For Andrew and his incredible courage.*

Incredible the courage found to face the wrath of cancer,
Face the force, insidious, which eats the inside, out.
Face the trial erosion of eradication’s willpower,
Face the wall of silence in the primal need to shout.

Incredible the courage found to struggle on regardless
Keeping up appearance when exhaustion shouts...Let Go!
Hiding pain’s contortion in a parody of camouflage,
Cloaking blood, red suffering which really, now, must show.

Incredible the courage worn in lifting head from pillow
In struggling ***** again to meet a rising sun,
Smiling in the face of a diminishing tomorrow
Knowing that the enemy with-in's  darkest game's begun.

Incredible the courage shown to meet the gaze of friendship
Knowing well the condemnation locked within that look,
Irrespective of the depth of friendship’s comprehension
They all don’t understand the pain to life’s unfinished book.

Incredible the courage there in fighting for tomorrow
Marshaling the forces to drive this Devil out,
Clawing back a toehold in the face of grey oblivion
Winning back small victory with brave and primal shout!

Marshalg
Pukehana
10 January 2014

Preamble at the showdown the fighters eye to eye
Droning pulse of discourse from the referee is dry,
Bouncing back to my corner the butterflies take charge
For the other guy’s a monster, like a Doberman at large.

Bell resounds alarmingly, I shuffle forth to meet
A combination thrown with steel…it whacks me off my feet.
Seeing stars I resurrect to lurch about the ring
To try to keep some distance from the monster’s punching sting.

Roaring crowd are baying now they call to take me out
The Doberman is grinning for he reckons it’s a route,
The flashing light confusing, the noise a steady din
As the monster comes in quickly to achieve expected win.

Throwing jabs to keep him back, retreating to the rope
I cover up with everything to give myself some hope
He pounds with his salvos they hammer hard and fast
His breathing rasping in my ears I pray to God I last.

Saved by the bell and cold water, such disgrace
The crowd are loudly booing, I’ve not put leather on his face,
A wash of resolution hotly surges from within
So I **** the mouth guard back and rush on out to tackle him.

Defensive expectations had him open up his chin
So I feinted with a left and launched a mighty right with spin,
Boring in with fury and a combination score
I hit him with an uppercut which traversed from the floor.

Miraculously the eyeballs rolled and disappeared from sight
I threw another flurry…but had no one to fight
Flat out on the deck he lay, the Doberman was out
As I bounced around like Rocky to the punters frenzied shout.

Camera flashes blinded as the raving crowd went wild.
It defied all expectations, I was the sacrificial child.
Bets were laid that I would fall within a round or two
The screaming din reflected that all bets were in the poo.

The countdown took forever and I swear I watched each stroke
And kept one eye on the fallen, should he rise he’d go for broke,
My amazement with two wobbly knees and heaving lungs of fire
When my leaden glove was held aloft to victory entire.

Winners come and winners go but this I’ll not forget
When fortune favoured sweetly…and I collected on the bet!


Marshalg
My thanks to Shane Cameron…a real fighter.
14 April 2013 (Pukehana Paradise)

© 2013 Marshal Gebbie

Dripping ***, she stood there, completely unaware
That every man about her had turned around to stare.
For in her nubile innocence and when her red lips smiled
She was causing utter mayhem as distracted drivers piled.
The Postmen stopped delivering, Policemen stood agape,
Conductors missed their trolleybus and Superman his cape!
…And as she sashayed down the street leaving bedlam in her wake
And all the while her red high heels were causing earth to shake,
Perambulating gracefully, impossibly demure,
She sauntered down the causeway, with a loveliness so pure.
Whilst just behind and following, a ravenous hot mob
Of nature’s gift to manhood, all slavering at the gob.
Quite suddenly with a swish of skirt she swirled about and laughed
At the frozen apparition there immobile and aghast.
Acutely frozen with embarrassment at having looked so ****** absurd
They all dispersed their different ways without a single word.
“Bye boys” she chortled, with a devilment in play
With flick of skirt and toss of hair she turned and walked away.
Ha!

Marshalg
Laughing to myself at the silly old mating game we play.
Pukehana Paradise
14 April 2013

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

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

How stand thee tall, judgemental,now? How dost thou choose thy bread?
When all around thee, finger pointers, leer and shake their head.
Have you found a sphere of comfort here, whilst perched upon thy throne?
Has it ever really bothered you, that esconced, you're quite alone?
You live with dire restrictions, imposed so harshly by the Court
And as socially, classed an isolate, it affects you more than ought.
Though recompensed so generously you feel the pressure bound
Because each and every day your judgement rendered, must be sound.
Each utterance decreed by you must hold good Law intoned
Or the Brotherhood Knights Templar shall see you thoroughly dethroned.

A Pillar of Society, though one who stands forlorn
Is the Judge who'se daily client's words are negatively sworn.
The Judge who waits expectantly for that ray of light to shine
But is constantly bombarded by the tarnished shade of crime.

The loneliness is tangible and corrosive wear extreme
For the man who sits in judgement and who'se wisdom must be seen.

Marshalg
Pukehana
13 January 2014

Aberration’s child is born as foetus in a man
Thoughts of where and why and when corrupted in the plan,
These aberrations manifest behaviourally where
Normality’s parameters are stretched beyond the tear.
Stretched beyond acceptable, stretched beyond belief
Like when the golden Altar boy becomes a rabid thief!
Like how that fool in North Korea with militarists in synch
With postulated threats has brought us all to nuclear brink.
Like when that freak in Batman gear let loose with deadly aim
To shoot the kids at movie time then claimed he was insane.
Like when the Barons grow the coke to corrupt all our youth
And bribe and cheat and **** and bash, yet call our laws uncouth.
What makes my brothers lie and steal, what makes them want to hurt?
What aberration wields the knife to shred the nubile’s skirt?
Why are financiers predatory, what gearing in their mind
Enables them, with conscience clear, to plot to fleece us blind?
When does this change occur in growth, at what stage does it switch?
How do angelic six year olds at fifteen turn to *****?
Amazing that the blue eyed boy who smiled with curly locks
With age became infatuated with a lust for *****?
Indecent that good working men who slave to build a stake
Can lose it all to those who use legality to take.
And what of those who plan to ****, what trigger in the brain
Determines that they chose this path?
IT’S ALL NOW QUITE INSANE!*

Marshalg
Viewed from my (relatively) safe hidey-hole, Down Under.
Pukehana. NZ
6 April 2013

Curling upward like the smoke from a cigarette with lipstick
Emblazoned on the filter like a ruby on a ring.
Spiraling like vapour on a freezing frosty morning
Where the air is still and foggy, where the early blackbirds sing.

A maddening moment spinning in my flower's ****** youth
When I kissed those lips of tangerine to feel that heat ingrained.
And from the depths of ocean green that Kingfish rose to greet me,
Her beauty smeared by spear impaled in a deed that leaves me shamed.

Tendrils of thought arise entwining in the cortex
And the pleasure of sensation is my measure of delight,
Like the rising mist of lakeside in the golden shades of evening,
Of anticipating starlight in the jewelled descending night.

The rendevouzed excitement of ascention with the heartbeat
As a beauty glides unadorned through a moment in my life,
But the spiraled exultation of a lifetime's realisation
was the coil of breathless wonder sharing childbirth with my wife.

And the years, they pass asunder in a steady haze of flickering
Passing in succession, in a honey scented way.
Contented are my days in the muted shades of harmony
In the shady lanes of country in a sunlit green array.

Marshalg
Pukehana Paradise
10 August 2013

Our association makes the most of happenstance
When I hover close to look into your eyes,
To see your face dissolving into laugh lines
and witness your loud giggles with surprise.

The joyousness to hear your peal of laughter
Ringing out across the courtyard to the night
And to feel the balm of closeness in the offing
And the warmth of knowing everything's all right.

It's the way you take my arm in yours so easily
It's the way you sooth the worries with your charm,
And your boundless joi de vivre on the white sand by the sea
always guarantees this day will bring no harm.

It's delightful when we stroll along the lakeside
When we hear the sparrows singing in the trees
There's no unnecessary talk as we both enjoy our walk
And quietly celebrate togetherness with ease.

There's the moment when I catch your look of humour
There's the moment when we share the cherry pie,
There's the time we cuddle close to enjoy each other most
I think there's loving in the air for you and I.*

Marshalg
Pukehana with my girl
21 October 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

Across the blistered gibber plain where flies die in the sand
Through swamps of prickly sago where rotting death is planned,
To stride in windblown tussock hills where wind vanes carved their say
To saunter groves of green tree fern where moa giants did play.
In clearings cut with alkali, tusked elephant would loom
With crevassed hides, Methuselah, once aged in terms of doom.
Whilst high above the rocky crags of ancient mountain high,
The keening screech of kestral soaring up to deep blue sky.

Heavy boots in crusted sand where tiny lizards flee
Amidst the rust red rubble of volcanic rock and scree,
To clamber up the ignimbrite, great Vulcan's steps of stone,
Encrusted with thick epiphyte in lichen's mossy home.
Up into the altitude where dark cloud clusters here
And the threat of rolling thunder indicates that rain is near,
Torrential in it's downpour with sudden squall of gale
Surmounted, all quite suddenly, with a blinding blast of hail.

Staggering to shelter in a tiny alpine hut
To find hot coffee on the woodstove and a curvy, hot young ****,
To find us frollicking together beneath a patterned patchwork quilt
Was quite beyond my imagination's comprehensions built?
And afterwards in slumber through the curtains of our room
I watched, in fascination, at a hanging, frozen moon
And wondered, in amazement, at the doings of the day
And speculated, sleepily, where tomorrow's prospects lay.

Blearily I stretch out from the covers, nicely warm
To nullify persistence of that alarm's intruding horn,
Yawning into morning I remove myself from bed
With panicked realisation....all dreams evacuate my head.
Vanished are the alpine hut, the dolly bird, the caves
The crash of rolling thunder and the plunge of mighty waves,
Gone are those phantoms which dwelt inside my mind
Devestatingly dismissed until re-dreamed another time.

M.
Pukehana Paradise
13 December 2014

Gorgons in the grasses by my window
Phantoms in the corridors of mind,
Elves and Angels flit amongst the fairies
But Godhead is the hardest thing to find.

Experiments with rationale confound me
Argument, well meaning, leaves me cold,
I've thrashed it out with he who has seen the Holy See
But futility has left me feeling old.

Millions feel the joy of their religion
Base their lives on regimental right,
Alone I meet the day and feel no need to pray,
And stride with independence to the night.

I read your words of beauty for your Maker
I felt the passion living on the page,
I cried for your belief and in so doing, felt relief
For the singer not the song, for me, engaged.

So there, my beauty, lies our living quandary
For you and I the chemistry's the same.
For you with God in hand inhabit my agnostic land
And simultaneously, we exult in falling rain.

Marshalg
To Christine and Anselm, with happiness in having found new friends.
The Pukehana Paradise
Auckland
12 March 2013

Murmurings of memories
Whispering in my ear,
Nuances of notions felt
From long ago, so dear,
Nuances of feelings held
From deep within my breast
Like the quiet stroll by lakeside
When love became our quest.

The way our fingers intertwined
That shyness in your eyes,
And the lovely way you giggled
And the way you softly cried,
The gentle touch of fingertips
That time I kissed your palm,
And the glory of the setting sun
Whilst strolling arm in arm.
Running up the golden sand
As white surf swept our feet,
And laughing at the joy of it
The  magic so, so sweet.

And now ….
Those distant murmuring’s
just trickle down the years,
Those nuances of yesteryear
Sweet whispers in my ears.

Marshalg
11 May 2013
Pukehana

Bending my brain to a mighty confusion
Casting tangential thoughts back through the years,
Try to come to terms with opposing profusion
From the conquering of Everest to Locherbie’s tears.
From soaring the heights in the conquest of cancer
To scouring the depths of depravity’s bin,
In rescuing pilot pods beached at the isthmus
To severing heads in The Killing Field sin.
How man can conceive of a Monet’s magnificence
Yet “Zeig Heil” the field grey of Germany’s brute,
Whilst fashioning spires of Westminster’s cathedral
To pushing ******* in a blue, pin striped suit?
A tenderness shown to a toddler at bedtime
Depravity’s best when they used Zyclone B,
The grace of His Holiness blessing the children
Hiroshima’s glowing from mountain to sea.

This weft in the weave of the psyche of the people,
This black and the white and the right and the wrong,
As long as he breathes on this beautiful planet
Man’s behavioural leap will determine the song.
The yin and the yan, the fall of the domino
Depicting the way the human mind bends,
The roll of the dice and the fall of the cards
Shall determine the outcome… in the way it all ends.

Marshalg
Pukehana Paradise
Auckland
NEW ZEALAND
25th January 2014

Out beyond the distant freeway
Way beyond the wave lapped shore,
Far across the ocean, green….
You people fly to my back door.
Penetrating shrouds of weather
To slice through storms which wrack the sea,
Across those deserts dry and windblown
You lot send your thoughts to me.
From tenements in bleak Chicago,
Harbour side from old Hong Kong,
Across the ancient steps of Naples
Expression from thy pen doth throng.
Through the moonlight, softly filtered,
Past the beastly glare of dawn
Far across this tortured planet
Screeds of poetry, here, are borne.
Howling, gasping, dancing laughter,
Heartfelt words of loss so clear,
Sadness in great love’s demise…
Then anger, jealousy and fear.
Spontaneously across the spectrum
To materialise fantastically….
An embellishment of manuscript
To heights which brim an ecstasy.

Marshalg
Pukehana Paradise
29 November 2014

Vaulting canyons soar on high
Shadows vast in orange sun,
Expedition treads the stones
Of exploration Mars begun.
Shifting sands in freezing breeze
Desolation’s red extreme,
Lifeless in the breathless air
As yet, no living thing be seen.

But soon…
Found beneath the rust red plain
Of ancient planet Mars afar,
The relics of an ancient tribe
Of humanoids who fled the star.
Humanoids so far advanced,
Far beyond our knowledge bounds,
Far beyond our comprehension’s
Grasp of that which now, confounds.

Far advanced but still despaired,
Despite the organisational skill,
Destroyed the lakes and seas of Mars
With need and greed and get and ****.
Destroyed the soft green slopes of grass,
Destroyed the gentle surge of surf,
Destroyed tomorrow’s promised day
With need and greed, for what they’re worth.

Buried deep within the sands
Soaring spires of cities great,
Skeletons of millions caught
By greed’s black devastation’s hate.
Greed’s black hand which gambled all
On fate’s capitulated stand,
To smite the delicacy of
This planets eco-balanced land.

Mars collapsed with quick accord
The atmosphere constricted, cold.
Vegetation died en masse
Population withered old.
A frantic few survived to flee
With silver ark to ****** Earth,
(Where dinosaur now roam the shores),
To resurrect a new rebirth.

A new rebirth in promised land
Where old mistakes should not be made,
Where simple rules shall stay the hand
Of they who walk in light and shade.
A new rebirth on planet Earth
Will guarantee a life of gold
To future generation’s child
Who shall, (we promise), grow, safe, old.

Alas- a promise poorly met
A stipulation we decree,
We who stand at ruin's gate
And planetary destruction see.
We, the children's children's child
Who stand in rust red, windblown sand,
Who look towards our distant Earth
Now do declare your promise ****** .


Marshalg
On the eve of man’s great push to planet Mars.
25 May 2013
Pukehana Paradise.

Poets issue from the heart
There's nothing to be said
For those who write in words of spite
To leave their truths for dead.
So really....Poetry is simply
A camera for the mind
Where one expresses sentiment
The heart won't leave behind.
And...Release is felt
By he who writes
Of ardour of the soul,
As though the act of penning words
Disgorges passion's goal.
But...The beauty felt
In handing forth
The gemstones of your mind
Attains it's goal when only read
By they who seek to find.
And in fact...The beauty felt
In sitting down
To read old tomes of mine
Delivers pleasure in revisiting
My best snapshots of time.

So friends, Poets
Please feel at ease
For what you seek to do
Is simply make this world a better place
And for that... I THANK YOU.

Marshalg
@the Pukehana Paradise, NZ.
Sunday 10:21am, 24 march 2013

For many years you proffered friendship, albeit now, in disguise
For all that time, I held in trust, the warm expression in your eyes,
You claimed you worked hard, by my side, to help me build a dream, a cause,
And in return I gave for you sir, this understanding without pause.
The legions of referrals then, I steered, deflecting to your say
And trust, invested mightily, gave you the right to have your way,
Dependence there, a factor, over many years support
Now the barefaced lie revealed, the friendship, friend, was but a rort!
Revealed, you milked it all for gain.  Revealed, You snickered at my pain,
Laughed aloud, you played the fool and laughed outrageously, so cruel.
It robbed me of all self regard, a comrade’s mantle caste in lard,
I cried and wept for what was lost, then sat and quietly counted cost.
Betrayal, cold, lies on the shelf, to know thy foe… reflects thyself.

Marshalg
Pukehana
14 November 2013

I laid my hand on soft white skin,
Curled my toes around your shin
And smiled a smile in secret dark...
Incredible how my fortunes park,
In such a place, at such a time
When all is so sublime....sublime.

So tender as you softly snore
Into my ear, so near, no more
The tensions of an earthly day.
With you so near, it's all OK.

In the big soft bed @ Pukehana Paradise.
(on a sleep in Sunday morning)
9 June 2013

Thoughtful moments pondering
The worthiness of this,
Examining it carefully
To remove what is remiss.
Questioning the ethics
Of the larger picture shown,
Scrutinize morality
To drive the question home.
Delving into detail
For here the issue stands
And brandishing the blade
When dissection makes demands.
Laying forth the factors
Which, assembled, form the deal
Tasting points of piquancy
To rather sweeten up the meal.
Then....Making the decision
TO REALLY DRIVE THE MATTER HOME
To be left with apprehension
Sitting terrified, alone!*





Marshalg
Pukehana Paradise
Epsom
14 January 2013

© 2013 Marshal Gebbie

That beautiful Wind as it howls from the pass
Blowing tussock in waves across hillocks of grass,
Causing red leaves to billow in curtains of fall
To gather in windrows beneath the stone wall,
Where the zephyrs play mischief in colour and swirl
And cascades of leafage fly skyward and whirl.

And the hawthorns sway in that beautiful way
And the reeds all bend in the lake
Where the concentric rings caused by raindrops and things
Cause the surface to shimmer and shake.

That beautiful Wind as it streams through the trees
Brings a tear to my eyes, makes me weak at the knees,
For the patterns of movement, the rhythmical sway
And the roar of the torrent in leafage at play.
And the impact of raindrops, so fresh on my face,
Make me laugh at the wonder of this special place.

And the starlings all heel with immaculate feel
As in thousands, they flock to the trees,
Where with cochophanous joy in full voice they employ
A concierto of birdsong to please

That beautiful Wind when it plays with the clouds
Where the mares tails extend in such glorious shrouds,
Then in furious plight, usually just before night,
Nimbo cumulous flashes electrify bright,
Where the lightening bolt snakes, from on high, where it makes
A most thunderous roar through the sky as it breaks.

With the wind in my hair and without single care
I celebrate Wind with delight
With the sound of the breeze blowing cottonwood trees
And my day turning beautifully night.

Marshalg
Inspired by "The Last Winds" a poem by K, Daniel Little Paw McCreight
@ the Pukehana Paradise
Epsom
23 March 2013

Back and forth, back and forth the public's vote awry
Just can’t make their minds up munching gubernatorial pie,
There's an avalanche Obama’s way then hard 180 switch
Tends to stymie up good progress, making governing a *****.
Tends to make you wonder who the hell is now to make the choice
When the population vaccilates with such loud and definite voice,
When the wheels fall off the programme and the public servants cringe
And stagnation kills decision… making every ******* whinge.
Guess I’ll watch it all on TV where the cards have all been flipped
But my bet is on a quagmire... now Obama’s wings are clipped.

M.
6 November 2014
Pukehana Paradise

Interesting that we older men now flag our own decline
Composted in this shameful ruse enacted over time.
We point to prime examples of our keynote men of age
De Niro, Keitel, Clooney, Hurt…all class acts, on the stage.
Take Clarkson, Rush, O’Toole and Bean…they brim like vintage wine,
Having come to terms with baldness and the sagging paunch decline.
Like them, we’ve learned the lesson of absurdity of life,
Where the trick to aged contentedness, is to pacify the wife.
An awareness of fragility in that pending death is near,
Is offset by the peace of mind of subdued *** and beer.
We say, to Hell with gradual fade of hairline, health and wealth
When a crystal glass of single malt can smooth it all by stealth.
So quell the racing, thudding heart, lean back in wisdom’s shine,
Secure in that with shaky hand…We can still quaff vintage wine.
And should the youth lose patience with a hesitancy there
We can usually still their arrogance with a knowing senior stare,
And should there be a question of a competency still?
Remind them their tomorrow too.. is running fast downhill.
Don’t sweat it with the walker, for it all arrives too soon
And sweetly on the wireless there was Perry Como’s croon,
Take comfort in the fact that soon they’ll put us out to grass
When oblivion comes creeping in Altzheimers foggy clasp.
To tabulate the good and bad within this lifetime’s span
Leaves the negatives predominant, should truth reveal her hand,
It becomes a bit obsessive when the mind’s allowed to dwell
For around the corner, probably, …. is a one way trip to Hell.

M.
Pukehana Paradise
Auckland NZ
May 7 2014

Tho thou walk through life aloof
And look askance at all who dwell,
All who wear the covernance
Of simple shroud in common Hell.
Tho thou speak to condescend
To those who bend convention's way,
Thy lofty tones are lost to they
Who undermine the things thee say.
Oh that thee, should taste the fruit
Bite the fig and sip the wine
Be aware of surrepticion's
Sleight of hand with concubine.
Tho thy sandaled feet be gold
Tho thy robes be lined with silk
Thee must best avoid the vice
That over compliments thy ilk.
Penance paid is rich deserved
By he who struts by fortune's way,
For should the winds blow well this night
Tomorrow's gale may make thee pay.*

M.
Pukehana Paradise
13 December 2014