When the rain is cold and pelting
When the windstorm shreds the trees
Do you find your courage wanting?
Is there weakness in the knees?
Have you faced the dark intruder?
Have you stared that challenge down?
Have you summoned forth the fortitude,
To keep humiliation gowned?
Camouflaged the leaden spinelessness,
That dreaded empty space,
Where once there was a warrior
Who wore courage on his face.


Felt the thrashing of the current
As the waves come pounding in,
Inexorably it lacerates
And tears the fair white skin.
The brutality of bedrock,
The blackness of the night,
And the fear that runs like mercury
Through the torment and the fright.
The uselessness of effort,
The lassitude of limb,
It’s the cramping ague of gutlessness
That is consuming him.


Dissipating storm clouds
The skies begin to clear
And with it go emergencies
And with it goes the fear.
Residually it lingers
As a gnawing hollow blend
Of anxious blue inadequacies,
Of unsubstantiated end
To performance under duress,
Compared to that which is the norm,
It’s just a blinding lack of courage
Whilst in the torment of the storm.


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
24 November 2008