thirty years

I'm at the wall

nothing's fun

any more

the last 

thing I 

wanted to 

be in 

Cascais

was awake

just got back from portugal hopefully

for the last time the dogs bark people

walk around yesterday dogs bark

there's more places to eat in cascais

dogs made a million euros dogs got fed

lived there 12 years no one recognizes

the dog death clean drowned laptops

in the tub dogs walk everything costs a million euros

gave away almost everything I had

you can fight go away accept the dogs

all the people have the same name

except their parents who had different same names

there was an accident on the bridge

Christ looks over Lisbon outstretched arms

antenna attached to his scull endless prayers

for dogs I went to the beach this weekend

it's only a million euros pain is Catholic

I hope for the last time had a ten gram piece

of Nepalese hash in the safe I sent down from Amsterdam

in the post ten years ago gave everything else away

because everybody takes everything dogs unhappy

in their dog world humans walking on the line behind

drunk on sleep disease money i like money but I'm alive

dogs like money they shit in the park

the Atlantic heaves and wanes storms stir the seasons

everyone forgets goes to the beach forgets what they've read

decades of poetry dumped in the trash Camões Pessoa

floating on the surface there is volleyball and the limping

frowning cheap coffee free bowls of dog water millions in dog

real estate why Spain they managed to think 

dogs don't know Europe ends at the sea and the Pyrenees

I was happy in Amsterdam people walked dogs drank and smoked 

on terraces where people belong now I'm really because slowly

and with suffering disappearing nobody dies and no one

is born in Portugal you are old or young you live with dogs

and you eat what they eat


 I

don't

know

 

We know

we can’t know

we know

we can guess

we know

right or wrong

is too late


My mother’s birthday was two days ago

it crossed my mind she’s been dead

two years I think condolences were posted

no one celebrated here life remembers

why she was even here in the first place

why she would show up in Portugal

and talk to strangers look for a Protestant

church in Lisbon because Jesus always

seems to be dying in the Catholic ones



I remember sitting in Cascais

when Gene was alive out there

in Pinhal Novo Jeff and I would

drive across the river to see him

one time he showed us around

We ate but we didn’t buy anything

Sitting in Cascais I forgot to know

anybody unless I needed to

everywhere a plane away 

Gene was still alive Jeff 

still out there