Hey Don and Caleb – thanks for the post – great to hear from you, and little Caleb is 6 – wicked!! I love him too – BIG TIME – ha. Thanks for the words my friend – great poems, very much in the tradition of those gone before: Glover and Baxter, Hunt and Hone. I love it. Reminds me so much of home – ha – wherever that may be. And perfect timing as I opened up the site all ready to be creative, and there you were. Kia kaha.

 

I’m going to tell a story. I was going to write a story, which I am still going to do, however my written words are simply the medium by which I will tell this story. And ’story is story’. This one is really no different to those that are told alongside it.

 

The story is called ‘the disappearing act’, that’s the working title anyways. I’ll post it as I write it, and I will be finishing this story around the end of November 2009. It’s quite a long story, or not – 50000 words or thereabouts.

 

I hope you enjoy it

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

 

 

 

 

Don’t really know how this stuff works but have to have a go – actually its quite nice to know that my typing hasn’t improved but i think that with each glass of wine I will improve no end and eventually won’t be able to see the mistakes anyway so why worry??

hI BIG GUY thanks for the postcard love that artistic flair not to sure about the subject matter – I think you missed a year though Caleb is 6 now been at school for a year – time flys – especially those little black ones with watches.  He cried when he got your card – he loves you dude.

The new house is finished and all the good stuff is in there it is very nice warm cosy and roomy, lots of neat techno freak stuff that is supposed to future proof the place and this works of course of the future is the week after next!! Been in 6 weeks.

 

http://www.thecoast.net.nz/ListenLive/ Great music from the old home town.  They treat you like you’re the only one listening.

Now for the no news practice bits (rule one)

.

The nature of stuff

But it’s soggy
every morning, I hear myself say
that’s just what Weetbix does
that’s just its way.

 

MMmmmmm not bad for a kick off

.

The leather coat …… 

A pair of sandals, old black pants
And leather coat — I must go, my friends,
Into the dark, the cold, the first beginning
Where the ribs of the ancestor are the rafters
Of a meeting house — windows broken
And the floor white with bird dung — in there
The ghosts gather who will instruct me
And when the river fog rises
Te ra rite tonu te Atua —
The sun who is like the Lord
Will warm my bones, and his arrows
Will pierce to the centre of the shapeless clay of the shapless clay of the mind

 

MMmmmmmm Apologies to JKB!!!

The Old Hooker

Stranded at the train station, the old hooker stands.

Where her customers walked last night, beer in hand.

Holes in her stockings death in her heart.

Sorry, stranded, crazy old tart..

 

Mmmmmmm don’t know where that one came from. sounds good in the style of Sam Hunt tho Bit like Beer Bottle Creek

 

Other Stuff happened in NZ

1967

LSD and mescaline outlawed in New Zealand, 7 July; Mark Young convicted of possession and jailed for six weeks.

Carmen opens her International Coffee Lounge at 86 Vivian Street, Wellington.

Gary Baigent, The Unseen City: One Hundred and Twenty-three Photographs of Auckland. Auckland: Paul.

Warren Dibble, ‘Lord dismiss us&emdash;’: a drama in one act. Christchurch: British Drama League (NZ Branch).

Janet Frame, The Pocket Mirror. New York: Braziller.

Hilaire Kirkland, 8 Poems. London: Flowering Hand, for Hilaire Kirkland, c 1967.

Sometimes it just got weird How many of these do you remember?

1970

Founding of Wellington Women’s Liberation Front, Auckland Women’s Liberation Front and Women’s Movement for Freedom (Auckland University).

Violence outside Intercontinental Hotel in Auckland, 11.45 p.m. 16 January, as police charge protestors demonstrating against visit of US Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew.

Tim Shadbolt (CURRENT MAYOR OF INVERCARGILL) says ‘bullshit’, ’shit’, and ‘pissed off’ in Alberton Ave, Auckland, 23 March, while speaking to a group of school students over the fence at Mt Albert Grammar. He is arrested for indecent language and jailed 25 days for refusing to pay the fine.

Mobilisation against the War, 17-18 July. At Auckland University this includes Guerilla Theatre in the quad (AUSAPOCPAH) and a campus teach-in.

Media attention as first feminist pub liberations occur August and September at Britomart (Auckland) and the New City Hotel (Wellington). Women enter and demand service in public bars.

Patricia Bartlett (Never seen in a public bra or bar) presents a petition with 49,000 signatures to Parliament, requesting stricter censorship laws.

Margaret Orbell’s Contemporary Maori Writing (Reed) includes poems by Tuwhare and Habib.

Ken Rea founds Living Theatre Troupe, summer 1970-71, with Sally Rodwell, Steven Gordon, Farrell Cleary, John Darville, Bryan Divers and Janet Chafe. They work out of the University Arts Centre at 24 Grafton Rd.

Sam Hunt, A Song About Her, When mornin’ comes (a flat fat blues). Paremata: Bottle (broadsheets).

Bill Manhire and Ralph Hotere, Malady. Dunedin: John McIndoe for Amphedesma.

Frederick C. Parmee, Two Poems of Revolution: Early Poems in a New Movement in New Zealand Poetry. Onerahi: Parmee (broadsheet).

Hone Tuwhare, Come Rain Hail. Dunedin: Bibliography Room, University of Otago; 2nd ed. Caveman, 1973.

Merlene Young, Underground Sunday. Pukerua Bay: Kosmick Studios; rpt. 1991.

I remember it was a great time of debate with parents and teachers – most of whom wanted to be 10 years younger – I was 11 and think it had a great influence on me. 

 

1975  (While I was finally getting to see the girl next doors knickers while she was still wearing them the big people continued to be weird)

Witi Ihimaera and Sam Hunt are Burns Fellows. What!!!

Hone Tuwhare reads his poems on Kiwi LP recording Wind Song and Rain (Reed Pacific). Jan Kemp, Jonathan Lamb and Alan Smythe produce New Zealand Poets Read Their Work (Waiata Recordings) in two versions, one edited for schools.

Herstory exhibition organised by Dunedin Collective for Women, tours the country. First feminist art group meets in Christchurch. Auckland feminists organise an International Women’s Film Festival.

Progressive Youth Movement protests installation of the Wanganui computer: ‘Demolish Police-State Computer. Unite against $23.2 million of electronic fascism!’ (PYM Rebel cover, February) and publishes Pull the Plug on Big Brother.

Jack Body’s Second Sonic Circus in Wellington, 8 March. Participants include Theatre Action, Red Mole and Russell Haley. Dadson’s ‘On-A-Theme’ instructs the National Orchestra: ‘Singly and in groups Orchestra and Chorus traverse the space to & from all directions, greeting the audience and each other with warm exuberance. In place of the normal greetings “Hullo”, “How are you”, “Nice to see you” etc; performers use words from a social/political context with the intonation of a greeting & shaking hands wherever possible:

economy unemployment woolworths depression the nation trade unions watties immigration banks education stocks & shares primeminister the worker task force inflation etc etc

At the height of activity, the conductor enters from the side wearing the national flag and makes his way slowly to the centre, shaking hands as he goes. In his own time he initiates gentle applause by quietly clapping and smiling about him’ (Sonic 2 programme). The National Orchestra withdraws its offer of participation in Sonic 2; Dadson invites anyone wanting to perform as the People’s Scratch Orchestra and Chorus to contact Jack Body and keep an ear open.

NZSAC Four New Zealand Poets Tour (Alan Brunton, Denis Glover, Sam Hunt and Hone Tuwhare), 29 March-4 May: ‘First performance Mercury Theatre Dunedin . Promises to be a regular circus’. New Argot (March 1975).

Liberation of Saigon, 30 April. The Republic of Viet Nam surrenders unconditionally to Provisional Revolutionary Government.

Sisters for Homophile Equality (SHE) reprint Collective Lesbian International Terror (CLIT) Papers in Circle 20-22 (July-September) as magazine and organisation decide on heavier political orientation.

Red Mole performs Cabaret Paris Spleen, Wellington, September. Baudelaire’s Le Spleen de Paris inspires ‘this replication of a night in old Montmartre featuring Brunton, Rodwell, Haley, Greta Campbell, Ian Wedde, Rose Wedde, Bill Manhire, Brent Southgate, Jenny Stevenson, Frances Edmond, Jan Preston, Deborah Hunt and Francis Batten’ (programme).

Three Poets filmed in Wellington: ‘Richard Turner meanwhile plunges in at the deep end turning a movie on alternate weekends with Ian Wedde, Russell Haley and Alan Brunton’. Parish Spleen, Spleen 1 (September). The film is later sold to Japanese television.

Maori Land March on Wellington, 14 September- 17 October.

Death of Hilaire Kirkland, aged 34, in Auckland.

Stephen Chan, Arden’s Summer. Christchurch: Pegasus.

Sam Hunt, Time to Ride. Martinborough: Alister Taylor.

Jan Kemp, ‘Quiet in the Eye’. Auckland University archive deposit.

Rachel McAlpine, Lament for Ariadne. Dunedin: Caveman.

Ian Wedde, Pathway to the Sea. Taylors Mistake: Hawk; Earthly. Sonnets For Carlos. Akaroa: Amphedesma.

Albert Wendt, ed., Some Modern Poetry from the New Hebrides and Some Modern Poetry from the Solomon Islands. Suva: Mana.

Merlene Young, Solar Stone. Poetry 1970-1973. Pukerua Bay: Kosmick Studios, 1975; rpt. 1993.

 

enough enough Dunedin was a great place to grow up.

 

lol Don and Caleb – send us your phone number dude.

 

 

 

Time of a BIG thank you!

 

Thanks to everyone who has contacted me recently, and there seems to be so many of you. I have felt very loved and supported, which always makes life so much more WONDERFUL (and a hell of a lot easier!).

 

Thanks to those of you who have posted messages on here – Gaz and Nga, Don and Caleb. Seems to be an upper North Island thing – perhaps northerners are just more technologically savvy (that would explain Chas’ difficulties to some extent – only to some extent though, some of his difficulties will always remain a mystery I’m sure!). Could also be that northerners are just that little bit more open, that little bit more courageous. Having had contact with some of you lately I realise that for some putting down your thoughts for all to see can be a bit daunting, so hey I fully understand.

 

Obviously I do not have the same qualms (well not to the same extent anyway) as recent posts probably indicate (and there was that previous brief comment of my time at the psychologist – which one very close friend has recently drawn to my attention).

 

Anyway, all I can say to those of you hesitant to post on here – give it a try, just something innocuous and brief to begin – small steps….

 

And thanks to those who have tried so valiantly to get on here and are having difficulties:

 

• Buck me ole mate – too long in the saddle methinks pal – thanks for all your efforts, and I know one day I will see those words that only you can write up here somewhere, and I am looking forward to some collaboration on some music in the future. Don tells me the CD is almost ready for release…
• Jim. Got your email. Man it was GREAT to hear from you. You are my teacher, you know that. I wouldn’t be right here, right now if not for you. There is so much I want to thank you for – you have inspired me, counselled me, dreamt with me, led me in so many directions that my head spun at times (and there was that one time when it spun so much I ended up crashed out on your driveway I recall). You were the one who led me to Buddhism – you are forever in my ‘buddhism story’ – and it is one that I tell often. ‘Story is story’ as a good mutual friend often says!

 

Kate, thanks once again for all the support. You just seem to never give up – you are fantastic my young and gorgeous friend! My chat with you and Tobias at home the other day lightened my heart and lit up my day – well three days actually as I am still illuminated. That you have befriended my son in the way that you have – and I can hear the deep and genuine love he has for you in his voice – is magical. There is nothing more a father could ask for, than to know his child is with someone who loves him deeply. Thanks my friend.

 

And only briefly, cause you deserve a post all on your own (although you never bloody read the thing anyway) – Tobe – I literally don’t know where to begin. Perhaps with our long chat on the phone the other day. I have not spoken to anyone like that since I left. We have a closeness that is like no other I have. You make my heart soar with your knowing, your truth. And your suffering touches me like no other.  You are a true seeker – you have achieved so much already in your life, perhaps things you do not even recognise. You have done things very few young men have. You have experienced and felt and understood things about the world and yourself that very few people have. I love you so so much, and am and always will be so grateful that you chose to be in my life. You too are my teacher – thank you for the huge lessons you have taught me.

 

Oh and that reminds me – just in case there is anyone else with similar concerns – I AM NOT GOING BANKRUPT – how could I with so many friends in my life. I am richer beyond riches, for I know your friendship will never cease to be. This for me is the real abundance in life, from which I draw strength and courage every day.

 

So thank you all – I LOVE you to bits. Be happy – life is a most WONDERFUL thing WHATEVER happens.

 

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Hello, Buck has tried 16000 times to get into the site but has found no where to respond to the lovely things that you have said about him.  

I have moderated this and taken out the swear words.  I really don’t know whats wrong with him considering the technically advanced nature of his music… and his promises of secret previews of the new CD… which is yet again, almost ready for release!!  You are welcome to use some of the music Buck will arrange (he says) when you get a web site that he can follow or will at least let him in – he hasn’t given up though and will keep trying to crack the code.  He asks did you get his email.

 

PS from Caleb

Found him sitting under the makeshift hut reading your birthday card sayng ‘I really miss Simon!!’

 

Hi guys,

Thanks for the message from the technically-challenged lone ranger. Hopefully you’ll find some time to give him some training – perhaps Martin can ok a trip to Christchurch?

Can’t stay long – I’m in an internet cafe in Oban on Scotland (Ata – tell George that I’m staying in Glencoe – I’m sure she’ll know of it – the site where the MacDonalds got massacred – Lou take note – I think it was a Campbell that led the murdering bastards)

Anyway It’s bloody amazing – utterly fantastic place and tonight I’m off to try some vegetarian haggis with neeps and tatties (damn right!!). Can’t wait – I’ll be taking a pic of the dish just to show I kid you not. Glencoe is in a valley surrounded by mountains the likes of which we don’t have in Aotearoa – not that they’re that big, it’s that they are so close – right there overlooking you wherever you go. And of course the lochs – wicked.

Of course one hardly ever see the sun – although it is light a lot of the time. Still light as 10 at night and again at 4 in the morning. Anyway off to the Isle of Mull for a look-see. Will be back on line next week some time so will catch up more then.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x