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

Drive a Porsche Nine- Eleven,
Wear the Gucci Horse-bit gold ?
Take you back to Seventh Heaven ?
Style locked in Gimlet mould.
Oyster Bay’s crisp apple bite
Quaffed in slender crystal flute,
Cartier peeps from the cuff
Of silken shirt in peerless suit.
Bircher bowls of oaten crepes
At Harbour-side in golden dusk,
A prelude to a moonlit cruise
With chiffoned girl in **** musk.
Pink mansion perched at high cliff edge
Standing over Half Moon Bay
Where poker’s stratospheric stakes
Depicts that only Players play.
Cash cascades with no restraint
For gleaming ninety carat stone,
Adorning ladies on your arm
Who just, will not leave you alone.
You wear your Porsche Nine- Eleven,
Drive your Gucci Horse-bit gold,
Wrap yourself in Seventh Heaven....
Consumated Gimlet hold.*

M.
Sky Tower Casino
Auckland
1 November 2014

Whence did thee depart the orb
To seek the pearls of Jobe ?
Whence did thou retire to rob
And don the elder's robe ?
Whence did thee run far from home
To flee assassin's work ?
Whence was good sense realised
That thee had gone beserk ?
Whence did good become the bad
And rampantcy run wild ?
For whom friend, doth the bell toll
In the slaughter of this child ?
What will the fate's bequeath us
With this legacy of wrong ?
From whence will come the melody
When wrong consumes the song ?*


Marshalg
@theCoalface
3 November 2009

Tones of green for envy
Red for passions fire,
Blackness for obscurity
And rougeness for desire
Yellow colours buttercups
In happiness and glee
But whiteness for the purity
of your heart's charity.
Pink depicts your girliness
Gold means you are rich
But grey brings out the trouble
When, occasionally, you're a *****,
Tangerine for tittiness
And gingerness your ****....
Oops! Now I'm in deep do-doos
For I've painted...quite enough!
M.

Therapeutic it may seem,
Illuminist assumptions claw
To recollections which allude
To that which was and is no more.
Gone is history’s clear blue mode
Associations lost to shade
In jaded hopes of eons past
To aspirant’s cold censored fade.
Germans clawed to **** shrine,
Eskimo’s to barren ice,
Russians wept in baritone.
Aspirations censored thrice.
Reaching back to jewelled thought
Dim as dust, as it may be,
Gossamers of shades of silk
All valuable as gold to me.

Now weeping in frustration’s craw
Extending out for tendrils thin,
Misting clouds in shrouded skies
But tantalizing taunts begin…
Fulfilment in a feather touch
Of fingers stretching into dark…
A trickle of a thread resumes
As fragrant ghosts of recall hark!*

M.
Auckland
17 October 2014

Mao Zedong’s revolution deposed the ancient, 5000 year old rule of Dynastic China.
In doing so he espoused the continuous violent struggle by contradictory forces within society to produce a perpetual disequilibrium of revolt against intellectualism and Confucian principle and practice.

With the global collapse of Communistic systems, the wily genius of the diminutive, Deng Xiaoping, breathed new life into the faltering rule
With a cunning rebranding of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”, he maintained the stability of Chinese Communist kleptocracy until relatively recent times.
But the middle class awakening of Tiananmen Square and the recent Hong Kong massed protest, has brought into focus the demands of an increasingly educated, increasingly affluent, Chinese society’s expectation and demand for increased democratic rights and freedom and a more just system of the Rule of Law.

The day of the old, strong arm, autocratic rule is over.

China is emerging, quite naturally, into a world of increased information freedom, where the seeking of each individual’s betterment and independence promises a brighter future of personal dignity, increased self-esteem and an emerging sense of high anticipation.

President Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party is now presented with the challenge to moderate in order to survive. To endeavour to embrace and meld the old concepts of Confucian harmony to the vaulting expectations of China’s new world beckoning.

M.
Denmark, Western Australia.
5 October 2014

Ya gotta be proud of ya country
When ya wear it around on ya sleeve,
Ya gotta be proud of ya people
When they really know how to believe,
Ya gotta feel pride in ya product
when ya fashion & craft it with care
..and ya gotta repulse all the *******
when the rest of the world won’t share.

For man, as a species is poisonous
and God threw the towel in for sure,
When adam  & Eve ate the apple
and threw up all over the floor.
They broke all the rules at the outset
they muddied the waters so bad,
that confusion and greed ran in tandem
and mankind was fast going mad.

Eruptions of steel fly in carbombs
in the streets of Iraq every day,
Ethiopian babies are buried
before they are graced with a name,
and the great wheel of life turns in circles
and the rich play golf with the brave
and who gives a ****
that we’re stuck in the muck
Just so long as that mortgage is paid.

The Parlimentarian’s lying
The coppers are taking the graft,
the oilmen are creaming us all now
and the banks are so rich..they just laugh!
Society’s falling asunder
and we all stand around ******* beer,
can our kids now be blamed
when they all get inflamed
and inhale and inject and turn queer.

Our taxman’s making a killing
he’s fleecing the populace bare,
the small businesman’s plunged
cos he’s chucked in the sponge
and there’s nothing but vacuum left there.

There’s the segment that run high and lofty
their ideals are as white as the snow
for abortion’s as black & the **** is as slack
and GE and PC are go
The fingers are pointed at others,
the hands, lily white, seek refrain
sanctimonious soul seeks  unseekable goal
and the whole lot gets flushed down the drain.

Our PM is staunchly unchallenged
she adjusts her adjustments just so’
her manouvers adroit ‘
the election’s in site
and Labour is flush with the dough.
Minorities step up beside her,
the lesbians snap to their feet
and the marraigeless mothers
and **** ups and others
all cluster to be so discreet.

But the weather is turning up roses
the exchange is bullish so far
and the girls are as pretty
as the **** in the city
and the door to the future’s ajar.
Perhaps there’s some system to it.
Maybe I’ve missed the great plan
for religion has zeal and Christ made a meal
of repairing his mess with elan.

So you see I’m reconciled to it.
I’l glide along for the ride
It’s futile to fight the humungous great might
in it’s institutional slide.
So I wrap myself in my solace
embalm myself with my pride
for in my little world
this old flag is unfurled
.. and Kiwi I’l stand by your side.

Marshalg /Mangere Bridge /Christmas 2005

Who would have thought of staying,
Who would have made this home ?
Who would have taken clay in hand
And sculpted their own throne ?
How many fashion life afresh
When given half the chance,
What portion throw the music out
Then, commence to dance ?

How breathless moments hold the magic,
Poignantly a blackbird sings.
Shades of amber in the sunlight,
Factors in deciding things.


Take the reigns and ride like fury
Hear the thunder of the hooves,
Feel the fear convulse within you,
Once committed play the moves.
Perform as though you have the answers
Authorize to take command,
Let the raging torrents guide you
Do it all as though you've planned.

How breathless moments hold the magic
Reflections in bright golden rays.
Shades of honey glaze the sunset
Factors in deciding days.

Magnificence is such a word
To paint the passing, rushing years
But wonderment, as witnessed,
Has tattooed it's joyous, blinding tears.
The rainbow splendor of the colour
With the richness in it's tone
Engages these sensations which
We embrace as ours alone.

Satisfaction in the morning
Gauntlets run and mountain's climbed,,
Fortunes made and lost by breakfast
Life's array of gain assigned.
Satisfaction in the morning
Good friends made within this frame,
A life well lived without a mourning
T'were it not from whence we came.


Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
23 August 2009

Lured by the siren voices of human aggrandizement,
The hedonistic, headlong pursuit of material satisfaction.
By the few who seek wealth and power
On a scale undreamed of
By the Caesars and Pharaohs
Or even by the lofty, pampered Imperialists
Of the heady nineteenth century.

Ignored, are the vast stinking, majority,
The teeming poor who sink deeper
Into the morass of hunger and wretchedness.
In circumstances of inescapable horror
Which breed hopelessness
And the smouldering hatred
Of lasting resentment and fear

A world of vast inequality.
Marshaled by the incorrigibly rich
In order to sate their selfish and aggressive
Lust for more.
An ideological evil
Which grips the lost and deprived
With the extinction of hope
And the rage to exact…a retribution.

Then there is the deterioration
Of international leadership,
The willingness or inability
Of world powers to control
Excess or anarchy within or without
Their borders…
Even whilst circling each other
With monstrous weaponry
And an engulfing, growing,
Antagonism of distrust.

America is in retreat to it’s fortress shores.
Europe is leaderless, timid and uncontactable.
Russia, near bankrupt, snarling aggression
And clawing back a buffer of unwilling former satellites.
Eurasia and the Middle East seething
With religious and racial warfare.
Africa in the throes of losing control
Of a world threatening Ebola pandemic.
China clawing it’s way forward
To global economic and military dominance.

A world without referees or rules
Where antagonistic giants force
The un-powerful to adopt
An  ultimatum of “either them or us”.
Where the threat of terrorism transcends borders every day,
Where genocidal practices and weapons of mass destruction,
Computer global anarchy and environmental depredation
Illustrate the growing volatility
Of a deteriorating world order.

There is a Paralysis of Will in mankind.
Anthropology, psychology and physiology
Recognise only one single human species.
But that species is impossibly fractionated….
By an entrenched pattern of conflict,
An inability to compromise,
A refusal to disperse wealth for the common good,
Global racial and religious disharmony and animosity
And a fundamental refusal to communicate
Proactively …at all.

The consequences of tolerating
And furthering this Paralysis of Will,
Shall lead mankind to an apocalypse.
The consequences of which,
Are just too terrible to contemplate.

Somehow we should, as one,
Engender… a common aspiration,
With a level of universal commitment,
To induce an attitude, a consciousness
Of great and abiding…
World Citizenship.

Realistic? …No!
Likely? …No!
Do you give it a snowballs chance in Hell? …Not this week!

Why?... The frailty of Human Nature!

M.
From just about as far away from everything as you can, thankfully, possibly get….
NEW ZEALAND.
20 September 2014

Twice around the corner
Thrice around the bend,
Twisting through contortions
Will not make harassment end.
Disparagement aside
There's a lesson to be learnt,
That your overbearing manner
Won't prevent you being burnt.

The reflection in the mirror
Is immaculate and tight,
Actuality shows fractures
Though they're kept well out of sight.
There's a teetering fractiousness,
A blemish to your soul
And no amount of posturing
Will keep the image whole.

Your background is impressive
And scholastically well placed,
Achievement in endeavors
Show you've never been disgraced.
You're social stature's formidable
And your teeth are Oh so white,
Then why is it, that you writhe in bed
In the small hours of the night ?

Why do horrors permeate
The milky hue behind your eyes ?
What source the irritation
When the great majority complies ?
What keeps your ego dominant
When you see the weakness there,
When the light falls on your handiwork
And drives you to despair ?

Twice around the corner
Thrice around the bend,
To camouflage your character
Shall not make your problems end.


Marshalg
@theBach on sick leave
Mangere Bridge
13 October 2009

Profligacy in restlessness
At alcoholic anger
Unflinching in collision
With a femme fatale’s charade,
Philosophising’s netherworld,
A place of sprawling labyrinth,
Perfidious to fiction
In a novel written hard.

Compellingly original
In counterfactual verbiage,
Accented to the ******
With a leggy broad’s demise.
Discarded on the pavement
In a moonlit show of disarray
Auburn hair cascading
To her open, hazel eyes.

M.
Auckland
20 September 2014

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

Greetings David,

I am employed by Fletchers Construction to be the Plant Coordinator at the Wellconnected Waterview Twin tunnel project underway beneath Sandringham in Auckland.
My wife is a hardworking Senior Nurse @ Ascot hospital in Greenlane.

For sanity, about six years ago, my wife and I bought a lifestyle block butting on to Egmont National Park @ 1250’ elevation. We built a beautiful alpine lodge, cut tracks down the heavily wooded escarpments, built bridges across two streams, reticulated roof water between tanks to a boulder built fishpond then to a shallow, stone rimmed lake which empties down an escarpment to the stream.
We have planted hundreds of trees and shrubs on this property, rhododendrons of beautiful form and colour, magnolias, a forest of silver birch, oaks, tulip trees and acers.
The property is a wonder of swooping hills and dips which, from it’s elevation, looks out over the grey Tasman sea toward Tasmania. Egmont looms in it’s white, pristine splendour over our left shoulder and the close, dark Puhakai range rears abruptly, spectacularly, betwixt the volcano and us.

Growth here is slow because of the climate, the 300 inches of annual rainfall, the short summers and the depleted volcanic ash soil.
I am 70 years old, my darling wife considerably younger….we both want to see our plantings grow to significance within our lifetime…
Thus my request for access to your wonderful fish fertilizer.

Respectfully
M.

Dangerous this penchant in your ego trip to power
Exacerbated by your volume, increasing by the hour.
So amplified by flunkies who pander to the worth
Of you, my friend, who incubate self value with your girth.
So dangerous this swollen head, this egocentric will
Rampaging through opinions here, ignoring all blood spilt.
Crushing rings of daisies and barging without thought,
Obliterating opposition’s tender preference sought.
Disregard opinions blatantly, you ignore advice from they,
Who endeavour to make right the wrongs engendered in the fray.

So dangerous this charging bull, calamitous in it’s wrath
To each and every innocent who ventures in the path.
So dangerous this selfishness which permeates your all
Because… inevitably your collapse shall result in my downfall.

M.
4 September 2014

Thought about the values
That stipulate the way
You hold yourself in public
And play your cards each day.
Those building blocks of character
The templates in your psych,
The friction points of weakness
That wake you in the night.


Thought about the substance
That binds you to your way
The strengths and the failings
That motivate your day.
Enigmatic factors,
The quirks in your soul
Which endear you to some
But leave others cold.


Thought about loving
And loathing and pride,
And the great depths of sorrow
We carry inside.
The reluctance to face
The resentments of sin
In selective amnesia's
We nurture within.


Thought about birth
With it's promise and joy,
Thought about death
As finality's ploy
Laughed at the memory
Of your smiling face
And squirmed with discomfort
At an old lie's disgrace.


Thought about leaving
Decided to stay,
Thought about praying
Buy what would I say ?
I decided to sit
And contemplate life
With it's myriad pleasures,
Fantasies, strife.


I Thought about you
With a smile on your face,
And I'll ponder awhile
In this pleasant place.....
I'll sit and remember
The happiness pared
From that thin whisp of timeframe
Old Mother Fate shared.

M.
3 September 2014

Tall men think of robust ladies
Shorter ladies dream of length,
Toothless people fantasize
Of mandibles of white, bright strength.
Porcine women lust for thinness
Breast less girlies long for *****,
Dissatisfaction fills the air
It's greener grass or down the tubes.

Black man hopes for pale complexion
White girls bake to raise a tan,
Brown eyed lassie's envy blue-ness,
***** lesbian's, a man.
The wealthy want the easy life
Beggars yearn for cash,
Dissatisfaction's in the air
And mirrors are so trash.

Across the human spectrum far
Mankind wants for more,
The grass is always greener
Looking through another door.
It's bigger, better, brighter, best
The quest is always there
Relentlessly pursued with glee,
Bright eyes and bushy hair.

Results are mixed and varied here
Some reach the holy grail
To watch it slip beyond their grasp
Then founder, fall and fail.
Some teeter on a platform,
Some grasp the prize and run,
Some hit their stride at bounding pace
To see the contest won.

But by and large there's misery
Few climb the road to joy,
Frustration be my brother
Dissatisfaction be my ploy.
Limitation is our lot in life.
Our secret to success
Is to love the mirror warts and all
All other **** ...suppress !!


M.

To my dear son, Boaz in distant Idaho,

Saturday nite, the whole of New Zealand waited in apprehension for the All Blacks rugy team to play the resurgent Wallabys @ Fortress Eden Park.

The previous week at Suncorp Stadium in Sydney, in driving rain, the All Blacks muddled through a painfull draw with the Wallabys, 12 points each with no tries.
The Wallabys had fancied their chances and had wanted an emphatic win on home soil.
Both teams took that score as a loss and the gauntlet was thrown for the second match…..

A brilliant evening, clear and fine , 50,000 people crushed in to Eden Park and you could feel the apprehension, the rest of the country sat in front of their TV willing the team on.
The Haka was given a brutal rendition, you could feel the determination, the passion emanating….the Ozzies glared their defiance back…it was all on!

10 minutes into a titanic struggle with the score three all Captain Ritchie McCaw had a brain fade and was yellow carded off for ten minutes by the French referee.
The crowd roared…then murmured their worry  like you’ve never heard before.

The Ozzies mustered a huge scrum which the All Blacks countered with one man down…. The counter ****** pushed the Australian scrum back 15 ft.
Every man in New Zealand was on his feet roaring, you could feel the spirit of nationalism soaring….the moment was a watershed.
The All Blacks counterattacked showing a brilliance in attack and defence we have not seen for years… and from that moment on the game was won.

Final score 51:20 The Bledisloe Cup was ours.

As the match finished the TV camera panned across the solidly black clad crowd…. I have never, ever in my life, seen so many, simultaneous, sets of white teeth grinning!

The trip home to Australia would have been… a very subdued affair.

Thought I should share this marvellous moment with you Boaz.

Luv Dad.

Doth the night in tones of blue
Hide the gentle light in you?
Hide the softness in your eyes,
The wondrous love you can't disguise?

Doth the night in tones of blue
Send my song of love to you?*

M.
For Janet
23 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

Dance to the tune of yesterdays promise
Hope for the pay out on another days win,
Cast around for that magical formula
Knowing that lotto is primarily spin.
Frantically poised with high expectations,
Ready to pounce on that first lucky break,
Keeping the ace card carefully hidden
Waste it and you'll be as mad as a snake.

What determines the gap between winners and losers,
What is the difference in the mode of approach?
Is the talent to guess what's round the corner
The key to dismantling this realm of reproach?
Happiness rests on a knife edge balance
Having too many is as bad as too few,
Suspicion that others are stealing it off you
Destroys you as much as poverty will do.

How many fat cats are really ecstatic,
How many lie awake in their beds?
Tossing and turning, worrying, burning.
Suspicion and avarice tormenting their heads.
On the other hand poorness is no picnic either,
Hardship and hunger are no friends of mine.
Destitution and cranial aimlessness....
Lost to the world and a great waste of time.

So what have you got? What is the answer?
Go for broke and ****** the cost?
Walk over your mates and live with the consequence
Or hold back and join the legions of lost?
As I walk through the valley of death I ponder,
Lost in this web of lust and intrigue,
Am I coming to terms with greed and confusion
Or going backwards and starting to bleed?

Marshalg
At the Gate
Mangere Bridge
4th January 2008

Jetting away to your far away home
I'm left with your fragrance and image alone,
To sit on the chair with a scotch in my hand
Miserably aware that I can't understand,
Why you left, why you cried,why you sped for the door
Leaving pungency there in the sheets on the floor.

The aching emptiness, hollow inside
The confusion and rawness of pain, I confide,
That I'm lost. Tomorrow is pointlessly there
When I wake up to find that your gone in despair.
Just yesterday, we lay spent on the bed
Entwined and sated, so seemingly dead,
And now the ghost of passion's done
When then, we were so wetly one.

Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
26 October 2009

I watched some old interviews today, some reruns, snatches of his old movies.....Wistfully.
Then I laughed out loud....a good big, happy belly laugh....
....then I cried.
M.

Lined with age in faded denim
Squinted eyes and jaded smile
Sauntering through dusty courtyard
Remembering back here awhile.
Sadness tugs me back to recall
Recall of that young girl when,
Laughingly she stood in denim,
Clear blue eyes which sparkled then.
Tragic how the years have jaded,
Criminal how time applies
A caustic pall to all that’s lovely,
Attitude and tearsome lies.
Wish that I could haul me back there
Roll me back to young and pure,
Pluck the innocence from history
Transit back where truth endured.
Transit back uncomplicated
Back to where it all began
Happy kids in dusty courtyard
Faded denim, making plans.

M.
April 1963
Cairns, Nth. Queensland

Confronting the cold caller is a testing fact of life
An inconvenient intrusion to your day,
In juggling the impulse to immediately hang up
Or persuade him to, (so nicely), go away.
But if ensnared by the silky trap of honeyed words so soothing
You delay, for an instant, your retort,
You’ll be caught by good manners and politeness opportune
To indulge this telemarketer’s report.

“An Investment in a heath care plan, (I’d never seen before),
Or Insurance that’s so good it looks unreal,
Or the fund for At Risk Children and the Sunset Cruise to Spain
Combined make a fantastic package deal.
And it may have slipped your memory but I definately recall,
That special Charity you donated to last year…..”
All creating guilt reaction and a surety of knowledge
That the Credit Card demand is drawing near.

Reaction is important, to stave off being plundered
An irate confrontation could ensue,
But the neatest fun way option is to play them by their rules
When you capture the initiative to you….
Pedantically you question every point the caller makes
Every aspect, every nuance of his speill
Or You hear a different version of what’s actually been said
Frustrating this intruder to reveal….
Reveal the actual nature of the message true intent
By forcing him to deviate from script
Or better still, create a massive barrier of bricks
Which culminates in disconnected click!

M.
9 August 2014

The die is caste, It’s do or die.
Attack, invade or fold and cry?
Send the hordes across Ukraine
Or sulk with International blame?
The banks are bust, the coffer’s dry,
Friend China’s left him dangling high,
Pro-Russian thugs in full retreat
From Ukraine Army booted feet,
His wagered bet became a farce
When Ukraine howled…”Up your ****!”
His revolution died it’s death
In white hot hatred’s foetid breath.

Decision time… retreat or strike
Fly in the face of world dislike?
Throw caution to the wind, attack
In the knowledge there’s no going back?
Risk global condemnation’s scowl
Or chose humiliation's howl?

Putin writhes in clefted stick
His destiny in cross or tick.

M.
8 August 2014

A salutation to the masterful pen of Cyd Guilfoyle
in her delving poem.....

THE SOUL
After some time, there are no words spoken
only an awakening in the silence
of a blue light dawn, a moment
where stars linger on
a portal is found
where the soul
lives on
and on.

To the Master......
A pristine coalescence from your talented pen.
Even for unbelievers there is an acknowledgement of the experience of moments of an incandescent splendour where comprehension and time stand still. Where an unprecedented clarity excludes all peripheral clutter and the complete exquisiteness of being shines brightly.
M.

"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

So hollow in intensity, so shallow in it’s depth
A crassness to integrity, opaqueness so bereft,
A shadow of its former self, this champion of the State,
Arcane in miss-performance with mistake upon mistake.
How is it taken seriously, Why be now, so bizarre
This monolithic monster like a spider trapped in jar?
Writhing in confinement, convulsing from within,
In ranting forth obscenity with florid faces grim.
All dialogue refusal then a storming into view
Of hoodlums clad in camouflage waving weaponry at you.
To barge over borders with a reckless disregard
Mouthing blame at all the vanquished in a parody’s montage.
Abuse at reaction from an outraged world out there
Derision to the sanctions and a startled, people’s stare.
Russia in the only mode it knows to bridge defence
Attack, attack all comers then barter recompense.

M.
29 July 2014
Auckland.

Reflective moments passed in mist
An instant lost to time.... and kissed,
With wish-full thoughts and wilfull haze
Which, when examined, threw a maze
Of utter, stark, futility
Which questions the stability
In all I treasure most right now.....
My ****** soul's sequential source,
Serenity's sweet bride, tranquility.
M.

The sanguine shades of India
Flow in mantras through my mind
In hashish tones sienna brown
To ochre greens, I find.
The soaring slopes of massif peak
And roaring waterfall
Lead to tranquil rhododendron glades
Capped in scarlet, I recall.

The clamour of the market place
The grimy squalor found
In the gutters on the roadway
With a constant wall of sound,
In the bartering for spices, red
In wicker baskets wide
With the stench of open sewer
Causing queasiness inside.

Dustiness of sandaled feet
Robes of saffron gold
And the gleaming glow of polished bronze
To purchase, should  you hold.
Patterned carpets lay displayed
In jute and woollen blend
Whilst ancient hands on simple loom
Weave more for you to spend.

Ullulation in the air
As turbaned dancers spin
To shrilling ethnic instrument
With drumbeat adding din.
Wild eyed watchers flashing teeth
As rhythms beat the air
Encircled by a chanting crowd
With temperament at flair.

Thronging people fill the lanes
Churning on their way
Interspersed with sacred cow
Meandering to hay.
Children flock with outstretched palm
Surging as they do
Insistently to foreign purse
In urgency that grew.

The sea of dark skinned faces
Mid flashing whites of eyes
An intensity of gaze that takes
You jarringly by surprise
And everywhere the pungency
Of the continent in the air
With the spicey taste of curry
And a chutneyed rice as fare.

But in speaking to the people
I found their manner warm
And their love for caste and custom
And their cricket team was worn
Like a flag around the shoulders,
Like a talisman, so proud,
And their love for home and family
Reiterated, long and loud.

Overhead, the baking heat
Occasionally relieved
By a downpour of monsoonal rain
Must be seen to be believed.
And the total inundation
Of believers on the stair
Of the teeming seeking holiness
In the river Ganges there.

And then as quickly as I came here
It became the time to leave
And the wonders of diversity
Were beyond what I believed.
What was once a frank abhorrence
Grew surreptitiously on me
The splendours of this mystic place
Well deserve their sanctity.

Now far across the oceans
In my safe and sterile land
I am drawn to stare to seaward
To recall my thoughts at hand,
Out across the sprawling delta
Gazing far to sunset sea,
That special taste of India
Flows irrevocably, back to me.

Marshalg
13 July 2014

Conceit in lines around her face
Which mask an underlying pain
Of envy coined in terms of rage
Behind sweet smiling lips, ordained.
Within those eyes of brittle blue
The contradictions deep portrayed
In portraiture of crowning wealth
Beneath a writhing hate, contained.

Oh how the opulence displayed
The charm dispensed, the pomp, the fuss
Apparent ‘neath the thin veneer
Sincerity’s black *****, mistrust.
Hid beneath the thin veneer
The entrails churn in anger’s spleen
And woe betide the servant found
To whisper subterfuge, unseen.

On the surface calm prevails
Appearances must be preserved
Tea and sandwiches at noon
Shall on the terrace porch be served.
Deep beneath the knives are drawn
Blood must flow before this night
She shall sever dalliances….
Non shall witness sound nor sight.


Marshalg
28 June 2014
Sandringham.

Like signing on absynth in a fanfare of fashion
Is to take on ballast to flatter the crowd,
When the primary hallmark of singular cadence
Is to minimise ******* and shout it aloud.

Cocksure and crafty in colours of rainbow
Strutting your stuff on the red carpet’s fame,
Flicking the mane in a parody’s snigger
Is like hittin’ the town on the arm of a dame.

Walkin’ the walk in a welter of windfall
Like talkin’ the talk with the hipsters at hand
Like shootin’ the **** with a blonde on the pillow
Is like playin’ with fire when you don’t understand.

So go gather your pants and head for the hillside
Sit tight on the grass and ruminate well,
Sort out your crap in the filtering moonlight….
Try coming to terms with this day shot to hell.*

M.
Sandringham
14 June 2014

To…
My best friend and lover.
Protector of my lies
…You rescued me
And ****** me to my fate.

Spiralled the dopamine to brilliance
In my mind.
To spangled halls of light,
Reflective light, and calm.
A golden calm
Of energised, invincible intensity……

Addiction is thy name.
Compulsion is thy talent

Up, up the trammelled pathway
From the innocence of a ****
To the chaotic expense of ****,
Then to the dreamy, smoked Opiates,
And the scars of the needles
And magic of Coke & big H ?

And ultimately…
It’s all not enough!
The hollow inadequacy of it all
When finally…..
Nothing,
Nothing achieves flight.
Nothing attains the heights.
Nothing satisfies
Like it used to…..
No amount of money
Buys satisfaction!

Hopelessly
Into the Black Hole.

Down, down the trammelled pathway
And the body is wasted, thin
And the mind in misery,
And broke, utterly penniless,
Exhausted and spent,
Estranged and abandoned,
Alone, so alone.

Down the trammelled pathway
To the inevitable retreat
Into failure’s squalid,
numbing, bitter
End.

M.
May 31 2014
From the outside looking in.

Fleetingly, in passing
A tremor of her lip, I see,
An anxiousness about the way she moves her eyes, averted now
And smoothes her dress as if to say…”How can this be ?”
Quietly so, in shadows, so anxiously.
Alone, so alone amidst the surging crowd…
Who throng, unaware of the quiet agony of she,
She who sits so quietly in shadow all alone….
Completely unaware the throng
And they, untouched,
Opaquely, move along
For they don’t care.
They don't care.

M.

Vacillations weaving stance is perilous to all who broach
For he who says he will, and wont, betrays a trust and builds reproach;
Destroys regard and turns the thought to doubt’s restraining hesitance,
In future dealings, hence creates, suspicions pall in residence.

Wherein truth and forthright eye mark the man of rigid stance
He who will not meet your gaze is one who steps a Gypsy dance
And he who utters hollow words of promissory, turned to dust,
Is one, who one might best avoid…. and on no account at all, entrust.

For some are hard and some men soft and some have slippery palms to grip
And some, intentioned well, might fade as failed performances may slip.
But he who clasps a handshake firm and holds you with a steady eye,
To speak the truth’s resounding tones, when proven…. built on bedrock, lie.*

Marshalg
May 17 2013
Sandringham

Happily self occupied, absorbed in my day now
I ponder the innocence of what I’m about,
Abstractions aside, there’s a sinister dysfunction
In gliding with Mozart and yearning to shout.
To whisper with wisdom in humourless spirit
Enables cognisance that all is not well,
To float with the Angels and dine with the Devil
Moots broaching with whales in a torment of Hell.

Oils on a canvass in broad strokes of muted
Cacophony’s clamour in tympani’s roar,
The contradiction of peaceful demeanour
When pulses ignite in a rage on the floor.

Then......
With impetus found in a midnight sonata
The calm of a full moon’s light on the face
Reason returns in a soothing dissention
Of kindness’s kiss and the luck of good grace.

This man can engender the passions required
To smooth the waters and calm the tides,
Intelligent catalyst found in a teardrop
Wherein lies the nourishment loving provides.
This man can engender the salve and solution,
Can rectify tormenting wrong in the soul,
With warmth in humanity’s lyrical laughter
In quenching the blaze of black anger's role.*

Marshalg
15 May 2014

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

Makes me pause to wonder why
I conjour thoughts to let them fly,
Float them forth as dreams do sing
Of hope's eternal leavening.....
Leavening the quiet subdued
Of retrospection's agate mood,
As still as glass in hidden pool
Soft utterings of maudlin fool.

M.

Fathered by a fantasy of ideal expectation
Nurtured by the fallacy of promisory’s sought,
Living out the lies of appearance as priority
Content in the hollowness of misconceptions taught.
Wafting through the days in a cloud of preconceptions
Drifting in a lifetime of falsehoods rendered loud,
Teetered on the brink of a precipice, precarious,
Arguing malfeasance in empty tones of proud.

Blinkered to collapse of society in freefall
Unseeing of the seething fraud which permeates the globe,
Blind to the bombing and the gunshots in the avenues
Sadly unseeing of unsightly flanks disrobed.
Perilously cloistered in a crowd of like admirers
Jostling for position in this flimsy house of cards.
Sipping pink champagne in a plume of sick pretentiousness
Ignoring words of warning with a haughty disregard.

Slipping to a flagfall in a shocking fall of failure
Slipping to a flagfall in a pall of choking dust,
Slipping to a flagfall in the hues of sad surrender
Sagging to oblivion in a staining sea of rust.*


Marshalg
Auckland NZ
May 1 2014

Neath the pale and crescent moon
I saunter with the call of loon,
This haunting note through reeds on lake
Reflected moonlit ripples make.
I pause to ponder beauty stark
Of monochrome in Willmont Park,
In sillouhette of black and white
Through lakeside, rippled reeds at night.
Again the call of haunting loon
In silver light's reflected moon,
The chill air causing breath to cloud
My footfall crunch in sand, too loud,
Distracting me from beautious sight
Of moonlit lake on darkest night.
And yet again that haunting call
To conjour Willmont's phantom shawl,
Descending mist now brings the damp
Necessitating my decamp....
So.... with regret, I disembark
From gracious, moonlit Willmont Park.

M.
April 19 2014

Thunder's Rolling drum
Across the churning heavens,
Lightning’s mighty discharges
Flash across the waves,
Illuminating torment
Of a momentary vision
In portraiture of Hades,
A kaleidoscope of craze.

Hard rain horizontal
In howling gale of deluge
Revealed momentarily
In silver sheets of rain,
Writhing tongues of lightning
In jagged forks a-searching,
An instantaneous funeral
Through a million volts of pain.

Standing at the cliff edge
In the drenching after midnight
Fearful pulses racing
In the violence of the storm,
Spectator to the vastness
Of Devil’s work unleashed here
Spectator to a fearsome sky
Where the Gods of Wrath were born.*

Marshalg
Witnessing the most spectacular, violent lightning and thunderstorm immediately adjacent to my hilltop front door in Taranaki @ midnight..
11 April 2014

Solace in a lonely *******
.....How many of us out here have taken solace in the same secret moment, un-admitted to anyone, where a sense of quiet desperation leads us to a soul-less pulse of wet pleasure followed closely by the reproach of guilt, curled alone in a dank bed waiting for the release of a dreamless sleep.

M.

Forests burn in ashen skies
Atmosphere of putrid lies,
Fat Cats write their cheques of gold
Another thousand hectares sold.
Forest fall for short term gain
**** tomorrow's children's pain.
**** the leaden poisoned air
Here and now is all they care,
High grade autos, classy chicks
Snort white powder, cash for kicks.....
Use it all at headlong speed
**** tomorrow...Let it bleed!

Off the Serpent's head I say
Abruptly end the Fat Cheques day.
End the **** of forest green
End the poisoned air obscene.
We owe it to tomorrow's sky,
We fix the problem...or we die.

M.
6 APRIL 2014

And.........
You know the tragedy at hand?
It's that no one here will make a stand;
We'll shake our heads and turn away
And pray that sanity will play.

The Dogs will ride roughshod and bold
Until established stranglehold
To throttle those who dare to caw,
Intimidate with threat and claw.

I've seen it all, I'm sick to say,
The Bulldozers shall have their way.
The Powerful, who write the cheque,
Stack all the cards and rig the deck!
M.

The flow of days proceeds abeam
Through ups and downs of minds that scream,
Enough!...Just let me be at peace,
From turmoil's tension, seek release?
And yet I glide from day to day
Counting cost in dissaray
To contravene my rule of thumb
Where brick wall bashing heads is dumb....
Yet on I lurch from year to year
Now comatose to feeling fear
Innured to all but that extreme
Which proves my origins have been
Excessive in exposure's grit,
Outrageous in the stench of ****...
Outlandish in it's waste of time
Which better spent, could have been mine.

M.
APRIL 5 2014

Whether we like it or not,
Friendship is a contract
Which, when mutually accepted,
Binds us closely together.

In friendship, we are bound emotionally,
We have a social bond
Which entails a responsibility
To care and be cared for;
To maintain and nuture,
To preserve the boundary's,
Hold to the mould,
And endure....
Endure beyond hardship,
Social discomfort,illness
And even death.

Trust me.....
To be a true friend
You must undertake this contract
And honour it indefinately.
You enter the roller coaster of emotion
Entailed with the close mortal link
With another soul.

Friendship, if taken seriously,
Is a heavy responsibility
But it's benefits bestow the participants
With the sure knowledge
Of a close warmth of contact,
Of understanding and dependability
And a confidence of spirit
In knowing that out there....
Someone very special cares.
M.

Hangs like lead
Is often said
That time is not my friend,
When sorrow slows
It often shows
Those signals sorrow's send.
Hangs like lead
Is sometimes said
That heartbreak heals with time,
Now teardrops dried
Time's reconciled
In hidden torment, mine.
M.

For darlin Helen, who was having a bad moment.


Remember back
Before all this began...
When you were small
And fantasy was fun.
You lay in long grass
On your back
....and stared with squinty eyes
Into the sun.
You pressed your thumbs
Into your eyes
And made the colours glow
From emerald green to purple flash
To brilliant, running scarlet flow.
How simple was it all back then
How lovely in that space
When life's greatest complication
Was an itchy, itchy nose upon your darlin face?

Remember back then...not so long ago darlin Helen?
That was a moment of sublime happiness.
M.
26 March 2014

There is a word that touched my lips
A word which kissed my soul,
A single word that means as much
To me as ...Angel's gold.
As gentle as the evening breeze
Which stirs the leaves to blow
In pirrouettes of dusty spires
Where Autumn fairies go.
A word which holds it's hand aloft
In friendship's warm embrace
A feeling that transmits itself
To crinkled smile on face.
A word of such simplicity
A bond twixt thee and me....
Have you determined in your heart
Just what that word can be?
M.