Man of wood

Man of wood

Now I understand the 

Mythology of the

 'Green Man'

From the dark colour's 

of the anchored root

To the light shades

Close to the green heights

A soul carved 

From the heart of the forest

The lines of age

 ingrained in the skills 

and the workings-out of 

the craft-mans hands

The pencil lines

of precise arithmetic 

bring the ashes of the tree

back to life 

Sawdust from the sharpest tools

The Remains of knowledge 

Of a beautiful craft.

Avie.

Wellington Harbour

Wellington Harbour

Beneath the Red 

Umbrella of a scavenger sky

The music drifted in the meadow tussocks of consciousness 

Over the bridges 

of a million silver spangles

We walked Along the stilted harbour

In view of city and hills

In pleasant company 

under the magnetism of the sun.

Avie..

Diagnosis

Diagnosis

The Doctor explained

I had branches in my

Peripheral right upper lobe

quite triangular in shape

With well defined margins

And a tree-in bud appearance.

I told him I had been a Gardener 

all my life,and was Familiar with 

these type of symptoms, and further explained that the buds 

Would not open and bloom

Until the spring time

around the same time as

the formal hedge

Would need a trim..

Avie..

Love Poem

Love Poem

I can stand 

a little rain

Intimately 

in your company

Listening to It softly

 falling 

completely and

gently in the moment 

With you..

Avie.

Talking in idioms of gibberish

Talking in idioms of gibberish 

I stayed up late to write this

Burning up the midnight oil

I'm going to let the cat out of the bag now

Been wanting to do this for ages

Thought I would kill two birds with one stone and this is the last straw

Perhaps I should just leave sleeping dogs lie no I can't keep something at bay there's a method to my madness love is blind and I know the saying curiosity killed the cat

Anyhow to cut a long story short

I believe if I don't ask I might miss the boat they will say I haven't got a spark of decency or I'm not playing with a full deck of cards maybe I'm just off my rocker and you can't teach an old dog new tricks sometimes I just wish you would just get off your high horse

In the heat of the moment it takes two to tango hopefully this isn't in the too hard basket this time round I may have hit the nail on its head it's a far cry from the truth and I must not put all my eggs into one basket or count all my chickens before the eggs are hatched but drastic times call for drastic measures and at the end of the day every cloud has a silver lining 

Where to start if I had a penny for my thoughts not wanting to steal someone's thunder well maybe only once in a blue moon or out of the blue personally I think it's a hot potato we'll see actions speak louder than words and not wanting to add insult to injury Without playing devils advocate all this is going to cost an arm and a leg

I think perhaps I should go back to the drawing board otherwise I could be barking up the wrong tree and the shit could hit the fan.I want to put the ball in her court not wanting to beat around the bush I can see the best of both worlds. It would be a blessing in disguise,a piece of cake,the icing on the cake as long as I don't bite off more than I can chew it could turn out to be the best thing to happen since sliced bread.I'm feeling under the weather last night I was sick as a dog so I might give myself the Benefit of the doubt your guess is as good as mine unless you hear it on the grapevine,personally I'd rather hear it from the horses mouth,the whole nine yards you know what they say, a picture paints a thousand words, not wanting to pull wool over other people's eyes,even if we see eye to eye I think I would rather sit on the fence on this one.If I was you I would take it with a pinch of salt, I wouldn't be caught dead.

I don't want to necessarily cut corners or cry over spilt milk,

I might not be a barrel of laughs you might be glad to see the back of me and if I didn't cut the muster its because sometimes I feel like a fish out of water I will cross that bridge when it comes to it

At the moment I'm just caught between a rock and a hard place and I'm not one to bury my head in the sand so don't judge a book by its cover, but if the writing is on the wall I promise not to give up my day job and on that note, I'll play it by ear.

Elvis has just left the building..

Avie..

Dilemma of the old man one Bar or Two

Dilemma of the old man

One bar or two?

I worry about

Switching on the heater

for the warm comfort

Of the room 

As often as I 

Worry about the damn 

Power bill 

I consume..

Avie..

Pain

 Pain

If you can imagine 

a hot poker 

The red glow 

Taken from the furnace 

poked into the excruciating chest

ripping Down the sides of you sticking to your insides like Velcro not wanting to release 

its stinging barbs.

A cohesive attraction 

of sore flesh 

stuck  to the Sellotape bone

A Tourniquet of skin

Twisting and tightening

Inside you 

Turning in opposite directions

Until you sit upright.

Avie.

Love Poem

Love Poem

It did not occur to us 

That we didn't have to talk

For the sake of making conversation 

We both understood that we were comfortable

And in love 

With the knowledge 

Of what we both know

In the silent times of

each other's company

So Yesterday 

I wondered

Where did the blue sky go

When did the leaves blow in

Through the door

And the Autumn fade with 

the shadow's of the cold sun.

Avie..

Talking The Mundane

Talking The Mundane

When someone

Ask's you 

How are you?

It's easier to 

Reply politely 

I'm all good thanks

When really 

All you want to do

Is un-clip the safety catch

Pull the trigger

And blow the end 

Off the smoking gun.

Avie..

Coin Slot Eject.

Coin Slot

Eject..

The adventures mind no longer wants 

For the grass and sky 

to navigate in the sun or sense the wonderment of 

the stars 

to explore

the faculty of imagination

Reality is a distraction it 

exists outside the game 

The natural colours of life are 

absent from the hypnotic eye

The Finger swipe 

touch screen stare

Drives the amusement device 

Targets must be hit 

Points have to be Scored

Rolling down the slanting surface

Into the brainwashed laps of children

The pin ball wizardry 

Is propelled into the Wired brain.

Avie.

The Vision

The Vision

I tried to sow some grass

And plant an olive grove

My garden soon grew to fruition

 And for a while

Everyone believed I was a bit of a

Capability Brown

 until the

'Madding Crowd'

Returned and 

 Devoured The dream

Surprisingly the grass remained 

Green in the places where the 

Holes had not been quarried 

For mud pies and the sticks and leaves collected to construct dams to hold back the river ravines worked well to collect the puddles

The majority of the trees are still standing

A few have been 

defoliated 

Stripped bare of leaves

Other's have been completely decapitated to make 

Bow and arrows and

the tree stakes make very good fighting swords for small boys.

I know all my hard work was not in vain

I can only smile

when I am gifted

To say thank you

A mud ball composed

of leaves and crushed olives..

Avie..

In sickness and...

In Sickness and...

I can tell 

How much you love me 

By the way you care for me

When I am sick.

When you make me 

Home made soup and

Cheese toasties.

I know now 

how the battled

Soldier felt

When Florence tended to the 

Wounded heart.

Avie..

The Ward

The Ward

The hooded men are staring at me through the curtains

There's no running away from here

The old walrus has moved to another ward  another casualty moves next to me with a dialysis machine might as well be a jack hammer.

The mahogany corpse through the curtains looks half dead, and the old dear probably is.

I am surrounded by alarm bells  defibrillator junkies are jolted back to life.

The ear plugs help block out other people's nightmares I am left with the pulse of  my thumbing heartbeat.

This place is so used to life and death.

Tomorrow my plan is to walk out of here alive

Ursula who's is to my right is deliriously German originally moved from Berlin to NZ in 1945 after the war..She sits on a commode and shits on her gown.

She is undressed with a scissor's

The Catheter at the end of my bed is looking like a Heineken brewery.

When will the Doc. with the metal ear detect the murmur of a Welsh hymn in my heart.

Donkey man is fast asleep he wakes out of a dream feeling shell shocked and feverish he wants to kill the noise.His English heart has finally clogged up with arrogant shrapnel from karma's last post signalling the end of the day..

Avie..

Love Poem

Love Poem

At last 

I discovered you there

Encased for so long

A beauty 

not looking

But with so much love 

Reserved in dormancy

Time was waiting 

To break through 

The confined earth

Incarcerated in the years

Of grief and tears

We allowed the thaw to happen

To un-button the colourful 

Coat's of dormant love

It was time to push through

And break new ground

With new shoots to flourish

And melt the ice

With our hearts

The Passage of time had long enough to cure the blight from the past

That cut us down in different ways

So brutally fast

How clumsy and fortuitous was I 

To tread with heavy boots

To catch my eye

On such a fruitful bed 

And chance my heart

That you would respond

With such delight 

To my open hand

At the beginning

Of this fragile garden

I should take my time

Be patient beneath

The swooning star's

I will make sure 

to prepare the ground well

To nurture 

The brightest bloom

To burst into life

Forever lasting seasons..

Avie..

215 White Cross Rd.

215 White cross Road

Out into the garden

Soft beauty rambles

A mile a minute

Over the spiders

Spinning roof

A black warning rook 

Calls from the watchtower 

Hungry worm eaters

Take flight

Chatting on talking wires

Tom the tiger cat

Climbs up the colourless 

Stems of entangled ivy 

The sun falls behind 

The washing line horizon

Insect petals wrapped in thorn 

Kiss the deadly nightshade

Protected in natures scented nettle

Garden flowers silhouette  around the 

Dancing fire flickering back memories

Of last summers dream 

When the cider orchards never ran dry.

Avie..

Cornwall Coastal Path

Cornwall Coastal Path

Walking along pencil line paths

Almost touching the seagulls feathers

Below the perilous heights

Where death and beauty 

Plunge down to the sea

Dazzled by the fishing boat sail

Snug in the cabin 

On the rum swell

In sight of the light house watch

The decks rise and slide

Nets bursting with the

Slippery eyed catch

The cliffs shadows battle

Against Atlantic's fury

The roar of the ocean's gale

Is applauded by the shale

Listened to inside the shell..

Avie..

Dandelion time

Dandelion time ( Upton on Severn Folk festival)

When the cock spied

On church spire over

Fields of golden harvest

And celebrated with twelve chimes

When the long boat sailed 

Over dry land across the edge

Of the buttercup field along

The dark Severn 

It was then a dance of ribbons

And bells gathered outside the Swan

Cracked their sticks beneath the cool 

Willow glades to the dizzy tunes of the accordion 

The bells chimed once

Scattered white flurries of wild flowers on the sail drifting on the 

Flight across the school bell yard

High above the orchard 

Beyond the Malvern hills

Shimmering in the summer breeze

Of a dandelion time..

Avie..

Christmas Day for Me/ Christmas Eve for you

Christmas Day For Me/Christmas Eve For You.( 2004)

You were crossing Putney Bridge

I was looking towards the ocean

You were travelling home

From a Christmas party

Through the cold dark streets 

Of neon London Town

I was sitting under a Pohutakawa tree

In my shorts and tee-shirt

Three thousand miles away 

In New Zealand

It was Christmas Day for me

Christmas Eve for you

I remember us having a conversation 

About how ridiculous tinsel looked in the sun

We were worlds apart

But for that brief moment

We were Brother and Sister

Children again..

Avie..

Waiting Room Wellington General Hospital

Waiting Room Wellington General Hospital

In the grey bland surround

The baseball cap zombies

Wait with the screaming balloons

The amputee wheels in

Another take-out coffee

While the nurses are summoned

To a quick step

Cardiac arrest

A battalion of

Medical personnel

File past

Identification tags

Staring with

Expressionless faces

Rattling urgently

Around the stethoscope Gods

They are the lucky one's

Who have worked out

The way out of the labyrinth 

They know precisely

Which direction to go

They are consulting

On last night's party 

The exact diagnosis 

Of renal liver failure

Sitting next to me

A Mother is with 

Crying babies

She tries to escape 

Into a magazine 

Turns over the pages

Of Hollywood celebs

And collects a new glossy bacteria

The strip lighting is now

A migraine buzz

And the mad man 

Shouts past 

He thinks he know's

Where he's going

But he is 

De-ranged

De-railed

Un-hinged

Ends up in a janitors cupboard 

I've been waiting here 

All my life

Can someone come 

And get me out of here

Perhaps there's nothing

Wrong with being a poet

Can someone please show me 

The emergency

Exit..

Avie..

Let Down

Let Down

I remember the time of

conversation.

You made me feel regarded 

Fool for me I 

listened to you

Intently 

With a lovely heart..

Avie..

Watching the cruise ship leave town

Watching The Cruise Ship Leave Town.

I promised myself 

One day I will be onboard

The cruise ship that leaves town

In my tux

Drinking champs 

Dancing with someone adorable 

Beneath the chained lights

Lost in the glittering 

Reflections on deck of the

Night sail..

Parked up on the coast 

eating fish & chips

Will have to do for now

Watching the floating lights

Cross over the dashboard 

Sliding down the window

To reduce the condensation 

To glimpse the last moments of

'The Radiance Of The Sea's'

Before she gracefully moves

Through the night air 

Slips stealthily out of view

And out of the cold drizzled town.

Avie.

Pukehina Beach

Pukehina Beach

At the front gate

The South Pacific 

Roared and punished

The golden spit

Out the back

Basket gatherers

Rubbed feet in 

The plentiful sands

Across the still waters

Of little Waihi 

Tall tree tops

Lightly traced

The fine heights

Like parachutes falling

From a blood orange sky

Within minutes

Nightfall

Lights go on

Over the seabird estuary

A reassurance 

Beyond the blackness.

Avie.

Christmas Eve Island Bay

Christmas Eve Island Bay

The sun falls yellow

On the half lit hill

The exodus has already happened

They've gone 

Vanished

Pulled out 

On the tide

From the capsized town

On dry land

The one's left

Are waiting

For the out of towner's

To land on shore

And rescue the

Shipwrecked

Coffee drinkers..

Avie.

Fall backwards

Fall Backwards

This afternoon

The eyelids of the sky

Fell early to sleep

Closing the petals of my garden.

Avie.

Interlude

Interlude

Eyelids closed

Listening to the Sunday

Morning rain 

Slow everything down

With you

Gentle into the 

Garden of Eden.

Avie..

Love poem

Love Poem

My love

I feel like a helium balloon

I am sure today

It would take ten strong men

With phenomenal powers

Of persuasion to 

Pull me down off the ceiling..

Avie.