Arabic poem Cordoba 1031

Arabic Poem
Translated from Old Portuguese

With her I pass nights as a thirsty,
Little camel that fears being refused
The teat;

as in an orchard when someone inhales
sweet aroma, has a vision and wishes
For more;

what I’m not, however, is an abandoned
animal taken to grazing in other peoples
garden.

Ps I feel that “baby camel isn’t quite right”
Pegueno: small, little, short and so on
See original poem

IBN FARACH
Year 1031
Cordoba

E assim passei a noite com ela,
Como o pequeno camel sedento
A que o néscio impede de mamar

Tal como pomar
Onde alguém como eu
Apenas aproveita da visão e olfacto

Que eu não sou
Como os animais abandonados
Que tomam os jardins como pastos

tanka (accident)

Tanka (accident)

Miserable morning
Ominous was the forenoon
Motorway pile up
She wasn’t coming home for tea
A scream echoed through the night

tanka (accident)

Tanka (accident)

Miserable morning
Ominous was the forenoon
Motorway pile up
She wasn’t coming home for tea
A scream echoed through the night

arabic poems

Arabic poem from the collection
Ladrôes De Prazer. Arabic/ analuzes

Inconceivable weeps
The poetry of an Arab
Lost amongst infidels

IBN Baqi
Ca 1034


Choram as rimas de poesia
Por um árabe perdido
Entre os bárbaros


The is the first poem of the collection
I find it quite apt really, nothing much
has changed since then

tanka dogs

Tanka (dogs)

Paul’s dog’s a vegan
Barks like his master’s voice
And never bites.
My dog doesn’t like carrots
Bites, if she can, the postman

from the newspaper

From the newspaper

The tallest man in the world lives in China,
once he stuck his long arm down a dolphin’s
throat and fished out a plastic bag and saved
the sea mammal’s life, made him famous too.
At the deep end of the pool swimming-pool
the tall man’s shoulders is above the water,
his girlfriend can only do that at the shallow
end. She doesn’t mind, at home- when he sits
on the floor watching TV- she sits on a chair,
and they are almost of the same height. No,
don’t ask me that, I don’t want to know, one
shouldn’t even speculate; but his girlfriend is
from Tibet, she used to climb steep mountains
and ride yaks as a child.

riches

Riches.

The riches man in the world, originally from
Kirby, Liverpool is thin, getting skeletal,
when the cook makes him a bacon sandwich
and the rich man touches it, the sliced bread
and bacon turns to gold, the cook has a kitchen
full of that metal, plans to open an ice cream
parlour on the Wirral.. The loaded man drank
cola, liquid gold in his belly solidified a shiny
tumor big as a football. The doc who removed
it tried to run away with the tumor, but he was
tackled by the nurse and the anesthetist, who
too wanted a share. The state took the ball and
sacked the medical team. Great wealth belongs
to nations, to you and me it brings unhappiness.

As Seen When Not Seeing

On the night sky tiny particles explodes
in silent cacophony, the universe opens,
retracts behind a shower of colours, stars
are bright and near, then disappear when
blue dust crosses the esoteric firmament,
made of dreams that have yet to traverse
the human mind, and when lights come
on it’s all gone hidden, waiting for you

homecoming

Homecoming

The plane circled the local airport, foggy,
it hadn’t got clearing yet, I hoped it would
be forced to turn back again, find another
landing strip, preferable somewhere far
from my old home-town. Hadn’t been here
for years, in a fit of sentimental nostalgia
I had bought a ticket but regretted it now.
There is no way back, the place I knew is
in the dreamy land of memories, friends
are names on gravestone, and the drabness
of late Nordic autumn is bound to make
me utterly wretched. “Due to persistent fog
we are unable to land,” the pilot lamented.
His words filled me with tender melancholy

the waiting

The Waiting


On the south-side of the, abandoned, house
leans an overgrown and untrimmed orange
tree; fruit fall to ground and feeds no one.
the elderly house has many wretched rooms,
that give shelter to no one; on floors where
sunrays, through old shutters, limply dance
with miserable dust. Profound is the silence,
except on windy days when the old house
groans, as in distress, when the orange tree
slams against its flank: They both wait for
someone to come along and give them zest
for life again, like last year when a family
came and children shook the tree, but no,
the adult thought it was too far from town.

Tanka (spring blues)

Lukewarm was winter
No ice in the garden’s pond
Is the end nigh?
This spring is glacially cold
Lemon sized hailstones fall

tanka

Tanka


Indolent at ease
In my unkempt back garden
The feral feline
Surveys its private kingdom
Leaves dead mice on my doorsteps

my bride

My Bride.

She had such a pretty smile, green,
clear eyes… honesty personified;
she was to be my bride. I had been
down to the divine stream picking
costly stones to make a necklace,
just for her, when returning, she sat
in the park, near the spring of youth,
whispering words of adoration into
the ears of another man, her clear,
green eyes were full of truth and love.
I gave the rivulet back its precious
gift; walked for years, through many
lands, and never once returned to see
what had become of my bride.

Spring Cold

Spring’s here but winter is reluctant to go
resentfully blows helpless dust and chip
papers around, people are dressed for April
and freeze, huddled in naked streets.

Women are the coldest, short skirts and
see through blouses and ruffled hair,
like migrating birds returning too early
finding the nest occupied by squatters.

A new set of lungs, heart or liver will not
help winter much now, it can choose to
scream angry words to an uncaring god
or walk off stage with dignity

a walk in the park

A Walk in the park.


At the poets reading, at a local hall that
reeked of tobacco, sweaty hands and AA
meetings, they served sausage rolls and
tiny pies, when no one looked and no one
paid my for my stuff, I filled my pockets
full food, lunch next day.

It was there I met the widow, she liked poets
and with her I spent the night with wine, roses
and the rest of the pies.

She gave me her dead husbands blue suit,
shoes and tie, alone I walked to the park to feed
the ducks yesterdays pastry crumbs.

The shoes sourly chafed and the tie tried to
strangle me, undressed, the weather was nice,
swam with the birds till the law showed up,
they had brought a wooly blanket and two
frogmen along

Park Music

Yesterday, in the municipal park, I saw an escaped
elephant, shyly hiding behind an oak, not blowing
It own trumpet; I gave it peanuts and it was glad.
I wasn’t really very interested in the animal, got
a ladder climbed up the tree to contemplate my lack
of future and drink a bottle of beer unseen; to no
avail, a guard came told me to get down.
My silence contemptible silence was telling, after
some time blue uniforms came they brought guns
and musical instruments, saxophone, guitar and
clarinet, their New Orleans jazz brought many
people to the scene, I got down from the tree, not
because I had too, but worried; in case the fugitive
proboscidean mammal joined in and blew its cover

Tanka

In the shaman’s cove
Where effervesce, sea-froth hardens
To make a pipe
That scents of salt and sea-stars
And the breaths of lovelorn mermaids

a terrorist confesses

A Terrorist Confesses.

A Guantanamo prisoner confesses. What was?
he thinking off letting them wearing him down
after four years of isolation and interrogation;
now he will be a resentful loser…unforgiven.
Had he confessed at once, played along told
them what they wanted to know, he would be
the winner, sit in the prison yard getting sun in
his face. Truth! I hear you mutter, this has
nothing to do with that, it’s about a court case
that needs to be concluded, documented, eagle
stamped, and signed; a copy for everyone,
the convict too. It’s a game, play it right and
you’ll survive, sleep in a clean bed, watch TV,
and play ping pong with the other inmates.

Tanka (morning)

Tanka

Aurora’s glow
Drips through the curtain’s tear
Keeping me awake
When I really want to sleep
Till the dawn grows into noon.

Tanka (volcanic island )

Tanka. (Volcanic Island)

Emerald hilltops
White coves and sky forever blue
Transient Eden
But when sea and lava meet
Clouds of steam and nothing more

Haiku/Zen

Haiku

Unconceivable
That rain will fall, sun shine
With you not around





Zen


Spun wishes
Make
The new day



A cock that crews
Too early
Loses its head

haiku

Haiku


When Yesterday goes
A galactic star gives birth
To the morrow


Lost hopes
Recuperate in moonlight
Sparkling at daybreak


Melancholy too
When in aurora’s bosom
Smiles at destiny


When rain falls at night
Parched soil is grateful
The sun is a thief


The hushed moonlight
That shines on a forest tarn
Is a false dawn

the film star

The Film Star.


Archie Leech was an usher at the Odeon cinema,
had a flashlight and showed latecomers to their
seats. He saw every movie and knew the lines
of both female and male actors, his dream was
to be up there, on screen, himself one day; had
the looks, the feature of a matinee idol, women
liked him…men too, then the Odeon caught fire,
burnt down to the last black& white reel, Archie
cried as whispering ashes flew in winter air.
“This is your chance get out now your destiny is
to be a film star” voices seemed to say. He gave
gave the flashlight to a friend and left for USA;
the name Archie Leech was never heard of again,
but a star was born and it shone for many years

Benjamin, the rat

Benjamin, the Rat


New Year’s Eve jolly rockets in the air
champagne and cigar for the rich and
meths for the man lurking in the park
A rat, with prize boxer ears, came out
of the water drain by the kerb, such
devilish racket and it was its feeding
time; usually the town is dead at twelve
except for the man in the park trying to
find something to eat in the cafés bins,
like an outsized rodent. The rat looked
up and saw me seeing it, shrugged as to
say: “Humanity!”

the educated

The Educated.

Salient and Iconic are academic brothers,
appear often in a
“Literary Supplement Magazine,”
lately they have been investigating
whether the wife of a famous writer
had syphilis or not.

Drew no firm conclusion,
only innuendos, which is a pity
if not very scholarly.
Wouldn’t it be erudite, when at
a dinner party, to say:”
Did you know that Henrietta died of VD?”

bikini

Bikini.


Nice to know Britain’s upgrading
Trident, to be nuclear armed will
protect us against those who hasn’t
built the bomb yet, that’s ok then?


The world is a different from yore
the Chinese drive Ferraris, I have
scooter made outside Beijing (turn
left, on the main road to India.)


Used to take girls granted before;
critical, couldn’t make up my mind,
now, are oblivious of my charms,
they are beautiful and I’m alone.


As time knocks on my window,
dreams are meek, nothing about
climbing mountains, but still hope
to inherit brother’s Armani suit

Tanka

During the Iraqi war
What did you do? Dear father
Grumbled, wrote letters.
To freethinking newspapers
Especially the Guardian

Senryu

Western leaders
When committing atrocities
Will not hang


If democracy means
Government by the people
Iraq is our shame.

haiku

Haiku

First day of spring
Frozen wind wants to enter
And sit by the fire.


Haiku

Pallid sun on blue
Casts insignificant light
Needs an orange tan

housewife 1810

Housewife. Ca. 1810. Or today?

Mend my socks, by the sunny wall,
I love to see when your thimble, of
silver, shines as brilliant as the sun.

Sew buttons on my trousers´ fly, in
the midnight cove, I love to see when
your thimble outshines the new moon

But leave the thimble at home when
we go to the ball; people might get
the wrong idea, think you’re my maid.

tanka and haiku

Tanka

Last Friday afternoon
Time slowed to a trickle,
Icy wind and rain
Tried to stop it entirely
But got very short of breath





Disharmony


Nearly drowned once
In azure coloured tint
And soggy wet notes

Local News.

It was falsely reported that a yellow
submarine had surfaced in the village’s
pond, and its three crewmembers sat on
deck, forever blowing bubbles.

Nor was it a fluffy duckling, too young
to contemplate suicide, and too buoyant
to sink; no, it was a xanthous butterfly
washing pollen of its feet.

Algarve

Loulé. Algarve.


A long avenue; flanked by purple
flowering trees, sunlight and statues
of dead heroes

Many café’s, up and down, but
only one has wood tables and chairs,
the rest use plastic furniture.

The local elite go there, drink strong
coffee, in the forenoon, and behave
with commendable demureness

mission accomplished

“Mission Accomplished”

the president said, striding
on the deck of a floating war
machine.
How I raged that day,
then came to my senses and
despaired.
We knew, us who have lived a little,
that the war was just beginning;
now four years later and
many needless deaths
I feel no need to open a window
and shout: “I told you so!”

mission accomplished

“Mission Accomplished”

the president said, striding
on the deck of a floating war
machine.
How I raged that day,
then came to my senses and
despaired.
We knew, us who have lived a little,
that the war was just beginning;
now four years later and
many needless deaths
I feel no need to open a window
and shout: “I told you so!”

loss of language

Loss of Language


I looked up and many years had gone
a span of time unbridgeable; a new
world and to it I was a perfect stranger.
The verbs I had tried to make sense
and harmony of, were obsolete; a new
language based on text messages has
made me a reading analphabet, and
special jargons, based on the internet,
has made me into a fossil laughed at
by technocrats and small children.
My work pine in a drawer marked
poetry, written on sepia paper, pale
words forever unread, still, they will
make a beautiful bonfire come May.

Haiku

Dawn’s melancholy
Dissolves in the brilliance
Of sun’s white teeth



Hushed afternoon
Cold wind has blown us indoors
Sorrow has returned


Oak leaves drown
In my garden’s ornate pool
Dignified sorrow

boyhood friend

Boyhood Friend

He used to be my friend, fifty years lapsed;
when seeing him again I saw the boy in
an aged face. Back then he was awkward child
now he was snug in his elderliness, race over,
he had made it no more silly dreams, mild eyes,
quiet smile, fond of giving advice to the young,
and… me. He spoke of years I had forgotten,
of a silvery childhood, removed from mundane
reality or perhaps it was me who remembered
wrongly, or maybe I hadn’t yet picked out my
nuggets of gold illusions from the cold soil of
fear that was the infancy we had in common.
As the world despairs over these endless wars,
my friend is happily cocooned in holy senility.

tanka

Tanka

Torrential rain falls
From majestic black clouds
A massive army
Marching across the heaves
Armed with golden sabers

haiku

Haiku

Deliciously
With her I pass silky nights
Till aurora smiles



In obscure light
Flowers open their petals
Collect fecundity.

Haiku


This we didn’t know of:
The power a white pearl has
To transform a cornea


Blank is you face…when
Thinking of its lost beauty.
Submerged by sadness

the wine

The Wine (Andalusia inspired)

If you are offered this fruity,
wine from Spain, don’t dally;
for it makes you eyes shine
and you’ll see female beauty
in the most mundane of faces.
While lesser wine, from land
of colder climes, only makes
your feet exceedingly heavy.

the great escape

The Great Escape

When the police, at the market, arrested a pair
of robbers, a mad cow came scampering, chaos
the robbers legged it. One was quickly caught,
the other ran into a zoo; where the police shot
an elephant and wounded a giraffe, (being big
when bullets fly is a draw back). The bad guy,
was trapped when he fled into an art gallery.
He collided with a landscape painting, destined
for the local jail’s reading room, a sandy road
coast line and an elm forest it had. The painting
parted, as the red sea; inside he hastily ran to
the nearby woods, whence he couldn’t escape;
and had plenty of time to ponder what God was
thinking of when he created the tiny house ant.

tanka

Tanka

The poem I read
Was as a face coming out of mist,
Clear for a second
Then dreamily hidden again
Leaving me wondering why?

new system

Changing Ways

The white gloved hand of progress
is killing small bakery in the land
where I live; Dona Francesca’s shop
has closed and no more fresh bread
and cakes on a try for all to see and
inhale, she couldn’t meet the demand
of shiny machinery and pure hygiene.
Her bakery has sot black walls and
stone floor. A big van comes to our
village now, sells long lasting sliced
bread, safely wrapped in plastic, cakes
ditto, full of additive and artificial
aroma too. No surprises here, such as
a cockroach trying to look like a prune.

tanka

Tanka

Mothers straw-hat
On a hook in the hallway
Twenty years gone now
Covered in spider’s web
Yet I can see her kind smile

water haiku

Haiku (Water Related.)



On the village’s pond
Silvery on sunless days
Float golden leaves


The mountain lake
When kissed by the breeze
Trembled thrilled.


Only the black swans
In the mystic forest tarn.
Knows where my car is.

Tropical lagoon
Clear as Portuguese vino verde
Is soberly calm.


Sleepy Finnish mere
Is covered by blue ice
Wakes up in April.

the inlet

The Inlet.

Ships in the bay tug at anchor
chains, bows point to the sea,
time now to leave, a busy ship
is meant for the big ocean and
adventures; tranquil bays are
for mast-less sail boats, dingy
and blue rowing boats, as terns
cry, wait for the cook to throw
left over food into green water.

mars 2007

Mars 2007

By the sunny wall they sit,
the six black clad widows,
used to be eight, but winter
is damp and often cold in
the upper Algarve.

Knitting pins and darning
needles, glint in the light,
they pass the time talking
of the two that didn’t make
it…and patiently wait

a picture 1950

A Picture 1950

In sepia light a thin man,
dressed in a generous gray suit,
stands reading titles outside
a bookshop, in a London street.

A woman, in a long black dress,
white blues and flat sensible
shoes, walks up an taps him on
his shoulder.

They briefly kiss walk off
I wondered if they were long
time married or wise English
lovers on their lunch break.

haiku

Haiku

Does spring offensive
Mean procreation and birdsong
Or war?


Morning zephyr
Flapping kitchen curtains
Aroma of coffee


Field ploughing tractors
Red soil and shrieking gulls
Horse empty landscape.


A grizzled donkey
Under a big carob tree
Makes it pretty.

So many flowers
Flamboyant aroma of death
Too late now for love


The good farmer
Has planted an almond tree
On my dog’s grave.


In a dead rabbit’s eyes
I saw the vast empty sky
Unmoved and godless

charity

Charity.

When the old lady who sat alone at
a table near mine had finished eating,
the waiter cleared the table and brought
her, a cup of coffee. From an enormous
bag she took up some knitting and, yes,
knitted. She looked up, smiled, she had
lovely eyes, clear as a doll’s, and said,
to no one specific that she was making
wooly socks for the children of Angola
which, was very nice of her even if a bit
eccentric, we the other guests smiled too
I would have thought the socks more apt
for poor Eskimos in, say, Greenland; and
wondered if the others thought as I.

a poet's morning

A Poet’s Morning

I like to sleep late, almost till eight, my skeptical
duvet doesn’t like to blow its cover, so I pass
my time making up anagrams of famous names,
only I can’t spell and end up with words that make
no sense; I have tried for years to be a novelist but
after a page of reluctant words, I end up going back
to bed. It is said gorillas are bright because they are
able to fold a few leaves together and make a bed,
big deal, the sparrows on my roof make intricate
nests of feather, tiny twigs and digested worms,
and they get babies that try to push each other out;
nature is murder, mayhem and desperate survival.
So perhaps we should be more understanding; when
a flaming bush sets fire to a forest.

the great democracy

The Great Democracy


It was a moment when the cacophony of voices,
at the railway restaurant, became one, no longer
dusty gibberish mixed with cigarette smoke, but
a real, clear human accent making an utterance;
alas, the voice spoke of mortgages, the price of
heating homes, electricity and food; the only true
issue in our civilized world. So should one be
shocked, isn’t that what we have worked towards
too? A life that is mundane that doesn’t tax you
with any political philosophy, any ism of this and
that, only leaves you to worry about the ordinary
things like the ice cream parlour in Parkgate that
sells 21 flavours of ice cream, now isn’t that nice
to know and to giggle about.

palavers

Palavers


If, I possessed the last word on earth,
and if the written language was obliterated
by a giant computer; and if I was able to
make anagrams of that word that would
amuse the multitude, if not academics,
who tend to be word blind anyway, would
they compare me to the greatest living
author in the world, a man called Amiss,
famous son of another Amiss? Or would
they say: do not for a moment think you’re
better than us, we know who you are, saw
you falling out of a bar a Thursday only
fortnight ago and non of the anagrams you
spoke getting up were the least funny

senryu

Senryu

Murmur from the East
We ignored to our peril
Now it’s a scream


The thunder afar
Is not inclement weather
But exploding mines


Body parts drizzle
When eager children pick up
Toys dropped from planes



Man born to evil
Isn’t it a miracle then?
That there is goodness

the good life

The Good Life


After the sandy beach, the fenland with birds,
foxes, rabbits, woods and ponds, un-spoilt by
developers; no more, real estate, condos, have
turned over the land like rancid butter, rolling
green field, juicy grass, but not a cow in sight,
here golf balls fall and they really are inedible.
Come buy an apartment good investment for
you and the family, you can’t lose, why have
one home when you can have four.
Thousands of empty homes only used a few
days a year watched over buy security guards;
poverty is unseen here it has been eradicated,
there is no need for you to seek places where
people live in shacks and under dirty plastic.

The Lonesome

Sunday evening only a few cafes are open catering
to the lonely; the old lady, sat at a table near mine,
ordered the dish of the day and red wine, quarter
past nine, she always comes at that time it coincides
with the arrival of a black man who wears ridicules
earrings, a man who is showing a defiant, gay face
to the world, yet vulnerable, you know, if he could,
he would take up your burden. There are no happy
endings to stories told we end up alone and nothing
matters much. Your questions will not be answered,
she knows that and when the café is empty pays him
a beer and drink another glass of wine.

A Portuguese Graveyard...

The ship, riding swells, is anchored in the bay,
pilot’s late, yet time in shipping is essential; or
perhaps, I’m mistaken; it’s all a game, seascape
as seen from a cemetery. Visiting her mother’s
vault; a hole in a wall, glass-door, a grim coffin,
a sepia photo of the deceased, in a rust striped
frame; dry bones and peaceful silence
She opened the chamber’s door, began dusting,
the photo and the coffin while humming softly
as to a child. So much light here and colourful
plastic flowers, it would be nice to sleep here,
if not today, to have a dutiful daughter coming
every spring came, tickling my old bones, while
telling me about ships anchored in the bay

the legacy

The Legacy.

“I can’t live here in this flat; the hall is an ice-box
generations of ill will, trying to get into the kitchen
through the keyhole, these walls layers of cooking
vapour, cabbage and cat-piss hide family abuse and
tears can’t you hear the echo of screams, it’s Eve
the window in the living room is broken, blood in
vomit on the floor, someone in the bedroom is in
agony, I can’t stay here.” This is your heritage, you
have nowhere else to go.” ”Yes I have, got a house
in Spain, it’s in a vale by a river, my dog is waiting
it has waited long.” “You go to Spain every day but
always return” ” That’s because I have been going
on the wrong bus, tomorrow I’ll get it right, you can
keep my birthright, I’m not coming back.”

Street hero

Street Hero

My brother was famous in our town, the biggest Saturday
brawler of them all:” Why don’t you write poetry about him,”
his admirers said, yes, why not! Walked tall through town,
no one dared looking at him in a funny way, it was all about
respect, that strange word, not to be loved, but to be feared.
He didn’t have to pay for his drinks, even the police said:
“How do you do.” But of course he didn’t work didn’t like
being told what to do, spent days at the gym, “my body is
a weapon”, he once said... Didn’t help him much, though,
shot in the head coming out of a bar, a puddle of blood on
a dirty pavement. His mates were proud of the way he died,
maudlin outpouring of grief, mountains of flowers; now
a talked about legend; a street hero’s dead, welcome a new
one. But the only one who really loved him was his mother.

Jonas, the Cook.

Met a man in a bar in Kingston, he told me of Jonas
the merchant navy cook’s, demise. Late at night leaning
on the railing, looking at the stars Jonas’ ship lurched
and he fell into the sea. A good swimmer he floated on
his back and continued to watch the stars, thought they
were really close, to dawn and found he was so close to
a tiny island that he could wade ashore. Looked up and
saw a vapour trail and was hit on the head by a block of
ice released from the plane. The man in the bar, who had
come to the island to live alone, buried Jonas, a cross,
of driftwood on top, which reminded the loner, life was
to be lived elsewhere, so he sailed back to the mainland;
only knew it was Jonas when reading about the missing
cook; never told anyone though, thought it best that way.