Dusk across a severed sea
Immortal tones impaling me,
Dulcet grey striated lines
Across horizon’s luscious wines,
Of setting sun in huge refrain
Melting into falling rain.
Exulting in this feel of brine
A-washing curling toes of mine,
This gentle wash on seashell shore
As wavelets surge in even score,
A symphony of tidal sound,
Enveloping in sense-surround.
And chorusing from arrowed flight
Of seabirds, overhead, As night
Advances with a first stars’ hue,
Imbued with velvet dreams of you.

M.
Morocco
May 1967

Light and deep shade dancing
As I stride the mountain pass
My fascination prancing
As appreciations bask.
There's a tui in the cherry
And a magic song he sings
As he annoints the morning air
With the joy a summer brings.
There's a vibrancy a-hovering
And a crispness to the feel
A clarity so scintillating
One might, actually, doubt it's real.
A sky, so blue to be azure,
Extends across, on high,
Cloudless with a baking sun
Impaling you and I.
These old volcanoes soar aloft
They, now quiescent, stand,
Clad thick in stands of Kamahi
And towering Rimu, grand.
Great Egmont with her snowy crown
Rears high above it all
To dominate the beautious-ness
Of ***** and waterfall.
A tiny fantail flits about
And so entrances me
With aerial bombardments, flung,
In near impossibility.
The song of rivers plummeting
Down ferny glades and stone-
Causing me to laugh aloud
In serenade of home.
And sauntering through this wonderous-ness
Of magnificence in green,
This glory of New Zealand,
Is, indeed, the very best ...I've seen.

M.
Midsummer Taranaki, NZ
30 January 2021

Phantom thoughts slip through my mind, Like silken wraiths they writhe
Mercurial to intervene, tangentially to scythe,
What may be now is thought to not, if indeed, perhaps
The radically converse occurs to cause abrupt relapse.
Convolutions open up to percolate abreast
Rendering confusions to confusion, I attest
…And in dampening creativity, thus supressing all I love,
I’ve determined to forgo the **** & blithely pray to He above!

M.
1 June 2017

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.

Across this green and verdant land
Atop the snow capped reaches high,
Shadows lengthen as the sun
Descends in golden strata sky.

Alone I sit on granite stone
Contemplating nature’s gold
Why then, is my mood so dark?
Why then do I feel, so old?

I caste my mind across the sea
To continents adrift and lost
Where war and famine grow unchecked,
Where we, afar, won’t count the cost.

Where we who dwell in peaceful air
Rescind concern for they who bleed,
In Syria’s protracted scream
Or under Russian jackboot greed.

Where we who dwell in peaceful air
Withhold our roar of hot retort,
Who turn the other cheek to look
Away from honour’s last resort.

Where politic’s impotent bleat
Of sanctions threat for Cossack cheek
A nervous holding hand depicts
The West’s resolve is proven weak.

Instigators, born of wealth
And power, seeking more and more,
Manipulating Putin and Obama's
Calculated Chess game score.

We who watch with no comment
In green surround and peaceful sky
Now turn to look the other way
As they in distant places die.

Do we come to terms with this,
This dereliction born of loss?
Across the globe this dirth of care,
Humanity's lead albatross?

M.

Piece together portions of an ever shrinking memory

Sift the extraneous, consolidate the sound,

Rid thyself of factions preposterous and fractious

Crystalise the essence of essential and profound.



Immortalise sensations of sweet rapture incarnate

Clutch to your breast all good warmth from the past,

Know what’s retained is the BEST of your being

Treasure each recall and pray that it last.



Love each moment with ardour of passion

Value the brilliance of colour and sound,

Savour the sweetness in apricot nectar

Indulge like tomorrow will NOT be around.





© 2012 Marshal Gebbie

For every leaf in Autumn’s fall
A child is lost without recall,
For every song that’s sung for love
A child is whipped by callous glove.
For every latte shared in joy
There’s *** abuse to some small boy,
Each million dollar haul of art
Starvation stills a child’s young heart.
When tears of joy cascade in breeze
A thousand homeless children freeze,
For every morning sunbeam clear
The cloud descends on some child’s fear.
For every excess we consume
Mass underprivelaged children loom,
Blond beauties all attired in red
Unwanted babies left for dead.
Massive plenty for the few
Dispossessed small children *******,
Privelaged cold concience clear
Little feet bequeathed the fear.
Global sympathy won’t change
‘Till effete thinking rearranged,
Sanity shall not transform
‘Till WOMAN leaders are the norm.

Marshalg
For the lost legions in our midst.
20 July 2011

Time comes, time goes, eternally this West wind blows

Friendships made and lost to time refracting now in yours and mine,

Habits of this dulcet day rehearsed through time then blown away

To re-emerge in pastures new where recollections loiter through,

Recollection's pleasure freed when friendships warmly intercede.



M.

Goodbye Auckland, hello Waikato.

8 September 2016

"In peace our nations unite"
...to do exactly what?

Wring our hands in horror?
Write to the Gazette?
Retreat to the safety of our invisibility?
The sanctuary of our silence?
Quiver, hidden in the doubtful safety of the masses?

Most people will do this,
lament the tragedy and let it slide with a shake of the head and a frightened, pious silence...

When in actual fact.....
what we all should do is take up the drum and beat it deafeningly, furiously...and together, roar our fury to the powers that be....

That they take up the sickle and pursue these creatures to the end of the earth and deal to them once and for all!

Amen
M.

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.

We come, we go
The west winds blow,
Like shadows in a giant expanse
We pass through life's exquisite dance,
We touch, caress
Endure duress,
We love, we hate
We watch abate
The highs, the lows....
The west wind blows.*
M.

Sudden inertia, like syrup in veins,
Slows the momentum to halt.
Beleaguered confusion breeds in the crowd
To cause a contagious revolt.
Systems of systems collapse in the void
Order in chaos descends,
Panic in vacuum like flame in the fire
As all civil behaviour ends.
Stampeding bodies in wild disarray
As collisions now ****** the floor,
Tearing, gouging and thrashing the mob,
All clawing their way for the door……..

Now there is silence to wild disarray
Chaos to shambles, now quiet,
Police and insurers surveying the ruin
Try to ascertain causes of riot.
Imponderable queries and theories put forth
Are concluded with negative frown,
Until a small boy points out with a smirk…
“Please Sir, the internet’s, ….down!”

M.
Frightening how, when the internet fails,
….utterly everything stops!
Sandringham
16 November 2014

A writhing tendril of harmony
Backdrops the gentle pulse of samba jazz.
Magnificent spiral of minor chords vocalised
Against the weave of a silken saxaphone.
Stan Getz and Luiz Rioja at play in 1963.

I find myself floating above earthly things
Wafted into a gentle world of yesteryear
When things were simple
And the passing crowd smiled into your eyes
With an open honesty.

[email protected]

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.

Donate to the destitute
Sniff at the rich,
To seek the improbable
Quest is a *****.
Porcine platitudes
Lost to mules
Who ignore good advice
To play us for fools.
Dead giveaway dreamers
Floating on air
Who stroll past pearls
To preen their hair.
Contentious *******
Grind their teeth,
Obsessing with conflict
Asleep on their feet.
Beautiful bodies
Deplored by the boys
Who prefer their own gender
To feminine ploys.
Bearded babies
Found dead in the sand,
Mothers distraught
Militarily grand.
Losing the truth
Is humanity's skill
In removing the just
In the rush for the ****.



Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
5 October 2009

In the shadow of Everest people are dying
Crushed in a chaos embirthed from beneath,
Emerged as destructor of temple and Taos,
Emerged as an innocent killer... bequeathed.
History crumbles as heavens roar mightily
Ghorka is dead in an avalanche of rock,
Beggars and potentates crushed  in the brickfall
Dharahara’s fall leaves men gaping in shock.
Shuddering mountains in avalanche of free fall
Wails of the stricken as quaking defiles,
Gold topped pagodas and statue of ancients,
Sculpture of lions now a rubble in piles.
Khathmandu in the clasp of calamity
Nightmarish forces arisen from deep,
Grasping the earth in their grip of profanity
Monstrously tearing the bedrock from sleep.
A techtonic ****** of Asia by India
Nepal’s Himalayas ****** to the sky,
Inconsequential, this plight of humanity
Nature proceeds as poor Nepalese die.**

M.
ANZAC Day 25 April 2015

In toasting Mike I recollect
His steady watching gaze,
I recollect his calm
On a thousand stormy days.
I recall his jaunty humour
In his funny cockney style,
And the rationale behind it
And the pleasure of his smile.

And the quiet determination
In the steeliness within
And the love that emanated
When his Jules laughed loud with him.
When he held her hand and strolled
In the life they shared as one,
In the racket of the grand kids
As they shout and leap and run.

Through the years of hardy seamanship
From England's chalky reach,
Across the ocean's vastness
To far antipodean beach,
To the soft greens of New Zealand
And the promise of this land
And the shining eyes of Jules
When he offered her his hand.

And the life they shared together
Through the joy, the strain the tears
The utter joy of baby Kristin
And her beauty through the years.
The seamlessness of craftmanship
In tradesman's art supreme
And the pride of his achievement
In a sweet successful dream.

A chasm has appeared in life
Where old Mike used to be.
Dreadfull death has exercised
It's right to set him free.
But I can't feel bad for Micheal
For the brilliance of it all
Is celebration of his life well lived
And my toast to judgement's call.

Marshalg
@theBach
Mangere Bridge
10 January 2010.

For Basil@Egmont

Old school hotelier, conservationist, mountain man.


Festooning drapes of weeping moss
Hang damply from the trees
Cascading lengths of dripping fern
Bring wetness to your knees
The clutching boughs of gnarled branch
The olive greens and damp
The winding path meanders up
This mountain's rocky ramp

Grey boulders in the river bed
The rush of torrents fast,
The song of falling waters
Plummeting into the past.
The flash of brilliant plumage
A  blue kingfisher in a dive
And the tragic death of this field mouse
Means other creatures stay alive.

The mammoth mountain hangs above
The snow is clean and white
The cornice shadow aqua blue
Ridge ice is sunlight bright
The summit wind is blowing hard
The snow is curling round
To recreate a billowed crown
Atop that seaward mound.

A dancing *** is eyeing me,
Impossibly it clings
Inverted from a totara trunk
With rapid flitting wings.
Exploding from it's hiding place
A ponderous pigeon *****
And weaves it's way between the boughs
With noisy wing tip slaps

The magic of this secret place
Is the drama in the air,
The solitude of teeming life
In green-ness everywhere.
The hardness of the freezing night
The harshness of the wind,
The grandeur of it's wilderness
Paints splendor as it's sin.

Taranaki's goblin forest
Is resplendent in it's garb
Of emerald green and turquois-ness
And rugged rocks and shard,
Cascading rivers, waterfalls
In sweeping walls of trees
Where pools of still transparency
Bring you breathless to your knees.

Where Egmont's goblin forest
Will make your spirits sing
And the urge to climb another mile
Will reward you with something
You had not bargained for in visiting
This remote and splendid place,
......It will reward you with a warm,
And knowing smile upon your face.

Marshalg
Dawson Falls Romantic Hotel
Mt. Taranaki
15th September 2008

Roiled in his writhing way
Mankind's ****** in manic play
Hurled forth to War's lament
All, once valued, sadly spent....
Pedantic though that beast may be
Enthralled by battle's fantasy
Of how it led in lethal boast
To death within appeals wry host,
Was this the way our world must lie,
Engorged, as bloated watchers cry?
Be this our fate in humankind
Where sighted saw whilst being blind?
Un-guided, now, this way of God
Where Caesars ghost, once sought and trod?

M.
September 12 2021
Planet Earth

While reading an article last night about fathers and sons, memories came flooding back to

the time I took me son out for his first pint.

Off we went to our local pub only two blocks from the cottage.

I got him a Guinness.  He didn't like it, so I drank it.

Then I got him a Kilkenny's, he didn't like that either, so I drank it.

Finally, I thought he might like some Harp Lager?   He didn't.   I drank it.

I thought maybe he'd like whiskey better than beer so we tried a Jameson's, nope!

In desperation, I had him try that rare Redbreast,Ireland's finest.   He wouldn't even smell it.

What could I do but drink it!

By the time I realized he just didn't like to drink, I was so feckin ****-faced I could hardly

push his pram back Home.

Dust on the ledge, before me, magnified
Smell of gun oil in my nostrils and cramp in the calves
The boredom of the wait intensifies,
Stale air in my loft is full of must
With the failing light I’m grateful it is almost time to stand down.

Through the cross hair sprints a target
An ordinary, everyday, running target,
I know not who this target is,
I know not why it runs across my sights,
But because it is, where it is,
It becomes my enemy.

In a microcosm of time
the loud bang alters things forever.
The buck of the rifle’s recoil,
The immediate sour stench of the shot washes back across my face.
The intoxication felt, in being the one who caresses the trigger.
The satisfaction earned in deservedly making the ****.

My target spirals in mid stride,
Contorts in agony
And collapses to the rough tarmac
To lie dishevelled, an insignificant, dishevelled item.

Checking the **** through the telescopic sight
I see the rough stubble of the chin,
The nicotine stain on the fingers,
I see the colour of the eyes are pale blue.
…I know well, it will breathe no more.

With descending twilight
I trudge from my tower perch
With the long ****** rifle slung across my weary shoulders
The  crones in the street glare as I walk by
There is a loathing in their aged eyes, It is a tangible thing.
I know they have no knowledge of the target,
But they know, however, that there has been a killing made for the cause.

A cold beer would be nice.
God! how I hate these young punks with purple hair.*


Marshalg
Gaza, Palestine/Mogadishu, Somalia/Kabul, Afghanistan/Tehran, Iran/Cairo, Egypt/Islamabad, Pakistan/Soweto, South Africa/Dier El Zour Province, Syria/Beirut, Lebanon/Baghdad, Iraq/Tripoli, Libya/Pristina, Kosovo/Grozny,Chechen Republic/Veracruz, Mexico/Guatemala City, Guatemala/Sao Paulo, Brazil/Moscow, Russia.
27 November 2012

There writ in ancient sanscrit text
The answer plain to what lays next,
The answer writ in common tongue
So aged could understand with young,
A secret held within the grasp
Of Kings and Prince of Priests of past,
A secret hidden to confound
All humankind from fact profound
To keep it locked, withheld secure
By gloating greed with goal impure.

Bound in parchment yellow gold
And tied with thong of leather old,
Letters writ in feeble blend
So frail that few could comprehend,
A revelation wrought so hard
That weak might well slice wrist with shard.
I charge thee all take hold within
To gird thyself for message grim........

"Beyond the end there lies a void
A pitch black nothingness employed
In silence, nay beyond all sound
With deathly stillness all around.
Nothing felt and nothing seen
No sense of good or rank obscene.
Not up nor down, no smile nor frown.
There's no tomorrow in the air
No brilliant light or horn fanfare
The men in pulpits sold a lie
For at the end we merely...DIE!"

Marshalg
At the Crypt of the Ancestors
10 July 2013

In that split second
It came to me.....
It really didn't matter
That the world was going mad,
That egos were digesting themselves,
That in the dusty, war-torn streets of Gaza
Little children cried and died,
That the possibilities for tomorrow
Were a mirror image
Of the ugly reflection of yesterday,
That the hunger for making it all better
Only made it worse.....

It really didn't matter
Because, out there on the streets,
Nobody really cared.

[email protected]
14 February 2025

It's raining in New Zealand
The Summer dry far gone
The rivulets are pouring
And gutters sing their song.
Cisterns gurgle noisily
Farm tanks overflow
Waterfalls are roaring
And streams to torrents, grow.
The harriers and pigeons
No more in heavens fly
Now closeted in green recluse
To keep their feathers dry.
Old man on the farm bike
Clad in boots and cowl
Clears the drains with shovel
As a grin succeeds his scowl.
For pastures drink the aqua
Its magic quickly seen,
As turf as brown as buggary
Fast turns a brilliant green.
The Heavens open up their heart
As teeming rain pelts down,
The children dance in puddles
splashing passing folk, who frown.
But the world's in celebration
As the big wet from the sky
Lubricates the laughter
Of joyous you and I.

[email protected]

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

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

Marshalg
Pukehana Paradise
Auckland
NEW ZEALAND
25th January 2014

The busy checkpoint at the entrance to Gate 21, the CY06 construction site in the north sector @ Waterview, is manned by a particularly nice bloke.

He, with his customary good nature, directs incoming traffic to its intended destination, controls access to far flung satellite work stations,

ensures, with deft manipulation, that pedestrian workers survive the incessant vehicular traffic constantly moving in and out of the site.

He knows what is going where and probably more to the point; he knows what is not going where it shouldn’t.

Errant intruders and jaywalkers are deflected efficiently and politely.

Seemingly catastrophic situations are dispersed harmlessly and with effortless panache.

Nobody here is offended…and the system flows like silk.



John@ the Gate is an under rated, key man in the organisation.

A small cog in this very big wheel who has quietly made himself, over time, indispensable…and indeed, a legend.



When, soon, the dust has settled, and the Captains and the Kings have departed… when the heavy plant noise has abated….

And when the traffic is flowing like a ribbon through the new tunnels and streaming smoothly over the majestic high flyovers…

The Spirit of John@theGate shall remain hovering in this place,

suspended vividly, in the memories of 1000 construction workers who have valued his contribution to the cause...

And have marveled at his, ever present, amazing, good grace.



Marshalg

Project Plant Co-ordinator

Wellconnected Alliance

Auckland.

1 September 2016

I’m blowing the whistle on they, those morally compromised fey
Who prey on the crowd all complaining aloud as collapsed mortgage fritters away.
Whilst the fat bankers dance a jig all the rip offs are ******* the pig
And at the end of the day, these protagonists say, “The Controllers here don’t give a fig!”
It’s the Federal Reserve that’s to blame and old Greenspan is floating in shame
‘Cos the system’s a sham and they don’t give a **** and nobody here’s naming a name.
Now the greed and the arrogance flows, how extensively, nobody knows
They all cover their bums and they snigger to chums as the de-frauded now come to blows.
For today’s finance, Government, sport and the God factory’s… all just a rort
On the verge of collapse or at least in prolapse, leaving truth and integrity…..BOUGHT!

M.
Auckland, 16 January 2016

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

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

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

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

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

Marshalg
Pukehana with my girl
21 October 2013

Wipe that teardrop from your cheek
Smooth the worries from your brow,
Go buy yourself that pretty frock
'Cos the Court Injunction's come through now.
All the hassle, all the fight
Evaporates and that's a fact.....
He gets to toss and turn tonight
For you're the cream that got the cat!

You turned it all around my pretty lady,
You saved the savage beating for the end.
You played a little ploy that emulated joy
But in fact it was a trap to make him bend.
And bend he did, my pretty, Oh how he did bend,
When the object of the exercise was clear,
He exposed his top ace card with unfortunate disregard
To resultant amputation's near and dear.
Now I'm not saying you are cruel little lady
I'm not saying you are anything but fair,
But the savageness of swipe does seem just a little trite
For he no longer brags about, what isn't there.

Moral of the story is simple, sweet and true
It's as plain as the nose upon your face,
If you're going to play about keep your trouser firmly out
Of the razor swiping range of lady space.


*As a poem this reads terribly...but it was an absolute giggle to create!
M.

Death drives fast in stolen car
Pursued en mass by cops afar
Down motorway of he and she
Who drive in innocence, legally.
Colliding in cascading mess
Of debris, dust and huge distress.
Face down upon the tarmac now
Handcuffed with glock at bleeding brow.

Whilst winding through a country glade
An opulence of deep, green shade,
A confluence of peace and quiet
Where nature’s art, in beauty, riot,
Where squirrels dart and rabbits munch
In turquoise grasses, lush, for lunch,
And sunspots sparkle in the shade
This place where poetry is made.

Juxtaposed, the concrete hash
Where ranting politician’s clash,
Where each, determined to be right
Adopts inflexibility's fight,
To hold to ransom common sense
Whilst seated stoically on the fence,
Committing all to farce and pain
Whilst pointing to another’s blame.

White waves wash the pristine sand
Where in Bermuda shorts, I stand,
Soaking up the tropic sun
In holiday, now just begun,
Far out I see a distant sail
Which tells a fascinating tale
Of opalescent crystal seas
Caressed by mystic scented breeze.

Juxtaposed, is terrors threat
Caste worldwide through Islam’s net,
Despite the protestations made
By Clerics, genuine, dismayed,
Permeated far and wide
Through violent death’s perverted pride.
Causing misery obscene
Whilst rinsing hands in blood till clean.*

Hark, a lark on yonder hill
It’s song, so clear, enduring till
It ends in silence… so pristine,
That tears stream down my face, so lean
And gaunt, so filled with joy am I
With gift of lark song sung to sky,
A gift, so sweet and clean and pure
If juxtaposed, it will endure.

Marshalg
Portraiture of my yin & yan in this day.
4 October 2013

Pelting rain adheres to soil
As spiders sprint and earthworms roil,
World in turmoil stinkbugs, stink
And Satan beetles disgorge ink
But thee, my budding, sodden flea,
Hath entertained quiescent....me.
M.

A golden shaft of morning sun
Threw lines of life to cirrus cloud
A flight of teal on wings of steel
Arrowed from nights flying shroud.
The gems of dew on emerald grass
Blazed crystal violet, hills of glass.

A day is born, a time to live and laugh
Feel young and happy, free as chaff
Caste in the zephyr breeze.

A tear of joy springs to my eye,
A grin, as big as life,
I fly across a meadow, leap a stream.

I’m happy for you Sue and Pete,
I celebrate with night’s retreat
The dawning of your daughter’s day
With all my soul I wish her well
Sweet happiness in life’s foray.

Bon voyage sweet Kathryn

Uncle Dadda
Hamilton
New Zealand 1969

Those ancient bones feel no remorse
They've trudged the mire and run the course,
Seeped the blood and moaned aloud
Despite the murmuring of crowd,
Despite the caw of she who brayes
Or of the friend, who nothing says.
Despite betrayals smoking gun
Or silence of the songs unsung,
Sweet sadly fading colour's pall
When rich chatreuse was your recall....
Loves lament in darkened lane
As lips, once kissed, now flee the flame...
Sad, so sad with no recourse
For ancient bones can't feel remorse.
M.

A lament for they, who cannot see
The glory in a windblown tree,
Who cannot feel enticement's pull
When confronted by a bull,
Who will not, in the space of time,
Relent to that, which is sublime,
Simplistic, in it's golden hue,
Sunlight blazed twixt me and you.

[email protected]

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marshalg
“Foxglove”, Taranaki
25 June 2015

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

M.

Then how, Dear Sir,
Oh please explain
Why Wetbacks suffer
So much pain?
Why clear across
This Southern land
The Mexican,
With calloused hand,
Wears sweating brow
For little gain,
To endure
The Insults' searing flame,
When draped, nay clad,
In racial slur
To which, it seems,
******'s concur?

M.

The rage I feel
At the loss of one so fine!
So young, so lovely, so calm, so together...so KIM!

I rage at the turbulent waters that stole her promise.
I rage at the annals of  chance which paved the way to her end.
I rage for the agony I see on the face of her father, her lover, friends and work mates.
I rage for the tears and heartbreak of my darling wife who loved this girl as a sister, since her days of skinny
childhood.
I rage for the missed moments of tomorrow’s laughter which will now, never be...
and the vacuum of fun in her words of dry humour, which will now, never be uttered.

I share this rage with ALL OF  YOU!...because the death of this beautiful young girl IS JUST NOT RIGHT!

But I DO CELEBRATE the GIFT of the PLEASURE experienced in sharing her vibrant, living years.

There is, however,  a wonderment here amidst the tragedy...
Because Kim voluntarily bequeathed the gift of hope to unknown others.
She gave three unknown people her organs, her heart, her kidneys, her cornea.
SHE GAVE THEM THE PROMISE OF A TOMORROW!

Her beautiful heart lives on in the soul of another...and for this I give thanks.

THE WINDS OF LIFE
by Marshal Gebbie

The wind careers across the years
Gathering leaves and dust,
Sweeping lives before it
In cartwheels of redness and rust.
Epiphanous moments of magnitude
Through special occasions employ
The will o the wisp of everyday stuff
From sadness to anger to joy.

The billowing tumble of living
Through vaulting halls of trees
In the dappled light of sunshine
And green corridors of breeze.
The exquisiteness of living
When senses soar in the air
When the colours of being are rampant
And we savour each moment with care.

For the living time goes quickly
It flares and fades with speed,
‘Tis best enjoyed boisterously
With passion, love and need;
‘Tis best when tasted piquantly
Like a claret on the tongue
When you cloak the days with good things
And you hope your dreams die young.

Marshalg
@ the Gate
Mangere Bridge
29th January 2009

Laughter is hilarious
Deliriously fun
To bust a gut with laughter
Is to know this day is won!
Merriment is everything
When rolling on the floor
With a belly ache from laughing loud
And looking round for more.

A funny anecdote for breakfast
A chuckle hovers on your lips,
You smile into each others eyes
And explode in laughing fits.
The goodness felt in laughter
When you whoop and slap your knee
Is the soreness in your tummy
After laughter’s roaring glee!

Frantic chuckles, clenched white knuckles,
It’s getting out of hand
I cross my legs in agony,
I need to ***, you understand?
Hilariously funny
When you laugh yourself to ***
But embarrassing to run for home
Without letting someone see.

It feels good to be exhausted
To be breathless in the chest
In the aftermath of hilarity,
The infectious grin surpressed.
The boost to your endorphins
Releases all the stress
And the lovely smile remaining
Has made this happy day… THE BEST!

Marshalg
@theGate
Mangere Bridge
2nd.March 2009

Stimulated by Neva's lovely verse "Layers of Faces"

Phasing from the pockmarked scowl
Of urchin from  the pauper's keep,
To fresh complexioned beauty
As she prepares herself for sleep.
Plunging to absurd
Amidst a paroxysm of mirth
With heaving breath and yellow teeth
Atop substantial girth.
A vacancy of shock
Within two eyes of palest blue
Who witnessed a young fledgling killed
By the cat who lives with you.
Dribbles from a masticating jaw
begin to dry
And a sudden bark of anger
causes feeding birds to fly.
A smile as warm as sunshine
Brings the pherimones to bear
And the young and the beautiful
Both magnetically stare.
There's a fan dance of faces
Stretched across the prosaic
And the layers within layers
Etch it all a rich mosaic.


Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
22 February 2011