My dear friends we broke another stone,
When it was part of no ones home.
The open doors shout softly when they close,
But I know that one day were alone.

The open sky shouts softly in the night,
With all those voices speaking full of freight.
People tell you how to live your life,
Until you find their all about the knife.

The open minds create destructive crimes,
Scholars laugh and flip another dime,
They recite some thoughts into a published line.
Well my dear friends not every one is fine.

The open hearts are eclipsed by instinctive faults,
While many people close up many vaults.
Those who fear will never find success,
Even if they’ve conquered their distress.
Please don’t judge what you don’t expect,
Since we know our life will end with death.

In colonized America
Wild birds beg for the food
Submit the forms to ask for what’s yours
Personification of the men
No longer a human, but just a slave
Certified on birth day
So you may be claimed
Born into the system of mental illusion
No one seems to come to conclusion
Hypnotized into a freedom
to support their greedom
Forgetting life how sweet life could have been
You run like a hamster
in the spinning wheel
of never ending pursuit of happiness
Withdraw, I ask, for the sake of your kids.

A Nice Middle-Class Family

I know the guy, who planned the Lisbon Metro,
he’s French, called Pierre and has a red beard,
the only famous man I know. He lives in a posh
part of Paris, his wife paints livid pictures, lots of
ruby, I wonder why, as nothing in Europe can be
more worthy than the French bourgeoisie.

Two pleasant daughters and a splendid son too
all firmly educated, they can play piano and sing.
His girls are married to young, simple men from
the cultured field of soft carpets and commerce.
They will do well, but not as ably as their father
who helped construct the great Lisbon Metro.

Up rua Garrett I walked and it’s steep, in Baixa, the old heart
of Lisbon, past a shop that sells lottery tickets that sits beside
a shop that sells religious artifax, which is next door to a shop
that sells Cartier watches, if you buy a ticket and win, there is
money to decorate you mother’s grave and to buy a watch for
yourself. At the top of the street there is café Brasilia it used to
be Fernando Pessoa’s drinking den, the place is full of solemn,
nice Portuguese who, dressed for the occasion, drink nice cups
of coffee, their forefathers used looked down on Fernando,
irreverent poets and writers must go and drink elsewhere.

The master poet is now a statue sits outside in the rain and has
his picture taken by tourists, one wonders what he thinks of it all
as he sees the statue of Antonio Ribero Chiado, a poet who lived
in the sixteen hundred, the Largo is called after him he is bald and
is dressed like monk. From Largo Chiado I could see the harbour
where tug boats ply their trade on grey waters; the church
“Incarnacao” where Antonio used to pray is beautifully restored,
but empty god had left by the backdoor, the front door was too
heavy, but I saw woman weeping near a statue of Christ, “opium
for the people?” Yes, why not?

It is getting dark the Portuguese are swallowed up by the Metro
as middle aged men with folded cardboard boxes, look for a shop
doorway where to bed down; and over this scene hovers Amalia,
the great Fado singer, she came from poverty too, famous in her
own life time she had the sense to be a friend of the powerful and
made it to the top. When her friends toppled from power she was
out in the cold, but not for long the Portuguese quickly forgave her.
Fine rain falls on Fernando’s hat and Antonio’s bald head, empty
streets the city sleeps and leaves the space to cats, the sleepless,
whores and their sad clients.

The Face

On my walk along the old lane I came across a tree that
has on its trunk the outline of a sad pastry chef’s face,
of one who has just burnt his cakes; and has to open his
shop, now he had to rush out, buy up pastries in other
places; theirs, of course, will not be as good as his own,
but he got to have something to sell. He’ll grind up his
burnt cakes put the crumble in tiny paper bags and sell
them to children on their way to school, or old folks who
are going to the park to feed the ducks; ten cent a bag.
His wife’s fault, she came to the bakery - they haven’t
been married long- they kissed, canoodled; ok, we get
the picture. He has made it clear that she mustn’t upset
him during baking hours, he isn’t mad at her, not since
she told him she had a bun in the oven herself.
And the tree, it’s an olive tree- silvery in winter light- is
silent but there is a stir of a smile in the air.

Nature in the vale sleeps today last
night a storm raced through it, twigs
and almond petals litter lanes, birds
sit with heads under wings, wide open
Algarvian sky a few clouds sails slowly
about and the sun warms my face.

This is a tilled landscape, like a stroll
in a city park only less noisy, wolves,
foxes, brown bears and boars have
gone, I stand near a sign that warns
of cattle crossing, but I haven’t seen
a ruminant around here for years.

Flocks of dumb sheep usually graze
under the olive trees, if not now, and
I’ll not tread on wet grass; it saddens
me to see oranges fall unpicked to
the ground, but rats eat them and in
time of need I can eat a healthy rat.

The recession bites
Jobs are lost
Rents are not paid
Mortgages are defaulted
Companies wound up
Debt collectors scatter the masses
Credit is offered as a top up
The bankers rub their hands together
Somebody is going to have to cough up
Petrol prices rise again and again
People still spend money they have not got
The river of cash dries up
Do we need another war to make it stop

Manic is the Dark Night

Deep into the forest
the trees have turned
black, and the sun
has disappeared in
the distance beneath
the earth line, leaving
the sky a palette of grays
sheltering the pine trees
with pitch-tar shadows.
It is here in this black
and sky gray the mind
turns psycho
tosses norms and pathos
into a ground cellar of hell,
tosses words out through the teeth.
“Don’t smile or act funny,
try to be cute with me;
how can I help you today
out of your depression?”
I feel jubilant, I feel over the moon
with euphoric gaiety.
Damn, I just feel happy!
Back into the wood of somberness,
back into the twigs,
sedated the psychiatrist
scribbles, notes, nonsense on a pad of yellow paper:
“Mania, oh yes, mania, I prescribe
lithium, do I need to call the police?”
No sir, back into the dark woods I go.
Controlled, to get my meds. I
twist and rearrange my smile,
crooked, to fit the immediate need.
Deep in my forest
the trees have turned black again,
to satisfy the conveyer-
the Lord of the dark wood.

-2007-

The Hex.

Where the village lane meets the main road there was
an ugly olive tree that looked like two crippled old men
trying helping each across the road, petrified by cars,
I used to stop and talk to the tree old but still bore fruit;
now it has been chopped down and will end up as winter
wood. No. I’m not a tree hugger but it annoyed me that
it was cut down as it was not in any ones way.
An old woman came down the lane she had a long nose
with a big hairy wart on and a sack of twigs slung on her
crocked back. “Tell me dear woman, why was this tree
executed? “Because it was ugly looked like two old men
trying to help each other across the road”, she said and
toothlessly laughed.

Dear World,
I have travelled upon your waistline
and have corrupted your deepest secrets.
have disrupted your natural motion
through the effects of regular commotion.
Have dreamt upon your stars
and was crucified by these weightless bars.

When you sheltered me from your storm,
I produced sins that made you mourn,
and when you broke down the door,
my mind was full of thorns.

Oh dear revolving sphere, the place I ought to live
the dark shadows have covered all that you could give.
Believe me when I tell you, what I think they did
as all those around me wish only to place a bid.

Oh dear spinning catastrophe, as my visit comes to an end,
please remember me as one of your dearest friends,
through my journey from this core,
may you throw away all that I have stored,
and may you continue spinning by wanting all of what is yours.

The Psychopath

The lane is siesta empty, meanders forever amongst
olive trees and budding almond flowers, but afar I see
a black clad man, an ominous shadow, marching
towards me. He has got one hand in his pocket, a knife?
Bet he is a psychopath out to see if he can kill someone
without being caught. Nowhere to run fields are soggy
and he’s younger than me; he will catch up and plunge
a knife in me when I’m exhausted. When he stops and
looks around to be sure there are no witnesses, I quickly
bend down and pick up a big stone I can hit him over
the head with it, I think I’m stronger than him. He looks
tense as he passes me on the opposite side of the lane,
I stop pretend to look at the sky, can’t let him thrust his
knife in my back. He’s running now, see him disappear
around a sharp bend but I wait till sure he ain’t coming
back, I better arm myself with a kitchen knife next time
I go out the world is full of bad people.

We collectively exhaled to make our island rise
beside the brackish deluge and the black ascending tide,
while I watched it happen from the bony backs of raptors,
flying me to Rockland where they locked me to the rafters

We wrote our lives in endless lines of snow white poetry,
spurning poisoned virtues, breathing liquid ecstasy,
waking up to words and verse colliding in our brains,
never sleeping till we’d written fifteen pages from the veins

Cut cholesterol from fat neurons, grey and slowly grown obese
by deception piled upon itself in place of fleeting peace,
after which we sat straitjacketed, staring at the eaves,
imagined stars on ceilings all while slipping off to sleep

As the pain died screaming air vent came to meet me thinking
In all truth the sea’s not rising . . . but the land is sinking

Leaving Rockland, cap on head to cover scar shaped bright obscene,
walk alone along the sterile street, thumb out stuck to trucker’s screen,
return me to the circus, friend, please feed me to the sharks
where island’s stony statues stare me down in septic parks

Lonely grass her green eyes pass across the steel-eyed frigid benches,
black backed falcon turned with words to hawk when high above the trenches,
ripping pieces from old ego, making spaces for the airflow,
exhale now city denizens, rise this island from its residents

Copyright © 2009

Flecks of sunlight and shadows
are stretched out on a green mat
in harmony;

clouds have broken up and in
the stillness there is place
for everyone;

but accord doesn’t last
in the late day shadows will be longer
and sun specks will vanish;

there will the morrow though, when
sun is relentless, chases and obliterates
lingering murk;

war and peace - it seems to me
that we can’t have the one
without the other.

So close to my end,
Feeling around in my darkness
too escape this nightmare eating at my mind,
slashing me too shreds.

Deep within my lost mind
My whispering angel helps me to open my lock doors,
for which I have never seen before that hides so deep inside of me.

Each door that opens is a new me forming,
Feeling every change take place,
Each time my angel whispers at me.

Pain that I have felt starts to fade,
Memories of hate soon fall away
Too create a new door to be discovered by me.

As I find me, each step taken,
A new part of me grows taking a new shape.
Finally seeing with my own eyes for once
too discover my wings I have spread before me.
Cause of my own whispering angels,
I have discovered what was in me.

A whispering angel,
Who has in time finally found her wings.

The Aliens

The still warm sun and the zephyr is keep
winter at bay, there is sadness in the air, as
a farewell that can’t be delayed and the boy
has run to the outer fields, sits on a stone
pats his dog and learns about the unavoidable.

Dark clouds from the north where nature is
solemn and there’s not a hint of frivolities
in their cities architecture, winter in hearts,
will disperse heartless protestant culture that
does not allow for lofty dreams and passion.

The zephyr is now a chilly wind, new rules
people must work harder, the leaders say,
and the almond tree must stop flowering in
mid winter spreading unseemly thoughts of
May, love and nights of passion.

October Mood.
Clouds are breaking up now and leisurely sailing
north, on the sky a proud rainbow that makes
the mistake of mirroring itself on a shiny cloud and
losses its soul to the image, hazes into a blur of pale
colour and dissipates. You can see the new rainbow
is a fake it’s the wrong way around; and when I tell
it so it hastily hides behind the mountain range trying
to look pretty for people on the other side.
A dead turtle on the road thrown out of a fast car by
someone fed up of having a pet that only ate lettuce
and lived wordlessly under the sink.
As big clouds drift northward, I wonder if fish see
icebergs as we see clouds. “Look, at that amazing,”
cloud!” A poetic cod says. “It’s only chunk of ice,”
the practical cod says, it’s a big fish, has a degree in
marine biology. The poet cod doesn’t answer, rapt it
doesn’t see the net and gets hopelessly stuck in verbs,
commas, full stops and archaic words only found in
the Oxford thesaurus. The big fish swims on, but looks
up and sees cobalt light, as coming from the inside of
an iceberg, it finds that “quite interesting” but refuses to
use words like lovely… and worst of all beautiful.

A Landscape

Here in this landscape of bushes and crippled
trees, silence speaks of the final peace.
Grotesque dead trees, daylight ghosts, stand there
with grey boughs stretching upward appealing
to a fairytale god, “give us today a new life” but
no, there is only one god he is almighty, and hears
not your fearful whispered wishes, those who do
not understand are doomed to a life of an empty
pursuit for pleasures, crowding nightclubs and
casinos trying to avoid being alone with the night
and facing the truth: we are mortal and heaven is
to be remembered for a while by other mortals.
Faces in a black frame seeing you seeing through
you and into a void. Yet I fear not this landscape as
it is shunned by man and no harm can happen to me
here except the inevitable

The Prophecy

The horses that drink water in the shallow river
on the grassland look up spooked by a low flying
plane its enormous wingspan is a shadow of ill
omen, frightened the horses gallop till they are
are tired then begin grazing again.

The far mountain is Canadian blue and hazy, like
there should be a forest fire or another war on its
other side. A lotus swarm of helicopter gunships
appear, cross the flatland and jolt the horses into
gallop again; and the sky darkens.

Then on the far mountain appears a new sun, it
shines bright for a while then dies like a comet,
a storm blows the grass withers and when silence
comes the river is empty, the horses are dead;
and the mountain top is a cold diamond.

Deep within the comfort, deep within the ease
Lies a tangling with a past he’s trying to unleash

Amongst a repertoire of dealings in life’s intricacies
Is a love unrecovered, he recalls and reminisces

A family once strong and jointed
Is torn and tattered like pieces of a jigsaw

Laced with airs of grace and poise is a façade
It crumbles under life’s uncertainties and toils

Faced with a coming of age and disappointment
There is a conflict, a battle with his allocated providence

A world of riches is sought, the ultimate pursuit
He will not tolerate any form of rebuke

There is a furious surge to beat the clock
A mending of what could be lost is stirring

Dealings are made to fulfil the golden dream
Hustling, pushing to satisfy the intensity

Distant memories leave him confused and unsure
An independent nature threatened, he wants to give more

But deep within the comfort, deep within the ease
Lies merely a man; just a boy

In Chains

In the valley where I live there are no elephants
and that’s sad for the children who have to go
indoors and watch a wildlife program on TV to
see one of those magnificent creatures.

My valley is far from Africa and is full of olive,
lemon and almond trees that make the landscape
look like its been painted by Van Gogh, friendly
mules too lend ambience, but sadly no elephants.

Saw an elephant, once, at a fair, it was chained to
rusty iron looked forlorn gloomy eyes that often
cried but it had resigned to its fate, it’s sad to see
an animal robbed of its natural dignity.

The ship set sail
I thought it was her
She didn’t want to know
The plan had hatched
I was a sailor
Rocking as a ship
on the moon tide
I visited port to port
Docking with the veils of the night
Something necessary to society
Something easy for me
After her who could blame
Then along you came
I changed I had my answer
But I still played the game
The Irish theme one
Catholic is my bane
I proved it works
It made my name
I still wonder why you left
Each time it comes up I feel pain
I would beg to make your name
And give up this game
Home I would be again.

The Unseeing

Today in I saw a couple walking hand in hand,
he was forty years older than her, she was blind
and loved her old man dearly. If the world went
blind there would be peace and quiet except for
the screams of the new blind people falling down
elevator shafts until they got the hang of it.

Clever as humanity is we would soon have
remote controlled robots to drive tanks in streets,
shooting hole in houses and planes dropping its
cargo of cluster bombs over kinder gardens, and
frightened people running amok and stumbling
over walls built by those who have most to fear.

Peace conference in Vienna, a thousand blind
delegates with their dogs, that’s a lot of crap in
in the boulevard; mind, no one to see the mess.
Mow back to the point, be a good idea for lonely
old man to get a blind girlfriend, preferable one
who hasn’t learnt to read Braille.

Many words left unspoken,
No one to care to listen to a lost voice.
For one person in need their words of hope go unsaid.

Lost words getting left behind
too build on to more problems,
Emotions left in the cold dark night,
Which adds on to their low self esteem.

Leaving breaking souls walking next to one another,
that dare not share an eye flutter,
Afraid everything will crumble down next to them.

Scared to open up thoughts they leave behind
in which could save them the pain they go through.
Yet no one stops to listen,
No one cares to hear a voice.

Lost words that we leave behind haunts us all,
As we grow older, our words no longer matter.
We hide away that cry for help,
Cause no one is there for us lost ones.
Our words go forever unspoken.

Nostalgia

The rock I used to climb was my mountain,
I had an unlimited view of fields, hedges,
trees and grazing animals;

Mice moved my mountain, too dangerous
for children, the field is full of little houses
and back yards with swimming pools;

Blue uniforms drive slowly around to see
If all is well, in nice streets cars are parked
but where are the kids on bikes?

This is twaddle, I give a shit where they
are as long as they keep off my lawn and
don’t steal my car.