Have you noticed how bad news arrives
In packs of three collectively?
How odours cling  to secret parts
Unless they’re washed selectively?
How luck deserts the most deserved
Right in their hour of need?
How the will deserts the injured
When their wounds begin to bleed?
How the mysteries of the universe
Defy all logics' course
And the brave desert the battle
With the Captain on his horse.
How that ******* thing called happenstance
Will upstage us every day
And the thieves who owe us money
Intend to actually not repay.
How the rot is in the woodwork
And the stench pervades the air
And your wallets always empty
Because the Missus beat you there.
How you’re feeling kinda flat
When things refuse to spin your way,
....How ya should have stayed in bed
And ****** cancelled out today!

Marshalg
Up to my backside in trouble.
23 Novermber 2010

Is it really any wonder
That we court the God of war ?
When a man offends in innocence
With imprudent comments poor,
When the slightest altercation
Leads to seeking of red blood,
And grudges borne with vehemence
Paste protagonists with mud.

Why is it that we tip toe
Through the fragileness of life ?
How is it that you rage
When he glances at your wife ?
What generates the jealousy
Of competitive bright flame
And activates the trigger
In the deadly baiting game ?

Why should we seek redemption
When the way is set in stone,
When antagonistic temperament
Is the customary way home,
When the flare of angry attitude
Leads the bearer to abyss
And inevitable conflict
Throws all reasoned thought amiss ?.

Reflect on how protracted
Is the winding road to love,
How long to place the building blocks
Of friendships’ hand in glove,
How gradual the process
Of steady cultivating trust
To the wondrous actuality
Of a brother bond that must.

Why does the God of war surmount
Mans best and dearest quest
To find a peace and harmony
Despite discords’ very best,
To live his days in certitude
Sidestepping risk of harm
To work toward tomorrows’ dawn,
And evening’s soothing charm.

Shatter prides absurdity
To dare to breach the norm,
To reach aloft for courage
And scale the unknown’s form.
To rail against mans’ enmity
To flail against his foe
To conquer human natures‘ worst
This beast of war must go!

Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
21 June 2010

Banish the thoughts of why, wherefore or how
Bereft in adventures lived perilously now,
Beholding to principles upheld by the rich
Tho scorned by ******* who laughed with the *****.
Ridiculed in bathtub whilst scrubbing her ****
Of the cobbles and nobbles intriguing low class,
Perish the thoughts of why, wherefore and how
Or run the gauntlet of ******* the sow.

Perish the thought of ******* the sow
Relinquishing all of my hard won knowhow
Delivered in spades whilst scaling that tree
Of ascendancy valued so highly by me.
Lost to this world in a passionless kiss
Decreed a disaster and seen as remiss.
So perish the thoughts of why wherefore and how
Or die by indulgencies knife a low brow.

M.
29 March 2018

Soothing that we aren't at war
Soothing that the thunderous skies
Show bright quiescent lightening flash
In battle field where no man dies.
Soothing that we sued for peace
Soothing that the tempers calmed
In altercations' quarrel lake
Where differences are drowned or charmed.
Soothing that your grey eyes sleep
Soothing that I walk away,
Walked to seek another life
Where conflicts' brat is held at bay.
Soothing now the day is still
Soothing that the air is calm,
Tho now I long for happenstance
In cut and ****** of battles' harm.

Marshalg
Becalmed.
4 November 2012

Delicate poised on the edge of a leaf
In the garb of hopelessness seeking relief,
With an attitude stained a doubtful hue
Is it thee, It is me, it is he, it is you?
Purloined in protracted, stammering fright
Through the shadows of day into simmering night,
Erratically ****** through Hell holes of sound
Into that found, paradoxically, so profound,
….The realisation that deep down within
Melds the heart of a lion with a pitfall of sin.

Tangentially clashing the yin and yan
With that gross inconsistency common to man
And the flailing egos, flailing away…….
Just an utter waste of space, I say!
Through Trump and Putins' nuclear pall
Do the rats and cockroaches inherit it all?
Is it he, is it she, is it thee, is it me
Did we build this vast insanity?
M.
19 April 2018

Benedictus my brothers for plummet you shall
As the Gods and the Demons collude in Hell,
Collude as to leadership choices betrayed
In the Land of the Free and portrayed as the Brave,
By the fat guy who rambles bombastic hot air
To the prance of disciples who worship his hair,
To the tune of collapse in spectacular way
An implosion of promise, (as that of doomsday).

Republicans howl to the moon, to the moon
For tomorrow is now in the claws of a lune.

M.
Aghast from afar.
28 April 2016

(For my old mate Kevin Blackburn)

Bentonite is magic
When mixed in slurry form,
And injected into apertures
Where earth worms are the norm.
The slurry forms a barrier
Which holds the concrete, wet,
Quite apart from earthen surfaces
To give exactly what you get.

YOU GET NO CONTAMINATION
YOU GET CONCRETE DRYING CLEAN
YOU GET SMOOTH GREYISH SURFACES
WHICH COULD BE PARCELED TO THE QUEEN!

So when constructing tunnels
Or massive footings bare
Or reinforced deep piling
Which extends way down to there,
You MUST pour in the Bentonite
In slippery, slurry form
To keep the concrete looking
Sparkling clean, as is the norm.

Then....
YOU GET NO CONTAMINATION
YOU GET CONCRETE NICE AND CLEAN
YOU GET BEAUTIFUL GREY SURFACES
SHINING BRIGHTLY FOR THE QUEEN!

Marshalg
Lurking near the Bentonite tanks
Victoria Park Tunnel
15 June 2011

Tantamount to traitorous slime slips through
Unknown to me and most certainly to you,
Augmenting the treachery, bilious and bold
With a heart bent on glee and a conscience onsold.
Wither he goest the admirers do flock
With an indolence bent on quite mindlessness stock
And the weft and the weave of the right and the wrong
dedicate the tonelessness found in the song
Where an emptiness lurks in it's grey woven gown
'Cos the crowd's given up and gone out on the town
And the brainlessness bent in solutions then sought
Means the curtains are closed...and it's all been for nought!

Marshalg
6 July 2017

Who, I ask, has all of this?
Who, midst they, has been so blessed?
Who, midst we, appreciate
The hidden wealth within our quest?

Inspiration’s chosen few,
Have rationalised the jewels so grand,
Interred within the written word
We pass betwixt us, hand to hand?

As realised, this hidden wealth,
Not obvious yet all about,
This flow of verse is valued such
We can no longer…do without!

Conjugally, between we few,
Considerations shared by note,
A *** pouri of points of view,
Of eloquence imbued by wrote.

Herein lies our cache of wealth
Of magnitude exceeding gold,
To share betwixt… this verse of thought
Then reach to seek a hand to hold.

Marshalg
“Foxglove”
TARANAKI
5:00 am. 2 March 2014

Congressional rage obscuring page
Of fairness's fair hand,
Impugning rationale oblique
To drivel, midst the sand.
Contributions trite solutions
Advertise your game,
In slamming doors you seek to pause
The Democrats' thin flame.
Strategic moves, His Lordship approves
To nullify their hand,
But be aware, the electorates' stare
Interprets well, your stand.
Should judgement sway your winning way
To **** this day in court....
Impeachment lost, means it shall cost,
In  your ****** re-elections', rort!

M.
22 January 2020

Dear friends,

Outward we go, outward to the vast infinity, the great mother ship of all entities, past present and future.
Outward to the cold reality of limitless space where pinpricks of light reflect time which began a million years past.

The great unknown where for eons, since man descended from the trees, his very hopes dreams and prayers have been directed.

Beyond the maelstrom of the sun's living cauldron, beyond the titanic violence of coronal outforce, there lies a false calm. A vacuum of seeming emptiness which harbours a promise of galactic peacefulness but delivers the potential likelihood of eternal, calamitous catastrophe.

This is the realm where God's and Devil's reside.
This is the realm of unimaginable forces and stupendous violence.
This is, at once, our hope and our damnation...
THIS IS THE UNIVERSE.

This is the realm where man has sought communication as long as he has been able.... With utter futility.
For all of his advances in technology, his network of huge radio telescopes, his continuous Asceti transmissions, the development of the World Wide Web, the orbiting space station, the wonderful Hubbard telescope and his advances in space exploration and travel....THERE HAS BEEN NO REPONSE FROM OUT THERE.
SO WHY IS IT THAT MAN HAS HAD NO COMMUNICATION FROM SPACE?

And of time..eternal time ....anticipated as tomorrow. Retrieved as the now and dispensed to the yesterday. Are all three interpretations valid as manifestations of time or are the tones of future and past merely renditions of the actuality...the present?  If that is so how can the light of the stars, emitted so many eons ago, be seen right now as a reflection of the actuality of real time? Has time stretched or are the factors of space distance and time linked entities?

Is eternity a factor of time and space or is there another spectrum. Another source creating equilibrium in the quantum flux? Is size a factor... Is our solar system a submicroscopic nutrino attached to an atom on the **** of an incredibly slow living, gargantuan, multi universe sized ant?
.
..and if this is so...There's no wonder that there have been no replies to our efforts to communicate
...We are infintesimal.....Nobody can find us!

Serenely in the morning air, magnificence defies
Predictions of catastrophe from those whose word implies
That chance, that willing player, who skirts around the scene,
Would show her cards, calamitously, to render doom obscene.
....But for now the peacefulness and order everywhere
Has lovers in the lane ways and laughter in the air,
Has Autumn leaves cascading and white caps on the bay
With balmy clouds in blue skies to reflect this perfect day.

(Though....Forever now humanity could decry me as a brute
For I have, inadvertantly, crushed that ant beneath my boot!)


Marshalg
Looking up through the cold clear night air at 'Foxglove', through the myriad of crystal stars...and beyond.
27 January 2013

A word of explanation: The poem in italics depicts a scene of normality in the big picture, the megamacro world out there, where, like us, they have their own insecurities, their own great unknowns....and like our world, way down here, it is a place where accidents can happen!
Mg.

In the blue light of dawn
The melodic chorus of birdlife
Played, in corridors of green trees,
Is an exquisite symphony for my waiting ear.
No other sound, in the long course of the day,
Approaches the delicate beauty and echoing perfection
Of the crisp cadence of this brief, truely wondrous morning sequence.

Marshalg
Pukehane
7 September 2013

Thunder's Rolling drum
Across the churning heavens,
Lightning’s mighty discharges
Flash across the waves,
Illuminating torment
Of a momentary vision
In portraiture of Hades,
A kaleidoscope of craze.

Hard rain horizontal
In howling gale of deluge
Revealed momentarily
In silver sheets of rain,
Writhing tongues of lightning
In jagged forks a-searching,
An instantaneous funeral
Through a million volts of pain.

Standing at the cliff edge
In the drenching after midnight
Fearful pulses racing
In the violence of the storm,
Spectator to the vastness
Of Devil’s work unleashed here
Spectator to a fearsome sky
Where the Gods of Wrath were born.*

Marshalg
Witnessing the most spectacular, violent lightning and thunderstorm immediately adjacent to my hilltop front door in Taranaki @ midnight..
11 April 2014

The purple scent of lavender
A promise poorly spent,
The soft caress of fingertip
A crushing thought's lament.

The tension building in your head
A sudden lightning bolt
Was the cause of all this turmoil
Based in **** that was your fault?

Panicked spasms wrack your gut
Your mind is in a whirl,
Is your rampant sexuality
Preoccupied with this young girl?

You cast about for reason
Manufacture good excuse,
But there's no denying logic
It's because you're far too loose.

This shaggy end is desperate
And desperation is a shame
But the lime green finger's pointing
And it's delivered you the blame!

Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
4th October 2008

Blondes illuminate
The dizzy world of men,
Confident and forthright
And simply, oozing acumen.
So sensually brazen
In a silly sort of way
Yet intuitively capable
Of leading all of them astray.

Blondes are irresistible
When they catch the errant eyes,
When their pearly, sky blue peepers
Irradiate and mesmerize.
When they catch him glancing
At a nicely rounded ***,
When rosebud lip's apouting
Leave him breathless, limp and numb.

Blondes move in a manner
Which defies all things right,
It's a sweet undulation
Which turns day, straight into night.
It's suggestion incarnate
And quite breathlessly so.
Causing pulses to race
And his expectations to grow.

Blondes think in straight lines
Periferals are lost,
And woe betide myopics
Who underestimate at their cost.
Golden locks breed pushiness
The will to have her way,
And the man who calls a challenge
Won't survive another day.

Blondes are soft and fluffy
Dimpled cheeks and curve of thigh,
And are specialists in the art
Of come hither to the guy.
But just beneath the garnish
Is a mind that calculates
And a passion for success
And a taste for wealth that rates.

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
19 January 2010

Out across the high terrain through avenues of sky
Flashing by clear rivers swum perhaps, by you and I.
Crossing cloistered cities clogged by tepid rotten air
Whilst  crucified by temperamental knotting of the hair.
Howling at disparity in scowling at the way
We all reacted differently to what they had to say.
Globalising gigabytes of hurt and hate and spite
Despite diverse distention when day obscured to night,
Black and white and brindle mixing hot beneath a moon
Confusing you who rationalise disharmony’s cold tune….
Pause to catch the nuance lost twixt shades of grey and green
Then riot for the kewpie doll to wear the crass obscene.
Raging fields of fire in a world of spleen awash
Antagonised at variance in chosing knife or cosh,
Antagonised disastrously across this sphere of man
Leaving sad distraught, discerning weeping blood into the sand.

M.
16 August 2017

Winds blow,
Reeds bend,
Coriolis force
Will lend
Momentum
To dispersed
White seed
Which, caste aloft,
Doth spread
And breed
Young reeds anew
On distant lake
For wind
To whip
And bend
And break.

A sadness has come over me
As I pass this corner bye,
A junction on the highway,
A lonely cobalt sky.
A sodden pale blue teddy bear
Stands pinioned to a cross
And the glassy glint in Teddy’s eyes
Transfix a sense of loss.

The traffic whizzes past this point
Most people fail to see
The sadness manifested
In his glassy stare at me.
The sadness of a lost young soul
Who failed to take the bend,
Who with his motor cycle crash
Did meet his Maker’s end.

I know not why he died so young,
I know not why he sped.
But know I do, the child like love
He felt for his blue Ted.
The sadness of a pale blue Ted
When pinioned to a cross
Stands sodden on a lonely road
Invoking tears of loss.

Marshalg
At Blue Ted Corner
Highway 20
Taranaki
14 August 2012

Gone the quill that wrote the line
Lost the wordsmiths softened rhyme,
Lost to us in evening light
The feeling felt in words wrote right,
The feeling felt as friends depart
In hollowness of hollow heart.

Bon voyage Brother

On the recent passing of a colourful Australian poet,
Paddy Martin.

It’s paramount the notion
That men are born to grow,
Extend their creativity,
Expand the very best they know.
Explore the realm unseen before
Beyond their very reach,
Inflate the mind’s potential
To absorb and grasp and preach.
To plunder flair unrealized
Extend skills unperceived,
To craft a very masterpiece
Of magnificence, unbelieved.
To raise the spire of excellence
To sculpt a work of art,
Compose a peice which scintillates
And moves the very heart.
To reach beyond the mortal
And let the spirit free
To pen a Michelangelo
And have God sit with me.


Marshalg
@the Coalface
Victoria Park Tunnel
30 April 2010

Who would have thought of staying,
Who would have made this home ?
Who would have taken clay in hand
And sculpted their own throne ?
How many fashion life afresh
When given half the chance,
What portion throw the music out
Then, commence to dance ?

How breathless moments hold the magic,
Poignantly a blackbird sings.
Shades of amber in the sunlight,
Factors in deciding things.


Take the reigns and ride like fury
Hear the thunder of the hooves,
Feel the fear convulse within you,
Once committed play the moves.
Perform as though you have the answers
Authorize to take command,
Let the raging torrents guide you
Do it all as though you've planned.

How breathless moments hold the magic
Reflections in bright golden rays.
Shades of honey glaze the sunset
Factors in deciding days.

Magnificence is such a word
To paint the passing, rushing years
But wonderment, as witnessed,
Has tattooed it's joyous, blinding tears.
The rainbow splendor of the colour
With the richness in it's tone
Engages these sensations which
We embrace as ours alone.

Satisfaction in the morning
Gauntlets run and mountain's climbed,,
Fortunes made and lost by breakfast
Life's array of gain assigned.
Satisfaction in the morning
Good friends made within this frame,
A life well lived without a mourning
T'were it not from whence we came.


Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
23 August 2009

Down her cheek there rolls a tear
Lowered eyes reflect the fear
She feels that others see the pain
She tries to hide to mask the shame.

Shame of what she has become
Despite her efforts to succumb
To good intentioned, sound advice
Delivered at preposterous price.

Shame at how the mind deplores
Those temperamental personal flaws,
Of slights inferred and insults hurled
At friend and foe with flag unfurled.

Friend and foe who tried to help,
Who lowered guard  to feel the welt
Of verbal horsewhip to the jowl,
To violently recoil with howl.

Betrayal in its basest form
All sympathetic help withdrawn.
She furiously stands distraught
In isolation’s cold white thought.

Down her cheek there rolls a tear
Of distain for the eyes that jeer,
Direction of the darts of blame
From whence no help will come again.

Marshalg
Collateral damage
4 February 2012

Oh ye student of Gothic complication
How dost thou writhe in a sea of nightly scented jasmine?
How dost thou cast off the shackles of thy piteous life lost?
To effortlessly shed the ruckfall of protagonists
...in a double narrative of well travelled refinement?

Linguistically intriguing it be. the richness therein enthralls.
A depiction of contemporary expression from a student of sleight of hand, wed in a rapture to the knowledge that whatever thou has written, shall flow through the fingers like a waterfall of soft white sand.
M.

Burnt umber in the morning
As the planets do align,
Ominously holding
To the Zodiac design,
Reminding us that somewhere
In the Bible, it was said,
That by the twelfth year of this century
Whole populations would be dead.

They say it is upon us
Those children of the moon,
They say the fingers of our destiny
Shall fall upon us soon.
Calamitous catastrophe
To befall the western world
That fiscal debt implosion
Will result with fraud unfurled,

When abnormal plate subduction
Along the continent's divide
Will magnify the earthquake swarm  
Across the planet's hide.
When enormous ring tsunamis
Emanate from deep at sea
To cascade onto shorelines
To wreak extreme calamity.

Across the globe, Astrologist's,  
Say something huge is due.
Their whispers quietly amplified
To percolate to you.
What little can be done or said
It's very hard to say
Because authorities worldwide
Refuse to recognize this day,
They won't readily acknowledge
Those symptoms verily to hand,
The frequent natural disasters
Occurring in each land.

Contagion is  contagious
The whispers may be wrong,
Perhaps the future holds for us
A vastly different song,
But when the moon is full and white
And I look into her face,
I discern a bleak anxiety
Destined for the human race
I see mother nature poised
To take the heavy, upper hand
With an implacable demeanor
And un empathetic stand.

Burnt umber in the morning
As the planets do align,
Ominously holding
To the Zodiac design,
Reminding us that somewhere
In the Bible, it was said,
That by the twelfth year of this century
Whole populations would be dead.


Marshalg
@theBach
In the cold moonlight
20 May 2010

Heat beats down upon the street
Birds too hot to fly,
Blistered sand you cannot stand
Drenched with sweat am I.
Cows collect in shadow deep
Panting sheep hang head,
Goshawk flies in cobalt skies
Hills of grass stand dead.

Whisp of smoke, a puff of breeze
Sirens scream in air,
Running men in squads of ten
Emerge from everywhere.
Now the rising wind takes charge
Runs with leaping flame
Into crown of eucalypts
To rage across the plain.

Too late the tenders hoses pour,
Too late the fireman’s shout
Inferno hot has run amok
And all control a rout.
Generating mighty winds
The fire charges forth
Spiralling in furnace air
To incinerate for sport.

Vanquished men exhausted stand
Watch with useless eyes,
As raging flames consume their truck,
Inside a good mate dies.
A live thing in the burnished night
It writhes and spirals high
Across the flaring treetops
Hot, red smoke fills the sky.

As sudden as it starts, it stops
A wind change in the air.
Ravaged forest stark and black
Hot ashes everywhere.
Hills of cinders smoking now
Stock in death’s repair,
Homesteads rendered charcoal like
Farmers in despair.

A silence in the ravaged hills
Birdless in the sky,
Bushfire horror, death and smoke
Enough to make you cry.

Marshalg
In support of my Australian brethren and their torched nation.
30 January 2013

By amber light we sit here in this scintillating evening
By amber light we wonder at the treasures of the night,
Enraptured by the shimmer of the highlights in the wavelets
Across the bay the music plays to thrill us with delight.

Moving to the rhythm of a tango in the moonlight,
Feeling the sinuating warming run inside
Start the steps in synchro to the pulsing of our swaying
Roll the eyes in fun as we let our bare feet glide.

Shimmer on the wavelets in the balmy air of evening
Kaleidoscope reflection of refractions of the night,
Titilating trumpets to the pulsing of the conga drums
We meld our hips together in our tango's rich delight.

By amber light  luxuriate as long as night’s forever
We’ve felt the brush of loving in a tangled, close perspire,
We’ve danced the dance of romance in these luscious shades of evening
To be happy and  exhausted in a bubble of desire.*


Marshalg
In the magic of the peaceful night and the waters’ beautiful, shimmering shades.
Manou’s Harbourside Restaurant
Port Taranaki, NZ.
9pm 1 April 2013

With deferrence to the gentle Edward Ryles who penned the original....*




To wrinkle toes where sand meets sea
Enchants this soul's humanity,
To breathe the air of salty wash
Paints substance into longings lost.
To idle midst the song of tides
Embraces where this heart resides.



Marshalg
Port Waikato Beach
12/12/12



© 2012 Marshal Gebbie

Why is it so, Oh why is it so
That the owners of capital
Inevitably grow
To be possessors of everything
Strategically placed,
Solidly, tangibly
Gunmetal faced?

Owners of newspapers
Head of TV,
Masters of radio
Commercial and free.
Dispensers of policy
Spreaders of gloss,
Keep movers informed
Keep fools at a loss.

Like a puppeteer General
Manipulate strings
Of artillery thunder
And stratosphere wings.
Subliminal ownership
Military wise
Guarantees power
And fortifies ties.

Holding the cards
In Congressional spheres
Ensures positive influence
To leadership ears.
Holding sway
In the ship of state
Commands control
Of those who rate.

Power to publish,
Power to spin,
Manipulative power
To politically win.
Power to generate
Mountains of wealth,
Marauding powers
Of infinite stealth.

Solidly, tangibly
Gunmetal faced,
Owners of capital
Strategically placed.
Controllers of influence
Puller of strings,
Powerful Anchors
...Societal Kings.


Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
23 March 2009

Serene across a placid sea
Demure as wind blown hay,
Quiessence strokes the torrid brow
To sooth the stress away.
For trouble lurks beyond this shore
Beyond tomorrows tide,
In carbon terms tomorrow's
Clear blue skies may be denied.
In carbon terms the sea's shall rise
To drown the coral shore,
Immerse the red hibiscus flower
Beneath the ocean's roar.

Across the globe the forest's burn
To scar the skies with smoke,
And desert dust invades the air
To cause good men to choke
And flash fires scorch across the land
Producing heat and ash
Rising temperatures continue
To reduce our world to trash.
In Copenhagen minions clash
And argue points of view,
Whist politicians shrug and turn
To wash their hands anew.

Inertia has the upper hand
It's all too hard to do,
Why should I make the sacrifice
When it's really up to you?
What is all the fuss about,
Our climate hasn't changed?
The variance is cyclical
So it all seems rearranged!
Recycling is the answer
I've done my little bit
Now the scientist's will nut it out
And adjust it all to fit.

But Antartica is melting
The ocean levels rise
And pollution's on the increase
Filling heavy leaden skies.
Cancer touches everyone
Contaminants do abound,
And chemicals in the food chain
Make the consequence profound.

So....Ignore this at your peril,
Or let another day drift by,
And when magnifying storms impact
..Just call it all a lie!
And when waves encroach on motorways
And sewers back flow here,
You can blame it on the Government
And maybe... Have another beer!

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
19 December 2009

If only we can catch that phrase that slips beyond our reach
Catch that phrase that teeters on our tongue,
Wrap those words elusive in a bouquet of mystique
To scatter forth like harlequins un-thumbed.
To caste our bright confetti of sweet wordage unconfined
Across the room and flung above the green,
To blue sky where syllables cavort to mix and play,
Where riotously in colour they are seen.
A symphony of texture in articulated sound
Revealing mans’ great majesty displayed,
Revealing the story of one humble moments joy
Of simple words so brilliantly portrayed.

M.
3 April 2018
@ Wozzles Copse
TARANAKI

Smart phone paranoia, contagious at best
Has the zombies a stumbling the streets without rest
Transfixed to their cellphones, oblivious to all
By the lure of the Tweet and the Facebook’s enthrall
It’s ironically depressing that with all of this spin
When you download the Apps…the Devil walks in.
They access your contacts, Your banking, your loans
Your credit card details, unravel your phones,
Delve into your Facebook and spy on your life,
Check back through your history and peek at the wife.
They sell all your secrets to bidders galore
And when you go bankrupt… they’ll show you the door.

It’s “Caveat Emptor” or Buyer Beware
‘Cos technology’s clawed onto us by the hair,
It’s the Devil you do or the Devil you don’t
It’s progress with the crowd or resist and you won’t
Compulsion is growing by systems in place
By government, banking and big business pace
Through Google and Apple and Microsoft sway
The data is mined and the marketeer’s pay.
Tomorrow is here and we don’t have a choice
Ya live without Smartphone…ya won’t have a voice.
And the dragnet for data accessed by the Apps
And the sensors and whereabouts GPS tracks,
With the malware evolving to beauteous height
Means ya privacy’s shot and ya turn out the light.*

PS: Beneficium accipere liberatum est vendere
     (To accept a favour…is to sell one’s freedom!)

Marshalg
Waiting for it all to come back and bite me on the ****!
Pukehana
AUCKLAND
21 February 2014

Haven't had the words of late
haven't seen the need
Haven't felt the witches brew
Seed the blood to bleed.
Looked about for reason to..
Looked around for cause,
Found the old magneto
Rusted hot in pause.
What a ****** admission,
What a state to be,
Embroiled in incognito's
Lost identity.
Need to alter background
Ditch the one act play
Find blue sky enchantment's
beauty in this way.
Tantiize libido
Rile the juices red,
Haul my suffering woman
Off to ***** bed.
Locate joy in sunshine
Rip the brain to zest,
Electrify libido
Change the word to.....YES!

M.
After an interminable drought of verse-less days.

The fiscal snare is drawing tight
Putin’s day... now courting night,
Rouble tilts vertiginously
To Satan’s **** religiously.
Fiscal snare is drawing blood
A trickle then... is now a flood,
Russia’s central bank adjusts
But ineffectually, combusts.
Hard line prospects elbow dance
Aligning for assasins lance.

Perhaps….
Better now, the Devil known
Than facing down an Unknown throne…..
Facing down an Iron call
With finger poised in nuclear thrall.

What choice now for ego’s Prince
Retreat from Eastern Ukraine’s wince?
Retreat Crimea’s balmy shores
To face the nationalistic howl of hordes?
Brinkmanship…the other way
A gamble that the West might sway?

Either way the game is up
Now bitter wine brims Russia’s cup.

M.

A coarse, yellow coat with dark spot aplenty
Lean as a greyhound with limb long and lengthy,
Faster than hare from a cold standing start
Impossibly glimpsed in tall grasses that part.
Crystaline jewels in two huge hazel eyes
With the svelt of a feline’s cold killing surprise,
Explosively quick with an elegant gait
And a murderous jaw full of canines that wait
For a fleeing gazelle or a springbok at speed
Then a launch that would emulate bullet, when freed.
Incredibly smooth with a fast loping stride
That would tax any racehorse an envious ride,
Snapping manouvers to left and to right
That mirror a quarry’s evasions of flight.
A blur in a frantic explosion of dust
Then the life blood erupts, splashing red as the rust.

Heaving great flanks after thrill of the chase
Wide open muzzle and gore on the face,
Guarding the game till the kittens locate
Then the spoils of the chase will make portions dictate.*


Marshalg
Serengetti Plain
Central Africa
30 November 2012

Mao Zedong’s revolution deposed the ancient, 5000 year old rule of Dynastic China.
In doing so he espoused the continuous violent struggle by contradictory forces within society to produce a perpetual disequilibrium of revolt against intellectualism and Confucian principle and practice.

With the global collapse of Communistic systems, the wily genius of the diminutive, Deng Xiaoping, breathed new life into the faltering rule
With a cunning rebranding of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, he maintained the stability of Chinese Communist kleptocracy until relatively recent times.
But the middle class awakening of Tiananmen Square and the recent Hong Kong massed protest, has brought into focus the demands of an increasingly educated, increasingly affluent, Chinese society’s expectation and demand for increased democratic rights and freedom and a more just system of the Rule of Law.

The day of the old, strong arm, autocratic rule is over.

China is emerging, quite naturally, into a world of increased information freedom, where the seeking of each individual’s betterment and independence promises a brighter future of personal dignity, increased self-esteem and an emerging sense of high anticipation.

President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party is now presented with the challenge to moderate in order to survive. To endeavour to embrace and meld the old concepts of Confucian harmony to the vaulting expectations of China’s new world beckoning.

M.
Denmark, Western Australia.
5 October 2014

Enter the dragon with death and disruption
Pride and tradition cataclysmically thrown,
Magnificent structures reduced to rubble
Distraught people bereft of their homes.
Chasms of heartache with bodies of babies
Strewn with the bricks in vast disarray,
Dust in the air and the howl of the sirens
Shouting police on a horror filled day.


Christchurch is bleeding, her confidence shattered
Our keynote cathedral is lying in shards,
Vacant eyed people are clinging to strangers
Jagged black holes in suburban back yards.
Christchurch is bleeding, our torn, gracious City
The nation arises in hurt and alarm,
To face the challenge with strength and resources,
To nurture our sister with healing and balm.


Sympathy shown by the myriad faces
Racing to help from all parts of the globe,
Expertise offered with money and labour
Students with shovels and priests of the robe.
Sadness and torment for kin of the missing
Frustrated rescuers work till relieved,
Moments of triumph with lost resurrected,
Agony felt when the dead are retrieved.


Led by the strength of the Mayor of the City
Courageous citizens help where they can,
Moments of bravery, moments of agony
Inspirational feats of elan.
Poignancy shown by the sad Maori Warden
Guiding the aged through the strewn broken glass,
Aiding the ambulance crews in their labour
Proud to be Kiwi as folk show their class.


Christchurch WILL arise from the death and destruction
Once again people will overcome grief,
Pride and resilience will triumph with the passing
And time will repair with deserved relief.





Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
AUCKLAND
25 February 2011

I sit quietly by myself
and let your features drift through my mind,
let the thrill of recollection
stimulate my eyes to wrinkle
in a slow and happy smile.
 
The warmth of intimacy remembered
causes a searing red response
to my glowing personage.
 
Drenched with pusating happiness
am I at having shared so much,
in so short a time,
four days of the happiest Easter that I can recall.
 
My expression fails me
 in my urgent need to tell you
of the excruciating love
you cause me so easily.
I am consumed with the most intense feelings
of sensitive , sweet longing.
Christine, this hurts me so beautifully.
 
My fancy runs to a grassy glade
splashed with deep green shade
and warm April sunshine;
excited children splash amid the stones
of a bubbling creek
and shreik with delight
in their careless fun.
 
To us, scintillating sights and sounds,
a spiritual bond of unhampered, happy humanity
and a grassy sunlit swath of beauty.
Together we sit and warmly enjoy
the conciousness of each others nearness.
 
Smile on my man
for you are loved
by one who, in all truth,
deserves a Prince.
Amble off to bed my friend
for you are tired and happy.
Dream of her
and remember when
In a moment of love,
she did softly whisper
“Happy Birthday my Darling”
 
And, as I recall,
your heart almost burst.
 
Marshalg
Albury
9th April 1969

Hold your hand aloft in light
Feel the blood run through your veins,
Know that you have lived a life
Loved a love and held the reigns
Of something..so worthwhile and good
That friends will well have understood,
When you have long passed from this land,
...Your Cup hath Overfloweth.

**MERRY CHRISTMAS

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

There’s a strange cold, appraisal with a straight and steady stare
Which leads a man to wonder, exactly what is happening there,
Leads a man to ponder if it’s even now worthwhile
To persevere with contact with the rudeness and the guile?
It all leaves me apprehensive whilst examining askance
This peculiar reaction to my pleasant, frank advance?

What’s the ****** story here, right up and down the Coast,
Where initial stiff behaviour paints appallingly, the host?
Perhaps there’s cold distain for all the people of the North
Or inadequacy’s pink finger wagging guilty, back and forth?
Perhaps the ****** weather with its constant moody pall
Has afflicted them with gloominess, which could explain it all?

Geographic separation…that’s the answer, I suspect
With the hand of subjugation interfering, if correct?
And the constant ****** hardship and disaster at the mines
With suspicion they’ve been cast adrift to weather their hard times?
And the lack of any sympathy to coalesce at best
In a resultant indifference, now directed at the rest.

But…..
There’s a funny turn of fortune here for after a short while
Indifference turns quite pleasantly towards a welcome smile,
Communication warms to a chortelled stream of fun
And the beaming face indicates an acceptance has begun.
Just as soon as you acquiesce to a personable degree
And identify yourself as being one with them, you see….
The Coasters will embrace you with uncommon earthy grace,
And it’s Identified so easily, by the grin upon your face.

M.
Karamea
Wild West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand.
11 May 2016