Standing on hot stones

watching the leviathens

stream proudly past

and reading Liberia, Panama and Lichenstein

sail by.

In the sun, licking an icecream,

a little man

with worried weathered face

and body bent by

delving in hot, ungrateful fields

all day under the sungrill

and stinging windsleet,

with hands so gnarled and twisted

like olive trunks,

turned to me and said,

'Can they have paid their taxes as I have, do you think?'

'I doubt it', I replied.

re-reading Liberia, Panama and Lichenstein

sail by.