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judy smith Jun 2015
Fashion, fun and entertainment will feature on August 1 when Hospice West Auckland and national business networking organisation BNI New Zealand partner to present the Absolutely Fabulous Fashion Show, proudly supported by major sponsor Douglas Pharmaceuticals.

Returning due to popular demand, the outrageous fashion fundraising event features upcycled outfits sourced from donations to West Auckland Hospice Shops. Included in the evening is a ‘Designer Clothes Sale’ featuring garments seen on the catwalk, which will be available to purchase on the night. Modelling the clothes will be celebrities, prominent Aucklanders, Hospice staff and professional models.

Award winning ‘Comedienne of the Decade’ and celebrity host for the evening Michele A’Court was delighted to be asked to MC the event. “It just sounds like tremendous fun and I am a sucker for Hospice fundraisers, so I jumped at the chance to be involved. Also, I am a massive fan of op shops, so how could I resist?”

CEO of Hospice West Auckland, Barbara Williams said, “We know the audience is in for a very special night for a great cause, with lots of laughs. We also want to showcase the fabulous range of designer clothing that donors so generously give us, and to highlight the quality of garments available from our Hospice Shops. Op shopping is good for your wallet, the planet and your community and we are keen to show that it can also be brilliant for your wardrobe.”

Barbara is delighted to welcome Douglas Pharmaceuticals as the major sponsor this event. “Douglas is a key supporter of Hospice West Auckland and Founder Sir Graeme Douglas has been our Patron since 1996. We are thrilled to have Jeff Douglas, Managing Director, continuing their support and appreciate his commitment to this event.”

Barbara acknowledges the support of long-time partner BNI NZ as a major asset for the event. “BNI’s networking groups up and down the country have supported Hospice for many years and raised over a million dollars for Hospice nationally.”

“Our long standing relationships with Douglas and BNI NZ and are very important to us, not only financially but also in terms of engaging with the communities their businesses operate in.”

Graham Southwell, National Director of BNI NZ, says BNI has a strong presence in West Auckland with a lot of local businesses participating in its networking groups. “Hospice West Auckland approached us because they know that we have active local business members in the community that could provide resources and help make this event even bigger and better this year,” Graham says. “It’s exciting to work with Hospice and use our expertise in BNI to help collaboratively put on the event. At BNI we are all about creating strong relationships in the community and Hospice have come to us because of our network and assistance with logistics as well as getting the word out about this fabulous event.”

Guests will be able to purchase some fabulous fashion, bid on a range of exciting auction items as well as enjoy wine, canapés and live music. All proceeds from the event will go to Hospice West Auckland, who provides free palliative care and support to patients and families living with terminal and life-limiting illness.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2015
Barton D Smock Apr 2013
I pick a child to bring with me.  it’s Sunday, and we need bread for the week.  the market’s been gutted since the lot of them were born.  I used to errand with my wife but it made her feel alone.  we starved together for months before receiving notice we were no good at it.  in that same notice was an invitation to attend a symposium on regulating orphanhood.  we decided to go and at that to go arm-in-arm as a grandly private joke.  we came home ready to be serious and went about choosing six, all sent from heaven, as we thought they’d been kicked out.
Tyler King Sep 2016
"You are my drug, I'm addicted to you"
Says the poet, immaculate, grinning his way through juvenile metaphors and picking his teeth with the bones of the dead horse he's been beating, Slick ******* on a stage locking eyes with every girl in the room, cocky enough that he thinks he can make every single one of them think that this poem is about them, and that they'll just -get it- , that it's just a -metaphor- of course he has no experience with drugs, he's never watched anybody wither away to nothing, he's never had an itch that took his body hostage at a cellular level,  he's a real -stand up guy- he's just -sensitive- he's a real ****** honest to god artist standing before them and from there it's all but too easy to ******* his way into some casual ***,

"It's always someone nice who gets killed, it's never some toothless ******"
Says the comedienne, immaculate, laughing into television cameras, and everyone gets the implication here,
The ****** is not human
The drug addict does not deserve life
If you made the choice you should pay the consequence
Stop breathing while people who actually deserve it are dying
Don't talk to me about the socioeconomic climate that breeds drug use
Don't give me statistics
Don't you dare send those rats to rehab, if they're going to live they should do it behind bars, locked in a cage like the vermin they are

"I thought I could stop this time"
Said my best friend as I wrapped a blanket around him,
He is weak, he is ice cold and still sweating, he is on three day withdrawal and he will relapse tomorrow once I have left, he will have been dead for nearly 4 years by the time you hear this poem, and the silence that follows will take shape, and it will whisper,
"Good"
K Balachandran Aug 2017
comedienne's eyes
swiftly seek my funny bone,
laughter explosion!
The phone had only been on a day
When the cranky calls began,
‘Nobody knows we’re on,’ I said,
When at first the **** thing rang.
I had to run up the passageway
To catch it before it stopped,
Then there was just an awesome hush
Like a tree before it’s lopped.

The line dropped out at the first ‘hello’
As if they would wait for me
To run the length of the passageway,
Expend all that energy,
I’m sure they laughed as they cut me off
Though of course, I couldn’t hear,
‘It’s dead again,’ I would rage and froth
‘Though it must be someone near.’

‘It better not be your stupid friend,’
I said to my wife, Diane,
‘The one that’s such a comedienne
Who annoys me when she can.’
‘It isn’t her,’ was Diane’s reply
In her testy, haughty tone,
‘She wouldn’t ring when she knows I’m here,
But wait till you’re home alone.’

But the phone rang every evening,
At the high point of our show,
Just as they named the villain, and
I nodded to her to go.
‘You go,’ she’d say, ‘I’ve worked all day,
And it really is your phone,’
I’d grit my teeth up the passageway
And rage at it on my own.

I finally let it ring and ring
And refused to pick it up,
‘I’ll teach them never to mess with me,’
As I drank a second cup,
A truck arrived in the morning and
It dumped a ton of twine
Blocking all of the driveway while
Some clown said it was mine!

‘I never ordered this blasted twine,
You should have come to the door,
Confirmed the order you say you had,
What would I want it for?’
‘We got the order over the phone
So we rang, with no reply,
Somebody said you don’t pick up
You’re such an eccentric guy.’

I always answered it after that,
And after the pig dung treat,
Fifteen tons, and the smell had hung
The length of our angry street,
We tried to tell them it wasn’t us
We said it must be the phone,
I know that I would have picked it up
If only I had been home.

We never did get a proper call,
One where somebody spoke,
I don’t think anyone likes me, and
That phone’s a pig in a poke,
I went outside and I cut the cord
To the world who scorned our line,
Then went inside where the blasted phone
Still rang, one final time.

I picked it up and I snapped, ‘Who’s that!’
And a voice came on the line,
It wasn’t a voice I knew, it spat
And it gruffly asked the time,
‘You’ve cut us off from the Internet,
I hope you’re feeling spry,
We live in your rhododendrons, and
You’ve made the fairies cry!’

David Lewis Paget
Kelly  Nov 2016
Starstruck
Kelly Nov 2016
I didn't know
what to make of you
the first time we met.

You have one of those faces
that makes me feel like
I've seen you before--
on TV, in a movie,
someone famous.

Your jokes and quick wit
had me convinced that
I'd befriended a comedienne
when first getting to know you,

but upon learning more about you,
I realized you are more of
a renowned poker player,
somehow able to make
the hand you were dealt
into something valuable.

Like Mr. Gorbachev,
you listened to Reagan:
you tore down the walls
that confined you--
that people used
to define you--
and used them
to remind you
just how fortunate you are.

Like the rest of today's celebrities,
you are penning your own story.
Arlene Corwin Mar 2018
Coming Down To Earth

If you’re famous,
There will always be a someone
Who has never heard or seen a picture
Of the likes of you;
Not seen your picture,
Doesn’t have the least idea
Who, what you are
Or what you stand for.

Doesn’t that scoot little you right down
To terra firma?
Started this in two fourteen.
Found it on a teeny hidden-somewhere-scrap.
It’s two eighteen: I feel the same as.
(rhymes with famous – see line 1)
Poet’s freedom once again,’’’
I can’t resist.
Might have been comedienne,
But then,
It’s not my calling.)

Anyway,
It does become one
(rhymes with someone -see line 2)
To come down to planet earth
And stick to anonymity.

Do your job,
Stick to your your day.
Things are working out your way
Without you knowing
What they’re doing.
Let the winds of fate and karma
Make the lack of show your army.

Coming Down To Earth 3.1.2018 Circling Round Reality; Definitely Didactic: Arlene Corwin
Fame and name are so transient.  A bit of a nothing.
Olivia Kent  Dec 2016
LEAVING
Olivia Kent Dec 2016
We're tired they said.
Before fumbling and stumbling blindly into bed.
The warren ceased it's burrowing's.
Comedienne, bade the world goodbye, before she took her leave.
Princess Leia's bleeding heart was wiped upon her sleeve.
George Micheal, crept unexpectedly into his duvet covered bed.
Covered his head and drifted into eternal slumber.
How many more complete the number. After all 2016, must bear the number of the beast.
Maybe, just maybe the Grim Reaper's had his final feast,
For this year anyway.
(c)LIVVI
elle  Dec 2018
whim
elle Dec 2018
She discriminates none, no story unread,
Tales of magic and creation and death,
Some inspire her with happiness, others with dread.

She reads Shakespeare's Macbeth,
Fairy tales from the brothers Grimm,
Luxurious stories stealing her breath.

When at last her mind is filled to the brim,
She takes up her pen,
And writes on a whim.

The words spill out, again and again,
She tries her hand at jokes,
A skilled comedienne.

She writes of a forest of oaks,
Waiting for the spring,
Shivering under their snowy cloaks.

She tells a tales of a king,
Of a child alone,
She writes of a bird with only one wing.

As the years fly by she sits on her throne,
Made up of hopes and dreams and words
The number of stories she’s written is unknown.

She says goodbye twice, then comes back for thirds,
Her body is worn, but her mind is sharp,
She lets go, and flies with the birds.

She swims with the carp,
She fights with the knights,
She listens to the ethereal sound of the harp.

Her spirit lives on, she soars to new heights.
Constantly busy,
Forever seeing the sights.

— The End —