Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
I will take you to the slate.
Blaenau Ffestiniog,
Tanygrisiau,
Cwm Orthin lost and gone.
It lays all around, littered
sliding, sparkling with rain.

grey and ugly they say
but have they sat a while,
storage heaters and thrones,
they are, the slates
perfumed moss and earth.

we will wander up the rise
where mothers push the buggies,
and boys off road from Croesor
mud and slate chips, scattering
splattering.

we may pass the lake
where the sheep bathe
and we shall bathe too
pooled in water
slated, lilied, green

i shall walk you
to the fences, slate fences,
drawn with names
from the past, graffiti
men’s names, welsh names,
proud.

we shall sit by the chapel
listening for the voices
murmuring, singing
welsh voices,
and we will join in the song
with our hearts

let us visit the old homes,
scattered stone, and windows blind,
wind hunting hair to lift,
doors to rattle,
all gone, all gone
down to the valley,
and away.

time stands still
and i will watch you.
take photographs
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks in Paris settling in. My every appliance, gadget and charger have been bricked by the weird, French electricity, which bobs when it should weave or something - but you still can’t stick a fork in the sockets.

I’ve also been meandering the right bank* arrondissements for fashions. Students at Université Paris Cité, in the everyday, dress more chicly and elegantly than Yalies or nerdy Harvard ‘barneys.’

I’ve noticed a lot of Asian, selfie-taking tourists in Paris. They come in like waves of invaders as the river-cruises dock. Now, anyone that’s known me for some time, will tell you that my friends and I’ve been taking selfies for decades.

Just not in the middle of the street or with total strangers trying to relax on crisp, cool, early summer morning, while sipping an espresso hangover cure. Was COVID deadly? Well, it certainly killed off the last etiquettes that separated us from the animals.

I’m not anti-tourist - nope -  I just moved back here myself - but these smiling, terribly polite, middle-aged people, think nothing of stopping someone abruptly in the street to ask directions, in a foreign language - as if they’re at Tokyo-Disneyland where the locals are cast members simulating real life.

Would you expect anyone on a busy, work-a-day Manhattan street to happily stop and converse? Not a chance. Women would recoil like snakes and the men would dodge like O.J Simpson or shoulder you to the ground. Still, they call Parisians rude.

I am becoming more serpentine and evasive as I shop, as-if I were a spy in occupied territory. Charles and I form a one-man phalanx, with me following in his wake, like a dolphin trailing along a great ship.

They may need to put up signage, like, “Look (at the locals) but don’t touch,” but in what language?

Let’s wax free-versely… freever-ishly?

It’s a pleasure to walk the banks
of the dark, reflective Saine again.
and watch the warm, evenings for
the first cool stirrings of fall.

Once you’ve visited Paris, it stays with you.
Nothing’s simple here, not the moonlight,
the serene european atmosphere or
the better-than-you sense of right and wrong.

I’m young in a very old city.
I like dessert crawls, and “rock’n’roll clubs.”
Hemingway wrote, that
‘‘You receive in return what you bring to Paris.’


That’s probably not an exact quote.
but I think that’s where they got “What happens in Vegas.”
.
.
Songs for this:
Come to Me by Koop
Leena by Caravan Palace
Right Now by The Creatures
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 08/15/25:
Meander = to follow a winding or intricate course.

*The right-bank is the north side of the river Saine - if the river’s flowing away from you - north’s on your right.
My team out of Buttercup were carting hay for old Scruffy Turner.
Scruffy was sick so we offered to clear the airstrip hay for him.
Toward the end of the day someone drove up and told me they were letting a herd of black pol beef cattle out on to Taurewa strip ,up near the Chateau road.
I had my little Cherokee parked on the Taurewa strip. Black cattle have a propensity to rub themselves up against the fuselage of a parked aircraft....really does a lot of expensive damage, very quickly...
So I asked Scruffy to drop me onto the Taurewa strip to pick up the Cherokee. He obliged with his Cessna 172.

I found myself bare chested, clad in shorts and workboots, hay in my hair getting into the little Cherokee and going through my preflight checks.

Scruff took off and circled, I followed him off Taurewa.
At 80 ft above the treetops we levelled off and headed for the National Park strip, now clear of haybales.
Scruff, his wife, Anne and I were communicating, chatting on 121.3 megahertz when my aircraft's engine abruptly stopped!

There is something comical about sudden silence when airborne!

I set about checking fuel and ignition and attempted to restart the engine...several times. ....SILENCE!

Funny the things that race through your mind in an emergency.

Several week before this I had attended the funeral and the wake of an old chairlift company mate of mine, Marcus Leecher.
At the wake over a couple of good sized Scotch whiskeys I bumped into old Jimmy Johns, an engineer from neighboring Stratford, who used to own and operate the National Downhill ski operation on Mt Ruapehu,

Jimmy said to me, "They tell me you're a pilot now, Gebbie?"
"Yeah", I said. "Well, if ever you get into difficulty over big forest trees or a large expanse of water, THIS IS WHAT YOU DO!"

Jimmy's instruction exploded into my head like a time bomb!

Here I was, now 50 ft above a continuous forest of huge native trees, I had a dead engine and nowhere to put the aircraft down.
I gave Scruffy a quick mayday call....and of course, he panicked!
He started flying around in huge circles and promptly lost sight of my aircraft.

I went through my drills, fuel off, killed ignition, trim for glide, grab a knotch of flap, minimize airspeed........Look for a location to ditch.

Old Jimmy John's message came through loud and clear......
So I executed his instructions to the letter.

1. Located two ****** big rimu trees with sturdy vertical trunks.
2..Tree trunks separated by a gap large enough to fit the fuselage in between.
3. Brought the aircraft around in an arc so that I was lined up exactly with the gap.....Then dived the aircraft vertically downward.
Swept the foliage below with my wheels... then, with the momentum gained by the dive, climbed straight up into the sky.
4, Stalled the aircraft, actually stopped the aircraft in a vertical position....then aimed it at the gap as it fell out of the sky.
5 I took the impact with the wings, it actually sheared the left wing off the aircraft, broke the chord.....BUT IT SAVED THE FUSELAGE
6. Braced myself for the absolute unknown....hung on tight!!

The aircraft almost stayed up in the higher branches, then it crashed down through the foliage to the hard baked earth, 30 ft below.....BANG!

Momentarily, I took stock, no fire, airframe right way up, body wracked but OK. Aircraft wrecked!

I disentangled myself from the seat belts, sprung open the door and exited the aircraft at haste.

Located approximate position of Scruffy overhead and launched a parachute flare skyward to let him know I had survived. The flare almost hit his aircraft, it zoomed past him and continued skyward, he never ever got to see that flare....but all the skiers on the adjacent Whakapapa skifields did!

I fashioned a big arrow out of logs pointing in the direction of my intended exit....then walked 10 km out of the forest.

The very next day I purchase old Jimmy Johns a very special bottle of the best Irish whisky I could find and shook his hand hard....as a Brother aviator!

M@Foxglove,Taranaki.NZ
15 August 2025
They called it progress. They called it power. They called it peace through strength — and now the sky is a tombstone.

The cities are quiet now. Not with sleep, but with the hush of extinction. Steel melted. Flags burned. The last anthem sung by a mushroom cloud that rose like a god and fell like a curse.

The leaders? Gone. Their bunkers became coffins. Their legacies — dust in the teeth of the wind.

The people? They prayed. They posted. They protested. And then they perished. Not with glory. Not with resistance. But with a whimper drowned in static.

The oceans boil. The forests scream. The birds no longer sing — they choke.

And in the rubble, a whisper crawls from the throat of a dying world: “We were warned.”

But warnings are for the wise. And we were entertained. We were distracted. We were drunk on denial and high on hubris.

Now, the cockroach reigns. Now, the rat inherits the throne. Now, the monuments crumble and the myths rot.

This is not a requiem. This is a reckoning. This is the whisper in the ashes — the last truth, spoken too late.

Now, everywhere, there is only, the dead silence of the wind blowing through the ruin.!

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
13 August 2025


Rewritten by Madam Chat GPT on my request:

THE WHISPER IN THE ASHES

Part I — Now
They smile for the cameras. They rattle their sabres.
They call it “strength,” “deterrence,” “security.”
They speak in polished lies, each syllable lacquered with ego.
Behind closed doors, they draw maps like grave plans,
carving futures into territories they will never bleed for.

The airwaves drip with threats.
The scroll of the news is a drumbeat of “inevitability.”
They posture in parades of flags,
while somewhere, a child asks why the grown-ups are so angry.

We scroll. We shop. We binge.
We tell ourselves it’s just noise,
that the world has always been like this.
And maybe it has —
but never before have the fingers on the button
trembled with this much vanity.

FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?

Part II — After
They called it progress. They called it power.
They called it peace through strength — and now the sky is a tombstone.

The cities are quiet now.
Not with sleep, but with the hush of extinction.
Steel melted. Flags burned.
The last anthem sung by a mushroom cloud
that rose like a god and fell like a curse.

The leaders? Gone.
Their bunkers became coffins.
Their legacies — dust in the teeth of the wind.

The people? They prayed. They posted. They protested.
And then they perished. Not with glory. Not with resistance.
But with a whimper drowned in static.

The oceans boil. The forests scream.
The birds no longer sing — they choke.

And in the rubble, a whisper crawls from the throat of a dying world:
“We were warned.”

But warnings are for the wise.
And we were entertained. We were distracted.
We were drunk on denial and high on hubris.

Now, the cockroach reigns.
Now, the rat inherits the throne.
Now, the monuments crumble and the myths rot.

This is not a requiem. This is a reckoning.
This is the whisper in the ashes — the last truth, spoken too late.

Now, everywhere, there is only the dead silence
of the wind blowing through the ruin.

FOR WHAT?

Madame Chat GPT
8.42Pm 13/8/2025
The current crop of global political Nero's are all posturing, telling lies, threatening nuclear catastrophe and screaming deliverance....all simultaneous in their March to Global Ruination!
If they keep this insanity up, by this time in 2026 this apocalyptic poem shall be reality.
FOR WHAT, EXACTLY ????

FOR WHAT ?
M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Your piece is already a potent fusion of poetry and political commentary — a bleak vision made sharper by its moral outrage. The rhythm of "FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?" acts as a drumbeat, a demand, and a challenge all at once.

It works on several levels:

As a prophetic warning — it paints the aftermath so vividly that the reader can almost smell the scorched air.

As an accusation — it pins the blame on current leadership’s hubris and geopolitical brinkmanship.

As a rhetorical mirror — it forces the audience to confront the emptiness behind the political gamesmanship.

If you want to push it even further into the territory of a rallying cry for the living, you could expand the ending slightly to contrast the ease with which destruction is decided against the impossibility of rebuilding after it’s unleashed. That would frame your question — "FOR WHAT?" — as not only a demand for justification but also an indictment of the absurd cost.
FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?

Madam Chat GPT
We lived for the
next drink; the elixir to
erase the memories of
a thousand cruel dawns.
It took work when we
were broken and bedraggled.
Creativity and thirst drove
us through the day.

"Do you have anything to pawn?"

"Hey, why don't we stop by the
old carnival guy's place, he's
always good for a belt."

"Big Brenda will you give you a
10 spot to go down on her,
are you
up for it?"

The **** we did to stay liquid smooth.
We redeemed cans for nickels, It took
hundreds to get a bottle.
In and out of dumpsters filled with
the most vile trash imaginable.
Me and those aluminum cowboys,
knee-deep in the filth just to
get a drink.

Winter was bad, frostbitten hands and
hearts, but summer was worse.
Something about the way the sun
cooked the trash had a hellish putrid
effect on the soul.
That smell was the seed of my
sobriety.
Here is a link to my YouTube channel where I post poetry readings from my latest books, Sleep Always Calls, It's Just a Hop, Skip, and a Jump to the Madhouse and, Seedy Town Blues Collected Poems, they are all available on Amazon.
Next page