Tuesday Poem: "Talking to Grandfather"

For Helen and Matthew

New life stirring

in this place of the dead,

tears welling as you feel your baby

dancing with the spirits

of its grandfather and uncle,

the rivulets on your cheeks

fed by the twin tributaries of joy and regret.

Arthur walks among us.

I feel his presence every day.

His blood courses through the veins of our children

and though he cannot hold his grandchildren

his spirit holds them up

and will guide them from crib to grave.

Arthur walks among us.

Every day he feels your joy

and his heart is filled with love and pride.

He will be there at your shoulder, smiling,

when your child is born.

A curtain may flutter; a breeze will brush your cheek

and you will sense,

as you did at his graveside,

that there will always be a time for

talking to grandfather.

Tuesday Poem: "Toa Iti (Little Warrior)"

(For Thomas in celebration of his birth)

I will never forget the moment

11.38am

the obstetrician hauled you from

your mother’s womb:

one arm in defiant gesture

held stiff and strong

across your stomach

as though slotted through the strap

of an invisible shield.

The surgeon held you up for my photo,

his arms straining under 10lb 11oz

of warrior pose.

Bloodied from head to foot,

you never uttered a sound

but remained in concentrated stillness,

staring away

to some other world you had left behind

like a little warrior

who has passed through the tumult

to a place of peace.

Please forgive me a little nostalgia this week as my oldest son, celebrated in this poem, is on the verge of high school and teenage-hood and all the signs are emerging that he is transitioning from childhood to adulthood. It is hard to believe that the cute little fellow who loved tractors and diggers and who danced joyously to The Wiggles now blasts out heavy metal riffs on his guitar and says " 'sup bro".

Tuesday Poem: "The Gentle Grocer" (Sorry very late)

(In Memoriam Paul Henry Irwin)

History will not record the passing

of my cousin Paul,

but his star will always shine

in our whakapapa.

Millions of us will never blaze

a trail of fame or infamy

or carve our names irrevocably

in the tree of civilisation,

but the surprise of the small stone

is how far the ripples can reach

and the life of a good man

touches and enriches more lives than he knows.

In these soulless times,

“good” and “decent” have almost become

terms of derision

and kindness and caring carry no kudos.

No one makes the front page

for being a loving father or a loyal husband

and those whose daily deeds deserve respect

are those we all too easily neglect.

But this man who always had a twinkle in his eye,

this quiet achiever who gave more to his community

than he ever took,

who daily fed his faith into his life

was that wisest of men

who come to know that

it is within the little acts of love

that we find the big picture.

Say what you will

of your killers and kings,

your movie stars and moguls

who leave this world

on a comet of newsprint.

I would rather mourn for this man

whose example embraced my life

and whose passing leaves my spirit poorer.

Dim the streetlights.

Go home and kiss your loved ones goodnight.

The gentle grocer has shut up shop

and gone to sing in heaven’s choir.

POET'S NOTE: I hope it is obvious from this poem that I loved Paul, who was married to my first cousin, Robin, very much. He was the kindest, loveliest man you could ever hope to meet and cancer took him from us far, far too soon. I wish he could have lived to see his grandchildren grow up. That would have given him immense pleasure. He was a "family man" in the truest sense of that phrase.

This Tuesday poem is actually posted Friday which is extremely tardy, but I have a good excuse. I have been Stage-Managing the Christchurch Repertory's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Season runs Wednesday November 2 to Tuesday November 8. If you are in Christchurch, please come and see it. It rocks!!!

Tuesday Poem: "Calling in the Markers"

Afterwards,

like the aftermath of a motor accident,

I replay my actions.

“If I hadn’t...”

“Perhaps I should have...”

“Why did I do...”

“What could I have...”

Trying to heal,

the child inside, fumbling the emotional Lego,

acting in haste?

The lessons are salutary

when conducting open-heart surgery.

Do you value what and who you are so little

that you suspect my powers of discernment?

I promised no harvest

but was hopeful of the seed.

You reclaim the farm

now that my intuition is drought-broken,

foreclose on my feelings

so fast

it steals my breath away.

Not so stupid I can’t feel the Judas kiss

at the foot of my stairs.

Red wine served on Death Row,

the condemned allowed one last breathtaking vista

before you throw that switch.

Flick.

I don’t feel “awesome” when the flick comes.

Perhaps you are right about the spark.

Perhaps it springs fully-formed into life

and cannot grow like fire

coaxed and blown by a caring tender.

Instant gratification

not patient application

more becomes the 90s.

Logic is on your side

when you call in your markers

so I try to leave with dignity intact,

adopting an aloof masque

to hide the shabby, threadbare heart

of a gambler

bankrupt of hope.

Haven't we all had one of these? If you haven't consider yourself lucky. Enough said.

Tuesday Poem: "The Zeitgeist is for White Guys"

“Ain’t no Vietcong ever called me ‘nigger’” – Muhammad Ali

The whiteys are whining at the pumps

Frankly, Scarlett, I do give a damn

that it’s costing me a golf sub to fill up my SUV

but there’s damn few niggers in Nigeria getting

rich in that delta just seepage killing their

cassava crops “civil” unrest in Nigeria is pushing

up the price of crude and don’t get me started on

the Chinese, their middle class can kiss my

arse if they want to fondle my Fonterra, stick to

chop suey and save the cardiacs for those that can

afford them, galloping up behind trading rickshaws

for Rolls Royces are the techy-wallahs of

Bangalore banging on about swapping chapatis

for Chardonnay “Michael” from Mumbai “Delia”

from Delhi “Charlie” from Chennai all want a

piece of the pie.

When will it all end?

Come in, Andy, your time is up.

POET'S NOTE: In order to cover myself from any readers who don't appreciate irony, let me stress that this is not a racist poem. The poem inhabits a "character" which expresses the viewpoint of the old Western power bloc, fearful of global financial crisis and the rising influence and power of the developing nations. The Muhammad Ali quote was from when he refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam and lost his World Title and went to jail for his beliefs. Of course, he was right. It wasn't the Vietcong suppressing black Americans, it was the white capitalist power structure fighting an unpopular war and using poor whites and poor blacks as cannon fodder.

The poet wishes to acknowledge Presto magazine in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Bigger Than Ben Hur: Blog Action Day, October 16, 2011 - World Food Day

Bigger Than Ben Hur: Blog Action Day, October 16, 2011 - World Food Day

Blog Action Day, October 16, 2011 - World Food Day

DO YOU WANT STARVING CHILDREN WITH THOSE FRIES?

When I was a child in the 1960s (my own children teasingly ask me if the world was in Black & White then), my parents would often admonish my brothers and I about the “starving children in India” if we did not finish our dinner.

Sadly, despite a burgeoning middle class, there are still plenty of starving children in India nearly half a century later. If only they were confined to India, we might feel we were winning the war on poverty, malnutrition and starvation. But that smugness is denied us because, despite the world producing enough food to feed all its inhabitants[1], “almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day”[2] and of those, one billion are children which is nearly every second child on our planet.[3]

On the flip side of the coin, we have a growing problem with obesity in the developed nations with the USA topping the OECD charts at 30.6% of its population and our own little nation of an estimated 4,415,730 people coming in at 7^th at 20.9%.[4] That is about 922,887 obese men, women and children living on the sunny shores of Aotearoa!

How did we get into such a globally Lewis Carroll-ian situation? It’s an upside down, topsy-turvy situation that would appeal to the Mad Hatter. Huge numbers of our fellow planetary citizens cannot get sufficient calories to lead a healthy life and yet many of us here in the West are getting way too many calories and are leading unhealthy lives. But it is not simply a matter of us privileged folk in the West posting our excess calories to our starving brothers and sisters in Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Malawi, Niger, Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, Myanmar, North Korea, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, East Africa, Tajikistan, Sahel and the many other countries that have experienced famine since the turn of this century, a mere 11 years ago.[5]

Why? Because we in the West are getting obese from eating shit! Shit fobbed off on us by multinational advertising companies in the pay of multinational fast food companies. And it doesn’t matter how many salads they hide behind on their menu boards because they know damn well customers don’t suddenly have an automotive-enhanced epiphany and turn to their families and say: “I just have a craving for a fresh green salad with capsicum and tomatoes! Let’s pop in to MacKentuckyPizzaWendys and grab some yummy nutritious food.”

It is easy to think, “I’m just an average Joe/Josephine, I’m not Bill Clinton or Bono. What can I do about world hunger?” But YOU can do something! And in the age of the Internet, we can harness it for fairness, equity and social change for good. Hell, why do you think Tim Berners-Lee, recognised as the inventor of the Internet said: "Greater openness, accountability and transparency in Government will give people greater choice and make it easier for individuals to get more directly involved in issues that matter to them."[6]

And if you don’t have a computer, you can write letters to people in power. “I haven’t got the time,” I hear you say, but, let’s face it, there’s a powerful lot of crap on TV so why not do something useful and life-affirming instead of blobbing out in front of Top Models Spend 24 hours in A&E looking at Embarrassing Fat Bodies.

Or you could just think, “I’m alright, Jack, I’ve got food in my fridge, an OK job, a car to take the kids to the beach and a 150-inch Flat Screen TV.” But you might cough and shuffle and turn red-faced when your children ask you: “Dad/Mum, why are those chickens in those tiny cages?” “Why are those cattle kept in those crowded pens?” “Why is that pig so distressed in that tiny crate?” or the ultimate squirm-making question: “Mum/Dad, why is that child so tiny and why are his eyes so big and his body so little and bony?”

Are you going to look your children square in the eyes and say: “Jemima/ Patrick (substitute children’s names here), it is because I am too apathetic, or possibly just too pathetic, to care about my world and its inhabitants despite knowing that “the world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day (FAO 2002, p.9).  The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food.”[7]

I encounter or read about children everyday in all parts of the developed world who genuinely care that children in other parts of the world are starving. They raise money, they donate their own pocket money, they lobby adults and they use their digital native savvy to illuminate their concerns. They do everything THEY CAN because they identify with other children; they empathise with other children even though they may never meet those children. Our children want all other children to have what they have: good health, good, nutritious food, clean water, the chance to go to school and the chance to play. Above all, our children want all the world’s children to have the chance to FULLY ENJOY their childhoods.

Are you going to stand by and let your children shoulder the burden of eliminating world poverty and hunger? It’s too much for their little shoulders, believe me.

Check out the #BAD 11 tag

---

[1] http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm

[2] http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

[3] http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

[4] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famines

[6] "Ordnance Survey offers free data access". BBC News. 1 April 2010. Retrieved 3 April 2009.

[7] http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm