I see the darkness of the world
in my reflection
a devil in each iris, fire in each pupil
and every intention
I have had in my possession
has been cruel
has been kind
has been fuel
to burn and bind
and every breath of mine
gives to take
takes to live
lives to ache
for twenty years i have hung upon the stake
asking heaven why my creation
is
Perhaps it is His infatuation
with watching unbuilt castles slide
off cliffs into the sea,
swallowed by the tide
of what I'll never be

Dedicated to the Steelers who do their hard work so well.

The Pier five superstructure
Looms above the turgid waves,
Gothic cranes do hover close
To service needs of orange knaves
Who swarm to manufacture,
Who work to make complete
This massive bridging edifice,
This mighty engineering feat.

Cathedral like in grey austerity
Freezing zephyrs howl and blow,
Through the maintenance shaft tunnels,
Through the bridge's bowels go.
The catacombs are echoing,
Stark light's reflection deep
In corridors of baleful concrete
Through which angled cause ways sweep.

A forest of reinforcing rods
Stand starkly high and straight,
Atop adjacent pylons
Which arise from deep mud's gate.
Hazard lights are flashing
Amber, green and blue
As north east gales bring pelting rain
To obliterate the view

The tattooed hands of black skinned steeler
Twitch the wire to make the loom,
Lattice works of reinforcing
Blackened mesh of iron entombed.
Hard to fathom steeler's chatter
Bending low to twitch by feel,
Working fast in noisy unison
Twitching reinforcing steel.
Pliers flash in rapid movement
Wrist's convulse in rapid slap
Unintelligible chatter flows
But the job is finished, just like that.

Skill saw screams in echoed silence
Booming blows of hammers pound,
Pipe work's resonance percussion
Tempered by a sad song's sound.
Great concussions pound the air
As towering cranes do drive,
Enormous pylons into mud
And bedrock's solid hide

The mighty form travellers moving
High above cold estuary waves,
Reaching forth for unbuilt mana
It's red extension arm enclaves
Providing for the next poured section,
Providing for the next steel work,
Reaching out for firm embrace
Where Pier four's form travellers lurk.

The pungency of solvents spread
Across the steel plate, made to last;
Barrier to adherence of
The sticky concrete's surface cast.
The form work archway's wooden shell
Adopts a high cathedral stance,
This bride in waiting nervous for
The concrete pumps lithe serpent dance.

An unyielding environment
A hard surfaced place to be
Where materials of venom
Are handled casually.
Where massive superstructures
Unforgiving in their stance
Lead the busy, ant like steelers
In their lofty, hard days prance.

To look across Pier Five's expanse
And view the surface cant,
And visualize the future motorway
With it's headlong traffic rant;
And look again at what is spread
Across it's surface now,
At the jumbled reinforcing steel,
The cables, tools and how,
Organizationally chaotic
The whole affair appears ???
Whilst in actuality, my friends,
This clockwork sequence has no peers.

With the roar of passing traffic
As the headlights flash on by,
And the Pier's massive cantilever
Looms impossibly to sky.
One must praise the skilled designers
And those engineers of skill
Who summount vast odds of nature
To scale this monumental hill.
As this mostrous concrete edifice
Claws inexorably from tide,
To loom in towering sillouhette
Where estuary mists abide.

Marshalg
onsite@Pier5
Manukau Harbour Crossing
29 June 2009

In Memoriam

What's missing is the eyeballs
in each of us, but it doesn't matter
because you've got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks.
You let me touch them, ****** the green faces
lick at their numbers and it lets you be
my "Daddy!" "Daddy!" and though I fought all alone
with molesters and crooks, I knew your money
would save me, your courage, your "I've had
considerable experience as a soldier...
fighting to win millions for myself, it's true.
But I did win," and me praying for "our men out there"
just made it okay to be an orphan whose blood was no one's,
whose curls were hung up on a wire machine and electrified,
while you built and unbuilt intrigues called nations,
and did in the bad ones, always, always,
and always came at my perils, the black Christs of childhood,
always came when my heart stood naked in the street
and they threw apples at it or twelve-day-old-dead-fish.

"Daddy!" "Daddy," we all won that war,
when you sang me the money songs
Annie, Annie you sang
and I knew you drove a pure gold car
and put diamonds in you coke
for the crunchy sound, the adorable sound
and the moon too was in your portfolio,
as well as the ocean with its sleepy dead.
And I was always brave, wasn't I?
I never bled?
I never saw a man expose himself.
No. No.
I never saw a drunkard in his blubber.
I never let lightning go in one car and out the other.
And all the men out there were never to come.
Never, like a deluge, to swim over my *******
and lay their lamps in my insides.
No. No.
Just me and my "Daddy"
and his tempestuous bucks
rolling in them like corn flakes
and only the bad ones died.

But I died yesterday,
"Daddy," I died,
swallowing the ****-*** animal
and it won't get out
it keeps knocking at my eyes,
my big orphan eyes,
kicking! Until eyeballs pop out
and even my dog puts up his four feet
and lets go
of his military secret
with his big red tongue
flying up and down
like yours should have

as we board our velvet train.

The Knitting Needles Museum
has a prudish name
that frightens the schoolchildren
and obscures the oppression
of desperate and ***** women

The torture museum
and the war museum also
lack the inspiration
from a muse
They are monuments

and should be called that
With the unbuilt museums
of destroyed art and
ancient cultures, they can
fill a street in any city

'Ecce ****', behold man
the noble beast, the master
of things and nothings -
virtual and vanished
worlds that are unlivable

Light the torches.
Burn it to the ground.
Let the flames dance until the ashes flee this plot of land upon the back of the wind.
This patriarchal house that father built has been stained with the blood of past victims.
The blood of enemies dots the floor while whats left of friends streaks the walls, marking the spot where they leaned for one last moment of respite prior to life escaping them.
We stand here with the warm blood dripping from our hanging fingertips.
Clothing streaked red.
Clearly we all had a part to play.
Whether part of the execution or part of the clean up, we all took part in the slaughter.
Fathers swung blades.
Mothers bandaged the wounded so they may **** again.
Children carried the buckets of blood to be disposed of.
Yet no one wept.
Not a tear was shed in the name of this great nation.
No one wailed during the systematic destruction of our resources.

Roads are crumbling.
Water is poisoned.
Politics are a circus.
The police have become a military force.
And lives have been destroyed.
Fathers are still wielding the blade
While mothers take up the blood buckets of their children who have been slain.
When does it end?
Does it end when we run out of weapons?
When we run out of people?
When we run out of love?
Weapons are only an extention of the wielder.
The bomb unbuilt cannot explode.
Our mother's words should be ringing in all of our ears.
Be good.
Treat people right.
Love.
Instead we jam fingers in ears, scream and stamp feet until even our thoughts are nothing but static.
The hiss and squeal of gunshots and speeding tires continually drown out the sounds of children's laughter and those Marvin Gaye records that Mrs. Jenkins plays on Sunday nights.
This isn't just a story of the inner city blues.
The suburban warriors are also witness to the carnage.
It's time to stay the blade.
Allow mothers to mourn.
And children to play.
Peace is a choice.
Choose wisely.

Touching is not a sin
Within these pillars
The temple of my body, I call home.
There are no prayers to be found
Between the dryness of my lips
And where you left me
With the wetness of my eyes
Singing its hymn to the martyrs before

Their hands have gone cold
In the silence of my secrets
These martyrs knock their bones together
As if trying to make fire
Could turn back time
As if their ivory stamina
Could voice its plea
There is blood on the walls in their temples

I hear the foolish cry out
With a voice that has never known lack
That condemned buildings are only meant to be torn down
That the bricks of my house were meant to return to dust
Buried in the mortar of my memories, blown in the wind
Unbuilt with no remorse
Leaving mortar scars in the earth

If the walls of my temple could speak
Her concrete lips would part
Revealing timber teeth
If her tongue was not sewn shut with shame
She would begin with a whisper
For she has never brought her voice up from the basement before

Her breath, stumbling over the threshold finds its footing
A guttural cry makes its way forth
A voice that blows doors off its hinges
A voice that only does cosmetic damage
As it attempts to touch your heart
Where it has never been reached

The cornerstones
Begin to talk
You were told even the stones cry out
It is too late for them now and too dark
The sky was almost crying
The heavens on the verge of tears

It is too late
I came undone
Because you can't tether fingers
As much as I wanted to tie ropes
To the nerve endings of my extremities and pull with all my strength
Pull them back to my heart
So they could be safe
Feel safe
Carry to the grave
Words I could not whisper to you in the dark

What prayers could I offer
To a temple torn down in anger
What words would I give
To the grave of my being
Whose hymns still ring out
Into the night, crying
Dust to dust
Ashes to ashes

Most of my life has been spent painting pictures in a song
though I was never good at Art&Design;,
so I resign myself to drawing words and colouring phrases with a ball point pen and
a weary head, that never should've got out of bed.

And I don't care what you want to be,
in the centre of the circle everybody wanted something from you; like an old teddybear
being ripped at the seams- no buttons to keep you together, only being torn apart like
a philosophical discussion about the creation of man. Pining for cosmic resolution and a reason to be.
You said you wanted that reason to be me.

I'll make you see the world tonight, make sense of the unknown. Learn how to grow old and be satisfied. How to grow, just grow. Know right from left to wrong and sing a different song.

'cause this city was built on fear and testimonies of the ignorant plaguing stubborn minds.
Manipulators lead the gullible ashtray, the weak remain same. No ones left to suffer the blame.
Hands clap as people riot in the street, echoes of the innocent stuck on repeat.

Yet you speak of harmonies and riches. You talk and your voice it's beautiful sound travels through the channels of my eager ears, wanders like a river with subtle grace and ripples of intonation, the mid-range pitch keep it from rising out of the banks of my thoughtless mouth.
And I count myself lucky as I gaze at the aimless faces rather there than here,
their body language gives nothing away, let's nothing in as if they're standing in a windless orchard in their minds. Whereas yours in perfection of a kind.
The poetry of your face is enigmatic yet I feel if I look closer I could easily understand.

The aimless faces try to draw you near but you ignore their cries;
for bribery is vain to try against incorruptible eyes. Although they were trying to warn you.
Their wires went unanswered. The bridges remain unbuilt. Now trouble is coming!
'cause you rested all your hopes on my thoughtless mouth and mishapened heart.

Your words- the beauty of your voice flows through the channels of my ears, wandering like a river, bubbling with your wishes and pain. My mouth is buckled, is buckled with fear.
Can I give you everything you're after?
Give you myself and more? Oh how I want to.

I want to .  .  .  .

'Cause this life was built out of rejection. Humour as a mechanism
of defence, a pretence that I'm strong, able. In fact quite capable of not destroying
everything in my path. My successes came out of needing to prove to them and myself that
I wasn't beaten down.
I have substance and I'm beginning to feel free,
like a bird in an unlocked cage.

LOVE comes from all sources and I don't care what you want to be, as long as you're good to me.
Try to understand where I'm coming from and keep surprising me , like you do.
We can sing the same old song, so long as my pictures colour in your heart.

Colour you in.

If I come
to rule a small kingdom
and should be so picky as
to have you live inside
you’d only have to knit
for me a pair
of socks and hold
my heels
In your soft cloth.
I'll give you money and keys,
ensure
you won't be killed.
Or hurt.
I’ll learn what you need
when you are shy
or expect something in kind
for your time.
My ringed fingers fancy
walking up your legs. My tongue,
running between your thighs,
delighted.
But, when your toes curl, I don’t
know.
And you've removed yourself
by inches, from the ground which,
like me, bounds after you
desperate
to replace itself beneath your
lovely form.
I’d fall out of exhaustion
onto that throne, imagining your face
and your thin ankles midair.
But you’d soar on
past Evening
making the moon your own,
me your last planet
you my new star.
Take cash,
for these socks
which warm my mind.
These thoughts
climb into open doors
in my kingdom's only car
then drive away with you
on unbuilt roads
with plans appropriated
from taxes
on socks you knit.

Vacant lot
Cement dust & foundations
Left unbuilt on
When the bubble burst