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.

M@Foxglove.Taranaki.NZ

Strip into segments the colours of life
At the birth of my sons, loving my wife,
Like the moment of truth when, whilst shivering clear,
I went eyeball to eyeball with that, which I fear.
Like the time when the engine went dead in the plane
And I ditched in the pines to confirm the insane.

When my Father collapsed and died in my arms
And childhood departed with God and his Psalms.
When I first kissed a girl’s soft velvety lips
And felt, the wild rapture of hands on her hips.
Discovered ripe apricots fresh from the tree
Taste sweeter than nectar collected by bee.

Felt the presence of death compellingly near
Though the body was wracked, the thinking was fear.
Climbed impossible peaks that I dreamt I perceived
To weep the hot tears of a life’s goal achieved.
Laughed loud and long with the wind in my hair
Yet wept when an enemy lost to despair.

Pondered the mystery of what’s round the bend
Concluded beginnings are part of the end.
Compiling the rules to maintain my space
Lie in keeping the oddballs out of my face.
Clasping friends, so few, to my breast
Embracing the true and to hell with the rest.

Committing my time to my one darling wife
And thanking the Gods for this colourful life!


Marshalg
Sitting in the long summer grasses
3 December 2012

My road, with the dawn of a beautiful golden sun, took me to a little rural Taranaki town called Opunaki.
There my bride and I took part in an emotional, short ANZAC Day ceremony....where in an ancient clifftop cemetary, against the backdrop of a raging ocean surf, thirty souls and two dogs remembered the troopers who sacrificed for their country in two great world wars.
The New Zealand flag flew hard and the words of the old Priest were lost in the gale... but the tears ran freely down every cheek as the little transistor radio played the military horn's Last Post at full volume.

It was a slice of old Taranaki and a comemoration of the ANZAC DAY of years gone by.

LEST WE FORGET
April 25 2024

‘My Oldest And Dearest Friend’

It’s hard to explain the organic quality of a road unless you’ve been down it. Perhaps on a Motorcycle, in the dark and the rain, sometimes afraid, but always with your senses more alive than at any other time.

More feeling The Road than seeing it, and more wishing for the outcome than its certainty, The Road you choose is one that you must travel alone.

The Road knows that I am faithful and no longer in search of another mistress. I ride in awe of her beauty as she brings out the very best in me. Wanting her all to myself, she laughs at my folly, telling me that: “Of course, she belongs to me and to me alone,” as she watches me leave. The breath inside of me exhales, but the memory of what’s not forgotten lingers, and I go to bed each night in a cheap motel feeling her turning inside me once more.

Alone on her twists and turns, my thoughts become guided taking me to places in her grandeur that I would never have gone before. Never promising destination, only duty bound, allowing me to find myself within every drop and elevation that her direction leads.

The Road Only Travels One Way … The Way I Need To Go

I am with her during times of her sickness too. Sitting in the waiting room of her road construction, I watch the large machines rip open her back, replacing what’s vital within her and allowing her to take me to places I have never seen.

The mountains and canyons stand in awe of The Road realizing they only sit in reference to what The Road already knows. Without The Road, their splendor would only be a bleak reminder of potential greatness within themselves. Without The Road to tell the story, their narrative becomes self-serving and unwashed and then unknown — not even forgotten. It is only The Road and its traveler that carries their message for today and a thousand more as it has always been. Footpath or gravel, asphalt or concrete, the surface is only that. It stands as an invitation to the traveler who is quickly absorbed in the motion it instills.

The Road can never offer you safety — protection being the veil that keeps enlightenment out. The Road offers much more. In its total exposure, it removes all invisibility exposing you for what you are today while presenting again what its next turn may bring. The Road places all things in motion, carrying your message inside its spirit while delivering you to a place of immediacy where you arrive alone.

The Road begins where excuses end, leaving weakness along its apron, allowing only true meaning to pass through and by. The Road has no toll beyond the one you set for yourself and has no permanent ending. Endings are something that have already been discarded and left behind.

Do you wish to be great or just to live among greatness? The Road never makes you choose. The Road needs to be ridden like oceans need to be crossed — all meaning pent up in the traverse of its direction. Understanding is just a myth here. True knowledge waits in the deliverance of how you feel once the travel is done.

There is no deal making to be done with The Road, that is for the hitchhiker and those from a lesser time.

If The Road ever were to end, it would end in the transcendence of your spirit — the place where lovers go to die and children of a greater God are born again. The Road gives you this without your asking, and without praise or blame you are accepted for who you have now and forever become.



(The West: August, 2011)

There are miracles when I open my eyes.
The smile on the cat, the taste of strong coffee.
A Beethoven symphony while I taste dark chocolate.
I exist in the present, next week is nebulous.
The touch of my baby's cheek against mine
defeats the demons and destroys chaos.