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I Am Skeet Poem
This town, this Silk Road had no toll to pay
yet from the east caravans again fill its
pharaonic marble and glass temples. Monolith
malls rise its clefts, eco-wilderness morph
into multiplex cinemas; mini golf
and carparks - the 20th century gold fields.
A new rush of debit credit borrow sorrow
where the mortgage belt go to covet,
to con themselves - live beyond their means.
Here the sweatshops of Asia are legitimised
and exploitation of trafficked slave,
child, immigrant, and asylum seeker for sale -
here the suffering of others is repackaged,
bulk sold, discounted - a great lie
perpetrated on human aspiration! Seven billion
sins for a spoil and a ransom in higher income
streams of consciousness while our mills,
our plants, our factories are rusting graveyards.
Showrooms fill with pizza ovens; microwaves;
big screen TVs; IKEA; nouveau riche kitsch…
supermarkets of genetically modified superfoods
nuked in cryogel flavour enhancers; sweeteners;
emulsifiers; stabilisers; MSG; palm oil
and sodium nitrate for the hooked toxin addicts
of convenience - a fill that knows no limits.
And saints of haute couture bow down
before the anorexic altar of the Fatted Calf…
to the guilt offerings of culture spin. Already
the subliminal wave is a raging tsunami,
and we a ship of fools on the rising tide blown
on a contrary wind. I fear my quiet desperation -
the cold ironies of fate; spiritual paralysis;
I fear for the blitzkrieg’s raw collateral damage…
the billboards; vandals of corporate graffiti;
drive-thrus of Americana; that uglified
futuristic aesthetic of mirrored urban jungles;
high towers of critical mass; death of community.
I fear the currency of naked ideology;
of usury where the end justifies the means;
alas the black dawn into planned obsolescence
where ravenous jackals and wolves feed
on the carcass of idyll idealism…mythology!
And whores of dystopia; pimps; moneylenders;
oracles of the grand evangelical sell who
prey on confessions! And lepers walking its streets;
human languish and loss; mad Scientologists
at my gate; the cults and hubris of men
dividing God from Godless; good from evil.
What now of my chimera? What of my anti-hero
anachronisms? Sadly one day I must leave
but today I write my rant. Listen! This town
this pastoral lay has become to my ear an echo
dumb of sound - to my youth’s wistful eye
a place and past of no return…a time that was!
Written: September 1994
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
O to fade! To pass! To sleep! To die!
To live and listen and not to speak -
perchance some alternate reality
is all my grim alienation does seek.
The thunderclap of Tawhiri raging
silence not a loving fool’s complaint,
nor portend for whom the bell tolls
when the echoes of time grow faint
My heart alas divided against itself
knows not what to say or what to feel,
and with ponderous words recited
I return your resting place to kneel.
Some final absolutions shared alone -
cold black rain upon my brow and cuff.
Judge not a froward son - I am who
I am, and have been judged enough
We are but the quick and the dead,
and just or unjust no keeper of time.
O tell, what sin was imputed to you?
What concealed divine law or crime?
And what palsy so dark the lamps
of Heaven and Earth burn less bright?
And do we in this realm find peace
or is death’s victory our only respite?
Only in beds of posthumous sleep
will end my unspoken confessions.
Nay, I no longer exhume the past -
it rebukes all my searching questions.
From umbilical dawn to end of days
I failed you - I added unto your woe.
In life and death there comes a time
when to hold on and when to let go
May your life and times early passed
live on in the heart that lives in me,
for in all the silent screams below
is my own howl in my own vanity.
As I pen this ode the charcoal sky
has communicated more than I can tell -
no loss, no sorrow, no love unfeigned
can unring that breathless tolling bell
Written: July 1991
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
Hey America, what do ya think of your Pres now?
Still think he’s a moderate?
Still think the virus came from a bat?
Still think your child needs to wear a mask?
Still think Jan 6 Committee isn’t a hyper-partisan circus?
Still think MAGAs riot but BLM & Antifa protest?
Still think Joe’s compos?
Still think he knows what day it is?
Still think Obama isn’t a racist divisive ass-hole?
Still think globalists first is better than America first?
Still think Hunter didn’t pay daddy his cut of dirty deals?
Still think all black criminals are victims?
Still think Joe is running the show?
Still think he’s got any clue?
Still think you have freedom of speech?
Still think you live in a democracy?
Still think Joe’s not a hostage to the radical left?
Still think diversity over merit ever works?
Still think Joe’s not Putin’s bit-ch?
Still think he’s not a hair sniffing creep?
Still think Made in China is better than Made in USA?
Still think calling Covid the China Vi-rus is inherently racist?
Still think lockdowns and mandates work?
Still think woketardery isn’t a cancer on western civilisation?
Still think Joe cares about what you think?
Still think Antifa is just an idea?
Still think Trump bad but Cuomo good?
Still think Joe cares about your constitutional rights?
Still think you can be any gender you want?
Still think anyone gives a damn about your pronouns?
Still think censorship is good for our democracy?
Still think Joe speaks for you?
Still think the media don’t cover for him?
Still think Fauci hasn’t been lying all along?
Still think border cartels don’t love Democrats?
Still think the Great Reset isn’t a thing?
Still think the Russia hoax is real?
Still think it’s okay to kill full term babies?
Still think climate alarmism isn’t the con of the century?
Still think defunding the police makes black communities safer?
Still think George Soros isn’t an evil bastard?
Still think Critical Race Theory isn’t taught to your kids?
Still think Afghanistan wasn’t a clusterfu-ck?
Still think Build Back Better isn't a disaster?
Still think open borders isn’t about demographic change?
Still think sleepy slow Joe is the great unifier?
Still think you would vote for Joe?
Hey America, what do you think of your Pres now?
Written: February 2022
Donald Trump was accused of ruling by decree and being
a dictator and a Nazi by Joe Biden for abusing his power as
President in signing so many executive orders. Incidentally
Trump signed 24 executive orders in his first 100 days in
office. Biden signed 30 in his first 3 days. You do the math.
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
I mortal! I live,
I labour, I feel, I err -
I love and am loved!
~~~
With special thanks
to Rene Descartes.
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
Built in a Belfast shipyard
for Shaw Savill ‘n Albion Line.
On her flagstaff wind ‘n lee
flew the Southern Cross ensign,
down a slipway to the sea
launched afar by Her Majesty
Behold her pale eau de nil
green ‘n painted hull of grey,
at twenty knots her rate
twenty thousand tons aweigh.
On the seas a ship of fate
the world to circumnavigate
Yon the Empire far ‘n wide
from Southampton to Trinidad.
Where from ship to shore
off I waved goodbye as a lad,
till in the distance I saw
my home to be nevermore
Smoke from her aft funnel
into a big Caribbean sky blew,
then set a course westerly
by merchant captain ‘n crew.
And to each port ‘n quay
across the ocean carried me
I remember gazing in awe
up ‘n down her length ‘n beam,
at the mighty waves below
and how sea ‘n ship did gleam.
In canal gates under tow
winding our way lazy ‘n slow
Crossing the equator I saw
Davy Jones ‘n King Neptune
rising up out of the deep
‘neath a high December moon.
Till in safe passage ‘n keep
back to the depths they leap
Out on Oceania as a boy
in the lido deck pool I did dive.
The Southern Cross ‘n me
would our long voyage arrive,
on in all her hope ‘n glory
the grand old lady of the sea
On final Far East voyage
would alas be her swan song,
beached on a tidal seaway
sold ‘n scrapped in Chittagong.
A line flagship in her day
stripped bare where she lay
Written: May 2017
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
To her family she was coy
but truly she would be their Joy,
a country girl from Kingaroy -
the fourth of eleven.
Over hill and range she did tramp
living in tents from camp to camp
by the glow of a railway lamp
and the stars in heaven.
Along the way past Many Peaks
swam in Splinter and Monal Creeks
where a child a gay frolic seeks
in the heat of the day.
Up on the range where it outlooks
when not tending the campsite chooks
she read in school her beloved books
dreaming of far away.
As an older girl on horseback
she’d ride for miles a dusty track
like a drover with a knapsack
where the long trail begins.
Up “dash it” early milking cows,
picking cotton and feeding sows
and shooting possums in their boughs
to sell their bounty skins.
“O someday I’ll teach school” she said
till she met Arthur Hill and wed
and bore life to her eldest, Ted,
the first of eight to come.
In Mt Morgan where miners drilled
as rains came and Trotters Creek filled
a new life on the land she’d build
and be a wife and mum.
But on their farm and dairy run
“hells bells” there was work to be done
from sunup to the setting sun
and all must do their share.
Through the Great Depression and war
a boundless faith to God she swore
and it burned in her evermore
in His heavenly care.
Her hands had many mouths to feed
and so when hungry kids did plead
she baked the bread dough that she knead
in the old woodfired stove.
And with her weary frame so sprite
late as the curlews cried at night
she read her bible with delight
as it did her behove.
In her time a digger of wells
when the winds blew in dry hot spells
and echoed the sound of train bells
up and down the railway.
A grazier, tiller, and sower,
a painter, milker, and grower,
a doer, thinker, and knower,
and a potter of clay.
To all her far flung family
a great-great-grandmother was she
and like a grandmother to me
whom I most gladly knew.
So now when I hear the tick tock
and chimes of the pendulum clock
or “tommyrot” and “poppycock”
I’m reminded of you.
Written: August 2016
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
Now listen up to my funny karma rhyme
how Jussie Smollett staged his own hate crime.
Not just a lying hater
but a bigot race baiter
and all the woketards fell for it big time!
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
Now in my decline from a time back then
I remember the days in a life when I was ten,
when we lived in a shadow much greater
at the foot of the mount and its dormant crater.
Where we’d climb and to the top race
like Hillary and Tenzing up the south face,
then on our backsides slide to the rocks below
from whence the lava used to flow.
Behold the old white house at 89 Owens Road -
the grass I with an old push blade mowed,
and where from my upstairs room
I saw the spring terraced flowers bloom.
Where outside we played cricket all summer long
and inside were the masters of ping pong!
In our living room my family and me
saw a moonlanding and a war on TV -
on our black ‘n white set watching My Three Sons,
Gunsmoke and Bonanza with my toy guns,
or perchance playing canasta soon as I was able
and even a séance on the coffee table,
where spirits from the spirit world did roam
and truly spelled out to our guests “go home!”.
When my birthday cake burned ten candles
and I wore short pants and Roman sandals,
with my bag down Valley Road walking
past the shops on the way to school talking -
spending my lunch money licking my lips
eating aniseed wheels and jelly tips!
Where my mate lived above his mum’s shoe store
and between us all was fair in love and war.
Listening to my transistor radio all the while
tuned in to 1480 on top of the dial -
to the hip happening sounds of Radio Hauraki
in the gulf on a pirate ship called Tiri.
Till through the gates of my teacher and jailer,
Mrs Furner, Ms Gaiqui, and Mr Taylor,
and catch a glimpse of a vision in a cotton dress -
the girl of my restless dreams I confess.
Before the bell sounded its morning ring
we’d be flying on the moari swing,
or games on the courts or a tag to yield
playing bullrush on the football field.
And behold, in class on his guitar my teacher
playing folk songs and exhorting like a preacher
singing “where have all the flowers gone?
young girls pick them every one…”
and “Oma rapeti…rabbit run, run, run”
or playing Maori stick games just having fun.
Drawing carvings and birds that can’t fly,
reading tales of Hinemoa and Tutanekai.
Weaving flax and weaving string
into diamonds and parachutes hanging.
In single file marching from the school
with our towel and togs to the pool -
an Eden boy at the starters end ready to dive in
for a prized 50 metre certificate to win,
then gather the class in the projection room
and gaze in the ceiling the stars illume,
where our Milky Way mural hung so surreal
as we sat and watched an old movie reel.
But soon fun would turn to palpable fear
when all the class trembled to hear -
read to the children who were quiet as a mouse
was the dental list for the Murder House!
Alas a fate worse than death, the whining drill
to bore and clean and to mercury fill,
where the needle sometimes dulled the pain
yet the screams of boys and girls remain.
After school in my uniform arrayed
I marched to the tune in the Boys Brigade,
and on weekends roaming the neighbourhood
in search of adventure as best we could -
climbing up the hill to the construction site
of The Pines apartments at a great height.
On Guy Fawkes night from my pocket
lighting my firecrackers and my skyrocket -
armed and dangerous ready to throw
with red packs of Double Happys lit to blow.
And on nighttime mission on ninja patrol
detonating milk bottles…whoa! Fire in the hole!
Or off to the Crystal Palace to catch a flick
lest my mother test my arithmetic,
and Eden Park where the mighty Auks play host
sitting with my mates behind the goalpost -
with my dad and brother at the track
in the birdcage and hearing the whips crack,
at Ellerslie in the Ladies Stand or Alexandra Park
with my Best Bets, my picks to mark.
And on the Sabbath beneath cross and spires
in Sunday School at old Greyfriars.
Until the day my time comes to an end
I’ll remember way back then when I was ten.
Written: January 2016
Pics above: My home when I was ten
and picturesque Mt Eden.
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
Oh, to be in Trinidad
when the hot scented currents flow,
from East Dry River to Nariva
chaconia and silk cotton tree grow.
Where reaching palms whisper
across island reef and coconut lagoon,
and the forests of Papa Bois
flower with lotus lillies in bloom
Oh, to be in Trinidad
in the time of the House of Trestrail,
and be again that child before
the Voyage of Six leaving did sail.
Where by antiquity starlight
Amerindians crossed its riverbends,
and tall masted clipper ships
sailed the spice seas to its far ends
Oh, to be in Trinidad
when equatorial rains have passed,
and gaze Big Wet to Big Dry
hot burning canefield and wildgrass.
Lowland baptism of blossom
resurrect from Toco to Mayaro Bay,
and in reacquainted seasons
waves of consciousness slip away
Oh, to be in Trinidad
where tales of bacchanal abound -
how old chimes with new
yet uprising does a trumpet sound!
And ghosts of the revolution
fan its flames in the hot raging sun,
where dat voodoo spirit rise
the Obeah Man when day is done
Oh, to be in Trinidad
for crab and callaloo on Sunday,
let the Boca gulf gates lull
and stars over Tobago my fears allay.
Dream and moonstruck gaze
till Monos windsong wakes no more,
listen and you too shall hear
rapping upon her hideaway shore
Oh to be in Trinidad
in Caroni for the Scarlet Ibis flown,
hummingbird’s backward dance -
beauty I’m richer for having known.
And in days of future years
tread again the hot Maracas sands,
or horse trails of Blue Range
and Rancho Caballero grasslands
Oh, to be in Trinidad
when the Oval’s at its raucous best,
and the lions of Queen’s Park
bay for Christians in noble contest.
Where the air sweet with rum
hangs with doubles and curry pot,
and the drums and soca play
till all yuh feelin’ Hot! Hot! Hot!
Oh, to be in Trinidad
playin’ mas’ with cart and barrow,
when masquerade and fete
jump loudest to Kitch and Sparrow!
Calypsonian tents jammin’,
limbo flame sparks the night flare,
and steelpan Carnival streets
jumpin’ from Icacos to Saint Clair
Oh, to be in Trinidad
among the blood of African slave,
and not be destined alas
to lifeless fill a cold foreign grave.
And where indentured souls
in waves landed upon South Quay
I pray the bells of Greyfriars
solemnly toll in absence for me
Oh, to be in Trinidad
when the great Savannah dawns.
Hot roti and roasted corn
in early light over its tracks and lawns.
Land of my nativity begun
from hills to blue Caribbean Sea -
I miss that golden age ended
and lament what must be must be
Written: August 1995
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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I Am Skeet Poem
Romance in Durango
We met south of the border in Durango,
she was hot and boy could she fandango.
She said at a glance
“senor like to dance?”
No mamacita, but I would love to tango!
****
In a Singles Bar
Trollin’ at the bar her leg he did touch,
she was so sexy and gorgeous and such.
He said wanna go? You’re fine!
She flirted “your place or mine?”
Nah, forget it darlin’, you talk too much!
****
Confessions From the Grave
It’s not so bad being dead and all,
it’s quiet in here where the worms crawl.
I wouldn’t say it’s bliss
but there’s not much I miss
‘cept a cold beer and a booty call!
****
My Lawyer the Idiot
The law is an ass and I was a victim,
so was my lawyer, his head up his rictum.
In matters of all things legal
more a turkey than an eagle
who doesn’t know his coccyx from his dictum!
****
Quickdraw
Slow down cowboy and reload she mocked
and next time try not to go off half-cocked.
Then she said with a snig-ger
you’re too fast on the trigger
but who fu-ckin cares, my world was rocked!
****
The Butterfly Effect
I do love to go down on their wings and lie
and see ‘em spread their open legs up high.
But if you are down there
be sure to come up for air
out of the bush of the Venus Butterfly!
****
Custer
At The Battle of Little BigHorn alas
soldiers fought Indians in the greasy grass.
But it was Custer who fell
and Crazy Horse they tell
was from that day on known as Kicking Ass!
****
No Hurry
I hope my poems in their entirety
live on beyond my notoriety.
But I sure don’t wanna
be the guest of honour
read at the Dead Poet’s Society!
****
Batter Up
I post on the Soup for all to see
and am no angel nor claim to be.
I am kind and all that
but carry a big bat
so beware how you remember me!
****
Now That’s a Fairytale
Mirror mirror on the wall she wants me so
but I am little and she is white as snow.
From Bashful to Happy I morph
singing like a horny little dwarf
Heigh-ho! Heigh-ho! It’s off to twerk we go!
****
Twins
I only had eyes for you when we first met
and yes blondes have more fun it’s true my pet.
How we walked hand in hand
and rolled naked in the sand…
“fu-ck you! That was my sister, I’m a brunette!”
****
Bankers or Bandits?
At the ATM I just want to harangue
my bank for the fees it upon me sprang.
When I do I get fobbed
and feel like I’ve been robbed
by the outlaw hole in the wall gang!
****
Safe Sex
She said “I’m not some cheap bimbo whore
but have six kids and don’t want no more”.
Relax I said, my name’s Rex
and I do practice safe sex…
it’s true, I always lock the car door!
****
Hillary Clinton
She is a White House witch and feminazi
who rides her big broom like a kamikaze.
The honesty test she fails,
she lied about her emails
and covered up the truth about Benghazi!
****
Beer Goggles
No, no, the drinks are on me I told her
and with each one I was gettin’ bolder.
When I woke the next day
oh jeez, well let’s just say
beauty’s in the eye of the beerholder!
****
For Sheriff Koplin and Deputy Tom
In Milt Creek up there in North Dakota
the law is an ass and a big fat bloater.
He calls himself sheriff
but I just call him Griff
and he’s a troll and my frequent doter!
Gun in one hand and tool in the other
he thinks he’s Wyatt Earp, O’ brother!
With his deputy, Tom,
a witless numpty pom
together are as dumb as one another!
He’s Peter Griffin with a badge!
Note: A pom is an Englishman.
****
Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022
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