Rats live around here
        shuffling bones from wall to wall,
I shuffle along with them
The smell of shit on my hands
        reminding me of growth,
While laughing cockroaches
        invade my home.

I think I recognise these bones:
        they sound like the ones I guarded under my skin once.
But now they are instruments
        clanging rhythms for the hallway service,
While laughing cockroaches
        take out their hammers and claws.

        What is that noise?
        - silence to ignore, silence to placate.
        What is the source?
        - of the noise?
        No, the silence. Why is there silence? Where is it coming from?
        - that is the sound of me listening.
        But why do you not ask questions?
        - I thought you were speaking.
        Don't you care?

Renovators are removing the door.

        Can I have my door back, please?
        It opened a new world to me.

"Silence!" speak the laughing cockroaches.

What are these walls collecting?
Instruments rattling backwards and forwards.
Are there ghosts living lives down this hall?
No, there are only rats
        beating rhythms on bones
        that once clattered under my skin.

• 19th July, 2024; Motueka
  

And I emerged
        from the void that is silence
        to erupt with fire
        over the horizon.

I smothered the tundra,
        creeping vines, and willow branches;
I laughed at hyenas,
        as they scattered from the ashes;
I claimed all the homes,
        and disowned the occupants;
I incinerated every treaty
        proclaiming peace and friendships,

And I returned
        from the blackened earth
        with vengeance and renewed desire
        to corrupt the liars
        hiding in the rafters,
        to have them ply their skills
        with half-truths
        for the vines to grown gullible opinions on.

Where the soft crusts will pluck their budding agreements from and nod along righteously,
Where the hardening weeds will feed their determined antagonisms through dribbling jowls.

You see,
        it was not your gardeners tending your soil for you,
        it was not your harvesters discarding rotten fruit,

It was I, bleeding into your brain
        delusions of division, chaos,
        and foolish pursuits.
        To have the lambs lie down in submission,
        To have the pack of dogs rise in retaliation,
and then to have,
        one-sided opinions flavouring the conversations,
        accusations based on hidden agendas,
        hard facts forgotten
        in exchange for soft truths comforting.

It was I all along
        with hand in the cookie jar
        laughing at every courtesy your enemy took from you,
        so that you could refill the jar with blame,
        and never see the hand that severed you from your own humanity.

This was my greatest achievement:
        To forever dissuade all from joining hands to grow peaceful prosperity.

And you all heard,
And you all listened,
And you all played a part in my raising of the lands, the destruction of temples, the raping of wives and daughters, the
murdering of fathers and brothers, the killing of your children,

While your beliefs grew, and grew, and reconfirmed all you believed you knew.

• 17/12/23; Brightwater

something.

Something filled with tentacles and slippery shoes,
reaching arms to entangle my hair in the rush of void-winds.
Gas,
the breath of giants encircling my mind
and
forever orbiting each thought with tidal moons.

Saltarello,
Saltarello,
Scherzo in the depths,
Smothering Sunday into each other’s steps.
A violin in the spheres
singing to the absent audience
and
awaiting their applause with bated breath.
I dance on the boards between each crescent
watching rockets take to the skies,
and
laughing each moment that rushes by.

A hand for two,
palms and skin
sensitive teachers.

• 07th November, 2022; Upper Moutere
  

© W.F. Stubbs

For you I ache and fall apart,
For you I tend these tender scars,
For you I hope the stars will shine
While I lie in dust upon the stairs.

• 12/01/22 11:14pm, Waikanae
  

Bells are sounding on the ocean floor
Calling en-masse quietened voices,
Though grumbling feet pass with heavy countenance
Through every remembered door.

~//~

Bells ring out sounding forlorn:
The remembrance of a past unshorn;
Life now swelling into mists of time
Scrambling as naked countenance looks on.

~//~

Because it is here, this taste will stay
An end to pondering,
An end to wandering.
Should these ends meet,
Driving sand into studied toes
And gathering gulls into a flock of followers,
Bells will ring out overhead
To remind a sullen face
Of the debt owed to paper thoughts
Stranded on the ocean floor.

• 10:00am, 24th December, 2021; Paekākāriki
  
  

Here it comes, young man
Clouds on every horizon,
A fire burning bright into the long night.
We waged war on our heroes,
Dug graves for our ghosts,
Sneaked love into tents as though
We had forgotten the lessons
Our mother taught us
Over this timid plate of hors-d'œuvre.


Tally the falling giant upon the stones
Where we once built a wall to obfuscate glory,
Dismembered parts levy the starved and hungry,


Equal among us are the stomachs that remember this fate.

~ ~ ~

Are we old enough to harbour the wisdom of age,
See through the soft glaze
Appropriating kindness on a stage?
Can we forgive our sins when all is remembered,
Chipping away at our present state
And ushering in the endgame?


See that smoke rising,
Bristling with static energy,
Coalescing with storms and anger,
Birthing the new frontier.
Frustration mates with the enemy
And gives conception to holiness and penalties.


In this hour,
In this day,
In this year
I hear you say:
Lay your bones down
now
upon this hallowed ground.

• 20th December, 2021; 9:05pm, Paekākāriki / © W.F. Stubbs

This beautiful life
With stars to battle over,
Longing to swim in an ocean of,
Feelings to dwell in the haven of;
Where we search for meaning
      and assume learning through reflections.
Have you held enough hands to warm your heart
      with integrity's shadow?
Have you felt enough grains fall loosely
      through eager fingers of morning's sorrow?

This beautiful life so lost in tides,
Here I swim again returning thoughts to horizons
Where ships spread their sails like birds on the wind,
Breezes for salt spray and crustaceans,
A laughing northerly and biting southerly,
The creaking wood that needs caulking,
Sealing boards of their sulking.
Yesterday’s tomorrow has yet to arrive
      and harbour intentions with harmless playthings.

This beautiful life is yours for the keeping,
This beautiful life is mine for the taking.
Have we these thoughts together,
Or are we separate like the sea and the sky?

Love without a bridge between earth and stars.

• 18th September, 2021; Paekākāriki
  

Every man who feels the need to release anger or frustration as a brutal assault, or any assault, onto another's choice that they make for themselves, only serves to reveal the frailty of their own self-confidence, how shallow that self-confidence is, how indoctrinated the mental state is to relying on another person's acknowledgement or consent to please the inner desires of the self. If a person cannot receive love, gratitude and contentment through personal selfhood, and must seek this things from outside, they become slaves to the desires that demand satisfaction from outside the self.

Your inner turmoil is your own insecurities feeding the hatred you inflict on others.