pageants of pageants
fractals and hype
of faceless terrors and faceless
inside
when rain on corrugated iron
when rain and the kettle boiling

i know i have taken too much time
i have taken time from time to decide
to realise i was only wiser before trying.


Patterns of paradox haunt
the terms of all desire

tussock grass on paths
that cuts the thin skin
and sticks

and a view to nowhere

some leaf in autumn

the hope of finding

skirts spinning in wind
on the hill I wave goodbye to the cityscape
lines and let the rain dash around on my eyelashes,
the warm grass lush under my bare feet I chase cloudshadows
and wander (searching for foxes) and the hunt is on, sanity escaping
and tranquility abounds as I bound from tussock to tussock, hair blazing little fox tail wagging and I lash the sky with open arms
home is where the heart is
and my earth is my den

from heaving waves i emerge
and wander, hapless, forward,
to shallows, to piled sand and
grasses like thickened tongue.
sallow and saltbreak, this heart
has set to mend.

across field and timberline,
teeth gnash; but now they
belong to i. now, the proud
stretches of tussock weave
song through my chest. now,
lonely is an auxiliary quantity:
heart in hand, my very own,
soft clay to mould.

let us get drunk on
the stars and burdock tea.
let me find your fingers
across a chasm i clamber
up out of, only to breathe and
kiss you. i ask not for long-
desired salvation. i have
poured my own. i've enough
left to bathe you in light,
or at least to pry open your
leaf-litter eyelashes. i can
separate want and caprice.
i can want you.
                             let my desire
face west and cast to bush,
to flint, to corrals of snowfall.

i've dined in all great halls, but
i'd rather sit in your room,
for now.

A toast to the life of my good mate, Bill Massey


We toasted life with “steinies”
Watching Ngauruhoe smoke,.
We clambered over tussock
Laughing easily, “bloke to bloke”.
I Knew him as a good sort
Those forty years long past
But realised much later
That Bill’s friendships last.

To appreciate the standards
That Bill would always keep,
The quality of thought
That his ministrations reap.
The camaraderie enjoyed
And the bounteous Joi de Vivre,
And the lengthy conversations
Over occasional  cold beer.

Elements of friendship
That once won are not lost
Until cruel deaths intervention
Is counted heavily, as cost.
But the flip realisation
Is now readily made clear
That time shared gave value
That we both held as dear.

Bill was a good friend
In a firm, gentle way
And I thank my good fortune
For that long distant day,
When he entered my door
And smiling, held out his hand
And I entered the realm
Of a Gentleman’s Man.

Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
21 June 2011

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

An ode to hospitality and the magnificence
of New Zealand’s majestic South Island.*


Pale Granite massif plummets down from snowline to Kaikoura coast
Where white waves seeth in ocean rage atop the green of dark abyss,
Below subducts Pacific plate to buckle mountain mantle’s boast
Titanic forces ****** beneath the wheeling flock of sea-tern’s hiss.

Cold winds blow from seaward swell of glaciation far to south
Where blue whales hunt the clouds of krill and ply this ocean’s constant roar
Through icy currents rich and deep resourced from white Antarctic mouth
Whence icebergs blue shall calve and drift, where seeking albatross do soar.

Frosty on this Winter morn, green rolling hills caress my eye
Deep shadows creasing valley clefts, round sunlit pastures highlit, mound.
From coastal dune transitioning to snowy mountain crags on high
The splendour of it all, my friend, entrancing me in sense-surround.

Blown red tussock streams to windward, ripples in concentric waves
Ripples in the mountain’s flank surmounting to the alpine pass.
Bastion of high country shepherd, striding forth with dog he braves,
The loneliness of isolate in isolation’s clawing grasp.

Tempest in the black beech forest thrashing leafage falls like rain
Rain in sheets cascades from clifftops, waterfalls in grand parade.
Hellish clouds embrace the fiords in hellish lightening flash refrain
Fiordland in majestic style in vaulting might of storm’s charade.

Grey light in the estuary, reflections in still water stand
Of fishing boats at wharfage in a timeless moment’s instant gaze,
Riverton in midday mode as fisherman’s coarse calloused hand
Prepares to launch beyond the spit to brave the sea, to snare the crays.

Comfort in a welcome smile, welcome in a warming fire
Luxury in the steaming sting of shower water piping hot.
Blue cod baked so perfectly with pinot noir to my desire
The sanctuary of “Land’s End”, quaintly, the very best New Zealand’s got.

Marshalg
“Foxglove”, Taranaki
25 June 2015

*“Land’s End”… An exquisite find, a very English bed and breakfast hotel located, remotely, at the very tip of southern lands end at Bluff.
A delightful discovery to complement, perfectly, the utter charm and grandeur of New Zealand’s wonderland....
The magnificent South Island.

M.

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

there is something you should do,
if you could
remember, but

history is bipolar,
each moment splits in two

rifts, opening
skylights in hallways

days go into days, go
into years
and still nothing.
Nothing in the daisy fields,
nothing in the fields,


white hills vanishing
behind clouds

us, here
on the side of the road

and the wind whines
through the tussock grass

and cars drive past,
bright lights speeding through darkness

Beach shell varnished, kerosene,
A crack in coastal stain glass window, like a hair across the face
Disrupting the vast porcelain
“you’ve got a hair on your face, let me just”
and then it takes the lipstick with it,
a line printed like a paper cut,
“where’s the razor? Where did you put it?”
I put it in the bin and try and not seem too desperate.
We bundle into a car
Like some odd kind of sleepover.
A plaque on the wall saying the current prime minister opened it back in the day.
The old building is cracking like sedimentary rock in reverse.
The lemon lime and bitters clink in the bag and
I can almost convince myself it’s a summers day packing to go
Off to the beach, running down
With a picnic blanket
Sand in shoes
Tinkling down like an egg timer.
Seals, odd floppy babies about to bark,
The tussock a balding old man, spattered across the dunes
“let’s get icecream”
“let’s get fish and chips”
“let’s get out and stop take a photo”
the wind whipping your hair at your face
flicking icream off the cone onto your face,
why is it all so messy?
Let’s got to kākanui, let’s go to moeraki
Let’s stop to get a coffee.
You sure it’s safe to drive, this tired?
Let’s stop and have a nap.

You good to go?
Yeah
You sure?
Yup

belle, your skin wanders
for that's why the red yarn runs
not by your own hands
but by the gravel of its bare feet

belle, your head floats
pulled astray by arachnids
you know not why the web lines
your fingers— only that it does

belle, your neck aches
with the burden of a black cat
the wounds belong to him, not you
not you not you not you

belle, your eyes linger
seven lukewarm minutes
and a misaligned tussock boot
feed your grave

belle, your feet sway
catching baby's breath
from a newborn curtain
close

belle—

Rain pelting,
Sky shredding the hills with grey.
Chickens invade the yard for pellets, sodden, accusing and noisy.
Tussock leans over heavy with raindrops and the grass lawn grows greener.
Yesterday the tussock performed in the stiff West gale, bowing in howling unison amid wet, moss boulders, a symphony of grass in thrashing tune with wild wind whipping.
Today it just hangs in wet exhaustion, dripping.
Puddles reflect the white light falling and the sparrows shelter and complain among themselves.
She, wants to go shopping at Manaia for particular biscuits for her ailing sister way up at Lake Rotoma...it's her day off, you see..so whatever she wants...and anyway, it's raining.

M.
Wet week in Taranaki
29 June 2020

Tussock
Small
Grass,
Within
Mammalian tremor-

Mouse alive
Without

Vastness of Space

Beneath a banshee cloak fog
The dying year shifts in her harrowed sleep
tussock hair splayed across December
The ancient ash of her bones
particulate jewels
against the lingering eye of the sallow moon.
The languid turn of the world
Moves with her
the last song of solstice
Hummed a breath above a murmur.
In her brittle, oaken fingers
The last quiver of hope waits
for the ****** year’s spark.

I am changed since I was seen in spring
From that great season of fetch and carry
I was thin and tufted from the moult
Do you know me as I skip through hedges
Behold my fresh attire
Black, white and russet like the leaves that
Tumble through the ditches
Do you know these dainty paws that trot
Through bracken and tussock
Do you see me dance and prance and play?
Do you feel my mischief that may
Borrow items you think you own and
Install them in my burrow home?
I am pricking black ears.  Do you recognise me?
I am dancing daintily under the trees
Crepuscular beauty in the silence of dawn
Nibbler of brambles, digger in lawns
Scavenger, loper, suspicious of man
Black-tipped, white-tipped fox I am.