New Zealand is more progressive and fair than most nations
in 1893, she was the first country to give women the right to vote.
a right that makes sense in every country except America.
where your vote might never count,
until the electoral college is abolished.
an archaic system that ensures the wealthy get more say
New Zealand looks better than ever these days.
a democracy is so much more appealing than a republic.
Spine chilling velocity
Willing feverish ferocity
Pollution spilling atrocity
Pushes our buttons
Top billing forging
Fiendish drilling pomposity
Gluttons gorging in the isles of muttons
Coining the term “purloining”
Plunder even here down under
Cast asunder..can hear the thunder
In the proud land of
The long white cloud
Scold from the fold to heal
But won’t listen..do a deal
Gaudy gems appeal..glisten
History sold for pieces of gold
Cower to phoney crony power
Dour Parasites roll the dice
Show pony baloney hour
Off their heads...now divining
Mining our whining sea beds..
Palaver of scour..devour and sour
Splice our shining slice of paradise
Vice rather than stories of glories told
Voraciously gobbling veracity
Audaciously hobbling precocity
Generosity wobbling even in the home
Of lengthy Cumulus Curiosity…
Not being funny
In this Land of Milk & Honey
Won’t kowtow to the cash cow
Getting out of hand
Because the answer forever
Whatever will never ever
Be just money!
In the tea trees to the whistling song thrush
I alone hear the first September dawn,
and outside beyond ryegrass, fern and rush
glisten woolly coats of sheep early shorn.
Smell the petrichor and jade scented hedge,
the lambs, the honey bees in pollen’s net -
that botany of sights and sounds, that fledge
of young and new from moonrise to moonset.
See in the mists swamphens and waterfowl
and behold the prismatic dawn of spring -
the morepork on nocturnal moonlit prowl
that casts its eye and spreads its speckled wing.
Oh to feel again its warm gentle breeze
on greensward and dryads in the gnarled trees.
Written: September 1996
Sparkling clear
And singing low
Free as a migrant
As you go
A ripple here
A current there
An ebb and flow
With an idle air
A twist and turn
And you carry on
Water-borne
And pure as dawn
Incarcerated
Love for humanity? truth?
Breaking the net; soon !
The USA media is going to kill us all
Giving the shooters fame
We should be more like New Zealand
“A coward walked into a grade school”.
They never had another school shooting.
I booked a plane for New Zealand and headed out.
The instant the plane landed I saw a kangaroo to chase.
The other passengers were amused, but airport security wasn’t.
I was chased by the best of them, and dragged to a holding area.
There were other convicts here. We entertained each other.
For several hours – breaking out the bubbly, toasting and snorting.
There was some sleeping and breaking wind too.
It was a small place, but I made the best of it. As did the others.
Once released, my hotel room had been given away to others.
So I slept in the lobby until a gentle woman took my hand.
She led me out into the street and we drove around the island.
I have no idea what her name was, but we were instant friends.
We spent several days together, making jokes, shopping, laughing.
It did not get weird until she told me I looked like her missing daughter.
I crept out during the night and got back on a plane heading for home.
You can barely imagine my surprise when I woke up…..
And she was sitting in the seat next to me.
New Zealand’s foaming red grasshopper
took a ride to Rome on a chopper.
Listened to Holly
With wife named Molly
Reminisced about the Big Bopper
In New Zealand,
Even the rich have few servants,
We are a nation that expects one to serve oneself.
Our idea of rich,
Is to own your own home,
With barbecue space out the back,
And a nice car in the garage.
Most of us consider servants,
More trouble than they are worth,
We may have a cleaner in once a week,
Or is often the case, once a fortnight,
Which is about as far as it goes here.
So, if your idea of rich,
Is measured by the number of servants,
And yes, people around you,
Don't expect too many invites,
From many on our rich list.
Do it yourself is our motto,
Always has been,
And hopefully will stay that way.
We will help you get over yourself,
But be aware,
That we only serve ourselves,
And those who help them self.
Hectors Dolphins are listed as, endangered
and a sub-species, Maui’s Dolphin are critically endangered
with only about 55 left, in New Zealand’s shallow waters
in the North Island eastern shores, is their home with borders
Hector Dolphins dorsal fin, looks like Mickey Mouse’s ear
and they are the smallest and rarest, of all marine dolphins
Their biggest threat, is being caught up in human fishing gear
and humans polluting, boat striking, developing and seabed mining
I see the mountain far aloft,
Its grace and beauty shine and oft',
I wonder from which vantage best,
to seek the wonders of its crest.
Yet this mound I wish not to climb,
for from here is the most sublime,
a feeling, when it's needed most.
To conquer'd make this pang a ghost.
So I'd prefer to sit and dream.
Than lose forever, what I seek.
Despite my requesting to both of you
to travel along with you in our car,
Dad, you didn't agree to take; Mom you too
just smiled, didn't pursue, left me in despair.
'twas last time seen you both, felt you didn't care for
left me in house alone, don't know what for.
Think once more have you done justice to me;
With your decision I could not agree.
Dad, you may feel, I've acquired skills to be
alone, have maturity but you're wrong.
Though closed windows, doors but I am not free
from fear; certainly I am not that strong.
Maybe when you return, I won't be in
normal state; surely to fear is no sin?
~X~X~X~
Potential Euthanasia law in New Zealand
Encouraging Euthanasia
Profoundly Eye-opening
Might encourage
All kinds of people
Who had never thought of it before
To accept suicide
Unclear if this law has been passed
A dangerous precedent.
Making suicide common
Making taking your own life
Acceptable
Desirable
Natural
Scary to me
What this could do
to a society
Where teenagers are
already casually killing themselves
The dark, drenched forest
was tinkling with tuis and bellbirds,
blind to the ledger book,
the bill of lading,
the glint in the eye of the ax.
Pious settlers wired the land for religion
and switched on the lights.
The natives were dazzled,
but loved the portly man in the red suit
who gave them everything they wanted.
On the Historical Society outing,
we struggle for footholds
in whirlpools of organized ennui,
clutch at the slack rope
that cordons off irrelevant ancestries.
‘The end is not nigh,’
the Dom-Post tells its readers.
Doors are bolted against the wind,
the tick, tick of the electric fence
around eroded pastures.
First published in Southern Ocean Review
Memories of him are still there upon Weymouth Road
his sullen white cross nailed to the old Kauri
symbolize by countless layers of uncaring street wise graffiti,
while burdensome scars revealed by heavy metal grow faint
and the old Rose i placed withered and faded
in the over grown yet still blood stained grass,
a monument still there for the few of us
those that cared those with lives full of guilt
'when you mate ran out of life number nine!'
© Harry J Horsman 2013
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