There’s a demon on my shoulder,
clipping toenails into my ear
An angel on the other,
nibbles wax so I can hear
He makes balm for my lips,
lights candles once a year
Both play devil’s advocate;
God knows they’re insincere?
Their words are quite pointed,
but sharper when being blunt?
My ears burn like hell
as rumours exchange every month
This tug-of-war’s relentless,
pulling strings to win my soul
If i’m nothing special;
why fight tooth and nail for control?
Lately they’ve switched shoulders,
maybe it’s to explore
Candles burn less often,
not on birthdays like before
Toenails fall unchecked,
my balm-less lips crack and swell
One day I’m living in heaven;
the next feels like bloody hell
This war is wearing me down
I can’t do wrong for right
My hair feels thinner,
no surprise from this endless fight
Searching for bald spots in the mirror
sheds light on their attack:
Those grifters do Brazilians
and pedicures behind my back.
By
David Kavanagh
We’re on the same boat
Nurses and teachers,
Doctors and farmers,
Mr. Moreno and his “maricon”
Enrico Macias and his dry guitar,
We are on the same boat,
The Sevillans and the Marseillais,
The Brazilians and their forests,
My sister Anne and her diabetic patients
Catholics and Muslims,
we are on the same boat,
firefighters and butchers,
The jellyfish and the ancient Greeks,
Psychiatrists and Carl Jung,
the Breton cakes and the scholars,
We are on the same boat,
The astrophysicists and mangousts,
Tarzan and the pizza eaters,
The farmers and gold miners,
We are on a steaming boat,
That of men who seek God.
Brazilians put green peas on their pizzas you know
yuck said my unworldly friend, whose cheeks were aglow
crazy since he is German and they put tuna on their crust
I rolled my eyes at his bigotry, his absolutism is a must.
japanese add potatoes to their pizza and mayonnaise too
you are kidding said my Costa Rican friend, her name is Lu.
what do you add to yours in the islands? I asked her.
we eat coconut on ours, to be bare would be a disaster.
pepperoni is the most popular topping in the US of A.
a variety of pieces though, each made in a unique way.
I have had tuna on my pizza in California, it was good too.
the one who did not believe me was my friend, island Lu.
Pele wins World Cup at seventeen.
Letting proud Brazilians cheer and preen.
Scored six goals in victory
National Treasure we all see
He’s the best soccer player ever seen.
Drinking tea (cha)mate (herb mate) in the bombilla, is a tradition in the south of America, mainly among the gauchos (Argentine, Brazilians, etc)
The bombilla is filled with the herb mate heated in temperature palatable and each person sucks the infusion little by little and passes it on to someone else... In this case, my girlfriend took her mate and
passed me first the bombilla, (so called utensil )
then I sucked
tea mate with some of the taste
from her mouth... That's how I created
my little poem...
PS Each bombilla contains an infusion for 10 sips, so it passes to 10 people at a time, then it is filled again and the passage from mouth to mouth repeating again...
HAIBUN
You are electron microscopic size, but you possess infinitesimal power. Just a single strand of encapsulated RNA, yet you and your brothers SARS and MERS can sicken and kill more complex life.
Covid-19, virion unseen
Bring humans to their knees
Cowering and trembling
You spring up suddenly from nowhere and spread like fire in a parched forest. Devastating stock markets, stopping sports teams, halting concerts and forbidding gatherings over 250 souls. Quarantines of ships and planes. People greedily grasping, fighting and clawing for the important things in life: toilet paper, masks, cleaning supplies, paper towels.
A boon to corporations
Johnson and Johnson, Proctor and Gamble
Secretly happy you are around.
World wide you spread, showing no regard for race, boundaries or politics.
Italians, Iranians, Chinese,
Americans, Norwegians,
Japanese, Brazilians
The world caught unprepared. Scientists scrambling to develop a vaccine. All will breathe a sigh of relief when you cease your rampage. That is until you return, mutated, the same but different and we start all over again.
THE RIVER SEA
Even from islands of the Antilles -
Taking Pinzon’s route to El Dorado
In the very foothills of the Andes
And its golden yellow meadow.
Death-dealing its piranha and crocodile;
Life-giving, the earth’s river-daughter -
With its fast bore fierce and tidal -
Floods half a continent with water,
Floods half the planet with oxygen.
Large ocean ships sail up it free.
Probes fresh lobes far into salt ocean.
To Brazilians it is - The River Sea.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
NOTE
Vicente Yanez Pinzon was the first European
to visit the Amazon in 1500
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Entered in Barbara Gorelick's Contest "A River Runs Through It"
AMAZON
Death-dealing its piranha and crocodile
And its fast bore fierce and tidal.
Life-giving, the earth’s river-daughter
Floods half a continent with water,
Floods half the planet with oxygen,
Probes fresh lobes far into salt ocean.
To Brazilians it is The River Sea -
Large ocean ships sailed up it free,
Even from islands of the Antilles
To the very foothills of the Andes,
Taking Pinzon’s route to El Dorado
And its golden yellow meadow.
…………………………………
NOTE
Vicente Yanez Pinzon was the first European to visit the Amazon in 1500
While campaigning among South American civilians
he got news of the death of three Brazilians
He said he was vexed
then he asked quite perplexed
just how many is a brazillion?
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