Free Verse
Jelem, Jelem
Roma my beloved
people, millions of your kind died
during the Nazis brutal regime, no memorial was erected for you.
Disliked and shunted from pillar to post, your way of life,
so different from ours. When you cross a devastated Europe
it makes no difference to you as you always have lived
in city dumps and on derelict land. Sing for me Roma of your
longing for peace and acceptance that was not given to you
when Europe was rich. The land bound will envy you
because they cannot do as you. Their need is to occupy
a piece of mother of earth and say; all this is mine.”
They cannot let go and be free. Sing for me Roma, Jelem, Jelem
tell me how it feels to be hunted and despised
simply because you chose your own way in live.
Romani people, an
ethnic group with origins in South Asia who are widely dispersed
with their largest concentrated populations in Europe,
especially Central and Eastern Europe, with more recent diaspora
populations in the Americas and, to a lesser extent, in North
Africa and the Middle East. Roma (Romani subgroup), a subgroup
of the Romani people who live primarily in Central and Eastern
Europe.
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Roma people
The
Suffering
She visits me every
night,
her clear blue eyes so full of love, cries.
A pool of hopelessness at her feet,
a love I cannot reciprocate.
When I wake up my pillow is damp too,
I must have wept for her restless soul.
Wrapped in a sheet of plastic
she cannot decompose,
be soil and reborn.
Her eyes so clear and blue look at me
with enduring motherly adoration.
I beg of you go now, let me free
for I have not the force
to return your love.
Nautical Terms
The night above me
is like an elastic balloon—
a plane penetrates, flies through and disappears—
only its engine roar remains and echoes into the infinite.
I can see its light, green for starboard and red for portside.
On a tramp ship I served on, the old captain,
when he got up on the bridge in the morning,
opened a locked drawer only he had the key to;
he read a piece of paper and closed the drawer again.
When he resigned, the first officer took over—
he was curious about the piece of paper,
opened the drawer and found a folded piece of paper.
On it was written: right is starboard and left is portside.
It is good to meet people who know they are fallible.
Author's note: This
poem is based on a joke I heard many years ago,but I always
thought it had a deeper meaning.
Haiku
A lost dog
Sees itself in a rain pool
Overcast sky
By the pier
Cats wait for the fishing boats
Sunny morning
Under a tree
A white sleepy donkey
Summer heat
Hare
spoors in snow
Suddenly turns ruby
Silent sky
Corrugated
flurry
Glitter as transient pearls
Memories
Written
in Tanka Style
The God
Problem
Religions’
root
Is mans' guest to live forever
Not only of flesh
But superior to other life forms
Spiritual and advanced
He seeks a deity
In his own vain image
Insists he’s right
Ready to kill for his icon
And askew timelessness
Will not accept
He’s no more than a weed
Or a dandelion
Forever seeking assurance
That life offers more than death
Written
in Tanka Style
Autumnal Reflections
Lovely
September
I long for the unattainable
To be you
Peaceful, in afternoon light
you are untouched by fear.
Beautiful September
My dreams are Impossible
I will rest in you
And terror shall not touch me
When the night draws near.
Free
Verse
The
Leaf
On my walks I
picked up a perfectly formed elm leaf,
the colour of dry tobacco. In Norway, during the Nazi
occupation, people had tobacco plants in back yards.
Perhaps carrots and cabbage had been healthier.
I put the leaf on top of a white wall and took a picture.
The wind came and blew it away.
A brief meeting of equals and a memory
Tanka
(Neo fascism)
The
exterminators
are unrelenting nightmares.
The superiors—
The best must be beheaded
To ease the minor’s burden
Five
Experimental Verses
On the
Highest Crest
Beautiful
October
God has gone main-stream
Ignores the seasons
Wants to be loved by us all
Before the big deluge
Lovely October
God disregard the cycles
My river is dry
While I sunbathe by its shore
And think of buying camels.
Godly October
Vacation is our new deity
Tomorrow is today
Frost and snow are banished
But Himalaya is an island
Pretty October
We fight for a place to sit
The strongest win
Design a new national flag
And build a golden temple
Scenic October
The Sea is heaven’s mirror
God was a dream
No echo of man lingers
The long stillness has begun
The
Excursion (Edith Piaf)
A man with blue
rinsed hair was our leader.
We stopped outside the house where she was born,
the house is still a dwelling and the stone steps to the door
looked well trod. Our leader held up pictures of the lady,
photos I had seen before on YouTube,
and told us a fairy tale about her goodness.
For a moment I thought he was talking about a saint.
We retired to a cafe where he sang “La vie en rose”
and forever destroyed the most beautiful of songs..
A Pessimistic
view from a Balcony in Paris
Fine rain, open
umbrella, sitting on the balcony of a hotel
overlooking Haussmann – Saint Lazare. A throng of people
and cars, but something has changed—people drink
Starbuck coffee
and eat burgers on the hoof. Old restaurants are closing
or converted to fast-food joints. I sigh and drink
from a bottle of Bordeaux to avoid getting rainwater in my wine.
This place together with rue d’Amsterdam used to be where
the posh people lived and now, safe for the ruddy scrap yard
tower,
this could have been downtown New York.
The Clarity of
the Blind
We live so far
away from each other
and the distance is getting longer.
But my love, I can still hear your heartbeat
in the stillness of the night
I had the soul of a traveler back then
always seeking the impossible;
and I didn’t see how much I loved you.
Green eyes, in your tears I saw my restless soul,
and I was blind. I hear your heartbeat,
know you’re all around me.
If you will only give me a sign so I can open
my eyes and see you.
Hunting Season
Every Saturday and
Sunday there is a war going on in the woods,
man against birds and rabbits. On my lemon tree sparrows
and hawks sit and wait for Monday. In my garden rabbits seek
shelter
from shot gun pellets, eat my flowers and dig holes. My dog
is desperate—its instinct is to go out and kill
them. Killing for sport,
is like bullfighting without spectators, grown men, sneaking
about
amongst trees slaughtering the innocent; not unlike the Settlers
behaviour against the Palestinian olive pickers and goat
herders.
Monday morning I shovel wheel barrow’s full of bird droppings
from the ground that is also full of holes. Somethings got to be
done
with these awful animals, why do they not move to neighbouring
woods and seek shelter there?
Sunset
Sun slowly
falls
Tries as a hero in a western movie
Not to collapse
Drops of blood on white clouds
The sea is ready to embrace him
Ripples of delight
The sun sinks into her embrace
Soothing sea
Cold water on parched lips
Tomorrow the sun will stand guard
Give us daylight
Even when a winter storm blows
When the sea is irate
And they cannot meet till spring
When she’s ready for love again.
