Standard behaviour from the Russians. Obliteration by sheer numbers and force. 190,000 troops on Ukraine's border, now forging their way into the pristine land of their cousins.
Shall be interesting to see their tactics, Russians were never good at improvising, Slavishly taking their orders from the war room, those old Generals who fought long ago in Afghanistan and perhaps joined the action in the Chechen affair, both, of which, ended in ignominious withdrawal by the Soviet Union.
Putin's forces have never been encouraged to think for themselves, never encouraged to initiate. The leaders always suspicious of delegating authority. The lesser commanders will not assume responsibility. All decisions will come from the war room. This is the Russian way. Commit the cannon fodder, obliterate by sheer numbers. Stalin did it, now Putin is taking up the chalice.

Under the pretext of "Peacekeeping forces". Putin won't stop at the Dneiper river, he wants the whole country, he wants the vast wheatfields and the mineral wealth. He wants, what he regards as his entitlement, that which used to be a vassal part of the old USSR.

So far, the response from NATO has been weak. The USA, war weary from Vietnam and Afghanistan, wants no part of the action. Token sanctions and a dithering resonation from old Joe show little resolve there. Boris Johnson, who needs an injection of popularity after his Covid indiscretions, is at least broadcasting belligerence to the Russian invaders and is following up by sending advanced weaponry and advisors to an embattled Ukraine.

Broadly the world is sitting on the fence, muttering outrage and wringing the hands. Putin appears to have taken their measure well.

M.
25 Feb 2022

A strong person doesn't seek revenge, he bides his time and lets karma make it right......
Nope Sweetheart, karma just takes too long.
Ya hit back fast..... and ya hit back twice as hard!
,
Reluctant to face the music?
Take a deep breath, gird your *****....and come clean!
The sense of release is extraordinary....and you feel a far better person having done it and ****** the consequences!

Wallowing with worms and squirming with centipedes, lurking in dark shadows of uncertainty and unsure of your ****** identity?
Leap onto a sunshiny path and laugh out loud, disgracefully.....
Who is going to give a flying ****, anyway?

And if she is grinding you into the dust, issuing superlatives that perpetually put you in your place....generally making life Hell and turning you into a mardy ****???
Try vanishing suddenly, for a week, casting the remark over your shoulder as you walk out the gate...There are plenty of fish in the sea, Darling!

Just a few salty thoughts on offer....Absolutely No Charge!
M.
Foxglove@Taranaki, NZ
24 Feb 2022

Metronome's monotonous throb
Of Vladimir's compulsive gob
Committed to an act of sin
Retraction now, the end of him
Retraction though unleashes dogs
Who, once unleashed, must feed the hogs?

Where, on the other hand, attack,
Shall fling the cloak of warfare, back....
With all it's certitude, unknown,
In halls of nuclear risk, un-shown,
Through avenues of could and can
In fear from panicked distant land.

Should courage falter in the West?
Should old men quail when put to test?
Be assured the next to fall
Shall be Taiwan to Beijing's call.
Be assured, in black and white,
The dominoes may fall.... tonight!

M.
In stark disbelief @ Putin's Russia taking the planet to the very edge of Armageddon, again?
16 February 2022

Seen as having never been
Though circumspectly in between
This parody of eerie sound
Sifting simply, and profound…
Through tones of gossamer intent,
In vagaries of soft ascent,
Whispering, wafting through the breeze
With phantom interceptions ease….

Quite thought as having never been
In silenced echoing, serene.

M.
3 February 2022

Lightness of her tender touch
Whose saffron hues, intone, so much,
Intoned as if by Master’s brush
To apple, peach and rose-like blush
Applied to heighten spangled lust
In each as coalescence ….flushed.

M.

Title lost in one fell swoop
The left hand held the ace,
Portraiture of destitution’s
Fools chanced quick about-face.
Should have shown the King of Hearts
Rightly kept the Queen
Played instead an interception
Game of in between…..
Been this ****** way all my life
Folly chasing foil,
Dreams of cleaning up a pile
In plunging deep for oil,
Cursed, I seldom  got there,
Chasing failure’s ghost.
Instead I played my ******* ace
Then watched his straight flush coast.

M.
Smoked in a dim, dark place.
26 January 1967

Whilst shopping in the mall last week
To fill the Christmas tree,
A derelict old soul held out
His grubby hand to me.
"Spare a copper for a cuppa mate?"
He asked with shining eyes,
And there was something in his manner
Which quite took me by surprise.
Delving deep into my pocket
A Christmas smile upon my face,
I came up with five bucks
Which made his world...a better place.
He thanked me so effusively
His face a wrinkled grin,
Then we went our separate ways
And felt the joy of Christmas....SING!


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY
Love from Janet & Marshal

Have you ever wondered why
The larks fly high in clear blue sky?
Pondered how it all makes sense
Avoiding those who sit the fence?
Peered into a bubbling brook
And thanked what impulse made you look?
Argued good was partly bad
A quandary sought but strangely sad?
Spent the moment lost in thought
When better options sought, you ought?
Delved into a sticky place
And wore the egg upon your face?
Insisted black was really blue
Until she made a fool of you?
Strode ahead to win the race
To find you couldn't hack the pace?
Wished the day would turn to rain
Till flooding made it all insane?
Stamped your foot and called it right
When right was wrong and caused a fight?
Laid back on a lazy day
Till conscience called you out to pay?
Drank that whiskey from the jar
To make the spinning room...bizarre?
Left that which should be done, undone
....and found her bitter ire...no fun?
Walked into an empty church
To feel God left you in the lurch?
Pondered what it's all about
Then freaked when whisper turned to shout?
Really cared to make a play
Tho foolishness won't win the day?
When Covid spat the vaxless few
Ya feel we kinda pressured you?
Suspect this written stuff don't rate
Probably just.... irritate?

Well, truthfully?

M.
12 December 2021

Myopic the media swaying the mob,
Sniveling fantasies, coaxing the slob.
Co-opting response from opinion-less types
In fashioning rainbows for homos and *****,
Rampaging racism's silver, sharp teeth
Whilst prodding the vulnerable's spongy beneath.
Slipping the knife deep into the flank
Whilst the loud ostentatious are flaying for rank.
Slaying the leaders why ever they stand,
Assassins deployed in a leaderless land.
Spreading black lies for the diet of fools
In cognitive misuse of our media tools
Then blatant superficiality flares
Causing apathy rule, where nobody cares,
It all resolves to a meaningless blah
Where disinterest abandons all truth, as bizarre,
The narcotic dysfunction in media sway
Is tragically mauling humanity's way.

M
10 December 2021

Where hides the gentle days gone bye
When we watched the World begin to cry?
Or chance that smile, when indiscreet
Or warmly greet when strangers meet?
Where lies legacy's charity play
For the lost in nether worlds' grim foray?
What the intent when your mind shuts the door
When pleas echo forth from those that implore?
Where lies your will to build on the don't,
Or the courage to do it, when all others won't?
What's the guts, my hesitant man
Cos' this old World's trying, to understand?

M.
16 September 2021

Roiled in his writhing way
Mankind's ****** in manic play
Hurled forth to War's lament
All, once valued, sadly spent....
Pedantic though that beast may be
Enthralled by battle's fantasy
Of how it led in lethal boast
To death within appeals wry host,
Was this the way our world must lie,
Engorged, as bloated watchers cry?
Be this our fate in humankind
Where sighted saw whilst being blind?
Un-guided, now, this way of God
Where Caesars ghost, once sought and trod?

M.
September 12 2021
Planet Earth

Accrue, I do
With vivre and flair
Despite the
Handicaps, apparent there.
Accrue as ardently
As I can
In lieu of
Limitations span,
Ingestion of
This days hard knocks,
The parody’s
Through induced shocks…
The ins and outs
Of life’s travail
To trample that
Which helps to veil,
Obscenities,
That intervene,
Through contemplation's
Selfish screen……
Yet all for one
And one for all....
Could prove, accruals,
My downfall?

M.
8 September 2021

Then how, Dear Sir,
Oh please explain
Why Wetbacks suffer
So much pain?
Why clear across
This Southern land
The Mexican,
With calloused hand,
Wears sweating brow
For little gain,
To endure
The Insults' searing flame,
When draped, nay clad,
In racial slur
To which, it seems,
******'s concur?

M.

Patience in the pass of time
Resurrects the need of mine
To ponder why, the where, the when
Mankind's courage tends to bend.
Be it in the space of fear
When a threat, perhaps, is near,
Be it in when a smarter man
Outwits with a sharper plan?
What the odds when she who smiles
Condescends our lesser wiles?
Painful should we all rescind
To insecurity's foul wind.

Why the quickened, racing pulse
As faster challengers convulse?
When hesitation in the heart
Circumvents the courage part?
Where that moments damning pause
Kills legality's last clause?
A gathered sweat on worried brow
Nervous twitching reveals, now,
Courage fled on wings of steel
Crystalizing what is real...
Hollow symptoms, (plain to me),
Timidity's complicity!.

M.
18 July 2021

Combinations, badly put
Assume dimension, found afoot,
The very stuff of human kind's
Ability to see ... whilst blind.

For instance, take the last four years
Where insanity drove dulcet fears,
Keelhauling reason's rationale
Beyond the realm, beyond the pale.

Consider this, Sir, if you will,
Fascination's trough of swill
Where every man beneath the sun,
Under the pillow, keeps a gun?

Intriguing how, across the globe,
Despite sophistication's robe,
Pandemic rages forth, unchecked,
To foolishness's disrespect.

Futility of righteous flame
In seeking absolution's claim
By whispering in hallowed ear
Thy Catholic sins in shades of fear.

East / West drowning in distrust,
Wall Street terrified of bust,
California's deep disdain
Of climate change's promised flame.

Some you win, some you lose
Wisdom depicts those who choose
Sink or swim, the game decrees,
Observing mankind on his knees.

Combinations, badly put
Assume dimension, found afoot,
The very stuff of human kind's
Ability to see ... when blind.

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ
12 July 2021

Humiliation touched me so
The feather touch of shame,
In having dwelt the weathered blow
Of embarrassment in my name.
From dynasties of ages past
My forebears strove to be,
Procurers of the portals in
The family names’ integrity.

Dank there, in the background,
Lurked a mystery of Jobe,
The riddle of impeachment
In the silken theft of robe.
A murkiness in origin,
The doubtfulness of frame
And the odour of a lie
Within veracity's dark stain.

Seeking through the archives,
Questioning those few
Old survivors of the family
Has left me here, adieu?
The recollections misty,
Most anecdotes, demure
And records from the Parish Church
Irritatingly, obscure.

Just can’t put my finger on it,
Or actually part the mists of time,
Or establish the candidacy
In this querulousness of mine.
But due to some portentous queries,
Innocuously made,
And some snide, salacious whispers,
Maliciously laid?

Thus, despite the searing,  livid flush
Of humiliations hue….
I’ll resume my quiet quest
To energetically, seek, anew….
The very confirmation sought,
Without a trace of blame,
In the voracity and honour
Of my good family name.

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ
6 July 2021

Purposeless this idyll, friend,
This void expanse of rhyme
When you and I and all the rest
Vacillate in time,
We vacillate in purpose,
Vacillate in gain
In intermittent vectors
Of vacillation shame.
Wasted in this interlude
of fumbling, bumbling fraud
When once, had we focused,
We could have reached accord?
M.

Howling through this thrashing gale
Trees in tempest force, impale
Rain obliterating sky
Small birds huddle, fliers die.
Such is like across our sphere
Some feel joy, others fear,
As interludes of temperance slide
Through each mans fate as each man's guide.

Within this world of steel and stone
One would cringe if thoughts alone
Could render thus realities
To life's wild actualities.
But threading deep through habit's way
There sits an urgency to say,
Amid good fortunes willing path
There breeds creations' choice...to laugh.

Be that the way of every man
Induced, perhaps, to understand
Should life take on pedantic path
To such degree, that one might ask,
Wherein, wherefore this wayward tread
In whosoever feels the dread?
Impelled are they to weave the day
In flatulating care away.

But born, the one, who seizes life
He casts asunder worry's strife
To grasp the beating heart of day
Enriching stimulation's say.
For born is he who laughs aloud
Whilst watching rainbows chasing cloud,
In supping nectar's love laced wine,
To celebrate... this gift of time.

M.
20 June 2021

You stretch the yen of soul, my love,
You dredge the spirit, so....
Encompassing the dregs entire
Of weaknesses I've shown?
You haul me through the slime, I've trod
The earthly path, travailed,
To caste me, splayed, upon this stone
Eternally, impaled.

M.
16 June 2021
This troubled way.

Dystopia holds the key
To this worlds future misery,
Coagulates the values old
Man, in times past, used to hold.
Flocculates the chances caste
To, wherein once, the Gods might ask
Why seek this path to empathy
In thy chosen, cold, eternity?

M.
16 June 2021
Planet Earth

Coincidence, is defined as an improbable synchronicity of events, on face value, unrelated but occurring with no apparent causal connection.

Like the time, several years ago, when I told my little sister to pause a few minutes, ( before departing a bar we had never before frequented and had spontaneously selected for a casual beer stop), because I had this strange feeling of certainty that in the next few moments Sue and Pete, (visiting friends of mine from Australia), were going to walk in the door and join us……and of course they did. All un-arranged, all of us spread throughout the vastness of the nation…. What were the odds of this happening at this particular time in this particular place? “How could you have known” Asked my little sister?

The long arm of coincidence strikes again.
A texture where the delicate arm of life’s fabric has rippled, unbidden, unwanted but inexorably presented in the inexplicable here and now.

What are the odds?

And again where, on a spontaneous, unplanned quick trip to Britain in 1979, I suddenly bumped into Foxie in Trafalgar Square, beneath Nelson’s column where a million people, at any given moment, teem and mingle in their frantic rush of busy, busy life. Foxie was, at that time, a neighbor from Raurimu, a remote and dwindling woodcutters hamlet, Embedded in the depths of the King Country of New Zealand. I had no idea Foxie was in Britain nor he that I was there. Ten seconds either way and either of us would have been swallowed by the rushing crowd, Arabs, black Africans, Algerians, Russians, Jews and Bengalis all teeming in their own tangent in a crossfire flood of humanity…and we, oblivious to each other’s presence….just bumped into each other….Foxie! What the f..ck are you doing here?

Again, what are the odds?

Many blame the paranormal, some put it down to extra sensory perception, the religious insist it is the hand of God, intervening. The huge majority of us put the long arm of coincidence down to happenstance, blind luck, burying our suspicions in the hurly burly of our lives, burying the disconcerting actuality amid the great unknown in that murky corner of our minds where the unexplained is deposited, unwanted, in that repository…the too hard basket.

But the chaotic nature of life throws up coincidence with alarming and disconcerting frequency, defying the principles of probability, intruding into the realm denying rational explanation. Leaving us, with the vaguely uncomfortable pretext that Albert Einstein theory that the phenomenon of unexplained coincidence should be interpreted, until proven otherwise,
......as “GOD’S CALLING CARD”!

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ

Plundered in the gentle light
Yet felt that this was, oh so right,
Succumbing to the wafting way
Of oriental, ****** play.

M.
Cambodia 1966

All men dream: but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds
Wake by day to find that it was, vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.

You, Korts, are linked inexorably to the likes of Wint, (in his ****** odd way), Natto, (in his Hebrew way), Victoria, (in her Liverpudlian way), Joel, (in his essentially cynical way), Terry O’Leary, (in his rhythmic tongue), r, Cyd …..and many others far too numerous to mention….and of course myself…for we are the progeny, the genetic linkage to the fabled and ancient, “Legion of Storytellers”.

In times past our forbearers roamed the globe when very few others chose to or, in fact, could. They found themselves orating nightly at the fireside, surrounded by spellbound, wide eyed listeners intent on hearing every nuance of wondrous tales of elsewhere. Tales of bravery and beauty, tragedy and outrage. Tales which caused the listener to weep, to wonder and to laugh uproariously. Tales which captured the imagination and sent the ordinary soul on his way pondering, expansively, things beyond his ken.

And in the morning, before the fireside ashes turned cold, the Storteller would be on his way to the next village, the next gathering of waiting listeners….for that is the role of the Storyteller in this life and beyond, spinning tales of immaculate colour and endeavor, laying the fabric of dreams and inspiration, painting the fantastical wonder of it all in the minds of the many.

And that, Korts, is what we do, thee and me….The worms which drive us impel the pen to write, impel the mind to create…the elixir of spindrift of that which we must.

Cheers Brother
M.
Planet Earth

Pathogens spontaneously perforate the way
When ideological madmen infiltrate the day,
When fools bearing doctorates infect with excess
Where halfwits in spandex concur in distress.

For intimidation's message of ignorant plight
So paves this pathway, cadenced in fright,
Belligerence caste in a dark hue forlorn
Obliterates normality's wavering form.

A flight of justice, flung far away,
Impinging the right in this wrong on this day.
What price this quest for stark racial gain
When the conquest won, is a recidivist's pain.

M.
24th February 2021

Ive got pangs of nostalgia
For tenderness, then
When simplicity painted
An honesty, when
Words would build pictures,
Responses relate,
Giving meaning to warmth
In diminish-ment of hate.
Empathy's gift
For those tears on his face,
And the baring of souls
In our poetry's grace.

The candle burns for all of us,
Now, from time to time,
Contention does, occasionally though,
Cause the teeth to grind.
Sometimes a belly laugh erupts,
While others wonder why,
Some weep at words of falling rain
Against an evening sky?
Mostly, it's the warm
And familiar words from you
In uttering a smiled response
To help my tough day through.
A companionable chortle,
A joke, a helping hand
Or even just that tiny note....
To say you understand.

You hit the Nail on the Head, Joel.
M.

Unenthusiastic in the undertones, my lovely,
Couldn't find the overtures to make
Lost the thread of all the actualities, my sweet
****** if I can find the strength to take.

For once I loved a King who said I couldn't,
He stole the very focus of my dream,
Amputated all with intensity, entailed,
Said expediency would cauterize, the scheme.

Speechless, nay with outrage, I exfoliated bare
Extolled the very essence of my ire,
Screamed his traitorous intent rendered my belief, spent,
My constituents now caste on the pyre.

Treachery suffered is treachery sent
It slices the heart like a knife,
Expediency spent incurs such discontent
That all trust is severed...for life.

M.
Taranaki, NZ
Feb 12 2021

****, you remind me of Mother,
Sixty years locked in the grave,
Weren't for luck, shoulda joined her
Except, thank the Gods, I behaved.

Smoked cigarettes till I spat blood,
Drank brandy & guitar in tune
Chased other men's wives in abandon,
Drove that hot old Ford like a loon.

Can't quite recall where she's buried,
Think it's away down the back
Thick in the weeds of Moorabbin
Likely, as not now, un-tracked.

Complication's diversions
I skirted the rule of law,
Disappointment's anointment
Strangled the guilt in my craw.

One of these days, I'll make it,
Scrape the weeds off her tomb
Toast the old girl with hard liquor
Sentimentally, sing her a tune.

****, I'm reminded of Mother
Frail with her big saddened eyes
Lost to all in her misery
But threw me a laugh, in disguise.

M.
Saw her last in 1959, didn't get to kiss her goodbye.

Wheresoever went the way
Of Wycheproof's bright Summer day
Way back then, back then when wheat was King
With bountiful supply
You could hear the growers sigh.
As the tills began, abundantly, to ring.

With silos overflowing
And wheat trains ever growing
In Wycheproof, back then,
When wheat was King
With the young girls laughing happy
And the blokes all dressing snappy
Prosperity led Wycheproof, to sing.

But then an apprehension
When this "Climate Change", was mentioned,
Dismissed as merely "here-say" by all,
For "What is now has always been"
With life in Wycheproof, serene,
"What tragedy, could possibly, befall?"

Now Wycheproof is Mallee dry
Where wealthy men complain and cry
When hot northerlies whip topsoil to the wind
As it parachutes a million miles
Which is fine for Wimmera wheatmen's smiles,
Fine and dandy for the growers living there....
But for locals un-empowered,
Watching windblown topsoil scoured,  
There's a seriousness in Wycheproof's despair.

No topsoil means ya can't grow wheat
And the shortened seasons growth, deplete,
Dust storms are primarily....THE FEAR!
Surmount successions mounting debt
And final deadlines... all unmet
Foreclosures ...are chewing up the cheer!

Wycheproof these days is still
No man nor beast on flat or hill,
The shops are looking derelict and closed
And the pub' though selling beer,
Is indisposed and rather queer
For there's no wheat.... and no joy fills the day.
Future's looking bleak
And it's getting hotter, so to speak,
in  Wycheproof ... and ****** all to say.

M.
February 8 2021

A Crown of Thorns worn to bed,
Woe betide the swollen head,
****** is he who  knows it all
For entitlement’s no birthright call.
Hangs like cloak of stone cement
Endowing wearer nothing spent
Entombing wearer, largely, doomed
Expectations now entombed
Few measure up to mark of man
Most spread the wings to seek the span
Encompass more than ever thought
But expensive shortfalls cheaply bought.

Out of limelight into shade,
Entitled shroud is richly flayed
With overtures of self- import,
Obsequiously seen, as sport…
By other pigs who seek the Crown
Intent on tearing your realm down.
For jealousy incurs an ire
Against you, who dares conspire,
Entitlement as rightful claim
And all within, your ****** domain.

Oh the fires of  jealousy
Burn bright with searing heat
And the pangs of hate come bubbling forth
On cloven, reptile feet,
And what was once was pure and good
Is now, then, dark as sin
And the Gods of Mars and Neptune
Both, with war, come barreling in.

For human nature simmers, hot,
Despite restraint’s cold hand
All preconception, caste aside
Who stays the battle plan….???
What works, though quite irrational,
Is the quiet word of She
Who has determined that this impasse
Serves no man’s sanity
And on threat of dire withholding
Of Country Matters near,
Extracted,  a mute fury,
But a truce, without a tear.

There was laughter in the ale house
Relief in the stall,
Where the horses fed on ignorance
But some men knew it all.
They all played their cards so quietly
With realizations calming stand
When Entitlement yelled, "an early night"
And cashed in his winning hand.

M.
February 3 2021
Taranaki NZ

Light and deep shade dancing
As I stride the mountain pass
My fascination prancing
As appreciations bask.
There's a tui in the cherry
And a magic song he sings
As he annoints the morning air
With the joy a summer brings.
There's a vibrancy a-hovering
And a crispness to the feel
A clarity so scintillating
One might, actually, doubt it's real.
A sky, so blue to be azure,
Extends across, on high,
Cloudless with a baking sun
Impaling you and I.
These old volcanoes soar aloft
They, now quiescent, stand,
Clad thick in stands of Kamahi
And towering Rimu, grand.
Great Egmont with her snowy crown
Rears high above it all
To dominate the beautious-ness
Of ***** and waterfall.
A tiny fantail flits about
And so entrances me
With aerial bombardments, flung,
In near impossibility.
The song of rivers plummeting
Down ferny glades and stone-
Causing me to laugh aloud
In serenade of home.
And sauntering through this wonderous-ness
Of magnificence in green,
This glory of New Zealand,
Is, indeed, the very best ...I've seen.

M.
Midsummer Taranaki, NZ
30 January 2021

Ever bought something you always wanted but couldn't afford....and then, when finally bought, found you really didn't actually need it?

Ever needed a cold, cold shower to ceremoniously, warm things up
...then found it left you, both.... high and dry?

Ever spontaneously warmed to a complete stranger to find yourself hopelessly mired in a compromising, sticky situation?

Ever tried to unstick that which got stuck due, entirely, to your own ****** unstick-ability?

Ever determined to run that hard, long race to bloodiwell win at any cost....then laughed and laughed with delight and utter relief, when you actually came in exhausted, spent...and last?

I have, to every ****** one of em!
M.