Papa Country

The blue mudstone

Slippery as glass

Defines these lands

This is papa country

The valleys are bogs

Dangerous for heavy stock

The ridges are dry and hot

Until it rains

Which it does often

The vegetation clings to the hills

And the hills cling

To the skeletons of the earth

And the rain washes away profit

And old hope

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

A local & an urbanite

A city man turned boy

Out in these parts

We come here to shoot guns

Mainly at goats

But we won't complain

If our bullets hit

Pig or deer

I'm good I'm told

My ego is stroked

As the smell of fuel

Washes up the valley

From the wastelands below

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

Goats tumble as shells fall

And adrenaline rises

This is our "conservation project"

I'm not so sure

Maybe that's just a cover

For animal brain

As we choose

Who lives and who dies

I still see the kid who ran away

As I lined her up

And before I pulled the trigger

She dropped over the rise

Alone but not dead, yet

I still hear the tortured bleat

Of the billy that was not quite dead

Pain and fear. Pain and fear

"Leave him.The pigs will get him soon enough."

I'm not sure we ever agreed on exactly what "soon enough" was

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

My boots caked in blue mud

I wish I had brought more water

As the sun beats me down

I'm disappointed I didn't see the deer

I was too busy blasting stinkies

If I had seen it hop

I would have shot it

Resigned to my fate as much as he was

The brown thicket obscures what lies beneath

In a clearing we see five tiny piglets

Their Mum: in a belly, a freezer or dog tucker

They catch our scent and panic

We leave them to fatten up

I look the nanny in her eyes

A bullet through her flank

Immobile but wriggling

I lift her neck and saw at her throat

It's not easy like the movies

We amble and ramble

We aim and we shoot

We impose and impost

Tax men

Taking lives and leaving bodies

Slow cooked goat curry

We harvest back legs

From kids and nannies

As the eyes of the billys glaze over

They no longer see what has become

The ridges are dry

And the valleys are bogs

The blue mudstone

Defines these lands

This is papa country

Snap

Snap on
Snap off
Don't forget to tag off
The digital revolution is here

Mine at least is held together by cellotape
Please try again
Please try again
Please try again
Ohhhhhhh. Fuck. Off.
Just get me out of here
And no I won't forget to top up

Except now I did
And it's 8.30pm 
The dairies are all closed
And I never carry coins
Since they invented plastic

The robot teller only serves
Crisp twenty dollar notes
Have you got anything smaller?
I wish I did

The bus lady has nothing but 20 & 50 cent coins
As she counts out $12.00 worth of 20s
I feel 20 eyes watching me
Wishing they could kill me twelve different ways

This is my digital revolution
My card is not recognised
Please try again
Fuck this
I think I might walk

Come Summer, Come Winter

High tide becomes slack
As the moon retreats
And the ocean welcomes
Gravities hostages

The twice daily battle
For position
Is inevitable and endless

High tide, low tide
Summer, winter
Day and night
Sun and cloud
Life and death
It all cycles
But the full circle
Will not be finished
For a long time yet

And when I think of the bad times
I take comfort in knowing that they will end

And with the knowledge that they will be back
I make the most of when times are good

Because that's the way it is
And the way it must be

The Storytellers

My hands lie still
And yet they still tell stories
Episodes of a live lived
Neither poorly nor with constant excellence
But a life lived none the less

They tell stories of good deeds and stupidity
Mistakes made
And debts paid
I regret none of it

Both are freckled from the ferocious sun
I am wary of the harsh rays
That pull melanin from my cells
And tattoo my body

No doubt some grizzled medical professional
Will some day gouge
A cancerous mutation from one of my hands
I will try to avoid that
If I can

While freckles denote too much sun
The white freckles under my nails
Denote a lack of something else
Zinc, apparently
All kinds of snakes 
Have tried to sell me a cure
And I bought none of them

They tell stories these hands
The scar on my right thumb
From leap frogging a concrete pylon in Dunedin
Drunk of course

The thumb nail is slightly retracted
From when keratin met the meat slicer  
While I was teaching the new guy
How to safely slice reconstituted turkey

My thumb still peels 
From the dishwasher chemicals
Chemical dermatitis
Three years on
The myth still owns me

My index and middle
Bare the almost invisible scars
Of an aluminium door closing on them
When I was nine years old
I sometime wonder
What would have happened
If I had lost those fingers

My fourth finger and pinky?
Boring
But they played a part
In making sure I forget

The back of my hand
A constellation of freckles
On a new skin canvas
Bombing a small hill on four small wheels
And eating shit on stones
But the main thing is
I saved all the beers

My left hand
The gimp
Don't throw too good
And plays lousy guitar
It's quite good at clapping I guess
Or maybe it's all the right

No
It's a good hand
It holds the page as I now write
It holds the fish as I sever flesh from bone
It holds my second beer
Because sometimes one is not enough
It holds the branch as I saw wood
To keep my friends warm

The one scar my left hand holds
Gifted by a barbed wire fence
And I ran through the forest
And shared my blood with the earth

It's the hand that touched my grandfather
As he lay in state
And I knew he was gone
For he was wax

It's the hand that touched her last
As she walked through the gates
And I miss her
But it can never be undone

It's the hand that cradles
My unborn child's head
As I hold and are held
By love

My left hand holds
My grandfathers signet ring
Manu Forte
The Strong Hand
Almost seventy years old
It is worn because it has lived life

And that's all I can ask for
At the end when I am wax
That I am worn
Because that will mean
That I have lived

The Good Ole Days

Times ain’t what they used to be
I remember the good ole days
When boy scouts helped old women across the street
And a neighborhood was still a community

Whatever happened to the youth of today?
Spoilt and rotten
Bad eggs
The produce of a society gone sour

What about those good ole days
Way back when?

The good ole days in ’72?
When human beings they called Charlie
Were napalmed and his family too

The good ole days 1945?
Sixty million dead
And only the lucky survived

 Or the good ole days in 1349?
When Black Death rode his skeleton horse
Surely that was the happiest of times?

Whatever happened to the youth of today?
The drink and the drugs
The gangs and the thugs
It was much better in the good ole days
Or so they say

What about those good ole days
Way back when?

The good ole days when Romans ruled?
And the ‘civilized’ fed human beings called Christians to lions
 And the crowds roared

The good ole days when Muldoon had a job?
When he liked to think big 
And kick out human beings they called FOBs

The good ole days when the poll tax was in place?
To keep out the human beings they called chinks
And save us from the yellow peril 

What about those good ole days
Way back when?

The good ole days when human beings they called niggers were hung up in trees?
For being the wrong colour
In the wrong country

The good ole days when only half of the population could vote?
When women knew their place
And did as they were told

The good ole days when human beings they called faggots were beaten?
For daring to be different
Colour is not tolerated in this beige world

Well I’ll tell you about the good ole days
The good ole days were never here
They are nothing but the one eyed memories of those who came from privilege
Who grew up on the right side of the fence
And those who would rather forget

Our forgetfulness is our downfall
We are cursed to repeat the same mistakes
We will never learn
The future of humanity
Is written in last years newspapers

Taieri

Oyster catchers trot away like sheep
Their old tired backs bent and shoulders hunched
Wrapped in a jet black shawl
Even on beautiful days braced against the perpetual storm

The little blue penguin lies in state
No one to pay their respects 
Except the tiny mites that knock on her eyelids 
Shouting “Let me in! Let me in!”
“Let me feed on your sweet rotting flesh”

The sand dunes collapse at the sight of me
I congratulate myself at my powers of persuasion
And I move on

The waves tease my feet
“Come closer” they say
And so I do
And so they send a big wave
That wets me to my knees
I know how this game works
But sometimes it’s more fun to be naive

I poke at big piece of bull kelp
A thousand sandhoppers jump
For joy or fearing for their lives
I wish them all the best as they
Jump to find a good mate
Or something wholesome to eat
Or somewhere to rest their weary heads for a while
For they know the meaning of life
Those three things
And don’t let any fool tell you otherwise

I pass a dead red-beaked gull
It’s head raw flesh
Partly devoured by black flies
Who lay the eggs of the next generation
Life and death are never far apart

At the river mouth
A harem of sparrows tell each other about their day
They flit between dead bush lupins
While the Agave america watch on
Their giant spears of seed
Stabbing at the sky

The lagoon looks void of life at first
But rewards come to those who wait
Tiny shrimp dart about in the shallows
And juvenile fish dart amongst the shrimp
The whelks quietly go about their business
Continuously rasping from one day to the next

A light breeze teases
There are no zephyrs in these parts
No one to tell them
How they’re supposed to live

The tides rise and fall
With my footsteps
I walk and I think
And I know
It is all holy

Bones

The letters on the page
Are just bones for my words
Billboard frames
Scaffolding

I hang meaning
Like flesh and blood
Bold scenes with brush
I paint words