My entire body sways
And my feet don't feel solid beneath me
I own no property
Haven't a neighbor I can see
Perhaps I can just
Make friends with the fishes
Or perhaps I will just let them be

My houseboat will have
Everything that I need;
My guitars
My notebooks
Some games
And just me

Because no one's invited
On my houseboat
Unless
They truly believe
My houseboat's
The best

Back to my land of verdant green
To feel the bite of winter chill
To know that while all this is so
That far off land enthralls me still.

That far off land of granite peaks
Of crystalline white massif high,
Of conifer which scale the *****
Of rocky outcrop to the sky.
The baking heat of desert mesa
Spread as far as eye can see
Sage bush in its fragrant aura
Tumble **** soon rolling free.
Squirrel dart on shale cascade
Of green grey slate on alpine flank
Bright blue birds in curious hover
...For this, my reeling senses thank.

Fishing boats in bright array
Adorn the West coast sheltered lee,
Crab and mackerel brim the bin
Of bearded fishermen with glee.
Pounding surf of North Pacific
Carves the rock of bastioned coast
Embryonic currents cold
Do modify the climate most.
Redwoods huge clad coastal ranges,
Bright geraniums do sing
From earthen pots outside the cafe
Hot coffee fragrant from within.

Hilarity as laughing people gather
Watch as yelling Serbs do sling
Huge silver fish across the stall
Amid Seattle's Pike's Place din.
Colour paints this market place
Flowers stacked in every hue
Noisy vendors bawl their product
Creamy ice cream cone for you.

Streaming dust in streaming hair
Scree slopes avalanche past for thrill
Mountain crevasse yawns aloof
As ATV's roar up the hill.
Wild terrain of wilderness
On mountaintop of forest fir,
Cougar, grizzly bear and wolf
In pack are found herein astir.
Atop the very precipice
We view the everlasting peaks
Magnificent in summer sun
Embalmed in snow when Winter speaks.

Freeways snake from coast to mountain
Clover leaf in junctions pile,
Forty ton trucks pull big trailers
Endless day for endless mile.
Barrel straight these concrete tarmacs
Stretching far as eye can see,
Headlong surge huge pickup trucks
But cautious eye for Sheriff be.
Roadside diners loud and raucous
Selling burgers, selling beer
Neon flashing through the night
Old ***** waitress' toothless cheer.

The years have clad our friendships well
Familiarity's warming hand
Allows resumption of our words
Despite the 40 year gap spanned.
Houseboat floats in crowded wharfage
Swimming through a clear cool lake,
Californian wine with friends
Hot chilli food and fresh bread bake.
Eye fillets grill on barbecue
See the distant mountain peaks
Summer snow endures aloft
Glows indigo as sunset speaks.

Endless skies of cobalt blue
Cloudless in the summer sun
Gracious denizens do offer
Generosity unsung.
Graciousness across the land
Across these people so diverse,
The wondrous gift of ready smile
Friendly hand and open purse.

History tells these people spoke
Electing leaders for their time
When sanity's quiet need arose
It was promulgated on the line.
With Washington and Lincoln
Through FDR to JFK,
The Presidents who bed-rocked
This Foundation for the nation's day.
Astounding, that exceptional men
Have carved this face from stone,
Have caste the global presence
That Americans call home.

I understand the feeling now,
Of pride and patriotic stance.
I understand the inner strength
Of America's great, true romance.

This poem bequeathed to our good friends who inhabit this land... Big Rich, Suzie and Mike, Our mate Stevo and Ian, Heidi, Wyatt and Cooper, Dear old Greg and his elegant lady, Holly.
But most of all, with gratitude and love, to our marvelous son Boaz and his lovely lady, Angela.

Marshalg & Janet
At "Foxglove", Taranaki... In the Southern hemisphere's mid winter.
2 August 2013

It’s lovely to live on a boat
So mobile a dwelling and remote,
But beaching in sand
To dock on dry land,
Is nicer than bobbing afloat.

fill the entire page
with snowy enlightenment
fool nobody else


five five five five five
seven seven seven oops
five five five five five


contentment I guess
can only be recognized
from its shadow, cast


direction is offered
by the learned minds afar
it’s a time machine


a houseboat with pool
a brown pigeon on a leash
a dumb dream again


snows a comin’ up
a ledger of snow, in banks
I now coin this phrase


so bright very white
crystals fall from the gray sky
shoveling diamonds


pick an argument
forget yourself for awhile
then just go away


too many people
smoking piles of well meaning
it tempts the silence


sixty divisible
one through six ten twelve fifteen
twenty and thirty


imagination
a substitute for answers
all we do is dream

The back bending makes way for the animal medicine. A changeling on the run— playing with the fanciful menagerie on a houseboat. Mixing lamp oil with years—materials set on fire. No thing is no longer the game so begins a shock of names. The polished look of the dancer inspired—sure as the peacock she checked out, "What's up, Showing Off? You look like the tribal leader."

Mary had a houseboat.
She bought it with the money she
made selling lamb chops.

he moves the pace of the river,
his home a houseboat

he eschews dry land, for that is where
they are all buried:

a wife, his only son, the anonymous victims
of his rifle's rabid rattle

whatever ghostly litany lives in the lapping of waves
against his hull remains mystery to him

on the water he'll stay, drifting downstream
until he reaches the sea

where he hopes he'll have no memory
of hard earth and tormenting souls

The bride was a widow, the bridegroom a widower and that’s where the story begins
She never thought she’d find another and certainly not him
He, for his part, was down on his way to out in a kind of middle aged funk
But there they were in Sausalito
It’s houseboats, who woulda thunk?
Corrine is a writer of mysteries, fond of wearing chic hats
She types away all day and looks at the Bay
With coffee and two Siamese cats
Downright laconic on the SS Ironic
Which needs some marine repairs
She called for help to get rid of the kelp
And voila, Big Bill appears
Brash and tough was he she thought
But with charms that did disarm
The fiction writer is
In need of a brighter reality, a depth charge
So they collided avec wine as the high tides washed upon their feet
Now undivided, the Lord has provided a place and a time, a destiny
For two who lost love but found it again
On the water
It’s no mystery

Navigating Life

My house is a boat drifting down a river; I’m
mystified by rivers why do they recklessly
seek the ocean and oblivion? Do a river, think,
it can have a calming effect on the giant, ease
its uncontrollable rages and influence ocean’s
flows and landfalls?

I’m here against my will, owner of a houseboat
I dread the great oceans its vastness gives me
a phobia I’m compelled to conquer or live my
life in terror. The river and I are siblings finding
it difficult to accept the ending of the script that’s
written just for us.

Late afternoon,
daylight
is broken by
clouds coming
through.

Top split,
branches bent,
dead grey
tree stays
in one place.

Dark blue
sky hues
vent
wind and water while
lightning and thunder
vibrates the ground
with a growl like rumble.

Droplets fall
fierce as dragons
who lost their wings mid-flight
pounding the ceiling;
No fire breath in sight.

The concrete,
light grey to white
becomes
wet brown.

I sit down,
door open,
to hear the storm,
watching puddles form
like my grandpa
used to do.

A rogue river
of water
runs by and around my window
making my guard shack
feel like Huck Finn’s
flat bottom,
houseboat
floating on
the mighty Mississippi.

Now nature’s
muse is loose.
My eyes burn heavy.
I long to lose
the burden of
consciousness
and sleep through this
not out of boredom
but from the sweet
bliss of this
early evening
storming.

Lou Tate was a man I won't soon forget
He had a wry smile and a sarcastic wit
If you told him one joke, he'd tell you two
Then he'd tell one more ripper before he was through

No one who knew him knew quite the same man
You might say that Lou didn't follow a plan
He knew how to have fun for most any reason
Then climb into the houseboat no matter the season

At work those who knew him would say without doubt
That getting things done was what Lou was about
When it seemed that a problem just couldn't be solved
It was precisely when Lou became hyper involved

Though most solutions were unorthodox
The bulk of his thinking was outside the box
Although his ideas weren't always well known
His name's on the first patented multi-line phone

Lou was once quite the loner...not easy to catch
But he knew that in Mary Ann he'd met his match
Then he suffered a stroke and it gave him a scare
It was then that he recognized how much she cared

When they both said "I do" with or without wealth
Till death they united in sickness and health
Their unbreakable bond would make others see
What steadfast devotion to one's spouse should be.

It was the rascal in him that  
So enticed her
Sheila was a tease, almost unnerved
By this interloper who dropped into her life
A casual glance when she got her first look
Suffice it to say, that’s all it took
Oh, he’s a charmer with unruly hair
A taste for adventure
A houseboat he shares
Grows his own veggies
Rides a motorbike
Denies he lives a bohemian life

Sheila is stunning, leggy and lithe
Educated, perfect, so blithe
But unprepared for the pull that she fell
Coming from Tim
She wanted to know him, come high water or hell

Thus began the world’s longest date
Started at noon, then three whole days
During which there was kissing and more
A mutual attraction, a tie score

I can now report these two are ensconced
In an old Victorian some claim haunts young lovers
With a feeling they cannot escape
That when love arrives
You surrender to fate

I am California Born and raised
The 70s Great music love and peace craze
I grew up in southern Cali (Califoria)
In the San Fernando Valley

( I’m totally a Valley girl Fur Sure)
Kids Talking in jargon, there’s no cure
People really used terms like the movie
“Clueless” where everything was groovy
Totally awesome, Rad, tubular and cool
Low riders surfers, GDI groups in school

We moved to the country Tarzana
Singing John Denver oh, Susanna
200 chickens; dog, horse older than sin
One breath from the glue factory Old Fin

Neighbors had Santa Anita quarter horse
A wonderful life until the divorce
As we grew, we went our separate way
The same kids K-12 still chat today

School reunion, now Facebook friends
See how we turned out made amends
Through the years, laughter, and tears
California  destroyed, our worst fears

LA is not the same place that used to be
It looks like a bush and they call it a tree
A mass exodus move fast travel far
Leaving in groves by plane, train, and car

Homeless tent city people in the park
Dangerous to move around after dark
Protesters intent to destroy every college
Institutions that stand for knowledge

People learned stay away from the city
San Francisco has a P and **** Map pity
Tourism is a thing of the past
California beauty sadly did not last

I’m the last hold out my friends are gone.
The Roxy, Rainbow Club Rock Music songs
Memorabilia is all that remains the same
So much history now sadness, I refrain

Snow ski and swim the ocean the same day
Vacations, camp all the lakes,places we play
Home uninsurable non-renewable wildfire
I used to believe it’s here I would retire

Earthquakes. I never paid them any mind.
A little shaking from time to time
(Accept 1994, Northridge  6.7, mg 4:31 AM)
Then good still outweighed the bad
The destruction of California makes me sad

An illegal chants  burn Cali to the ground
An accident she set herself on fire found
Set 6 fires arrested released set 5 more
Kamala Bail fund fire girl gone explore

Shasta Lake, houseboat Open space goal
3 days on the lake and not seeing a soul
Shasta Caverns, Yellowstone mountains
Mount Shasta, pure snow water, fountain
  
People took pride, no littering, they care
Now trash sprawled over everywhere
California Poppy the yellow state flower
Remembering , Cali in her golden hour