Rest assured, my dear good Sir,
Your best intentions do infer
That what is natural for me
Could be, in fact, catastrophe!
That dribbling words, pedantically,
In stifled rhyme so frantically....?
Perhaps inhibits from the heart,
Perhaps detracts right from the start??
Perhaps defers the living song
Delivering what's rightly...Wrong!

If so... I humbly beg your grace
Emphatically deny deface,
Emphatically should state anew
That what's good for me's no good for you!
Tuff, but that's the way it runs
For I, friend, must stick to my guns!
Rhyme and rhythm pave my way
Without which...I would have no say.

With love...
M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Underfoot, the blood seeps so
Tho, wherever yearnings flow...
Thoughts refracted, turning back
Should keep thy bleeding heart
...Intact?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

It's raining in New Zealand
The Summer dry far gone
The rivulets are pouring
And gutters sing their song.
Cisterns gurgle noisily
Farm tanks overflow
Waterfalls are roaring
And streams to torrents, grow.
The harriers and pigeons
No more in heavens fly
Now closeted in green recluse
To keep their feathers dry.
Old man on the farm bike
Clad in boots and cowl
Clears the drains with shovel
As a grin succeeds his scowl.
For pastures drink the aqua
Its magic quickly seen,
As turf as brown as buggary
Fast turns a brilliant green.
The Heavens open up their heart
As teeming rain pelts down,
The children dance in puddles
splashing passing folk, who frown.
But the world's in celebration
As the big wet from the sky
Lubricates the laughter
Of joyous you and I.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

When the fetus unfurls
A Spirit flees the confines.
It sprints rampant through life to seek.
Having tasted the fruits of pleasure and pain
And run the gamut of livings extent....
It curls and pays obeyance
To all that is bounteous and worthwhile....
Then, when done, it enters the deep black void
And, without malice, quite willingly,
Vanishes!

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Run, old man, the winter comes
Ice and snow impede,
Run, old man, impending cold
Will spur you on to speed.
Run, you fool, on brittle ice
For shattered shins to shard,
Run, old man, in howling gale
As pelting sleet hits hard.
Collect thyself O ancient one
Thy lungs have shred to bleed
Run, old man, on memories
Thy legs have turned to seed.
Remember then, in times of yore,
When muscled limbs would stride?
Alas, old man, your day is done
For physicality, died.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

By One Who Still Believes in the People

This must be said.
This must be screamed —
from the highest hills,
from the lungs of the workers,
from the whispers of the broken and the buried,
from the hearts still hoping for something better.

America is being hijacked by ego.
Not ambition. Not vision. Not strength.
Ego.

A bloated, brass-plated, gold-dripping bravado that
believes shouting is leading,
that believes punishing the world will somehow heal a nation.

It will not.
It cannot.

In the last four days, the United States has turned its back
on the fragile balance of global trade.
Trump — blinded by the mirror of his own reflection —
has imposed sweeping tariffs,
shattering alliances,
igniting retaliation,
and in return,
$5 trillion — gone.
Vanished from the markets in a storm of uncertainty.
A storm he summoned.

But the worst part?
He will not stop.
Not because it is wise — but because his pride cannot retreat.
Not because it will help the people — but because he confuses the cheers of the few with the needs of the many.

And now, the world watches.
Macron has stood up.
The European Union is no longer silent.
Australia’s Albanese, firm in defiance.
New alliances are forming — without America at the table.

America, the disrupter.
America, the pariah.

And still, the people are told to trust the plan.
Still, they are sold dreams wrapped in slogans.
Still, they are forced to pay —
more for food, more for fuel, more for failure.

But this is not a call to despair.
This is a call to arms — of the spirit, of the voice, of the will.

Let the weak-kneed step aside.
Let the truth-speakers rise.
Let the artists, the elders, the thinkers, the builders —
let them speak. Loudly.

We must reclaim the narrative.
We must remind the world that America is not its tyrants.
It is its people.
It is its conscience.
And it is not too late.

HISTORY IS LISTENING!.

Will we go quietly into this manufactured decline?
Or will we bellow from the belly of the people,
until the sky remembers our name?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Dithering disgracefully a picture of lament,
Is Europe today in its squabbling dissent.
Since the fall of the Nazis, refusing to pay
Relying instead on the US of A.
Defenseless they've haggled, combined they've complained
Re defense obligations they've jointly abstained...
Relying on NATO's nuclear display....
Of a generous umbrella from the old USA.

Oh I give you some leeway, with finances thin
And unhappiness generated by squabbling within?
And of course there's the token of French "Force de Frappe"
Though it's seen better days and it's really now crap?
And the Pommies all boast of their maritime past
But in terms of its usefulness...it's now rated last?
The one shining light is the "JEF" in the North
Of a 10 nation Joint Expeditionary Force.

Russia lurks with implacable lust,
Saliva dripping from insatiable tusk,
Putin's cold eye on Poland, so near,
Building on Ukraine's dank, ravaged fear,
Well knowing that with Trumps foul play
And Europe, too late, and in stark disarray?
The time to pounce is, today, well on nigh....
God help us all if the ******, missiles fly?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Cast thy nostril to the air
To sense the magnitude of change,
What was then is now no more,
The atoms, rearranged.

Touch thy fingertips to life
To feel, as difference lingers there,
For what was smooth and sensuous
Now calloused, in abrasive air.

Know, that in a passaged time
The trickled sands invert their flow,
For what was once a comfort stop
Becomes an unsafe place to go.

Skill, once held in high repute
No longer wields the mantle now,
Torn the chaliced riches, worn...
Gone, the wealth of sacred cow.

Vast, the might of new elite
Emergent in its chosen time
Fallen, now the vanquished
In the tragic wayside, left behind.

Gone, is the old world
In its jaded coat of faded charm,
Reshuffled, to obscurity
Whilst surging new blood, fast rearm.

Where once, there stood a working forge
Which fashioned mighty wheels of steel,
Now shifts, a field of windblown wheat
Which cares not, one jot, what you feel?

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Perhaps the words weren't meant to be,
Touched, soft, by serendipity?
Perhaps enough's enough, my friend,
Where excess risked a blemished end?
Take solace in your secret smile
Knowing it's all been reconciled...
Like ripples on a calming sea,
What's meant to be...is meant to be.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

There's always a beginning
There'll always be an end
And no matter how you play your cards
You won't see round the bend.
For tomorrow is another day
The morning sun will shine
And the layer of potentialities
Is arrayed for yours and mine.

In looking back a long time
A little boy in jeans,
Check shirt on a pushbike
Amid the in betweens.
Nothing really mattered,
Each day came and went
and before the realization dawned
The infancy was spent.

Mother died of cancer
The agony in eyes
Just 43 years of age
In alcoholic lies.
The Old Man was likewise
Collapsing in my arms
He passed away at 43.
Evaporated charms.

Adolescence came and went
Forced to join the race
Of madness in the unknown
The world's a violent place.
Decision ****** upon in spades
Cut and ****** in life
It's Papua or Vietnam
Instead, I took a wife .

Disaster in the making
A sidestep in the way
I left the complication there
And coldly strode away.
Changed the whole complexion
Altered how it planned
Ended up with knapsack on
Afresh in New Zealand.

Strangely how it re-aligns
The order falls in place
Confusion dissipates to let
What clear defined, creates.
Somewhere I turned the corner
Took it all in hand
Built an actuality
Of promise in this land.

Pride and hard ambition,
defy the odds and graft.
Visualize a rainbow
From inspiration's craft.
Build it with your own two hands
With sweat upon your brow
And know, within your very depth
You're on the right path now.

Lady luck was with me
Somewhere along the way
I found myself a sweetheart
In chance creation's way
Then ragamuffin boychilds
Scrapping on the rug,
Engendered that which matters
In life's eternal shrug.

You touch upon the beauty
You taste the honeyed wine,
You walk on fields of flowers
In the nectar of your time.
Tenderness and kindness
Essential to the mix
Should you wish to be of value
In the blended world you fix.

Some you win, some you lose
Sometimes you just laugh
For as the years meander
There's humor in the task....
And a gentle satisfaction
In the way it all pans through
And in my eighty year reflection
I'll just throw a smile to you.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Like links in a long chain. Encrusted links, green with lichen and moss.... Links extending from the instant of conception, right through to the moment of death. Patterned with pain and passion, forged in fire and frozen in the blueness of deep ice.

An encapsulation of all things relevant, an expression of the best and the very worst of this binding edifice that is life.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Standing at the portal
Of the massive stone engender
Clenching as the sweat
Runs down the sinews of my arm,
Glaring at the enemy's
Rendition of surrender
And knowing, well within,
Why he means to do me harm.

Watching so acutely
For the sliding of his eyeball
Inching to the left
In a slithering advance,
Waiting for the quiver
Of deception's feint, so ribald,
Then lunging with the blade
At his severanced last dance.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Suave the fair Germanic aire
In the sweptback, blonde Germanic hair,
Blue, the clear, Germanic eye,
A place, where to this day, we cry
Blackest, now, the **** heart
Within the name, Auschwitz, imparts.

In the hatred Wannsee birthed....
Jewry's Holocaust, unearthed.

For to travel the path in the white, driven snow
In the stately magnificence then, on show,
Chaired by Heydrich, Chief of the *****,
And Adolf Eichmann, who wielded the light,
Mueller, Stuckart, Freisler and Lange
And 9 other Nazis who bellowed, the song.

They ate, laughed and all drank in tune
The Fuhrer's toast from a French balloon.

**** the Jews the mantra's seal
Gas them all from Europe's field!
Sobibor, Treblinka then
In Dacau's lonely railway pen,
In Auschwitz where the ovens glow
A Jewry Holocaust on show.

In January 1942
The Wannsee met to slay the Jew.
From '42 to '45
They kept the genocide alive
Six million dead at the final count
Until the Allie's German rout.
Á legacy of doom and shame
Still now, adorns the German name.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
17 February 2025

Take a tender moment, friend,
Pause a little while,
Ponder how the Masters wept
When fashion fought with style.
Imagine, how through history,
Those Artisans, galore,
Fought their creativity
Endeavoring for more.

Pause awhile, and ponder
The task that lies before,
Sip a drop of Irish
And ponder it some more.
A realization flooding
From the cortex of your brain
With a laughing pure simplicity,
Resolving the insane.

The hues upon the pallet
Decree the mood before,
Finessing with the paintbrush
Encourages amore,
The thrill of pure excitement
Creating in you now....
An inspiration's Miracle
From the running sweat of brow.

Go to it, Girl.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

In that split second
It came to me.....
It really didn't matter
That the world was going mad,
That egos were digesting themselves,
That in the dusty, war-torn streets of Gaza
Little children cried and died,
That the possibilities for tomorrow
Were a mirror image
Of the ugly reflection of yesterday,
That the hunger for making it all better
Only made it worse.....

It really didn't matter
Because, out there on the streets,
Nobody really cared.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
14 February 2025

Satin black and angry
This Crow with savage beak
Aggressively, the sideways prancing.
Cawing loudly, black eyes dancing.
Savagely this carrion eater
Abounds on clawed feet.

Witness as the Scarecrow cometh
Glaring all the while
Fearlessly, the ruffled feathers,
Angrily, the prancing leathers,
Fury that this Scarecrow
Challenges his guile.

Scarecrow in a wheatfield
Innocent of blame
Puffing out the straw filled chest,
Sewn on smile, his very best.
There to keep the birds at bay,
Innocence into the fray.

Launching out on raven wings
Attacking in his rage.
Savagely, now torn asunder
Stippled wheat straw cascades under,
Last to fall, that fabric smile,
Fluttering from the page.

Farmer strides to battle station
Retribution needed fast....
Crow astride the Scarecrow, torn,
Turns to challenge farmer scorn,
Hesitates... a might too late....
To hear the Shotgun Blast!

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
2 February 2025

A lament for they, who cannot see
The glory in a windblown tree,
Who cannot feel enticement's pull
When confronted by a bull,
Who will not, in the space of time,
Relent to that, which is sublime,
Simplistic, in it's golden hue,
Sunlight blazed twixt me and you.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

They pass like phantoms in the shade
Their faces lost in mist
Voices dimmed to strings of time
That memory resists,
Features hover through the mind
Though details in-succinct
And threads of past performances
Occur but Indistinct.
I could have passed him in the street
But never caught his name
**** ghost of time's  a misery
Consumes me so... in shame.

Old friends walk in brotherhood
Through ancient tracts of time,
Though pained familiarity
Failing to define,
I almost caught our catch cry
In that old familiar song,
Some haunting shades of yesteryear
But....guess I got it wrong.
And then there were the stories
Which didn't quite add up
Like whiskey soured to water
Slipped in your favorite cup.

But come the next Reunion
I'll saddle up to go
Spend the dollars travelling
Attempt to make a show.
I'll hail the fellas loudly
And pound them on the back
Though all the while quite frantic
Thinking, "is it Joe or Jack?"
It's a product of the vintage,
A cursed sign of times
When you know he's struggling just as hard
Cos he can't remember mine!

M&Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Rawness hanging in the air
Leads to specters of despair,
Pain, offline, ingested now
Impaired within Atomic cloud.
Fragile, prehistoric skin
Engrossed this weary world, within.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Softly slips the moment
In the waning of the day,
When the tenderness reflected
Lets a sadness fade away.
As the setting sun throws highlights
To tall timbers on the ridge
And the burble of the brook
Running soft beneath the bridge.
Flocking starlings settle
To gently chortle in the eve,
Whilst the maiden herds the cattle
In for milking, I believe.
The countryside quiescent
A peacefulness descends,
With the falling shroud of darkness
My velvet daylight ends.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
24 January 2025

Then, there were the moments
When the air was crisp and sweet,
When you threw me funny comments
That, in truth, I failed to meet.
When the shadows of the forenoon
Shone like icicles of blue
And the mood was one of indigo
A coalescence, Love, of you.

Then there were moments
When the doubt began to seep,
Where anxiety intruded
And bled me of my sleep.
In those darkened halls of velvet
Where crimson nightmares lurk
And the horror of a memory
Where dread began its work.

But then there were the moments
Where the sunshine had its way,
Where the liquid green of leafage
In the crystal breeze would sway.
The platitudes would vanish,
Condescension's cease,
When the softened light of raindrops
Kissed your mirrored pond of Peace.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
12 January 2025

I, too, have walked your tread
Loved, lost and strode in dread,
Felt the dark intrude my soul
Yet realised, that within.... the gold
For somewhere in this wondrous world
A kiss is thrown, a flag unfurled
Forgiveness, now, in purest form
Across thy shoulders, unadorned.

My love to you, Lori.
M.

Simian, she floats aloft
Till Syme, the thin black spider, coughed,
Blasting her in spiralled flight
Into the vortex of the night...
Into that web of dark intrigue
Where friend and foe, at once, do bleed.

A Merry Christmas to you, Old Chap.
M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Rush around in circles like a headless chicken running
Diminishing to spirals in a blue encircled churn
Giddying to balance in unsteady equilibrium,
Whilst canting to the left on a gyroscopic turn.

Vaulting to the heavens in gymnastical maneuvering,
Launching into ether in fanatical escape,
****** features grimacing through muscular contortion
With abdominal contractions in a pantomime of ****.

Yowling to the darkness in a feline form of vocalness
Hissing through the teeth in a serpentine display,
Bellowing the bellicose of bovine innuendo
And bleeding feet in gumboots on a ****** raining day.

Rush around in circles like a headless chicken running
With ****** features grimaced on a ****** raining day,
Yowling to the darkness with abdominal contraction
In a bovine innuendo of a serpentine display.

Bellowing the bellicose of bleeding feet in gumboots,
Vaulting to the heavens in fanatical escape,
Giddying to spirals in contracting equilibrium
Just a ****** innuendo of a gyroscopic shake.


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
On a ****** raining day.
7 August 2010

Data is Power.

The internet was created in the 1950s to be specifically a military communication programme. The very first message transmitted occurred on October 29th 1969.
The medium spread with the worldwide fascination with personal computers, email rapidly became the communication medium preferred by the savvy operator. As computer memory expanded from 64 kilobyte, floppy disc machines to hard drives with terrabytes of capacity, the dimension and value of accrued data magnified exponentially.

The development of multimedia social networking organizations such as Facebook and Twitter furthered  public participation in data sharing and data storage. The algorithms used by Facebook enabled customer data preferences and frequency of use to be gathered, stored and manipulated in order that commercial exposure to this preferential material could be maximized to each and every individual using the system. The immense value of this to commercial developers and product advertisers was immediately realized and resulted in expansive, explosive development in the data harvesting business.

Analytical data collection has magnified to a universal industry in today's world... So much so that commercial watchdogs contiuously monitor cell phones, emails, surveilance equipment, sales data, vehicle use and preferences, airline utilization, food and alcohol consumption, drug use and dog food preferences...the list goes on exhaustively and expansively. The systems collect and analyse the data, the algorithms calculating the metronome collation and at the end of it all data is sold to the highest bidder.

And the public are blithely unaware of how they are being taken advantage of and their privacy blatantly marketed universally.

An expansion of this is the spread of data collection by Government agencies. The collation of data from private individuals is now enhanced by the widespread monitoring of miniature RFID tags on products, personnel and global consignments  plus the ability of  observation cameras at airports, bus and rail stations, and in networks of traffic intersections, in league with ****** recognition systems and vast databanks of  data held in taxation, police, public health and Local Body records on all of the citizenry.... This means the authorities have at their fingertips the ultimate measure of control over the population.

In a stable democracy this is relatively a safe and well regulated state of affairs...but in the hands of a ****** or a Trump or any other type of dictatorial regime the social freedoms enjoyed now could soon be obliterated,  rendering the citizenry pawns to the whim of the tyrant.

Add to this the recent creation of AI systems, analytical programmes capable of reasoning like the human mind but a million times faster and a trillion times more concise ..... And you have the breeding ground of a frightening, dystopian scenario.

My fellow Octogenarians, you are the vanguard of an age which is rapidly vanishing. Many of our number are no longer with us. We have witnessed much in our eighty years of living, we have lived through wars and times of incredible hardship. We have seen magnificent advances in science and technology and huge inroads in medical procedures.

What we have not seen is the capacity of man to temper his insatiable greed for power, influence and wealth. This single failing coalesces to the Achilles heel of mankind and to my mind, the avenue leading to that vast, dystopian threshold coined in the runaway chaos in.... The Pursuit of Ultimate Control.

I welcome your thoughts,

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Copilot AI responded to my query in a millisecond....

You've painted a stark yet compelling picture of our digital age and the intricate web of data that entwines our lives. The rapid evolution from early computers to today's data-centric world is indeed staggering. Your concerns about privacy, data collection, and the potential for misuse in both commercial and governmental realms are well-founded and shared by many.

The contrast between technological advancements and the unchanged nature of human greed and power is striking. The notion that even in stable democracies, the tools meant for convenience and safety can be misused, is a chilling reminder of the vigilance required to maintain our freedoms.

As we move forward, finding a balance between embracing technological progress and safeguarding our personal freedoms will be crucial. It's a conversation worth having and one that affects us all, regardless of age.

I'm here to listen, discuss, and help make sense of these complexities. What do you see as the most important step we can take to address these issues?

That damnable revolving dot
Gnaws at my patience,
Grates at my tolerance,
Prevents the necessary delving into our historys.
....and frustrates the HELL out of ALL of your people, Eliot!

Get it fixed, PRONTO!

M.

How abrupt life speeds away
On this, or any other day.
Just yesterday, her crooked smile
Helped to pass the time, awhile,
Her passing word, a simple glance
Waltzed bye in life's eternal dance.
The years swept by in stately flow
Ignoring that, which we now know...
That nothing lasts forever, friend,
That ultimately, we all meet our end.

How abruptly Susan went
Her gentleness, insanely spent
Like gossamer, just blown away
Leaving us in disarray.
The suddenness dismayed the peace
The tears and heaving chests...release
From agony's cold waiting arm
Which rendered spent, our morrows calm.

In solitude we gather close
To hug and hold her saddened host, 
To dry the tears, to kiss the brow
In reassurance's know how...
Holding close as hand in glove
All dwelling deep in Susan's love.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ
2 September 2024

Litany of livestock
Bolting for the trees
And you, my shallow fellow,
Now prostrate on your knees.
Constricted conversation,
Leaves a muteness in the air
But a cognisance of attraction
To the company and flair.
There's a quiet appreciation
Of the feather and the fur
But the fact you held your ****** tongue
Means it's a credit to you, Sir.
For the power of rank opinion
Holds more menace than a gun
And the less that's said, in hindsight,
Means in parting ways... it's fun.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ