Anticipation hovers in the gentle light of dawn
With birdsong chorused to night
Where satin striates to prismatic effect
Radiating gold sunbeams alight.
A mirrored reflection from lake front to reed
Through tumbled refraction to trees
And cattle in pasture are lowing with joy
As green clover extends to the knees.
Autumn erupts with her jubilant song
And the colours turn russet and gold
As she flings her skirt with seductive allure
Letting feeling, now reeling, take hold.
Alive and wondrous, skip we two lovers,
In laneways of tangerine leaves
And the magic of moment overflows in a foment
Of happiness flung to the breeze.

M.
Glorious moments of Autumn in the downs of Taranaki, New Zealand.
2 March 2017

Ye, Oh ye my little ones who patter forth on silent feet
Ye who whisper secretly with downcast eyes, perchance we meet,
Thee who failed, in droves, to vote yet mouthed foul words at what transpired
Across this nation wallowing, wringing hands, feel defiled,
Pray glance now at thy countenance shadowed deep in mirror’s face,
Scan thee there integrity?…. or see thy image thinly graced?
Shoulder thee this burden’s share now burning in thy conscience flame?
….or disdainfully dismiss, absolving thee from
vivid eyes of blame?
Hark the herald Angels sing
so witness thee, thy forsakening.

M.
The White House, Hamilton NZ
23 January 2017

Corridors of ruthlessness careen across the landscape
Bludgeoning the thoughtless and the thankful intertwined,
Revelling in mindlessness regardless of the politics
Regardless of reaction or relationships defined.
Trammelling the consequence, the flavour and the hue
Stamping on the daisies in this field of brilliant green,
Donning now apparel of a cloak of red indifference
Caring not for criticism or if, indeed, it's seen.
Badgering so bluntly in a curdled tone intolerant
And crudely interrupting all who voice a word of blame,
God that we should dwell in the shadow of this monster
Bulldozed to submission in a rendered pall of shame.

M.
Stand up America!
19 January 2017

Order bent by writhing mind, twisted chaos running blind.
Dispatched orders sent by they, manipulants who on us prey.
Calculating coldly spent on that which God could not relent,
Death, that trifling matter ****** when simple life surmounts the cusp.
Feeling-less to those who dwell within this edge of seething Hell.
Impassionate and cold of eye until that hour when they must die
Then fast, humanity breaks forth…"Too late, too late", the Gods retort!
Die badly now I thee commit…incinerate in Satan’s pit!

M.
21 December 2016

*A curse I now cast at all disciples of chaos, at all peddlers of death and misery, at all the tyrants of the world who have never tasted or seek to have sought, the milk of human kindness.

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

Spinning in its apogee this world has lost its rhyme
It’s denizens deflecting and defacing precious time,
Sidestepping crucial issues and responsibilities
While elected fools to office flaunt abused integrities,
It’s all integral to disorder running rampant in the street
Where shades of retribution lead to fear of those we meet.
Where production slows to stoppage causing systems now to fail
And the single voice of sanity is the fool who yells "Curtail" !!

Gone to Hell the Good Old Days, gone the repartee
Lost communication in this world of misery.
Aleppo lies in ruins, unconscionably true
And blame imparts it’s levity on all including you,
The sin of ******* conscience where we turn the other cheek
Where ignorance is innocence as kids die in the street.

Blame Syria and Moscow, Blame Isis and the Yanks,
Blame everyone who turns the other cheek …to mutter quietly, “no thanks”
Blame ignorance, intolerance, the hate and Jealousy,
Blame God for his indifference and mediocrity.
Aleppo lies in ruins and the world just doesn’t care
For as Christmas joy approaches, we switch our focus there.

Isis is the apogee, the focus and the fulcrum
Isis is the dark abyss that treads the path to Hell
A Caliphate catastrophe inherent in equation
A tipping point reaction as respondents toll the bell.
Where East and West throw shards of death to strut the stage of destiny,
Where man tip-toes the edge of an apocalyptic end,
The rest of us stroll corridors of detached halls of apathy
Intent upon a peaceful life where violence rarely rends.

Aleppo lies in ruins in a patina of concrete dust
Children die obscenely in the rubble of the street
Obsession paints the hatred bright, on faces of the warriors,
Oblivious to the carnage they cast at Allah’s feet.

Aleppo lies in ruins, unconscionably true
And blame imparts it’s levity on all….including you!


M.
Hamilton NZ
9 December 2016

The most beautiful of brides, I remember the warmth of her happy smile, the excitement in her dancing eyes
When she married my brother, way back then. I recall the radiance, the infectious happiness of that wonderful day.
The pride, worn like a flag, on my brothers laughing, rugged face as he played, with wild passion, “The Golden Wedding” on the drums
as a  tribute to her at the reception on that special, special day.

The immense sense of family she generated through the years…in the good times and the bad.
The way she held it all together, raising the kids to have good solid values and an appreciation of being.
She taught them the goals of love and loyalty, she inured them with the knowledge that life was there to grasp
And that the capacity to have a good laugh at yourself was the key to happiness in every single day.

She weathered the storms of life, braving the trials of hardship and loss….but always holding family and friends to the tenant of her faith
….. that all would be well in the end.

She worked tirelessly all her life and when, in her final years, with her little body bent and arthritic, she revelled in the joy of reciprocated love from those nearest and dearest to her.

I recall, last year, the utter agony of a mother on her tear lined face, when she last stroked the cheek of her tragically, departed son, Darren.
The bravery, the incredible warmth, the strength in her heart and her tiny frame, when she circulated the crowd consoling others on that sad, saddest of days.

Now she is gone…..leaving a vacuum, impossible to fill. Leaving grieving husband, daughters, relatives and friends lamenting the departure of an incredibly special person.
Leaving us all with the memory of her quality, her goodness….and her ever shining eyes, the very key to her beautiful, glittering, Catholic soul.

Judy in the Sky with Diamonds,
Da-da-da-dah
Judy in the Sky with Diamonds,
Da-da-da-dah
*JUDY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS……
Da-da-da-dah
YEAH....EAAAGH!

M.
“Foxglove”
Tara­naki, New Zealand.

Complex is the road to the apex in a man
Determined in those formative, young years,
Where infantile and adolescent socializing skills
Develop mind sets that aren't resolved by tears.
For in overcoming challenge with objective rationale,
In perusing detachment’s crucial eye,
In acceptance of a criticisms biting, sharp array
An admission builds perception to the sky.

A common demarcation twixt the realm of work and play
Renders blurring satisfaction with one’s lot,
When we love the things we do, satisfaction shall accrue
While convergent thinking blends the skills we’ve got.
Passionate objectivity played with energetic calm
Holds the secret to the quest to make it fun
With devotion’s steady hand in a thought provoking man
Progress harnesses misjudgement’s smoking gun.

The skill to listen to the crowd without rebuttal yelled aloud
But have the ability to firmly have your say,
Means naivety’s restraint deflects acceptance’s constraint
Assuring separation’s wheat from chaff, shall pay.
Be humble, Sir, and proud as you broach your game, aloud
Taking pride in the achievements that you yearn,
Let emotion’s heady swell temper what you do so well
Yet dwell within that place, wherein you know, you learn.

Complex are constraints found retaining hard complaint
But intelligence shall always take firm hold,
Where beauty in this beast is the judgement factored least
For endeavour rules the best beget the bold.*

Marshalg
Auckland
10 August 2016.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.*
M.

Blame placed be seen worthwhile
Dearth of substance, forthright style.
A lightness of touch with sledge hammer grace
Paradoxically, artful, smiling face….
Anxiously generous yet whimsically mean
Frailness-ness sought ….now secretly seen,
Quandary thrown to Iraq's lost trust
Now loudly scowls with Mozart’s bust.

For be he rich or be he poor
This secret’s worth is out the door
For they, from whom this thing be kept,
Conveniently from this room…be swept.
Swallowed realizations dawn
This man, revealed, is but a pawn
A fragile lace at ******’s groin
Torn away….to be purloined,
Acute Embarrassment’s hot blush
Now camouflaged in angers flush.*

M.
Pukehana Paradise
11 July 2016

Hint of green in amber rushing
Cold as ice in beauteous way,
Black beech towers overhead
Alpine zephyrs catch to sway.
Hint of green in boulder rapid
Morning sunshine gleans the tint
Wading forth to dangerous water
Pumping pulse in eyes that glint.

Hauling up and out with effort
Straining arms, staggered gait
Wading forth to sandy beach
With hidden prize that cannot wait.
Boulder in her amber shroud
Masking flash of emerald sheen
Pounamu in the Maori tongue
Glorious jade in turquoise green.

Treasure of high hidden mountains
Locked within exquisite glade
Birdcalls ring through wooded canyons
Reeling realisation made.
Photographs the proof of moment
Tremulous while masking pain
I caste far out this gem of Jacob
Splashing, gone, to torrent’s gain.

Tremulous I stand in wonder
Wondrous of this perfect place
I, who touched the smile of God
Now wear a happy, laughing face.*
M.
In the glorious wild river glades above Jackson Bay in the Mount Aspiring National Park, New Zealand.

April** sheds tears for her time now is over
Departing in flourishes golden and red
Cascading leaves in a curtain of windfall
Settling now to a bright windblown bed.
Gone is the tarnish of summer’s oppressiveness
Gone the abundance of flourishing grass
Enter occurrence of snowflakes in treetops
Puddles of blue ice harder than glass.
Wither thou goest are chill maidens dancing
Wither thou venture there’s fog to the breath,
High geese are flying in formation arrows
Butterflys, faded, departing to death.

May now upon us with icy cold zephyrs
Cloud, nimbo-cumulous stacked up on high
Thunder intrudes with drum roll of Winter
Whilst fork lightning flashes across the cold sky.
Warm scarves and beanies are worn with knee-boots
Firesides crackle in glowing, hot hearths
Starlings in thousands, now settled to roosting,
Shall flock as the morning migration departs.
April relents with the tip toe of gentleness
Satisfied, smiling, her role is replete,
May muscles forth with rambunctious-ness bristling
Impatient to hasten sweet Autumn’s retreat.

M.
Joyous, to be strolling in a country lane, in the swirling leaves of Autumn.
30 April 2016

For Woz

Flavoured on this moody day
Though the sunshine’s fled away
Heat bound here in tepid chair
Choking back a black despair.
Old friend mired in cancers’ grip
Metastasising deep in hip,
Anguished waves of constant pain
Obliterating light again.
Takes a time to climb to bed
Where ghosts and goblins curl with dread.
Takes a while to coax his smile
But humour loiters there awhile.
Offerings hot cup of tea
A small relief which sets him free,
Leans against for helping arm
Rewarding glance of subdued charm.

Wending home dark, windswept street
Puddeled sad tears wet my feet.

M.
15 February 2016
Auckland.

I’ve strode this road of war and love
And born it’s bile and spleen,
I’ve wept at death and laughed at birth
But nowhere have I seen,
A sweeter place to live and die,
To quest for things supreme,
Than to forge these days of hard forays
In the Land of In Between.

Candied apples hang from boughs
Like jewels bequeathed by Queen
And silver sounds of bubbling brook
Cascade to tumbling stream,
Parakeets in vivid hue
Fly by with shreeking scream
In forest’s green majestic light
In the Land of In Between.

Paint no man black or vivid white
Whilst points of view be gleaned
With race and politics ignored
Then manifest, obscene.
Where labour be a man’s reward
And filthy lucre screened
As noxious be a spider bite
In this Land of In Between.


Where hate be strangled to the end
Then with a keen blade ,sheened,
Be put to death with avarice
No guilt or guile redeemed.
Leaving in the pristine wake
A countryside so clean
That God be queuing up to live
In this Land of In Between.


All ****** love be sacrosanct
And soft endearments seemed
As normal as the light of night
When by the moon dust preened.
And that laughter be our currency
Affection always seen
As bonding in fraternity
At the Land of In Between.

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ.
30 January 2016