It happens yearly;
the seeds sprout.
Too many clearly
but plant them out
for friends and family -
hence the shout
"Courgette anyone?"
(Well, marrow really !)

She looks stunning in the evening with her make-up;

what does she look like in the morning when she wakes up?

Fun is a taste that fades so fast,

a brief exhilaration

that sometimes can leave us aghast

at later realisation.

Enjoyment's usually less intense

and also less dramatic,

governed more by common sense,

and not so problematic.

Joy, if it happens, can outlast

the moment, getting stronger

as after-taste of happenings past

lodging in memory longer.

Pleasure has a subtler flavour,

languidly suggesting

its need for leisure time to savour,

mentally digesting.

Delight is a snack with delicate scent

inhaled without intention,

a fragrance all too quickly spent,

impossible of retention.

Jubilation is the topping

sportsmen sometimes make

when their triumph involves stopping

sharing out the cake.

Ecstasy is supernatural,

religious manna for a prophet

but fantasy for us as mortal

with little chance to quaff it.

Satisfaction is the base

of every wholesome meal

where sound decisions make the case

how good achievements feel.

Happiness is the bread of life

infused with family -

parents, children, husband, wife -

the oldest recipe.

Poorly said

Born in poverty, poorly bred,
poorly raised and poorly fed,
poorly praised or educated,
with poor prospects poorly wed;

poorly paid and poorly led,
social benefits poorly spread,
in poor health (what hope ahead?)
poorly doctored, surely dead.

Don't talk to me of an Afterlife;
there isn't one.
And as for hopes of Paradise,
you make it here.
And don't you dare to mention miracles;
we live on one
and know for all life death is natural
and nowt to fear.

There is no Hell although it would be
justice for some
and only troubled minds face Purgatory
year after year.
With sects created from the gullible
by charlatans
how anyone can still have faith in prophets
is unclear.

Our modern world sees less observance
of religion
although some people still need something
to revere.
And so, despite continued brainwashing
of children,
the trend is that belief in God
will disappear.

Beautiful women display in a bubble
of untouchability tempting a prick
and even if there's no immediate trouble
when men lose control of the drive in their dick,
unwanted intrusions, albeit youthful,
may not be forgotten by those victimised
and test reputations of the untruthful
defending themselves with obvious lies.
Years after the incident think of the shame
occasioned to parents, friends, children and wife.
Although you may try to escape from the blame,
the consequence surely will ruin your life.
So, gentlemen please pay attention to such
an obvious maxim - look but don't touch.

The actuality is it's just another
dormitory like any other
but permeated by the idea
of somewhere new - Brasilia.

The summer sunset peered through the bedroom window
and blushed at what it saw.

Urbino, Italy

The grandeur of the palace re-awakened
all the old anger at outrageous riches
derived at base from peasant poverty.

The same few biblical events all taken
uncritically on walls and shadowed niches
in gloomy paintings brainwashed laity.

And so the visit kept my thanks unshaken
for our democracy, despite its glitches,
more intent on gaiety than deity.

When I was young, my parents embarrassed me;
now older I cringe at the younger self I see.

Welcome to Guyana

We crossed the border from Boa Vista and started to follow the orange dirt road. The skinny savannah of Brazil began to put on weight as fleshy forest padded the far horizon. The narrow road soon needle pointed through walls of wood - the palmless, pineless lush green leafery patrolled by black clad vigilant vultures. Kilometres of whorled and rutted track eventually stretched the view to distance of marsh. Canals and roadside pools erupted water birds - egrets, herons, occasional jabiru storks. King vultures posed for our tourist cameras. Then forest ruled again. The single lane track became furrowed, freshly ploughed by lorries, until on a rare smooth straight our truck slowed down as a distant object across our way lazily stirred itself, stretched and casually strolled off into the jungle - jaguar.

"It's a hard habit to break" she said "I know"
I assumed she was thinking of her husband
lately deceased but reputed a miser.
Having mentioned I'd reached that stage of life
when inheritance tax becomes a concern,
her comment did make me a little bit wiser -
I've only got funds from the little I've earned
because all my life I've been economical
but I'm finding she's right - a hard habit to break,
just like her husband, too true to be comical.
I seem to be expert at saving my money
with little idea of just how to spend it.
It's certainly crazy but not really funny:
I'm no fan of fashion or fancy restaurants;
I don't care for cars or technology;
won't go for gimmicks or special offers
or fall for some salesman's kidology.
So will all my money stay locked in my coffers?
Well, what I do like doesn't cost very much:
the garden and council allotment I tend
(and because I eat all of the crops that I grow,
I actually save a lot more than I spend);
drinking sweet cider and dancing to pop tunes
(but only in places with no entry charge !);
an occasional quiz, some sport on TV;
self-delusion of fitness by courtesy
of the weights and equipment in my local gym
(the annual membership one luxury).
I could spend my money on more foreign travel
but there's not many places I still want to visit.
I'd like to spend money on dining young women
but they don't want to know me as being decrepit.
So perhaps I give up and just take the advice
of some favourite poets - Belloc and Byron,
accepting I'm stuck with the 'gentlemanly vice' -
involuntary avarice.

A week or so ago I dug some may bugs

from a big flowerpot in my back garden.

Coiled they were, like short fat juicy caterpillars.

I put them out on the lawn as food for whatever

and noticed a magpie several times fill its beak

and fly off presumably to feed its young.

A few days later I dug up several more

and again put them out as food for whoever.

And again a magpie took full advantage.

Lately I haven't found any more but now

repeatedly I see a magpie patrolling my lawn.

It walks a few slow steps then stops to inspect

a patch of grass or probe it with its beak.

Nothing. A few more steps. Another inspection.

Nothing. Sometimes it seems to stare at me

through the French doors and I can almost feel

its disappointment, frustration, annoyance, anger.

Do you know anywhere I can buy may bugs?

Flying to Karawari, Papua New Guinea

We board our silver winged flier - more bird than butterfly (except in turbulence) and slide across the farmers' fields and feathery copses lightly sprinkled with sequined houses. Then valleys deepen and wooded hillsides steepen into mountains. An orange road wriggles along the crests of ridges. The land becomes a huge green corrugated cake with cumulus topping. Gradually it levels to a tufted carpet of endless forest. At last the flat brown coffee of the river, the cricket pitch landing and the woven palm leaves terminal.

Driving to Brighton, England

The airport was busy, half a dozen passenger jets criss-crossing the sky, sectioning the flimsy grey garden fleece covering the background blue with precisely ruled white lines thickening and wobbling as they aged. A few frayed tufts hinted at high breeze. Into the rural, we sped across flat farmland starting to sprout new housing estates. At the Downs we had to dawdle up the Beacon hill, cursing the weekend cyclists, then feeling guilty for our vehicle lazy irritation. At the top at last, two panoramic views vied for our attention : behind us, the tree carpeted level stretched east to west fringed by the distant northern hills; ahead the buxom grassy downs lolloped on towards the far sea brighter than the obscured sun gazing downcast behind its veil. Descending more, the city met us with busy streets between the crowded houses. And finally the pier. And the problem of parking.

A US airman considers death

I know that I deliver death
on people from the sky above.
Those that I kill I do not hate;
those that I serve I do not love.
My country orders me across
the globe to enforce natural law
as seen by our elected boss
although at times I'm not so sure.
I didn't have to join this fight
but I avoid the chattering crowds
and still find flying a delight
released from Earth above the clouds.
I do my job and to my mind
ascribing blame is waste of breath.
Let's focus on the good behind
collateral damage, innocent death.

I'm not religious, never go to church,
don't believe that God exists, chancing
my luck 'cos if He does, I'm in the lurch.
However I might be enhancing

some hope of Heaven by way of reports
that on occasions He's been seen glancing
at accounts of my Faith in a Trinity of sorts -
but alcohol, music and tipsy dancing.

It's amazing how fast he can play his pop-up keyboard,
lighting quick across so many keys;
but only, I notice, just one at a time, not a single chord
yet all the time his fingers never freeze.

Although I see now it's his other sort of digit
doing the work without the need to strain
them all and he's so concentrating he doesn't fidget,
just sits - not using body, only brain.

We know that it needed millennia to form 'homo sapiens'
but seeing the way technology numbs,
our species might quickly evolve into 'homo mobilens'
with fatter bums and much bigger thumbs.

Carnaval in Brazil - an Ipanema bloco

The road beside the beach is heaving today. The giant bloco truck crawls like some snail dinosaur anxious not to crush the pullulating crowd lapping against it. Behind surge tribal devotees shuffling their feet and swaying their hips in ritual worship. The band and singer throned like priests atop the truck intone the over-amplified samba hymns but fail to tempt the elder congregation from the beach. The younger folk, though, push their smooth brown bodies past a thousand possible partners. There's every sort of garish fancy dress that Chinese plastics factories can imagine - girls in fru-fru skirts, with glittered cheeks and rainbow wigs, guys in fru-fru skirts flaunting their muscles steroid big, superhero costumes, masks, bow ties, feathered head-dresses and devil's horns, nurses, togas, Aztec gods, Hawaian skirts, girls in bridal white, in hope perhaps. The route is lined with mini-business men ( hopeful entrepreneurs from the favelas ? ) selling snacks of all sorts and, from polystyrene cases some the size of coffins, iced beers bought from local supermarkets, carried here on shoulders, towed on trolleys or pushed on carts. Their efforts certainly merit profit if only they don't over-supply. Now comes the brightest fancy dress of all : the council cleaner's hi-viz orange overall intent on sweeping up the drink detritus bottles, cans and plastic cups and close behind the servant rubbish truck. Without the need for any entrance fee and fancy dress not a necessity, this is a music festival for free. But what is celebrated here is not in fact the music, but rather,  time with friends for getting drunk as part of the biggest booze-up ever in pisstory.

If you need to worship something,
you don't have to invent God
or bow down to royalty
with intellect of gastropod.

Don't revere some crass dictator,
footballer or movie star;
they'll all fail sooner or later,
human beings that they are.

Marvel at what's most amazing -
life in all its different forms;
contemplate with awe, stargazing,
majesty past human norms.

Pray that human population
won't obliterate the Earh,
won't destroy with our pollution
other life of equal worth.

But, no need for rite or temple,
mysteries of the unknown;
please forget the supernatural:
nature's super on its own.

True vanity ignores the mirror,
brushes aside all compliments;
secure in feeling superior
humble to all appearance.

There ain't much fun in being old;
there's little future to unfold;
I hate the winter, wet and cold;
the same old jokes have all been told;
there's no young woman I can hold.

But still I'm stabled, watered, fed;
my bank account is never red;
and though I've been too long unwed,
things could be worse, for when all's said,
it's slightly better than being dead.

Ipanema

While I lie on the beach in the evening sun,
vultures and frigate birds circle the moon.

After an evening of rum and soda

I reached the metro before it closed,

wobbled home to the hostel sofa,

flopped myself down and almost dozed

but then I noticed two strange leaves

on one of the courtyard's potted trees

vibrating in the night-time breeze

(like something seen but never heard)

imitating a humming bird !