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.