Welcome

I hope you enjoy reading from this collection

as much as I enjoyed writing it.

(more poems in my S. America overland adventure  'SAO' on Kindle)

No-one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

                                                           Samuel Johnson

OK, so I'm a blockhead.

What makes a piece of writing a poem?

If there isn't any rhyme or at least repeating rhythm,

it's just pretentious shredded prose and not a proper poem.

The Sea

Out of my depth and floundering

you tried to teach me how to swim.

I learned enough to stay afloat

and then you pulled me in.

Secure on land I found my feet

and gladly fell in step with you.

We marched together down the years

and hid the sea from view.

Through time we built a barrier

proof against any threatening storm

and in the lee we passed our lives

peaceful, dry and warm.

But then you died and suddenly

our guarding sea-wall cracked apart.

It cannot keep the ocean out

and I'm back at my start.

But this time's different from before -

no teacher tries to help me swim.

No longer caring if I drown

I watch the sea sweep in.

She lay so calmly after sleepless nights

I hardly had the heart to wake her.

She looked so peaceful in the morning light -

should I disturb her, did I dare shake her?

I sat beside her on a stool

and kissed her forehead, marble cool.

"Wake up" I whispered "Let's go home.

There's lots to do and I need you"

She didn't stir - I waited,

then reluctantly I left her.

I know she would've come if she could

but the coffin kept her.

Tweets 22

LITERATURE

Plays and novels basically

aim at entertaining:

the better poetry

aims at insight.

THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

should be re-named a scene contest.

All the songs are commercial rejects;

it's all about the visual effects (!)

If you want to harden yourself

against disappointment,

try growing plants.

If you want to practise hatred,

try gastropods.

The current attractions at my gym

are the smooth, well rounded bottoms

of various young, attractive women.

They wear such sexy, bum hugging shorts !

Oh, to be a short, bum hugger !

The sunshine tempts the men to shorts

but the women stick to longs.

Some politicians like the idea of The People

more than the people themselves.

Why don't creatures other than Man become obese ?

You don't see ovewrweight foxes, badgers, mice or geese.

It can't be just the hunger of animal appetite

with cows and sheep in acres of grass just there to bite.

Is it instead the hunger of the human mind

needing to be occupied to pass the time ?

Conclave

Why this conclave business ? Instead

why doesn't God from Heaven above

send down to settle on one man's head

his holy messenger pure white dove ?

Oh, sorry, of course. Poop.

Thursday band night

The older ones are not attractive;

the younger ones need younger men.

At least the dancing keeps me active

partnering despair again

Some sail the ocean, voyaging wide

daring danger with youthfull pride

run with the wind or drift with the tide.

Adventure is the fuel.

Some plunge the ocean, diving deep

beyond safe light where creatures creep

unknown to men who aim to keep

discovery as their rule.

Some travel wide and deep as well

heroes indeed as legends tell,

who enter heaven via hell,

their fame bright as a jewel.

Others are timid and stay at home

content to fester instead of roam

preferring shallows to ocean foam -

who's for a dip in the pool ?

The times they are a'changing

Whatever happened to those manly handshakes?

Metamorphosed into high fives, fist bumps.

But now mutated into male embraces - cheek bumps.

She wants

to be diaphonous as her dress,

an insubstantial spirit free

from all the disagreeable stress

of functioning biology;

to banish farts and faeces, sweat

and menstrual liquidity

but what I want is warmth in bed

her smoothness and solidity.

She hopes her pungent perfumes quell

all hint of animality

but I prefer the ranker smell

of female sexuality.

Despite our differences I learn

to treat her dreams with gravity

and she endeavours in her turn

to live with my depravity.

Cheap Playlist

The DJ danced

as if entranced

by the music that he'd played.

The people stood

as if of wood

regretting the money they'd paid.

I waited at the crossing for

the cars to stop and lights to change

but facing me they'd wait no more

to pass across and extend their range.

One after another, then twos then fours

past the red light they surged ahead,

unstoppable, ignoring the laws -

one hundred frigate birds overhead.

Tweets 21

The torment of a man's old age:  young women

Avenida Vieira Souto

--------------------------

It's hard to judge quite which is best

of parading male and female breast -

the boobs on the birds

or the pecs on the geeks.

RANKINGS

----------------

The song before the singer.

The poem over the poet.

The art above the artist.

it's hard getting up

from bathing in the warmth

of the winter bedclothes

MENTAL  AVIANS

My thoughts used to perch

and sing like blackbirds

but now they fly away

like swallows.

TRACER  SHELLS ?

Somebody's firing silver bullets

streaking across the summer sky.

They seem to be coming from near the airport.

Does anybody know why?

WHAT A WOMAN WANTS

Boyfriend, lover, husband, father.

The essence of feminine beauty

is a pretty face and a slim curvy body.

The crux of masculine beauty

is a pretty face and a slim muscled body.

When to wear leather

depends on the weather.

Most of those mistakes I make

every single day

are due to one arch-criminal

who just won't go away.

Any relation to Moriarty?

Gravity !

Forget souls; try sufaces

Personalities are surfaces with idiosyncrasies,

not smooth but covered in bumps and dips,

snags and dents, scars and scratches;

too smooth and they just slide past each other

but sometimes the imperfections don't miss

but catch one another, so to speak - kiss,

and then each surface has another that matches.

TRICK OR TREAT

Past his youth and seemingly a lifelong bachelor

to everyone's surprise he suddenly had a ladyfriend.

No-one knew her or where he'd met her and he did not explain

but she was passably attractive and clearly younger than him.

He stopped his usual meetings with us, presumably besotted.

We learned about the marriage only after the event.

and  no more news until we heard that he'd become a dad

and nothing more for a year or so until we learned the sad

rumours of a very acrimonious divorce.

Of late he's started to rejoin his previous group of friends

but won't discuss his family and any mention offends.

He's very well off and I'm sure he can afford the maintenance

but I sometimes wonder how he views the whole experience.