Free Verse
Snow Cover
Protected by a
gazebo in the park—
it is snowing
and the park looks calm.
A few days ago a storm and trees had been uprooted—
a skeleton was
found, probably of a bishop—
the park is
near the church and used to be
a cemetery for the rich and mighty.
The bones will be tested to see how old they are.
Odd isn’t it, these bones are usually of men.
What happened to the women? Buried in marshland?
Not worthy to rest amongst rulers?
It is almost noon—soon
men in dark overcoats will come—
they have been to the wine monopoly and bought booze—
they have nowhere else to go;
they will find a park bench and drink.
There will be arguments, fights will break out
and the police will come and arrest some.
What an odd society; be conventional is the exhortation
of those who cannot end up in the park.
It has stopped snowing and the city noises are louder.
I look at my watch—it's
noon; time to find a place for lunch;
I’ll drink a bottle of wine with my meat cakes and boiled potatoes,
and leave the men in the park in peace.
Hard times just
like now?
The looting in
streets of Britain made me think back to my own childhood.
Winter 1948, mother had two newspaper rounds: one in the
morning, one in
the afternoon. The pay was low; good thing she could take
home unsold
papers which, were good for the fire. My older brother used
to go out at night
with sink buckets, down to the coal depot stealing. After he
had been caught
twice he was sent to a youth correction centre. Winter of
1948 was hard,
but we had old furniture mother had inherited from her
father. It burnt well.
Spring, we only had an old sofa left, which I slept on, and
two rickety chairs.
We’re lucky mother got a job cleaning the offices of a
banana company that
imported bananas and cured them in the backrooms. Fruits
that were black
we got and it was a life saver. Mother now had three jobs.
It wasn’t enough—
she had to ask the social services and got coupons for
jumpers and clogs.
All this took a heavy toll on mother’s health’s—she
got tuberculoses and was sent
to a sanatorium. The family was split up. Except for my
brother stealing coal
we never thought of looting shops; perhaps we should have, I
liked a pair of
black leather clogs I saw displayed in a shop window one
spring day in 1948.
The Intruder
Two lives, one at
night when the insentient life floats up to
the surface of awareness; parts of life lived, veiled desires,
and repulsive thoughts looking for an vendor who bitterly
refuses having given births to such decadence. But they are
there, luckily only for the dreamer to see when his defence
is down and he squirms in the cold mirror of truths.
The dreamer cannot shut out voices of those who have died
calling his name; his duvet is a glacier of terror that knows no
mercy. An icon falls off the wall, the sound of breaking glass.
He cannot open his eyes, will himself to awaken, nor meet or run
from the gruesome thing that hovers in his bedroom.
Dawn, the other life begins, and far away a cockerel crows
three times, a dog barks; he is free of his terror, gets up and
steps on jagged glass.
London Calling
“This is pure
criminality,” the prime minister said, and his soft face
quivered in rage. “The guilty will be found and punished by the
full
force of the law.” Yes, ok. I think the riot was more than
criminality.
Suddenly a group of no hopers, people condemned to poverty had
a voice and their voice was violence. For the first time in
their life
they had freedom, to break free of the shackles of misery and
feel
the invigorating sense of power. Young people doomed to
idleness,
living in filthy sub standard estates, now they called the
shots.
Masters of the world, what a great time they had even though,
they
knew it couldn’t last. This was their great moment to be
savoured.
What comes after this is bleakness, a life of day jobs or going
in and
out of prisons. They will be middle aged and poor; spawn
offspring
who like them are without a future. They will get old, poor, and
poorer,
but they will always have the glorious days of August 2011.
Adulterous Sea
I drove to the
top of a mountain along lanes that began in the mist of
time.
Looking north I could see the plateau of Alentejo, westward
the Atlantic sea;
it was her, the trollop; I wanted to see from a safe
distance. Glittering azure
tender and inviting, the tart. My bond to her is that of a
kind magistrate who
in his youth, visited a whore who served him sinful
pleasures that gave him
a longing for the unobtainable. There were times, on deck,
in tropical nights,
when she called my name and I could have drowned in her
balmy embrace,
but she laughed turned away from me and loved someone else.
I thought
she was forgotten, until she reappeared and smiled in the
sea green eyes of
a woman I loved. She too walked away; loved someone else. I
hear her song,
the bitch of my life, the whispering and undulating waves.
And I say: “Just
one wicked embrace more, my lovely, and I will not dream of
you anymore."
Argentina
When I got
up and looked out of the window the village was
floating on a cloud. I walked to where the cloud ended
and
saw the pampas of Argentine and horses galloping in a
circle
around a dead cypress. The horses looked tired and
starved,
but could not stop their senseless galloping around the
tree.
There were also many dead foals trampled down in the
dust.
I was in Buenos Aires once—I
remember a great ballroom
and
a big marble staircase—I
saw the dictator’s wife walk down it.
She was dressed in white and striking at a distance, but
close
up she looked hollow eyed and her skin was yellow. A
band
played wiener waltzes, officers and their women danced
with
decorum. It was only when a thousand guitars struck up a
cord,
music born from paucity and dreams to break free and
flee—
then the dictator’s lady smiled and looked young again.
When I met
my Father
There are many
cargo ships in the bay of Cascais this Monday afternoon
and I thought of my father; he too had been a seafarer.
Last time I saw him I was eighteen—I
sat on a bus going into town—he
saw
me but I looked out of the widow pretending I didn´t see
him.
When he looked straight ahead again his face was impassive
but I saw
tears trickling down his chin. When the bus stopped I
hurriedly left—
this old fool I thought, most likely drunk. Rain cooled my
flushed face.
During the war years of 1940-45 my father sailed on ship
delivering
war material to Britain and Russia and he had seen ships
being hit by
torpedoes and men drown in the cold Arctic sea. When he came
home
he couldn´t settle for a normal life and back then there was
no help
for war damaged seamen, and many of them became drifters and
only
slowly died. My father was a drunk—I
had seen him before sharing
a bottle of booze with his mates in the park, and I despised
him and them.
No my father never played a role in my upbringing and my
childhood
was needlessly hard because of him. But today, sitting on
the terrace
overlooking the blue bay, I remember his tears.
The Art of
Catering
There was a time
I believed everything I read, even in Reader’s Digest.
One such story was about a French soldier in the world war—one
who,
in his breast pocket carried a notebook full of verses
written for his
true love in Lyon, a daughter of a welder. His adulation
saved his life.
It was not for me to reflect upon how a note book could stop
a bullet.
I told mother I wanted to join the French foreign legion—get
wounded,
not too serious mind, all this to impress the girl next
door. She didn’t
like bookish boys who wore round black framed glasses. I
threw my
glasses away and for two weeks couldn’t read and tended to
walk into
lampposts. I challenged the biggest bully in the school yard
for a fight…
and got a bloody nose. I became a trainee cook and the girl
next door
laughed until she cried. Back then cooking was not a big
deal. Now that
no one, not even women know how to make an omelet, cooks or
chefs
are super stars and show their skills to adoring fans on TV.
Dressed to
Kill
Autumn leaves on
my forest walk soften the track; summers mean little to me,
its heat and fierce sun is only a prelude of beauty to come.
Stillness—I
see squirrels
are busy, ready for winter ignoring me, yet keeping an eye
of my movements.
A large black snake scuttles across the track—it
appears annoyed by me presence.
It lives on squirrels harvesting nuts on the ground and I
have disturbed the natural
order of things. Not that I feel unduly guilty and squirrels
looks more human than
a strange snake. It was a snake that screwed up Adam and
Eve’s dreams of
paradise and chaste nudeness; no man shall ever lust after
naked female flesh.
Now I watch TV and have to endure a program about how women
should dress
this coming winter; furs and seal skin. Right! They eat our
fish-food. Kill seals today
as they look better on a shapely body than resting in the
sun on a shallow reef.
Portugal in
September
Perfect
translucent day and I can see the peculiar nature again,
as it is no longer a blur of glaring sunlight. It is
like meeting
an old friend, one who was rumored to have died, in a
country
I will not see again. Evergreens, carob and olive trees
lost in
the mist of time, forever alone in the transience of
seasons.
I also see glimpses of the sea—it
doesn’t interest me, not today
anyway, but I do notice it is deep blue and has white
sails on it.
On my scooter I drive across a narrow bridge they have
been
working on so it can take heavy lorries—a
road is being built
somewhere out of sight. Wish I were a painter—fair
clouds on
azure sky, could be smoke signals sent by an Indian
tribe yet
to be discovered, I see the past and future at the same
time.
Bewildering, do I drive in a landscape of ancient
dreams?
I better stop find at a café, drink a “Bica” (coffee)
before I fade
into the mystery of nature and can’t find my way back
home.
Zen
I saw
An oak leaf
Fall
As a whisper
Of
Autumn.
Gay
for a Day
A
beautiful young man sat in the bus shelter—
he had brown almond shaped eyes and rosy lips.
His chin like peach, aglow by his youth.
I also noticed he had long eyelashes and hands of
a musician. Close together my hand touched his
hand and he didn’t withdraw it. He said he was
going to his aunt’s cottage—she
was away and he
had the whole house for himself.
He spoke with a cultured modulated voice and
my poor heart fluttered. I wanted to hold his hand,
kiss his eyes and stroke his chin, but dared not.
His bus came—he
got up, we shook hands and that
was the last I saw of him. And I thought—I
have been
gay for a day and don’t feel guilty about it.
Walking
Old Lady
From my
wife’s apartment in Cascais (Portugal) there is a road,
flanked by banks and hairdressers, leading into the
centre of
the town. I walk this road every day after six, to reach
a bodega
at the end of the road. I met an old lady and noticed
she had
a tag with her address and picture around her neck. And
since
I had seen her many times and she had noticed me, I
asked why
She was wearing the tag. She said that if she should
suddenly
die people would know where she lived and know what to
do.
As typical for old people she also told me her age,
eighty-eight.
She was quite feisty, hoped to live to be a hundred and
screw up
her relatives dreams of riches—when
they eventually get her
money they will be too old to enjoy it.
