The Valentine Papers

'Me Offsider Here.'

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With the torch switched off, Pita could, for the moment, ignore the damp press of the earth beneath his bare feet. Above him the pre-dawn sky was moon-down, cloudless, and so very black in contrast with the bright worlds that crowded it. Worlds that were just begging for exploration. The pre-dawn chill became transmuted into the cruel cold of space and Commander Pita Waru and his crew were traveling the distant reaches of the universe in search of habitable planets. The complaints of a dog chivvying its herd intruded across the still-quiet miles to summon Pita back. There could be no permanent escape. He was the child of this planet, part of its very substance. Between them lay a bond which, evading explanation, became almost tangible in these small morning hours. Soon, the dawn chorus of vacuum pumps would rise from nearby sheds and the magic that he was now sensing would steal away to hide from the approaching dawn. How many poor souls he wondered, now walled in by sleep, would live their entire lives and never know its subtle presence. But there was work to do. A cow to milk. A calf , cats, and hens to feed, and he must be home in time to eat his breakfast and catch the school bus. Lady had hurried on ahead drawn by the measure of meal in her feed box and, when Pita arrived, her long mobile tongue was striving to reach the last remnants in the corners. She was beautiful. A real lady in nature and bearing. Pita washed her teats and lubricated them with petroleum jelly from the tin on the bail-head. As always the first squirts gave a satisfying ’thunk’ on the bottom of the bucket gradually changing to a ‘squish’ as the milk level rose. Pita settled down to the automatic rhythm and turned his thoughts to George. His mother had told him that George might be a tough old rooster but that was the problem, he was getting really old. And indeed he was. With his wife long gone and pre-deceased by both of his children, at an age when any normal man would have welcomed retirement, George had sold his national waste-collection business and, unbelievably, had put part of the money into a marginal dry-stock farm in a predominately dairying area. He had then upset his critics by running it himself and doing much better with it than he had any right to do, prospering while some of the ‘real farmers’ in the immediate area were almost ready to call it quits following a series of poor seasons. Could there be any better proof that there is no justice in this world?

'Mrs' Burton

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The wedding ring is sham. The ‘Mrs’ shallow courtesy.
Poor thing she never will be bride as anyone can see.
Ungainly figure, features making plain that wit’s not there
Yet here she is near-time with child and under care.

I’m wiring fire alarms, she’s kenned my sympathetic ears
And pours into them constantly her catalogue of fears.
The staff puts poison in her food. There’s cameras in the roof
To spy upon her. “ Even in the toilets!” She claims proof.

A

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was a morning when spring displayed her new finery. A morning that had broken cool and fresh, with dewed grass and a new hope scenting the air. It was still. breathlessly still, and the hush raised to awareness the sounds of life that are more usually masked. And the warmth of a newly confident sun was a warmth that flowed through the body cleansing and renewing to everyone but Bram. Bram, held fast by his depression, was beyond its reach.

A

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When Kevin was little, he was very proud of his tummy button. It was a big sticking out tummy button on a big tummy. He would pull up his shirt and show it to visitors. His big sister Julia said that that was disgusting, Julia was older by seven years, and Dad used to pretend that it was like the stopper on the air bed and always warned Kevin to be careful that he didn’t let the air out.

A Beginning

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You and I are standing unseen and unheard on a wharf that holds a small group of waiting people. It is early morning and the sun has only just cleared the horizon. Before us a wide tidal river curves gently away both above and below our position giving, perhaps, a mile’s clear view in each direction and although the water is heavy with clay, as it always is, at this slack tide it looks a near perfect mirror.

A Big Hand for Softee

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve bought this software that writes quasi poetry
The breezes whisper to me of far Samarkand
I write a line. The next line it suggests to me
And foster fervent longing for that magic land
My words kindle connection in the software mind,
Palm trees are silhouette against vermilion sky
Sup-pos-ed-ly, though no connection can I find.
The night air wafting myrhh and frankincense and musk
Stupid software! Samarkand’s a modern city.
Hobbled camels belch and moan a common misery
Food processing, cotton, tourists (more’s the pity).
Clear desert air adds lustre to night’s jewellery
As old as Athens, Babylon, and Rome.
A meagre dung fire. Weariness! A day’s reach crossed
Alexander knew it. For Tameline ’twas home.
Software to Strabo….Bugger facts…..CREATE!!

A Crothall

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I had a real go at Jan and June today. There they are sitting at the workbench waiting on the phone. There’s me sweating over an alignment problem with one of those sets that Marlowe’s Furniture in Gatewell sells under their house brand. Cheap and nasty! Absolute bloody junk! Nothing to identify the maker and so no service information. It would be a waste of time me ringing Marlowes. They don’t like me. I’ve told them in the past that their sets are junk. I’ve been right through Rider’s hoping to find something under a maker’s brand name that looks the same, even vaguely the same, but no luck. I am far from happy.

A Good Aphrodisiac

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You look stunned cuzzy. Not surprising I suppose. I’m still coming to terms with it myself. But you must admit, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fella. I scored it off a leprechaun a few hours ago. He’d met his match in yours truly. #

Leprechauns are just imaginary you reckon? How would you know. Just because you haven’t seen one. It was a leprechaun, I’m telling you, and right here in little old En Zed. #

A Kingdom in His Pocket

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

His little kingdom has long since been paved with houses, houses, houses.
Reverted pasture, walked-off in the great depression, wilderness again.
Six hundred acres, blackberry, manuka, gorse, remote from roads was his.
His until war ended and a then-released suburbia would ravage countryside.
That wasteland had been visited by no-one else for years, perhaps his lifetime.
And since at ten a decade was forever, that specified the pocket virgin land
With he its first explorer hacking jungle trails clearing to clearing,
Breaching guardian thorns and vines charmed wards of hidden pools
Pools home to languid mottled fish not knowing man. He thought them mountain trout.
Years later, he would know them as Galaxia. No matter. They were his
To catch or, better, quietly sit and watch. Soul therapy this watching fish.
Even the most sociable have need at times for some retreat wholly their own
And this was his. His stargaze world. His kingdom of redemption and refreshment.

A Remote Possibility

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When Kevin was little, he was very proud of his tummy button. It was a big sticking-out tummy button on a big tummy. He would pull up his shirt and show it to visitors. His big sister Julia said that that was disgusting, Julia was older by seven years, and Dad used to pretend that it was like the stopper on the air bed and always warned Kevin to be careful that he didn’t let the air out.

About

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Richard Valentine Thomas has been an avid reader for as long as he can remember. Books came first, and always; the writing came later. It was in his fifties that he began composing the poems and short stories gathered here, and he has been at it ever since.

Born in 1934, he is a New Zealander, a father of six and a grandfather of ten. When he isn’t reading or writing, he is very likely to be found with a bowl of ice cream — a lifelong loyalty he has never seen much reason to give up.

Acceptance

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This childrens room of former days lies hidden in roof’s gable end
These many years unvisited. The children that it loved seem to forget.
They never call, but they were mortals, dead. Not knowing this it mourns
Lost happy times, the pillow fights, the books that burned the candle low,
The apple-pie-made beds, ghost stories in the dark, the endless arguments.
And sadder times, the in-disgrace ‘go to your room’ commands.
Which had it share hurt with its pets and try to give them solace.

After Everything We've Done for You

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Albertland was the last organised British settlement in New Zealand and largely Non-conformist. Its first two ships, the Matilda Wattenbach and the Hanover, sailed from the east India Docks in late May 1862. Two of my great-grandparents and their children were on the Hanover. The lure was the free land offered by the Auckland Provincial Council, Forty acres for each adult and twenty for each child. In Kent they could never hope to acquire their own land. Out here, with four children, they were entitled to one hundred and sixty acres although, to gain the freehold, they had to stay on the land for five years.

All in All

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Curtains gently twitch, eyes watch, lips sneer.
Our favourite morning spectacle takes place.
Much better than the soaps these newly weds.
So passionate and conning not their covert gallery.
With desolate leave-taking common entertainment.
“They’ll soon get over that. Give them a month or two,”
We tell each other knowingly.

But our derisive sniffs and snide remarks
Mask real regret for that sweet interval
When we ourselves saw heaven in another’s eyes
And craved no sup but from another’s lips.
Believing our’s the love that poets laud.
To last not months or years but for all time.
True happy-ever-aftering seemed ours.

All Singing, All Dancing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Ray’s full-time showman and self-publicist.
No chance to boost his image ever missed.
His stage our paper mill, his audience
The management with his performance
Masking the real truth.

More like a leading man than leading hand.
Giving his impression of a one-man band.
Efficient , head down, working without aid.
We others toil unnoticed in his shade
Finishing what he started.

Controllers changed with his panache and flair
He leaves for lesser mortals to repair.
The Prince of Patch-ups, his expediency
Has filled our ‘must-do’ board and one can see
He just makes work.

Almost a Mother

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The church emptied as those congregated followed the bridal couple out into the afternoon sun. There were the usual greetings and catch-ups from relatives who had not seen each other since the last family occasion, be it wedding our funeral, rapturous eulogies on the beauty of the bride, gushings over the bridal gown and on what a lovely couple John and Stephanie made.

One person alone remained behind in one of the pews. A woman in her late forties, neatly though somewhat severely dressed, with features that might be called handsome rather than pretty. Her face was now a disciplined mask but her eyes still showed signs of the tears that had refused to be held back during the responses. A few had glanced at her as they passed and wondered at her presence.

Alone Among the Saved

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Carl’s only here because his parents vehemently insist
They hope he’ll be converted by this ‘power’ evangelist:
That he’ll heed Christ’s urgent call, repent, decide.
He won’t. His head’s on straight. This movement has an underside,
Hypocrisy and sham that’s plain to see. How to explain
To these, the willful blind, so smug at being born again.

Though all are ‘Spirit Led’ and speak in tongues, speak prophecy,
Not all are equal. Some stand out and make the claim to be
Much more inspired. This visitor’s been touted in the press
As “renowned Bible scholar”,“father of the faith”, no less,
“Church planter”, “healer”, “author”, “founder of ‘Mission of Praise’.”
And after that, who dares to question anything he says.

Altruism

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Set way back in the hills is this Edenic lake
Tranquil mirror of the crags and podocarps.
A definite must-see with a decent road. But no!
A hellish ten-mile hiking track. That’s criminal.
As motorists, we stuck it to the Tourist People.

“It’s not fair to the invalides and those with kids.
These people just lose out.” That’s what we said.
But could they understand we’d made a valid point?
Seems not! No thought there for convenience
But every thought for costs and who must pay.

An Acknowledged Expert

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘Kunz’ was a regular in an internet chat-room. Anonymous as was everybody else and every bit as likely to be playing a role. With so many world wide seeking their life companion on the internet it is hardly surprising that this matter should come in for some intense chat-room discussion. Could one truly find love on the net?

From this discussion emerged a problem that many were having. The seeming impossibility of finding anyone of real value not just on the net but anywhere else for that matter. The bigger the city, the more people, the harder it seemed to be. How was it that some people could go through a number of marriages while others were unable to get to first base even once? Those looking for commitment rather than sex saw the easy and casual liaisons of these others as highlighting their own lack of attractiveness.

An Expert on Romance

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Only a few close friends knew that she was Penelope Summers the writer of a myriad of light romances in paperback. To everyone else she was Edith Martin Economic Consultant and the respected author of several books on economic history. She had the happy knack of making that otherwise dry subject understandable and even interesting to general readers without writing down to them.

The other writing, the romances, had begun at high school. Like many another school girl she had imagined herself as a latter-day Austen or Bronte and had diligently scribbled what she believed to be the definitive English romantic novel. She cringed now to think of her naivety. She had sent her manuscript single spaced (she knew no better) to the local representatives of an English publishing house whose address she had garnered from ‘Mill on the Floss’ in the school library.

Analyst

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This a genuine dream from some years ago. I described it at the time in three single spaced pages which made it too long for Like Minds. I hope that this reduction preserves the flavour.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF MY ANALYST.

In a particular dream I am much younger, married with no children, and living with my wife’s parents and her younger siblings. The house is located where my own family once lived in Station Road Dargaville and yet it is not the same house but this I do not question. What I do question is the strange T.V. that I find in the lounge on returning home from work. My wife will not give me a straight answer on its presence nor will the others. Eventually, it comes out that our T.V. has broken down during the day and been taken to a repair firm. The set is mine and T.V. repair is my trade and yet they have taken it to a rival firm. There could be no clearer indication of their poor opinion of my abilities.

And Yet Again

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I weep for you, the ones who caught
That first fleet crooked smile.
For now it seems ’twas all for naught
Those anxious months and birth’s travail
That in the end to this are brought.
So young to die.
I weep for you, the ones who bound
Themselves so unreservedly
To shape that life with values sound.
Whose faceless fears and sleepless nights
Go prematurely to the ground
With one so young.
I weep for you who listened for
A car returning in the night
That won’t return for ever more.
Who heard instead the dreaded knock
And found a policeman at the door.
So young himself.
I weep for us who blithely read
Of one more young life cast away
By someone else’s drink and speed.
So commonplace it fails to shock.
We turn the page and take no heed.
“I see we won the footy.”

Another Day

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Grey is the fashion colour here today.
Or so cloud, sea, and dunes appear to say.
The flying spume wets all and veils the view
And wind-blown sand, like shot, near pierces through.

Who would believe, amid this scene of blight,
This place, at other times, that quiet delight
Of friendly breezes, little waves that sigh,
To leave my heart content and heaven-high.

Now, huddled gulls, stiff-legged, their necks pulled in,
Cry all the world’s despair above the din.
As one they brace to face the cruel caress,
And share with me a mutual wretchedness.

Apricots

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Pretty isn’t the word I’d use to describe this house. Pretentious yes. A Spanish-style mansion that we can’t really afford. My late father-in-law, Frank’s father, built it early in the Midas-touch twenties when apricots were still worth growing. Now, we have keep it up, keep at least the minimum of servants, pretend to be prosperous, or have the circling banks close in. Appearances are important when one is relying on credit and in these times credit has become just so nervous. Here in California the apricot harvest and our profits come in May and June. The rest of the year it’s all outgoings. Since the bottom fell out of the markets we have had little spare cash of our own. In the mad euphoric times Frank did what so many others did. He bought shares on margin assumimg that they were going to climb forever. He lost the entire surplus that his daddy had accumulated and yet he doesn’t see himself as being in any way at fault but then I don’t see anyone else accepting blame. Our collective foolishness and greed has not only crippled our own country but financially crippled the entire world. I would doubt that we are the only ones in this valley fending off the banks and it’s coming up May when the trees set the rules. The pickers, the packers, those wandering homeless tribes, will soon be flooding into our valley. ‘The Associated Farmers’ insists that growers’ survival requires that piece rates must be made even lower for 1934 and none of us dare break ranks. Yet we are still meant to see ourselves as occupying the moral high ground in providing APRICOTS Page 2

Art

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

My simple rule aesthetic is
If I can do it, clearly it ain’t art.
The broader visual arts I mean.
Art that reaches out and touches,
Speaks.
Whether in the abstract,
Representational
Or somewhere in between.
That spark so unexplainable
Shared by the moderns and old-masters
Even fleet graffiti artists
Sometimes by small children
Though not, alas, by me.

HOWEVER,
I can gift-wrap buildings
Hang lines with frilly underwear,
Build empty rooms with random lights,
Sit clarinets and metronomes on chairs ,
Paint canvases with cryptic words,
Arrange piles of dried excrement,
Exhibit unmade stained-by-passion beds,
And ask outrageous prices for my ‘work.’

At Centre Stage

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She is a groupie though not in the normal sense.
Group Therapy, Encounter Groups her thing.
A chance to hold the floor, to bare her soul,
To tell a horror story to eclipse the rest.

And when current relationships break down,
Strange how they do, she takes off to another town
With added fuel plus stories from her former group.
These now hers to relate as personal history.

And, to be fair, she does believe them to be such.
She can relay them with complete conviction.
Have her audience hanging on her every word.
And doesn’t she just love it holding every eye.

At What Cost

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The majority of the several hundred mourners wore gang patches and motorcycle gear. They had swept into town about an hour earlier, a latter-day Mongol horde, their swift ponies from the stables of Harley-Davidson. A baggage train of police cars had followed discreetly in their wake.

This was the Dark Priesthood, a gang of the worst repute that had grown rapidly in recent years. Rachel’s relatives and the close friends who shared her religious views and had turned out to give support, were greatly outnumbered.

Back Out Fast

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“I’ve had five babies but the Welfare took them all away from me.”
A weary desolation clouds the voice of your unbidden guest.
This easy lay, this slut and petty thief, this poor pathetic creature
Is a mother too and grieves her loss as any normal mother would.

She’s in the depths right now. No job, no money, claims nowhere to go,
And though aquaintanceship is slight, she’s turned up at your door.
Housekeeping for a widower nearby, her service far exceeded duty’s call.
The farm boy jumped in for his share and both were soon sent on their way.

Boggle

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Nana reads her horoscope in The Herald every morning. She always says that she doesn’t really believe in horoscopes and that she only reads them for amusement and Grandad always says, “Don’t listen to her, of course she believes them, every bit of them, Years ago she grabbed me on the street, a perfect stranger, because she’d read in her horoscope that morning that that was the day that she was going to find her dream man. She dragged me kicking and screaming to the nearest church.” When he says that Nana always goes,”Humph!”

Bonding

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It seems to be today that the measure of a relationship between the sexes is in the sexual performance. In a world of casual sex, of throw-away relationships, people using people with friendship a Facebook tick, It may seem strange that I continue to love a then-twelve-year-old girl after a separation of sixty years and revere the woman unmet that she must have become or that I love another man’s wife forty years after her death. Many cannot envisage an enduring non-physical love between the sexes and received doctrine is that ones close friends should be of about ones own age and of ones own sex apart that is from girl-friends or boy-friends. Sex is the cement that is most easily understood.

Bonsai

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s wrong, you’ll say, to speak ill of the dead and that I must dispute.
Was Lizzie Borden canonised in death? More to the point, were you?
Miss D…..a blast malignant touched a tender thrusting sprout.
Stunting the tree that might have been to life-long bonsai bondage.
Does a blighted forest mark your wake? Forty years of pliant youth
Suffered your despotic rule and feared your lavish retribution.
Some, I’m sure, still wonder as I did, “Just what is wrong with me?”

Book Two

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘And they lived happily ever after.’ This we learned at our mother’s knee. A goodnight kiss and we drifted away satisfied on the clouds of dreams but Charles Perrault did not tell us the whole story. Perhaps, in some ways, that was for the best.

Fairy godmothers should really know better but being inveterate matchmakers they can never foresee the eventual outcome of their meddling. Their magic powers greatly exceed their wisdom. A beautiful low-born girl and a handsome prince do not make the ideal match no matter how beautiful and willing to please the low-born girl may be. Anyone should be able to see that. She can never be a ‘real’ princess.

Both of Me

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have a problem. I remember things that cannot have happened in a place that seems unlikely to exist. How to explain this? And the best place to start? I suppose that’s the problem with any story.

We were finishing tea when there was this almighty bang that could only be a car crash and that close by. The we being my former workmate Ken, his wife Cheryl, their two kids, and me. I was staying with them while doing a short course further up the line at Heretaunga. At that time they were living on the main Hutt Road. I’ve lost track of them since.

Brown Paper Bags

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Our food came grocer-packed in paper bags.
Brown bags! Sans blurb to laud health benefits.
Bags leaving us to choose our serving size.
No list of salt, fats, sugars, additives.
No mention of preservatives or calories.
Nutritionist world rule then future tense
And Wet-Nurse State a war to think about.
We managed to survive.

Our mother saved the dripping from the roast
And bought beef dripping from the butcher’s shop.
No cooking oil on sale. No magarine.
Just butter ration. Saturated fat!
We ingested those triglycerides
On war-time milling white bread, never brown,
Ignorant of high glycaemic index.
Strangely though, we thrived.

Bugaboo

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Bob pokes fun at his lack of size, spotlighting it
To make it seem a situation that he’s brought to terms
Though nothing could be further from the truth. It seers!
It towers! It overshadows everything. Distorts reality.
Self-denigrating size jokes, constant ‘really-I-don’t-care’,
Give warning not to laugh or make such jokes oneself.
While papier-mache men strut loudly with inflated merit
This bugaboo unjustly puts Bob’s noble traits in shade.
A fancied zit that blights the mirror’s pleasure in a face.

Buy! Buy! Buy!

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Can we live satisfied
When wants are multiplied
By men with cash to lend
And those with goods to vend?

Can fostered discontent
That never will relent
And dogs our every stride
Be left or turned aside?

We’re held in slavery
By product puffery
So that fulfillment means
Those new designer jeans.

With reasoning quite flawed
Technology we laud
As bettering mankind.
Such thinking’s worse than blind.

Mans’ basic needs are few.
Fulfilling work to do,
A faith, good friends, and family,
Material sufficiency.

Caught in Amber

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I am an exile
From a town remembered
Where time ceased
When my bus pulled out
Almost a life ago.
People who cannot age
In memories amber
Walk its streets
Short-back-and-sides people
Who stand for ‘The Queen’,
Drive British cars,
Hold now derided attitudes.
We
Belong to each other.
I loved them.
Love them still.
They live in me
And through me.
But!
I can never return.
My return would mean,
For them,
Immediate dissolution.

Cauldron Print

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The explosion rocked the main street according to the local paper and so there could be no doubt that the subsequent fire was arson. My sister Melissa and the neighbouring shopkeepers were for the time being out of business.

Melissa stepped into her husband’s shoes at Cauldron Flash Print when Ralph died. Almost immediately, it began to do much better and, in spite of what people began to say, I am convinced that that was only because Ralph was such a dreamer, my sister is a real go-getter. Others would not agree but you know the rubbish people talk and how things escalate. People are such dingbats.

Chance Meeting

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Could it really be possible to meet a complete stranger and read them like a book: to know them so well that one could manipulate them to one’s advantage. Charlie Bowers firmly believed that he had that ability: that he had it honed by long use and the careful study of human behavior. Not study in some university psychology course but out in the field where the real people lived. Airports, the underground, race tracks, anywhere where there was a crowd and the denser the crowd the better. Charlie had served his apprenticeship with his older sister, Ethel. He had diverted the gulls attention while his sister dipped into their pockets and lifted wallets and anything else that might prove useful. She had a gentle touch and could slip through a crowd with the supple grace of an otter while he had the diversionary skills of a magician. They had made a great team. It had been a major asset that both of them were so ordinary looking; so eminently forgettable. You just didn’t see his sister and, if after assisting a seemingly dense Charlie with a problem or giving him directions you found some part of of your property was unaccountably missing, first, you would be unable to believe that such a nice helpless man could have anything to do with it and, second, in reporting your loss to the police you would find it impossible to adequately describe to them the man you had been helping. But like so many partnerships, this one came to an end. His sister had fallen in love and the latest love of her life had to become her new partner and apprentice. Ethel just wouldn’t be told and Charlie had tried really hard. She was smitten, blinded, deaf. Joe, that was the name of her new love, was not particularly bright and looked exactly what he was, a small-time crook, and that scar on his face, that he was so proud of, his badge of honour, was something that even persons in an advanced stage of Alzheimers disease were unlikely to forget. If he was to come

Children Are Naturally Cruel

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Throughout his five days away, her anguish had always been in the forefront of his mind, something to be savoured. Guessing how long it would be until she finally wet herself. He could imagine her growing anxiety. How long before she fouled herself. The thought of her lying there helpless in her excreta was particularly satisfying. She’d be hungry, very hungry, and very thirsty by the time he returned. Lying there unable to telephone for help. Unable even to reach the television remote.

Coincidence

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was by the strangest coincidence that as Henry Pyne was falling to a surely inevitable death he should meet Dulcie Prentice floating upwards to her own somewhat more delayed but just as inevitable death in the upper atmosphere. Stranger still that they should meet so far from where they had first known each other.

Both had worked for Raymond Raiment. Henry as the in-house knitting-machine mechanic and general Mr. Fixit, Dulcie in the office. Neither had spoken to the other apart from those words necessary when Dulcie’s computer wouldn’t bring up Microsoft Works or when the fax machine was being more than usually uncooperative. In the three years in which they had been so employed, there had never been any small talk between them but then neither of them had a store of small talk.

Collecting Eggs

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Among the pure delights, collecting eggs,
A never failing joy that simply begs
To share with us its magic every day.
Each forenoon’s strident loudly cackled boast
Excites us, serves to keep our thoughts engrossed
In promised booty that the sounds convey.

Just where and just how many will there be?
Most surely it’s the sheer uncertainty
That makes our primal hunting instincts rise.
We know the common places where they’ll hide,
Scorning the nesting boxes we provide,
But each day brings with it some new surprise.

Common Property

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The time’s long overdue to quit our bach at Onepu.
The bad feeling incurred makes it the wisest thing to do.
Our memories, our sacrifice to buy it, these we now must sell.
The wider family’s come to think the bach is theirs as well.
Theirs to use as they see fit or lend to favoured friends.
Offering first, then asking us, their cheek just never ends.
The rates, of course, are ours, insurance, upkeep, power bill.
They paint us stinking rich and don’t contribute, never will.
And when the tanks run dry, they never mess about.
They cell-phone call to have us send a water tanker out.
The property, the bach, the tanks belong to us and hence
They think the water naturally should be at our expense.
And when we say, “You drained the tanks, in fairness you should pay.”
We’re being ‘mean, vindictive, trying to ruin their holiday.’
Enough’s enough! Kids grown and flown we’ll sell our little gem.
Enjoy the rellies’ screams when it’s pulled out from under them.

Confidence

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What a strange animal is confidence.
Tied loosely to reality. Ephemeral.
Both parent and the offspring of itself
Unjustified or justified it thrives
And justified, unjustified, declines

How can I catch one for myself ?
And, heaven knows, I have the need
So even just a little one would do
To be at first harbinger of success
And later treasured trophy of that same.

Where they are found. Best bait to use.
A privileged coterie shares that knowledge
Though undeserving most would seem to be.
It’s bitter gall to have them sashay by me
With an elephant-sized confidence on leash.

Crathall B

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Nobody is going to read this but I need to set it down for my own self. There is so much that I must come to terms with. The unreality of it all.

I am known to have been born in this valley with my parents well known and alive until recently. I can remember my childhood here in detail all the way from my beloved Horhee my stuffed toy horse. Cheeky Horhee who, with my father’s manipulation, would casually sneak up on the sugar bowl, looking ever so innocent, to make that last final dash to gorge as much as he could before being taken, given a shaking, and a stern talking too. A puerile joke that never wore out. Poor chewed, patched, dribble-soaked Horhee. The wrongs I did you. I couldn’t sleep without Horhee.

Critter

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Tiny little critter, animated black speck
Built on a near microscopic scale.
Features too small for my hand lens to grasp
Yet you’re complete in all that life requires.
Digestion, respiration, reproduction.
Truly, I’m amazed, intrigued by you.
Unseen legs provide your locomotion.
Whither were you going? What your purpose?
What do you see? Are you aware of me?
Your brain, and I assume you have one,
What does it contain? Pre-patterning alone
Or actual thought, seeds of a personality?
But now, enough of this interrogation,
Let me help you forward on your way.

Crothal C+1

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately and have come to realise that I have been here long enough to be able to look at the other self who flew in here as being someone else entirely. To look at myself from the outside as it were. Not that I’ve come to any great understanding but I think that my writing about ’looking down on the world from Mount Olympus’ rather sums things up. It’s not that I felt any superiority to the world in general as might at first appear but rather the opposite. I could not seem to deal with people in the sense of personal relationships or even in casual terms. I had need to get off by myself: to be at the very least at arm’s length. I was a loner not from choice but from the conviction of my inadequacy. If anybody got too close they must see through me: that I was a nothing.

Crothall C

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I was scared rigid but, even then, I was being subtley worked on. The unseen proprietors of this place were inside my head doing whatever it is they do. I felt nothing, suspected nothing, but soon began to feel somewhat familiar with the place which didn’t really make any sense. And yet, I didn’t for a moment question it.

I had as yet seen no living creature and remained fearful of what they would be like. Then, as if to allay my fears, a Blue Jay winged in to rest on the long-fallen tree off to my right and moments later it was joined by another. There was my answer! Something familiar. If there were any Doctor-Seuss monsters lurking in the long grass, the Jays would know of their presence. I think at this distance in time that the Jays were deliberately sent to give me that assurance that I might get out.

Crothall D

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

No outside radio signals can be received in this valley but print does comes in, both the newspapers and magazines, and they whetted our appetite for radio. This led to the setting up of two amateur broadcasting groups one of which uses the rooms above the shop. The first station was in our rival, Gatewell, and that made it even more important that we should have our own station here in Crothal. My former self had seen the advantage of having a Crothal signal, helping them to set up and letting them use the upper floor rent free. That the upstairs was meant to be living quarters and the access is internal might seem to be a disadvantage but it has proved otherwise.

Crothall E

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I took the hired dray out the next day by myself and, as I would soon come to expect, there was no sign of the Cirrus, no indication that it had ever been there. At first, I thought that I must have the wrong area but then there was that distinctive fallen tree. Thigh-length grass when trampled doesn’t recover overnight but this grass had never been trampled. The Night-People could not allow any contamination of their Petrie-dish culture. That was three years ago.

Crothall F

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Being different is stressful. Though it might seem that being unique would give one a bit of a boost, I’m afraid not. Everyone and everything else in this place is soundly asleep by 11.30 pm. They are somehow switched off for a couple of hours, completely out to it, but whatever it is that does it doesn’t work with me. Admittedly, I cannot look into everybody’s bedroom but I think that intruding on one is enough.

Crothall G

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I had Wallace Chronshaw come into the shop today. He carried with him a cathedral-case Philco and said it was ‘badly in need of a tune-up or something. Could you do it right away?’ Wallace is the local manager of the Farmers Union Bank. It’s not my bank but naturally I know him well. We belong to the same lodge and the Kiwanis too. I prefer not to work on a set with its owner watching my every move, seeing how much or how little time it actually takes me. Working on someone’s set with a different customer present is no problem. I’m not going to tell them whose set it is and most definitely not going to show them what my bill is. I pleaded urgency for the chassis on the bench: that I had promised to have it ready when the owner left town for home. Not true actually.

Crothall H

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For the greater part of the first two years, I spent weekends and public holidays searching the bluffs for the way out of this prison. I’d take the back seat out of the Chevie tourer and fill it with camping gear and cans of extra gas, prepared to sleep rough. A butterfly net and some capture bottles gave me the excuse to want to enter private land. A boyhood hobby now had its uses. I come from a farming family (two farming families it would seem) and always made a point of seeking the landowner’s permission first. I was never once refused and families who had known my valley parents and me since I was ‘so high’ would insist on putting me up for the night. There could be no polite way to refuse and it would mean an evening of reminiscences. For me a slight problem. I have two pasts and they tend to get entangled. And I continue to have some problem at spending the night with those who will shortly be dead even if it is to be only temporarily.

Crothall I

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The hardest thing to cope with has to be the changes to reality! They do not affect anyone else here because they remain entirely unaware that there have been any changes. The first with which I had an extreme problem was our Great-War Memorial. One day we didn’t have one. The next we did. This had been a very strange oversight. Usually, any new addition to perceived reality arrives with an historical accretion so that, in effect, it has always existed.

Crothall J

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You fellows who are scripting this place! It seems that there is nothing that you can’t do and surely you must see that this scares the hell out of me. Not all the time of course. I tend to get involved in the day-to-day business of this place but it keeps being brought to my attention that I am just another piece to be moved as all the other pieces here are moved and that there is not a damn thing that I can do about it. It’s alright for the rest here they don’t know that this is not normal life but I know exactly how a fly feels when caught in a web and, naturally, I don’t like it . If I could know that your reasons for this set-up were benign, that you had any thought at all for my well-being, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Crothall K

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have made a deal with Donald Berry. He will come in on Saturday mornings and look after the young kids who are radio hobbyists.

Even with only the two stations, it has become something of popular interest among our young boys. Picking up Gatewell on a crystal set is something of a feat given that their signal output is fleapower like our own. The next step is leaning on parents to provide the means to build a one valve set. It does not matter that there is probably the latest mains set in the lounge, one dial tuning, five, six, seven valves, maybe even more. Listening on a set that one has built oneself is just so much better even if the signal is close to being lost in the background noise. Shushing siblings, adjusting the reaction to the very edge of feedback. Triumph! And endless oportunities to experiment with a better earth, better antennas, wires to the tops of nearby trees.

Crothall L

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Today I had a happening, or rather a culmination, that makes me wonder just how much people’s behaviour here is programmed if at all.

It is exactly one year ago today that I had Eddie Campion bring his set in for repair. He really buttered me up although I didn’t see it as such at the time.

“They tell me that you’re the best radio man in the valley. That you really know your stuff.”

Crothall Part 1

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Nobody is going to read this but I need to set it down for my own self. There is so much that I must come to terms with.

D Day

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Original version later rewritten as sonnet THE DAY GROWS LIGHT…
D-DAY
A grey half-light still reigns out in the yard
But brightening rooftops catch refulgent dawn
And through the looming trees one single ray,
Attenuated, sprawls across the lawn.

My frantic task has lasted all night through,
As coffee cups and ash tray indicate.
While scattered books and papers add their voice
Too chide me for this study left too late.

Daughters

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I am one of those life-long batchelors though not really from choice. It’s not that I don’t like women. I do like them while at the same time admitting to thinking that there’s a few who should be taken out and shot…Marcie for instance…It’s just that I can no more court a woman than I can fly.

It was no problem for my older brother Jack. Jack married Marcie. And what can I say about Marcie? Perhaps that I always did my best never to be alone with my brother’s wife. Hard to manage without being obvious about it and particularly so once we were in business together. We bought a small company that imported veterinary supplies and diagnostic equipment. The owner was wanting to retire and the price was right.

Dawn

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For thirty years, each time the natal date came round
The regret, always simmering, became profound.
For what had seemed the fairest course for all back then,
When parents shamed brought pressure, she would not again
Consider. Claims that she was far to young to be
A mother though the shotgun waved insistently.
And so her son was given, others gained the joy
Of smiles, first words, first steps, he had become their boy.

Disillusioned

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It just proves what I’ve always said.
You can’t trust anyone at all.
You build your plans around them and
You get let down ‘most every time.
Pure selfishness that’s what it is.
The primal trait that rules this world.
No-one gives heed to what YOU want.
They just can’t see past number one.

But May! Who’d ever think that May
Would leave us so far in the lurch
By marrying at fifty one?
And why? True love? Don’t make me laugh.
A Massey lab assistant weds
A famous Caltech physicist
Who’s there to lead a seminar?
She must have drugged his beer.

Doctor Dan

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The Rattnor Hospice had an awkward problem. Terminal cases rallied. People walked out instead of being carried out. The whole purpose of a hospice, to add comfort and dignity to a loved one’s final days, was undermined. There were no final days. It was not a situation to go unnoticed. The boom days of the Rattnor Valley had long passed. The mines had been worked out by the thirties. The slag heaps were their only memorial. Of the pithead machinery and buildings there remained not the least trace. The Railroad Engineering Workshops, another major employer, had closed in the late 40s as the G.M. diesels began ousting steam. A much reduced town of Rattnor had lived on to service the valley’s agricultural community. When the hospice movement had begun gathering momentum in North America as it had previously in Europe, a public meeting was held, a committee elected, and the former Lutheran hospital, empty for years, was purchased. For several decades, the hospice operated as it was meant to. It came to have a good name. Then, inexplicably, the situation changed. Rattnor suddenly ceased to be an unknown backwater. Rattnor Hospice featured prominently in medical journals and the popular press. Top experts arrived and every possible cause was subjected to minute scrutiny and analysis. The drugs, the nursing methods, the food, the water supply, even the very air. It appeared impossible to postulate any connection with the medical regime. The facility had its own medical director but patients remained under their own doctors who prescribed the needed drugs and these were, in every case, drugs widely used elsewhere. And nothing else had changed. The routine was as it had always been. Though Rattnor was well north of the bible belt, there were many in the community ready to accept that miracles were involved. The building was, after all, a former Christian DOCTOR DAN. Page 2 hospitaland dedicated to the greater glory of God. The experts, however, treated this idea with the scorn it deserved. ‘Miracles in this day and age?’ And then, again for no apparent reason, things returned to normal.

Don't Ask for Reason

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As with any story it is difficult to know where to begin. Perhaps I should start by saying that I am not native to ’these United States’ although I have been here now for thirty six years. During the greater part of that time I have been employed by Meredith Medical whose business, as you may know, is the providing of a range of diagnostic equipment, mostly electronic, for the medical profession. Some of it one-off and extremely expensive. I came to their attention while working for their Australasian agents. I had gained some reputation as a troubleshooter both in overcoming technical problems and in clearing up misunderstandings that would damage Meredith’s reputation for service. I was called upon increasingly to solve problems for other of Meredith’s agents and was eventually invited to work for the parent company. I retired a year ago after being with them for thirty five years. Always a troubleshooter, I have been rushed all over the world and have seen little of it apart from hospitals and clinics. I have had my fill of travel. It has long been my wish to write. Real writing. I have written any number of reports and technical articles for trade magazines. I have even had several short stories published but a novel has been in my head for many years. Retreating into ones’ mind can ease the frustration of airport delays and interminable plane trips in a way that in-flight movies cannot but I am finding that getting that novel out of my head again is not as easy as I had imagined. My thought was to get off on my own away from distractions which is why I rented the cabin that I am now in. Some people build in mock-Tudor or Georgian but the cabin can only be described as mock-Hillbilly. Apart from the usual offices it has just one large space which is everything, kitchen, bedroom, lounge and working area. This presents no problem for a bachelor

Doors Breached

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love a woman dead these forty years. Wife of another man. Ours not the hot and panting love, But chaste affection Physically arm’s length.

Somehow, to mock convention, We became soul siblings Open to each other, sans facade Aware the underlying strengths To have trust without limits.

Love, quietly understood, Not needing words, Resists time’s fading.

Downe Whith Speling

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Tha Minnysta ov Educayshon,
Ser,
duz yore guvernmint
rekogknize the much increest efishonsee rezultint
from abbandining that tirranee sew kneedlesslee impozed
buy Docter Jonsen, Speling, eye meen. It’s knot ta bee supozed
that litterachure wil suffa. Kno such dyer kalamittee
ackerred inn Shaykspeers day. And if we fayce it onistlee
we must admitt, eevin four his tyme he spelt eeraticklee.
Offin in in the wun sentanse werds wer spelt in difarint wayz
yet kno whay afectid whir hiz dethliss poetree and plaze.
Too spel frea from coershon iz a baysick yoomin rite,
standidizayshon an ohpreshon sirr that wea shood fite.
If wi Nu Zeelandirs shood sett that leed fore uther nayshons,
pruuf reeders wohn’t bee kneedded fore skool publikayshons.
A sayving ser yu must agrea. Evree studint to muste gayne.
Insted ov speling’s strayt-jakit, tha freadum to remayn
tha marstir not tha slayv. Emoshinul securitee
wood bee ashured, know inhibishuns then, moor creaytiviti.
Weed hav kids riting novles and I’m shure that verry suun
sum wud skayl the hites ov exeylense and rite fa Mils & Buun.
Sew I deer Sirr, remayn yors faythfuli,
Dr. Stafford Bonnington. Ph.D.

Early Fifties

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Dad! Don’t annoy the man. Leave him alone.”
The house, daughter’s and husband’s, and her tone
Suggests she’s dealing with a fractious child
Poor dad! Additional humiliation’s piled
Upon this widower, taken in to look correct
In others’ eyes. Resented. Given no respect.

I’m not being annoyed. Can work and listen too.
Here is a very interesting man who knew
A world that’s gone, a world that I can only see
Through photographs and other links, and he
Is skilled in verbal portrait, and creating ambience,
He takes me there his fascinated audience.

East Wind

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

East Wind, you give yourself away, you’ve blown your cover.
Something lacking sentience could not produce such beauty.
Your sandstone etching demonstrates deft touch, good taste,
Which spears my heart, arrests my feet, this morning on my way.
Usually, you’ve gained my notice with your childish paddy.
The pushing over trees and stamping round to kick dust in my eyes
Admittedly, in gentler mood, you’ve kissed my brow, wiped sun-wrought sweat,
Yet here to my surprise and pleasure I discover your artistic side.
Millennia ago this once-seabed, savage-torn from mother’s breast,
Attacked, defaced, by vandal waves while in their reach,
Offended that fine sensibility, asked for your remedial hand.
Each visit you amend a little, striving for that cruel mirage perfection
I would say your work’s as close as anyone can get.

Ella's Slippers

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You may have seen Ella on the television last year. A lady reporter was broadcasting from a festival in Queenstown and Ella popped out of nowhere right beside her.

“Take me home!” screamed Ella and disappeared again. You probably thought it was trickery but Ella really was there and an instant later she was home again. Ella had a secret.

Two Saturdays before, Ella had been to a garage sale with her mother and Ella had five dollars to spend. While her mother was looking at some large items outside, Ella was sorting through the bits and pieces inside the garage to see if there was anything that she would like.

Empathy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In this narrow seaside park, remote from houses
The distant car park fields a cosy female scrum
Its players lost to the everything but catch-up talk.
It seems that parenthood has been forgotten
One Mum has put her primary role on ‘Hold’
To launch her infant’s odyssey to far-off swings..

Pushed on a swing is juvenile Nirvana.
No-push means rainbow’s end, no pot of gold.
The stubborn swing insists it needs adult assist.
Though being male and therefore ‘stranger danger’
Slumped shoulders signal clear the tots distress.
No choice but push. Her disappointment mine.

Enchantment

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What we’re seeing now is what we’re being made to see.
A little girl with plastic wings is playing infant dreams.
Her mother wearing larger wings shares in her fairy world
Embarrassed loving aunt, no wings, pretending valiantly.
As pretend fairies they have right to dance as they are doing
We push our grocery karts aside. Give them clear way.
On every face a smile. We need more of this fantasy.

Enter at Your Own Risk

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Not all little men are tyrants but there are a few who are and Baden Porter was in this category. He was an aggressive little Bantam rooster. The Fanshawe building housed a number of government departments on its six floors and it was Baden’s job to distribute files. He was up and down between floors with his trolley all day. And there was the problem.The building was old and had only two lifts to serve both staff and public. Baden had found that when he wanted a lift some other bastard would be using it.

Every Town Should Have One

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The lure of the find became life-long obsession. Not pay dirt, some rich vein
Nor new species botanical, entamological, memorial in Latin for his name.
Not ocean bounty lodged among the sea-wrack, salvage, ambergris
Not Universal Theorem, cancer cure, rare herbs medicinal. Neither fame
Nor riches drove the impecunious lad but knowledge, things to pull apart.

Transistors, integrated circuits, printed circuit boards had yet to come
And with them present-day reliability. Valves remained the electronic kings
Aging everything around them with their radiated heat, aging themselves.
Late Friday afternoon the radio shops would empty bins of parts replaced
Send the apprentice with them to the dump. These were the treasure sought

Family Life Culture Assessment

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

1a. Mr Uedo is the head of an international toy company an old family business which in the past twenty five years has diversified into hand-held electronic games. Until now he has lived in a penthouse flat atop his company’s head office in Tokyo. He has decided that in two years time on his 70th birthday, he will leave the day-to-day running of the company to his eldest son and move back to Numazu, his home town. But first he must build there the classical Japanese house that he has always dreamed of. A house with a steeply sloping roof, upturned eaves, verandahs, and a garden to delight his old age.

Family Life Culture Assessment

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

1a. Mr Uedo is the head of an international toy company, an old family business, which in the past twenty five years has diversified into hand-held electronic games. Until now he has lived in a penthouse flat atop his company’s head office in Tokyo. He has decided that in two years time on his 70th birthday, he will leave the day-to-day running of the company to his eldest son and move back to Numazu, his home town. But first he must build there the classical Japanese house that he has always dreamed of. A house with a steeply sloping roof, upturned eaves, verandahs, and a garden to delight his old age.

Fancy That

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Like many other people my fancy has me able to fly. Where I differ from others is that this presents me with real problems. Being of a retiring nature, I don’t want it known that I have this unique ability. The very last thing I want is to be famous: to become public property and, as you may imagine, it is a difficult thing to keep such a secret. I can tell no-one not even my wife. Flying in the daytime was at first out of the question. One might perhaps wear clothing that concealed ones identity but where would one keep these clothes. If kept at home, their discovery would surely give the game away. If kept elsewhere and found, they would probably be replaced in their hiding place and a close watch kept. One could fly high enough to escape recognition but there is always the problem of leaving and returning to the ground. Even if one could choose a remote launch area, one would find oneself shadowed by cars as one returned there. Since I do quite a bit of walking to keep my weight and my cholesterol levels down, it was not hard to make excuse to go out walking after dark. My taste in T.V. programs differs markedly from the rest of the family and my, " I think I’ll go for a walk," occasions no comment. Although the business area of Waitara has young people on the street often into the early hours of the morning, it is possible to walk for considerable distances over a number of nights in other parts and see nobody at all. But even then one must be careful. One can never be sure that someone does not just happen to be looking out of the window of a darkened house and the same take-off and landing point cannot be used too often. The recent proliferation of street lights in the town has placed a severe restriction on the places available. It was fortunate that my fancy came to the rescue and gave me the ability to make myself invisible. I could then fly both day and night. Flying at night is rather nice, the sprinkling of house and street lights below is quite beautiful, but daytime flying has it beaten. The keeping it from my wife remains a problem. Her,“Where have you been?” requires a careful though honest answer. My religious views do not allow even the so-called white lie. Then I went and created further difficulties for myself. It has been a worry to me to see Waitara gradually going downhill. It is unlikely that any large industry will ever again be established again in the district. I thought that perhaps I could help the town. Attract some tourists. So I appeared, suitably muffled up, hovering above the town-clock and roundabout during the annual Christmas parade. It wasn’t the astonishment of the crowd that I was after, and they certainly were astonished, but the camera of the local Channel 7 which I knew would be covering the event. I floated up Mclean Street at a speed which allowed some others equipped with video cameras to keep pace with me. At The Copper Kettle, I rose into the clouds. The Channel 7 coverage and some amateur footage appeared on the major channels that evening and thereafter world-wide. Waitara was on the world map. There was an immediate response from the New Zealand Sceptics Society. ‘Anything could be done with photography these days,’ they said. ‘Christopher Reeves could fly as Superman, Robin Williams as Peter Pan. They had long had a standing offer of a thousand dollars for anyone who could demonstrate levitation. Nobody ever had. They would hold a meeting in Waitara and challenged the Waitara flying man to put in an appearance. They knew that he wouldn’t.’ It was only then that I realised what I had let myself in for. Tourists would come to Waitara expecting to see the flying man and be disappointed if they did not. But I could not keep appearing. To show a card trick while your audience keeps saying, “Show us again,” inevitably leads to them seeing how it’s done. To keep appearing for tourists must eventually lead to my being identified. And I wouldn’t live forever. So what to do? My fancy came to my aid again and did so on the very evening before the Sceptics meeting. They had hired the Memorial Hall and reissued their challenge in The Daily News and in The Angle. My fancy was now allowing me to levitate things other than myself and have them stay aloft. This solved the problem of having something apparently miraculous always available for people to see.. I had not given up my evening ‘walks’ and went down to eastern side of the river mouth making myself invisible on the metal road approaching the Surf-Club building. I raised one of the huge stones that have been deposited on that side of the river and conveyed it to the Memorial Hall leaving it suspended several metres above the grass median strip and directly opposite the Hall door. It would be absolutely immovable to anyone but myself. I was not the first on the scene next morning to see members of the Sceptics Society arrive. There was no point in being obvious. News of the stone was already all over town and quite a crowd had gathered. It was almost comical the way that the society’s members managed to enter the hall without in any way acknowledging the presence of the stone. They later crowed, with little justification, that the fictional flying man had not appeared to meet their challenge. That is not the end of it. The tourists have come and with them improved prosperity. The Catholic Church has bought the premises until recently occupied by Sharrock Motors with the idea of demolishing the existing building and erecting a centre for the relief of pilgrims. Pilgrims are something that I hadn’t expected in the present age but there are pilgrims. I am not sure what connection the stone could have with Christianity but there are certainly many people of different persuasions who consider the stone to be a bona fide miracle. Some even pray before the stone which is the last thing I would have wanted. There is no way that I can disabuse them. What has particularly upset me is the sudden rash of self-appointed prophets several of whom take bare-faced credit for levitating the stone while loudly discrediting the same claim by rivals. But all of them use the stone as proof of their personal predictions. Why my fancy dreamed them up I am unable to say. Te Atiawa also became involved particularly once it became obvious that profits were being made. A flying stone had, apparently, long figured in local Maori legend and this was obviously the very stone. It was sacred to the tribe, their treasure. Any profit gained from it should go to them not to the Pakeha who had already taken everything else anyway. It is difficult to disprove the provenance of a legend even one created for a specific purpose as recently as the day before. Soon there was a court case pending. But not anymore. Some younger Maori, unwilling to await its outcome, decided to tow the stone up to the Owae Marae during the night, possession being nine tenths of the law. They could hardly have done this unnoticed. The stone was now floodlit at night. They found that it could not be moved which is what my fancy had decided. The roar of the engine of the four wheel drive with which they were attempting to shift the stone brought numerous calls to the police who arrived well after the culprits had left. Deep tire ruts on the grass median strip were all that there was to show for their efforts. But they were known. A meeting of the town’s business people led to the appointment of a night watchman for the stone to thwart any future attempts. My fancy had another, and it thought better, idea At the river entrance are some massive concrete blocks apparently there to encourage scouring. No way could one of them be incorporated into legend. I floated one of them up to the Memorial Hall, pushed aside the stone and replaced it with the block. There was nothing that the poor watchman could do about it. I was invisible. I took the stone up to the Owae Marae. They wanted it , they could have it. I was tempted to let it drop through the roof of the meeting house but thought better of it. That would really be getting nasty I left it sitting in the middle of the driveway right in the entry. I almost made it immovable but thought better of that too. So if you visit Waitara wearing my fancy, you’ll be pestered by hordes of doomsday prophets. I apologize for that. But you’ll also find the levitated block across from the Memorial Hall doors. If I’d thought of it sooner, I’d have put it a bit higher to get it out of the reach of graffiti artists.

First Night

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Why did I let things get this far? Sometimes I’m not too bright.
They said I was the part, to life. The jollied me along.
It’s opening night, I’m in the wings and paralysed with fright.
A racing heart and jelly legs, dry throat, don’t get me wrong,
I’ll go on if it kills me and most probably it will.
Producer smiles encouragement. It’s alright for you lass!
But I must brave that sea of vulture’s eyes. Their one great thrill
Will be to see yours-truly fluff and look a total ass.

Fold

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The two women were so close that Helen could have reached out and touched them had they been there in the normal way but if she opened her eyes they would cease to exist. They in their turn had no awareness of their auditor sitting on the plinth of the war-memorial obelisk. She had no place in their time. Their conversation was trivial, local gossip, trouble with a neighbour’s goat, a sick child, and of interest only because it had taken place some eighty years earlier. Helen was the Helen Walters of ‘Us Girls’ which catered for the clothing needs of over- sixties women. It was an idea that had come to her when she had found herself in this age-group and, while still interested in clothes, had had difficulty in finding anything really flattering. Fashion seemed to be blind to anything but youth and stick figures and yet we live in a world with an aging population. Surely this was the growth market. It was not only the young women who wanted to look nice and that could often mean no more than wearing what was personally appropriate. Larger women had dress shops to meet their exclusive needs. Why shouldn’t older women have something similar? The ‘Us Girls’ title was based on the premise that women remain girls to the end of their life. She still thought of herself that way. She had taken over a failing dress shop which had styled itself a boutique while trying to be all things to everyone. She had almost given its stock away. Her new staff had been over-sixties. A rule that continued. They must never be saleswomen. They needed to have good taste when it came clothes, a genuine interest in people, be absolutely honest in their advice, be someone that you would not hesitate to ask for advice, and they must be extremely tactful. It is easy to tell a woman that she looks super in something but not so easy to convince her that a garment really does her no credit particularly when she has set her mind to it. They had to be practical psychologists. The garments stocked were carefully classic and timeless with the planned obsolescence of fashion firmly rejected. The whole object was to have a woman walk out with something that enhanced her looks and, hopefully, would continue to do so for some years to come: maybe give her an added spring to her step. The putting of sales secondary might have seemed a sure road to disaster but it had not proved so. Few businesses can have achieved the same level of customer loyalty and repeat sales. It came to be that a woman trying on a garment in one of the changing rooms would come out and seek the appraisal not only of the staff but of other customers, even complete strangers. Some would pirouette with almost childish exuberance, dignity in abeyance, and strut an imaginary cat-walk. There developed a club atmosphere of women helping women and any criticism tended to be taken in good part as being meant constructively. Larger premises had become necessary but that was as far as Helen had been prepared to go. She had been advised strongly on a number of occasions to open branches elsewhere, make the most of her idea before someone else did, but she had asked herself, “What for?” Her own needs were more than adequately met and she had no living relative to pass the business to. She had never married and while that gave her no cause for regret, having no daughter, another Helen, did. She was the sixth in a line of eldest or only daughters named Helen. The result of her reluctance had been a rash of blatant copies with none anywhere near as successful as the original. Others had even taken Helen’s concept and franchised it but she didn’t mind. If older women benefited that was all to the good. There had never been a road into this valley and Helen, in denims and strong boots, had walked up a stream-bed through a narrow cleft to reach it. The boots were off and her socks dried beside her in a rather wan morning sun. It was a bleak place lacking soil and with crowding hills that severely limited the hours of direct sunlight. It must have been hell in winter. Only one thing could have persuaded people to live here. Gold! A prospector named Jasper Bro, had followed traces of alluvial gold up a tributary from the main river, into the sub-tributary that passed through the cleft, to find the quartz reef from which it had eroded. He had sold his mining rights to big-money-interests overseas. Quartz mining with its necessary stamper battery and refinery requires a great deal of start-up capital and particularly so in this case. It was the lure of another new find that interested him anyway. The first problem had been access. The cleft was the only possible means of entry into this narrow valley and the stream occupied the whole bottom of the cleft. With the stamper battery and refining plant needing to be situated beside the main river some miles away, a rail link had been necessary. This had been built on trestles above the stream with parts of the rock wall having to be blasted away to allow the passage of the rather small tank locomotive and its trucks. Quite a large town had sprung up with shops and various other businesses, a school, boarding houses, a dance hall, churches, lodges. It had even had a band rotunda for like every other town of its time it had had its own brass band. Now there was nothing left to see but this obelisk and a few tumbled headstones in the wilderness graveyard. Souvenir hunters had long since found that there were no more pickings. Helen’s grandparents and mother had lived here. Her grandfather, one of the skilled Cornish miners chosen by the over-seas principals to work the difficult seam, had died in that war that was to end all wars. Alone in the world, Helen’s roots had become important to her. She had a photograph of the town’s departing menfolk, proud in their new uniforms, parading down the main street. That photograph showed a surprisingly large town. Her grandfather had been somewhere to the rear but she had a stiffly-posed uniformed studio photograph. She had seen his name at the Menin Gate among those Dominion troops whose burial place is unknown and been present in the evening when the buglers of the Ypres Fire Brigade sounded “The Last Post”. She had gone to Belgium for those very reasons. She had been both moved and exasperated.–‘Men and their bloody wars!–His name was also on this obelisk with all the others who had died from here. On learning of his death, her grandmother had sold the house to work, and room with her young daughter, Helen’s mother, in one of the boarding houses. In a few years it was to prove fortunate that she had sold the house. The reef became difficult to work and gold prices slumped so the mine closed and the town’s reason for being disappeared. Houses and businesses were immediately worthless. There was the expected rash of fires but insurance companies are far from stupid. Her grandmother had died shortly after this leaving her mother to be raised by a family friend. Her father she knew little about and could scarcely remember. He had been adopted back in the light-lipped days. Walters was the name of his adoptive parents and she had been unable to discover his true parentage. He had been killed in the second-edition of the European war. She had sat first in this same spot about ten years previously having just picked her way carefully up that same treacherous stream, wet to her knees as today, and with her boots and socks off as now. She had closed her eyes to enjoy a similar sun and heard the town come to life. Open her eyes and there was nothing. Close them and there was bustle all around, the crunch of hooves and iron tires on gravel. The fussy little ore train had rattled up on non-existent trestles and the plaintive wail of its whistle had hurled itself backwards and forwards from crag to crag. It had been the same on her subsequent trips. Sometimes town’s-people stood nearby and talked as was now the case. At other times someone would share her seat on the obelisk base. Usually it was small boys who insisted on whistling which seemed to be a common practice of the time. Such piercing untuneful whistles!! But even when they were silent, she could recognize their presence and their approximate age. She had been drawn here the first time by simple curiosity but she had been driven since by a compulsion that she could not explain. She could only be dropping into a very narrow time slot. This memorial had been erected in 1921 and the town had died just a few years later. It was unsettling to have this hindsight cum foresight that disaster was so near and be unable to tell anyone. Not even those who meant so much to her. They would be still living here and, even if she could not help them, it was her continued hope that she might at least hear their voices. She was sure that she would recognize them immediately. The two women moved off, still talking, and were almost out of earshot when a hand touched Helen’s shoulder. “Are you unwell Mrs.Trethowen?” Helen opened her eyes. It was Elsie Brommers the town’s most vindictive gossip. And she must be unwell, must have taken a turn of some sort for why else would she be sitting here in this embarrassing state of dishevelment? And why of all people did it have to be Elsie who approached her? Elsie’s show of concern would be—-as it always was—-fishing! It was unwise to tell her anything. AND YET!! Helen had the feeling that there was something that she should be telling Elsie….Something that was important….And not just to Elsie. BUT………WHAT?

Fool's Day

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Philip and Mary Hopkins could honestly say that they had never pushed their children nor sought to realise their own failed dreams through them. They hadn’t screamed from sidelines. There had been no recriminations for only coming second but encouragement in plenty and delight over over even the smallest success. And that was as true with their youngest daughter Julia as with the others.

Julia had shown little interest in music, apart from pop, until high school when a strong music department and a dedicated teacher and mentor had introduced her to the cello and opened up a wider world. That teacher, Rachel Foster, was a cellist herself and active in the local music community. Rachel had seen the girl’s potential and it was from her that Julia’s commitment had come. Her house had become Julia’s second home.

For a Dead Civilisation

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

His wife and sister had said, “We won’t be too long,” with the stress on the ’too’ and he knew, from experience, that this highly flexible time period could be anything up to an hour. They were ‘just going to look at something.’ Something that was not likely to interest him. And they were right. Shopping did not interest him but people did. He was quite content to sit on the mall seat and entertain himself with the play of real life that was being enacted before him. To sit quietly in a mall was to wear the mantle of invisibility.

For Kathryn

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Not many get a choice of baby. Perhaps that’s just as well.
For looking at each page, as yet unsullied, how are we to tell
What time and our own actions will inscribe? There’s heredity
That many think the pointer. I say, ‘No!’ For surely they must see,
Beyond glib stereotype, that infamy and saintly grace,
Stupidity and genius rare have no regard for race.
True…parents’ genes determine build and maybe temperament
Yet random combination makes each offspring different.

For the Second Time

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Rose drove her husband’s rubbish truck, wore overalls and boots.
‘Half bloody man!’ her critics sneered. ‘Imagine HER in bed!’
How quickly we clothe others with personas off-the-rack.
Investing entire nations with a garment ready-made.

At home, out of those overalls, a Rose most did not see.
All woman, comely, sensitive, artistic, dutiful.
And motherly, the children neat and clean in things she’d made.
Their furnishings were spartan but she made that house a home.

Free Gift

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Passing older women, total strangers, on the street
Pleasing to my eye perhaps by apt attire I think it meet
To briefly tell them so, and why, to give their day a lift.
While valuable to them, for me a cost-me-nothing gift.
‘I like your dress\your hat\your hair\your smile\whatever.’
Which should be said on impulse, passing. One must never
Stop, accost, to do so makes the comment suspect even threat
Their mirror may claim wrinkles, gray hair, double chin, and yet
This second opinion says, ‘So what?’, proves them attractive still.
A precious belief. You walk out of their life with their good will.

Frustration

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s too real to be a dream. I wish now that it was. I go to sleep and, next thing, I find myself standing in Kensington Road, London, near Holland Park. The year is 1871 and my days there are consecutive.

I am there and yet not there in the sense that I can make not the slightest change to 1871. Its paint dried long ago. I am an observer only. I remain solid enough to myself and remain subject to all the usual physical restraints but I have no existence as far as others are concerned though they are solid to me. Even dogs and horses, both supposedly attuned to the unseen, are completely unaware of my presence. It is a situation that has taken some time to get used to. To be living in two disparate worlds is confusing to say the least.

Garage Sale

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We inherited Frank or, to be more accurate, he came with the house as our tenant in the flat below. He was in his late sixties at the time. We were unhappy with the idea at first. We had heard that he was a bit peculiar but the Wards assured us that it would be difficult to find a better tenant and we found that to be true.

Frank, they told us, was not peculiar but had turned inward and against the town and some might say with good reason. Thirty five years earlier, he had been approached by the town’s Little Theatre who were hoping to purchase the former Miner’s Hall and alter it to their needs. They had given him to believe that the hall would be named The Marie Walesby Little Theatre in honour of his late mother who had been their founder. Frank had given generously and had, in fact, been their principle donor. But the theatre had opened as ‘The Coal Face’ which has been its name ever since. Frank had been deliberately misled and he complained loudly.

Genesis

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The new day stretches, yawning, on the black-felt hills.
Her consort’s yet to show his face but can’t be far behind
To snuff those distant candles that have been my light thus far.
Here in a world reincarnate, amorphous still,
I’m getting in our sweet-breathed cows for milking.
The air is tonic, chill and dry. Frost crackles underfoot.
My siblings lie unconscious, warm abed. As eldest
I’m the unpaid hand who milks before and after school.
Works weekends while the others play and visit friends.
For now the whole world’s me, these girls. None else exists.
But soon, “Let there be light.” The world will widen out.
“Let there be herb, and moving creature, fowl that fly.”
So it will come to be. A wonder lost to those in bed.
My privilege to be here at the birthing, watch creation.

Gentleman's Club

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Folk dare not venture far, and not at night.
A dragon sailed the heavens to their woe.
Fair maidens could not sate its appetite
And by that time their ranks were running low.

Then came the standard proclamation,
‘Half my kingdom and my daughter’s hand
To any man who brings extermination
To the dragon ravaging our land.’

The kingdom lured, (poor princess, she was plain)
Drew valiant men, knights bold, unbeaten.
They left ‘midst cheers, were never seen again,
Tinned food all and thus meant to be eaten.

Getting Beyond a Smile

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

How does one make an opening to get to know a woman and having got to know her how does one convince her that she should take the giant step of becoming one’s wife? A foolish question it must seem since in this case it comes from someone who was happily married for thirty five years. You may guess right away that I have a particular woman in mind and would very much like to marry again. June has been dead for three years now. So, why should that be a problem you might think and in truth I don’t know. I can talk to women who come into the shop, my son and I are rare coin dealers or at least my son is, I have no difficulty there. Talking coins is one thing but courting a woman is another matter and flirting with a woman is something that is entirely beyond me. It’s just not in my nature. And you’re probably asking, ‘Well how did this idiot get married before then? That was different! It was just good luck! I never ever had a girlfriend and in effect, I married my sister. Mum had this long-time friend from way back in primary school. They were in a small town, under four thousand, and they were two girls in the same class both surnamed Karlson and yet in no discernible way related. From such things bonds are made. Mum’s family moved away to the city here but time and distance made no difference to the friendship. Fay Tees ( nee Karlson ) became my Aunty Fay. Her husband became Uncle Bob. Which made June my cousin. When we were young, I didn’t realize that she wasn’t really a cousin in the normal sense. We went to their farm for most of our holidays, they came up to us in town for most of theirs. We had plenty of other family but they were somehow our closest relatives. When June was high-school age, she came and lived with us during school terms. The nearby Girls Grammar had a national reputation and parents were desperate to get their daughters GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 2 in there. Aunty Fay and Uncle Bob as well. Their small-town High School was far from earning their confidence. The Girls Grammar had been forced to impose a restricted catchment area in which we just happened to live so that June became June Corliss while she lived with us. I am sure that plenty of other families tried this same trick and I am just as sure that the school was well aware of the possibility. I have no idea how we got away with it. But we did. I was a little over two years the older and into my apprenticeship while June was still at school. Working and out in the world, having my own money, a pittance admittedly, was a step up that may have helped my confidence a little. It put June in the role of little sister. Not that I lorded it over her in any way. It was just that there came to be one girl in this world that I wasn’t scared of. That had been a problem for me all through High School. The girls seemed to go for the boys who thought themselves marvelous. Be in love with yourself and girls would mob you. Or so it seemed. They were quick to sense my own lack of self confidence and play on it. I began to escort June to concerts and other musical events…..Perhaps I should qualify ’escort’…….My role was more that of chaperone and the events were mostly free. Even then, a great deal of my paltry income was being gobbled by my coin collection. Girls Grammar had a strong music department and June was learning the clarinet and playing in the school orchestra. The head of the department was a Miss Baldwin who was cellist in a number of the ad hoc chamber groups that gathered in private homes and she encouraged June to turn up and even to take part at times. My expense was seldom more than our tram or bus fares. We attended many of the concerts at the university and other small venues and were introduced to many of the performers and people prominent in the city’s musical scene. Miss Baldwin knew everyone in local music. I owe a great deal to Miss Baldwin. She gave me the whole world of classical music GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 3 and in particular chamber music. Even a non-player like me can learn a great deal just by listening to the discussion of a group that is striving for that elusive perfection. At the end of her schooling, June found herself a job back nearer home but our closeness remained. She now had money and, further into my apprenticeship, I had a little more. Her holidays were arranged to coincide with city’s Art’s Festival when she would come up to stay with us. By letter or phone we would decide well ahead of time what we wanted to see and hear so that I could be sure of getting the tickets. There was no on-line booking back then. It meant a trip to town. One had to get in early before the more popular events were sold out. She was always insistent that she reimburse me fully. Fortunately, our tastes more or less coincided although usually each of us had to make a some concession to the other’s tastes but life demands concessions anyhow. We never thought of each other as boyfriend and girlfriend but simply as the only other family member who appreciated the muses as we did. And a shared joy is greatly multiplied. One has only to take a grandchild to the circus to be made aware of that. The tired, old clown routines take on a first-time sparkle when reflected in young eyes. But I’m talking about June and I. We were completely at ease and open with each other, more than brother and sister now that I think of it, but we never for a moment recognized it as affection. I imagine that we’d have been embarrassed if anyone had said it was affection. And yet we eventually married and I suspect that in a way it was an arranged marriage. I am sure that our mothers had made up their minds that we would marry when we were both very young. I don’t think that dad or Uncle Bob had anything to do with it or even knew about it. This is the sort of thing that women hatch up among themselves and are particularly good at. If I am correct in my suspicions, it was cleverly done. Maybe Girls Grammar was all part of a long- GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 4 range plan. Had I suspected anything, my mind would have immediately constructed an unbridgable gulf of shyness between us. It would have been that ‘she would never have me’, ‘I was not good enough for her’, ’the very idea was presumptuous’, the ease that I had with her would have been entirely destroyed. Had June suspected any such scheme, I am sure that she would have backed off decisively. However, suspecting nothing, we became bonded long before we had any inkling of where it might lead. If it really was a put-up job, I have good reason to be grateful to mum and Aunty Fay. I doubt if I’d have ever climbed that hill on my own. I needed subtle pushes. June was a wonderful wife and we seemed to suit each other so perfectly that it continues to amaze me. Our only sadness was that we had only the one child our son Mark. But June is dead and I do not think it is any disrespect to her memory to be thinking of marrying again. Perhaps after a marriage like that it is only natural to feel a serious lack in ones life. I have my son and his wife. I have my grandchildren and I meet quite a few people every week day. But I am lonely, incomplete. My fascination with coin collecting rubbed off early on Mark but, unlike me, he has turned it into a business with a shop in the city’s main bus depot. I am, or rather was, a silent partner. The depot is older than I am, late twenties I believe, built in the days when suburban runs were handled by at least a dozen private bus companies with their headquarters out in the suburbs. All of them relatively small. Six buses was a big fleet then. Years ago, the city took over all the runs and more recently has decided that the bus services would be better run by a specialist national company. You might imagine the depot as being a tadpole shape with its tail a long double-sided covered platform and with a two-storied body. The body’s street level formerly the booking offices of long-defunct service-car companies is now shops and what was upstairs office space GETTING BEYOND A SMILE Page 5 now converted into flats. It is a place of high foot traffic close to the main streets, with reasonable rentals, and it is surprising how many people come in to see us with the odd coins or small collections to sell. I live in the flat above the shop. It remains in Mark’s name. He moved here when he started the business and continued to live here with Jenny after they married but the coming of the children made it a less than desirable place for them to live. There are no parks here near the waterfront. No open spaces at all. No schools. No kindergartens. And I was rattling around in a large and sadly empty house. So it made sense swap places. They now have my house in the suburbs. Plenty of room for the kids to play and everything that a young family needs within easy walking distance. It remains in my name even though it will be theirs one day anyway. The bills still arrive in my name but Mark and Jenny pay them. My car continues to live in the double garage there. I am now the not-quite silent partner. We open early to catch the early traffic and I am the one who opens the door, cleans the window, gets out that part of the stock that we lock away at night, and serves the first customers. Mark arrives later—by bus—parking is nonexistent in the area except for buses, and from that time on I am free to wander off unless he has some business elsewhere. I mentioned a woman. She passes every morning and she stands out from every passerby or perhaps I should say from everyone you might meet in this grim city. I am used to the suburbs. There, if you are out for a stroll, even complete strangers will acknowledge and return your greeting. Here, people walk with stony faces and firmly refuse to see you. Of the hundreds who pass me regularly, she is the only one who has come to recognize my existence and favour me

Getting it Wrong

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was a big change from Remuera this Kaipara tidal creek with the hills crowding close, the mangroves and extensive mud-flats at low tide, yet this was Rick’s chosen retreat. A house, a small jetty, a collection of farm sheds, and a large parcel of dry-stock land that he had let for grazing. His disastrous ’never again’ marriage was now history and he had retired here at fifty-one to lick his wounds, to write poetry, do some fishing and, if possible, set his poetry to music. He was an adequate cellist and a better-than-average sight-reader but he had never tried his hand at composition.

Girl Washing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

YOUNG GIRL WASHING, 19/11/10
Scion of the British Empire, fragile slip.
Transplanted far around the earth’s long curve. curve
Our ‘England expects’ her offspring to befit her.
So you sweet child must be espalier grown.
Trained, trimmed, and bent to meet exacting standards.
Husbandry gossomer-light but always there light
To form from you the ideal English woman.
“Did you wash behind your ears? Are your nails clean?”
Mama will ask. Attend to her. She wishes best. attend
Would have in you John Wesley’s ‘cleanly godliness.’
In reaching that perfection, little things have moment. moment

Give an Inch

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Through the sliding door brown eyes are pleading.
We steel ourselves and try to be unheeding.
Inside, a friendly fire, the room is warm.
Outside, the bitter wind precedes a storm.
But still those eyes are silently beseeching
Their mute reproaches to our conscience reaching.
We let her in though not a household pet.
She showers her thanks, and water, since she’s wet.
Thank goodness for the thirsty mat beside the door.
“Here’s where you stop,” we say. “Not one inch more.”
A futile hope. We find that in an hour or so
She’s crept, by stages, right up to the glow
And sprawled, displacing us the warmth to hog.
Which is a cheek for she’s our neighbour’s dog.

Going Back

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The two women were so close that Helen could have reached out and touched them had they been there in the normal sense but if she opened her eyes she would be unable to see them and no longer able to hear them. They in their turn had no awareness of their auditor sitting on the plinth of the war-memorial obelisk. She had not existed in their time. Their conversation was trivial, local gossip, trouble with a neighbour’s goat that had broken its chain, a sick child, and of interest only because it had taken place some eighty years earlier. Helen was the Helen Walters of ‘Us Girls’ which catered for the clothing needs of the over- sixties woman. It was an idea that had come to her when she had found herself in this age-group and, while still interested in clothes,.had had difficulty in finding anything really flattering. She admitted to an awkward figure. She had asked herself, “Why should this have to be?” Fashion seemed to be blind to anything but youth and stick figures and not everyone is young and lissom. And!! We live in a world with an aging population. Surely this was a growing market. It was not only the young women who wanted to look nice and that could often mean no more than wearing what was personally appropriate. Larger women had dress shops to meet their exclusive needs. Why shouldn’t older women have something similar? The ‘Us Girls’ title was based on the premise that women remain girls to the end of their life. She still thought of herself that way. She had taken over a failing dress shop which had styled itself a boutique while trying to be all things to everyone. She had practically given its stock away. Her new staff had been over-sixties. A rule that continued. They were not saleswomen and they must never be saleswomen. They needed to have good taste when it came clothes, a genuine interest in people, be absolutely honest in their advice, be someone that you would not hesitate to

Going by the Book

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These guys that knot their bed sheets into ropes
And saw through iron bars with sand on string
Are in my firm opinion simply dopes.
Experience has not taught them a thing.
Sure, they get out but out they do not stay
And that’s the point of any get-away.
I’m leaving by the front gate, openly.
I’m going to make the system work for me.

I’ll be a model prisoner, earn parole,
I’ll get religion bad and bleach me soul
To dazzling whiteness, wear me pant’s knees thin
With everlasting prayer. Then I’ll begin
To preach the judgement, warn all to repent
Like me, do penance for the lives they’ve spent.
They’ll get so brassed-off with me piety
They’ll PLEAD to have the system work for me.

Going Solo

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Are you listening subconconcious? Is there anybody there?
The word processors fired up and I’m sitting in my chair
Eager fingers at the keyboard but I don’t know what to write.
Rustle up some inspiration, make it crisp and erudite.

That request was put in hours ago, my patience has run out.
I’m coming to suspect that you don’t know what you’re about.
I’m starting off without you. No more waiting. What’s the point?
I’ll write a masterpiece and won’t YOUR nose be out of joint.

Good Pickings

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

That earnest lady with collection box? Mrs Good!
She’ll never make the honours list and yet she should.
Ever selfless worker, Mrs Good’s our treasurer,
Committee stalwart now these many years although her
Grown children, when babies, never used the clinic.
No-one wants her job. Though mothers with a child that’s sick
Bless the service, not a one’s prepared to pull some weight,
Take the reins. We’re tiring. Young blood we’d appreciate.

Goodbye Unsaid

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

What do we talk about old friend
When your life’s racing to its end?
You seem a stranger now, so thin
And mummified. When I came in,
I wasn’t really sure that it was you.

I try to hide my shock, pretend
Belief that you are on the mend.
I prayed those months you were away
For treatment but your looks betray
The failure of both science and my prayer.

Gramps

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Gramps has a jar of toffees on the shelf above the sink
And when we’ve done the dishes, we have one to celebrate.
Then, if it’s after breakfast, he will say, “What do you think,
Shall we totter to the Dairy for a paper?” I say, “Great!”
We both pretend that’s why we go, but Gramps just loves ice cream.
He always gets us double scoops and what a funny sight,
That busy tongue, those sticky hands, his grin a face-wide beam.
I’m sure he takes me as excuse to make it all look right.
And Gramps has slabs of shop-made cake with icing thick as thick
They come out when we have a drink and he says, “Have some more.”
Not like my Mum who thinks that too much cake will make me sick.
She says that he just spoils me. Surely that’s what Gramps are for!

Grandad for a Day

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Your grandad’s ace!” This was from Jake who normally made a point of not speaking to ‘stupid girls’.

“Yeah! I’ll say!” This from Tony who modelled himself on Jake and also saw himself above speaking to girls.

It was Fiona’s first year at Clarke Street Primary. Her previous school hadn’t had a Grandparent’s Day where grandparents were entertained in the morning by the school choir and items from individual classes, had lunch at the school, and then took part in the activities of their grandchild’s class in the afternoon.

Guerrilla Warfare

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She now says she forgives me. Trumpets loud this seeming virtue.
Shades of Pecksniff and Uriah Heep! It’s her at fault not me.
A keen and subtle weapon fits her hand, perfect to pursue
Her sly warfare. A bland mask hides her cancerous enmity.
What damns me is to be her husbands friend and that from way back.
This then constitutes me threat and subject to covert attack.
Nothing’s really open, always she protests my good at heart,
Sorrowing when I reject the loving counsel she’d impart.
Tell me! Wouldn’t you if all your moves were caste in the worst light?
Patient protest or no protest, Either way it proves she’s right.
My protest seeks to hide my guilt, silence shows I’ve no defence.
The baseness of my nature is an axiom. I just can’t win and hence
Must slough off oblique skirmishing, all that scathing rubbishing
Of those who share my views, and overlook those eyebrows rising
In expression of disgust. Her spouse and I have business ties.
Also from way back. Can they hold up still against the artful lies
She whispers? Our front, outwardly polite, now sustains a crack.
She’s quite upset to think I’d charge her guilty of attack
And, of course, she’s not. I’m ALWAYS taking things in the wrong way.
But, saintly example, she forgives the cruel things I say.
I could cut my loses, sell out, walk away. At that I jib.
Regretfully, it’s much to late to give Adam back his rib.

Haiku

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

These were put in a haiku competition but had no luck. One of the winners had four lines which makes me wonder about the judges.

This caterpillar 5
Thinks gluttony a virtue. 7
Not in my garden! 5

The wind whispers news
From far exotic places
And sets me yearning.

An impudent wave,
Rushing unseen up the beach,
Wets my trouser legs.

Cold slate-grey river.
Willows, mist caught in their hair.
Sun peeps over world’s edge.

hans christian andersen

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

two pretentious modern poets approached a publisher
he couldn’t begin to make sense of their stuff
but their reputation had preceded them
they had appeared in Landfall
they had massive arts grants
he published

reviewers couldn’t make anything of it either
though apparently everyone else understood
the editor of Landfall
the arts grant people
they raved

the committees choosing school text books
were naturally even more confused
but since the critics claimed that
it set new directions
they bought

He Snores

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Somehow you learn at an early age that there are questions that you must not ask. Families have secrets. Even before starting school, I noticed that other children had people called grandparents whose sole purpose in life was to make a fuss of them. They had uncles and aunts and cousins. I had none of these apart from Aunty Thelma who was really just the lady who lived in the upstairs flat. Although she did make a fuss of me. We seemed to be an isolated unit with no history and to question how that could be was somehow to act badly.

Healing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Original. Rewritten as sonnet MY FEET DELIGHT… Nov 98.

HEALING ON A LONELY BEACH

My feet delight to walk upon your sand
Swabbed clean and holystoned scant hours ago.
These graving tools record my progress and
Leave in their wake the thanks I’d have you know.

So dull the day and yet your prospects please.
Strange physic paves your strand that lies beside.
Somehow my regrets fade, my tensions ease,
And wash away as by tomorrows tide.

Healing on a Lonely Beach

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

MY FEET DELIGHT….
My feet delight to write upon your sand,
Swabbed clean and holystoned scant hours ago.
These graving tools record my progress and
Leave in their wake the thanks I’d have you know.
When cancerous woes would seem to overwhelm,
I leave those cares in bond and come to you
To find true solace in your magic realm
And have my blunted spirit forged anew.
Though dull the day yet still your prospects please.
Strange physic paves your strand that lies beside.
Somehow my regrets fade, my tension ease,
And wash away as by an evening tide.
Blithe gulls command this breeze exultantly.
And with them my heart soars. Uplifted. Free!

Heavens Above

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Shallom. Heaven here. How may we help you. What!? Well if that’s the way you want it. This is Jimmy Carter’s peanut farm. Jimmy Carter speaking. Yes Mr. Carter. What can we do for you. Errr. My flatmate Stuart left me a note to ring your number. It said to ask for Nick. Obviously this is another of his infantile jokes. Oh surely not! It’ll be saint Nick you want. If it was Old Nick, you’d be ringing the other place. However, I’m afraid that Nick can’t be reached at the moment. He’s down below there somewhere finding out who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. And he’s forgotten to take his cell phone with him. As per usual! By the way, I hope you’ve you been nice. Can I take a message? O.K. Two can play this game. Can you ask him to ring me when he gets back? No! I’m afraid that’s not allowed. This line is only for use between home base here and our agents in the field. Perhaps if I ring later? Forget it! I wouldn’t put you through. Anyway, it’s an unlisted number. I can’t help wondering how your flatmate could have got hold of it. So please keep it a secret and please PLEASE don’t ring it again. Then how do you explain the fact that it’s a Taranaki number? Seven five triple nine double three. I’m sure that you must have pushed some extra digits without noticing. You don’t for a moment think that heaven is in Taranaki, do you? It could be. It’s no more unlikely than telephones and receptionists in heaven. Certainly there are! We’ve a complete PABX system. And a fax machine. Unlisted. So I mustn’t tell you that number either. But I can tell you how to find our home page on the internet if you’re interested.

Help from on High

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Joe Branston lolled comfortably on the patio enjoying a coffee and soaking up the early morning sun. He was feeling pleased with himself and with the world. This was his day. The day with all the difficulties in the past. Not even that damn fool woman could ruin things at this point.

Joe was mayor and, he believed, a good mayor. The woman in question was Ruth Hampton who held the position of Municipal Engineer though not for long if Joe had his way. She had been employed during his absence in the States and on his return he had left no-one in doubt as to what he thought about it.

Help Me! I'm Falling

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Having someone tug at your shoulder unexpectedly is startling at any time. Having it happen when you’re hanging in a safety harness ninety odd stories up is something else again. Be introduced to a stranger and the first thing they’ll ask is, “What do you do for a living?” It seems that we are no more and no less than what we do. When I was still in uniform they had no need to ask but Vietnam took the shine off that. I am still ashamed of what we did there. Now I clean windows. At first, I used to fudge and say that I was an aerialist: that I performed death-defying feats on Fifth Avenue. Window cleaning is hardly up there with brain surgery. But then I came to realise that where I clean, and the sheer height, puts the job in a special class. The where is the Empire State Building, one hundred and two stories and the whole thing built in less than two years. There are now buildings elsewhere that are higher but the Empire State is the grandaddy of them all, the patriarch. Think skyscraper and you think Empire State. My family has been closely involved with it for three generations. My grandfather, an electrical engineer, was the first of our family to come to this country. He it was who changed our family name from Leuwenstein to Lewison thinking it more American. Rachel Adler, who in time became my grandmother, came over with her family two years later. My grandparents set up house in the Lower East Side at that time the largest Jewish enclave anywhere, over 500 synagogues and religious schools. They had two sons and one daughter, my mother. I know the whole area well. Momma and I moved in with them while my father was out in the Pacific and later with the occupation forces. Things have changed since then. These days, Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and Chinese just about outnumber us. After a number of years in menial jobs where his qualifications could not be used

Hogging the Conversation

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah! She’s dry alright! I went up with the son-in-law a couple of months back in the Aero Club’s Cessna. He’d just recently got his pilot’s license. Wanted to show off a bit. We went on a tour out over the plains. It was so brown even then that it’d make ya cry. I’m told that it’s a lot worse now! Just dust some of it. Cockies down to the last of what should be winter feed–drying cows off–selling stock. I had a couple of really bad years on the farm myself but I don’t think they were anywhere near as bad as this one. I’m glad that I’m retired and out of it. After the wife took off, my daughter and son-in-law insisted that I was getting a little bit past living on my own,that I should sell up and move into town with them. When I suggested that maybe I should stick it out and advertise for a housekeeper. Something in the line of ‘mid-20s, 36:24:36’. My daughter was not amused. Her mother’s defection has continued to eat at her and she didn’t see it as anything to joke about. She worshipped her mother. She couldn’t see that it was just my way of putting on a brave face. No man likes to be cuckolded. And I still miss her too. In a number of places we saw the ground-hugging smoke that signals an underground peat fire. It’s all peat down below–ya know– the whole area was once a vast swamp, hundreds of square miles of it, and every really hot summer we get these deep-down fires. This year they reckon it’s the earliest ever. They seem to just start themselves and there’s nothing ya can do to put them out. Keep burning until the winter rain comes. I know that you’re not from around here but, I tell ya, apart from times like the present, its some of the country’s best dairy land, if not the best, and that’s entirely thanks to our drainage network. Everyone moans like hell about the Drainage Board levies as if they’re some sort of cruel imposition, another scheme to cripple the poor old farmer, and yet if it

I Am the Author of My Dreams

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It doesn’t hurt to be surnamed Junge when one is a psychiatrist although Frank’s family was several generations away from Switzerland and he was unaware of any relationship with the great Carl Gustav. Junge was a common enough name. Frank believed that he had achieved his former position of responsibility at a Mid-Western teaching hospital strictly on his own merits and his many published papers would support that opinion. He had left that relative security as the captive of an idea. During the early years of his medical training he had suffered severely from nightmares. Mainly due to the awareness that his parents marriage was in danger of foundering from the constant strain of the financial obligations that they had undertaken to put him through medical school. He had felt very much to blame, selfish, and had offered to pull out, take up something else, but they would not hear of it. He had also discovered himself, now that he was for the first time in his life away from the safety of home and the friends that he had grown up, to be unskilled socially. Young women paralyzed his brain and his tongue. If they betrayed the least interest in him, he would look around in panic for some way of escape. Years later, he had still never had a special woman friend. He could talk to women quite freely in his professional capacity but a social closeness with any woman was something that he could not handle or at least imagined he could not. In his nightmares, he was forever being chased by someone of extreme malevolence and power. He knew now, as a psychiatrist, that being chased was the most common form of nightmare: that children were usually chased by wild animals while adults tended to be chased by some unspeakably evil man. In one recurring dream, he would be at the top of a never-ending gradual slope when his

I Love You Anne

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love you Anne though forty years have passed
And I’ve not heard a word of you in all that time.
The little girl I knew has grown into a woman.
Cold calculation tells me that you’re fifty two.
Married I assume, a mother, possibly a grandmother.
The sylph of youth now gone with grey encroaching.
Yet one’s essential essence, rock-like, resists time.
You are the girl I loved and love. That cannot change.

I Love You Anne

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love you Anne though forty years have flown
And in that time I’ve heard no word of you.
The naive child is to the woman grown
And by cold calculation fifty two.
The Sylph of youth long fled, the grey now near.
Married, I assume. Mother? Grandmother?
But still the girl I loved and love, revere.
Innate virtue life’s cares cannot smother.
A callow youth, in lodgings, found a friend.
A little sister of whom he grew fond.
And though their closeness danger might portend.
Philea and not Eros was the bond.
A sweet out-going child so you began.
Goodness personified. I love you Anne.

I'll Take the Cash

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If he’s gained the reputation of fixing the unfixable, why should I care?
He works as Baggage Handler at the International Airport and it’s there
His miracles bring fame. Appliances and anything that’s electronic.
He takes home to work his special magic, get them in good nick.

I know because a mutual friend informs me that I’m acting as ghost fixer.
They all come to me. It’s on my workbench that they drink of the elixir
Of extended life. This once electrical apprentice who failed to qualify,
Can talk the talk and comes across as a most knowledgeable guy.

I'm Going Home

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“I’m going home today. My wife will pick me up this afternoon.”
Several times he told me his exciting news. I worked on and soon
I had a helper in this fine old man so quick and rational.
Leaving the asylum! I felt so pleased for him for, after all,
He’d been here many years but clearly had no place here anymore.
We talked and what a life he’d led. Adventure. Roamed the world before
The accident that put him here, playing piano for support.
Showed me his burn-scarred hands, with, I presumed, arthritis and I thought
‘That’s playing done for you my friend.’ Yet after lunch, a little tired,
He left me, went into the lounge and played and played as one inspired.
The true professional who harmonised instinctively. And when
I left, before his wife arrived, I thought we’d never meet again.

In Total Remission

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I wonder what has happened to the girls that I sighed after in my youth,
My bashful, tongue-tied youth. Those goddesses for me so unapproachable:
So capable of turning me to ashes with one withering glance
When clever openers, sweet compliments, were culled from song and film,
Rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed but never used except in wild daydream.
I wonder what they’re doing now, how skittish fortune’s dealt with them.
Perhaps, for most, their beauty’s well past use-by date……But so is mine.
Perhaps my sighs would now be with relief that that wall was not breached.
That’s not the point for, even then, I wish them well. They still have part in me.
The plumage of pretense de rigueur for the mating dance long moulted,
The years make me as comfortable with women as with men, surely with them.
No clever openings necessary now just open self with complement spontaneous.
No use to ask that magic grant me access though.
I can’t remember any of their names.

Indebtedness

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Professor Nalder, Dear Sir,

you have probably had more than enough E-mail since the article in Time magazine but my need is urgent and I have no-one near at hand to whom I can turn.

I am a mechanical engineer and took up my present position about seven months ago as it seemed my only chance of advancement. In my former employment it had become clear that promotion was a social function and I am not the hale-fellow-well-met type. So getting in at the very beginning of a green-field startup was attractive even though its site is somewhat remote from the major centres. I would like to be able to say that I was chosen for my experience in the appropriate field but the fact is that no-one else applied. We are building a new wood-pulp mill with one or two paper machines to be added sometime in the future.

Involvement

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Little lady, solo mother, native bee
A shrub’s resplendandant florets , summer’s last,
Attracted you along with countless kin.
But you my careless missy, as I watch,
Have blundered into strands of spider silk.
What can I do but free you, get involved?
You’re thanks? None that I noticed,,,Flick !
Away to hungry lavae, clay bank nest.

Two weeks on and summer’s really faded.
With blossoms something now of memory.
Your former larder just a mown- grass desert.
So can you wonder that I worry for you?
How can you survive? Have you survived?
But hopefully your kids have got to pupa stage
Thus setting free their work-a- holic mum.
I see me, in effect, part of the family.

It Must Be Spring

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Apparently deserted street with me on foot
But at a corner, coming from my left,
I met up with Jack Sparrow, also a pedestrian
Who clearly has some building work in hand.
Gripped in his beak ten metres of recording tape
Which drags behind to snag and keep him grounded.
At our confrontation, in alarm, he takes to wing.
A personal fear? More likely that I’ll grab his prize.
But half the road width has him puffed and crashed
To doggedly take up the haul again on foot
And hop off down the road that’s to my right.
The Devil bids me stand upon his plastic train.
But no! I quite admire the gutsy little fellow.
Wish that I could follow see where ‘home’ is.
How he hopes to use it. Can’t though. Running late.
Yet I can just imagine what his wife is going to say.
Her scorn. I’ll bet he never hears the end of it.

It Was That Time of Life

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a long time ago now, toward the end of 1953. I know that because Kevin was one of the star turns at our local Coronation Concert. He played both piano and saxophone with some degree of competence and had a reasonablr singing voice as well. Admittedly, our artistic and musical standards were not particularly high. The outstanding item at that concert was the C.W.I. cow that tripped about the stage to the strains of ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’. It received rapturous applause even after its second encore. My mother played, or rather danced, in the back legs.

It Was That Time of Life

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a long time ago now, toward the end of 1953. I know that because Kevin was one of the star turns of our local Coronation concert. Kevin played both piano and saxophone and had a reasonable singing voice as well. Admittedly our artistic and musical standards were not particularly high. The outstanding item at that concert was the Womens’ Institute cow that tripped about the stage to the strains of ‘Tiptoe through the Tulips.’ It received rapturous applause even after its second encore. My mother played, or rather danced, in the back legs. The greater part of my youth was spent in the Claris district. There was a strong community spirit, a sense of belonging, in those pre-television days. Claris itself was nothing more than a hall, a tennis court, a rugby ground, and a school. The nearest store was fifteen miles away and the nearest town thirty but we didn’t consider ourselves isolated. There was always something going on. We had sports teams, indoor bowls, dances, amateur dramatics, and of course both the Country Women’s Institute and the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers. Mum was in both. And we had pictures at the hall on Friday night. The single projector was owned by a local enthusiast. The lights went on between reels, cigarettes were lit, and everyone had a bit of a natter. It was normally the week’s big social event. If we had a collective fault in Claris it was probably in being too inward looking, much too interest in each other’s affairs, and too ready to decide what other people should do. When Bob Whelan died, the consensus was that his widow Molly should take on one of the local boys to help with the milking, put the place on the market, and move out at the end of the season. She had many genuine offers of help, the district was good that way, but nobody thought to ask Molly what she wanted to do. It simply became an immutable fact that she was going to sell out. But she surprised everyone. In the off-season, she left the boy in charge, disappeared for a month, and returned with a new husband, Kevin. And, if it wasn’t enough for her to remarry with Bob scarcely five months in the grave, her new husband was young enough to be her son and—-distinctly good looking. Molly was approaching sixty. Kevin was only thirty eight. The district was scandalised, the women particularly so. My mother could talk about nothing else for weeks.. The women were agreed that it could not be a love match. Kevin had married the farm, not Molly. On one occasion, at the dinner table, I was foolish enough to suggest that with some of the women there might be more than a little unacknowledged jealousy. My mother really chewed my head off for that. Even though she herself may have suspected as much, pack loyalty demanded their defence. The initial view continued even though time showed the couple to be very close and affectionate. Much closer than in most of the districts older marriages where romance was long dead and therefore something to be disparaged. But it couldn’t last, everyone said that it couldn’t last. Give it a couple of years at most. By then, Molly would begin to show her years and Kevin would be at that restless age when a man begins to regret being tied down, and particularly so to an older wife. The age when he needs to reassure himself of his virility and attractiveness to the opposite sex. The scales must eventually fall from his eyes and then ‘poor Molly.’ But under the ‘poor Molly’ there was more than a hint of ‘it’ll serve her right.’ It is unlikely that anyone ever expressed these views directly to Molly herself but in that closed community it was impossible not to know what other people were saying or even thinking. She could hardly miss the significant glances when Kevin danced with, or shared a joke with, another woman. Kevin could not be faulted on his close attention to Molly on social occasions but he was the open friendly type, always in the forefront, at ease with both men and women. But his auditors read far more than was justified into his actions to find a sure proof of their prior conceptions. Later events would show that Molly was well aware of what was being said and that, despite an unruffled front, her confidence in holding Kevin was severely undermined. And then Jenny came home to recuperate. Jenny was Molly’s daughter back from several years in central Asia where she had fallen victim to one of those unpronounceable tropical diseases. She was in her late twenties, a bit of a looker, and unmarried, and everybody said, “This’ll be worth watching.” This would be where Kevin would clearly see his mistake. I don’t think that anybody really imagined at the start that anything would actually grow up between the two but that view changed. We had a number of marriageable bachelors and each had a mother who was determined to see her son settled. They had a difficulty because quite a few of the local girls headed for the brighter lights and never came back. Jenny received an avalanche of invitations but all to no avail. Jenny had a second class honours degree and had seen the wider world outside Claris. She had no wish to be bounded by the narrow horizons of a farmer’s wife. The mothers could not understand it. They were upset when she sidestepped their rather obvious attempts at matchmaking. Actually, she could be quite short, verging on rudeness at times. But…how could any girl not jump at their son? Logic then told them that this had to mean that Jenny was sweet on somebody else and it must be admitted that she did display an obvious affection for Kevin. Nola Friedland, our local dragon, actually challenged her on her ‘shameless behaviour’ in this direction and pointed out that she was ‘heading straight to hell.’ But Jenny, standing on her dignity, told Nola that she was an interfering old cow, and angrily insisted that it was all purely platonic, nothing more. Some people had nasty minds. She was just pleased to see the happiness that Kevin had brought her mother and was grateful to him. Everyone must know that her mother had led a dog’s life with her own father. He had been a humourless pig of a man. The age disparity didn’t worry her at all. But no-one was willing to give her credit for her pleasure in the union and her rudeness to Nola and the slander of her own father told against her. The district’s rumour mill geared up to run three eight-hour shifts and Molly could not have missed catching some of its output. Sad to say, I think she was somewhat relieved when Jenny left even if it was only to still the gossip. It was Kevin alone who ran Jenny over the hill to catch the Road-Services bus to Auckland. She was due to sail out the next morning and her next letter would probably be months away. She was a poor correspondent at any time. Molly stayed at home. She was finding it uncomfortable to ride in the car. She was rather coy about the reason but it was hard to keep anything secret around Claris. A boil on her bottom that she was too embarrassed to get lanced was what people reckoned. True or not, I do not know, but it was an indisputable fact that Kevin did not come back. That did not become known until the evening when the neighbours were alerted by a vacuum pump running long after all the others had stopped and then noticed the cowshed lights. They found Molly distraught and trying to put the herd through by herself. She had not been able to bring herself to admit even to close friends that Kevin had not come back. I would think that we all felt sympathy for her even while agreeing privately that she only had herself to blame. She must have been a fool not to have noticed what was going on. It had really been too much to expect that she could hold on to this much younger man. The contrast between herself and Jenny had been just too great. And, of course, Kevin had been at that time of life. There was no point in reporting him missing. There could be no doubt as to where he was or at least who he was with. Our predictions had been fully justified. And justified they remained for just over a fortnight at which time tree-planters began their work on the Clarkson Estate on the Claris side of the hill. They found the car. The hill was all loose metal and Kevin had run off at a corner, gone down a long slope with brush already crushed ready for planting, and had ended up in a gully. From the road, there was no sign that anything had happened. Kevin had been alone, on his way back, and within two miles of home. The car roof was flattened to seat level and Kevin had been trapped inside. He had broken both legs and bled somewhat but the worst aspect of the whole affair was that he had obviously survived for some days, possibly for as much as a week, in pain, waiting for the rescue that never came. Any latent sympathy for Molly immediately evaporated. Kevin’s death became her fault. Suddenly, she had no friends. Kevin was dead because she had not even bothered to report him missing. That no-one else had done so and that the whole community had a basic responsibility for Molly not doing so was easily overlooked. Everyone was now convinced that a hunt would have been started and that Kevin would have been found within hours. This in spite of the fact that in that fortnight hundreds of cars had come over that hill and rounded that very same corner without anyone noticing anything amiss. The womenfolk also now expressed their amazement that any mother could believe so ill of her daughter. While Claris can be very supportive of its own it can also be unforgiving. Once you are out, you are out for good and will be made to feel it. Molly finished the season with a succession of farm workers from outside each of whom quickly found themselves unwelcome locally. That might have been entirely unfair but we—because I must include my family in this—we didn’t see it that way. If there were any among us who did think it unfair they kept silent, unwilling to break ranks. At the end of the season, Molly sold and moved. Her neighbour took the opportunity to get the place for his sons. His offer was fire-sale but Molly accepted. There was not much else that she could do.

It's an Honour to Serve

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Walt hates my guts because I think that Public Service means just that.
I’m used to helping people in the private sector, like to help them.
He sees my stance naïve, making a rod for him and everybody else.
The department pays lip service to King Public but that’s gilded cant.
Joe Public is a nuisance. Unadmitted! But a nuisance just the same.

Refer to Walt a case that rightfully is his and he’ll refuse it angrily.
Tell me to, “Handle it yourself,” and when I do I’m still offside.
My case approach entirely mishandled, his comments scathing.
Though everything I do is wrong, most work seems to fall my way.
Walt, diligent for mates, has made a special art of dragging feet.

Jessie

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A country town whose main street is the main highway.
One thousand people, shops, a garage, one hotel,
And Jessie importuning travellers who stop.
Playing up gentility and sounding like the Queen.

A woman of good breeding no-one here can doubt.
English. Educated. That posh accent’s not put on.
How comes she to be here, a world away from home
So down-at-heel, now local legend, laughing-stock?

The answer’s simple. Alcohol. It rules her life.
A prohibition order bans her from the pub
So strangers are dragooned to buy drink for this lady
Whose upbringing, she says, precludes her entering bars.

Jim Boy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We’ve been together all our lives, Jim Boy.
It’s been a boon to have a friend like you.
With all we’ve shared, events cannot destroy
The closer bond than brothers ’tween we two.

You understand me, care consistently.
When I’m chased off to bed, disgraced outcast,
Rejected by the world, you comfort me,
Lie at my side and bring me peace at last.

And when I chopped my foot it wasn’t Dad
Or Mum I looked to first to give support.
I bellowed out for ‘Jimmy’, yes you lad,
For you’re my strength, in trouble you’re my fort.

Job Satisfaction

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s sad to see the old trades go and some would say a crime.
So let me take you by the hand and whisk you back in time.
Now where are we? Why Holloway. You’ve not been here before?
A woman’s for the drop today. Just peep in through that door.

Good lookin’-eh?-and yet she caught her husband with the maid.
A touch of arsenic in his food soon stopped the tricks he played.
The parson’s wrestled with her soul, her last meal’s on that tray,
At eight the prison guv’nor comes and we get underway.

Journey Into Space

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As I behold the heavens on a clear and star-lit night,
My mind moves into hyper-drive, my fancy takes to flight.
The earth shrinks to a speck, then disappears, left far behind.
Beyond the solar system’s outer reaches, soon I find
Andromeda, our near galactic neighbour looming fast.
I’ll not stop there, I’ve done the place to death these three nights past.
Delightful when it’s sights were new, it’s now become a bore.
It’s time to boldly go where mind has never gone before.
The star-ship Fancy, under my command, will set to rest
Fierce arguments concerning which hypothesis is best.
I’ll view from close-up quasars, binary stars, and those gas streams
So fast and light-years long. I’ll check on any spot that seems
A likely black hole and, should it’s massive gravitation
Try to suck me in, my stronger-still imagination
Will resist. When back, I’ll let all know the true position,
Win fame, a Nobel Prize. Some may brand it supposition
But who cares? They’ll be narked because it wasn’t them but I
Who conquered space and pioneered this safer was to fly

Laundromat

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a sure bet that you will not find two people more unfitted to run a business than my sister Fay and me. Even our late mother, our best and possibly our only advocate, had reluctantly to dismiss the pair of us as dreamers. So it was nearer dread than delight when her brother, our uncle, willed to us his precious laundromat.

You may think that running a laundromat would be child’s play. People load their own clothes into the machine and put a coin into the slot. You do nothing. Maybe you make coin change for the odd note or two but what’s so hard about that? The difficulty in this case was that the business was in the inner city in an area that at the time of setting up had been largely light industry. It had been designed to cater for their particular needs with heavy washers, heavy driers, a large commercial boiler, but the light industry had largely fled. The once-clientel had been moved to the suburbs by the rising rates and ground rents. Now the area was largely high-rise shoe-box flats. It was just like Uncle George to saddle us with this liability.

Leap

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There was a lad born into a tight but scattered depression-frozen community where longdrops were the norm and a septic tank the height of modernity. He had never seen a telephone and knew nothing of domestic fridges, washing machines, or in fact, of any other electrical appliances. Paved roads and footpaths were no part of his experience. Two wooden clothes pegs clipped together made an aeroplane something that he had yet to see although he knew that they went ‘brmmmmmm’. His was a comfortable world. He was happy and contented.

Left Behind

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘You are just what you eat,’ it has been said.
Not me. I seem to be what I have read.

Old boy’s-adventure books of derring do
And British pluck: high-minded heroes who
Were God-ordained to rule a child-like breed
Of dusky skin, with gun-boat if the need
Arose. No questions loomed of other’s right
To work out their own destiny. The might
Of British arms acquired divinity.
Bles-sed those coerced by British sovereignty.

leshall

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This story was told to me more than fifty years ago by Les Hall to whom these events happened.

During the Second World War, Les was sent to work on the railways under the Man-Power Act that operated at that time. Staff shortages meant that promotion was rapid and Les was soon a signalman in sole charge.

There came a Sunday night when Les was on duty in a box on the North Island main trunk. The tablet machine was out of action and the trains were having to be operated by telephone. A dangerous practice on a single track since the purpose of the tablet machine was to ensure that two trains could never be on a stretch of track at the same time.

Let Me Tell You

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It rankles, sickens me, that subtle lie
That brought me censure. Powerless was my
Sad truth ‘gainst his ‘divine’ authority.
A lesson for the future that must be.

The saintly-seeming Pastor of our flock
Declined to give the ‘weak of faith’ the shock
Of disillusion. So I paid the price.
The ‘greater good’ required my sacrifice.

And now he gives a lead, forgiving me.
A nice display of Christian charity.
Still, underneath, I know he knows he owes.
Through all that posed concern his unrest shows.

Let's Say It's Magic

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Karangahape Road just opposite the top of Queen Street, late in1936.
Upstairs in Howie Walker Dentist’s waiting room, a wailing two-year old.
His mother’s in the chair. He’s been excluded. Are they going to hurt her?
Patients waiting wish some saviour would take charge and shut him up.
One lady does. “A game, a game, I know a game. Would you like to play a game?
He brightens up a once his mother suddenly forgotten. Yes. He’d love to play.

Little Blue

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Little Blue, I’m sure you have a Latin name but “Little Blue” must do.
Some time a botanist got on his knees, as I have done, and marvelled.
You so small, so seeming insignificant, and yet so very beautiful.
Who smuggled you into my lawn? The seed I bought was certified.
Your neighbours, drab, rely on the capricious wind for their posterity
But here are you adorned to tempt a lover. I would say an aesthete.
But just who?
Your man-of science will have watched, identified your caller,
But I have not the time. I have this lawn to mow and other chores.
Still!….Just for you sweet thing…I’ll lift the blade a smidgen.

Little Green Men

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Sam Wendelbourne looked quite unlike the way one usually pictures a magazine editor. He was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts, thongs, and a two-day stubble. In his late sixties, stringy, and grizzled by the Arizona sun, that was Sam. And the magazine office was nothing fancy, just a room above the three car garage. There was a computer with publishing software, the magazine went to the printer on discs, there was a scanner for the artwork, a combined telephone and fax machine, some filing cabinets, a desk, two chairs, and a gun cabinet. And that was it. Apart that is from the moose’s head that gazed benignly down at Sam as he worked. It had long since forgiven him. Sam’s magazine, ‘SIGHTINGS’, had a world-wide readership. A die-hard band of true believers. The latest issue was now in the hands of the printer and Sam was spending a busy Saturday morning cleaning up some of the mess. As always in the season, the afternoon would be held sacred to baseball on the television and a few cans of Coor’s. His wife, Gloria, who always helped him in the rush before publication, was catching up on some neglected housework. Sam’s was a niche market, U.F.Os. The late forties and the fifties had been the vintage years with an intense public interest fed by a flood of books, magazine articles, and films. George Adamski was claiming to have been taken by saucer to the far side of the moon and beyond. Children were being abducted to provide genetic material. Bob Renaud was in telepathic contact with aliens in earth orbit and was passing on their instructions to the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs Of America. Ashtar of Venus was allaying fears of an atomic holocaust with a reassuring ‘We come in peace to save you’ and George King had a rendezvous in space with Jesus Christ who recommended that everyone should read George’s book. Those were heady days.

Living in an Open Prison

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

When her mother died, Rachel found, with shock, that she had no official existence. At birth it is a simple matter for one’s coming into the world to be recorded. At seventeen it is much more difficult. That she had made her entrance during a period of storms when the valley had been isolated by slips was family history but why her birth had not been registered she did not know and with both parents now dead there was no way of finding out. It was no part of their religious belief. The scripture says to ’let every soul be subject to the higher powers’ and registering a birth is something that the higher powers require. She had remained outside the school system as well. All the other valley children had been bussed to the nearest school and later to the more distant high school. It meant contact with worldly children, with satan’s world. An unsatisfactory situation but the law required it. Rachel had initially been kept back from school because her mother thought her frail and there was always the advantage of putting off the spiritual risk until she was better able to handle it. Attendance not being required at five. Her mother had taken it upon herself to teach her and somehow that had continued and she had never gone to school. Their neighbours had probably assumed that she was in an official home-school program. Her tuition had had a very narrow compass but then the very same thing could be said of her world. There were no books in the house but those of an improving nature which meant the Bible, books of Bible exegesis by men of their own persuasion, and books on farming practice. Her father had subscriptions for several farming magazines and took the local paper, four broad-sheet pages of local news taken mainly for the stock-sale advertisements. There was, of course no radio in the house.. The valley was known as Hallelujah Valley and its inhabitants treated with some

Local Boy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was one of those late-autumn mornings when the sun is at it’s most welcome and most benign. While it didn’t quite conquer the chill that crouched in the shadows, it bestowed along with it’s frail warmth a special feeling of well-being. Well-being that is to everyone but Ralph. Ralph was sitting in one of the boomerang-seat pedestrian laybys which border the Queen Street Auckland footpaths. Foot traffic, vehicle traffic, and every happening were normally theatre to him, profoundly interesting, but this morning the parade failed to lift his spirits.

Local Boy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was one of those late-autumn mornings when the sun is at it’s most welcome and most benign. While it didn’t quite conquer the chill that crouched in the shadows, it bestowed along with it’s frail warmth a special feeling of well-being. Well-being to everyone but Ralph. Ralph was sitting in one of the boomerang-seat pedestrian laybys which border the Queen Street Auckland footpaths. Foot traffic, vehicle traffic, and every happening were normally theatre to him, profoundly interesting, but this morning the parade failed to lift his spirits.

Local Knowledge

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“You don’t know me and you won’t believe what I’m going to say. Not at first anyway.”

“Run it past me,” I said, “and we’ll find out.”

It was early January and I had answered the door to find an earnest teenager on the step. The prototypical teenager it appeared. Baseball cap turned back to front as per regulations, Billabong tee-shirt, Levi jeans, and, on his feet, Nike trainers. The clothes, though, were faded with a strange mustiness about them. He wore them almost self-conciously. He was carrying a large duffle bag and behind him on the path was what I took to be a microwave oven.

Local Knowledge

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“You don’t know me and you won’t believe what I’m going to say. Not at first anyway.” He sounded foreign. “Run it past me,” I said, “and we’ll find out.” It was early January and I had answered the door to find an earnest teenager on the step. Baseball cap turned back to front as per regulations, Billabong tee-shirt, Levi jeans, Nike trainers. The clothes, though, were faded with a strange mustiness about them. He wore them almost self-consciously. He was carrying a large duffle bag and behind him on the path was what I took to be a microwave oven. “I’m Steven a descendant of yours from the twenty second century,” he began. “I’m studying history, the twentieth century in particular. My parents thought that I should get some first-hand experience. So here I am.” He was right. I’d take a lot of convincing on that one. He’d been watching too much T.V.. But I asked him in anyway. “And I suppose that’s your time machine out there.” I pointed through the window at the ‘microwave’. “No. This is it. This keeps me here as long as I’m wearing it. He showed me the thick black plastic band on his left wrist. It looked for all the world like the Sinclair blind-face watch of twenty odd years ago. He could sense my disbelief. “I suppose you were expecting a big cabinet with flashing lights and digital readouts. Oh! And electrical discharges too. The reality is disappointing, eh? Here, look at this.” From his shirt pocket he drew what appeared to be a thin sheet of clear plastic folded into four. He smoothed it out on the table whereupon it lit up to reveal itself to be some sort of display device and memory bank. “My father said that this might convince you.” How the information was entered and how it was called up I do not know but there displayed was a genealogical tree with a high-lighted path leading from me to someone called Steven. Obviously himself. This claimed future I had no way of checking but the present-day information was correct although that didn’t prove anything. It was not the tree that convinced me as much as the device itself. But it still took me some time to adjust to the idea of a real time traveller. I was to learn later that the wrist band was in fact also a watch although not as we understand one. Having once been given the exact local time, Steven would always be aware of the precise time thereafter. This was an ability that he would need to hide. Time travel, he told me that day, was expensive and could only occur in the one direction. Time, it seems, leaves in its wake a well-marked path much as a snail does. Such travel had become illegal for private citizens since the slightest alteration in the past inevitably bought consequences that multiplied with time. They had experienced far too many sudden and cataclysmic changes in the world’s fabric. The sporting almanacs of their time still listed winners of major sports’ events from the mid-eighteen hundreds onward. The opportunity to use hindsight turned foresight for their own advantage, to make a few bets, was a temptation that some time-travellers had been unable to resist. They had lived the high-life while in the past and, with the same hindsight/foresight, had made long-term investments which accrued until their own time. Their gains had made instant losers of others. So time travel was banned. However, as in our own time, anything was available at a price and Steven’s family were well-to-do. I suspected right away that the idea was probably Steven’s: that he had nagged his parents until they had given in: claimed that it was vital to his studies in the same way that today’s high-school students when learning a foreign language insist that it is necessary for them to go on a school-sponsored trip to a country speaking that language. Some things do not change. I found later that I was right. Qualifying for further training in his hoped-for profession required that Steven give some evidence of solid scholarship. For once, money would not be enough. There was a review committee to face and Steven had spent the entire year just bumming around, enjoying himself, and neglecting his studies. This was a last ditch effort to save the situation. He had left his own time on the eve of the oral review the idea being that he could spend a year in the twentieth century and return moments after he left with first-hand knowledge, a year older, and, hopefully, with a little more maturity. He would then make sure of a good night’s sleep before the examination. In his own time, his absence would appear as no more than a momentary flicker. No-one would ever know. He explained to me that he knew that it was a cheek to come without asking but it was his hope that, as relatives with sons about his age, my wife and I would board him for the coming school year: that he could attend with our two boys. Could he do this without sending destructive ripples through time? I put it to him that he would have to keep a very low profile but his parents had already drilled him at length on this: had him make solemn promises that nothing in this time would be changed. In particular, he had been warned to be especially careful in his relations with the opposite sex. A child conceived that would not otherwise have been conceived would bring drastic rearrangements in its train. The thing on the path that I had taken to be a microwave turned out to be a Panasonic Duplicator. We might be relatives of a sort but his parents did not expect my wife and I to support their son for a year. In their time, the duplicator was a standard household appliance. Place any item within its enclosure and it produced another. That explained his Clothes. Preserved and displayed as historical garments, they had been borrowed and reproduced accurately even down to the fading and mustiness. Of course, matter cannot be created out of nothing. Everyone knows that. The basic materials being manipulated were somehow transmitted from stock-piles elsewhere and charged to the owner’s credit account. In this case it would be an account in the future. As Steven explained, wealth then was electronic credit. The use of credit tokens had ceased to be viable on the day that the duplicators had come on the market . His parents’ idea had been that whatever meal we were eating could be duplicated for Steven. It would cost us nothing. Any clothes and other items that he needed could be provided by duplication. Again at their expense. It was seen as an advantage that we had boys about the same age. Of course it could not be. Every time we used it we would be distorting the future in some way, they don’t seem to have thought of that, and the duplicator would hardly go unnoticed in a twentieth century kitchen. When my wife came home, we locked it away, still in its protective shipping field,and the data bank went with it. Steven’s data bank here must be his brain and pen and paper. It was fortunate that the boys were away for that week. My wife and I could keep the secret, the boys would have to be fed the same cover story as everybody else. They have big mouths. The story must be flawless. He would need a past that could not be checked and a logical reason for his sudden appearance. So Steven became Stephano a Bosnian refugee. His entire immediate family became dead or missing, an obscure village was invented and a distant relationship fabricated. Then we had second thoughts. Our real relatives would want the relationship explained in minute detail and see through it immediately. The story now became that we had been asked to foster Stephano for a short period. Once the recent situation in Bosnia was explained to Steven, he had the wit to fall into the role and play it fully. The appropriate speech needed no acting. In nearly two centuries, standard English has changed mainly in intonation but a little too in grammar. In his use of the language, Steven gave the impression that English was his second language as indeed our English more or less was. Our boys accepted him for what he appeared to be. Or did they? There was no problem getting in to school when it started. The lack of a previous school history was expected. An assessment was made. Some tests given. His responses were carefully judged. Not too smart but smart enough. Midstream. He would coast through the year being careful not to stand out. The ambient of our times would be his real study. He was also somewhat self-effacing at home initially. Not for long though. He was here to live the life of a typical teenager. It was part of his cover. His music had to loud with a bass thump that rattled windows, his clothes had live on the floor, he had to be lazy and unkempt, rude and disrespectful. He also developed into a know-it-all but we already had two of those anyway. It was mostly a pose. With it all, he was very affectionate. I must admit that I was always hoping that he would let slip something that I could use to my advantage. No such luck, however. One thing that I will say for him, he never argued when it was his turn to wash the dishes. It was a novelty and remained so for all the time that he was with us. In a resource-scarce world, more crowded than we can imagine, recycling had been taken to its ultimate degree. Even congealed gravy could provide recoverable materials not to be washed down the drain. The word ‘fresh’ must have taken on a whole new meaning. There is little to tell about the year that Steven was with us. He simply fitted in as part of the family and we grew quite fond of him. It is true that we probably took in a lot more events than we normally would in a effort to help his studies. Took heaps more photos. My wife and I even suffered through a rock concert. The Putrid Corpses or some such name. The three boys thought they were wonderful. Somehow, that year disappeared and all too soon Steven was leaving us. This in itself created a problem. It would not do for him to simply disappear. People would wonder about it. There would be questions asked and there were no believable answers that we could give.It became necessary for us to lay the groundwork well ahead: to raise the expectation of him leaving and give a logical explanation for his departure. This meant now taking the boys into the secret and schooling them so that our stories agreed. I have the feeling though that Steven had already told them a great deal. It was a tearful leave-taking. There could be no promises of letter writing or phone calls. We would never know how he got on. Steven, whom we had come to love as our own, was to be lost to us forever. Death was visiting our family. His death for us and our deaths for him because leaving was obviously every bit as much a wrench on his side. There were final goodbyes, he took off the wrist band, and in an instant he was gone. The duplicator and data bank vanished with him. As a footnote, it appears that the duplicator was not as well locked away as we had imagined. Steven left us a gift. I now have a sock drawer full of hundred dollar bills. They appear genuine enough. The have a watermark, an embedded metal strip, and look used enough not to excite suspicion. I’m sure that they will pass any test. The problem is that they all have the same serial number so that it would take an idiot to pay over two at once. But if they were trickled individually into the money supply they would probably not be noticed until the first two with the same serial number were withdrawn from service. I have promised myself that I will never use them but, at the same time, I cannot bring myself to burn them.

Loyal Friends

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You tell me that I cannot drag you in.
That you, when certain matters were discussed,
Were being shown around the house by Lyn.
You say I’m bending facts, betray a trust.

It’s me betrayed when you rescript that day
And run for cover now the whistles blown
Indignantly disclaiming all I say
To leave me under fire, to stand alone.

What happened to your seething indignation
At doubtful goings-on, dishonesty?
Who urged that we exposed the situation
But now knows nothing and abandoms me?

Luke 8:48

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Put your glasses on me girl,” I said.
And you, “But I don’t need them Dad, I’m healed.”
Though fresh-come postcard held to nose tip
Called it lie, your voice echoed belief.

To not be healed meant lack of faith.
A thing not to be countenanced.
So reason must be set upon it’s head.
’thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.'

Your years of nous and education
Overwritten by euphoria,
Fervent singing, hallelujahs passionate,
Bodies swaying, heaven-reaching hands.

Mafeking Street

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Houses so close they keep their elbows in.
Tired geriatrics spec-built fot the less well-off.
The nearest phone, shops, public transport too
In Dad’s day far away on higher ground.
No piped hot water then, fridges unknown.
Each day’s necessities a trudge uphill.

At my first sight since infant days, I’m shocked.
My father and his brother spent their youth here.
In full-on-sunshine days the way Dad told.
His tantalising twenties, gone, beyond my reach.
But see this narrow, steep, horse-traffic street
Chloresterol restricted by parked cars.

Meanwhile in a Parallel Dimension

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

or SCHROEDINGER’S CAT Mrs Schroedimger never, ever, looked behind her when backing out of the driveway. If skateboards, bikes, toys, even innocent passers-by got mangled, why should she care? Hadn’t she said, time and again, “the driveway must be left clear.”

What a pity that she never thought to tell Sooty that. Still, at his age,he should have known. Lying asleep on the concrete in the warm sunshine, he had nobody but himself to blame but, regardless of where the blame lay, poor Sooty was in a bad way. His cruushed rear end gave him no hope of recovery.

Meeting

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mid-teens, apprenticed, farming district, early fifties,
Work-life spent in houses with both spouses home,
And being just ’the boy’ and therefore in effect unseen
He watches carefully forced to this conclusion.
Couples never meet although they bed together,
Share a brace of children. Live in different worlds.
Complementary bodies by society’s rails converged.
Women never understood. Their value architectural..

Clear of the trenches he has met the other side,
The analogue of his mind in an older-woman’s head.
She widowed, of his parents generation, one of his bosses.
Like him not lock-stepped to pervading group-think
Their ‘fellow-Martian’ recognition hard to be explained.
They’re somehow kin and meld as a sure match.
Local lore would see it ‘mother-son-she-never-had’
Or sex. Congress of men and women highly suspect.

Memory

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I was forced to give up working at the age of fifty five. My short-term memory loss had made me a menace to others. My work being electrical and industrial instrumentation.

The problem had crept up unnoticed although it had happened years earlier, my reaction to stress. I had been charging my family with not telling me things that I should have been told while they were at the same time charging me with not listening. The problem was masked by the fact that my long-term memory was excellent and remains so. Finally, the difficulty could no longer be overlooked.

Might Have Beens

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

He meets her daily in the street
Ever with grandchildren in tow
And diffidently stops to greet
This secret love of long ago.

While he held back another beau
Had ventured, won the prize
Of one whose virtues time would show
And difficulty realise.

A widow young, kids raised alone,
To flower with a nuture rare,
Each now with families of their own
A testimony to her care.

At times he’s thought, “Perhaps we two…..?”
But then, “no that’s absurd!”
Always first choice, if he but knew,
And still he dare not say the word.

Misdirection

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

To my despair, our friend, the pseudo poet
Conceals from all his fuzzy thoughts inchoate
With fancy layouts, grammar on the rack.
Obscurity the core of his attack
Upon the mind, to solemnly insist
On subtle depths that really don’t exist.

All rules he sets aside, metre and rhyme,
To make untrammelled imagery the prime
Requisite, or so he says, and yet,
Reading his stuff, what insights do we get?
The cogency is ours. From thickets dense
The cozened reader flushes his own sense.

Misled

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Those two young children kneeling on the hearth are Sis and me.
We’re shouting up the flue those words that magically take wing
And speed home to the pole and to the ears of Santa Claus and he
Is taking up his pad to carefully note what things we’d have him bring.

In our world of wonder such a thing’s a given, possible.
So, as to being good, we snow him with our virtue, saintliness.
Though never to be seen being adult means that he’s gullible
And our requests and cuteness will be crowned with sure success.

Mountains

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“What on earth are you doing here?” We asked the question simultaneously. It comes as a surprise to find one’s only sibling in a place like Zermatt and apparently staying at the same hotel.

It was a silly question on my part. Zermatt is the Swiss town for which the Matterhorn is named, the base for ascents, and Sue’s husband Rob is a climber. But then again, perhaps it wasn’t so silly. Their finances being tight, Rob has normally travelled alone with Sue staying home to work and hopefully whittle down the bills just a little.

My Apologies

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Jane.. When young I wronged you.
Was repulsed.
I loved and well related to the Haworth girls
But not to you.
Unfairly blamed you for the leisured parasites
You chronicled.
Their seasons at Bath, their Balls, their being seen.
Such pointless lives.

Their daughters schooled as lure for titles, money.
Sad performing dolls.
Securely mounted on the backs of underlings
Who have no name.
Church-sanctioned ‘unter menschen’
GOD “ordered their estate”
To make the oil and water separation
Between each class His will.

My Town

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This town is not my town. Mine hummed with trams.
It’s sky framed with electric wires to give them life.
And flush-railed roads to make these beasts bend to our will.
No traffic lights to regiment, but human touch, white gloved police.

The buildings of my town had character, they drew the eye.
Their faces gave one echoes of past cultures at their height.
Classic columns fronted banks, bespoke solidity.
Today’s anthills of soulless mirrored glass no place.

No More Spelling, No More Books

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Horizons moved in from the time that he left school
Freed from the painful need to think, observe, and read.
He’d served his sentence. No-one but the utter fool
Would willingly seek headaches once there was no need.

Why fill one’s mind with useless guff since all that stuff
Would not win him the good life, clothes and wheels?
With head down in the real world he’d quite enough
To make ends meet while dreaming of the perks he lacked.

No Rest for the Wicked

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I find myself this morning on an island in a milk-white sea
Which silently by night has drowned the suburbs all around.
Civil Defence has shown itself remiss to the extreme degree
Not bringing those affected to this higher safer ground.
Those jutting chimneys, slender reefs, are marking on the surface drift
The brickworks’ kilns, my workplace, now foundered on the ocean’s floor.
Drowned, I assume, the gallant crew who manned the evening shift.
But wait! A highway leads into the depths upon that farther shore.
Some cars drive down to disappear while others driving out are clearly seen.
Life still goes on down there it seems. I’m not to get a day-off out of this.
Drat! Drat! Drat! I’ll have to pack some lunch. Warm up the Holden submarine.
Kiss the missus, just in case, and dive with fellow wage-slaves to Atlantis.

Not at All Rosey

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Poor rose what wrong they’ve done you.
They’ve bred away that hardiness
So native to your ancestors
Found still in feral cousins.

They’ve left you delicate, prone to disease
To black-spot, mould and mildew,
To the aphid and leaf-roller,
Totally dependent on their care.

The pleasure of the eye their end
With not the least concern for you
Whose beauty they exploit.

Taken in the fresh-faced bud.
A briefly-favoured kept-woman.
To be discarded when you fade.
Supplanted by some younger bloom.

Not My Scene

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Eric Ogilvy had plenty of time to think. He couldn’t go anywhere. He had driven his car under the tray of a truck and had been in a coma for some days aferwards. Weeks later, he was mending slowly and looking forward to the day when he could leave hospital. He had always been a keen reader but reading now gave him a headache. His wife had hired a television set to keep him amused. It didn’t. Television was banal and its dramas highly predictable. Predictable to him anyway and, at home, this had been a source of annoyance to his wife because he could never resist telling her what would happen next. That he was always right only made things worse. He might have found some interest in watching the changing scene outside except that the hospital was old and its windows were set high. When looking up through them, he could only see the underside of the eaves. Even a patch of sky with some passing clouds would have been welcome. For the moment, he was a prisoner waiting for visitors to come and, when they came, waiting and praying for them to leave. The hospital drugs sometimes clouded his thinking but and other times it could range free and remember. There was nothing else to do.

Number

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

NO SENSE MARKS THIS LAMENT…..
No sense marks this lament, this gnawing grief.
Though knowing that in no way brings relief.
And foolish even more guilt that assails
As accusation swells the keening wails.
I’ve borne six children, couldn’t handle more,
\
But still child seven, never now to live
Through tubes tied, rises to accuse me for
An act it is unable to forgive.
This child, I wonder what it would have been.
Boy or girl? Studious or athletic? And
To which side of the family would it lean
Had I demurred and nature had free hand?
Deprived of life! As though scraped from the womb!
This stone within me rests upon its tomb.

Number Seven

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

No sense marks this lament of gnawing grief.
Though knowing that in no way brings relief.
And foolish even more, guilt that assails
As accusation swells the keening wails.

I’ve borne six children, couldn’t handle more,
But still child seven, never now to live
Through tubes tied, rises to accuse me for
An act it is unable to forgive.

This child, I wonder what it would have been?
Boy or girl? Studious or athletic? And
To which side of the family would it lean
Had I demured and nature had free hand?

Obsession

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Stockcars, stockcars, stockcars, bloody stockcars
All those noisy battered hulks are super stars
In Malcom’s galaxy, his grand obsession.
No need to guess what is his prize possession
Or what he rambles on about incessantly.
That there is more to life he cannot seem to see.

We’re painters and the firm put us together
On domestic work which made me wonder whether
Former mates declined to work with him again.
That’s probable. Now our relationship is under strain.
He means well, truly does, but drives me up the wall
I’m sorry for him. Tried to tell him. Did no good at all.

Only in America

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There’s little point in looking for us in an atlas. Aurum Colorado doesn’t even rate a tiny dot. At least not in any of the maps that I’ve looked at. Aurum of course means gold. We’re in Moffat County on Highway 40 roughly midway between Craig and Dinosaur and a little west of Maybell. No! I kid you not! I did say Dinosaur. It’s about 45 miles to the west of us near the border with Utah. At least that’s on the map! Craig’s the same distance the other way. Craig’s the bigger of the two, nearly 10,000, and the county seat. Dinosaur has about 500. From our name you’ll guess that we’re a mining settlement. Actually, an ex-mining settlement but I’ll tell you more about that later. We’re one of the hundreds in this great land of ours that boomed to later go bust. But, better than most, we haven’t disappeared.

Perhaps

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Once there lived a miller with his wife and two sons Gustave and Wilhelm. Gustave the elder son excelled in wrestling and other village sports and was his father’s favourite. The pair travelled widely to find challengers and purses while Will was left at home to run the mill.

A year came with poor harvests when the mill could no longer support the travel and hospitality that went with these sporting endeavours and at the same time feed four mouths. So the miller decided that the time had come for Will to leave home and seek his fortune elsewhere.

Peripatus

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hungry little carnivore
Hunting on the forest floor.
In guise of a caterpillar
You’re a dedicated killer.
Ripping into captured prey.
Sucking their life force away.
Anywhere that’s moist you’re found,
In leaf-litter, underground.
Under stones and logs you lurk
Engaged in your nefarious work.
Twenty eight to eighty eight
Legs you have. I think it’s great
How those legs bring up the rear
Move in concert with those more near.
Each serried rank in paying heed
Betrays a strong brain taking lead.
Onychophoran, people think,
Represent a living link
From annelid to arthropod.
Well maybe so but one thing’s odd.
Arthropoda are your game.
What did you eat before they came?

Phoebe

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

At my approach she fades. Why must she always fade?
This tantalizing remnant of the past: this shade
Who teases me, distracts me out of mind.
No creature of my making but one somehow left behind.

How soon our scratches on this world are polished out.
A family’s universe once centred here about.
Of their cottage, on this knoll, hardly a trace remains
With they themselves now quite forgotten for their pains.

Pilgrimage

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“Your problem is your liver.” Those were his words with me still in the doorway
I was supposed to be impressed, believe, accept it preternatural, and henceforth say
With convert gratitude, “He knew! The moment that he saw my face he knew!
Saw what those useless doctors couldn’t see and did for me what none of them could do.”

An obvious trick. I faced a charlatan. His questions framed then formed his real decision.
The street photographer of film days took his unasked snaps on film’s tail-end. His con
To make you feel committed. ‘That poor man has wasted film on me.’ In truth he’d not!
You’d stop, agree to buy, he’d wind back to an unused spot and take a real shot.

Playing God

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Rethga crouched patiently at the top of the narrow path. His famous sword Decider, of fine Elfin steel, lay across his knees covered by his cloak that its gleam might not give him away although, with the Gruarcs, his scent would be enough. Scarcely human, gross, and wolf-like in appearance, they could track by scent and they never gave up when vengeance was involved. They had been following his trail for days. Until now he had managed to keep ahead of them but, although he had ridden up stream beds and chosen pathways across solid rock seeking to avoid a fight, they had always managed to find his way again. It was time to make a stand in a place of his choice. During the day, he had deliberatly let them gain ground without being too obvious about it. They would probably make their final move once both moons were down. The larger moon, Sangur, had already dipped below the horizon and the cold brittle gleam of the stars had hardened. It would not be long now.

Plums

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Were Uncle Charlie’s plums as good
As memory would now insist?
Were they as big as cricket balls,
Black-fleshed ambrosia that no-one could resist.

That hideout down behind the hedge
Where with our booty we’d have flown.
Boasting of our capacity
As witnessed by the heap accreting stone by stone.

And juice! Could there have been so much
Of that perverse insidious dye
To always stain us down the front
Accusingly, to give our innocence the lie?

Plymouth’s Children

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Letter from John Wycherly, former waterman , late of Tavistock and Saltash, to his wife’s cousins.

Taranaki, April 22nd, 1856. Dear Peter and Martha, Phyllis insists that I am the one who must write this letter although it is she who is cousin to the two of you. She has this strange idea that, because of my present employment,I might be the more persuasive correspondent. This in spite of the fact that we have never met and that you know of me and my brother Ralph only from her letters. We hope to persuade you Peter, and you Martha, that you could hope for a much better future in this country and to offer you an inducement to come out. With this letter you will have found a legal document deeding to you Peter a share of our country holdings provisional on you and Martha landing in this settlement.

R.v,t

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I was born in a house next to the Glen Eden Recreation Ground. My father and mother were sharing this house with my Auntie Margaret and Uncle Dave. I suspect that I was delivered by Sarah Arnold who was the local midwife and Uncle Dave’s mother. (It was a wednesday but other than that my memory of the event is somewhat hazy.) Glen Eden, an Auckland suburb, was then a semi-rural area of scattered houses with about 800 population, hilly with metal roads, scoria footpaths and no sewage. Everyone kept chooks and a large vegie garden. All progress had been halted by the great depression.

Real Peas

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Those peas you shuffle round your plate,
Won’t go no matter how you fool
And, though they’re something that you hate,
‘Clean plate gets pudding’ that’s the rule.

I sympathise. Those peas aren’t peas
Bred for succulence and taste
But engineer-designed to ease
Machin’ry problems and cut waste.

Tinned peas were once our winter fare,
We’d dream of each new-season’s crop.
Though dear at first, what did we care
With craving such as that to sop.

Recycling

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Miss Mitcham did not like boys at all. She considered them little horrors, every single one of them. She was glad that she had never married and had children. She had her dear sweet Muzzy and that was better.

Muzzy was a very spoilt pug dog who had his way in everything. Miss Mitcham called herself Muzzie’s mummy. “Mummy get Muzzy Wuzzy a nice bone?” Visitors kept a close eye on Muzzie. He was bad tempered and sly and nipped ankles if not watched closely.

Reprise

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Neuron screams to neuron,”Molly Bates!”
Synapses trigger fifty-year-old charges.

Molly Bates his bane of early working years.
Boiling over milk to spoil range elements.
Accepting no-one else to make repairs.
She fancied him. He knew it. No-one else believed.
She was his Mum’s age. Married. Seven kids.
His boss, highly amused, would not allow excuse
Suggesting the experience might do him good.
She’d told him once she’d nothing underneath her dress.
Though acting dumb, he’d seen where this was meant to lead
And timed his future calls to have her spouse at home
Scared, that alone,she’d press, refusal bringing cries of rape.
All day she’d ring his boss, “Where is MY man to fix MY stove?”
And even husband home, her act for him was blatant,

Reset

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The two women were so close that Helen could have reached out and touched them had they been there in the normal way but experience had shown her that if she opened her eyes they would cease to exist and they could have no awareness of their auditor sitting on the plinth of the war-memorial obelisk. She was not of their time. Their conversation was trivial, local gossip, trouble with a neighbour’s goat, a sick child, and of interest only because it had taken place some eighty years earlier. Helen was the Helen Walters of ‘Us Girls’ which catered for the clothing needs of the over- sixties woman. It was an idea that had come to her when she had found herself in this age-group and, while still interested in clothes, had had difficulty in finding anything really flattering. Fashion seemed to be blind to anything but youth and stick figures and yet we live in a world with an aging population. Surely this was a growth market. It was not only the young women who wanted to look nice and that could often mean no more than wearing what was personally appropriate. Larger women had dress shops to meet their exclusive needs. Why shouldn’t older women have something similar? The ‘Us Girls’ title was based on the premise that women remain girls to the end of their life. She still thought of herself that way. She had taken over a failing dress shop that styled itself a boutique while trying to be all things to everyone. She had practically given its stock away. Her new staff had been over-sixties. A rule that continued. They must never be saleswomen. They needed to have good taste when it came clothes, a genuine interest in people, be absolutely honest in their advice, be someone that you would not hesitate to ask for advice, and they must be extremely tactful. It is easy to tell a woman that she looks super in something but not so easy to convince her that a garment really does her no credit particularly when she has set her mind to it. They had to be practical psychologists. The garments stocked were carefully classic and timeless with the planned obsolescence of fashion firmly rejected. The whole object was to have a woman walk out with something that enhanced her looks and, hopefully, would continue to do so for some years to come: maybe give her an added spring in her step. The putting of sales secondary might have seemed a sure road to disaster but it had not proved so. Few businesses can have achieved the same level of customer loyalty and repeat sales. It came to be that a woman trying on a garment in one of the changing rooms would come out and seek the appraisal not only of the staff but of other customers, even complete strangers. Some would pirouette with almost childish exuberance, dignity in abeyance, and strut an imaginary cat-walk. There developed a club atmosphere of women helping women and any criticism tended to be taken in good part as being meant constructively. Larger premises had become necessary but that was as far as Helen had been prepared to go. She had been advised strongly on a number of occasions to open branches elsewhere, make the most of her idea before someone else did, but she had asked herself, “What for?” Her own needs were more than adequately met and she had no living relative to pass the business to. She had never married and while that gave her no cause for regret, having no daughter, another Helen, did. She was the sixth in a line of eldest or only daughters named Helen. The result of her reluctance had been a rash of blatant copies with none anywhere near as successful as the original. Others had even taken Helen’s concept and franchised it but she didn’t mind. If older women benefited that was all to the good.

Rex

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

WHAT PART OF ‘NO’ DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ?

Ours was a country-town electrical firm and Rex was our newest apprentice. His father and Charlie Parker, one of our bosses, were lodge brothers. Rex had been in constant trouble at school and his father hoped that Clarke and Parker Electrical could straighten him out. The firm had a reputation of doing well with their apprentices.

Recently out of my time, I was not given Rex at first. It was Charlie who had undertaken to turn him around but he quickly found himself beaten. Rex was then handed over to another tradesman who was no more successful. Rex when told not to do something mostly did that very same thing. He seemed blindly intent on going his own way.

Richard Thomas

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

RHUBARB, RHUBARB, COCKTAIL SHAKER. Page 1 1888 words

I wonder if the Edison Company, Biograph, Vitagraph, Essanay, or any other of the myriad early film companies ever realised that some day their one and two reelers would be historical documents as much so as the news footage of the period: that a Bronco Billy epic shot in two days at a cost of $800 would be the subject of painstaking restoration.

Running on Empty

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The staff of a certain Queen Street Star Shop had come to expect them in the mid afternoon. An elderly couple, well dressed, but somehow wary of approach. The customary ‘And how are you today?’ at the checkout has never once elicited a response beyond the actual business on hand which, happening time and again, has marked them out from the myriad other customers and brought speculation. Then again, there is the feeling of ‘haven’t I seen them before somewhere?’ Though maybe not. They are not the nine-to-five slaves, made remote from suburban supermarkets, who usually shopped at the Star Shop. So it is assumed that this couple must live close by in one of the high-rise apartment buildings that are edging up almost to Queen Street itself. And expensive apartments they are too. So they must have bags of money: be stinking rich!

Shared Minds

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Esme woke knowing tnat this was not her own bed. It was somehow softer and she knew that its bolster or mattress contained the downey breast feathers of the Eider Duck This was the famous feather bed, the ultimate. And these were not her normal night clothes. She could feel a scallop-edged nightcap like Miss Muffet’s, a long chemise that her fingers told her was figured down the front , ankle-length drawers and bed socks. Between her legs there seemed to be a pocket filled with wadding. She knew by feel without seeing that these must be of the finest materials. She was rich.

Shona

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mathesons is one of those towns that has never quite made it. Originally it was Matheson’s Mill cutting the kaihikatea of this river valley back in the days when our butter was exported in white-pine boxes. Like many small towns it began to haemorrhage the moment the reason for its birth was finally cut out. It remains the much reduced service town of the surrounding farming area.

I am house sitting in the sort of house that I could never hope to own. A house built when money was still common here. Six bedrooms, a ballroom-sized lounge with a full-sized Chappell grand, a deep verandah spacious enough to hold a modern apartment. The house sits a little up the acclivity above North Road which ends in a gate just a few hundred metres further on. It was a road that proved too costly to maintain and the route north has long been up the far side of the valley about two kilometres from here but the North Road name persists.

Sixpence to Get in, Thrupence to Spend

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Saturday arvo.We’ve been extra good Billy and me for one self-serving reason.
The flicks! We now pester our Mums to let us go, citing our helpfulness.
Success! Our bare feet washed (sissies wear shoes), coat over play clothes, we’re away.
Coins clutched in hand we join the stream converging on the Town Hall matinee.
We stand stiff for the anthem. It’s wartime and we’re Empire’s patriotic sons.
Gaumont British news reel. War tide’s turned. The Japs and Nazis run. Loud cheers!

Sleepless Nights

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps one sees things just that little clearer in the dark
Lying sleepless in the middle hours mind roving restless,
Stripping bare the should-be-obvious long masked,
Charging me with gullibility. Which charge I can’t deny.

There’s Ken my one-time Ministry Of Works apprentice.
Department legend, envied sexual folk-hero
While virgin me had difficulty even saying, “Hi!”
But decades on facts speak and Ken was crafted myth.

Ruth I thought my better, awed by glowing sanctity.
When she was framed by cunning friends, saddled with blame,
Her trusting nature taken cruel advantage of, I fought for her,
Believed when no-one else believed. I now know me deceived.

So Your Mother's an Old Bitch

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I bitch because I love you girl,
Nag because I really care.
There’s a system, preditory,
Smiling come-ons just out there.

Brightly gleam its doubtful values,
Subtley are their merits sung.
Hidden snares, with bait enticing,
Wait to trap unwary young.

Precepts that my mother lived by,
That have helped me to this day,
Slyly these ones would disparage,
Have you trash and throw away.

Undermining all I’ve taught you,
Massed, their prophets stand arrayed.
I seem to fight the whole world ‘Love’
And–can you wonder?–I’m afraid.

Soap

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I once asked my Dad what it would be like to live in the sort of mansion that everyone must envy, to have my own fleet of expensive autos, to be seen passing regally in one of my stretch limos. Yes, from an early age I had dreams. Unfulfilled dreams!

I inherited my father’s business. It was soap! Bloody soap! I don’t mean that ‘Bloody’ was our brand. We were Glacia Soap promising housewives that their wash would come out ‘Glacia White’. Blindingly reflecting the sun’s rays. Almost needing to be pegged on the line wearing sunglasses. Unfortunately, neither my father nor I proved to be an Andrew Pears or a William or James Lever and that either as soap makers or again as salesmen. We were never more than a small player, scarcely known outside of Massachusettts and unable to command much display space. I sold out during the downturn of the eighties.

Soldiers of the Queen

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

How many people today can say for sure where Goulds Crossing is? People outside of the local area that is. Forty years ago travelers north or south would, of necessity, have had to drive down the main street and cross the second of the bridges that replaced the earlier ford that gave the place its name. But a bypass moved State Highway One and a new bridge a kilometre to the east and put Goulds out of sight and, therefore, out of the life of outsiders. Except if it should come to our attention for one day each year on Trackside Television. Yet it thrives. Typical of the smaller country towns it continues to be the business centre and the healthy heart of a thriving farming district. It is here that ‘The Rifles’ began. A modest beginning in a modest town and at a Combined-Districts Pony Club meet. It was intended to be a one-off display. Horse-based entertainment that would, hopefully, impress visitors from other clubs with the town’s exceptional horse-back skills. Goulds has a higher proportion of horse people than most towns and a lot of horse-related activities. There is the racing club already mentioned, the hunt, hares are common thereabouts, there is strong interest in show jumping and dressage, and, of course, the pony club. The town fancies its expertise in such matters. The display was the brainchild of Annette Fowldes the pony-club president who leaned on her husband Jeff to help make it happen. It was to be a sort of military dressage with elaborate and, hopefully, precise horse manoeuvres rather along the lines of a marching-girls display, which meant to music, and that was why, in their first demonstration and for the only time ever, one of the six ‘soldiers’ was a woman Rachel Farr. Rachel was, fortuitously, both a capable horsewoman and former trainer of the Gould Grenadiers. It was she who choreographed that first presentation to the stirring strains of ‘Soldiers Of The Queen’, Jeff knew when he was out of his depth, and it was she who replaced one of the men who fell sick or claimed to be sick at the last minute. That first display went well although those taking part were conscious of some minor fluffs, the slight losses of precision. Yet what could one expect from a first effort and from just a few weeks’ practice? The onlookers, however, were prepared to be more forgiving and let the slight lapses be over-shadowed by the sheer novelty of the display. They recognized only too well the difficulty in persuading ones mount’s gait to fall exactly into step with music. Word got about and they were invited to perform at agricultural shows well outside the district. This presented no problems since horse-float-people are normally nomadic on summer weekends anyway. With time, their efforts gained polish and, after their initial success, the sick man never again found himself ill which released Rachel from further riding duty. And soon, the troupe gained four additional recruits which allowed her to plan even more elaborate moves to add to the spectacle. Word reached further still and there came to be a number of copy-cat groups in other parts of the country which indicates the measure of their success. Even at that stage their idea was beginning to acquire a life of its own. In the early days, the various groups never met with each other but even then there was a form of competition. The larger centres could field larger troupes and one even boasted its own regimental band although admittedly a small one. And the troupes tried to outdo each other in authenticity. Firstly it was in the matter of uniforms. A few, possibly influenced by marching-girl tradition, opted for the showy but impractical nineteenth-century parade-dress of some famous British regiments. However, in this small world, where the ends of the earth are as close as one’s internet connection, these regiments quickly found out and threatened legal action. The majority of the troupes, more sensibly, adopted the undress uniforms of the British troops and militia who fought in our own country. Yet, while red coats had been definitely ruled out, shiny brass buttons, distant warning for any enemy, remained a necessity. The Gould group had felt some need to fall into line with this trend and, with the help of local historians, made an educated guess at the uniform issued to the Gould Militia which was raised during the troubles of the sixties but never saw action. They had made a wise choice and a cheap one. Apart from an issue of uniforms the Gould Militia had been forced to provide its own equipment. The danger had been much greater elsewhere and supplies had been short. The horses, saddles and other tack, even the rifles had been their own or borrowed. They had paraded twice weekly and had stood guard duty at night and the pay for this was welcome at a time when work was hard to find. In their original performance the now-to-become Gould Militia had worn short denim jackets and leggings, their only concession to military uniform and to former days being their home-made forage caps patterned on those worn by Union Troops in the American Civil War. Elsewhere, authenticity and cost began to run riot. It was competition gone mad. Saddlery and other horse tack, rifles and cavalry sabres, had to be exactly equivalent to that of a chosen regiment at a now fixed point in history and, at this distance in time, such equipment had become custom items. But as always where there is a demand there will appear those who can fill it. Bespoke saddlers, gunsmiths, and swordsmiths and all of them at a price. And such prices demanded sponsorship which at that stage was not too difficult to find. It was a new sport and very much in-your-face which gained lead-on attention for its sponsors. There began to be a few inter-troupe competition days arranged directly by the individual troupes themselves. But somewhere along the line it had become forgotten that the main issue was supposed to be displays of horsemanship. Now it was playing at being soldiers. The larger city troupes came to have officers and N.C.Os, weekly full-dress parades, padres, veterinarians and farriers, their own armourers and all of this apart from the exhibition team, the supposed reason for their existence. Some began running summer camps under canvas with route marches and square bashing. It appeared that these were necessary to discipline and toughen-up the younger generation. Military bearing had become an important factor. Had the government re-introduced the Territorials for that purpose there would have been an outcry but, in this case, where there was seen to be no coercion, young men flocked to join. It was somehow the in-thing. Horses and their care did continue to play some part. This was after all an army of the nineteenth century. Living history. Opinion was favourable at this stage particularly with an older generation who felt that today’s youth was badly in need of this sort of discipline and needed to be instilled with a sense of duty. It tends to be forgotten that, in a similar way, Boy Scout training had originally a covert intention which was to provide the Empire with young men who would serve it selflessly and obey orders without question. This was seen at the time as being highly beneficial. There were already in Germany organizations who were training their young men for that very same end. It was foreseen on both sides that conflict between the two powers was inevitable. Which soon proved to be true. It was not at all clear what the ultimate aim of the present training was. Inevitably, there came to be a national organization which took as its title The Colonial Mounted Rifles and had a War Office at its head. According to its tenets Victoria was on the throne, the British Empire was one on which the sun never set, and a stone-age Maori were rebelling against the benign efforts of the British crown to civilize them . As was to be expected, there were furious and continuing charges of racialism made but the organization claimed bewilderment at these claims and the outrage that went with them and pointed to the few ’loyal’ Maori in their midst. Loyal that is to Victoria. They did not say as much but managed to imply that it was all make-believe and not to be taken seriously; that the critics were crying ‘wolf.’. They pointed to the United States where major battles of the civil war are regularly re-fought by large forces of the Blue and the Grey with authentic weapons of the period, including cannon firing blank charges. There was no animosity involved. No-one got hurt. It was all good clean harmless fun. The critics replied that if there was any pretense in the ‘Rifles’ it was the pretense that it was only pretense. To them the ‘Rifles’ was clearly showing a sinister underbelly. Sponsorship melted away. The magazine of the national organization also gave cause for alarm. It also set itself in the mid-nineteenth century and had the British settlers entirely in the right and the Maori of that time in the wrong. Te Kooti and Te Rauparaha were ravaging the countryside right at that very moment. The King Movement was causing problems with British land settlement; stonewalling against the spread of civilization. The Hau Hau apparently had it in for everyone. The magazine raked up every Maori ‘atrocity’ from the past and reported them in inflammatory prose as happening since their last issue. The Boyd massacre made front page news. All the troubles were current in the movement’s time warp. Troopers of the Colonial Mounted Rifles were present it appeared at the fall of Ruapekapeka and at Omapere or were fighting at the side of von Tempsky against the rascally Tito Kowharu. They were in fact in every major battle and skirmish taking place in the New Zealand Wars and in every issue they gave their first-hand account of the latest action and it was necessary action. The Pax Brittanica was the world’s salvation. Useless were the complaints made that the whole tenor of the magazine was toward stirring up trouble. The editors simply shrugged them off and countered that the accounts had been carefully checked for factual accuracy as indeed they were. And yet can any history ever be said to be accurate? It seems to depend entirely on where one is standing. And the magazine’s lawyers, who remained firmly fixed in the present, pointed out that not one word of criticism of living persons, Maori or Pakeha, had ever appeared in the magazine; no criticism of the existing government nor of any other contemporary institution. But the long-dead were welcome to sue if they wished. With a national body came a national dress uniform. The individual troupes, now called units, continued to compete in the dress they had originally chosen but at any other time, when on duty, the standard uniform had to be worn with shoulder flashes giving unit indication. By now, public opinion was being completely ignored. Cries of ‘blackshirt’, ‘brownshirt’, private army’ went unanswered. No laws were being broken. If a religious body could wear a military-style uniform without complaint then, in all fairness, a sports body should be able to do the same. Precision military horse manoeuvres continued to be the ostensible reason for the movement’s existence. There came to be nationally-organized district competitions with the winning teams going forward to the national finals. Yet this had become more than just a sporting competition. To represent one’s troupe and in particular to compete in the finals was to clothe oneself with valour, to be present at these finals a great honour, the chosen stadium a veritable temple. With the presentation at the finals there was elaborate and colourful ceremony. The sacred Union Jack was paraded in while the crowd rose to their feet with hand on heart in reverence. There was a credal dedication to Victoria with the audience loud in their responses. There was the marching and counter-marching of units in review, the awarding of special honours, the blessing of unit flags and the presentation of personal flags to new units. It was carefully arranged theatre. And there were the impassioned speeches. Calls to duty and to self sacrifice. The demagogues were very much in charge. To an outsider the fervour they aroused was frightening. While the responses were prolonged bouts of clapping and enthusiastic shouts of ‘Yes, Yes’ rather than ‘Seig Heil’, it was all too evocative of a former demagogue and his rallies on the Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg. If this was play, it was very dangerous play, it was a lit fuse. And Annette—and Jeff—and Rachel? They had long since left the movement. Their baby, so promising, had proved to be a changeling—an elf child—an incipient monster.

Someday Perhaps

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A humble bach beside some quiet bay, a boat to help him set his net
Life-long that is his simple dream. Apparently affordable but yet,
There are others to consider,

His two young daughters must have ponies. They will just DIE otherwise.
This means grazing, riding habits, saddlery and vets, and, as you surmise,
One vast plughole for money.

And then they must have ballet lessons, piano lessons, elocution too.
He mustn’t moan. These are essential things that EVERY girl must do.
Can’t he see they’re talented?

Somewhere

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I know that it’s the slightest of proof and not enough to convince anyone that it really did happen but Fiona Curry says that, in the instant before I fell into a coma, I sort of flickered and Fiona is not one to imagine things. Fiona was my business partner at the time and she is a female bulldozer. Stand in her way and she’ll run right over you. Even though knowing her well, I have always been more than a little afraid of her. She is entirely without weaknesses and any kind of fancy is a weakness, at least to her. If she says that I flickered then I flickered. And on top of that is my extreme emaciation. My subsequent coma came to be blamed on that and everyone wondered how I could have got into such a state without it being noticed. After all, I seemed to have been eating normally. Tests were made—tests that I was naturally entirely unaware of—test that could find no cause for my wasting. I seemed to be otherwise quite healthy. It was a mystery and a mystery it is going to have to remain. It’s cause is just too unbelievable. We were in our office. It is on the third floor with large north-facing windows and a view. The sun was streaming in and we were having coffee while planning media-campaign strategy. We had been hired by local conservation groups to engineer public opposition to the proposed route for the city bypass. I was known to have conservation interests and this had been enough to swing the job our way. There is no doubt that a bypass is needed but the cheapest route passes through an area of wetland, the only known habitat of Ryker’s frog. The route is cheapest simply because the wetland is entirely unsuitable for building. A highway through it would need massive foundations and cost many millions but any other route would mean the acquisition of hundreds of houses and commercial premises and cost even more. Our problem was to convince the council and the ratepayers that a few frogs were worth millions of dollars and the disrupting of the lives of many hundreds. It was at this stage that I flickered, at least in the here. I suddenly found myself to be

Spidey

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The newspaper was gutted and discarded on the sofa’s arm
On it appeared, apparently from nowhere this sapient spider
One of the smaller kind and he was clearly int’rested in me
How did I know? Can I read spider faces? Somehow I just knew.
And the interest was mutual as was the close examination.
Two eyes stared at him and eight unblinking eyes stared back.
And when I spoke his body language showed his understanding.
He slowly sidled nearer. For a better view apparently.
So could it be that even with eight eyes he was myopic?
What was his fascination with me? Not as prey I’m certain.
Even he would see the idea laughable. Too large for one meal,
Still too large for two. The rest of me would need refrigeration.
What were the thoughts fermenting in that little head of his?

Summit Meeting

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She climbs trees for the simple joy of climbing trees,
The challenge of the difficult ascent, the god-like heights,
And she’s in her late sixties, far beyond tom-boy excuse.
Doing what she’s always done, with long-honed skills.
This erstwhile nursing trainee once raised eyebrows
Playing Tarzan’s Jane in Hagley Park, raises them still.
Women may scale climbing walls: the bleakest mountains
Which is laudable when closing on three score and ten.
But women don’t climb trees. Somehow it isn’t right.
This very same taboo is settled on we older men.
Today, none near to see, I fell prey to the urge.
High in the leafy crown toyed with by wind, we met.

Sweet Bonds

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It may seem unlikely that a firm specialising in Lady’s Outer-Wear and Accessories could continue to exist when it has no advertising, apart from its display windows, and with no end-of-season or other sales. Yet Bellows and Naseby has been in existence for one hundred and twenty years. The reason is the quality of their apparel and accessories. They are pricey but unsurpassed. A niche market catering to those for whom price is of no importance.

Sweet Revenge

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

…………………………..

See the gentle dental nurse
Who’s one idea of bliss is
Drilling right into the nerves
Of my canine incissors.

I bear it all with stoic calm:
With fortitude and grit.
Just wait I’ll get my own back soon
When she tells me to spit.
…………………………………..
Te Kopuru School Dental Clinic
early 1960s.

Terry

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Terry is dead. I knew it positively on the instant. I am free!

It is quite common for a solitary child to have an imaginary friend and Terry was mine. Mum and Dad had two girls and then a son in fairly short order and then an eight year gap to me. And of course, one is always the baby of the family.

That Terry was different from the rest of the famil;y was something that I just took for granted seeing nothing strange in the fact that no-one else could see or hear him. He certainly looked solid enough although my punches met with nothing—as did his. Even friends fall out sometimes and there were times when we were anything but friends. Quite early on, we decided that we must be twins. Side by side at the mirror, we looked rather similar and were dressed exactly alike. And, since mothers tend to dress their twins alike, childish logic said that we definitely had to be twins.

That

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Once more Room Six is called down from its vocal heights
To note exam-like silence from beyond the linking door.
Room Seven! Academic saints, young paragons, teacher’ delights
Exemplify the standards to be strived for. It seems sure
That Room Six falls well short of such an eminence.
Brash, loud, and easily distracted from the task in hand
But I must plead a sweet simplicity in their defence
And generosity with hugs, prime currency in any land.

That Cake

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

You should have seen that cake! It was even better than last year’s!

My buddy Pyotr’s mother, Mrs, Roslyakova, works for Creative Cakes who call themselves “Artists in Icing” and make fantastic wedding cakes for very rich families. Once-in-a-life-time cakes that almost need a forklift to move them. You may have seen them in magazines or on T.V.

This cake was in the form of an eight-sided house and each side was different. Different windows, different doors, different vines climbing up them and on the vines were these dainty little icing flowers in all sorts of colours. The roof was thick brown icing scalloped to look like tiles and on it were the eight chimneys to hold the expected candles.

That Cloud

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

If I remember it, it must be true
That cloud with palm trees on its shore,
A castle on its ice-cream uplands,
People crowding to its edge to wave.

Yes! It was long ago. Yes! I was three.
But threes can see things grown-ups cannot see,
Know the world has wonders, sense the magic
And the little people, shy, at vision’s fringe.

Couched in the long grass, in the insect world,
Like me they saw it. The wee folk that is.
A sudden awestruck silence then the hum
Of converse. “See it?” “Yes of course! I’ve eyes!”

The

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

One summer in the early sixties, I went witnessing by myself through the countryside north of the Hokianga Harbour. There was then no congregation of Jehovahs Witnesses in that area and calls had not been made there for many years. I went home to Dargaville each weekend and during the week camped in an empty house of which there were many in that area. Everywhere there were signs that the great days of the north were past. The rot was evident wherever one went and I am inclined to find decline of any sort extremely depressing. One house in every three that I called at was empty and this was by my actual count . Their mostly good condition suggested that they had not been empty for too many years. The slide had been relatively recent. The town of Kohu Kohu on the north side of the harbour, once of importance in the timber days, and typical of others in the region, had clearly outlived its usefulness. I passed through it each week coming and going because the car ferry, the only way across the harbour, picked up and dropped cars at a landing nearby. The town still had McAndrews’ general store but, as far as I could see, no longer had any other businesses. A very large and sound kauri house, a near mansion, could be bought for 500 pounds but with a town that would clearly continue withering, was remote, and of difficult access, this was hardly an attraction even for those in retirement. Work there was none. One day I was calling at homes on a side road the location of which I can no longer recall. A particular call though I well remember. My tendency is to go to the back door particularly when out in the country since it is the generally the only one used by the householder—that is where the gumboots are—which is why I was knocking on the back door. I was hailed from some distance away. The section had a gradual rise behind the house and was entirely in garden apart from the paths which were hard-trodden clay that gave weeds no opportunity to get established. The man coming down towards me had all the appearance of a Hebrew patriarch of Bible times or at least as an artist imagines him to have looked, with his flowing robes, his untrimmed sun-bleached hair and beard, with the crooked staff on which he leaned to assist his steps. I was to find that he was not really as old as his appearance at first suggested. One meets all types and, for a start apart from the obvious eccentricity, I did not suspect any mental unsoundness. On finding my reason for calling he invited me into the house. Its furnishing was spartan but the place was much more clean and orderly that the usual bachelor establishment. It was not wired for electricity, had no radio and no telephone. The power had only come to that part of the North in the 1950s and was even more recent on that road. The Bay of Islands Power Board would not install a line down the road without payment and the man who lived at the far end of the road had canvassed his neighbours all of whom said that they did not want the power. He had paid to have the line installed whereupon all of his neighbours bar the patriarch had decided that they wanted the power too and had jumped in and got connected to his paid-for line. He was my first call on that road and, still being very angry, had told me about it at length. Actually, under the Supply Regulations, the Power Board should have exacted a contribution from everyone connecting to his line and reimbursed him. He didn’t know this but neither did I at the time. My conversation with the patriarch seemed at first to be on rational lines even though it had quickly became clear that he had deliberately sought to cut himself off from the world. He quite obviously had a keen interest in and some knowledge of the Bible although we amicably agreed to disagree on certain doctrinal matters. He was not interested in any of the literature that I was offering but did say that he was in need of a new Bible, the Bible being apparently his only reading matter, and showed me his which had had much hard use. There were almost more loose pages than those that still clung to the spine. I was using at that time The American Standard Version of 1901 but this was not the real Bible as far as he was concerned. Like so many others he considered the Authorised Version of King James to be the only true Bible and it to be particularly inspired. I had a new one out in the car. Many people seem blind to the fact that Jesus and the apostles spoke the common Greek of the day and those before them spoke Hebrew or Aramaic. 17th century English with its ’thees, ’thous’, and ’thines’ has somehow come to be seen as holy language, the language that Jesus used. One churchman, in rejecting a new modern translation, wrote, “If the Authorised Version was good enough for Saint Paul, then it’s good enough for me.” The truth is that, although the King James translators did make comparison with the handful of Hebrew and Greek manuscripts available to them, copies of copies and none older than 1000 AD, the work is largely that of earlier translators. Previous translations into English, those of Wycliffe, Tyndale, Coverdale, and Matthew’s Bible of 1537, had been condemned by the church which saw danger in having the common people able to understand the scriptures. The first authorised version was the Great Bible of 1539 to be followed by the Geneva Bible in 1560 ( the first English Bible to use both chapter and verse numbering ) and the Bishops Bible in 1568. The instructions that King James gave to the new translators were and I quote “The Bishops Bible to be followed, and as little altered as the Original will permit. And these translations to be used when they agree better with the text than the Bishops Bible–namely , Tyndale’s, Matthew’s, Coverdale’s, Whitchurch’s, Geneva.” unquote. Thus, the Authorised Version is, in a large part Tyndale and Coverdale with the translators making improvements in word choice, enhancing the literary style and rhythm , and providing a somewhat superior accuracy but still far short of that obtaining today when large numbers of original language copies have been discovered that more closely approach the time of writing. The new translation was far from popular when it appeared. The Geneva Bible had by then come to be considered as THE BIBLE as the King James is now. I have explained the ancestry of the Authorised Version at length for a reason. I brought the new copy in from my car and handed it to the patriarch. He was not immediately prepared to accept it as authentic and began to read aloud from the title page. It says in part, ‘THE HOLY BIBLE containing THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS-Translated out of the original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and…revised…At the word ‘revised’ he stopped dead and handed the Bible back as though it was red-hot and dangerous. “They’ve changed it,” he said. ‘That is not the true Bible." " What is the true Bible? Who Has it then?" I asked “The Israelites of course!” the answer was emphatic and scornful at my ignorance. Even without explanation it was clear that he did not mean the Jews but rather some shadowy order that had been given the unique stewardship of this true Bible. " Well if they have the only true Bible. How are we to know what God wants of us if we don’t have it? Why don’t they make it available to us?" That made him very angry. “What right have you got to question the Israelites?” My questions were blasphemous. I did not think to ask to see if the title page still remained in his old Bible. If so, it would have said exactly the same thing as in my copy making it by his rules also not the true Bible. Actually, in the first 150 years from its publication, the Authorised Version went through five revisions the first of these coming after only two years. The Committee on Versions of the American Bible Society found that there were 24,000 variations over the six different editions. This would hardly argue for any divine inspiration in the original translation. The English of the Authorised Version as we know it today might be archaic but it is far removed from the English of King James’ day and that of his authorised original. Somehow, I got back on side with him and he was eager to expound his beliefs. I let him have his head. He believed that the present world system was wicked and was coming to an end but not for any reason that I could have imagined. He had a thing about oil. Everything, he said, has oil and needs oil. We have oil in us. If you put a rose petal on the surface of a glass of water you get a very fine film of oil from it. The planet earth needed to retain its oil for its own physical health and by continuing to remove its oil we were killing it and heading for catastrophe. Neighbours told me later that they had long since given up offering him a lift when they found him walking to the distant store. He would be incensed at their offer. Their cars ran on oil products and he would have no part with them in destroying the earth. I have wondered since what he did for lighting since he had no electricity. Kerosine would be out. Even store-bought wax candles would have to be a no-no since that wax comes from oil. Did he use bees-wax or tallow candles? Or did he go to sleep with the sun? The other thing that was leading us to destruction was that a malevolent ’they’ had altered time. If I remember rightly, his concern stemmed from Daniel chapter 7 verse 25 which says of a king that was to come, ‘And he shall speak great words against the most High, and think to change the times and the laws:.’ To the ‘patriach’, the Gregorian calendar and the old Julian calendar, both having leap years were part of a vast and sinister plot. They fiddled with time. And it had to be a long-lived plot. Julius Caesar who introduced his Julian calendar in 45 BC and Pope Gregory XIII who introduced his revision in 1582 were somehow in collusion with evil men of the present day. The Patriarch was apparently unaware that even in Daniel’s time the Hebrews were adding an extra lunar month, Veadar, meaning second Adar, seven times in every nineteen years to keep their lunar months in time with the sun and its seasons. The Patriarch was operating on a butcher’s calender from 1941 when the area still had its own butcher’s shop. 1941 was in some way a pure and special year. In such a non-leap year, December 31st and January 1st occur on the same weekday, it has 52 weeks and one day, but he had apparently been able to make adjustment for this when continually recycling that same year. “They try to tell us,” he said, “that if we don’t have leap years the seasons will gradually shift. But they know quite well that none of us are going to live the hundreds of years that would be necessary to prove that they’re lying to us.” I could see no point in trying to tell him that the Julian calender had been brought in for the very reason that the seasons had noticeably shifted and the Gregorian later because they were still shifting though not then as fast. He took me to the window and on the sill were two matches that had obviously been there for many years. “In mid-winter,” he told me, " the sun rises exactly in line with this match and in mid-summer it rises exactly in line with this other match." Again I could see nothing to be gained in pointing out that the slightest change in head position could accomplish this. One could not be sure of standing in exactly the same place from one year to the next or even from mid-winter to mid-summer. I couldn’t see how this any of this was supposed to presage the end of the system of things and he apparently could see that I was far from convinced. Yet we parted on good terms. I tend to get on well with people like him and have no problem in treating them with respect. He needed an ear and I had listened. I must have been accepted. He told me the secret that he was not going to tell anyone else. Soon, King Edward was going to come out to New Zealand and the two of them were going to judge the government and people of this country. Naturally, being curious, I asked the next neighbours that I called on about him. He had not always been this way. He had once been an average farmer, quite normal, but had suddenly stopped farming his land. The general opinion was that there had been a woman involved: that he had been unlucky in love. One might guess that this happened in 1941 though I would rather doubt the whole scenario. This was surely someone’s surmise that time had hardened into fact. She would have had to be local, he had never been away from the locality, but no-one seemed to be able to put a name to her. And why was he unaware of George the Sixth and Elizabeth. He had become hostile to government, both central or local. He saw it as evil like the rest of the world and he refused to pay taxes or rates. I am not sure that he could have paid them since his land was not being worked and I would doubt that he was old enough at that time to get government super. But he must have had a little money. He did have enough to buy a Bible. The extensive vegetable garden leads me to think that this was his primary, perhaps only, source of food. The County Council had at one stage obtained a court order allowing them to remove the wool stored in his woolshed in lieu of payment. But since then, the authorities had apparently decided that it was simpler just to leave him alone and pretend that he didn’t exist. Myself, I rather liked him while at the same time feeling sorry for him.

The Backyard Miracle

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A miracle’s occuring in my yard. A butterfly has laid an egg.
New life in its most basic state. A knocked-down kit complete in every part.
This single cell has, nested at its core, extremely comprehensive plans
Finely reduced to micro-micro-dot. The cell divides, one, two, four, eight,
Then thousands, each one carrying the duplicated plans. Work’s underway.

Cells differentiate and, by some mutual agreement, are assigned
To take whatever form and fill whatever place the structure then requires.
Such skillful project planning, parts arrive at need, flawless, exact amounts.
On time, the membrane ruptures to unveil the product of this careful work.
A yellow, white, and black machine whose only purpose is to eat and eat.

The Cabbage Patch

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Some amazing strategies have been developed to preserve life under adverse conditions. The seeds of some desert plants can lie dormant for many years ignoring any moisture from above, which could be just from a light shower and they could sprout and die, but germinating when moisture from below indicates a rising water table and more generous supplies. The plants grow rapidly since it is vital that they set seed before the land dries again..

The Castle Cat Bar

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Outside the women cluster on the footpath
Before time
All filled with longing, yearning for their love
Sweet faithful ethanol

Balked by that barracade of wood and glass
The hotel door
Balked by insistence on a rigid law
For opening time

At last, when doors to paradise spring wide
There comes the push
And loud bids vie to gain the bar’s attention
That first jug or nip

Then, title-rights to customary tables claimed
First glass
And in that moment their love consummated
Satisfaction

The Comforter

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It’s dark in the assembly bay.
The launching’s still some days away.
Hydraulic rumbles mute the thump
Of the buildings primary pump.
The vessel rising on the slips
Moves tiny hand to tiny lips
And, giving hint of what’s to come,
Opening wide pokes in its thumb.

Twelve years find this self-same lad
Hooked on the habit just as bad.
No scolding, bribe or finger stall
Has been of any use at all.
When tiredness comes or stress is there
A forefinger winds up his hair
With index finger round his nose
Into his mouth that thumb still goes.

The Cradle of the Young Achievers

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We have no failures on our roll.
Don’t know the meaning of the word.
‘Each one a winner/ that’s our goal.
Some call it cant but that’s absurd.

How do your pupils fare in external examinations?

Exams! Why put them under stress?
Such competition blights the soul
Of those who can’t quite find success.
We strive to make our pupils whole.

Then how do you assess their academic advancement?

Assessment? We don’t interfere.
Each moves ahead at his own pace,
Approved, accepted. We’re just here
To guide the flowering of our race.

The Eyes Have It

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Why people in general are not aware of it I am unable to understand. I’m talking about the ability to link mind to mind through the eyes, a form of communication that is close to telepathy. Perhaps it is telepathy. For instance, in the street, something happens and you find your eyes meeting those of a complete stranger and you share a mutual pleasure or disgust. You know what they’re thinking. They know what you’re thinking. Surely it happens to you. Can it only be me?

The Fall

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Good grief! Has marriage rung this change in three short years?
Immaculate head-turner into this coarse drab. Who
Would have thought it possible? The covert smears
Spread wide by shaded rivals turn out to be true.

A town’s attention seemed the due of such as she,
A proud high-stepper making all the background fade,
Painted, coiffured, and polished to extremity.
Trans-am to Trabant distance from this sway-backed jade.

She’s helped me carry in their T.V. set. Her smell
So acrid, not the time of month or recent sweat
But grave fumes sounding personal pride’s death knell.
Night’s come. The once-resplendent sun has firmly set.

The Fishing Lady

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

They reckon it’s the pressure that’s making men leave the force but if anything ever drives me out it will be the flamin’ paperwork. You wouldn’t believe how much a one-man station generates. When I’ve finally had a gutsful I usually hop in the car and give myself a ride around town. Let people see me doing something. Check a few things. That’s my excuse for ending up on the wharf. Our wharf is a relic of the days when the coastal boats came in and, with one exception, it’s usually deserted midweek. That’s half the reason why stuff keeps getting nicked off boats. I always have a quick shoofty and then stop for a quiet smoke. The cargo shed makes a good screen. You know, there’s nothing like watching the tide to put a man at peace with the world and that must be telling me something. Maybe I can convince the missus that every policeman needs a boat. Anyway that’s how I got to know the fishing lady. When I first came here, she was a trim little lady, with masses of white hair, who always gave a cheery wave as she tootled past on her bike. A real sweetie. I never actually spoke to her but, naturally, I knew that she had been the infant mistress of just about everybody in town and that she lived with her unmarried daughter. Then she changed. I’m told that, over a week or ten days, she just seemed to switch off. Didn’t even recognise old friends anymore. Tragic really. I’ve spoken to the daughter since and she tells me that her mother is still quite capable of looking after herself and that’s good. The daughter has to work and I have the feeling that she want’s to hang on to her mum for as long as possible. The queer part is the old lady’s sudden fixation on fishing. Unless the weather’s really vile, she’ll be down on the wharf seemingly oblivious to everything but her line. Still, if it keeps her happy. Gradually, the old lady and I sort of made contact. I always used to say ‘hello’ and make a few comments even though there was no hope of response. I mean, you can’t just plonk yourself down beside someone and not say anything. You feel silly. And, after a while, although she never relaxed her stare, I had the funny feeling that she was listening. THE FISHING LADY. Page 2 885 words One day, about half a mile out. this big flock of gulls was going berserk as they dived into a shoal of fish and, for want of something better to say I said, “Looks like them birds have found themselves a real feed.” Without looking up from her line she gently corrected, “Those birds, dear.” In time my understanding grew and I came to realise that we could share our pleasure without the need for words. A particular day came when I arrived at the wharf to find a PA Velox parked nearby. I know the car and its owner Ted only too well. A bad lad our Ted. He’s built like a prime steer and has two solutions to every problem. Both of them have knuckles. He’s been through two defactos since I’ve been here. Gets a bit of beer on board; puts them in hospital. Then he’s in with the bunch of flowers, all contrite: “Never happen again,” and the silly fools remember that they walked into a door and go back into the ring for another round. Lucky there’s been no kids. Did I mention that he’s also a great believer in the redistribution of wealth? All in all, he’d be about my best customer. Now I knew at the time that he’d been threatening to do me. But hell! It was broad daylight. I just didn’t think about it. When I came around the end of the shed, there was me old mate with the lock chopped of the petrol pump, trying to find a way to circumvent the new key switch on the power supply. A prudent man would have backed off quietly and gone for help but idiot me couldn’t resist waltzing up and suggesting that he put the bolt cutters through the cable. He must have moved fast. I still don’t know how it happened but he had me and all I could do was get in as close as possible to cut down the swing of those murderous bolt cutters. I knew that this was going to be my bad one. He had obviously come to the sudden decision that this was the time and the place. There was only him and me and a little old lady who wasn’t really there anyway. I can’t tell you how long it lasted, it seemed forever, but it ended abruptly. Hanging on Ted’s arm was five foot nothing of bristling infant mistress. “Edward! You will stop this!—AT ONCE! And THE FISHING LADY. Page 3 885 words so help me, he did. He just turned and walked away. I limped after him, in pain and barely conscious, to the corner of the shed and watched in disbelief as he put himself into the back seat of my car. Then I turned to thank my lovely little fishing lady but she was somehow far away.

The Gift

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was no illusion. He was looking at a real live elephant and a white one at that. Dennis steadied himself against the door frame, in shock, and tried to take it all in. There it stood in the miniscule backyard of his home unit, its leg tethered to an iron stake, swaying gently to the music inside its head while chewing thoughtfully on the last of his cabbages. How had it got there? The yard had entry only through the unit and, for heaven’s sake, this was New Zealand not India. Where would one find a white elephant here? What idiot had dreamed this up?

The Guys Upstairs

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’d like to know who really runs my mind.
Who was it put those sadists on the night desk?
My tortured bladder trunk-calls, “Water-works here Central.
Wake this fella up, toot sweet! I’m bustin!”
But do they wake me up? What do you think?
It’s what they’re waiting for. They rub their hands.

The blighters have me wake in virtual reality.
Wake in an ever changing house that rambles over acres.
And where’s the nearest toilet? No-one’s there to ask.
A million doors to raise my hopes, each turns the knife.
With many labelled ‘TOILET’ but not so.
Their plumbing’s been ripped out. They’re filled with junk.

The Home of Memories

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It was just one of those small towns that Frank had lived in when young. His father had never stuck at anything for very long and they had moved often. Now, for the first time he was back in the town where he had spent his high-school years.

His wife, his second wife, had been brought up here. A Moller. One of the large tribe that had stemmed from Herbert and Sarah Moller who had settled in the district in the early days. She had insisted that he come with her to this family reunion to meet hordes of people that he did not know and, truth to tell, did not wish to know. He had always meant to come back sometime but she had dragged him, half the length of the country, at the worst possible time, mid-summer. He had put his redundancy money into a pest-control business and was struggling to get himself established. This was the busy part of the year. Already that day, he had fielded four calls on his oh-two-five number. He had stalled the callers by pleading a family bereavement the dead relatives being, of course, the long dead Herbert and Sarah. He would get back to them in a few days. He only hoped that they’d wait that long.

The Joys of Second Childhood

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

SECOND CHILDHOOD. 8\03\02
We were two older couples with our grand-kids at the beach
The children playing safely in the shallows within reach.
Running short on conversation, tired of sitting keeping watch,
We marked out squares, we chose our stone, we played hopscotch.

Training in agility for Roman troops in Britain started it.
Their children copied dad, cut down the pitch, made rules to fit.
The game spread to the continent, from there conquered the world…and
Came to reach its greatest heights on our firm strip of sand.

The Last Adam

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

It is close to midnight and a simple, and now somewhat inebriated, mountain man sits alone. In his hands, he holds the fate of the entire world. Well….not entirely in his hands.

It had been a shock to find that Bobby Jean was pregnant. It should not have been possible, not without a miracle. Simon had prayed for a child but not with any great hope. Since that time twenty eight years earlier, when God had begun carrying out his judgement on mankind, no woman had become pregnant by natural means. It required medical intervention, and the International Committee for Human Preservation did not grant the privilege of child-bearing lightly. It was available only to women of exceptional ability: women whose family background showed no trace of genetic defect. Although, as in everything else in this world, money and influence had found ways of getting around the restrictions. There were lawyers whose whole careers were now based on obtaining the precious privilige for their clients. Babies were not for poor people, the likes of Simon and Bobby Jean.

The Malingerer

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I first had contact with Reg Fulton toward the end of the Second World War. He was Mr Fulton to me then. I was just a kid. My father would send me down to the township every Saturday evening to get him a copy of the 8 O’clock Edition of the Auckland Star. It was the sports edition and had a full coverage of the day’s results. It soon came to be that I also fetched a copy for Mr Fulton who lived just around the corner and was an invalid in some vague way. I didn’t mind. He always gave me thrupence to spend. My father gave me nothing.

The Morning Light

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The grand illusions faded and the tide of British red turned back.
God-given rights and duties now revealed as self-bestowed,
Steel-backed benevolence as underpinned with unacknowledged greed.
Yet Albion’s shadow leaves a blight on many lands.

Poor Victoria! Imperialist warmonger. What wrongs done in her name,
What glib assurance given and treaties signed though scarce fulfilled.
The heirs of those who promised much, while yet extracting more,
Retreat now back within their walls eschewing all responsibility.

The Near-perfect Husband

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The house itself gave warning in some strange and subtle way
His fingers on the door knob sensed its feelings of dismay.
That the house’s structure could convey the possibility
Of death within, he had no doubt. And yet, how could that be?
His wife, it had to be his wife, had seemed much brighter,
More decisive somehow, in the morning when he left her.
Was she just out and did misreading of the emptiness
Give force to latent fears? A forlorn hope and believed less
And less, as silent rooms, now much more clean and tidy
Than recent months had seen, conveyed their sad finality.
He found the spa pool warm as was the body of his wife
Head sunk in water red from savaged wrists that drained her life.

The New Lourdes?

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Two years ago, the thing foremost in our minds was the effect the soon-to-be-started by-pass would have on the town and our own business in particular. Shirl, that’s the missus, Shirl and I had come home from Aussie the year before. The mines over there had paid good money even to canteen staff but what with the heat, the dust, and the bloody flies, they needed to. Walesby was home. We bought the coffee shop on the main street and most of our trade was from people passing through, the main street being part of the north-south highway. Now, a lot of the town’s business would disapppear if it could not attract visitors. It was a problem we gnawed on continually along with the rest of the town. On the surface, the town had little to attract visitors. It was just another small, ex-mining town. It’s better days remembered only by the few grandious buildings put up when the seams and prosperity were expected to last forever. History the town has in plenty but history is such small change in this country. In the States it’s big bucks. They have reproduction pilgrim-father towns with actors in period dress, and yearly re-enactments, on location, with casts of thousands, of the battles of the War of Independence and the Civil War. That’s a bit too over-the-top for us. They flock to western towns made famous by the fictionalised Old West of pulp magazine and films. Sixty seconds of gunfire at the O.K. Corral is turned to gold in Tombstone to this very day. When you come to think about it, the Old West is not really that old. Just the 1870’s and 80’s in most cases. Walesby can give Tombstone and most of the others ten years at least but finding something dramatic and different was difficult. As it happened, the problem was solved for us. Shirl and I take the Tribune, the morning paper, and our paper boy at the time was Jason, in his early teens and permanently hungry. He’d come in the back door and we’d give him something to keep him alive until breakfast time. Our good deed for the day except that we had a lot of fun at his expense. Cruel I know, but he was so blimmin’ gullible. We’d have him on with our Aussie adventures. Stories we’d cobble out of canteen talk that was already fiction when we heard it. Shirl waking to find a taipan in her sleeping

The Night Belongs to Me

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Camp bed hard against the wall beyond the reach of weather.
Open verandah. Farm house.
Parents and siblings, dead inside their wooden mausoleum,
Await a resurrection with the dawn.
Out here the night’s alive with sights and sounds and smells.
The night is mine.

Cock calls to cock across the reaches of the Kaihu Valley.
Dog answers distant dog.
Pukekos in the swamp conduct a family disagreement.
Hens mutter in their sleep.
Somewhere a steel coffin grumbles forward in a pool of light.
These sounds are mine.

The Night People

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I am known to be born in this valley with my parents well-known and alive until recently and I can remember my childhood here in detail but at the same time I can also clearly remember my other childhood, the real one, and my youth in the world outside.

My original home is in one of the Mid-Wests better areas for soaring with ridge up-drafts that can be relied upon and some very useful thermals over the extensive plowed areas on the plains beyond. When all else fails there is always the thermal above the Wal-Mart car park. What then could be more natural than that soaring should become my sport of choice and that I should buy myself a Standard Cirrus to look down on the world from Mount Olympus. I came to know the home state well.

The Pregnant Pause

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The only excuse that I can make is that I was young and idealistic. Well!! Perhaps naïve too. It was the early sixties. The cold war loomed large. American involvement in Vietnam, although still small, was steadily increasing and Australia and New Zealand were being reminded of their ANZUS commitments. Kruschev had just had a go at moving missiles into Cuba. There was a real fear everywhere that the Americans and the Communists would go too far in their stupid brinkmanship: that someone would push that little red button. Life in the Northern Hemisphere would be snuffed out. The Southern Hemisphere too, probably, due to the fallout or the nuclear winter that must follow.

The Real Music Lovers

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Auckland Town Hall, sixties, National Orchestra.
I’m sitting front row, right-wing balcony,
The program’s safe, trite, easily digested.
The standard fare for summer matinees.
Beethoven, Hadyn, Schubert, all good stuff,
But from the interval things go amiss.

They throw at us a piece by Douglas Lillburn
A work a world away from lolly-pops.
This step beyond the classics and romantics,
Begs close attention, effort on our part.
It’s fresh, rewarding, but just to the few,
And shuffling feet and unrest soon intrude.

The Solution

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Acacia Rise was one of the more desirable addresses in the city. Although a new area, the elevated prices and the covenants insisting on a high standard of architecture had successfully kept the riff-raff out.The houses and gardens proclaimed the rich and important people who lived within.

The subdivision rose somewhat steeply from the harbour, the city lacking easy land for building, but the view was outstanding and in itself justified the money asked. The upper levels had distant views of the down-town business area and took in the entire harbour the waters of which at that moment reflected a hot sun and carried the weekend rash of colourful sails. On the nearside of the harbour, at the foot of the Rise, an extensive new marina belied local claims that times were hard. Beyond the harbour and beyond a vast stretch of broken country mountains loomed, today vague and almost imaginary in the summer haze.

The Uneven Yoke

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She rued the day she married Jim.
Whatever had she seen in him?
He’d seemed to be her dashing prince,
Her destiny, but ever since
‘Twas all too clear he was, in truth,
Insensitive, bovine, uncouth.

But, luckily, the children were
True intellectuals like her.
Artistic, musical, and proud
To soar above the common crowd.
These qualities Jim could not share.
He was the cross they all must bear.

In public sure to bring them shame,
Quite heedless of the family name.
His manners gauche and unrefined.
Yet all their hissed asides combined
Got nowhere. Always he seemed bent
On causing them embarrassment.

The Victor

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The tyrants gone , his dreams of conquest thwarted for this year.
His cadres will regroup, return anew, but have no fear.
Think how valiantly you fought, his forces couldn’t breach your wall.
Your branches wrestled with a Sumo Wind and took no fall
And when his icy missiles fell, hail, sleet, and lashing rain
You sank a little with each blow but, uncowed, stood erect again.
Though all the elements allied to force his sovereighty
They found in you their match, my pround unconquerable tree.

The Voracious Skip

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘My next move after this is going to be the nursing home,’
He tells the sympathetic woman on her morning walk. But….
The skip says more.

Late master of his house to mere border in his son’s.
From large house to one room in town. Convenient perhaps
But first step down.

For years his glass has gulled him with still-youthful looks
Though termite age has mined below deceptive intact surfaces
Now giving way.

The Walkers

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The first walker had not seemed to be particularly remarkable except that Ralph had immediately put him in the ’no hoper’ category. He had hair down to his shoulders, a wispy beard, vaguely Eastern clothing, ear-rings, a lip-stud and sandals but that was not what made him unusual. What was unusual was that he should be walking back toward town from this far out.

Ralph had spotted him from the window over the sink which faced the road. He had been doing his breakfast dishes or, to be more honest, his tea, supper, and breakfast dishes. That’s what Trish had liked about this house. You could see everything that passed from that window and, being remote from town, seeing passing traffic could be important. Ralph had been going to go into town himself a little later and had gone to see if the man would like a lift and maybe a cup of tea or coffee in the meantime. He assumed that the man drank tea although you could never tell with this sort. He always had a cup himself after the dishes.

The Winter Fold

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A foundling egg left on a milkweed doorstep
To never know its mother or near kin.
And foundlings all the future generations
Each questing north, vanguard of burgeoning spring.
Their every action programmed, automatic
Begs question then. Could memory be inherent?
Each egg bear imprint, area, grove, tree?
For later, summer over, autumn southing,
Late generations follow, southing too
And find that very grove, that tree in Mexico
To aestivate, endure, a future for their race.
Salmon ‘home’ to where they hatched. Birds follow birds
But Monarchs ‘home’ to somewhere that they’ve never known.
So could it be that HE who made this fragile flock
Calls home these wandering children to this fold.

The Wise Virgins

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I read recently that there are only four Shakers left. Two men and two women. There may well be less by now. The report was some years old and one of the sisters was well into her seventies at that time. The other in her sixties. That the once-thriving religious community, never main-line but one that leaves an amazing legacy, should be so reduced. I know myself the aftermath of glory days: the beyond emptiness of it. In a way, we five who remain here, four of us anyway, are Shakers at several removes. You are probably aware that, although the Shakers had communal houses where the sexes were strictly segregated and that celebacy was considered the way of greater holiness, they had no strict rule against marriage. There were others in association who lived outside these communities and who married and raised families. Not big enough families it seems and not enough converts were made. The adoption of outside children by the communal houses also failed to maintain the numbers in a world that was changing. A group of Shaker associates living outside the community in Mercer County was captured, I can think of no other word for it, captured by a William Barker. The group remained very much Shaker in style, shaking, dancing, glossilalia, and the healings that had been introduced in Kentucky but Barker weaned them from Mother Ann Lee and made himself their prophet. Gone now was the idea of a mother/father God and Christ having come the second time as a woman. I have no idea how people like Barker gain this ascendancy although I have been in a position to make a close study of one out of the same mold. And they do it still today! Establish mega-churches solely on their own personality. My great great grandparents, Henry and Alice Myers, came to be under the thrall of this fellow Barker.

The Yard Grows Light

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

D-DAY Rewritten a sonnet Nov 98

THE YARD GROWS LIGHT……
The yard grows light now. Night will not belay.
The brightening rooftops catch refulgent dawn
And through the looming trees one single ray
Attenuated sprawls across the lawn.
Somehow these last few months have slipped away
While friends and I to Bacchus paid our dues.
And now comes with the sun that fatal day
That predicates my future win or lose.
My frantic task has seen this whole night out.
As coffee cups and ash tray indicate.
While scattered books and papers raise their shout
To chide me for this study left too late.
My lack of in-depth knowledge I may fake.
My greater problem! Can I stay awake?

Through the Valley of Temptation

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Remember now, no chocolate bars or things not on that list
Enjoined my darling wife as I departed and we kissed.
“What me? I’ll be a rock,” I said, “As blind as blind can be
To every blandishment that supermarket throws at me.

Her disbelief was patent as I headed for the door.
Beneath her breath she muttered that she’d heard that one before.
From her! Beloved of marketers, a puppet in their dance,
Piling goods into her trolley with her eyes glazed, in a trance.

Time

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

They did not believe her story but that was hardly surprising. Eric had never been an easy person to get on with, a superior pricker of balloons, a sneering cynic with open amusement at the childish ignorance and foibles of others. Prior to his accident had anyone claimed to actually see the flow of time he would have been loud with his derision but, since coming out of his coma, he had been making that claim himself but only to Heather. He still had sense enough to say nothing to anyone else.

Time as a Cure

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘Time cures all ills’. Perhaps it may
Yet Time’s a slow physician.
Supporting which I’d have you note
The threatening condition
In Ireland all these years from Cromwell’s day.
World around, the same position,
Late colonial ambition
Left fest’ring wounds that will not go away.

Who’s to blame? That’s not my brief.
And it’s really my belief
That time can make the rights and wrong quite blurred.
The past, to be sure,
Has a lot to answer for
But the way we treasure grievance is absurd.

To a Cock Sparrow

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Little bird, I like your cheek
As closer, closer still, you seek
My fragments, though retreating at a glance.

My friend, you need no striking hue.
Your work-day drab will more than do.
You’ve style that no adornment could enhance.

Now your competition’s come
Fighting you for every crumb.
Hey! Manners! You’re as bad as all the rest.

Though your life may seem so free
To the poor earth-bound like me
Perhaps there can’t be life without contest.

To the Editor

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Sir, what’s happened to our years? We’ve been shortchanged.
There’s no guts in them now and very little heart.
When I was younger years were years and so arranged
That weeks and months were endless, birthdays aeons apart.
The things that you could do in just one day back then
People now would not believe. Devaluation,
That’s the problem. All our woe stems from that day when
Britain moved her currency from gold. That nation
Caused a sharp decline. The goods these days don’t last long,
Not beyond the guarantee, and you can’t fix them.
All the old songs live and yet the modern hit song
Tends to wilt in days, promoters must re-mix them.
It’s all this rush, rush, rush. Days now are mini-size.
No time for decent workmanship, that’s what I hold.
You reads the morning paper and to your surprise
It’s lunchtime. The solution? Obviously GOLD!
Backing the Gold Standard, we’d see how business hums.
New longer days, ten days a week, they’d do the trick,
Make exports, jobs, and get young fellas of their bums
The Beehive Boys may scoff, but then, they’re BLOODY THICK.
Yours,
Richard.

To You Johnny

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

‘CLASS: NEW ENTRANTS. 1939.’
That’s us Johnny.
The cheeky-looking ones on the end.
Caste into a cruel world at five.
‘The cuts’ supplied by Miss Dureau.
No play-way those days. Eh?

Look at us. We’d made it. We were big.
Standard Six, of course, were MASSIVE.
And yet as time propelled us up.
They shrank in both authority and size.
And, reaching the heights,
We found them to be us.
Those were the formative years Johnny.
Huge chunks of you were welded into me.

Tomorrow

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This story was written many years ago. I am not really happy with it but you don’t throw stories away. Someone that I once knew worked in a factory that the Duke visited. He told me that the walls were only repainted on the side that the Duke would see.

TOMORROW.

Even being second choice was an honour. Fendpak Industries Penrose plant was to be visited by no lesser person than the Duke of Edinborough. Our new Queen wouldn’t be coming, she’d be off doing something else and probably wasn’t very interested in factories anyway. Actually, it had been planned that the Duke would visit Harrison and Gottlieb’s further up the road but their fire a few nights earlier had brought a sudden change of plans and a panic at Fendpak.

Too Late

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She doesn’t know me anymore, this wife of fifty years.
The house of flesh, once comely, always vital, stands bereft
Of mistress, yet not all my prayers nor my unmanly tears
Can breach that vault where wit has flown to raise the one who left.

And does it wait for me, this same returning to the crib?
Though would I know or care? For clearly it would assuage
This grief, this guilt. But no! The soiled bed-linen and the bib
Do not bear thinking of. Please God, let death erase my page.

Tops

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

15/3/02

TOPS.
She’s sought me out this lady who abused me on the phone
Back when we’d both been dragged into a custody dispute.
Her sister being ‘perfect’ my side had to be alone
At fault which caste me ’trouble maker’, ’twister’, ’liar’, ‘brute’.

Three quarters of an hour she chewed my ear. I kept my cool,
Did not reply in kind, remained polite. That rubbed her raw.
‘I was laughing at her—making it a joke and her a fool.’
No chance to reason with her. My attempts inflamed her more.

Toward a Brighter Future

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

There are people in this world who actually like cats
And that is sad. It’s a curious obsession that’s
Long overdue for serious attention. Perhaps,
This year, moves can be made to rectify this lapse.

Cats are so demanding, totally self-centred parasites.
Their personal comfort comes before all else. The rights
Of others not even considered. Faithful they are not.
They smarm around you when they want something but that’s your lot.

Trains

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

18/6/06

DOWN WITH DIESELS.

The bell rings in the signal box.
That means the train’s left Henderson
And Master Four, an expert, knows the drill.

He checks the signals are set right.
Yes! Signal man comes down the steps
With tablet for exchanger. Four approves.

And then it’s watch and wait. Eyes right.
Interminable wait. An age.
A distant smoke plume. Nearer whistle shriek.

Then charging up for its grand entrance.
Self important. Screeching brakes.
A REAL train, smoke, steam, hot smell, smuts.

Trisomy 21

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

(DOWN’S SYNDROME)

Among the nicest people on this earth,
With qualities we well could emulate,
Though sadly disadvantaged from their birth
They still display a gentle caring trait.

And if this same concern our actions shaped,
Would we have broken homes, kids on the loose,
Or wars, and would we see our planet raped?
We stand condemned and wanting for excuse.

True Justice

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Your honour, members of the jury,
I’m sure you’ll understand my clients fury
When for an afternoon with love he toiled
Only to have his masterwork despoiled.
Steak and kidney pudding, food of kings,
His flatmates only being used to things
Like Big Macs, chips, Kentucky Fried,
Their culinary crassness cannot be denied
But to excuse them surely it does not
Their mothers too must answer for a lot
Denying sons this epicurian delight.
My client was resolved to set this right.

Unanswerable

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Set in a mould soon after birth
And damaged by a winning strategy
She flies off to bizarre extremes
Should family even seem to disagree.

“You hate me, don’t you? Wish me dead
Out of your way. I should have realised
That nothing I can do will ever please.
For what thanks do I get? Just criticised.”

She spews her bile with endless variations
Unfounded are her charges but no joke.
Fire-faced her anger, crockery, fists fly
‘Til hubby fears she’s going to have a stroke.

Up in the Roof

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The driver of the furniture van called his mates attention to a heap on the road which, as they drove closer, resolved itself into the body of a man lying in a pool of congealed blood. The road at that point made a deep cut through a flat-topped ridge and the cut was recent and raw with the high banks on each side stabilised by concrete crib walls. The dead man, probably in his early seventies, had fallen from the house above and almost certainly from the open window in the gable end. He had met the rasp of the concrete cribs for much of the way down. The two men had seen their share of accidents and, even before they climbed down, they knew there could be no hope. Not with that degree of injury. Not with a neck bent to that angle. But even then they felt for a pulse, just in case, and, as expected, found none.

Uppity Female

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She could lie. She had to. She was loyal.
As secretary to ‘Head of Procurement’.
Excuse and cover-ups were just the norm.
Things left undone and he’d be missing somewhere,
Discussing golf, dissecting last week’s round.
And with him knackered from a heavy night,
She’d keep the world at bay and mother him

She could organise. And that was by default.
Competition forced a move to ‘Just in Time’.
With bought-in parts arriving on the hour.
No large inventory to take up slack.
No leeway anymore to make mistakes.
Frustrating detail fell into her lap.
He saw the BROADER sweep as his forte.

We Never Touched

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I love a woman dead these thirty years.
Wife of another man.
Ours not a hot and panting love,
And never courtship,
But a chaste affection
For we never touched.
Yet by some strange convergence
We became soul siblings
Open to each other, sans facade
And trusting without limit.
Love quietly understood,
Needing no words,
Resists time’s fading.

Web Building

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A spider occupies the seat beside me in the terminal.
Our morning flight’s delayed. We’re grounded here for now.
His sharp appearance, suit, tie, polish, all for business,
Shouts loud that he is predatory focused on success.
Success, of course, is money. Time is money.
Minutes can’t be wasted. Every tick must earn its keep..
The cell-phone in his hand spins out a sticky thread,
“I’ve just heard something useful and my first thought was of you.”
Again, and yet again through numerous stored numbers,
“I’ve just heard something useful and my first thought was of you.”
The first time it could well be true. Reiteration brands it lie
With me beside to hear. No shame to him apparently he’s networking,
He’s selling. The acknowledged good, where everybody wins.

What Was

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Friday night and the street was dead. There were a few cars outside the Central Hotel but no-one else was in sight. Yet what had he expected? Friday nights were things of the distant past. This was not the town frozen in his memory. His remembered town was thriving. He walked up one side of the main street and down the other. Empty shops, none of the small grocers of his time, no milk bar, in fact, nothing as he remembered it.

Whatever I Did I'm Sorry

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Tell me please what I’ve done wrong.
I’m only four years old.
What did I do to raise your ire,
To draw your bombs and cannon fire,
At least I should be told.

Must be ‘cause I misbehaved
That Daddy had to fight.
I’ve heard a whisper that he’s dead,
Out in the desert, so they said.
‘Stoo late to put that right.

What I’ve done must be quite bad
To cause this misery.
No power, no food, no medicine,
And mother’s getting thin as thin
And all because of me.

Whipping Boy

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

She’s lost all of her money
As I said she would
And now she’s adamant it’s all my fault.
I told her that it was a scam
Right from the very start
At least a dozen times or more.
She claims just two or three
And now denies her fury
At my slandering that ’lovely man’
Quite angrily in fact.
She grudgingly admits she wouldn’t listen
But
She still feels I’m entirely to blame
Because
I should have MADE her listen.

White Castle

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

“So these are the amazing people who share your views on hamburgers?” This from my daughter Elizabeth.

Hamburgers represent the meagre heights of my culinary achievement and I have strong views on the subject. It saddens me to see people put lettuce, mayonnaise and slices of raw tomato on a hot beef patty. They have no place there. It makes me wonder at peoples’ sanity. Grilled onions belong with a meat patty. They’re soulmates: a metaphore for wedded bliss. Add cheese and you have a sort of love triangle. Bacon and dill pickle are also allowable but nothing else.

With Perfect Timing

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Gracie stretched herself out luxuriously on the bed and admired the effect of her new negligee in the dressing table mirror. She lifted the glass of claret in her hand and her mirror image did the same. Together they drank a silent toast. They licked their lips. A nice drop. Chateaux Haut Brion. Expensive. Frank had been saving it for a special occasion , and wasn’t this a special occasion? If one was going to die, it made sense to do it in comfort and style. Not that Gracie had any real intention of dying. It was just that the pills, even by the handful, took such a long time to take effect. She knew that from the last time. On that occasion it had really seemed to be the only way out although, thinking about it now, she decided that she must have known that Frank would find her before it was too late. Anyway, it had turned out better than she could ever have hoped. Frank had been so worried and ready to forgive that she had sensed the opportunity of a general amnesty. The problem had been that she had found herself pregnant and, almost certainly, the child was Phillip’s. In which case, it would be recognised as such not only by Frank but by the whole stinking town. Phillip was supposedly the friend of them both. Her tearful confession from a hospital bed had limited the liaison to a single aberration, blaming it on alcohol and her desperate longing for Frank who had been away on business. She had put on a convincing display of distress at having let him down even this once. She was rather proud of that effort. Maybe she should have been an actress. Or did they call them actors now? Frank had been only too eager to believe and had somehow rationalised it all as being entirely his fault. He had been trying to make amends ever since. In the event, she had miscarried. Perhaps the pills had helped. The community’s moral arbiters had had no opportunity to make the appropriate connection. Now, circumstances dictated that she push the erase button again.

With the Help of One's Friends

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Golf is perhaps the saddest of obsessions. How any sane person could enjoy hitting a stupid ball into a hole is something that I will never understand. Healthy it is not and these mindless people have no other topic of conversation. Yet, having said that, I must admit that I take an interest in the success of one particular golfer, Thea Brooks, and that’s because I’ve known her almost from babyhood. The Brooks were our neighbours in Raynesford and Athena, as she then was, went through school in the same class as our youngest son. She was in and out of our house like one of the family.

With the Help of One's Friends

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Golf is, I believe, the saddest of obsessions: perhaps the most cruel form of insanity. What pleasure any sane person could get from hitting that stupid little ball into a hole is something that I am entirely unable to understand. My house overlooks the new Point Wesley links and I see the poor idiots out there almost from first light quite clearly oblivious to everything else. Rain or biting wind, or both, it seems to make no difference. Healthy it is not and they have absolutely no other topic of conversation.

Written for Television

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The war has stopped for a commercial break.
A jaded world puts score cards down to make
Some supper. Fifty million toilets flush.

Without a doubt T.V. has come of age,
Allowing all to share the battle’s rage
Through satellite and telephoto lens.

Each telling blow and every young life spent
Honoured with instant replay and comment
To make this Roman holiday complete.

Impatient now, the high-tech hounds of doom
Stand leashed until transmission can resume.
But first…..this message from our sponsors.