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The serpentine queue refused to budge.

It were the grown-ups that were stressed
the children babbled showing no unhappiness
with the pause offering so much more to do
and nothing that useful to look forward to.

Some faces looked as though made no sense
this waiting for mundane taxing patience
but were eyes that peered staunchly keen
as if the wait's end God would be seen.

Though lumps of time allowed break from the run
not one face showed up some feeling of the fun
anxious and jittery they smoked up the place
to my mind the children were only saving grace.
At the queue, March 2, 2017, 7 pm.
Sarah and Solomon married at Foxglove in verdant Taranaki…a magical time for everybody at that beautiful, beautiful occasion.

Dear old Grandpa Verne Bell passed from this mortal coil and went on to the next with his typical strong eyed fortitude and open curiosity.

Major earthquake shatters the top of the South island and is felt with trepidation from one end of the country to the other.

Trump hauls votes from the impossible and manufactures an improbable US Presidency…. Much to the embarrassment, alarm and discomfort of the majority of the thinking American population.

Oceans continue to rise and atmospheric temperatures climb…..and nobody really cares enough to try to do anything much about it.

Russia and China flex their military muscle and snub their sabre rattling noses at the West.

Interest rates and the price of gas started to escalate upward again.

Friends and relatives have been rocked by ill health, hardship and misfortune.

Key calls “Enough” and passes the Prime Ministerial gauntlet to a (thankfully), very capable Bill English.

Janet and Marshal both reach out and find new jobs, fresh horizons & new avenues to explore.

Syria slides into chaos and anarchy with absolutely no regard for it’s ordinary, civilian population languishing in the dreadful ruins of East Aleppo.

The Hectors dolphin numbers dwindle to 87 living animals, surviving  globally.



But….We, friends, live in a peaceful oasis…forgotten at the very end of the earth.

We live in a land of plenty and opportunity, a land of rare green beauty where individuality is prized and freedom valued.



May we pause for a moment this Christmas…and appreciate just how ****** fortunate we all actually are?



MERRY CHRISTMAS FRIENDS

M.
Hamilton, New Zealand
20 December 2016
Time has bled in buckets for you, fool
It’s structured as a self- defeating, self- depleting, tool…
But you know down deep inside, within your cone,
You're born awailing loud…then croak alone.
So plunder each very day as ego burns
Don’t labour reasons why, the poor returns?
Best laugh aloud at what your face perceives
To weep if disappointment, then deceives.
Dance like one possessed when touched with joy
Or die a million deaths, should love destroy.
Sink or swim, stagger to the end
To never once believe…you comprehend.

M.
City Edge Alliance
HAMILTON
8 March 2017
Flow in its intricate beauty, in its parabolic slide through an inexact thought,
Niggling here and there as it soars through the rough appendage of reason.
Flagellating the highs and lows of delight and sorrow,
Titivating the realm of ecstasy to thrill the fluttering eyeballs,
Brushing mounds of ragged hurt to bruise the tender, tender sensitivities.
Then soaring, at once skyward, in a quest for knowing,
Scintillating in a spangle of joyous, YES!
To land, exhausted and deliriously happy
In the knowledge that we two,
My mind and I,
Have won ourselves a freedom.

M.
28 March 2017
On the eve of my 72nd birthday
The woman to grace my garden would
Have generous hips and thighs,
Long curling hair and a playful stare
A come hither look in her eyes,
A dimple set in a smiling cheek
And lips that would sometimes pout,
She’d move with grace at a steady pace
And her love would knock me out.

We’d meet at noon by the garden seat
In the shade of an apple tree,
With a plate of scones, and jam and cream
That her hands laid out for me,
We’d read a book in that shady nook
As we ate, drank lemonade,
I’d hold her hand in that magic land
And smile, at the game we played.

Then when the day had begun to cool
I’d wrap her up in a shawl,
Our summer days would begin to fade,
We’d still be there in the Fall,
Our talk would cover a thousand things
But we’d marvel most at life,
That fate had brought us together, she’d
Be proud to be called my wife.

My thoughts still stand in that happy land
As I sit alone in this,
And wonder where she may be out there
For a life, so full of bliss,
I sit and wait by the garden gate
For her form to pass on by,
Our eyes may meet in this dismal street
Until then, I’ll sit and sigh.

David Lewis Paget
It matters to the family
If not to God or the new lake
They go there to pray on Sunday
Even if they're not really there anymore

We look at auburn streaked skies
And see his welcome beauty
But the door to heaven
Is not to the attic but instead the cellar

We wonder how everything will turn out
The current changes speed and direction
Gospel songs float on top
And the rising waters take us home

The howlers and the wailers are natures friend
Grace comes from its unmerciful ways
Their roots are bent sideways and twisted
But the way of the land is all that faith knows
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