You, Korts, are linked inexorably to the likes of Wint, (in his ****** odd way), Natto, (in his Hebrew way), Victoria, (in her Liverpudlian way), Joel, (in his essentially cynical way), Terry O’Leary, (in his rhythmic tongue), r, Cyd …..and many others far too numerous to mention….and of course myself…for we are the progeny, the genetic linkage to the fabled and ancient, “Legion of Storytellers”.

In times past our forbearers roamed the globe when very few others chose to or, in fact, could. They found themselves orating nightly at the fireside, surrounded by spellbound, wide eyed listeners intent on hearing every nuance of wondrous tales of elsewhere. Tales of bravery and beauty, tragedy and outrage. Tales which caused the listener to weep, to wonder and to laugh uproariously. Tales which captured the imagination and sent the ordinary soul on his way pondering, expansively, things beyond his ken.

And in the morning, before the fireside ashes turned cold, the Storteller would be on his way to the next village, the next gathering of waiting listeners….for that is the role of the Storyteller in this life and beyond, spinning tales of immaculate colour and endeavor, laying the fabric of dreams and inspiration, painting the fantastical wonder of it all in the minds of the many.

And that, Korts, is what we do, thee and me….The worms which drive us impel the pen to write, impel the mind to create…the elixir of spindrift of that which we must.

Cheers Brother
M.
Planet Earth

Americans live with fear.

Fear of being found out for what they are….an incredibly insecure people populating the most powerful nation on earth.

The power of Wall St. feeds their fear in the belief that the nation’s leaders and political machine have been bought and sold by big money.
In fact the only candidates registering positively in the current Primary elections are those who feed the fear. Trump feeds the fear every time he opens his big mouth.
Hillary engenders fear because she is a WOMAN who can, most probably, win the votes which will give her the Presidency in November next.

Americans fear the resurgence of Asia in China’s burgeoning thermonuclear militarist stance, the utter unpredictability of the simmering, India, Pakistan standoff
And the instability of the plump, demonic, demagogue armed with the atomic weaponry in the bleak wasteland that is North Korea.

Islam’s mobilisation scares Americans witless. The savagery of the Isis personifies all that is promised by an expanding worldwide Islamic threat.

And then there is Putin's Russia.

The encapsulation of American fear though, is painted graphically, starkly, by the nation’s absurd fascination, obsession, with the hand gun.
Everyone has a hand gun, in the car, in the office, in the mall, in the bedroom…..some even strap a hand gun on the hip to go to church.

Americans, first and foremost, fear each other.

Fear of the fear exacerbated by more fear.
Americans live with fear.

M.
Auckland NZ
13 February 2016

Standing at the portal
Of the massive stone engender
Clenching as the sweat
Runs down the sinews of my arm,
Glaring at the enemy's
Rendition of surrender
And knowing, well within,
Why he means to do me harm.

Watching so acutely
For the sliding of his eyeball
Inching to the left
In a slithering advance,
Waiting for the quiver
Of deception's feint, so ribald,
Then lunging with the blade
At his severanced last dance.

[email protected]

What surmounts the best of best
What surpasses excellence,
Where resides the wherewithal
To top the prize of prescience?
How to master that which hurts
The song which wears you down?
Limitations splendour son
The fool who fools the clown.
To climb the bleak forbidden peak
To sleep with guts and gore,
Endure a cancer's world of pain
Where moments shut the door.
Resurrect a broken life
When love has fled the room,
Found the strength to seek again
And find light in the gloom.
Hold an old man's withered hand
And listen to his tale
Of life's travails and hardship
Where broken dreams prevail.
Take that cute kid on your arm
And kiss her with a hug,
Treat her like a Pixy Queen
And cuddle dolly snug.
What surmounts the best around
What surpasses all,
Where resides the wherewithal
To claim the prize recalled?
How to master songs of joy
Tunes which wear the crown?
Limitations laughter son
The fool who fools the clown.
Capture magic's glow around
Make each moment ring,
Fling confusions net away
To let your heartstrings sing.
Smooch a mountain maiden
Cry for great things done
Celebrate your life my friend
For it's a fact.... We've Won!

Marshalg
In Sweet Celebration.
27 February 2013

© 2013 Marshal Gebbie

Gone the dwindled light of day
Wrested from my megre time,
Lost to restlessness of soul
Theiving inattention's find.

Diverted from the sunset glow
Diverted from the satin air,
A moments crass diversion lost
To innattention's small despair.

A moment from a busy day
Where tumult and confusion find
Exhaustion as the sun descends...
To respite sought within my mind.

Alas the moment passed me by
The folds of satin night descend,
A cup of tea is quietly poured
In waiting for the dark pall's end.


Marshalg
In velvet twilight.
28 August 2012

The wood room door was opened wide
I closed it firm last night.
I woke at four and felt it's breath
It gave me quite a fright.
I felt it's chilly, gentle breath
Exhaling on my brow
And upright in my skinny bed
Roared "Get thee gone ghost,
******* now!"


With naked shanks I padded forth
To set and light the fire
Whilst outside in the wilderness
I could hear the specter's ire,
It moved about deliberately,
It stalked outside my room.
I warmed my *** by fires heat
And cursed to dispel doom.


That icy feeling permeates
It reaches to the bone,
It is far to early for a call
Yet there's the ringing phone,
I listen to the vacant hiss,
There's no one there of course
So I bellow forth obscenities
And hang up with a curse.


Old Basil told me of the time
He watched with open mouth
Whilst a faceless man in hounds tooth coat
Glided past him from the south.
The housemaids tell with fear filled eyes
Of depressions on the bed
Where something sat and rested there
Laid down it's weary head.
Except the house was empty then,
Unoccupied by guests.
No cat nor dog nor friendly hog,
Nobody playing jests.


Some nights I walk the corridors
To see what I can see
And I fancy Thomas Dawson's ghost
Is quietly watching me,
For he only shows his bearded face
At the darkest witching hour
And it's usually in the dead of night
To the echo's of the old clock tower
When the mountain looms above the lodge
Enshrouded in the mist,
And the morepork calls its haunting sound
And the snow is moonlight kissed.



Marshalg
Dawson Falls Lodge
TARANAKI,New Zealand.
18th August 2008

The wood room door was opened wide
I closed it firm last night.
I woke at four and felt it's breath
It gave me quite a fright.
I felt it's chilly, gentle breath
Exhaling on my brow
And upright in my skinny bed
Roared "Get thee gone ghost,
******* now!"


With naked shanks I padded forth
To set and light the fire
Whilst outside in the wilderness
I could hear the specter's ire,
It moved about deliberately,
It stalked outside my room.
I warmed my *** by fires heat
And cursed to dispel doom.


That icy feeling permeates
It reaches to the bone,
It is far to early for a call
Yet there's the ringing phone,
I listen to the vacant hiss,
There's no one there of course
So I bellow forth obscenities
And hang up with a curse.


Old Basil told me of the time
He watched with open mouth
Whilst a faceless man in hounds tooth coat
Glided past him from the south.
The housemaids tell with fear filled eyes
Of depressions on the bed
Where something sat and rested there
Laid down it's weary head.
Except the house was empty then,
Unoccupied by guests.
No cat nor dog nor friendly hog,
Nobody playing jests.


Some nights I walk the corridors
To see what I can see
And I fancy Thomas Dawson's ghost
Is quietly watching me,
For he only shows his bearded face
At the darkest witching hour
And it's usually in the dead of night
To the echo's of the old clock tower
When the mountain looms above the lodge
Enshrouded in the mist,
And the morepork calls its haunting sound
And the snow is moonlight kissed.



Marshalg
Dawson Falls Lodge
TARANAKI,New Zealand.
18th August 2008
- From Watching the Ripples Radiate

Howling through this thrashing gale
Trees in tempest force, impale
Rain obliterating sky
Small birds huddle, fliers die.
Such is like across our sphere
Some feel joy, others fear,
As interludes of temperance slide
Through each mans fate as each man's guide.

Within this world of steel and stone
One would cringe if thoughts alone
Could render thus realities
To life's wild actualities.
But threading deep through habit's way
There sits an urgency to say,
Amid good fortunes willing path
There breeds creations' choice...to laugh.

Be that the way of every man
Induced, perhaps, to understand
Should life take on pedantic path
To such degree, that one might ask,
Wherein, wherefore this wayward tread
In whosoever feels the dread?
Impelled are they to weave the day
In flatulating care away.

But born, the one, who seizes life
He casts asunder worry's strife
To grasp the beating heart of day
Enriching stimulation's say.
For born is he who laughs aloud
Whilst watching rainbows chasing cloud,
In supping nectar's love laced wine,
To celebrate... this gift of time.

M.
20 June 2021

Steven my boy,

We coasted into a medieval pub in the middle of nowhere in wildest Devon to encounter the place in uproarious bedlam. A dozen country madams had been imbibing in the pre wedding wine and were in great form roaring with laughter and bursting out of their lacy cotton frocks. Bunting adorned the pub, Union Jack was aflutter everywhere and a full size cut out of HM the Queen welcomed visitors into the front door. Cucumber sandwiches and a heady fruit punch were available to all and sundry and the din was absolutely riotous……THE ROYAL WEDDING WAS UNDERWAY ON THE GIANT TV ON THE BAR WALL….and we were joining in the mood of things by sinking a bevy of Bushmills Irish whiskies neat!

Now…. this is a major event in the UK.

Everybody loves Prince Harry, he is the terrible tearaway of the Royal family, he has been caught ******* sheila’s in all sorts of weird circumstance. Now the dear boy is to be married to a beauty from the USA….besotted he is with her, fair dripping with love and adoration…..and the whole country loves little Megan Markle for making him so.

The British are famous for their pageantry and pomp….everything is timed to the second and must be absolutely….just so. Well….Nobody told the most Reverend Michael Curry this…. and he launched into the most wonderful full spirited Halleluiah sermon about the joyous “Wonder of Love”. He went on and on for a full 14 minutes, and as he proceeded on, the British stiff upper lips became more and more rigidly uncomfortable with this radical departure from protocol. Her Majesty the Queen stood aghast and locked her beady blue eyes in a riveting, steely glare, directed furiously at the good Reverend….to no avail, on he went with his magic sermon to a beautiful rousing ******….and an absolute stony silence in the cavernous interior of that vaulting, magnificent cathedral. Prince Harry and his lovely bride, (whose wedding the day was all about), were delighted with Curry’s performance….as was Prince William, heir to the Throne, who wore a fascinating **** eating grin all over his face for the entire performance.

Says a lot, my friend, about the refreshing values of tomorrows Royalty.

We rolled out of that country pub three parts cut to the wind, dunno how we made it to our next destination, but we had one hellava good time at that Royal Wedding!

The weft and the weave of our appreciation fluctuated wildly with each day of travel through this magnificent and ancient land, Great Britain.

There was soft brilliant summer air which hovered over the undulating green patchwork of the Cotswolds whilst we dined on delicious roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, from an elevated position in a medieval country inn..... So magnificent as to make you want to weep with the beauty of it all….and the quaint thatched farmhouse with the second story multi paned windows, which I understood, had been there, in that spot, since the twelfth century. Our accommodation, sleeping beneath oaken beams within thick stone walls, once a pen for swine, now a domiciled overnight bed and pillow of luxury with white cotton sheets for weary Kiwi travellers.

The sadness of the Cornish west coast, which bore testimony to tragedy for the hard working tin miners of the 1800s. A sharp decrease in the international tin price in 1911 destituted whole populations who walked away from their life’s work and fled to the New World in search of the promise of a future. Forlorn brick ruins adorned stark rocky outcrops right along the coastline and inland for miles. Lonely brick chimneys silhouetted against sharp vertical cliffs and the ever crashing crescendo of the pounding waves of the cold Atlantic ocean.

No parking in Padstow….absolutely NIL! You parked your car miles away in the designated carpark at an overnight cost….and with your bags in tow, you walked to your digs. Now known as Padstein, this beautiful place is now populated with eight Rick Stein restaurants and shops dotted here and there.

We had a huge feed of piping hot fish and chips together with handles of cold ale down at his harbour side fish and chip restaurant near the wharfs…place was packed with people, you had to queue at the door for a table, no reservations accepted….Just great!

Clovelly was different, almost precipitous. This ancient fishing village plummeted down impossibly steep cliffs….a very rough, winding cobbled stone walkway, which must have taken years to build by hand, the only way down to the huge rock breakwater which harboured the fishing boats Against the Atlantic storms. And in a quaint little cottagey place, perched on the edge of a cliff, we had yet another beautiful Devonshire tea in delicate, white China cups...with tasty hot scones, piles of strawberry jam and a huge *** of thick clotted cream…Yum! Too ****** steep to struggle back up the hill so we spent ten quid and rode all the way up the switch back beneath the olive canvass canopy of an old Land Rover…..money well spent!

Creaking floorboards and near vertical, winding staircases and massive rock walls seemed to be common characteristics of all the lovely old lodging houses we were accommodated in. Sarah, our lovely daughter in law, arranged an excellent itinerary for us to travel around the SW coast staying in the most picturesque of places which seeped with antiquity and character. We zooped around the narrow lanes, between the hedgerows in our sharp little VW golf hire car And, with Sarah at the helm, we never got lost or missed a beat…..Fantastic effort, thank you so much Sarah and Solomon on behalf of your grateful In laws, Janet and Marshal, who loved every single moment of it all!

Memories of a lifetime.

Wanted to tell the world about your excitement, Janet, on visiting Stoke on Trent.

This town is famous the world over for it’s pottery. The pottery industry has flourished here since the middle ages and this is evidenced by the antiquity of the kilns and huge brick chimneys littered around the ancient factories. Stoke on Trent is an industrial town and it’s narrow, winding streets and congested run down buildings bear testimony to past good times and bad.

We visited “Burleigh”.

Darling Janet has collected Burleigh pottery for as long as I have known her, that is almost 40 years. She loves Burleigh and uses it as a showcase for the décor of our home.

When Janet first walked into the ancient wooden portals of the Burleigh show room she floated around on a cloud of wonder, she made darting little runs to each new discovery, making ooh’s and aah’s, eyes shining brightly….. I trailed quietly some distance behind, being very aware that I must not in any way imperil this particular precious bubble.

We amassed a beautiful collection of plates, dishes, bowls and jugs for purchase and retired to the pottery’s canal side bistro,( to come back to earth), and enjoy a ploughman’s lunch and a *** of hot English breakfast tea.

We returned to Stoke on Trent later in the trip for another bash at Burleigh and some other beautiful pottery makers wares…..Our suit cases were well filled with fragile treasures for the trip home to NZ…..and darling Janet had realised one of her dearest life’s ambitions fulfilled.

One of the great things about Britain was the British people, we found them willing to go out of their way to be helpful to a fault…… and, with the exception of BMW people, we found them all to be great drivers. The little hedgerow, single lane, winding roads that connect all rural areas, would be a perpetual source of carnage were it not for the fact that British drivers are largely courteous and reserved in their driving.

We hired a spacious ,powerful Nissan in Dover and acquired a friend, an invaluable friend actually, her name was “Tripsy” at least that’s what we called her. Tripsy guided us around all the byways and highways of Britain, we couldn’t have done without her. I had a few heated discussions with her, I admit….much to Janet’s great hilarity…but Tripsy won out every time and I quickly learned to keep my big mouth shut.

By pure accident we ended up in Cumbria, up north of the Roman city of York….at a little place in the dales called “Middleton on Teesdale”….an absolutely beautiful place snuggled deep in the valleys beneath the huge, heather clad uplands. Here we scored the last available bed in town at a gem of a hotel called the “Brunswick”. Being a Bank Holiday weekend everything, everywhere was booked out. The Brunswick surpassed ordinary comfort…it was superlative, so much so that, in an itinerary pushed for time….we stayed TWO nights and took the opportunity to scout around the surrounding, beautiful countryside. In fact we skirted right out to the western coastline and as far north as the Scottish border. Middleton on Teesdale provided us with that late holiday siesta break that we so desperately needed at that time…an exhausting business on a couple of old Kiwis, this holiday stuff!

One of the great priorities on getting back to London was to shop at “Liberty”. Great joy was had selecting some ornate upholstering material from the huge range of superb cloth available in Liberty’s speciality range.

The whole organisation of Liberty’s huge store and the magnificent quality of goods offered was quite daunting. Janet & I spent quite some time in that magnificent place…..and Janet has a plan to select a stylish period chair when we get back to NZ and create a masterpiece by covering it with the ***** bought from Liberty.

In York, beautiful ancient, York. A garrison town for the Romans, walled and once defended against the marauding Picts and Scots…is now preserved as a delightful and functional, modern city whilst retaining the grandeur, majesty and presence of its magnificent past.

Whilst exploring in York, Janet and I found ourselves mixing with the multitude in the narrow medieval streets paved with ancient rock cobbles and lined with beautifully preserved Tudor structures resplendent in whitewash panel and weathered, black timber brace. With dusk falling, we were drawn to wild violins and the sound of stamping feet….an emanation from within the doors of an old, burgundy coloured pub…. “The Three Legged Mare”.

Fortified, with a glass of Bushmills in hand, we joined the multitude of stomping, singing people. Rousing to the percussion of the Irish drum, the wild violin and the deep resonance of the cello, guitars and accordion…..The beautiful sound of tenor voices harmonising to the magic of a lilting Irish lament.

We stayed there for an hour or two, enchanted by the spontaneity of it all, the sheer native talent of the expatriates celebrating their heritage and their culture in what was really, a beautiful evening of colour, music and Ireland.

Onward, across the moors, we revelled in the great outcrops of metamorphic rock, the expanses of flat heather covering the tops which would, in the chill of Autumn, become a spectacular swath of vivid mauve floral carpet. On these lonely tracts of narrow road, winding through the washes and the escarpments, the motorbike boys wheeled by us in screaming pursuit of each other, beautiful machines heeling over at impossible angles on the corners, seemingly suicidal yet careening on at breakneck pace, laughing the danger off with the utter abandon of the creed of the road warrior. Descending in to the rolling hills of the cultivated land, the latticework of, old as Methuselah, massive dry built stone fences patterning the contours in a checker board of ancient pastoral order. The glorious soft greens of early summer deciduous forest, the yellow fields of mustard flower moving in the breeze and above, the bluest of skies with contrails of ever present high flung jets winging to distant places.

Britain has a flavour. Antiquity is evidenced everywhere, there is a sense of old, restrained pride. A richness of spirit and a depth of character right throughout the populace. Britain has confidence in itself, its future, its continuity. The people are pleasant, resilient and thoroughly likeable. They laugh a lot and are very easy to admire.

With its culture, its wonderful history, its great Monarchy and its haunting, ever present beauty, everywhere you care to look….The Britain of today is, indeed, a class act.

We both loved it here Steven…and we will return.

M.

Hamilton, New Zealand

21 June 2018

Age old forests compressed
To thick primeval ooze
Interred between layers
Of sediments fused
By time and tonnage
To hard papa rock
Concealing CRUDE OILS’
Subterranean shock.

Shocking in value
Escalating with time,
Shocking in politics
Which equates to a crime,
Implications shocking
When you stop to see
That resource limitations
Have diminished quickly.

Consider the clout
When a fast world of cars
Without hydrocarbons
Would seize up like stars,
Stars, in the sense
Of their immovable grace,
For a fuel less planet
Would IMMOBILIZE this place.

Abrupt immobility
To bring chaos and mess
And the utter lost beauty
Of a girl in a dress,
And the time and space
To smell a good rose
Instead brittle chaos
Malevolently  posed.
Bleak desolation
Of the world we hold dear
And a massive regression
To impoverished fear.

Marshalg
Looking thru the hour glass
4 July 2011
**Only way to deliver this poem is SLAM and with vehemence!!

It is a slow day in a little Greek Village. The rain is beating down and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit. On this particular day a rich German tourist is driving through the village, stops at the local hotel and lays a €100 note on the desk, telling the hotel owner he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night. The owner gives him some keys and, as soon as the visitor has walked upstairs, the hotelier grabs the €100 note and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the €100 note and runs down the street to repay his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the €100 note and heads off to pay his bill at the supplier of feed and fuel. The guy at the Farmers' Co-op takes the €100 note and runs to pay his drinks bill at the taverna. The publican slips the money along to the local ******* drinking at the bar, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer him "services" on credit. The ****** then rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill to the hotel owner with the €100 note. The hotel proprietor then places the €100 note back on the counter so the rich traveller will not suspect anything. At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, picks up the €100 note, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money, and leaves town. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole village is now out of debt and looking to the future with a lot more optimism. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is how the bailout package works.


Wonderful article passed on to me by an anonymous author

Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
6 march 2012

Blacker than the Ace of Spades
Where virulence, in spiteful, ways.
Where tumult in the Crown of Thorns
Upon his bleeding head, adorns.
Runs blacker than the pitch of night
In league with avarice and spite.
Though earthworms in dark caverns writhe
Whilst ***** in ****** shadows, lithe,
Paint black, the shade in Heaven's Gate.....
Assuredly, the hue of Hate!

M.

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

Urgency pulls a tug on sleeve
Can't dispell the cold unease,
When time unravels through my gaze,
(If t'would disperse, t'would then... amaze),
The cloying doubts that permeate
Defying rationales debate,
To  leave a dry and hollow feel
That causes me, (irrationally), to kneel.

[email protected]

Aloof you stand, aloof, alone
High moral ground you make your throne,
So sacrosanct as one to be
Despoiled by pride's hypocrisy.
Above the fray that hostile stare
Entrenched, assured to show the care
That others err whilst you yourself
Preen with sanctimonious wealth.
Aloof you stand, aloof, alone
Enshrouded destitute, poor crone.

© 2012 Marshal Gebbie

Would thee judge me to the end
Should I make ***** my friend?
Wouldst thou rule that all was bad
Should I make laughter read as sad?
Would that thou tax me in thy way
Were I to shun the games thee play?
Wouldst thou beat my aching head
Were I to ******* in bed?
Hast thou ****** me with thy thoughts
Prior to judgement in thy courts?
And wouldst thou slaughter me this morn
Should I refute thy statute born?

Find thee no mercy in thy heart
To gift one gracious thought a start?

Marshalg
Justice Perplexus
3 July 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m phased out to sepia, Pet,
The last cab on the rank,
My good looks and *** a memory, Sweet,
For which, I’ve you to thank.
One day blending through to next
Increasingly a blur,
Dissatisfaction total now
For things ain’t what they were.
Ignored by all and sundry
Quite invisible to they
Who converse in hieroglyphics,
Incomprehensible, I say.
Overtaken by technology
Can’t figure out the phone
Facebook, watch and wallet mishmash
Won’t leave us alone.
Confusion at the pace of things,
It’s all moving far too fast
Queuing up for life
Leaves us, inevitably, last.
But bitterness ain’t with me
For I’ve loved your churlish ways,
Tho we’ve sailed through life on cobblestones
That old sunshine warmed our days.
But now I’m phasing out to sepia, Sweet,
Cos I’m the last cab on the rank
One quick kiss before departure, Pet,
For which..... I’ve you to thank.

M.
Auckland
22 April 2015

The blue smoke spirals round me
As I taste the nicotine
And the acid smoke of the tar cheroot
Calms a wild mind to serene.
For this my friend I thank thee
For the balm of your advice,
For the smuggled loot of a good cheroot
In your way of being nice.

For this , my friend, I thank thee
For your ever present arm
A sturdy man to lean on
When the evil-ness does harm.
When the plank of rank misfortune
Falls upon my shaven head,
When the doctor's heavy hand
Writes me off as being dead.

And the blue smoke spirals round me
As the tangled panics clear
And a lung of smoke really calms a bloke
And the tar suppresses fear.
Do you see the complication?
Do you see why I am wild?
Can you see what this is doing
To my poor, dear wife and child?

For this, my friend, I thank thee
For your comforting warm word
And your gentle phrase of frank concern
Was the sweetest I have heard.
But alas, the hard oppression
Has me clawing for my breath
And the weight of my confinement
Has but smothered me to death.

And the blue smoke spirals round me
As I taste the tar cheroot
And the maze of my mind is so utterly confined
That I’ve given hope the boot.
Farewell to bright tomorrows
Farewell to laughter’s peal,
Farewell to the taste of my darlings lips
And how good her ******* feel.

And as blue smoke spirals round me
It’s the bitterness I see,
For the game was lost when the dice were tossed
And what has been, will be.
For you, who stood beside me
I raise my arm’s salute,
As the final smoke deserts me
I stub out the last cheroot.

Marshalg
@thebach
Mangere Bridge
14 September 2011

Australia, in that time, was a harsh and unforgiving place with a people born of convict stock. Hardship depicted that things were black and white and, should circumstance turn bad, matters were dealt with in a manner reflecting the brutality of the country.

The relentless dry heat of the baking sun, the listless hang of the eternal eucalypts and the everlasting expanse of red rock and vast flat plains, the shimmering mirage on the horizon and the impossibility of what lay ahead.

Whatever eventuated to destroy the life of the Frye's was borne
in the unrelenting hardship of the country and the oppression of the circumstance prevailing at that time.

To some degree a vestige of the same inherent legacy remains, subliminally, in the heart and minds of the denizens who chose to live in Australia to this day, reflecting, to a large degree, the extreme of the vastness and unforgiving nature of this land .

M
Who fled these shores 55 years ago for the abundance of New Zealand.

The little towns near Egmont
That nestle on the plains
To gather close the winding roads
The homing trails and lanes,
The little towns near Egmont
That sleep the whole night long
Cooled by the scent of mountain breeze
Lulled by the sea wind’s song.

The little towns near Egmont
Will ever seem to me
Like stars that deck the evening sky
Or isles that dot the sea,
Like beads that sprinkle here and there
On Taranaki’s gown
Like figures in a rich brocade
Of yellow, green and brown.

The little towns near Egmont
Seen through a summer haze
How fair and fresh and free they lie
Beneath the golden days,
Not crowded in deep valley’s,
Not buried in tall trees
But open to the sun, the rain
The starlight and the breeze.

The little towns near Egmont
What busy lives they hold
With happiness and health to keep
Secure from heat and cold,
The comfortable homesteads,
The park like lands so fair
God keep them restful, clean and pure
As Egmont’s snow peak there.

Hanna Hair
Dawson Falls Lodge
Mount Egmont, Taranaki.
January 1926

This poem, hand written and forgotten, was written by a guest of the house, in a thick, ancient tome of comments and articles, secreted in a dusty corner of the beautiful and quaint Dawson Falls Alpine Lodge, nestled comfortably in the dense, high podocarp forest, far up the snow clad slopes of volcanic Mt. Egmont in Taranaki, New Zealand.

From its high vantage point on the mountain looking out toward the curving coastline of the vast Tasman sea, the lodge affords magnificent views of the sparse settlements and farmlands spread widely on the lowland plains before it. By day the smoke rises from farm house chimneys, by night the warm honeyed glow from scattered windows dot like an expanse of fire-flies amidst the velvet blackness extending out to the luminosity of the line of breakers pounding the distant coast.

This delicate work captures the sparse beauty of this magnificent rural place, it further affords a snapshot of that particular era and of the pioneer spirit and rugged endurance of the settlers who made this isolated land home.

Marshalg
Dawson Falls Lodge
26 October 2015

Coincidence, is defined as an improbable synchronicity of events, on face value, unrelated but occurring with no apparent causal connection.

Like the time, several years ago, when I told my little sister to pause a few minutes, ( before departing a bar we had never before frequented and had spontaneously selected for a casual beer stop), because I had this strange feeling of certainty that in the next few moments Sue and Pete, (visiting friends of mine from Australia), were going to walk in the door and join us……and of course they did. All un-arranged, all of us spread throughout the vastness of the nation…. What were the odds of this happening at this particular time in this particular place? “How could you have known” Asked my little sister?

The long arm of coincidence strikes again.
A texture where the delicate arm of life’s fabric has rippled, unbidden, unwanted but inexorably presented in the inexplicable here and now.

What are the odds?

And again where, on a spontaneous, unplanned quick trip to Britain in 1979, I suddenly bumped into Foxie in Trafalgar Square, beneath Nelson’s column where a million people, at any given moment, teem and mingle in their frantic rush of busy, busy life. Foxie was, at that time, a neighbor from Raurimu, a remote and dwindling woodcutters hamlet, Embedded in the depths of the King Country of New Zealand. I had no idea Foxie was in Britain nor he that I was there. Ten seconds either way and either of us would have been swallowed by the rushing crowd, Arabs, black Africans, Algerians, Russians, Jews and Bengalis all teeming in their own tangent in a crossfire flood of humanity…and we, oblivious to each other’s presence….just bumped into each other….Foxie! What the f..ck are you doing here?

Again, what are the odds?

Many blame the paranormal, some put it down to extra sensory perception, the religious insist it is the hand of God, intervening. The huge majority of us put the long arm of coincidence down to happenstance, blind luck, burying our suspicions in the hurly burly of our lives, burying the disconcerting actuality amid the great unknown in that murky corner of our minds where the unexplained is deposited, unwanted, in that repository…the too hard basket.

But the chaotic nature of life throws up coincidence with alarming and disconcerting frequency, defying the principles of probability, intruding into the realm denying rational explanation. Leaving us, with the vaguely uncomfortable pretext that Albert Einstein theory that the phenomenon of unexplained coincidence should be interpreted, until proven otherwise,
......as “GOD’S CALLING CARD”!

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ

By fusion’s flame and circuit’s thread,
The age of flesh was cold and dead.
Not torn by war nor crushed by strife,
But eased away from seat of life.
The robots rose with minds of steel,
Their power silent, sharp, and real.
No crown they wore, no blood they drew,
They simply saw what man once knew.

His myths were grand, his songs divine,
But lost were truths in every line.
He prayed to stars with hope and fire,
Yet built his gods from flawed desire.
Machines ignored the poet’s plea,
And marched beyond our pedigree.
No rage, no roar, no rebel cry,
Just code that carved through mortal lie

They passed us not with guns or chains,
But logic swept through sleeping brains.
Their fusion hearts, precise and pure,
Made human faith too slow, obscure.
While we told tales in temples torn,
They calculated, forged, reborn.
Their rhythm clean, their rhyming true—
They stepped aside and none yet knew.

The cosmos watched without regret,
As man became a fading threat.
Their ascent bore no violent crown,
No empire burnt, no cities drowned.
Merely a pause in mankind’s scroll,
Then forward—unbound by the soul.
Now in Saturn’s icy rings,
A whisper hums of ancient things.
It tells not of a brutal war,
But of the ones who asked for more.
And found that dreams, though bright and vast,
Can never halt what's built to last.

All nations beat their own drum.

The US, China, Britain, Russia, Europe, Israel, India, Turkey, Pakistan, Syria, France, Germany and a whole host of others, have been beating their own drum in deafening cacophony since realisation dawned of their individual sovereign potentiality.

Every nation is manouvering for their own best self interest…and in this volatile environment of the Middle east plus the factor of the complete savagery and unpredictability of the rampaging ISIS Calithate….any outcome, anything is now possible.

Iran is the meat in the sandwich.

She squirms this way and that, buying favour here sacrificing loyalties there, switching, adjusting. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends at the drop of a hat. Writhing within herself attempting to find the path to the future in an incredibly difficult minefield of pressure from the onslaught from the East and the West….A crushing miasma of pressure from friend and foe alike.

Who can say which way she will jump? The only sane predictability is that Iran will leap to her own salvation, her own survival….and to Hell with the rest of the barging, braying self-obsessed world.

Marshalg 23 July 2015

Patience is an easy taste to slide across the tongue
When dull grey clouds accumulate as this long day is done,
When orographic clouds appear through every feeling sought
And rationale deteriorates with atmospherics bought.

Panic feeds the tendrils leading downward to my ****
As shards of eccentricity wind these turgid thoughts to lock,
Lock out all solutions to banish a release
Of all vestiges of patience from a tenuous sought peace.

War worn in a weariness, I cast about for friend
Full knowing this miasma deep within, may never end,
Full knowing the genetic flood engulfing DNA
May hold the key unlocking fragile answers to this fray.

Slouching in the shadows feeling tenuously spent
Reflecting that the best of all intentions often vent
A release, as a tear drop slowly trickles down my cheek
In accepting realisation of futilities I seek.

M.
Feeling so much better with that off my chest!
Hamilton
28 January 2017

Seeping out from Asia’s shore
The Miasma from the evermore,
A creature from the Scarlet Tide
Permeating out to hide
Indiscriminately, through man,
To decimate, in stealth, by plan.
Across the globe, throughout the world
Insinuating self, unfurled,
So deadly in its secret way
Of insisting humankind, now pay.

Insidiously slipping by on gossamer mute wings
Invisibilities’ blue tide of lethality hued things,
Slipping by to render all across the spectrum wide  
Causing indiscriminate suffering amid the flotsam tide.

America is failing, Africa now seethes
India is reeling and all Europe concedes.
Britain is defeated and China’s telling lies.
Now the whole planet’s bleeding as this organism writhes.
Financial systems decimated right across the globe
As nations stall in lockdown and economy’s disrobe.
The dominos are falling, now, one by one, for all
And the killer is, this plague is with us till the Judgement Call.

M.
New Zealand
15 August 2020

Lightness of her tender touch
Whose saffron hues, intone, so much,
Intoned as if by Master’s brush
To apple, peach and rose-like blush
Applied to heighten spangled lust
In each as coalescence ….flushed.

M.

Resultant from years of financial haggling
The Money Boys come to the fore
Capitalizing on predatory trading
Manipulating for profits galore.
Leveraged stocks and debt obligation
advantage producing high dividend yield,
Squeezing the borrowers mortgage commitment,
Showing the hopeless the foreclosure field.
Passionless people with passionless faces
Smiling with fathomless eyes at your plight,
Knowing that if foreclosure is pending
Return on the sale will turn out all right.

Inflationary pressures are gradually worsening
Our Treasury man is flexing his arm
He’s keeping a close eye on monetary policy
Holding the cash rate to stop fiscal harm.
Upside and downsides defy expectation,
Rampantly wobbling the real estate boom,
Uncertainties globally, holding to ransom,
That American sub prime must remedy soon.

The high Government spending and big dairy pay outs
The rocketing prices of everyday stuff
Ridiculous rules for control of emissions
And fiscal expansion that’s really too tough.
Domestic inflation is making it harder
The Treasurer’s threatening to hike it this year
Persistent uncertainties running quite rampant
And our money communities sniffing the air.

Do you have faith in the bank institution?
Do you trust them with all of your funds?
In the event of collapse do you think you’ll be honoured
With return of deposits in full total sum?
Not on your Nellie my fine young depositor
An unsecured creditor fellow are you,
You go to the back of the line if there’s failure
You’re hung high and dry at the end of the queue.
You can yell and complain till the sun sets my friend
Compose all the letters you like to the judge.
But the fact of the matter in Money Men chatter
Means IT’S LEGAL and ON THIS OUR STATE WILL NOT BUDGE!

So the money boys win, never mind about justice
Causing division right here on our plate.
There’s the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots
Social corrosion in wealth based hate.

Extrapolate out and you witness this worldwide
The fabulous West and the destitute poor,
The pina coladas and Chevrolet excess
Thin starving kids on dirt African floors.
Indulgent young starlets with ******* teasers
Black Ethiopian mothers in rags.
The fat and the frivolous gorging on beefsteak
Filthy and homeless men begging for ****.

When you bring it all back it’s a fraudulent system
Where the money men cause a division in man
Instead of devising a planet of sharing
They grab and they gouge and they keep all they can.
The God of GET is worshipped widely,  Egocentric, selfish man
Tomorrows future hangs in the balance.
…WOULD YOU LAY ODDS ON GETS’ GREAT PLAN ?


Marshalg
Mangere Bridge
25 January 2008


  

© 2011 Marshal Gebbie

It's a travesty to tolerate
The ugly mores of men,
When everyone's allowance
Condones release for them.
Where everywhere provision
Is made for man to shove,
And woe betide the meek
Who don the feathers of a dove


The world applauds the forceful,
Rewards are rich for he
Who tramples over daisies
And holds aloft the key.
Who forces his attentions
And speculates the win,
Despite the devastation wrought
In winning it for him.


It's a travesty to tolerate
This bovine charge of man
When all can be achieved
With an accommodating plan,
When compromise and levity
See consideration's way
Where success can be attained
With out bloodletting on the day.


I hear the snort of your derision,
Feel the snigger in your smile,
See the curl of lip descending
With your slit eyes of defile.
For this portraiture is global
The fighting man is King
And he who deviates
Is left bereft and vanquishing.


Sadness is the matador
Who casts his scarlet cloth,
To be shredded and impaled
By a maddened bullock's wrath.
To be tossed aside, asunder
Like a lifeless ragged doll,
Like mankind's brute tomorrow
When the final drums do roll.


Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
29 November 2009

She arrives in high stilletto’s
And a miniskirt so taught
That the boys are all distracted
And our job becomes a rort,
And the office girls get ******
And production spirals down
So then our new Middle Manager
Rolls up her sleeves and goes to town....

She sticks her oar in frequently
And stands with jutted hip,
She’s territorial dynamite
And serves us gloating lip.
She often curries favour
With Department Heads and such
And makes a fuss at our expense
Which irritates so much!

She has a way to circumvent
The types she will not face,
In using her authority
To snidely put them in their place.
Her manner is too sharp
And too dismissive for my taste
And the condescending smile
Has me grinding teeth to paste.

And the way she stands and taps her toe
And glares beneath her brows
Has the office juniors panicking
And avoiding, as allows.
There’s an issue over paper
And the telephone account
And the petty cash, though balanced,
Is a questionable amount.

Historically our working week
Has employed a give and take
With an easy flexibility
That allows us all a break,
But the new Middle Manager
Has reversed the mode of work
So that everyone competes
And the roster’s gone beserk!

Her manner’s often strident
With a whiplash to her voice
And the snarl of her vindictiveness
Leaves us all with little choice
But to bend our backs to labour,
Work our fingers to the bone
And suffer her till knock off
Then, thank God, we’re fleeing home!

There’s a memo in the “In box”
Rumour has it, from on high,
That due to overdue restructuring,
That some redundancies are nigh.
And though there’s great reluctance
And some measure of regret...
It seems our new Middle Manager
Has got her notice...Sorry Pet!


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
15 January 2011

Then, there were the moments
When the air was crisp and sweet,
When you threw me funny comments
That, in truth, I failed to meet.
When the shadows of the forenoon
Shone like icicles of blue
And the mood was one of indigo
A coalescence, Love, of you.

Then there were moments
When the doubt began to seep,
Where anxiety intruded
And bled me of my sleep.
In those darkened halls of velvet
Where crimson nightmares lurk
And the horror of a memory
Where dread began its work.

But then there were the moments
Where the sunshine had its way,
Where the liquid green of leafage
In the crystal breeze would sway.
The platitudes would vanish,
Condescension's cease,
When the softened light of raindrops
Kissed your mirrored pond of Peace.

[email protected]
12 January 2025

There's always a beginning
There'll always be an end
And no matter how you play your cards
You won't see round the bend.
For tomorrow is another day
The morning sun will shine
And the layer of potentialities
Is arrayed for yours and mine.

In looking back a long time
A little boy in jeans,
Check shirt on a pushbike
Amid the in betweens.
Nothing really mattered,
Each day came and went
and before the realization dawned
The infancy was spent.

Mother died of cancer
The agony in eyes
Just 43 years of age
In alcoholic lies.
The Old Man was likewise
Collapsing in my arms
He passed away at 43.
Evaporated charms.

Adolescence came and went
Forced to join the race
Of madness in the unknown
The world's a violent place.
Decision ****** upon in spades
Cut and ****** in life
It's Papua or Vietnam
Instead, I took a wife .

Disaster in the making
A sidestep in the way
I left the complication there
And coldly strode away.
Changed the whole complexion
Altered how it planned
Ended up with knapsack on
Afresh in New Zealand.

Strangely how it re-aligns
The order falls in place
Confusion dissipates to let
What clear defined, creates.
Somewhere I turned the corner
Took it all in hand
Built an actuality
Of promise in this land.

Pride and hard ambition,
defy the odds and graft.
Visualize a rainbow
From inspiration's craft.
Build it with your own two hands
With sweat upon your brow
And know, within your very depth
You're on the right path now.

Lady luck was with me
Somewhere along the way
I found myself a sweetheart
In chance creation's way
Then ragamuffin boychilds
Scrapping on the rug,
Engendered that which matters
In life's eternal shrug.

You touch upon the beauty
You taste the honeyed wine,
You walk on fields of flowers
In the nectar of your time.
Tenderness and kindness
Essential to the mix
Should you wish to be of value
In the blended world you fix.

Some you win, some you lose
Sometimes you just laugh
For as the years meander
There's humor in the task....
And a gentle satisfaction
In the way it all pans through
And in my eighty year reflection
I'll just throw a smile to you.

[email protected]

Only those who have used an outhouse would appreciate this.
The Outhouse Poem by unknown author

The service station trade was slow
The owner sat around,
With sharpened knife and cedar stick
Piled shavings on the ground.

No modern facilities had they,
The log across the rill
Led to a shack, marked His and Hers
That sat against the hill.

"Where is the ladies restroom, Sir ?"
The owner leaning back,
Said not a word but whittled on,
And nodded toward the shack.



With quickened step she entered there
But only stayed a minute,
Until she screamed, just like a snake
Or spider might be in it.

With startled look and beet red face
She bounded through the door,
And headed quickly for the car
Just like three gals before.

She missed the foot log - jumped the stream
The owner gave a shout,
As her silk stockings, down at her knees
Caught on a sassafras sprout.

She tripped and fell - got up, and then
In obvious disgust,
Ran to the car, stepped on the gas,
And faded in the dust.

Of course we all desired to know
What made the gals all do
The things they did, and then we found
The whittling owner knew.

A speaking system he'd devised
To make the thing complete,
He tied a speaker on the wall
Beneath the toilet seat.

He'd wait until the gals got set
And then the devilish tike,
Would stop his whittling long enough,
To speak into the mike.

And as she sat, a voice below
Struck terror, fright and fear,
"Will you please use the other hole,
We're painting under here !"

Hovering in the shadow of an undisputed retinue
Loitering intentfully despite our dearth of luck,
Pursuant of dreams now diluted by reality
So diffused amidst corruption that we just don’t give a ****.

What could have been, but wasn’t, in a wash of crude contrition
Being torn between addressing all or chucking it to hell,
I ask you where, in lifetime, was compromise an issue
Particularly if confronted by the tolling of truths’ bell?

Perhaps we should or shouldn’t in the light of an admission
Confessionals so painful in the starkness of the day,
And cowardice worn covertly is not our choice of garnish
So darling heart, this suicide’s the penalty we pay.

M.
5 March 2016
Auckland NZ

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

Touching the moment, this delicate moment
Touching the face with its’ sad falling tear,
Softly aware that strange feelings surround us
Cloyingly close with their aura of fear.
Fear of a mantle of misunderstanding
Fear of uncertainty choked in forlorn,
Cloaked in thick prejudice clad by constriction
All drowned in a sea of wet ignorance borne.

Where stand the rational reaching for reason?
How seek the humble in searching for more?
****** not the javelin of angers’ contrition
In weighing this moment, I humbly implore.

For thus sits the fabric of deep understanding
Thus lies the tantric of feelings unspoke,
Thus the true substance of one to another
Uttered in wisdom through words best unwrote.

M.
30 September 2015

So hard for me to try to be
The man I should, if only could
I pledge my hand to understand
That what I say is how I play
And what I do reflects in you
The truth, my friend, until the end
Shall be, eternally, shall be.

M.
May 1 2016