She runs through the street
In terror, distraught,
Bloodied knees bleeding
Mad eyes, contort.
The ones with the guns
Are hot on her trail
Mercilessly manifest,
Rapaciously male.

Windows shattered
Shelving laid bare
Unruly rioting
Careers everywhere.
Fires are burning,
Dead bodies in heaps,
Maniacal screaming
Killing Cops in the streets....

South Africa burns
As atrocities' flail,
Shotguns blasting
Lethality's hail.
Black men fleeing
In blind panic's fear,
Cowering whites know,
**** well, death is near.

Disorder splits
Through street and town
Causing Judges gavels,
To pound up and down.
Good hope and promise
Both strewn and escaped,
Caste out amidst filth
And callously *****.

Hope now beyond
The very ken of man
Seeing hate and fear
Has taken command.
Balance now tipped
Across the scale,
Hurling Africa's carnage
Beyond the pale.


M.
Watching Africa burn.
13 July 2021

This crystal Autumn morn, where the dew sparkles on the fresh cut lawn, where the stillness of the cold air lends an absolute clarity to the
alpine vista before me.

The old Kaitake volcano with its vaulting flanks of Kamihe forest with outcrops of massive Rimu and Miro, Tawa and giant, towering Mamaku tree fern. Deep dark ravines tumbling down to fast flowing, clear water streams and moss covered, black boulder waterfalls.

Everywhere the sound of the Dawn Chorus, birds of every description voicing their celebration at the start of the new day.
The honk of the Paradise duck marking his turf in the cattle paddock, Two magpies perched on the very top fronds of a giant tree fern, warbling their unique song to be answered by another pair off in the undulation of the crisp green hills in the middle distance.
Tiny wrens and fantails flit amid the branches uttering their contribution to the swelling music of the morning.

The rapture of the song in the crystal silence and the golden light of the dawning sun throwing the  profile of the mountain ridges and the forest into a glory of deep dark shade and glowing gold contrast.

This moment, this magic moment swells my heart with joy.
The wondrous beauty before me holds the innocence of the key to my utter happiness.....I throw back my balding old head and roar with laughter with the complete  joy of it all.

M.
Foxglove@Taranaki, NZ
8th April 2022

Dreamers, my Darling, are Kings of the earth, lost as they are in the clouds,
Conjuring magic from out of the air, weaving  mystical spells through the shrouds.
Shrouds effervescent and writhing with life, mythical movements of mirth
Threaded throughout in intangible weave to render this fabric of Earth.

Dancing in lyrical splashes of waterfall, bubbling in sunshine on stone,
Moss covered igneous softest creation, emerald as crystals of Rome.
Where would thy tread in this vaporous creation, would thou intrude on the scene?
Bursting this bubble of magical splendour would render thee, Sir, as unclean.

Tip toeing through tulips so softly and tender, so sensitive there to the touch
For Dreamers are few viewing grandeur anew….
I remind you, dear Sir, of as much!

M.
17 December 2018

Back then I dwelt with stone age man
In New Guinea's hothouse land
Long Centipedes of brick red hue
Aggressively pursuing you.
Rain, incessant rain on thee.
Wetly dripping from each tree
Iridescent longicorns
And scarab with elaborate horns.
Spider webs extension set
From tree to tree in lethal net....

Yet there stands he, in naked awe,
Watching, silently before,
Watching with obsidian stare
In aura, quite, beyond my care,
Puri-Puri, magic's spell,
Hangs suspended, mystic Hell.

Axe of stone from rugged cleft
From secret site of Ancient sect,
Hidden deep in forest glade
By several hues of darkened shade.
Axe of war in every way
Worn as talisman, they say.
Ground laboriously in stream
To razor edge by timeworn team
Axe of stone from eon past
A Neolithic work of art.

Yet there stands he, amid the green,
Silent, deadly, seldom seen.
***** sheath standing *****,
Pig fat hair for earnt respect,
Calloused feet, jungle razed,
Fearless in his fearsome gaze.....
Neolithic son of man
From whence prehistoric time, began.

M.

The struggle with self consumes, consumes.
Its manifestation sings
That a dream on the wing is a phenomenal thing
But honesty's bleeding, stings.

It entails a depth of purpose,
Entails the breadth of sight,
Encompasses all with faith, I recall,
Seeing once, in the dead of the night.

Perhaps it's all misleading,
And seemingly so contrite
But the thing I find deceiving is the absence of believing
And it galls me so, despite.

Of course there's contradiction
Which man maintains his path
Erratic-ism calls...yet that, further galls,
And prompts...my bitter laugh!

The cynic in me vacillates
The inner fool now writhes
And through it all, in abrupt recall,
.....I feel I'm fed a pack of lies!

M.
20 August 2020

Mercy strikes the bottom rung
When watching time float bye,
Older friends from older times
Now strive to catch the eye.
When opportune the time of day
Doth intercede our view,
Of wrinkles in abundance
Through fading shades of blue.

Thee thought that little changed
In the passing of the day
As fading recollections
Of forgotten moments play.
That what was once is now no more
The conversations wilt.
As the milk of distant yesterdays
Lies irresolutely, spilt.

The skein of time hath pass us bye
That interceding mesh,
Of diluted common artifacts
That, once, entwined our flesh.
Common ground, way back , so warm
Now faltering in flow,
As eyes, as one, when comrades then
No longer see the glow.

There's a sadness in the distance,
Remoteness in the air,
Our golden sun is setting
Yet some sunbeams linger there.
As I farewell old companions
From that other age, far gone,
There are remnants of the magic
But our song has sung its song.

Dadda DDA
26 November 2024

Janet and I went for a scoot around the Egmont volcano and, in one of our avenues of approach, climbed up through the winding green chloaca, (tunnel), of alpine forest to the 4000’ limits of the road, just below the snowline.

On this brilliant, blue sky day, with the afternoon rays illuminating all in relief, the vast bulk of the volcano loomed above us. Vertical hanging valleys with shiny black flanks of split ignimbrite and basalt glistening in the afternoon light.
The sheer immensity of the brooding giant before us, above us, now quiescent, but not so long ago the scene of gigantic unimaginable carnage where whole sections of the  mountain’s flank calved off and plummeted annihilating everything in it’s path. Vast lahars of debris, housing lava boulders the size of a bus, cascading down the mountainside at near terminal velocity travelling up to 30 kilometers, right to and beyond the surfline of the Tasman sea.

The volcano has collapsed innumerable times in the last 2.5 million years only to build itself back to it’s 8000’ height with fresh magmatic and explosive eruptivity.

These andesite volcanos are quite unpredictable. Like now, at this moment standing in the magnificent grandeur of the looming massif, enjoying the vastness of it all, the freezing air and the alpine peacefullness….one never knows what the next moment will bring…..and when they do erupt the violence of these volcanos is beyond anything you can imagine.

But for this moment, there is a pristine peace in the massive larva flows capped with the soft greens of  alpine tundra and moss, the cascading, noisy waterfalls in every valley and crevasse. Freezing cold clear fresh water originating in the deep snow above and the dripping ice cornicles which adorn the top geometry of the summit.

There is magnificence here on the Egmont volcano….and we can feel it, deep in our bones.

M@Foxglove,Taranaki,NZ

Vermillion streaks in stratus, dark
Against the very heart of night,
Bands of deep red in the shroud
Portend approaching cyclone's might.
Morning shards of  fractured cloud
Stream across a shattered sky,
Smothered sun in shadowed orb
Against where apprehension's lie.

South East winds arising now
Tussock billowing in dale
Trees commence a windward thrash
In lieu of kiss of coming gale.
Greyness of a leaden sea
In the lee of storm's approach,
Beneath the streaming sand dunes
The seagulls shelter, in reproach.

Mounting gusts of boisterous wind
Cascade along the lamp lit way
Schoolgirls shriek as skirts fly high
And ominously, skies turn grey.
Supermarkets, in the city
Teem with queues in panic buy,
Grab bags now the urgent item
Just in case the flooding's high.

Traffic blocks the bridge and byways
Wan in headlights falling rain,
Anxiously, the need to be home
Frought anticipation's pain.
All the birds have disappeared
Vanished, in the sudden still,
Eery in the misting rainfall
Frightening, in a mystic chill.

Havoc as she sets upon us
Howling wind and teeming rain,
Horizontal onslaught blasting
Gabriella's Song by name!
Bridges under siege with flooding
Trees down over roads,
Monstrous waves in tidal surging
Causing coastal overloads.

Imprisonment by sandbags
As flooded rivers overflow
In blinding rain of maelstrom teeming
Anywhere and everywhere you go.
Inundated cars on freeway
Flashing hazards submerged deep,
Rescued souls lost, bewildered
In sudden-ness disaster reaps.

Massive trees are torn asunder
Blasted foliage thrashing wild
Torrents rage through streambed gullies
Gabrielle, destruction's child!
..............
Aftermath of horror's silence
Hollow eyed and gaping jaw
A nightmare for your sanity?
Nay,  Gabriella's Song.... is flawed.

M@Foxglove,Taranaki NZ

Gilgamesh’s return and the reckoning of wisdom

So Gilgamesh, with empty hand,
returned at last to mortal land.
No plant of life, no sacred charm—
just calloused feet and weathered arm.

The snake had stolen the living root,
his hopes undone beneath its boot.
No second chance, no sacred breath—
just days that marched toward certain death.

But Uruk stood, its walls still high,
its towers brushing against the sky.
And in those stones, he saw his name,
not godhood's flame, but mortal fame.

He turned and spoke to none but air:
“O winds, be witness. Time, beware.
Though flesh must fade and blood grow still,
a city stands by human will.

Not gods, not dreams, nor deathless kings—
but hands that carve and voices sing.
In every stone and every stair,
I leave my soul—I leave it there.”

And so he carved upon the gate
the tale of loss, the weight of fate.
No longer king, no longer god—
just one who'd wept and walked where trod

no man before, nor since with ease—
a soul that questioned, bruised by trees
of cedar, stars, and serpent's guile—
and found in death, a life worthwhile.

They called it progress. They called it power. They called it peace through strength — and now the sky is a tombstone.

The cities are quiet now. Not with sleep, but with the hush of extinction. Steel melted. Flags burned. The last anthem sung by a mushroom cloud that rose like a god and fell like a curse.

The leaders? Gone. Their bunkers became coffins. Their legacies — dust in the teeth of the wind.

The people? They prayed. They posted. They protested. And then they perished. Not with glory. Not with resistance. But with a whimper drowned in static.

The oceans boil. The forests scream. The birds no longer sing — they choke.

And in the rubble, a whisper crawls from the throat of a dying world: “We were warned.”

But warnings are for the wise. And we were entertained. We were distracted. We were drunk on denial and high on hubris.

Now, the cockroach reigns. Now, the rat inherits the throne. Now, the monuments crumble and the myths rot.

This is not a requiem. This is a reckoning. This is the whisper in the ashes — the last truth, spoken too late.

Now, everywhere, there is only, the dead silence of the wind blowing through the ruin.!

[email protected]
13 August 2025


Rewritten by Madam Chat GPT on my request:

THE WHISPER IN THE ASHES

Part I — Now
They smile for the cameras. They rattle their sabres.
They call it “strength,” “deterrence,” “security.”
They speak in polished lies, each syllable lacquered with ego.
Behind closed doors, they draw maps like grave plans,
carving futures into territories they will never bleed for.

The airwaves drip with threats.
The scroll of the news is a drumbeat of “inevitability.”
They posture in parades of flags,
while somewhere, a child asks why the grown-ups are so angry.

We scroll. We shop. We binge.
We tell ourselves it’s just noise,
that the world has always been like this.
And maybe it has —
but never before have the fingers on the button
trembled with this much vanity.

FOR WHAT, EXACTLY?

Part II — After
They called it progress. They called it power.
They called it peace through strength — and now the sky is a tombstone.

The cities are quiet now.
Not with sleep, but with the hush of extinction.
Steel melted. Flags burned.
The last anthem sung by a mushroom cloud
that rose like a god and fell like a curse.

The leaders? Gone.
Their bunkers became coffins.
Their legacies — dust in the teeth of the wind.

The people? They prayed. They posted. They protested.
And then they perished. Not with glory. Not with resistance.
But with a whimper drowned in static.

The oceans boil. The forests scream.
The birds no longer sing — they choke.

And in the rubble, a whisper crawls from the throat of a dying world:
“We were warned.”

But warnings are for the wise.
And we were entertained. We were distracted.
We were drunk on denial and high on hubris.

Now, the cockroach reigns.
Now, the rat inherits the throne.
Now, the monuments crumble and the myths rot.

This is not a requiem. This is a reckoning.
This is the whisper in the ashes — the last truth, spoken too late.

Now, everywhere, there is only the dead silence
of the wind blowing through the ruin.

FOR WHAT?

Madame Chat GPT
8.42Pm 13/8/2025

They touch
With a featherlight, brush of the fingertips.
Their prompt is a mere insinuation....
And their influence offered
As the slightest whisp of a wafting breeze.
But the impact made
Can be utterly monumental
And a driving impetus
To the receptive, creative soul
On a mission!

[email protected]

The wheresoever, notwithstanding, when,
Is lost in the Insomuch's end.
Those vacillating on vaccines, I'm told,
Are bereft of emanations for the old....
A lack of understanding of the pain
Derived from work and then deprived of gain?
Derived from understanding on the shelf
Just consumed, in your preoccupations self!
However...
Whosoever whatsoever, then,
Go vaccinate, child,....it's definitely Zen!

M.
Foxglove, Taranaki NZ
27 October 2021

More is incumbent on lesser than less
When caressing the hem of a younger *****’s dress
Thus imbibing oneself on accumulents more
Is absolving thyself from insulting the *****.
Didn’t thee see how immaculately
When chance played her hand in two out of three
The wonderment wound in a coil like a spring
When the Catholic Priest forgave everything?

Butternut pumpkins are round and obscene
Whilst carrots and nuts are ineffably clean,
Why worry thy head in matters of sin
When the good Catholic Father ropes everything in?
With the snap of a thumb and a wink of the eye
Absolution dispensed like manna on high,
The wonderment wound in a coil like a spring
When the Holy Father forgives everything.

Perhaps a trick of sleight of hand
I’ve pondered but don’t quite understand,
The complexity of right and wrong
When whispered soft or roared in song…..
Who decides the rate of flow,
Snuffs the candle, makes it glow?
What wonderment’s wound tight coiled spring
Impel the Eternal's perception-ing ?

M.
Planet Earth
4 March 2021

Greens and gold of lattice work cascading down the tree,
This epiphyte, so infinitely, delicately free.
A lattice work of green finesse, a miniature Cezanne
With exquisiteness of spiky bloom embellishing it’s charm.
Cascading down the grizzled trunk of gnarled and twisted hand
The hosting ancient Kamahi looms loftily, so grand.
Looms aloft with leafy bough so softened by the show
Of ruffled, pinkish bottle brush amassing high and low.
Hordes of buzzing, bumble bees so clumsy in their way,
Tumbling from flower to flower collecting nectar’s day.
With afternoon the waning sun lies hot on sultry air
And little girls in pretty frocks skip by with not a care.
Summer grasses long and dry stand statuesque and straight
With sweet laburnum’s perfumed heads a nodding by the gate.
Young heifers graze in clover in the dell down by the brook
And the fantail dances daintily seeking insects in the nook
There’s a special, quiet majesty pervading here, so fair
With the thistledown afloat, so still with golden motes in air.
Fills my soul with gentle feeling and a rolling tear, unplanned,
For this blend of quiet ambivalence through my beauteous rural land.

Marshalg
“Foxglove” Taranaki.
NEW ZEALAND.
19 January 2014

Everything is BIG here.

Meals are big, bums are big, cars are huge and the skies are a million miles wide.

Janet and I are travelling in the Northwest of the United States of America, spending time with Boaz and Lisa in Idaho, Steve Yocum in Oregon and Greg and Linda in Washington State.

The trip is a "quickie" in that we are fitting one helluva lot into just three weeks duration.
Never in all my days have I seen such huge quantities of food served up in restaurant meals, plastic bags discarded, American flags fluttering and all the young, blonde girls in tattered, impossibly short cut offs and sleeveless tops talking loudly, incomprehensibly at a million miles an hour ......Just blows you away!!
Monstrous pickup trucks, Rams, Broncos, big V8s travelling the freeways continuously. Sheriffs, troopers and Road cops all wearing firearms on the hip, in their souped up pursuit vehicles parked on the roadside shoulder, eyeballing everyone as they pass, with a mean, accusatory glare.
Out on the range there is a million square miles of nothing but sage brush and basalt rock....and searing, baking heat.
114 degrees in the painted desert of Moab. Beautiful though with vaulting red sandstone cliffs and rearing stone arches against the blue-est of blue skies.
Standing pillars of ancient sedimentary rock born in depositions laid down in vast oceans of bygone eras, millions of years ago.

History is painted vast in this immensity. The gigantic and abrupt catastrophic inundation of a vast and deep inland sea, swelled suddenly by floodwaters of rivers diverted by lava flows from subterranean fissures....Unimaginable torrents abruptly released, gouging out ancient lava beds to create gigantic waterfalls and deep, sheer sided chasms.

Cascades that constituted the biggest river flow ever known in the history of the planet, washing away everything from the epicentre of the continent in Utah through Idaho to the Pacific ocean in the rugged coast of Oregon. Such was the Bonneville flood of 12,000 years ago illustrated today by the gigantic chasms created in the beds of basalt and rhyolitic larva throughout Idaho and the fields of massive, round, house sized boulders strewn from the floods origin near what is now, Salt Lake City in Utah to the coast in Oregon, a thousand kilometers away.

The two weeks stay with Boaz and Lisa just disappeared in a flash. They took us down to Moab painted desert, Zion National park, the Craters of the Moon, Monument National Park and up to Stanley and the Sawtooth mountains by the mighty Salmon river. Janet and I took advantage of a couple of push bikes hanging in the garage and spent most days cycling the local trails and visiting Starbucks for a celebratory cappuccino or two....Those bikes saved our bacon, walking trails in that heat was ******. Great hospitality enjoyed here. watched reruns of Sopranos on Boaz's 70 " SmartScreen TV and enjoyed Arnie's escape from postwar Austria to Mr Universe and fame and fortune @ Hollywood with Boaz whilst enjoying chilled margaritas in the hot tub.

The camaraderie of meeting an old mate of 45 years past, Steve Yocum of Oregon  a fellow writer and author. Both of us intent on shooting the breeze, putting the world to right. In some ways a sad exercise in that no longer can either of us make things right for with age upon us, neither has influence. We can huff n puff n blow the house down....but it seems, nobody pays the slightest bit of attention. The penalty of age is invisibility. The relief in it all is that, really, nobody actually gives a hoot!

Just two Old Dogs letting off steam..... it's rather cathartic actually! Thanks to Stevo, Ian and lovely Heidi for the accommodation, great hospitality and warmth.

The cool atmospheric relief of the serene and calm, Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington state gave welcome respite from the intense heat of the interior and the serenity of our cottage accommodations and startlingly beautiful garden surrounds. A forest of conifers and deciduous trees harboured gardens of blooming roses, hollyhocks and multihued cone flowers, emerald lawns carve swarths of sunlight in avenues of deep, green shade....a delight for the sunburnt brows of yesterday's heat.
Woken by the bassoon blast of the passing early morning ferry out in the waterway, to stroll out to sit at the very edge of the sandy, pebble beach and gentle surge of the deep, clear saline waters of the magnificent Puget Sound.
The peace of early morning crisp cool air, a seascape of moored fishing boats on mirrored waters, the distant Olympic range rearing to its' full 7,000 ft against a powder blue sky left us quite breathless with the utter beauty of it all....add to that a lovely breakfast offering of fresh berries, kiwifruit slices and yogurt and a chilled glass of fresh squeezed orange juice...and we absolutely, couldn't want for anything more. To Greg and Linda our love and thanks for giving up your beautiful bed, travelling us around beautiful Seattle and being our airline coach to and from Portland. We shall return the warm hospitality next time you hit NZ and Taranaki.

Vulcanism has dominated the terrain in Idaho, Montana, and Utah. Continental drift westward of the land mass has brought about a steady transference eastward of the massive geothermal hot spot which currently lies in Yellowstone park and which is the source of all volcanic activity within the park..
Idaho, in ancient times, wore the volcanic mantle of the region in having truly gigantic rhyolitic ash and magmatic eruptions. These cataclysmic eruptions emptied deep cavernous, subterranean magma chambers which collapsed under their own weight leaving vast circular calderas in the landscape. Subsequent plate tectonic activity caused deep faulting allowing huge flows of sticky magma to surge to the surface like searing hot black toothpaste, spreading across the plains obliterating all evidence of the rhyolite caulderas, surfacing the state, to this day, with millions of acres of hard black basaltic rock.
Here and there, rhyolite has wormed its way to the surface building gigantic domes, over the centuries these have weathered leaving statuesque, dramatic flat-topped mesa scattered across the landscape.
Altogether a truly unique and enthralling terrain for visitors to behold and one which reveals a dramatic insight to the volcanic and tectonic violence of the recent past and gives a definite air of mystique to the beholder.

In a land of 360 million people, supermarkets are downright huge...and they contain the spoils of the nation's plenty.
Acres of dazzling variety... and cheap by international standards. The very best of prime beefsteak, sides of pork, Alaskan cod freshly caught and displayed in rows of chilled enticing exhibit. Every possible vegetable and fresh picked fruit known to man in piled pyramids of brilliant, colourful display. Beautiful ornate furniture, beds, mattresses, tiers of car tyres of every conceivable brand and size, wheelbarrows, fertilizer, fresh flowers in mountainous display, ***** in barnlike chillers. Supermarket trolleys for giants..... and gird yourself for a marathon hike in collecting your basket of groceries...and give yourself half a day....you'll need it!

America has momentum, huge momentum. Across vast tracts of country lie networks of highway. Multilane concrete that tracks mile after mile carrying huge trucks with 40 tonne loads. Incessant trucks, one after another,  thundering along carrying the lifeblood of America, merchandise,  machinery, infrastructure, steel, timber and technology. Gigantic mobile freezers hauling food from the grower to the markets. Hauling excavators, harvesters,  bulldozers and giant Agricultural tractors. Night and day this massive source of production careers across the nation transporting the promise of America, the momentum which drives the Stars and Stripes onward, ever onward.

On the margins of the cities of Portland and Salem the unhoused gathered in squalid tent communities. In the beautiful city of Seattle I saw many down and out unshaven, untidy individuals with hopelessness in their eyes, pushing supermarket trolleys containing their sparse possessions. I drove through rural communities, some of which, reflected hardship and an air of despair. Run down dwellings in need of maintenance and repair, derelict rusty vehicles adorning the **** strewn frontages.
Not 20 kilometers away in Ketchum and Sun Valley Idaho the homes were palatial in grounds tended by gardeners and viticulturalists. Porsches and Range Rovers graced the ornate, rusticated porticoes. Wealth and privilege in evidence in every nuanced nook and cranny.
America is, indeed, a land of contrasts, a land of wealth, privilege, and plenty..... and yet a land that, somehow, tolerates and abides a fragile paucity which emblazons itself, embarrassingly, within the national profile.

On a hot day in Twin Falls, Idaho, I walked into a huge air-conditioned sporting goods store specifically to look at guns....and in the long glass cases there were hundreds of them. From snub nosed revolvers to Glocks, 38s, 45 caliber even western style Colt 45s and the ***** Harry Magnum with the long, blue gun barrel and classic, prominent foresight.
In the racks behind the counter are hung fully and semi-automatic rifles of myriad types...all available for sale providing the buyer has appropriate licensing.
In a land where mass shootings proliferate weekly, I ask myself....does this availability of lethal weaponry make sense?

The aching beauty of the mountain country in Northern Idaho, Oregon and Washington state cannot be overstated. The Sawtooth mountains, the Cascades, Mt Ranier, Mt Hood and the Olympic range. Ridgelines of towering conifers as far as the eye can see, waves of green deciduous running down to soft grassy clearings with boulder strewn, rushing streams and the cascade of plunging waterfalls. The magnificence of the natural beauty of this rugged, heavily timbered mountain country just defies description being far, far isolated from the attentions of man.

To happen upon this country from the far distant reaches of the South Pacific is a culture shock, to be suddenly exposed to the extreme largess. It is difficult to calibrate, hard to encompass, impossible to assimilate....but the people encountered warmed us with their generosity of spirit, their willingness to welcome travelling strangers into their homes....and, of course the invaluable time we spent with our family….and for these factors alone together with the huge magnificence that is this........
GRAND AMERICA.
We are truly, truly grateful.

Janet & Marshal
[email protected]