Why do you spring straight out of bed
When frost and darkness cloak the morn ?
What makes you grit your teeth and run
Despite the wind and rain forlorn ?
How is it that you work each day
When aching bones demand respite ?
What makes you sit composing verse
When others sleep into the night ?


How do you face the alpha male
To snarl into his face in rage ?
What brings the courage forth for this
When reason says “Just turn the page” ?
What gives you steel to stand your ground
And fight for what you think is right ?
What makes you man enough to face
That which makes you shake with fright ?


Life’s living canvass lies before you
With it’s texture and it’s shades,
To take the pallet knife and slash
Rich vermilion through your days.
It renders layer upon layer
Of indulgence through your time
But a glint of social conscience
Always regulates the rhyme.


Why is it in the dark of night
When sleep skips forth evading you,
That demons creep on leathered feet
To wrack your conscience into view ?
How do you cope with horrors past
The bad deeds done, the slights, the shame ?
Remorsefulness invokes the cure
In a summons to a price of pain.


What motivates you, what moves you
In your quest for living right ?
What separates the wheat from chaff,
Or the sun from day and night ?
What separates the doing man
From he who sits to stew ?
....It’s the living worms that drive you
They crown you King of all you do.


Marshalg
@theCoalface
Mangere Bridge
23 May 2009