I was painting a portrait the other night,
    when I figured this out; so let me paint you a picture now.
See I’m a writer, and not a very good artist, and I’m overly clumsy
    and far too bulky for my own good.
I have a boxers’ hands to go with a boxers’ grip which is the worst
    way to grab a paint brush unless you want to tip over your paints.
And that’s exactly what I did.
I tipped over that tray thing with the little slots for all the different
   colors of paint to keep them separated.
They went tumbling to the floor and they all mixed together and
   became one, and there was no more white, no more purple, no
       more yellow or red.
There were no lines to color in or outside of cause the paint was
     everywhere and I left it to dry instead of calling it a
                      “mess that needs to be cleaned up.”
I gave it a chance to become its own thing.
And it didn’t.
It just remained sprawling on the floor.
But at LEAST it was given a chance.
And then I turned on the TV to see that cowboy has-been from Gran
     Torino talking about how this is a “***** generation” and how  
             everyone is too Politically Correct.
He said we used to not be afraid of words like '******' and '****'
    and we walked around proudly in our own neighborhoods,
         and I immediately turned that ******* off.
Not to ignore it, but because I couldn’t respond to it.
I’ve been screaming at the TV for 32 years now and have determined
     that either they can’t hear me or they just don’t give a ****.  
It may be both.
But I want to scream.
I want to tell him that people still aren’t afraid to use those Words; they just choose not to.
I want to tell him that they still walk around proudly in their own neighborhoods, and they are even more proud that he doesn't live here.
But all that’ll lead to,
is an Us vs. Them mentality,
which eventually leads to wars.
We can’t have a war.
Not based on this.
And there are people out there who want that, and there are a
   lot of them.
And they are using those words and they are walking those
      neighborhoods, and they are posting on Alt-Right Message Boards
           and talking about how the White Man is going extinct and how
                   they are the minority.
They white-wash phrases like “White Supremacist” to become
   “Racial Purists” and I realized that they just gave us the answer.
We need to spill the paint.
We need to fall in love with people of color.
Any color.
Every color.
We need to spill the paint and mix it together and make new colors.
And it’ll take a long time, but anything worth doing is worth doing
     right.
And there will be no more primary colors and secondary colors,
    there will only be people.
But its not enough to mix the colors, we have to clean up the act too.
We have to raise our children of all colors right.
We have to tell them that no color is better than another, and that you  
    can draw a painting with just one color, Because that IS a choice!
You can surround yourself with just one color, and only use just one
       color your entire life, but what kind of a life is that?
You walk down the street and the Roses are grey. And the trees are
     grey. And the grey men at the bar are hitting on grey women
          outside and the bartender is pouring grey goose for everyone
               trying to wash down the fact that something is definitely
                      wrong.
We need Red roses and green trees and black men with white women,
      and Asian women with white men, and everyone needs to just start
           mixing and loving, and loving to mix until there is nothing left to
                 stereotype.
Nothing left to minimize, undermine, or scrutinize.
And if we don’t do this soon,
I fear there may be nothing left to scrutinize at all.

When I was little I would watch
Clint Eastwood on the tube,
Rowdy Yates from Rawhide
In black and white and crude.


He played a young man showing
All the attributes of youth,
With an exciting way about him
That burned with living truth.


Spontaneously cowboy
And fastidiously right,
He filled the part with action
And the character was tight.


He represented all the things
A small boy wants to be,
Young, bright and coiled to go
A special hero… Just for me.


Through the years I’ve tagged along
Watched him play the arts,
The action roles, the love story
And the recent wrinkly parts.


I’ve loved ‘em all and celebrate
The fifty years of fun
Of trailing after Eastwood
And his epochs in the sun.


Play Misty, Iwo Jima
***** Harry too,
Gran Torino, Million Dollar
Spaghetti westerns through
The Bridges and Rowdy Yates
The common touch in all,
For every day people
In an every way call.


Hero’s come and hero’s go
Some fade away to die
Thank God professionals like Clint Eastwood
Just keep reaching for the sky.

My thanks Old Son.....for a Great Journey!


Marshalg@the Gate
Mangere Bridge
New Zealand
4th February 2009

He thumb is green
He grows a lot.
Wether it's in age or flowers
Or weeding pots.
His dog is about as as gray as he
And they shuffle around outside
Shuffling.
He keeps his time well to himself.
No use for material wealth.
Keeps up his ride
Each Saturday at noon
Goes to church every Sunday with his wife
How cute.
Picks out the litter outside my porch
With his quiet little stroll and cane
While I smoke and watch.
We had a conversation about music once
About Simon and Garfunkel, Skeeter Davis, and the Beatles.
He has some ink on his arms from youth
Back when he was fighting wars too.
Military vet
I know cause his wife likes to brag.
He's always asking how my day was met.
And I asking to help
To carry his bags back to his house.
No thanks, I'm fine.
You're so kind to ask.
You don't hear those kind of words from my generation class.
I saw his kids visit only once.
Like gran Torino, he just tolerates the bunch.
Get off my lawn!
With a shotgun in hand.
He'd be so badass had he done that, man.
Always first with his helping hands
Trying to spruce up the surrounding land.
Maybe I would too if he
Showed me how to plant some seed.
My garden is imaginary
But real flowers grow on his side of the street.
The elderly gent in 608
Is someone I look for on a daily rate.
I wrote of him because he's entitled to
Being heard of and remembered too.
But don't tell him you heard it from the chick who lives in 702.

Those days recall less colors
and even less sense
With longer hair like Jackson Browne,
Pensively reeling in half rhymed ballads
walkin’ like Dylan and shredding our voices
like Springsteen.
“walkin’ real loud…”

When poets sang and singers
Listened, from a freight car door
Waiting on an old white fence
Anything that made an album cover.

My crew was meticulously unkempt,
one day shy of a much needed shampoo
but okay -
we were just 'okay' then.
...Surely for another day.

Our moms were old with
thick rimmed glasses and smoked
and our fathers,
they were smoking men too
wearing two shades of gray
tucked in all the way… around
And around, my dad and I went.

We spoke with twisted lips
Groomed our eyes and looked out
From behind narrow poles
and ***** brick walls
That gave, what we knew of our souls,
This, sorta clandestine refuge.

And our pockets
Were empty, our wallets -
were empty .
Except a beer cap and a phone number,
Scribbled and torn from the corner of
a Houghton Mifflin textbook.
“I’ll call her when I get home.”
Let’s go home.

Sitting on the hood of my Torino
I scanned the streets, smelled the tar
Of our last summers burning.

These girls hugged their diaries to their chest
and we’d gaze
we’d gaze through
Sunlit dust and dandelion fairies
eager to unbutton their secret stories about us,
always about us,
and our eyes made such nimble fingers.

We were outward bound on inward glory...
always thinking about love
hoping on plans that’ll get us "laid" by
a girl who wears daisies in her hair.

Big sweet flowers for the butterflies
Stirring in our stomachs
Fluttering to land softly at the entrance
of her big – sweet - flower.
My generation loved love.

Do you remember those seasons in the sun? Carefree days of laughter and fun..
Remember seeing Star Wars and Close Encounters with a soundtrack by ABBA The Bee Gees and Boney M.

Do you remember playing football in the park. Staying out riding bikes until dark. Remember Kevin Keegan, Bjorn Borg and James Hunt. Iconic images of Concorde's first transatlantic flight.

Do you remember watching Space 1999,  Planet of the Apes and Dr Who from behind the sofa. Remember space hoppers and friendly village coppers. Endless lazy summer days soaking up the suns rays.

Do you remember Steve Austin, the Bionic Man. Getting a 99 with a flake from the ice cream van. Remember how cool were Starsky and Hutch and wanting a red Ford Torino.

I remember those seasons in the sun. I remember carefree days of laughter and fun.40 something years ago, where did the time go?

That little boy who cheered when the Death Star exploded, hid from the Daleks and danced to Rasputin and Ma Barker still lives within my memory and in my heart.

It broke and with it
me,
things do and then we mend
if
time kneels before the needy
and if
the clock turns slowly on the hour
otherwise
we stay broken,

insights into the faraway
looks that stay as scars fade and
beds made to be undressed in
hot flushes
everything rushes by so fast
the moments never last
the past drags us down,

if we're really lucky we disconnect
don't feel the pain
even when it happens again and again

I'm hanging on and only to see where
it all went wrong,
where I broke in two
these are the things we do
when
we don't know.