor; a woman, with a bucket,
came and collected it for the rose bushes. We know Israel
has nuclear weapons, but unless we are drunk and in bad
mood we are too polite to mention it; so I left the senate.
Stood on a bridge, threw tiny rocks into the river, a yacht
passed, and her navigator was hit; collapsed, but got back
on his feet again and waved to me with his fist

The Israeli army had blocked the entrance to the bridge and
Hamas, dressed in stylish black and silk scarves, the exit,
I didn’t know how to end this poem so I invented the phone,
it rang, Obama, he didn’t know either, I held up the phone
so both parties could hear his voice and they backed off long
enough for me to get away home to my thistle valley, where
eagles fly, sheep bleat, and no one pays attention to biblical
prophesies and self igniting bushes.

cylindrical mirrors

2009-05-21T06:17:00.001-07:00

Cylindrical Mirrors

Crossing the raven waters of a deep fiord
he saw a light and fell into a dream, woke
up on a strand that had bleached sand, sun
and turquoise sea, knew he had been given
a second chance.

He looked in the mirror had not aged at
all and wondered if there was a painting
hidden in some dusty attic, he smiled just
kidding, but his image didn’t smile there
was too much to remember.

Last year he went back to the small town
where the fiord arm ends in five rivers,
people there had never heard of him, it was
so long ago, no memory of him existed in
anyone’s mind, as he had never existed.

The future had arrived yesterday, nothing
for him to worry about, as clear, warm light
cascaded through the window; he lived in
a handcrafted kaleidoscope, an optical toy,
yet he was free of false illusions.

song contest

2009-05-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

Eurovision Song Contest

The young man Rybak, he used to be- perhaps
still is, - one of Santa’s little helpers, has made
Norway proud winning The Song Contest.

After years of walking on the unfriendly plateau
of null points, good to come in from the cold
hear applause, hearty laughter instead of derision.

Nationalistic steel in every Norwegian eye, we
can walk tall again under our banner that snaps
so rude, amongst bluebells, on days of May.

So let’s march behind Santa’s lad to the top of
the mountain white, and poke his eye, the boy
who won, for Norway, Europe’s great admiration.

man tree

2009-05-21T06:15:00.002-07:00

Man & Tree.

There was a spruce tree in the forest, he had
watched it grow from spindly sampling to
a handsome young tree, and thought of it as
the son he never had.

But shortly before Christmas it disappeared
he went to the market in town where they sold
hundreds of trees for those who want the real
thing, but couldn’t find it there.

After the festivities he found his tree on a dump,
green needles gone, now it was brown, he took
the dead plant home and used as kindling to lit
the fire on cold, soggy days.

senryu

2009-05-21T06:15:00.001-07:00

Senryu

Give me a free beer
You fiddler of drink optics
Petty is your greed

Tanka (Bilderberg)

Bilderberg meeting
Where the strong and unelected
Decide our future
Away from democratic tussle
And time wasting elections

senryu

2009-05-15T10:33:00.001-07:00

Senryu

As the night thickens
And darkness tranquilises life
Dawn is welcomed.

Senryu

Banality of greed
To shop for the sake of buying
Not for what you need

Senryu

Fear not the dead
They are only a copy
Of your future self

Senryu

Those who work long hours
Feel holly and virtuous
But get arthritis

from teheran with love

2009-05-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

From Teheran with Love.

Side by side the beaus stood, hooded and
silent, they no longer heard charivari chants as
prayers on pale, shivering lips abruptly ended.

They had been warned, their love was banned
by the law of the land and by straight people’s
norm, and now forsaken even by their families.

They had tried to conform, but their bond was
too strong. Two Iranian men twist in the wind,
will their mothers, when alone, pray for them?

sit by the river

2009-05-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Sit By the River

The dripping tap, ticking clock, the long nights
when unwanted memories surface on gloomy
waters, and my past creeps nearer and future
hides in a Saragossa mist, together they push
me nearer a non existence. Sad morning light,
rain falls like an old man’s tears when all ships
have sailed and he is stranded on the island he
shares with snakes and scorpions knowing they
will soon eat him. Driftwood in the sea of life,
I never was a master of my destiny, but I can do
a last brave thing, walk into the Savannah night
and eaten by lions or, with my luck, wolfed by
hooting hyenas, so I will stay where I’m, my
last act of cowardice, sit by the river and wait.

guardian angel

2009-05-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

Guardian Angel?

During the night the temperature fell, ice everywhere
I was in a polar kaleidoscope of glittering frost crystals.
Under duvet and blankets I shivered uncontrollably,
then the arctic cold left, as quickly as it had come, and
I fell into an exhausted slumber dreamt I was holding
on to a gentle hand felt a surge of strength seeping in
to my body. Feebly, I gave into this sweet illusion and
beautifully slept. Woke up, when dawn’s light came
through window shutters, and saw an angel leave my
bedside. Scornfully said to myself:” Stop these childish
fantasies you are a man now and have better things to do”

blowing in the wind

2009-05-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Blowing in the Wind

Wild oats and thistles covered the track swiping
at my legs as a punishment for old sins I thought
safely forgotten in the misty dale that makes
wars look romantic adventure that separated men
from boys where the trespasses are buried under
flowers and manly never referred to unless you
are a soppy fool who betrays old soldiers secrets.
The cottage was still there but trees around it had
grown so big it could not be seen from the road.
the door was easy to open the window had layers
of spiders’ webs as curtains made the room shady
in the noon heat. In the intense silence the past
came thundering alive, so many grave not visited
and tears of those betrayed ran down my chin,
a lake of clarity, a mirror I couldn’t run away from
I punched the stone wall, bloody knuckles, I had
Spilt much blood but never my own I savoured
the pain, stood on an ancient table throw a rope
over a beam, when my dog barked wanted to come
in from the heat…At ease now I walked back to
the road and drove home.

argetntinean sojourn

2009-05-12T12:25:00.001-07:00

My Argentinean Sojourn

I left my ship in Buenos Aires wanted to buy a horse
cross the pampas climb the Andes, into Chile, I had
paid for the horse and took a picture of it too when
a revolt came a junta of generals had taken it upon
themselves to save the country, and since I was not
one of them I was sent packing back to Europe.

Forty years ago now, bet the horse is gone, or some
bits of it can be found in old tins of dog food; still got
the picture though, it’s faded but shows I could have
been an adventurer if it hadn’t been for the officers
hell bent on playing with their many toys and saving
the myth of endless parades, military bands and flags.

august mystic

2009-05-12T12:24:00.003-07:00

August Mystic

Sunlight flooded through the open window
it filled every room till I swam in light and
had to seek refuge in a troll’s shady tavern.

Towards evening the light surged back to
the horizon, left my landscape to gasp alone
in a night that had eradicated tall mountains;

till moon pushed aside clouds and bathed
skeletal trees and dead flowers in layers of
silver that dripped and became shiny lakes.

august mystic

2009-05-12T12:24:00.001-07:00

old lovers

2009-05-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

Old Lovers

If I tell you I love you I do so of self interest
but being with you is better than being alone
so I tell you lies every day and I see your
smile, which warms my heart and I think how
lucky I’m to have found you.

I know very well that had I told you the prosaic
truth you would have been so disappointed and
I hate to see you cry, because you’re the only one
I have met who do not tell me how to behave,
what suit to wear, and I adore you for that.

I know you like to go dancing dressing up and
all those things, and I go with to art places and
pretend to like what I see, but I’m watching you
because you look so lovely when talking about
these things and know I’m a lucky man

Here, the other day you told me we have been
together for fifty years and asked for flowers
but I laughed because time could not run that
fast, I pride myself to have a keen eye and you
look as sweet as on the day I first met you.

observed when buying onions

2009-05-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Observed when buying Onions

The massive grey cloud on the sky looked like a tiger shark,
open jaw ready to strike it had one shiny eye, and tore off
a piece of heaven’s floor. I saw shocked angels running about
one lost his harp; it fell like a comet down to earth, and landed
with a thunder on the frozen wasteland of Siberia.

The shark had tried to eat more then it could possible swallow,
it fragmented with a limp bang and fell to ground as lumps of
rain. When I looked up again the hole on heaven’s floor, had
been filled in with fluffy clouds, but the angels evening choir
had to do without the harp’s sweet and lyrical tunes.

the drumbeat of war

2009-05-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Drum Beat of War.

Smoke came from the mountain pass troops marched to the border,
general mobilizing declared, the old spoke of wars of yore the young
stopped slouching and looked around for the enemy. Ministers and
king wore uniform, laws were passed against a fifth columnists and
against anyone who had a different opinion than the norm; although
many were arrested no one was tried. War cry had brought order from
the chaos of democratic peace.

The jingoistic fever lasted all summer. a good time for marching and
military parades, women wore flowers in their hair ready to kiss loved
ones goodbye. Fall rain, the north-westerly blew cold and war didn’t
happen, leaders congratulated themselves for winning the peace, and as
big snowflakes slowly fell so did our realisation that we open eyed had
marched into an open prison and could no longer travel anywhere, in
our country, without a passport.

...and sweet was my love

2009-05-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

….And Sweet was My Love

I had met her in the town where I went to school,
about an hour train ride from my town. She was
very sweet and I had met her parents they lived in
a big house that had a bathroom, a novelty for me,
mind I used the public baths near my home.

A Saturday she came to visit my mother, who
didn’t say much, it was like she was feeling shy,
and didn’t offer us anything to eat, my girlfriend
and I went to the movie and when we came back
mother had gone to bed and left us to it.

I had to tell my girl that the sofa we sat on, was
my bed and that I used a sleeping bag; however
we had a spare woolly blanket, I put it over us
to keep warm. Side by side, if not by Sondheim,
we cuddled and fell youthfully asleep.

We awoke early I took her down to the railway
station so she could use its facilities, we also
breakfasted there, in silence, I had realised how
poor I was, she was shocked and wanted to go
home, and thus, forlornly a love affair ended.
.

the odium

2009-05-08T02:13:00.000-07:00

The Odium

Dead roses in a vase on my desk I moved
them away and remembered seeing my
brother, through a door ajar, getting up from
his chair, open the drawer where my pipe
collections were, and break them one by one.
A strange smile played upon his lips, and
I said nothing, didn’t know he hated me so.
He was the one with many friends, he was
the one who sat in the middle of the room
telling jokes at my expense while I sought
the corners. When he died, the chapel was
full of his friends the spoke so well of him,
but I sat there dry eyed all I could think of,
was my bloody meerschaum pipes

road works

2009-05-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

Road Works

The loose pebbles off the road I picked
were cold and unwilling, but as they
warmed in my palm they thawed and
when I opened my hand they were sand
of time and told a story of a future strand
washed by swells of seas not yet born.

Life lines in my hands are mere blinks
when measured by cosmic seconds, yet
worriedly I asked: “shall I not be there
and witness a birth?” This silence, so
telling , is free of sentimentality, but it
whispered about blameless eternalness.

winter of discontent

2009-05-08T00:05:00.002-07:00

Winter of Discontent

It was a bitterly cold time, 1949, coal was dear we had to
let the fire die out at night, killer frost lurked everywhere.
The harbour froze over and in the morning frost smoke
filled the town like a ghost seeking deadly vengeance.
In the morning there was partly dried blood on the knee
of my long underwear, mother said I had to wear them to
school as she didn’t have a spare once; my whole being
shock in repulsion. At school I took them off threw them
away…and it was unbearable cold without them on.

Mother scolded me for throwing good underwear away,
just for a drop of blood. I insisted on sleeping on the floor,
in the morning I had fever, doctor came, pneumonia; and
I was sent to hospital. When mother visited, she tried to
kiss me but I turned my face away, she looked hurt, but at
that moment I hated her for what she had done. When I came
back from hospital, the frost had eased and given way to
a shy spring, but I insisted on sleeping on the floor. I never
kissed mother again except when she lie dying, but when
I bent down to kiss her, on the forehead, she turned away

chair person

2009-05-08T00:05:00.001-07:00

The Chair Person.

The woman, who was chairing the meeting, wore a flowering
dress of an expensive material, she wore much gold and with
her tan she looked almost like a rich gipsy lady only less elegant.
It wasn’t that she was very fat but her lips where huge, too red
and octopus greedy and her fingers, when resting on the table
looked like guillotined, corpulent men, blood still dripping and
when lesser charges shared it looked as she mentally hurried
them on so she could speak.

There was something insincere about her, maybe she didn’t
have problem, but this was the only place people tolerated her.
Beautiful summer evening windows open, I heard bird song,
sun was setting into an azure sea. at home I had a cold bottle
of white wine waiting. Must have dreamt there was a grave
silence in the room, I looked up the woman was glaring at me
waiting for me to share something, I looked up to the roof and
counted the beams and thus the meeting ended