I am seventy going on eighty and I Tweet

Posted on Posted in Uncategorized2 Comments
white and blue bird
Photo by Jack Bulmer on Pexels.com
You wait Mr. Grump
In Your doting age
For the reaper to turn the light off
Your life Mr. Grump is a brittle page
Who knows how long you can write on
To write on
You are seventy going on eighty
Papa es ist Zeit zu denkt
Besser achtung
Etre prudent et prudent
Papà, sei sul limite 
You are seventy going on eighty
Your teeth no longer align
Eager young orthodontists
Et les coquins
Offer you food and wine
For your stomach unkind
Unknown now world of women
Angry though tired and weak are you
Perhaps because of  your kin
You wanna be wiser not older
You should have told’em
When you could
Now you are seventy going on eighty
Who’ll take care of metoo?
I know I’ve been a knave
Fellows I meet say stop your damn tweets
Alas this I ain’t gonna leave
I am Seventy going on eighty  and now 
C in C
I will tweet and tweet and tweet.		 You wait little girl

On an empty stage

for fate to turn the light on

Your life little girl is an empty page

that men will want to write on

To write on

You are sixteen going on seventeen

Baby, it’s time to think

Better beware

Be canny and careful

Baby, you’re on the brink

You are sixteen going on seventeen

Fellows will fall in line

Eager young lads

and rogues and cads

will offer you food and wine

Totally unprepared are you

to face a world of men

Timid and shy and scared are you

of things beyond your ken

You need someone older and wiser

telling you what to do

I am seventeen going on eighteen

I’ll take care of you

I am sixteen going on seventeen

I know that I’m naive

Fellows I meet may tell me I’m sweet

and willingly I believe

I am…

 

Word Storm

Posted on Posted in Poems, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , 1 Comment
toys letters pay play
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Words skid down our windscreens

All now times

Rainy words

Snowstorm words

Hailstorm words

But they dribble down into the gutter.

Our words are worthless

Now there are templates

“The Nation is in danger”

“Immigrants threaten our jobs”

“We have to maintain the purity of

Our race/language/economy”

“Our colour is the best color”

Who’s worried now about the Panda

The rule book says now propaganda

Let’s toss the Ozone or Amazon or drugs

All under the bloody rug!

Take a hike, Right?

And you there shut off the mike!

 

Waiting for the Midnight Special to Shine a Light on Me in Munich!

Posted on Posted in Munich, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , , ,

1-IMG_1440

There can be nothing more daunting and lonely than waiting for a Midnight train in a foreign city. We actually got disoriented in the fog as we reached our destination station and started walking in the wrong direction. No pedestrians at night. Then luckily because I had bought some coffee from the local Rewe shop I took that as a guiding post although in the night with its bright lights on the side wall and christian crosses it looked more like a church. Finally the sight of the flashing and red and blue lights of the gas station next to our hotel led us to our hotel and home. There was a man standing in his balcony and smoking a cigarette and I asked him about the direction of the hotel. My German vanished into the cold night and his English was not adequate enough to help us. He just gave a very European shrug and off we went pushing the pram with my little grandson in it and the other five year old in tow and my daughter beside me. She as is not  unusual went into panic mode and befuddled me. She kept insisting that is not Rewe, it is a church. Thank God for the arabica coffee I had bought in the morning, we reached home safely.

The Net Commandments

Posted on Posted in Poems, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , ,

new commandments

Ok so now

It is time to climb the mountain

and waste away

Japanese style in a culvert,

A cave or a corner.

When now the weight of all

sins falls heavily like

A ton of bricks

Through a rat-chewed Net of frail and aged threads!

 

Ok so now

nobody is listening

or even within earshot

The rats have taken over the world

It is as they have already said

No country for old men.

Well really thumb lick through the pages of history

The rats have always ruled

And dogs lived their

Foretold life.

 

It is strange

They shout spacewards

Is there anybody out there?

While people squirm and starve and shrivel

Under all that spoken drivel!

 

Today if Moses

Climbed up the mountain

He would find a tablet perhaps in a neat box

And perhaps maybe certainly Really

With Netflix and Apple TV!!

Volcanic Anger

Posted on Posted in Poems, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , ,

IMG_8314

Everyone gets effed up sometime

Even the Earth splits

And spits lava

Such beautiful names-

Vesuvius, Mt. Etna and Hawaii

But wait?

Pompeii?

All over

When will the lava burst? Again

Civilized people are stunned

He’s insane

Families smothered; some make their escape

When I explode.

It takes centuries for civilization to reappear

On these shores!

Oh it is going to be a long wait.

Meanwhile the gossipy archealogists

minerologists and geologists

pick at the safe corners of the blast

mumbling at least it adds to the land mass

Six meters of ashes are hard to come out of

It takes centuries.

No wonder they keep repeating oft

“Don’t blow your top!”

Mystery of the Onion Domes on Munich Towers

Posted on Posted in church, Munich, UncategorizedTagged , 1 Comment

IMG_1568IMG_1612DSCF9969

Anyone not familiar with southern Germany and especially Bavaria is surprised by the onion domes on towers in and around Munich and even on churches. These I have found are the remnants of the Austrian empire. They also represent  the victory of the Catholic church over the Protestant. Thus traditional spires are abandoned in favour of the more Russian looking onion domes. The architectural reason given is that onion domes do not gather heavy snow on the dome tops during the winter season.

Source–https://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/40/2/138

onion dome

 

 

3 Very old, very worthwhile churches in Munich

Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

I rushed through Munich recently and found your photographs and write-up very informative about things I had seen but did not have the luck to have a good guide to point out the history and names of the churches.

Tripping Over The World

IMG_20150618_043715317_HDR

Munich’s clock in the middle of town is a big draw. Crowds of tourists cluster together in Marienplatz with necks stretched upward waiting for the elaborate Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) glockenspiel to chime and dance, culminating with a life-sized knight getting knocked off his horse in a joust.

The clock is fun in a “it’s a small world” way and dates from 1908. But in a city with a 1,000 years of history like Munich, there is a lot more to check out, including three must-see churches that are all within a five minute walk of the glockenspiel: Old Peter, Frauenkirche, and St. Peter’s.

Old Peter:

The Church of St. Peter is the oldest church in Munich, and although the current building only dates from the 14th century, this location has been the site of worship since the 8th century. It was built in the pre-Gothic Romanesque style and has a comparatively small nave and low ceilings with small rounded (Romanesque) arches.

View original post 399 more words

A Violin Blow

Posted on Posted in Poems, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , 1 Comment
back view of woman holding her denim jacket
Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

Violin blow

 

The soft breeze

Like the first accidental brush of a bow

On a violin before the go

Of the orchestra!

A gentle purr of a breath

A blow, nature whistles

Just lifts a strand of hair

On her head

And cools her brow’s sweat

Ruffles her collar

I forget summer

And shiver with a vision

Of a cozy winter with her.