Moura

Beneath the skin a poison

An irritation, not life threatening

Yet a disruption nevertheless

That also spreads to others

The urge to scratch is withheld

A similar dissatisfaction

That I imagine for a hunger striker

Within the confines of a prison cell

Yesterday we visited the vast water

From the balcony at Amiera near Alqueva

We looked out on our own Lake Isle of Innisfree

But to live here, how am I able to contemplate

When my mind is focussed on the bite

Rather than on the refreshed vine plantations

Irrigated by the man-made dam that also powers

This sparsely populated, but firmly historical region

This poem is from the collection 

Pinpoint

Sting, sting & sting again

Three stings

From yesterday night

Transitory annoyance

How not to have seen

How not to have heard

That certain little blighter

Who helped himself

To myself; more of

Myself, than I ever could

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Unsettled

In the night I have been stung

Thus I am woken, not only by love

But also by the resonant throb

Of the mosquito’s poison

Now it is the minutiae that attracts me

As if F Scott Fitzgerald’s own despair

Was a fundamental part of this occupation

Founded on ants, this place named Algarve

Is throng with their movement

Only the water, of which there is ample

Only the water diverts their passage

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Chill

I am sat inside

A warm breeze, spills in, through the open door

Tickles the hair on my thin bare legs

I have carried a song

Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Bridge

Carried it all the way from waking

John Berger’s Bento’s Sketchbook is by my side

I bought it four weeks ago, especially for this vacation

I am high with expectation; pray no disappointments

The breeze whistles in the chimney

It reaches here, after having moved with grace

Through the gently-swaying, flowered blue mimosa

On the patio, beside the pool, there is conversation

Happy voices, easy with their laughter

Talk of antique shops, in country villages, & the like

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Ogle

After the afternoon shift have departed

The serious bathers set up shop

Books

With sufficient words

To last

The all of summer

Enough bare skin to captivate

The most discerning of lookers on

This poem is from the collection