Poetry

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Verses to brighten your day.

Lakes National Park, South Island, New Zealand.

Poetry: The Blechynden Bach

October 14, 2020

THE BLECHYNDEN BACH You by the heater and I, in the chair, but where were the other three who should have been there, curled up on the couches sprawled on a bed? From a sleeping bag pokes out just one tousled head. It’s Finn in a dreamland of raspberry drops and lemonade longing to wake…

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POETRY: The Death of Innocence

September 14, 2020

POETRY THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE Dark clouds roll over the Canterbury Plains To end the summer’s dry Though water comes not from the rains But from the tears we cry People we’ve taken to our hearts Are cut down one by one As our nation’s innocence is split By the thunder of the gun Fifty…

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Hal Colebatch works biography

HAL G.P. COLEBATCH, 1949-2019: IN MEMORIAM

September 2, 2020

by Jeffry Babb I do not wish to write an obituary for Hal Colebatch. That has already been done. On this, the first anniversary of his passing, I will seek to place Colebatch in the context of his life and times. Hal was the son of Sir Hal Colebatch. Sir Hal was a renaissance man,…

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POETRY

September 2, 2020

HOME “A house is not a home”, a famous book concludes; Not just a mere possession like books, or clothes, or foods. A “home” means more than where we sleep, or where we eat a meal. It’s the company of family, and how they make us feel. An all-embracing view of “home” can see it…

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POETRY

August 19, 2020

LOOKING OUT TO SEA I see him sprawled on his back on a beach Ulysses. He is lying, his clasped hands supporting his head, beyond reach of human memory, wounded in one eye. His sighted eye is not scanning the sky programming information for survival, but turned inward, where he sees Penelope at the stone…

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POETRY

REINCARNATION BLUES Though buried by volcanic ash in Pompeii I re-emerged to sweep the slums of Bombay where, fortunately, I died from emphysema. I hope I’m not reborn in Hiroshima. AT A RESTAURANT IN BERLIN, 1936 You asked the famous leader to autograph your napkin. You thought that he was Hitler. He signed…

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POETRY

WEALTH’S MEASURE The Wise Man asked, how do you measure? The mob clamoured to reply Some owned the earth, some the stars And others owned the sky With the net worth battle raging on Each trying to outdo The Wise Man sought the quiet one And said, but how do you? The quiet one said…

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POETRY

WORDS, FOR ‘SPANISH ROMANCE’ BY ANON. As I move over the hills where I’ve wandered I wonder about the far valleys and hilltops That stretch into distance, away from my vantage, And vanish in sky that is blue to beyond. Turning away from the east to the sunset And feeling the greyness of clouds drifting…

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Poetry

A MANDARIN – ONCE HUMAN I once knew an economist on his way to becoming a madman. His gaze did not engage with mine but descended with the certainty of one from a master race. His vision was on far-off peaks, global outcomes, oiled by the ideology of materialism, consumerism, supply and demand equilibrium, cause…

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Poetry: Moonscape

MOONSCAPE Like a name-dropping traveller through the galaxy’s night, The moon dispenses a greater luminary’s reflected light; Locked into an orbit of its colourful overlord, Linked to its master on an invisible umbilical cord. Twenty-nineteen brought a lunar celebration; A golden anniversary for the U.S. nation. Fifty years since those heady sci-fi aims came true;…

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