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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
FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99
Added today to commemorate the birthday of Carl Sandburg
~
December 2023
HP Poet: Marshal Gebbie
Age: 78
Country: New Zealand


Question 1: We welcome you to the HP Spotlight, Marshal. Please tell us about your background?

Marshal: "My name is Marshal Gebbie and I write under "M" or "M@Foxglove.­Taranaki. NZ". I am 78 years old and a native son of Australia. I came to New Zealand for a looksee with a pack on my back and a guitar under my arm, intended spending six weeks but absolutely fell in love with the Kiwi people and this magnificent little jewel of a country nested deep in the waves of the great Southern ocean of the South Pacific. I've now been here 54 years and counting. I married darling Janet back about 35 years ago and we produced two fine sons, Boaz and Solomon both of whom have great careers, wonderful partners...and in Solomon's case, produced a delightful granddaughter for us to love and spoil to bits.

From ****** agricultural college I went to the darkest, deepest wilds of Papua New Guinea as an Agricultural Officer, returned to Australia two years later to become a secondary college teacher in Ag Science. Easily the most satisfying profession of my life in that I succeeded in drawing the pearls of enlightenment from within the concrete mass of the, then, recalcitrant, brickheaded studenthood to realise the wonder of discovery, involvement and engender, within them, a genuine spirit of endeavour. Stepping off the boat in NZ I took a bouncers job in a rough public bar, three months later I started my own brand new tavern @ the Chateau Tongariro in the skifields of Mt Ruapehu.

Seeing a unique opportunity and with no money of my own I bought a derelict motorcamp in the small country township of National Park, named the place "Buttercup Camp" and set about making the enterprize one of the very first destination holiday venues in New Zealand. I pioneered paddle boat white water rafting on the wild rivers of the North Island, commercial adventure horse trekking in the wilderness trails, guided adventure hikes across the active volcanos of Ruapehu, Nguarahoe and Tongariro. Cheffed three course roast dinners and piping hot breakfasts for up to 150 house guests daily and initiated an alpine flightseeing business and air taxi service to and from Auckland and Wellington International to the National Park airstrip, a long grassy, uphill paddock liberally populated by flocks of sheep and/or herds of beef cattle.

Somewhere along the way I earned myself a Commercial Pilots Licence and owned, through the duration, 7 different aircraft. With the sudden fiscal collapse of tourism in the late 80s along with several inconvenient local volcanic eruptions, I divested myself from "Buttercup", moved my young family to Auckland and took up a 20 year lease of a derelict motel in Greenlane. Within three months I had converted the business into Auckland's premier truckstop providing comfortable welcoming accommodation, piping hot dinners and early breakfasts with the added bonus of a pretty young thing serving drinks in the bar....Super service with a smile for the nations busy truck drivers.
It worked like a rocket for ten years then the local matrons objected to the big rigs starting up at 4am and the Ministry of Transport and the Local Authority shut me down.

I worked the last 12 years of my serious working life as a Storeman and Plant Coordinator for a major construction company building motorways and major traffic tunnels in and under Auckland city and in rural Hamilton. I loved every minute of it all and objected furiously when they retired me at age 75.

Now I'm happily a Postman Pat in a little rural country town on the coast called Okato, have been for three years and shall continue be, gleefully, until they put me in the box. It has been a helluva run....and I wouldn't have missed a minute of it all."



Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?

Marshal: "Poetry started for me when I wrote a beautiful ditty as an exercise at high school.....and the caustic old crow of a teacher said, publicly,...."You didn't write this!" That got the juices flowing and set me off on the tangent of proving my worth as a writer....and I have never stopped."


Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).

Marshal: "Falling in love for the very first time kick started the romanticisms....it took me years to mollify that. Since then and throughout life Poetry has hallmarked discovery, achievement, white hot anger, combat and delight!"


Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?

Marshal: "It is the medium of expression which allows the spirit to enhance and colour my world."


Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?

Marshal: "Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Emily Dickinson, WL Winter, WK Kortas, L Anselm, Victoria (God Bless her), and a character, sadly long gone from these pages, JP. All favourite poets of mine."


Question 6: What other interests do you have?

Marshal: "With the slowing of my battered body these days I commit myself to my darling wife, Janet, our kids, now grown and living out there in the big wide world, and in growing and nurturing the truly magnificent gardens of "Foxglove" ......following the All Black rugby team and enjoying the serenity of a cut glass noggin of Bushmills Irish whiskey (neat), sitting in my favourite chair, watching the sun set in golden array over the grey waters of the distant Tasman Sea, far, far below."


Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to get to know you, Marshal! It is an honor to include you in this series!”

Marshal: "Greetings Carlo and thanks for the opportunity to unload on my fellow poets."



Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Marshal better. I learned so much about his fascinating life. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez & Mrs. Timetable

We will post Spotlight #11 in January!

~
Below are some of Marshal's favorite poems and links to each one:

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1620867/windwitch-of-the-deep/
Windwitch of the Deep by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1274911/running-the-beast/
Running the Beast by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/386523/so-wetly-one/
Once, so wetly one. by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/435103/perchance-in-a-bus-shelter/
Perchance, in a Bus Shelter by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/389195/white-foggy-days/
White, Foggy Days by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/266893/cheetah/
Cheetah by Marshal Gebbie
Click to read the poem and comment...
hellopoetry.com
Nat Lipstadt Nov 2013
Road Trip: Thinking it's about time (find yourself within II)

This particular poem was born as a one line response to a message.  But in many other forms, half written, it exists still, un, unfinished, waiting for the next burst energy, the next holiday time, to reach a new finish line.

This is a different but similar to a poem posted on June 2nd, "Poetry Round (find your self within)"

Any error of omission is unintentional, but know that this took many hours, until fatigue won. If you never told or revealed to me your location, know that you will be called out, to and unto me, in another poem, called "your banner is my flag."


Fact about me:  You design me.
-------------------------------------------------------

th­inking it's about time for a road trip.

create an excuse
(reasons, I got a plenty)
to stop by,
to show you another side of me,
for a drink, a meal,
and some kind
of exchange, of
form and fluids,
manner to be determined.

to come to Minneapolis,
watch you create a heated sensuality,
verbally, from melted snowdrifts,
a hot time to be had
by all the poets
of the mini-apple,
I want to meet
and celebrate ann victory.

travel to Thiruvananthapuram,
tour the treasures
of gold and diamonds,
from whence come
the bejeweled poems,
that have earned visits from
thousands upon thousands,
pilgrims, devotees, followers,
to partake at that, his,
special temple.

Gomer, Gomer,  & MJJ,
I am in your Florida,
no, sorry, not in Ocala,
near to your homer,
and I feel you springer
ten times in the
November sun rays,
that have me locked
in a full Nelson,
your productivity,
endless,
a sea of orange sunburnt words,

Tennessee,
The Carolinas,
Georgia,
The South,

I rise with it,
now, again,
that I will need a slow
sunny all lazy summer long to
learn y'alls ways,
see the wolves,
in your forests,
helm the riverboats,
navigate the quaint tides
of Charleston,
the special places
where they heal, le ville,
where the ashes of
burnt children,
retuned to be whole.

learn y'alls ways,
walk in your boots,
of seeing poems
using your special
southern saber words.

missed the original
Thrilla-in-Manila,
but rest easy, assured,
that hotbed of creativity,
where I check the
PH of the mc waters
to comprehend its
wisdom and now, it's sadness,
will be an illustrious destination
on my itinerant itinerary,
stopping by Makati City,
after all,
it is writ in the good book,
this island,
the PhilippineS,
is the birthplace
of the letter S,
Samples: samson, sally,
and So many others?

in Nevada City,
which is of course in
krazy California,
wager philosophy, romance,
be available for
succinctly seeing
works in progress,
from which I
will imbibe,
so **** deeply,
may have to
stay awhile for...

while I am there,
will need to do
a search and
Hug Mission,
to find a special man,
his unkempt prose,
his mortal rhymes
disguise not his holy worth,
even to the grassy
cal-stratosphere,
to the mesosphere,
will I high fly,
to find his sweetest spot,
then and thereafter
going looking
further on to
Humboldt County.

in Leeds, in West Yorkshire,
(Hamphshirians, Northamptontonians,
patience please)
built foundries and factories
over the magical forest of Loidis,
near to the river Aire,
yet still hides a
magical sorceress of words,
casting spells over
men and beast.
no one has seen full
her half-turned away face,
but when she summons,
do I have a choix
other than obey?
even if I get lost,
my sorceress,
you know,
I am on way too.

to get there,
will fly I must,
to Heathrow hell,
will do it,
just for you,
faithful friend,
a man da gotta do, what
a man gotta do...for you,
but first a stop off at the
London School of Economics,
Hampstead as well,
for a tutorial about sonnets,
or sams in wells,
even if I come
in my bare feet.

even in New York Upstate,
a man da gotta do,
what he mulls over in his heart,
be not surprised at a knock upon
your door, to make comparative notes,
about each other's tattoos.

in the South African veld,
hid in the highland grasses,
crouches the poetesses and tigresses,
waiting to ambush you
with words that must be seen
to be heard, to be well understood.
perhaps I'll come at ester time,
under blue indigo skies over,
a golden landscape,
seizing all the gems
that can be seen
only at 3:00am

leeward,
north to Canada,
must I, transgress,
country of my momma's birth,
fly from Montreal to Toronto, Calgary
then over to Vancouver.
Canada,
a dangerous place for me,
cause there are beautiful
souls up there,
and maybe even a
warrant to
repossess mine,
they want their
poets back.

double down by ferry,
me to Seattle,
to see a man about river,
in the Pacific Northwest,
where I have happily
drowned so many times,
that The Lord is complaining,
am hogging all the baptismal waters,
but when reminded that
nothing lasts forever,
here tomorrow,
gone today, walk on,
I add my tears
to that river,
before hitting the road.

on that river,
gonna drive me a kayak,
down Daytonway,
on the Yamill River,
see a gyreene marine,
watching me do a beach landing,
in Willamette Wine Park.
he will teach me to salute,
I will teach him how to
shake hands,
and learn from him,
it's ok,
to stand down.

man o' man
there are a lots of poets,
in these here parts,
this grand
Pacific North West,
looking for one in particular,
who will be quite easy to spot,
as he is my very own
soul brother.

will be easy to find,
though we have never met,
he will be on his kayak,
I on mine,
tho when he paddles,
somehow he manages
to hold
never letting go
of, his lovely bride,
his best half's hands.

this will a problem,
for I must teach him how to
shake two handed souls,
while hugging and paddling,
even bailing,
with an old dented pail
simultaneous.
but you can teach old dogs
new tricks, even the ones,
that can't spell
rhymers.

have mercie on me Ohio,
like a mother has to her daughter,
done a three year sentence in Cleveland,
but no jail can hold an NYC boy,
but if requested, yes I will return
to set fire to the *
Cuyahoga,
again! he he he...
but do not s mock me!
(now you know why the FBI loves
my poetry, my biggest institutional fan).

souls in torment,
where you be,
where you hide,
matters not where
you physical reside,
for we have found
each other
in each other words.

You, who live in
your very own
personal hell,
I think we met there,
because
yours was
mine too,
tho not found
on any map.

maybe I will meet the
Empress Josephine Maria,
rowing on the canals of
the Netherlands,
no longer will she be
alone.

but then again, some
very special things,
like
the purest of love
are on no map,
they are everywhere.

while in India,
will seek the many musings of many lips
of aged rhyme men
and complicated charmers
so I may kiss them
with spiced humors
to pour and pour,
more and more,
upon this western soul,
mysteries of the east,
to Kashmir, Bangalore,
wherever I must,
even take a praDip in the Ganges,
I will go, find you,
un-hide you,
among the
teeming millions,
millions of
jokes and rhymes,
that make the
world spin brighter.

in Germany,
all the university students
speak English,
in Wiesbaden, they know
poetic beauty is not in the format,
some in Bamberg,
with a peculiar
Missouri accent,
which is nicht gut Englisch,
so study hard the real way,
speak the language
the new yorka way,
which will require
study abroad,
which is quite funny,
now that I think about it.

but in Mo.,
the native drums roll,
long and slow,
making words
I know
better, different,
in a way never saw before,
leaves me asking for,
mo', mo', please?

to get there, to Allemagne,
land of my forefathers,
a ship I will take,
from Southampton
across the Kiel Canal,
before I depart,
will have my hair cut,
my words reworked,
by her Ladyship,
whose keen eyes and
maternal instincts,
see the joy of life in every
Livvi little thing.

Watt am I going to do if
I need to find a Tecumseh,
taker of my naked poems,
and enlarger of them,
so truth by her,
all revealed,
we are all naked
at least,
twice a day?

In Nepal I will purr at the words
gleaned from the markets and
train stations where
voyages from Lalitpur to Katmandu,
start and end,
where there is a miracle almost
sixteen years young,
where they call their schools
future stars and little angels,
so why should poetic miracles not be
as common as its subtropical clime?

though I despise the
Dallas Cowboys,
not my  America's team,
nonetheless there is a young woman,
a true rose of Texas,
who waits and writes
so lovingly of her airman,
in Afghanistan, I have placed
their names first,
in my nighttime prayers,
hoping to be there,
schedule my visit,
to witness his safe return
and their
joyous reunification.

there are no Mayans in Maine,
but poets of similar name,
kould be, mae be,
Julia's in Jersey, new,
in Auckland,
there are poets
who don't know it,
and Down Under, too,
where getting high is easy,
getting high at
and on words
well marshaled ,
but **** sure I will be
peering and prring,
all the way.

Oregon,
don't be gone,
those wide eyes shut,
when I come by,
who knows when I
will pass this way again...
on my way to Phoenix,
where sunrayes bend to the
desires of dessert breezes.

Kentucky to Korea,
one long road to travel,
but middle son,
if you can do it,
so can I, and,
I will follow.

in a beautiful city,
unsurprisingly called
Belleville,
the leader of the band,
still leads us in belle 'noise'
and when he finishes
fall leafing us in song, he still,
rises up in the mid of dark,
prayerful haikus to write.

off to Rogers, Arkansas
to meet an Italian from Mexico
who specializes in skinny poems,
something one day I will be too.

maybe I will go to
places it snows,
there are so many,
but your photo,
and tattoo trail,
clues, will follow,
no matter how hard
you make it a mystery.

you, who live in just
the world,
don't even think,
that crazy dotted lines,
unstraight,
or huge plains,
are sufficient,
to hide your
moody dust trail
from me!

somewhere in the USA,
roses grow in ground
that needs the
watering of tears,
though this place
is hard to find,
ha, turn around,
that is me,
tapping you,
on the shoulder!

will find you,
as I am searching for
a lovely pair
of stockinged ankles,
each with a heart tattoo,
but I sure could use
a clue,
before this hobbit searches
all the shire,
derby hatted,
to find your
heart real, and the real you...

my mode of time travel?
why I am just
a dude on a rocket ship.

Wisconsin,
look for my ruby message
in the snow,
in the dust,
in the sand, the skies, the sea,
but will you answer me?

Pittsburgh,
patient, you've been,
you thought I forgot
all about you,
chimera  at the intersection
of three rivers,
all you need wonder,
upon which one
will my ship arrive
and why you still disbelieve
you are not a poetess!

ME oh my,
you too, a hidey hole got,
but, we are strange, we humans,
we would gladly bleed to please,
If we could but find
a combination of
new words that
would your heart gladden,
your eyes tear,
your lips wear,
a smile of pleasure
at our offerings poetic!
but still I know not,
the where!

Lagos,
where
I shall climb the tallest skyscraper,
calling out in Yoruba,
where is my Temitope?
where is mine,
worthy of thanksgiving
so I may carry my Popoola,
my pole of her of
written wealth?


Mombasa, Singapore,
Maryland, Rhode Island, Kentucky,
Huddersfield, Connecticut Joe, Ireland,
South Dakota,

where the merry elders
well ken somethings
about a moon and tattered clouds,
something about children and dogs,
and something about letting
tomorrow's wait.

Milwaukee, Atlanta,
chuck, in *PA.,
friend to all,
to all those scattered across these
United States of America.

can we dare not mention
"The Shaq" of Malaysia,
South Sudan, Pakistan,

of course not!

Suburbia,
beautiful, black San Diego, Detroit;

The BBB's -

British Columbia, Brazil, Breendonk, and
B'kara!
the goodness of *
Boston,
flipping out in Flipadelphia,

did you think I would forget ya?

those of you hiding among 64 stars,
the groves of L.A',
on the lanes,
the special land of I-sia-Bella,
fellow citizens of Neverland,
those of you 'at home,'
in the land of nightmares,
concrete boxes,
those who post without a doubt,
and in the box,
this who think your birth year
is an identifying mark, not,
you never fooled me,
will visit each and everyone.


even and especially,
the grays of crosstown
NYC,
the red writers of my hood,
the tylers too.

I am exhausted,
forgive me well,
if thy locale,
I did not explicate,
for the hour is very late.

yet thru subtle fissures
in the clouds,
look for a tired old man
on the wings of a
chariot drawn by angels,
bringing you a dictionary
full of new words,
a present for you,
but truly,
a present to himself
for from it,
your future poems
will come.

*but the sun has come up,
so now I sleep.
1.  What makes this poem special, if anything, is the trust and confidences we share with each other, that allowed me to perhaps catch just little bit something special of each of you, where I could.

2. Can anyone explain to me why the site labels this poem explicit?
Marshal Gebbie Jan 2014
Our Lady visits places where no man has trod asunder
Places where the hand of time has kept them from the sun,
Places where the roiling earth hath ground to rend like thunder
Where history, as we know it now, had barely, then, begun.

With elegance she burrows forth, with elegance a seeking
Tended by her retinue of young, admirers’ lithe,
With elegance she sinuously writhes within containment,
To elegantly strive to shape her contour, uncontrived.

So femininely fabulous, admired by all and sundry
Her deadlines met assiduously, taken in her stride.
Secretly she smiles the smile of one who dwells thereunder
Who secretly entrances with her quiet performing pride.

Fare welled on her journey by adoring crowd and bunting,
Fare welled midst a sea of flags by rotund Prince and child
To coyly disappear from sight with retinue of admirers
To reappear with fanfare in a year, to drive men wild.

Sinuously spinning in her secret world beneath us,
Spinning and beguiling in uniquely female way,
Alice holds our promise in sweet dreams and aspirations
Our Subterranean Goddess…Our Lady of the Day.


Marshalg
Plant Co-ordinator
The Wellconnected Consortium
AUCKLAND.
27 January 2014

**Alice is our giant tunnel boring machine. She is currently 40 m beneath parkland and housing in Owairaka, Auckland. In 12 months she will emerge at Waterview to be spun around to burrow the return tunnel back to the point of origin. These tunnels will form the completing stages of the modern motorway system in Auckland. The system, which will be completed in 2017, will revolutionise the existing transport network and benefit the people of Auckland and New Zealand for decades to come.
Joann Rolleston Nov 2014
Armageddon Auckland
Thanks now stalking
Yoda anything
Motion sensor
6 phrases
Glowing sabre
Cute and small
Tough as guts
Gentle Wise, Nuts
Anythings possible
Just gotta believe
Be positive
Dream
This is the Force
Of Course ...
feel the force, believe in yourself, reach for the stars
Hi everyone and welcome to brumbies night live for the brumbies home match against the Auckland blues and what a match this will turn out to be and here is Fred with a jingle
Run brumbies run
Playing at GIO stadium oh yeah
Run brumbies run
Fighting fit fighting strong
Come on brumbies
You must win this Saturday
The night of all nights
Go brumbies go brumbies
We are the best
We will triumph over the blues
We are the best
Go brumbies go brumbies
We must win
If we wanna win in the finals
We have to win tonight

Thank you Fred and now here is Peter with his jingle

Out on the field of super rugby today
Are the mighty brumbies
Ready for a win
Our opponent today is the Auckland blues
We need to win we will triumph over
Everyone here’s hoping dude
Then the team provided a try
Scoring good here’s hoping mate
Everyone will cheer as they come on the field we get to our feet abs from our mouths we yell
Go the brumbies go go go
We need to beat the blues at their game
Go the brumbies go go go
Fight for our place in the finals
Here’s hoping well if we are good enough
Thank you Peter and now time to start the match go brumbies

Welcome to half time of brumbies night live and the blues got an early lead but then the brumbies caught up a bit to make it Auckland 15 brumbies 12, it will be an interesting second half
Here is Tim
Go brumbies go brumbies go brumbies go
We are the best team in Australia yeah
We are kicking *** good
And we are showing the blues who is boss
Let’s hope we don’t end up with a loss
Go the mighty brumbies mate
Carn them good and strong
Up the brumbies down the blues
Well I hope so anyway
It is great to shoe the kids of this town
Just how great the brumbies are
Come on brumbies win this match
Yeah oh yeah come on dudes

Thank you Tim and now here is William with his jingle
You know it is the brumbies
We are coming back on the blues
And at precisely midnight
Our victory will fit right
Into the night
We must win tonight mate
If we think we are good
What have the crowd
Eating pretty good food
Oh yeah we must win
Oh yeah we must
Thank you William and this match is going to be great in the second half
Here is Yvonne
The mighty brumbies are going to win today
1 2 3 4 5 olay
Then we will score and score
The opposition doesn’t know what hit em
Hit em hit em hit em
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
We must win tonight cause if we don’t
I will meet you in the club
And pour beer over you, yeah
We fight we win
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
Go the mighty brumbies
Thank you Yvonne and now onto the second half go brumbies
And now it is full time and what a win for the ACT brumbies by 26-21 and I can tell you that was a great win
Here is Tom
Oh yeah it was a great win for the brumbies, the brumbies oh yeah
We proved too good for them oh yeah
The mighty brumbies
The brumbies played so ****** well
Auckland don’t know what hit em
Just when we thought they were down in the game
They scored some great points
Oh yeah the brumbies won it oh yeseree 3 cheers for the mighty brumbies come on oh yeah
Well done the mighty brumbies
Well ****** done

Thank you Tom and now here is Brian with a jingle
Go brumbies
We fought we conquered and we won
It was a great win we deserved to win
And the mighty brumbies
Are the best team around
Are we going to win from this match on
Or is it going to be a hay ride for us all
But the brumbies the mighty brumbies
Will put up a fight
Try and put that in your pipe and smoke it critics just smoke it now
All up
Go the brumbies go the brumbies
We are the best team around
Go the brumbies go the brumbies
Yes we beat the blues oh yeah
We are back kicking ***
Like we used to do fellas
Go the mighty brumbies
We are the mighty brumbies
We are The best
Thank you Brian and now that is it
There ain’t no more the brumbies have won, 26-21 is the score
Goodbye from brumbies night live
And now we draw the final curtain
Yes it is the brumbies are totally rad
The performance for them in this game was far from ****** bad
So as we wait for next weeks opponent
We will try and show them what we are made of yeah
But now it is time to celebrate
With a nice cold beer
Go brumbies
I grew up in South Auckland, Takanini
the only Pakeha in the caravan park,
I learnt how to be tall, smart and skinny
how to raise the end of my sentences in an arc.

At school, we were told words held power;
but for teachers words were flowers,
and my friend Cruz had two brothers
Harley and Davidson - they belonged to Black Power,
their fists tattooed with something like “Smother”.

But there was never violence on our street, gang was family;
I usually never felt more at home around Bourbon,
loud Reggae, bags of ****, and men so manly
they’d cry over love, and I wouldn’t get a word in.

Though my Father votes National and thinks Michael Laws is right
so moves us to Dunedin where it’s ninety percent white.
I stopped reading Lenin and picked up Rousseau  
became a vegetarian, thought it was so cool you know,
even wrote a blog that discussed rise from below.



But I’ll never know below again
until I’m drunk in an old shed at 3am on a school night
singing along to Bob Marley in Maori,
sunk deep into the mattress propped against the Harley,

the one you and I would cruise on until dawn together
as police took to the streets in riot gear -
we’d get lost in the country and learn to smother
our thoughts in starlight then stagger over,
listen in to the darkness,
and just slowly breathe
the crisp, cool air of the kiwi tundra.

They say New Zealand has two flags,
but in the country, when you’re blazed
on the benefit, ****** on the disdain
for positive discrimination, you can pick out
all the small bright koru unfurling in the stars.
Marshal Gebbie Dec 2013
From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILLIPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2013
Inspired by the dream of the founders of city
Collated by planning of leaders and mayor,
Built by the muscle and sweat of believers
A Masterpiece fashioned for pride and for care.

Magnificent structures of bridges and tunnel
Faultlessly conjoined by highways of God,
Dreamt by the forebears of knowledge and passion
Crafted in concrete and sculpted in rod.

Towering edifices scything through city
Asphaltic motorways curving with grace
Estuaries bridged by elegant girders
Created by vision with tears on it’s face.

Fashioned by strength and belief in the promise
Fashioned by fortitude's strong hand as guide,
Crafted by people's belief in tomorrow
A Vision for Auckland and nation with pride.



Marshalg
With the Wellconnected Alliance.
AUCKLAND N.Z.
(Inspired by the animation on a good Mayor’s face)
6pm,14 February 2013


© 2013 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2011
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
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2009
The peace in this seclusion
Of a tranquil park in green,
With stately trees of ancient years
And walkways in between
There's deep shade under foliage
With sunspots everywhere,
And a velvet sense of peacefulness
Pervading in the air.

But:
Should you step beyond the green grass,
Should you venture onto seal,
An abrupt and harsh transition
Manifests, as quite unreal!
There's a cacophony of engine noise,
The headlong rush of cars,
A kaleidoskope of steel and glass
And frantic men from Mars!

The grind of wasted hours
With inertia breeding dread
And putting up with maniac's
Ignoring stop lights turning red.
There's a quagmire of congestion here
A head ache for the Tsar's
And for myriads of people
Who queue daily in their cars.

There's a White Knight in the future,
There's salvation in the air
For the God's of your deliverance
Will relieve you of despair.
They will forge a mighty tunnel
Deep beneath the grassy park
And divert congested traffic
Out beyond congestion's arc.

Melding with the motorway
To make breathing space for all,
The Victoria Park Alliance
Guarantees their clarion call.
Energetic men and women
Who are planning round the clock,
Engineers and excavator's slave
To work without a stop.
Concrete slab and steel amass
To build the tunnel strong
And sleek attenuators
Keep the traffic flowing on.

Salvation in the form
Of a tunnel underground
Beneath the spreading boughs
Of an oak in green surround,
Beneath the peaceful turf
Of a verdant park as planned,
Found amidst the million souls
Of Auckland, New Zealand.

Marshalg
@theCoalface
Auckland City
New Zealand
6 November 2009
www.worthyofpublishing
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2014
Everybody in Russia loves Vladimir Putin.
In the years since he muscled his way to the top of the tree, he has established himself as the Champion of all Russia!

In the degradation following the collapse of the USSR, national pride in Russia spiralled down to an all-time low, there was little to be proud of. The satellite nations fled to independence abandoning the Rodina,  Agricultural and industrial production fell dramatically, law and order diminished dangerously. The economy shrank and the order of success in business depended largely on connection with Government and/or the Mafia. The Oligarchs became monstrously rich, the average Ivan monstrously poor. Life savings were rendered worthless overnight by the plummet of the value of the rouble. Russian society polarised from the ecstatically happy, filthy rich to the chronically unhappy, beggared poor.

Russian leadership staggered from Gorbechev’s democratisation through Yeltsin’s alcoholism to Andropov’s sudden death…. enter the fray Vladimir Putin.

Putin tightened the reins.
He organised regular payment of wages and salaries to the movers and shakers, the police and the military.
He changed the rules of doing business within the nation and made investment opportunities within Russia available to outside interests.
He took charge and commandeered discipline within the ranks of central Government.
He set about correctional treatment for the terrorists/freedom fighters in the Chechen Republic and elsewhere.
He raised the expectations of the common man and gave the people an element of promise for Russia’s tomorrow.
He invaded and took back the Crimea as legitimate Russian sovereignty.
He garnered the roaring support of the six million ethnic Russians domiciled in the Eastern region of the Ukraine.

Putin now stands, bare chested, astride Russia. He faces a hostile but cowed West with pale, blazing eyes and a ******* bulge in his trousers.
He is widely idolised by Russian women and admired by Russian men. He is their champion; he is believed to be their key to the future.
His nation is currently under severe trade embargo and economic sanction by Europe and the West which is hurting the strained economy right across the board.
The declining price of oil is adversely affecting Siberian oil profits and making further shale oil exploration uneconomic.
He enjoys hugely profitable Siberian natural gas pipeline sales to the Southern neighbour, China, but they watch the unfolding political landscape with careful, calculating tiger eyes.
Putin is regarded by Europe and the West as an unpredictable, serious threat who should not be unduly provoked.
Undeniably, the West, in their sour lipped manner, would be happy to see him and his Russian bear, fade quietly and permanently into the obscurity of the frozen wilds of the far Siberian tundra.

But if Vladimir Putin plays his cards well, he could actually bring the Rodina all of the benefits, glory and rewards that it seeks.
However, should he overplay his hand here, he may well crash and burn….and in doing so, could bring Russia’s dreams and aspirations crashing down with him.

Marshalg
Auckland
15 November 2014
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2012
Locked within expressions
In this little girl’s smile
Are nuances of wonderment
Destined to compile,
All the mystery of womanhood,
The guile of the breed,
The allure of her ***
And the promise of seed.
Her love for her mother,
Her joy for her dad,
Her path to tomorrow
Be it happy or sad,
The tears and the joyfulness
Stretched out before..
There’s the dog at the hearth
And the cat at the door.
And the beautiful sunsets
Those blue eyes will see
And the love of her life
Who’ll get down on his knee,
The scent of the lavender
Fresh from the fields
And the lakeside laburnum
Which subtly yields.
The colours of love
And the texture of fire
When the threads of her life
Turn to passion’s desire.
The moment of truth
When she turns to her mom
And her face wears the smile
And her arms bear….a son.
Oh the world turns in circles
Of shades of soft hue
And time waits for no soul,
Especially you,
And the babes of today
Become mothers of yore
And the great lesson learned
Is.... keep open the door.*



Uncle Marshal
With wonderment at the beauty in a little girl’s secret smile.
Auckland
12 October 2012



© 2012 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2015
Flashing willow, spinning ball
Four million screaming Kiwis call
You champion of this far flung land
In World Cup Cricket’s greatest stand.

Tomorrow at the MCG
In Australia’s hostile field,
Black shall battle Green and Gold
To seize the Cup, to make them yield.

Flashing willow, spinning ball
The Black caps, as a team, enthrall
With inspirational de je Vue
In self belief, we’re backing you.

Tomorrow at the MCG
In Australia’s hostile field,
Black shall battle Green and Gold
To win the Cup, to watch them yield.

Flashing willow, spinning ball
Humble, proud…none can recall
A better cricket team to hand
To represent this Kiwi land.

Tomorrow at the MCG
Beneath Australia’s hostile sun
Black will hold the trophy high
This Cricket World Cup
SHALL BE WON!

M
Auckland, NZ
28 March2015
Black Caps v Australia,
Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Ya win some, ya lose some....today we lost.
Australia was by far the better team on the day.
But being second best cricket team on the planet is a pretty good effort.
WELL DONE KIWI.
WELL DONE NEW ZEALAND>
Ian Beckett Nov 2012
Sunday-empty Auckland my pre-breakfast escape,
Sheep-spotted mountains in early morning mist,
Whangarei marina for a cauldron of cappuccino.
Shop of metal sheep starts a day of Kiwi weirdness,
Of customer requesting glassblowing lessons, and
“All Blacks” silk boxers, unworn by players I hope.

Driving to Dargaville for Mr. M. Ujdur museum treat,
That late gum-digging, Esperanto teaching, vintner.
Beside a colossal collection of accordions with muzak,
Playing an instrument-impossible Whiter Shade of Pale,
Plus coins and buttons and stamps and Scotsmen,
Left feeling stunned, like I was tripping on acid.

The possum cull with prizes seemed almost normal.
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2011
Orange hazards blink in gloom
Autumn mist in early light,
Traffic cones direct the flow
Attenuators keep it tight.
Through the mist construction looms
A mighty swath comes into sight
A structure massive, incomplete
Sweeps past the Birdcage portal light.

Burrowed deep within the Park
Surmounted by its stark white beams,
The tunnel curves towards the Bridge
To emerge near the Victory screens.
Symmetry in huge largess
Biblical in size and form,
Built by puny hands of flesh
Man inspired, conceived and born.

Columns in the concrete mass
Loom as sentries, side by side,
Level in majestic sweep
Through the tunnel’s corner glide.
Massive beams locked overhead
Cap the roof’s gigantic clasp,
Reinforced by gridlocked steel
Bound within the concrete’s grasp.

Mounds of blue, congealed wet clay
Layered in an old sea bed,
Hauled away from ancient crib
By Fletcher excavators red.
Roaring diesel truck and tray
Loaded overburden high,
Water blasted ***** and span
Keeping highways clean and dry.

Monstrous cranes with hanging rig
Lower weights of ponderous steel,
Gently to the tunnel base
Led by Dogman’s coaxing feel.
Urgency in every move
Hard hats drill with diamond core,
Fixing massive panel slabs
To the looming concrete’s bore.

Well below incoming tide
Pounded by the drenching rain,
Four inch pumps snake to the sump
Ensuring flood control’s maintained.
Foremen bark and keep control
Hard hats share a secret smile,
Safety first for every man
Think before you lift that pile.

Gate girls smile at passers bye
Politely chiding those who stray,
Holding up a halting hand
With trucks inbound in hazards way.
Smoko at the Bowling Club
Murmur of a hundred souls,
Grubby in their hi vis vests
Munching on the caterers rolls.

Morale amongst the working men
Is high because they feel the cause,
A project that is so worthwhile
They KNOW that it  deserves applause.
Traffic roars above it all
Passing in a steady stream,
Brake lights on the viaduct
Cop cars flash and sirens scream.

This project has a consciousness
A Heart, a mind, a soul.
And an inspirational spirit
Which guides us to the goal.
To eliminate the bottleneck
In Auckland's traffic day
And to streamline the system
Of our vehicular motorway.

Politicians snarl right now
Champing at the huge expense,
But by next year’s finish date
Congratulations will commence.
The jewel in the crown they say
Is found within our park of green,
The Victoria Park Tunnel, friend,
Is a true magnificence, to be seen.


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
5 February 2011
Marshal Gebbie Aug 2014
These Great Reviver’s wild reforms
Now sound like all Hot Air,
Narendra Modi’s new India
Still bogged down in despair.
Shinzo Abe’s revised Japan
Still wallows to stagnate
And China’s Xi Jinping’s grand scheme
Continues to deflate.
Collectively they stumble
In their plans to stimulate
Asia’s great economies…..
But have failed to shut the gate
On the Shadow Banking industry,
Their vague structural reform
And the fossilized grey politics
Which resemble, now, the norm.
Rhetoric is their keynote here
Real action’s in decline
With their mandate clearly squandered
There’s A BIG CRASH DOWN THE LINE!

M.
Auckland
23 August 2014
These pretenders all came to power recently on platforms of great  economic reform. Collectively their rhetoric has been long and very deficient in detail, with the consequence that their nation's economies are now floundering and unless there is some BIG BANG ACTION soon????
Major debt default is just down the road for Asia's Tigers.
Marshal Gebbie Jul 2014
"The global bull market has continued its seemingly relentless advance, unchanged by geopolitical concerns…….."

• The Israeli-Hamas conflict now blazing in Gaza, Palestine, two military forces locked in a deadly struggle to the end, killing and maiming thousands of ordinary citizens.

• Malaysia Airlines flight 17 blasted out of a clear blue Ukraine sky by the Bus surface to air missile
             unleashed by the Pro-Russian Separatists killing 298 unsuspecting, innocent, international travellers.
             Culpability denied by all.

• Anwar Al Awlaki, the American born Cleric, directing clandestine terror attacks and assassination by Al Qaeda beyond the Middle east into Asia and Europe.

• Deposed President, Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, responsible for terrorist activities including multiple car bombings throughout Egypt.

• President Bashar Assad of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Syria’s Shiite religion, waging religious genocide against his own nations people
             and now in open conflict with the Muslim uprising Sunni forces of the new Isis Caliphate.

• The beheadings, slaughter and terror unleashed by the Sunni, Isis Caliphate uprising rampaging through Iraq.

• Russia’s sudden invasion and forceful annexation of the Crimea.

• Russia’s brutal pressure on the sovereignty of the Ukraine through its clandestine weaponry supply and sponsorship of the Pro-Russian Separatist Forces occupying the nations East.

The Middle East is now…an Apocalypse.

This epoch of cruel waste
Where man kills man
For God and gold,
For power’s lust.
Where the Sword of Calamity
Wields destruction and death
On those who can least afford it
By they who should never impose it.

In the face of all this …..an unbelievable prioritization with this headline quote from today’s NZ Herald….

“There are financial risks to be endlessly jumping at shadows…to overreact to market noise!"

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!**

M.
Auckland,
NEW ZEALAND
31 July 2014
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2011
From origins of humble pie
From parentage so bland,
A simple soul with simple goals
He sprang from South Auckland.
The green, green grass of Tuakau
The onion fields of home,
Wherein he tended hives of bees
For golden honeycomb.
 
Tall and lanky, mighty man
He strode through life in tune
With little fanfare, little flair
No technicolor moon,
To choose the low key profile
Was an automatic thing,
Humility was in his blood
Elan, a spurned gold ring.
 
Self conscious, long and concave chest
A toothy lantern jaw,
With skinny ribs and pallid skin,
A boy could want for more?
Bright shiny eyes and earnest will
He gathered up his gear
And conquered Mt Olympian
Without a trace of fear.
 
A forte found, a passion sprung,
A love for mountain air.
The rocky crags and pristine snow
The cold wind in his hair.
***** after ***** his long legs climbed
His skill and ardor grew,
And all at once he found himself
In a Himalayan crew.
 
The stories told the legends made
Those mighty deeds alone,
Both he and Tenzing stood astride
The planet’s summit dome.
They went to where no other man
Had ever been before.
They conquered Everest’s soaring peak,
They witnessed heaven’s door.
 
And on and on through life he strode
He raised a happy brood,
But tragedy would strike and ****
That joy in Kathmandu.
To ressurect, to lift your game
From whence you were so low.
It takes a special breed of man
To wear that dreadful blow.
 
The Sherpa schools and hospitals
Were built by funds he raised,
He organized good teachers
And the building Trusts he paid.
In far Nepal and India too
His fame did spread afar
But this man kept his ego
Firmly locked up in a jar.
 
He shot the mighty Ganges
In a jet boat through and through
He drove a Fergi to the Pole
And through McMurdoe too.
Across the world his fame did grow
To epic size and plan
But in his heart he stayed intact
An ordinary man.
 
Throughout this fair and lovely land
I think it’s true to say
That every man & boy & girl
And farmer baling hay,
Respects this Kiwi Icon true
And salutes, to a man,
This epitome of greatness
From the Himalayan land.
 
Today we said a sad farewell,
The rich and famous too.
All gathered here in squally air
In thousands, me and you.
We celebrated greatness
And a noble life supreme.
We tasted humble graciousness
In a grateful Sherpa’s dream.
The words were said, so well I thought
Reflecting, probably,
This lifetime will not see again
The like of Hillary.
 
Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
22 January 2008
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2013
The cordons of existence are constricting
For the keepers of the dream have let us down,
Who will buy tomorrow if performances are hollow
Causing all the global spectators to frown?

American has been the silk pyjamas
Since ’45 they’ve lead the world’s display
In health and wealth and brandishing the muscle
But in recent times it seems they’ve seen their day.

For since Clinton’s time the National debt has spiralled
They’ve departed brushfire wars in disarray,
Default now looms obscene with disharmony supreme
With Congressional leaders ranting in the fray.

The fiasco of a Government held to ransom
By a faction of extremist’s from the right,
Whilst the greenback in decline won’t change water into wine
The dire threat of fiscal chaos causes fright.

So global confidence is fading in the dollar
And the watchers shake their heads in blank despair,
For the willingness to follow is now a bitter pill to swallow
When the USA’s rock steadiness aint’ there.

So, what’s around the corner for tomorrow?
What aspirants are waiting in the wings?
With a fading USA perhaps it’s China’s turn to play
Though that’s going to mean adjustments made to things.

Of course we’re venturing into territory’s unchartered
And the crystal ball consulted, isn’t clear
But one thing I can assure, if this is what we must endure,
Is that our tomorrows will be something, now, to fear.*

Marshalg
Auckland N.Z.
19 October 2013
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2014
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
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2011
Ethnic Raging in my face
Everywhere I care to look
Coptic Christians, brown and white
Scream intolerance, forsook.
Jew and anti Jew defile
All good laws of rationale,
In raw voraciousness of hate,
In howling shred of faith’s morale.
Blessed are the just for they
Enshrine their plaque of rich noblesque,
Blessed are the weak of will
Who deeply sip  from traitor’s breast.
And blessed are the strong who hold
At bay the laws of God’s restraint,
In tandem with the rich who cower,
White, behind their armoured gate.

Ethnic raging everywhere
I watch it through the children’s eyes,
Led to purge the coloured flesh,
To flay a difference ‘till it dies.


Marshalg
Recoiling from it all.
Auckland NZ
11 October 2011
Marshal Gebbie Jul 2010
Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend,
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.

Silver tears run down the cheek
In swift departures curled embrace,
Poingnancy for moments few
Of entwined limbs and whiskered face.

Separations loneliness
In gnawing of the very soul,
The wish for time to dissipate
To make the separate halves a whole.

Anticipation’s rawness now
Throws arrowed light to early shroud,
The eagerness to touch and kiss
Brings clear blue sky to morning cloud.

Rationalize the wonderment
Of slender fingers through your hair,
In fantasy of sheer delight
Her silhouette reflected there.

Hold the tantalizing heat
Of tender fires of passion bound
In throngs of longing, deeply felt,
Within the belly’s tufted mound

Exhaustion in the tangled sheet
As bands of sunlight kiss your hair,
Gently now, in drifted sleep
And gales of pleasure fill the air.

Catch the motes of dust in light
To feel the threads of time suspend
In serenade of life’s allure
Where precious moments never end.


Marshalg
Victoria Park tunnel
Auckland
24 July 2010
Marshall Gass Jul 2014
ten men fishing
on auckland wharf
all with thin fibreglass rods
just that exact distance
(made in china)
all watching each others baits
bobbing in the silver sheen
no one watching his own sinker
bobbing

one twitches down the line
a reel swishes
reeling in
nine men watching intently now

20 cm struggling catch
not much, so back it goes.
a bronze whaler
slinking slowly
under twenty pairs of dangling feet
decides
the distance was too much
to crunch a man for snack

quietly slinks
to the opposite shore
where she senses
feet splashing on a shallow beach.

primitive.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 3 months ago

- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/11438556-the-fishermen-on-the-wharf-by-Marshall-Gass#sthash.HWKsl­wYM.dpuf
Marshal Gebbie Jul 2013
Yea verily
The Movers and Shakers are society’s paveway makers.
They recognise a need, feel a cause and initiate action.
These people make things happen, they are the driving force in our society.
By virtue of their very nature, they are rarely perfect,
they have backgrounds and have, invariably, at some some stage of their life,
trodden on the daisies.
Our society could not do without these people.
They are a rare minority and because of their positivity and momentum
They make enemies.

The enemy of the Movers and the Shakers are the Naysayers and the Finger Pointers.
The Naysayers and Finger Pointers are the reactive side of society.
They rarely initiate and rarely expose themselves to the spotlight.
They fester in the shadows in their masses and froth into braying criticism
Which may, or may not, develop into righteous finger pointing and condemnation.
(Depending, of course, on the issue at hand and the degree of hysteria generated.)

The Naysayers and Finger Pointers are society’s negatives.
(They would say that they are society’s necessary checks and controls…
Which perhaps, to some degree they are.)

The realm of the Tall Poppy Syndrome is the perfect territory for Naysayer/Finger Pointer operation.
It provides the right mix of avarice, envy and vengeance to blend clandestinely beneath a covering cloak of righteous indignation.
And it provides the symbiotic platform for mass reaction from the great unwashed.

I note that Mayor Bob Parker and benefactor Sir Owen Glenn are the latest recipients of negative onslaught.
The Mayor has just announced that, after many years of public service, he has had a guts full of the braying abuse and is throwing in the towel.
I sincerely hope that he retires with wealth and lovely wife and that he bathes in the satisfaction of his many, many achievements…well away from the accusing crowd.
And if I was Sir Owen Glenn, I would abruptly cancel the offered, generous, $2 million finance for the Anti Domestic Violence Campaign
and with fierce eye tell the Naysayers and Finger Pointers of New Zealand society to go stuff themselves… then turn and walk away, never to return.

Marshalg
Pukehana Paradise
AUCKLAND
5 July 2013
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2012
Greetings Sissa,

Sunday morning early we walked along the wild black sand beach at the bottom of our road at Taranaki. For once the sea was quiescent, tranquil even. A gentle surge but the air was freezing. A heavy white frost cloaked our pasture at home and the grazing cows were snorting eruptions of hot breath from their nostrils. Over our shoulder old Egmont loomed, whiter than white with a heavy mantle of fresh snow, the foothills just behind home had a good coating too.

Quite often janet & I will bolt out of the sack, just before dawn, have a quick cuppa & drive up to Pukeiti for a walk through the gardens & the bush. We get the beautiful dawn chorus of the birdlife and it is SPECTACULAR!

We planted out some flowering “Companionata” cherry trees..great for the visiting tui’s in spring. They get highly territorial…my tree!..and have ding **** battles, chasing each other at high speed through the bush. Amazing aerobatics. We’ve got dozens of these trees scattered around the place now…in ten years the spring blossom show will be amazing.

Had a bit of bad luck with the vehicle lately, blew the core out of the radiator & cooked the motor, fixed that, drove 24ks down the road and the motor computer died. These things are like hen’s teeth to replace. I found there is a national waiting list of 11 owners sitting on dead landcruisers waiting for 2nd hand computers for the 93 auto model!!! And the 2nd hand computers here are selling for $3000!!
I even wrote to Greg in the States to see if he could pick one up for me…. Then I happened upon this little Asian bloke, just around the corner, who said”Oh I can fix that for you”!....cost me $196….I nearly kissed him!
Anyway mobile again and the old crate is running ,once again, like ****** clock!....but expensive when she stuffs up.

We are both working like automatons….you and your old man would know ALL about that!
We work 12 hours /day, 6 days/week then we jump in the car and launch off to Taranaki, 5 hours distant, to work our arses off, down there all Saturday, then, the next day, Sunday, pack up and barrel off 5 hours up the road back to Auckland… just in time to ****** a few hours sleep before the coming weeks work!....*******!

Sometimes I wonder what the hell it is all about.

Quite enjoying the new job, I’m the “Plant Coordinator” for the Waterview Project.
I keep track of all the plant scattered over miles and miles of construction site, tabulate plant movements, keep the hire companies honest and keep our operators operating! Involves constant driving from site to site, constant computer entries in my trusty laptop and a hellava lot of vigilance because every ******* is trying to beat the ****** system. Much more interesting than the Storman’s job, much more vibrant, much more confrontational!

Just the thing for an adolescent 67 year old.

That’s it from me…. Hope you are happy and keeping it all together. Hope the kids are doing well… mine are all pretty busy and happy with their lot…. Got a lovely call from Boaz at some unearthly hour on Sunday morning… Looks like he will be back in godzone during August.
Obama’s government is giving foreign workers a hard time in the States….too many Yanks out of work in their own country…so he is awaiting his Visa renewal and is doubtful that it will eventuate. Incredibly, his boss just told him that he would like to keep Boaz there, (In the States) for another five years of the projects life!!
Pretty ****** good for a country boy from National Park!

Gotta go, luvya Siss, love to Royboy & a big smootch for the girls.

M
Aaron LaLux Oct 2017
Shook Drake’s hand,
after we touched down in New Zealand,
put my hand on my poetry book like it was the Bible,
and said “Welcome to New Zealand”,

he said “Hey Thanks,
man I really appreciate that fam.”,

gave his manager a copy of 777,
and his barber a copy of The Holy Trilogy,
see great minds think alike,
and we both have lines about enemies becoming energy,

almost wanted to ask him to put me on right there,
but my life is not decided my any other man’s course,
I’m on my own journey I’m not a groupie,
I’m on my own path I ride my own horse,

still though that interaction gave me more respect for him,
and like I told his stylist nothing is a coincidence,
and if anything Drake and Lux meeting there,
was a reaffirmation of what my vision is,

the opening of an art center,
in a place I’d like to call home,
where we’re open 24 hours,
and the mic is always on,

to this I must stay focused,
and not get too distracted,
because the arts has given me so much,
that it’s only fair I give back a bit,

and like I said I don’t believe anything is a coincidence,

all is divine nothing is random,
I am aligned in tuned to the patterns,
I life That Life and don’t know how it happened,
but I’m gonna keep writing like Drake’s gonna keep rapping,

which maybe has something to do with,
why we found each other walking through that door,
on Halloween none the less,
the last day of October,

October’s Very Own,
with this Night Owl out at sunrise,
passing through Immigration with Drake,
life is such a surprise,

he touched the carved wood entry way,
at the airport in Auckland,
I wanted to stay but I had another flight to catch,
en route to Sydney,

sometimes this life moves so fast I get dizzy,

Drizzy,
so surreal he was in how big he’s become,
kept his crew,
flies ***** with all his Day One’s,

that’s loyalty,
get your crew and move up with them,
don’t do as Judas did,
even if the weather gets rough don’t betray them,

these guys live for you,
and they’d **** for you,
walking with a living legend,
living in a fantasy that’s true,

a modern day Fairy Tale,
except there are no fairies,
goblins and ghouls yeah,
and this Fairy Tale can seem scary,

but don’t worry we’ve got this,
and if you need some reassurance,
come find me and ask me,
and I will gladly grant you some guidance,

see it seems I’ve found a bit of fame,
but in the process I lost my mind,
and I’m not the only one see I’ve got some company,
because that boy Drake is on my flight,

and it’s October 30th 2017,
sometime in the middle of the night,
which is appropriate given the circumstance,
that we’re both Libras and it’s October’s last night,

and we all wear masks sometimes,
outside like it’s Halloween,
maybe that’s why I only feel normal one day of the year,
maybe that’s why I give everything all of me,

October’s Very Own,
and yes If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late,
and yes it’s Comeback Season even though we never left,
nor will we leave but either way Sorry For The Wait,

God Man,
we are God Men,
and if you want to know how and why,
you can read my volumes,

written 8 books,
last one was entitled 777,
with the 6 God,
high Fivin’,

listening to 4:44 for real,
a living holy trinity Jay Drake & Lux that’s 3,
but I wrote this only to you,
in the name of One Love Yours Truly,

dedicated to the truth,

truth,

shook Drake’s hand,
after we touched down in New Zealand,
put my hand on my poetry book like it was the Bible,
and said “Welcome to New Zealand”…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

author of multiple bestselling poetry books.
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2013
Running for a thousand places
Running for my very hide,
Running to obscure the traces
Run from those I can’t abide.

Pursued by the claw of guilders
Pursued by the Bank of Greed,
Running from the Ruin Builders
Run from those whose lust is need.

I’ve worked to build a modest holding
Worked to feel a pride secured,
Family of love enfolding
Sanctity midst world endured.

Feel manipulations brooding
Moneys lust does intervene,
Those who have it all, concluding,
What is mine is theirs to glean.

Claw back by manipulators
Claw back by the fiends of greed,
Implacable cold calculators
Cut with Law to make me bleed.

Running for a thousand places
Running for my very hide,
Run to flee pursuing faces
Run from that I can’t abide.

Anguish at my walls collapsing
Wailing of my bride’s despair
Futility’s tomorrow lapsing
Monstrous as it flails me there.

Standing in a freezing stillness
Standing in this hall of time,
Forlorn in a prisoned illness
Greed has vanquished me and mine.


Marshalg
For the forgotten people who have been ruined by those, who call themselves the mighty.
Auckland N.Z.
9 February 2013
purpledandelion Jul 2019
I luv it when you say,
I Don’t Want Your Money ,
give it to other H.E.R s”
Just wanna tell ya,
All the diamonds, silver or gold
would be useful when you’re old.

Now you are 28,
twenty years from now,
when it only costs 50 Cent for an Eminem CD,
would you Remember the Name of the guy who wrote you this piece.

When November smiles, you would be South of the Border
at the doors of Melbourne
and then to the Wellington gates,
go exploring something foreign.
Don’t forget your Cardi gan when you meet the farmgirl Camilla.
Don’t ride solo on Friday nights.
Listen to Travis, the cab driver next-door who’s gonna tell ya,
Don’t be Anti-Social and beware of biker gangs.

Put It All on Me,
Your tantrums, temper and ill moods,
I’ll mix them into a cocktail called Ella Mai.
I try to be strong, so I eat demons. It feels evil, those little devils.
Bada Boom bada bing, you’ll knock me right off my feet.
I Don’t Care if Leann never _Feels like listening to me, but do hear out Justin the Canadian barber.
Be wary of Young **** s and J Hus tlers.

You are right, there is Nothing On You that I dislike.
Paolo does his laundry at Dave,
Leann finds her bravery, be safe.
I know you don’t do beef or coffee,I’ll board the Stormzy Airlines to Take Me Back to London just to buy you toffees.

YEBBA black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yebba, Yebba three bags full,
One for Ed,
one for his dame,
and the Best Part of Me is meant for you.

It is all fun and gluey when we BLOW bubbles on the floor,
munching a Mars snicker while chatting up Chris tina.

The only Way to Break My Heart is not by a Skrillex drill,
but by seeing you ill.
For your good health,
I’ll run a 1000 Nights over Gasing hill,
with a cat called Meek Mill
till the day time stood still.

No matter what you say, didn’t say, what you do, didn’t do,
it will never Cross Me but I do mean to do what I say..a Chance to bring you to Budapest to see a stone called PnB Rock.

Auckland beckons, I reckon. My friend Khalid will bring you to meet all the Beautiful People ,
lots of glitz and loads of blitz
but I would still only have eyes for you, carelessly whispering to your ear,
“You look stunning, dear”
Andrew M Bell Feb 2015
Have you ever stood,
craning your neck to look up into the canopy
of the ancient kauri, Tane Mahuta,
while peace and birdsong permeate your soul?

Have you ever felt
the crusty spray and the satanic whiff
as the Pohutu geyser shoots aloft
while a dozen languages bubble through te reo?

Have you ever shivered
in the receding darkness,
standing in the china-white sand as you waited
for the first sunrise over Makorori Beach?

Have you ever sat
on the summit of Mt Taranaki
and eaten a well-deserved sandwich
while cows grazed far below on the lush, volcanic-rich pasture?

Have you ever experienced
that mixture of fear and awe
as an orca’s dorsal breached beside your too-fragile kayak
in the shining waters of the Abel Tasman?

Have you ever paused
atop a ski run on Coronet Peak
and reflected on the reflections
of sunlight dancing on snow and water?

Have you ever felt sorry
for tourism chiefs and advertising creatives
trapped in offices in the Auckland CBD
dreaming up “100% Pure” and “Clean and Green”?
Copyright Andrew M. Bell
Born in Beverley, to Holme on spalding Moor
Leven and Knaresborough opened up the door
Ripon was the first time to leave my home so true
Parents to New Zealand Boo hoo Boo hoo Boo hoo
Auckland to Tauranga and finally home to stay
Southport and York not quite montego bay
on to the edge of the world at kingston upon Hull
before the move to Bridlington to live a life so full
and then the move that made all moves Liverpool it was
I love the life of the mersey it really is the boss
I'm so made up to feel the love and life of the Mersey beat
Tuebrook Toxteth and wavertree are places I've moved my feet
I am really privilaged to see the windows of the world
from Singapore and Scotland and Australia's fields of gold
I've been to Canada, America and Luxemburg as well
The windows of the world in a small nut shell
judy smith Sep 2015
Horses are the love of your life, right? So it's only natural that if you are planning on getting hitched to the other love of your life, you'll want to include your horse in the big day itself. You could go the whole hog and have your horse carry you and your betrothed down the aisle and stand beside you at the ceremony - but that isn't the easiest feat to pull off, even with the quietest of mounts!

Luckily, there are lots of other ways to feature your equine passion at your wedding; whether it's just for the photo shoot itself, or by subtle touches at the reception.

Photographers Peter and Rosemary Morris from Photoshoot in West Auckland adore working with horses and have captured several horsey weddings. They say planning a wedding with horses is not all that different from doing anything else with horses – you need to have a well thought-out plan, but must be prepared to change that plan at any stage if problems arise.

"Try to keep things simple. Don't be too ambitious and plan to a level you are confident and familiar with, not beyond," advises Peter. "There is a lot to consider actually, more than most people realise. We've had a few horse weddings where the horses were eventually dropped from the day due to the extra logistics involved."

One of the prime considerations is transport. Most brides have enough trouble getting themselves to the wedding on time, says Peter. You'll need to call in some favours, and have somebody to prepare and transport your horse, which of course includes loading which sometimes is a challenge on its own. "Try and get your best and most trusted horsey friends involved to help sort transport, grooming and tacking up," says Peter.

Another key point is the bombproof-ness of your horse. How will he or she react to a large, rustling dress and windblown veil, a crowd of people who may be nervous around horses, and a different handler? Then there is the music, clapping and flapping decorations to consider, along with the added tension and emotion the big day brings.

"Will your horse be at the ceremony, or will you arrive on the horse and have it taken away afterwards? Do you plan to have your horse take part in the whole day, including the arrival, ceremony and photos? Are you riding ******* or in a saddle? Can you actually ride your horse in a dress?" queries Peter. "There really is a lot more to prepare and organise once you commit to having your horse as part of your wedding day."

Of course, if you can manage it, Peter says horses make a great addition to your wedding photos and this is the easiest and most fun part of the day. "The bride is relaxed, the crowd disperses and what you get in the photos is just a split-second, so even if all it not going so well you should still expect to get one or two amazing shots to last a lifetime.

"This is where 'horsey' photographers can help out, knowing how to get the horse's attention and even helping to lead and pose the horse or assist with mounting and dismounting if necessary."

Run through the entire day in your mind and think about how you want the day to unfold. Try to anticipate any pitfalls, so you can address these before they become a problem.

- Always have a Plan B. Have the ceremony at or close to a stable, where you are guaranteed shelter or at least a venue for the photos after the ceremony, if nothing else. Arrange this with a friend, local club or racetrack.

- Consider wind! The beach can become unsettling for horses very quickly, so bear this in mind when making wedding plans.

- If it's a beach wedding, be sure to check access and tides. High tide may limit access and only give you soft, dry sand to work with. Low tide and wet, hard sand offers the beauty of reflections if photos. If part of your day involves walking tracks and streams, have someone check the day before to make sure they are accessible and not flooded or muddy.

- Most importantly: keep the focus on yourself and make your wedding memorable for all the right reasons.

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane
Marshal Gebbie Oct 2011
Have you noticed how the music screams,
How children in the mall confront,
How anchormen are filled with glee
When TV news disaster's front?

Noticed how the colours fade
When iridescent seas are fouled
Or skies turn turgid grey from blue
And football crowds scream hatred loud?

And why is it that every time
An ethnic immigrant complains,
He points the finger square at us,
The fools, whose benefits he claims?

And Asiatic hatreds brew
Between the Indian brother’s, brown,
Over Kashmir’s shaky border fight
And Pakistan’s deep, angry frown.

There’s trouble in the Middle East
Kalashnikovs shoot up the town,
Somebody soon, should tell those boys
When slugs go up, they must come down.

And what about the filthy beasts
Who scatter needles in the sand
To leave the fickle fall of dice
To innocents with tender hand.

Have you noticed how the wealthy keep
The good stuff for their selfish self?
The rest of WE are left to fight
Amongst ourselves for lowest shelf

And how about Ghaddafi’s end
So brutal at the sandy drain
Where wild eyed Arabs shot him dead
And TV watchers, fat, complained?

And listen to the moaning Greeks
Who’ve clearly lived beyond their means,
Complain about austerity
And pauperize their Europeans.

And witness now the howling Yanks
Who stand to point recession’s claws
Directing blame at anyone,
But themselves, whom problems cause.

And finally an Arabesque,
Macabre in its grotesque call,
Of skeletal, Ethiopian forlorn
Whose starving end, ignored by all.

There’s beauty in this bounteous world,
There’s Godly, good, and quiet serene,
But just beneath the surface lies
The human filth, deserved, obscene.

Marshalg
Observing my world in turmoil.
Auckland N.Z.
22 October 2011
Marshal Gebbie Jun 2013
Waking in darkness to brainstorming moments
Warm under covers on this freezing morn,
Recalling the instants of yesterday’s sequences,
How they developed and how they were born……

“Moving with grace in a form fitting garment,
Curves in the shadow light tauntingly near,
Beautiful lines in a moment of weakness
Titillate senses erotically clear.”

“Watching the mouth of the bigoted warbler,
Watching him spout his idolatry spiels,
Rhetoric of mind bending, **** licking garbage
Image of self is the place that he kneels.”

“Urgency now with insurances deadline
Making provision for payments now due,
Juggle the baksheesh for paying the piper
Or the cruelty of bankers will cauterise you!”

“Laughter arouses the happiest moments
Merriment opens the faces so well,
Emotively gracious the giving of laughter
Contagiously, wonderfully ringing the bell.”

"Uncomfortably caught in the midst of an untruth
Unconscionably really, can’t call it a lie,
Got caught in momentum of tale in the telling
Upsetting me now to the point where I cry.”

"Can’t recall why, but I know there’s a matter,
Ripping my britches to try to recall….
Something importantly, now to be dealt with
Frustratingly lost in the fog of it all.”

"Harmonies rise like a mist in the temple
Delicate cadences rise and they fall,
I wonder why God allows this unbeliever
To sing with the Angels in his Holy hall?”

“Running my fingertips over her curvature
Feeling the ***** line plummet to fall
Knowing the thrill of elicit collusion
Anticipate promise of wanting it all.”


Sudden alarm in the midst of a waking
Urgency calls at the dawn of the day,
Heaving my soul into frost waiting fingers
Leaving my dreams in the warmth where they lay.

Marshalg
“Pukehana Paradise”
Auckland NZ.
22 June 2013
Marshal Gebbie Nov 2012
(With gratitude to two lovely Polynesian ladies)*

Wondrous, in the light of dawn
Two ladies came with curtains drawn,
To sponge my back and smelly ***
With warming suds, so overcome
With gratitude, was I, to feel so clean
And freshly cared for, in between
Clean sheets and laundered, buttoned gown
Amidst their chatter, cast around,
Their laughter and efficient way
To start, so well,  this budding day.

Patient Marshalg
Ascot Orthopaedics
Auckland
17 November 2012
Marshal Gebbie Mar 2020
Jottings from David Bagerow's "Quickie"

Shame on she, the selfless *****
Who caused your temperature to fire,
caressed your sandy, sweated brow
To rivers of desire,
Tho she fled at poignant time
To leave you in the lurch.
Best you weave your magic touch
And promise her, the church.
Then woo her and caress her
In your happy, carefree way
Then at that moment of exultance,
Laugh and run away.

David Lessar's "To an Unread Poet"

Dave, You are right ,of course, once committed you raise an expectation and once that expectation is released to the world you are obliged to maintain face...but that damnable thing called "Life" intervenes and totally stuffs up the programme. Take the current interlude of coronavirus...the whole world has been taken by the scruff of the neck and jammed, inconveniently and complaining, into seclusion, all systems ground to a halt, production lines vacated, malls and city centres deserted, blown newspaper cascading across the deserted pavement...a testament to mans ultimate frailty when his house of cards collapses, without a whimper.
So you see, as life intervenes...we are excused from maintaining face.
But fear not, like McArthur, we shall return.
Cheers mate M.

Fawn's "Happy Trails"

Were it not the touch profound
That doth caress my feathered ear
Would thou wish a thousandfold
That I should shed a tear?

A glistened tear suspended there
in iridescent light,
While you, my love, with parted lips
Await, the ruby night.

Victoria's "Wherefore Art Thou"

Strides, he does, through corridors of lust bound lessers,
through forests of small penised dwarfs, through canyons of would be's who could be.....just to countenance the promise within your words....Dear Vix!

Terry O'Leary's "Sweet Butterfly"

You enter the portals of entomology where bugs, flies,butterflies and moths are the true rulers of the planet.
A world vastly magnified by compound eyes, of lightening lifetimes and vivid, saturated colour. A world where life and death are synonomous with the culmination of a single ****** union and the reproduction of a batch of precious pearly eggs. Yea Brother thee hath entered the portal...rejoice!
M.

Fun with Terry O'Leary

"Buried in the Sand" by Terry O’Leary

A beggar clump adorns a dump, his pencil box in hand -
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned.

He’s fallen down in Shantytown, his knees too weak to stand,
With no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.

The Bowery blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
And Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.

"A Rebuttal" by Marshalg

So Hood lied low, despite the show ensueing without help,
One would have thought a British sort would spring forth with a yelp!

Would spring ***** to help deflect contusions which occurred
When beggar Clump adorned the dump confusing all deferred.

Whilst sister Ant, attired in scant, ran forth on spindly legs
And brother Frog with shaggy dog said "****" and drank the dregs.

It all became too much, as such, a meelee did ensue,
So all called HALT and as one did BOLT...to the local for a brew!

Phew...that was FUN & hard work!
M.

Singing the Devil's Song*

There is no Makers formula
This life depends on chance,
The way you play your given cards
Depicts your daily dance.

Oh dogma flows in utterance
From pulpits far and wide
From those who claim to understand
Eternity's vast hide.
From those who hold damnation
As a weapon from on high,
From those who claim a judgement
As their finger points to sky.
The good, the bad are absolute,
The right bedevils wrong,
Redeemed shall live eternally
The bad shall singe for long.

Old men stand in pulpits
Across this Sunday's land
To threaten with damnation
If you should cross God's hand.
"Belief" is now their catchword
Abomination's wrong
Is to seek to proffer proof of claim
....to Sing the Devil's Song.

So gather all ye faithfull
Go listen to your man,
Sing the Gospel loud and long
And pay your tithe, as planned.
...But should you find you're dying
From cancer's frozen claw
And the the Godly fail to sweep you
To eternity's gold door?
Remember my clear message
Your life depends on chance,
You live within your own good sphere
....There is no Maker's Dance.

Marshalg
After an overdose of Pulpit hogwash.
10 March 2013

Singing the Song of Angels:
A Response to Marshal Gebbie's "Singing the Devil's Song"
By Luca Anselm
There’s a church in the city with pillars of stone
And windows like sea-glass, still and alone,
A fountain, and cloisters of ivy, away
From the noise of the street, and the hum of the day.
There my father would tell me of Christ, how he died
Surrounded by soldiers and thieves, crucified,
How he wept for the women, and fell in the sands,
And loved those who hammered the nails in his hands.  

Marshal, dear poet, you have heard the priests tell
Of a god who left heaven to walk into hell?
Of a god who wept softly for men he had known?
Of a god who dripped blood in a garden alone?
Of a god who sent men with book and with sword
With eyes bright as fire for love of their Lord,
With limbs dressed in black, on altars of stone
By windows of sea-glass, still and alone?

So they give up their lives for a lie, as we say,
And toiled for centuries, long as each day--
And our money built palaces, lofty and tall
With frescoes and candlesticks, gold on the wall--
They preach with words awful and deadly and free,
Of gorgons and hell-fire, worms and the sea,
Of the last day of judgment, and mankind amassed
By the wailing of angels and bright trumpet blasts…

But Marshal, they preach something sweeter and kind--
Of a mother’s soft love, of a father resigned,
Of a still, soft voice, that comes with a light,
And gives hope to the hopeless, and conquers the night.
Of charity, piety, sweetness and love
Like fiery ***-cakes, but soft as a dove,
Spicy as Christmas, solemn and grand--
(Like throne-rooms or magic or the roar of the strand)
Then you wake, and the house smells of peppermint-pine,
And a child is laid in the crèche, now a shrine.  

And all that I long for, dear Marshal, you see,
Are the gold-blooming gardens that soar by the sea,
The mountains and dragons, the prophets and kings
And Icarus falling with fire-fraught wings,
The grey-shifting sea-lanes, the flutter of sails,
Temples on mountaintops, graves in the vales,
And Dido who bleeds from her breast as she cries
For her Love, and stares helplessly into the skies.
But more than the shadows of worlds that might be
Of fairies or phantoms or rocks by the sea,
Dear Marshal, I long for who made me a man.
And would love and give glory as best as I can.

But these days oh! sad days, the loss and the shame
In which all of my loveliness falls into flame--
Where gardens have withered, and sails have been furled,
And kings plodded off in the dust of the world.
Our cities rise higher, and burn through the night
And rear into heaven with noise and with light,
The palisades echo with horns and sound
And the churches with voices and quarrels resound.
But the statues sit silent, and some say they cry
For the shame of the sins against children. Oh! My God, Why?

And those old men—well—they taught me the loveliest things
Of my gardens of gold, and the sunsets of things,
They told me of kindness, and honor, a way
That winds to the West, where the end of the day
Breaks bright like fresh bread, and crimson like wine,
And the sun sets to purple and green in the brine.

And still I remember their words and their songs
And the churches which taught me so well and so long--
Though I’ve turned my head, to the lands where the sun
Will rise again brighter when starlight is spun,
Somewhere fresher and pale, where the cold and the air
Spreads the dew like a lawn paved of crystal, and there,
In the meadows of silver, with light in my eyes,
I will honor my god in the dome of the skies.

Marshal Gebbie's poem "Singing the Devil's Song" inspired this. It's in anapestic tetrameter, for you metric buffs. If you haven't, you should absolutely check out Marshal's stuff--it's awesome and poetry-inspiring--seriously amazing. Thanks again, Marshal!

Sepia Sown

Sepia sown as best it can
Where you and I, as one, once ran
Across, beyond a savored sea
Where lust became reality.
Where spiraled lust, entwined, entrenched
Left you gasping, pale, en benched...
a figment of a thought, now lost
Forever..at what cost, what cost?
M.

Addenum to "obituary" by V

So no one notices, at all
When golden greys of aged fall?
Except perhaps, for those who stay
To blend with every ordinary day

Plus you and I as time flies by
And too, those starlings flocking high.
That old man loitering in street,
Who eyes the million passing feet.
And she too at corner store,
Toothless face and wrinkled maw,
Exchanging cigarettes for coin
(With surreptitious scratch of groin).
Mailman, fat, long, loop mustache
Complaining long and rather harsh,
That they, gone, without a word,
Should vanish into air...absurd!

Someone in their every day
Feels the absence in the way
Details don't fall into place
And warmth is absent from the face.
M.

The Kraken Arises

From blue tranquillity where turquoise waters wash white golden sand, where brilliant fish school in myriad colour and shape, where magnificent squadrons of sleek tarpon and barracuda dash in perfect formation, grazing schools of silver mackeral through diamond flecked deep green shallows, to plunge vertically down to the depths of the black abyss and security.

Calm tropical waters which shimmer like aqua blue glass in the mid day heat and turn to simmering,red fire at the setting of the enormous, ovate, orange sun.

Sea birds flock above wind blown waves, their sharp cries a symphony of the sea, to suddenly wheel and dive en mass, to dine amidst teeming schools of flashing, shiny minnows.

The idyllic picture of a calm blue infinity of ocean framed, in brilliant sunshine, by white sands and gracefully bowed coconut palms.....and suddenly, at the horizon, a thin black line appears, It approaches with steadily, mounting speed, the coastline surf recedes dramatically seaward leaving exposed coral, mountains of seaweed and frantic flapping, beached fish everywhere. A sudden, oppressive silence becomes a distant roar. The sea birds, as one, take panicked flight... and a massive wall of water rears up and rises like a giant beast, to rush headlong, raging, at the coastline.

What once was blue and serene is now a huge cascade of violent black death and destruction, gigantically it destroys the coast, snapping huge trees like twigs, surging ashore, a tsunami of unimaginable violence it obliterates, housing, streets, bridges, vehicles, shipping, aircraft and people, thousands of panicked, helpless, struggling people, killed in a titanic, black, swirling maelstrom of inexorable violence. The wave is followed by another...and another, extending right along the coastline and beyond. Each wave larger and more violent than the last...surging inland for miles  until defeated by the accident of gravity in rising land.

Those who have survived, on high land, on tall buildings, in treetops....cling to each other and look on in horror and utter helplessness. They can only wait, in fear, for the monster to retreat before venturing down to the devastation below to render help where ever they possibly can.

Twice in the space of the last forty thousand years the Kraken has awaken and risen from the depths of the Tasman Sea to the west of New Zealand. It has risen to gigantic proportions and driven right across the Auckland isthmus to the Pacific Ocean. It has twice flattened gigantic primeval Kauri forests laying them waste, all lying in one direction, each time beneath twenty feet of debris and black mud.

Born in innocence from a natural tectonic adjustment of the earth plates, the Kraken doth arise at any time, in any place to wreak it's dreadful work upon we, who reside in our comfortable, seemingly secure and beautiful coastal idylls.

Marshalg
Dedicated to all the coastal population exposed to the threat of inevitable tectonic induced tsunami.
JAPAN. WEST COAST, USA. WEST COAST, SOUTH AMERICA. ALL PACIFIC ISLANDS. NEW ZEALAND. INDONESIA. AUSTRALIA. SOUTH AFRICA. EAST COAST, CHINA. MALAYSIA.
KOREA. THAILAND. PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VIETNAM. PHILIPPINES. TAIWAN. BURMA.

Part of My Job (A love Poem) by Nat Lipstadt

A little embarrassed by all the attention but great to hear from you Sweetheart...all fine and dandy, here...except for being forbidden to go to the beach and the park..and anywhere else except in cases of dire need..(And on punishment of prison time if caught out!)...but hey, I'm not really complaining...All for he common good, aint that right?
M.

Bridges Burnt....

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Holds a saddened felt refrain,
Holds a touch of muted horn
Blown in passion unadorned.
Blown away in errant winds
Where no truthlessness rescinds,
Where a lie begat the night
Interceding lost love's plight.

Bridges burnt in Winter rain
Sacraments of loss remain,
Sacraments fragmented drift
Redemption clad in bloodied shift,
Redemption worn as wrong slays right
Till wrongfulness blots out the night,
Till no return this path can be
Until they torch eternity.

M.
SE Reimer's words float before me in his impassioned poem "Bridges"
allowing me to wallow in this, my own dark tangential refrain.
M.

Perchance, in a Bus Shelter

Here I sit amidst the ruin of a white winters' day
Convulsive rain and harsh wind outside, contribute tumult.
And in here, in this small shelter, there is a tension in the air.

We two sit apart, uncommunicative, remote and quite detached.
Not for any reason other than the fact that we are strangers,
We have never met, nor are we ever likely to.
She has an elegance and a stylish angularity whilst I am bald, bearded, unfashionable and somewhat overweight.
She is singularly indifferent to my presence, whilst I am uncomfortable with the circumstance that placed us in this small proximity.
We would, in truth, rather both be elsewhere.

I break the ice in throwing her a small smile and complain about the weather,
Her eyes flick across my face and immediately resume their distant focus on the rain,
She adjusts her seating to face,ever so slightly, askance.
Her choice of course, to assume an air of indifference or superiority...or adopt a measure of defense..or perhaps a combination of a bit all three.  
Regardless... I wipe my backside in exactly the same manner as does she, I  am definitely no less a person for my dumpy demeanor and friendly overture
And I really feel that I don't have to share my space with coldness and impertinence,
Better, I think, to be wet and content with my own company
..So, donning my cap and jacket, I stride out into the deluge to leave the remote and uncommunicative young woman alone and dry with her thoughts.

And then....
Howling rain and shards of wind
Pelt me as I walk
Along the foreshore wild and white
As hovered seagulls squark.
When all at once she's by my side
Walking pace for pace,
Her linen suit a sodden mess
Hair plastered to her face.

"Thought I ought to make it right"
She told me with a smile
I threw my coat upon her back
And walked another mile.
We called into a coffee shop
And sat down by the fire
And sipped a steaming latte
As she told her story dire,

"The cancer's all but killed me
My husband's left the home,
The baby's gone to mother
And I'm facing death alone."
We quietly spoke for ages
I held her hand in mine
Then suddenly she stood to leave
And thanked me for my time.

I sat there in a stupor
Recalling how it played
And felt the guilt impact on me
For judgements I had made.
Those callow, shallow judgements
Made in ignorance, my friend,
Will haunt me as she girds herself
To boldly meet her end.

Marshalg
On a bleak and blustery cold winters day.
Titirangi
5th September 2010

The Old Café by Steve Yocum

It's my go to place,
has been for years,
The Wildwood Café,
an eclectic tiny place
with a mix of old dinette
tables and mismatched chairs.
the cutlery also unmatched
and well used, old photos
and signs adorn the walls
and there is usually a line
of people waiting patiently
on benches outside.

Best of all there is this pleasant
girl, always wearing a welcoming
smile, who seems to know us all.
She knows my order by heart,
Ham and eggs over medium,
a half ration of potatoes, home baked
slice of bread, well toasted, well buttered,
home made salsa on the side, a cup of
"hot" Black English Tea. Tall water no ice.

If I arrive between the busy times, she may
sit down at my table and we talk a while,
It's not a big thing, just chitchat, I'm old
enough to be her grandfather, it's the
dessert before my meal served with genuine
friendliness and unforced civility, not often
encountered in these strange days and times, it's a slice of small town America at it's purest best, she and folks like her help sustain my belief that basic human decency is far from dead.

The food is always good, but it's the comforting embrace of familiarity and
simple warm kindness that assures my frequent return.
It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those.
written by Steve Yocum

It's the little things in life that make living
wonderful, small moments in time felt and
recorded, this is but one of those

Marshal Gebbie
  That old world touch suits you Stevo,
When I come visit your beautiful state of Oregon, We shall partake this delightful repast in the company of your fair maid.... and we shall tip her well!
M.

Scoot the Streak
One must believe in something be he misanthrope or gambler
In tomorrows omniscience or the future proof of God
The penance in a drunk's decay sets self destruct's imposer
Wether speaker phone's on disconnect or cellphone's in the bog.

Conveyance of a threat to adherents of St Selfwise
Show atheist's are proof here, in belief of disbelief,
Haunted by the images painting painful retribution
Picture sympathetic **** star's allocated hand relief.

A moments allocation of a syllogist abstraction
Shows perspective of the caliber we now reserve for Saints
A paradox regarded as autistic fascination
In a one act play of living disregarding all restraints.

Deliberately indicative of fraternal heat's expression
Notebook at the ready and deep frowning at the brow,
Question definition's collage of confusion's contribution
Do we sit it out pretending or just catch the late bus now?

Marshalg
13 February 2014
© 2014 Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie
Written by

victoria  Intriguing work...so I search the comments for help... Ah
0
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary  Marshal, I kinda like this (I read it several times since yesterday)... but I'm still not sure what it says... maybe I'll down a shot tonight and try again... ;-)) Terry
0

3 replies

Feb 2014
Marshal Gebbie
Marshal Gebbie   A confession Terrance.. I was half cut when I wrote it!
I have no idea what it means.
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   :-)) Great... I'll be back in a bit... T
Feb 2014
Terry O'Leary   Well, in the meantime I've had a few shots... now I think I know what it means... hic°°.... hope I remember in the morning... ;-)) Terry
Feb 2014

Pradip Chattopadhyay
Residues
By the night one long dark road
the houses are deep in slumber.

Lucky I'm alive and awake,
can see the stars
in their vast magnitude of silence
gentle and not drunk
have love to count upon
filled with a will to live
feeling I'm almost done.

Having a life is a great reward
and with the residues
gets more valuable.

I won't cry over the lost years
would rather think
have been blessed with enough.

The stars grow blurry dots
as I slip into dreams.

I had a once upon place
and I'm grateful.

With dewy eyes
I hurry to the warmest space
beside her.

You slip into your years well, Pradip.
Your woman must relish your peace, your contentment.
Cheers mate
M.


Tony Grannell
Autumn's Sonneteer
Behold, upon yon ivy bunch, my darling blackbird sings;
I know not why nor shall I try to understand such things.
For born this morning on a song, pray hark, her sweet refrain;
to chance a sigh, oh, dare not I, for this is God's domain.

Out of the night the art of song in tuning in the day;
unknowed afore or evermore such music on display.
'Tis love begad, a lover's song, a diva, I declare,
in soaring o'er both vale and moor, this morning's love affair.

In wonder's charm, this precious bird in song to comfort me.
Alone I stroll, no proffered soul to share my company.
Yet rare this morn, in splendours all, true love like none afore;
let passions roll, in song extol, in verse the morn's rapport.

Be succour in such music found for autumn ails me so,
when summer's run, the harvest done, to rest my scythe and ***.
Of idle lands and nowt ado, to wait without employ.
Yet, hail the sun, my kingdom won, when sings that bird of joy.

Behold her charm and charmed, I am while autumn leaves still fall.
'Tis life anew, a sweeter brew when hear the songstress call.
Though winter’s nigh, with strength and will, we’ll bear our pain and fear;
'tis all to do, good hearts and true, sings autumn's sonneteer.

Written by
Tony Grannell  62/M/Spain

Marshal Gebbie  I stood out at the rock wall and gazed at the splendour of Autumn in Taranaki, as I read, aloud, your sonnet.
...and my heart sang.
M.

Dr Peter Lim
When?
When is the when
of when?  
rampant still is the ravage
which will not relent-

the claustrophobic shut-in
hearts toward gloomy moods they bend
no happy voices of kids heard outdoors
the green fields do not comfort lend-

the downcast look, the sinking feeling
are the joys and delights of yesterday years all spent?
the spectre of pain brings bitterest tears
in the faces of every continent-

oh, when is the when
of when?
such a wash-down
we could never comprehend.

Marshal Gebbie:  But isn't that the way, Dr Pete? Mankind builds his castles in the air, thrusts out his chest and proclaims himself, King of all!
...to be decimated, in an instant, by a microbe of infinitesimal stature. Oh! the fragility of it all.
Life cometh, life goeth....but somewhere, down the track, life shall come again.
M.


Al Drood
The Merman of Orford Ness

So long ago in King Hal’s time, our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.

Entangled ‘midst our dripping catch, with eyes that stared all hellish green,
enscaléd like some creature deep, a Merman writhed as one obscene.

All webbéd were his hands and feet, his body dripped with ocean bile;
upon his head the ****-wrack grew, green-bearded was this demon vile.

Fast to the shore with awful haste we sped before the wind and tide;
Lord Glanville for to summon forth, the Merman’s fate all to decide.

Upon the quay his Lordship stood with men at arms and shriven priest,
and all did cross themselves in fear before this strange unholy beast.

“Enchain it,” cried Lord Glanville loud, “then to God’s Kirk with all good speed!”
The shriven priest prayed long and hard as to the church we did proceed.

With Holy Water, cross of gold, with candle and with testament,
the priest then exorcised the beast, who knew not what was done nor meant.

To all’s dismay he would not bow before the Host on bended knee;
and so to dungeon was he dragged to dwell upon his blasphemy!

The silent Merman beaten was, and hung in chains in for seven weeks,
and fed was he on fish and shells, yet never did he sleep nor speak.

And so at length his Lordship said, “Across the harbour tie a net,
and we shall see how he shall swim, but by his ankles chainéd, yet!”

The net a-fixed, the village folk came down to see the Merman’s plight;
into the sea they threw him then, with foam and wavelet flashing white.

He vanished ‘neath the waters like some seabird in pursuit of prey,
then surfaced laughing, chain in hand, and to his Lordship he did say;

“You thought to make me such as you, who walk in blindness o’er the land!
You’d punish me for difference!  You thought to treat me like a Man!”

So long ago in King Hal’s time our nets we cast upon the wave;
and drawing in did stand a-feared at what we’d caught in Orford Bay.
Al Drood
Written by
Al Drood  M/North Yorkshire

Marshal Gebbie:  Tones here of the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
An original work in time honoured rhyme and metre.
I devoured every syllable..Bravo!
M.

G Alan Johnson
Kafka's Bug

When I shed the last skin
last year
there was left a hardened shell
protecting a patched up heart
and a petrified husk
of a soul.

You can throw your bombs
if you wish
and they will hurt inside
but I will just eat them
and **** them out
flushed and forgotten.

Sometimes my antennae
come out in a social setting
and people look at me
with an odd expression
or look off into space
a kind of awkward acceptance,
(the ones that know me).

My mandibles will at times
spit out a divine stupidity
a slacker kind of opinion
and no amount of saliva
can dissolve it
so it sits in the heavy air
stinking like a butterfly corpse.

It was an attempt
at transformation
that failed
(I'm too weak with ego),
and I'm glad that I tried
otherwise I would always wonder.

Vincent Price in a cheap suit
and a lost puppy daydream
a world full of flies, wasps and failed caterpillars
patient spiders and polished leeches...
and all I can do is write.
Written by
G Alan Johnson  65/M/USA

Response by Marshal Gebbie

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
Pandemic Poems: Unclaimed bodies, There’s ain’t no anonymity in heaven.

There are more poems inside me, but I intuit it is longer fair to impose on you by sharing more.  The deep seeded infection of my spirit waxes and wanes, and there is no antidote, and unlike the virus itself, there never will be, a future cure, an inexpensive replacement cost for the spirit spent, the time and futures spirited away.

Perhaps you recall I was one mile away from Ground Zero on September 11th.  Rarely do I walk there.

The coronavirus poetry inserts itself unaided, never asking permission, a like minded, but a contra-cousin to the coronavirus.

I live in New York City, the epicenter where now, close to 800 die daily.

Normally, about 25 bodies a week are interred on Hart island, mostly for people whose families can't afford a funeral, or who go unclaimed by relatives.  In recent days, though, burial operations have increased from one day a week to five days a week, with around 24 burials each day.^^

Each dies with no last words, no Kaddish recited, Last Rites, too late, no Ṣalāt al-Janāzah or Om Namo Narayanaya.  Each one, a numbered pine coffin, and each one will have at the very least, a poem of their own, so help me god.

Buried side by side in large trench, room plenty for new arrivals,
I hear the banging, protesting, resisting, this is not the way, I was promised, my ears left pounding!  Hillel, the great scholar in this dream, reminds that “the time is short, and the work is great.”          

He paraphrases, though, “the bodies many, the poems too few.”

There ain’t no anonymity in heaven, but I’ll reconfirm that with you later.

Written by
Nat Lipstadt

Marshal Gebbie
God! It's harrowing to feel the raw spirit in a New York City man's soul.

You speak for the dead, the ailing and the fearful.

You speak for beggar in the street, the broker, quaking in his plenty, imprisoned on the 14th floor.

You speak for the cop, in face mask, on 24th and Vine, doing, as always what he must, with authority.

And you speak for the White Clad Angels who carry the dead to Hart Island and who forgive you, your fear and safer seclusion.

You speak also for we, who watch and sorrow from afar your agony, in our own fear and seclusion.
M.

Nat Lipstadt
raw is the word, oft need to lie down midday to escape the the viral infection of every outlet we use to pass these days. don’t know when i’ll go outside again, because the virus kills and wounds in horrible ways... thank u MG for the kind appreciation natty

Sally A Bayan
Conduits
In distance and in proximity...in despair
and joy...in existing and in dying...in the
bliss of love reciprocated, and in the pain
of love unrequitted...verses dance and call,
awaiting......

poetry has its own pulse, its own heartbeat,
it calls, taps the shoulders any moment,
awake, or adrift, it just can't be ignored...
even in a tangled, or weird circumstance,
it sparks like a bulb or a comet, curving
in a rainbow...riotous some days, teasing, fleeing,
then, turning up at unexpected times and places.

in every bit and breath of life, in every seed,
in every drop of dew, in every ember burning,
there is poetry birthing, growing...

deep within us flows green, purple, red,
glum gray, darkened inspirations...fleeting,
but, when time is ripe, they linger long,
giving us time to capture them all
.............................................
we sense them...we give space
we speak them, or we write them,
:::::::we are conduits:::::::


Sally

©Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 11, 2020

Marshal Gebbie

  A touch, so light,
So sensitively slight
As to be caress,
In dead of night


Don Bouchard
And then
We become old men
And old women, and

We look back wistfully, and
We look forward hopefully, and

We wonder....


Written by
Don Bouchard  60/M/Minnesota

Marshal Gebbie
  Slipped betwixt the then and now
Methinks, with finger on the brow,
Thee needs a shot of earthy ***
And a wanton ****, to rub your tum.
Thee needs a cheery pick me up,
Some hairy mates to help you sup
Elixir from the joy of life
To salve tomorrows' threat of strife.
Cheers mate M.
0
Tommy Randell
From a young man's parlance, tripping from an old man's tongue; Right On, brother, Right On!
Marshal Gebbie Feb 2012
Eleven strong went in to bat
When dusk was in the air,
Eleven strong did face the wall
For others had shown flair.
They'd mustered up a goodly score
They’d shown they had pinache,
They'd demolished Tunnel bowling
And made our field work look a hash.

Eleven strong went into bat
With gritted teeth and ire,
Eleven set the pitch alight
With galantry and fire.
The leather ball was massacred
A pounding it did score
With repetitious boundaries,
Drilled cover drives and more.

The marker looked excited
The sweat ran down his brow
And as the score did level
He had to ask the Angels how?
And the providences shone
Upon this galant Tunnel team
For Claude's classy, deft square cut
Ensured we grinned the winning gleam.

Cricket is to Englishmen
As golfing is to Yanks,
And cricket played with pageantry
Make the civilized give thanks.
And cricket played with elegance
Fills the English heart with joy,
And Victoria Park Tunnel Team
Have downed an ale to victory's ploy!

Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
Auckland
17/2/2010

— The End —