Seasons bring ... the nights, Machiavelli's
Corvus corax or ravens, hints, rallies
birds of good and evil, biblically,
and birds of a feather, ominously,
fed Elijah; 1 Kings 17: ... good,
left Noah; Genesis 8: ... bad, withstood
words by De La Mare, Pollard, and purely ...,
Poe. Riposte's preface specter writes, surely ...,
"Unblackeneds spot the murder from peaks cross.
Fowl scratched a stilted appendaged, exhausts
for ends, internal haunts recuse it from
rituals such ... be marred guilt and succumb
in absentia accused of their acts.
Black king seeks a pawn, the hour ... ink affects."
Deep is the sea
A cook on a ship sat on a pollard drinking beer
when he got up, the ship lurched, and he fell overboard
He swam on his back, moving his arms slowly
thinking, if the meat he had taken from the freezer had thawed
He must have fallen half sleep when feeling the water
was swallowed, got up, waded ashore on a small island
Tired, he sat in the sand to sleep more until the sun burnt
his face (cooks have pale faces) and a land crab bit his toe.
Thirsty, he walked around the island and came upon
fishermen, frying red snappers; immediately, the cook felt
at home and said: “Good morning.”
Surprised at first, he told of his mishap, and they welcomed him
to eat and drink cold beer.
When the news, the cook was saved, reached the press, he didn’t
mind as few cooks ever get to be famous
The Pianist
I flick through the TV channels. It is football
and football, except on Fox News, but they
are so insane there I rather watch sport.
I played the picturesque game once as defender
but I grew up and it was at the same time
as I stopped believing in god and that he looked
like the pianists in Alfred´s cafe.
I have often missed the pianist, not long ago I
saw him in Faro, followed him along the promenade
I fell over a pollard; he helped me up and said:
“Once and for all I´m not your father.”
I once saw my father on the bus, he was an enigma
a shell that gave nothing away except being drunk.
Totally unlike the pianist who wears a beret, alpaca
jacket and a yellow silk scarf.
Obsession
The pianist Albert has got a job in Loulé last time
I saw him in Faro and fell over a pollard, he said
he was not my father. When he spotted me he ran
into a café, they let him run through the kitchen
into the back, a dead end; I waited for him there.
“If you don´t stop following me I will have to call
the police, I´M NOT YOUR FATHER.” To mollify
him I said: “ I know you are not, but I do admire
your piano playing. ”This pleased him and we had
a drink and he told me he came from Yugoslavia,
had wanted to be a concert pianist, but there was
no money, so he ended up as a café pianist… just
as my father I thought but said nothing… then he
had to leave for work, saw him walk out of my life
just as my father did, there was nothing I could do
to stop this man who refused to be my dad.
The ship officer and the Lady
As I waited for my ship to dock at the onion pier,
a clerk came and handed me a bag of garlic for
the ship, I told him I had not ordered any and
showed him my three silver rings on my uniform.
He smirked and said I must have borrowed it to
impress the gullible, I shrank inside the uniform
and could not see my hands and feet.
Met a lady who was waiting for the ship too, she
was the wife of the chief engineer, and together
we strolled to the end of the dock, where
I resentfully threw the bag of garlic into the sea
where it swelled, became a life boat that slowly
drifted away. Back at the spot where the ship was
supposed to dock we’re told the ship had come
and gone. The lady sat on a pollard crying, took
her wedding ring off and threw it into the water,
I, who had taken Lasix 40, peed into the same sea
and its water turned pink. “Truly, this man is
a saint someone whispered”. Confident again
I swelled in the uniform and could see my hands
and feet . The clerk asked forgiveness and kissed
the onyx ring on my left index finger and gave me
another bag of garlic.