It’s been a while

 

 

Hi………

Well while I have not published anything in a little while, LOTS has been stirring in my grey matter as I have been exploring America and especially Denver.

Some makes me laugh and it all makes me think, and a lot makes me just go "what the ……….heck". as opposed to wtf.

I have come to some conclusions, and I don’t know if these fit mankind or just me, and its how I process life.

ONE conclusion is that you don’t know your own country until you have left it, now I admit others may have known there own country before leaving it, but I didn’t.

Experiences force me to think and process, and I spose I am like a doing that at wine and cheese speed as opposed to Pentium 4 speed .

 

So in the processing I know that I am ready to write something because far too much thinking has been going on, far too much reflection and its time to get it all out.

I have America to thank for that. What a journey its been coming to terms with it and trying to understand it. God I wish I wasn’t a philosophical deep thinking type.

Last night sitting in the falll evening sun @ Market Station downtown Denver I realised yet again that on the surface people can look the same anywhere in the world. I see faces and people types that remind me of home.The commuters spilling off the bus and over the pavement could mostly have been kiwis.

Its not until you scratch deeper that there will be differences generated by birthplace, and scratching deeper you will also find the similarities generated by simply being human.

Yes I feel some writing coming on.

Now to catch my bus.

Buses are the ultimate meeting place of humanity for me. That’s where you get to know grassroots, where the rubber meets the road, asphalt or concrete walking lifestyles, on the buses.

 

Till I return

 

P.S a blind guy on the bus yesterday shared this joke with the driver in his exiting sequence…………..

‘whats the biggest military day of the year?’  ‘march 4th’

 

From a blind guy I thought that was incredibly funny………

Moments after that there was a domestic on the bus between some Hispanics and a lady whose lunch was nearly sat on.
Then there’s the loving young parents with the baby in the walker and the fathers eyes glazed over by ‘the herb’ or something worse.
Or the black guy, so angry at something that the music in his earplugs could be heard seats away and why was he choosing deafness as a profession.

Lots to think about for me………….

Women

Women

Women are beautiful
with or without long legs
or being slender in skin tight jeans
with a tight arse
with or without a dog on a leash
Women are just beautiful because they are woman.
And I
was born of a woman
with memories of warmth and love
galaxies beyond blue jeans,
and designer butts.

© Graham Hughes 2012

Out There

Out There

I want to live
above my own skies
and outside my own fences

I want to live out there somewhere,
with someone willing to run
beyond the horizons

© Graham Hughes 2012

On Waking Up

On Waking Up

Do I reach out
for the millionth time
to open the sleeping laptop
and check my inbox

And hope
for the millionth time
there is something there
from you

And hope
for the millionth time
that you will hear my signals
transmitted
into the night sky
the messages of life on earth

Do I reach out
for the millionth time
and open the sleeping laptop,
check my inbox

and find something.
Of course I do,
for the millionth time.

© Graham Hughes 2012
 

The Black Stallion

The Black Stallion

It’s gone now,
the black beauty of a car I spied…
parked, glistening in the rain
between the swaying manuka forks,
its boot open to the rain.
As sleek as a stallion,
the beast of some woman,
probably a blonde
unloading treasure
for some urban exhibition.

© Graham Hughes 2012

If The Cap Fits

If The Cap Fits

I just wonder IF the rain will stop.

That somehow the grass will dry enough
to be mown down by a dry blade,
to be quickly cut down to size
and look like the neighbours lawns
short cropped, and cared for
like a kempt mans haircut.
Seemingly at least.
Perhaps if the house fits the hood,
the man inside will too.
Maybe it’s time to reverse the life quest
and work from the outside in.

Life has turned me inside out.
Naked I was born……..
but I wear clothes in between times.

If the rain stops
I will find the cap that keeps the low apple branches
out of my face,
and if the cap still fits,
I will work from the outside in.

© Graham Hughes 2012

For your interest, Pinterest.

I dont know about you but I can get saturated by formats that when you first encounter them they are way cool………..then they become old hat, and a bit hack kneed. Maybe that’s why FaceBook changes on you without asking. LOL.
Being the communicator that I am, I have to confess to getting tired of FB. Not when the conversation is vibrant and two way……….but thats pretty rare. people click like rather than share something, controversial questions are left………………even when you try to provoke something meaningful………….
and so I have discovered and am enjoying Pinterest.
Slightly different…..but it works well. Check it out.
http://pinterest.com/blindpoet/

I really like the concept, and the Pin It button on the toolbar works well in the workflow.

Today is Friday

I went to hear my friends Lyndon & Bill play at Vinyl this evening for a few hours………before going I had 2 (dangerous) coffees @ Macas. While there I wrote the following as an entry for my blog. It felt good to write, and it felt good that I acted on it. The gig at Vinyl was cool, Bill & Lyndon are a totally awesome vibe. And to make it even more special Kaari was there with Paulette, Kat, a sleeping prince, and Dylan the awake one. AND the winners of the kapa haka comp came for diner and there was a real special moment as they left……….that may appear on Kaaris wall later. BUT before I went….while it was still light I wrote this……

Its the weekend. The second weekend of this term and there is lurking the distinct possibility of the same old same old lonely Friday night, lonely weekend type feelings. They are snapping like cattle dogs at the heels of my mind, yap yap snap and retreat, yap. Like the cattle, I am being bigger than those coercive yapings as I sit at Mc Cafe in my black T-Shirt by the window, and in the days fading light. I am kicking back at those cattle dogs with the dogged twisted defiant kick of a cow. I am much bigger than the game, and the eggshell blue of the sky and pearl pink clouds in the sunset inspire me to an adventure in defiance, inspire me to go where the dog wants me to, but not with the mindset the dog wants me to have.
There may most likely be a symbiotic arrangement between dogs and cattle. Perhaps it is the same with thoughts and feelings that yap at our emotions and minds. The dog needs to please his master and has a valued job to do. The dog may also like to think he is smarter and further up the developmental chain of command than the stupid cattle, and that he calls the shots and is the controller of the cattle. Because it’s just so obvious when you look at the dog, the cattle know all this about the dog play the game. They power play with the dog, ultimately have the upper hand size wise but now and then they kick back at the dog when the dog comes too close to believing that the game is true and he is in control. Kicking back at the yap is the natural order of things. And so it is with yapping feelings and thoughts, now and then they go to far, they are in danger of breaking the fragile truth that we have choices and are not at their mercy. Our dogs need to be reminded to stop their yapping.

So Friday night arrives, it is another weekend, and it is truly wonderful. The days are lengthening and it seems like it was dark at 5.38pm not that long ago, but not tonight. Tonight I will kick up my heels at the dogs that would have me blinded to the adventures this night is capable of holding ………and that are there for the taking………….if I but step out.

And I shall.

Awake!

I have been very very silent for the last I don’t know how long other than knowing that it’s been tooooo long. And in between much has happened and many many things have been pondered and mulled over.
And the worst news is that my coffee grinder and coffee machine have been dead for months and I am spending too much money buying lattes……………..
Somehow today I have found energy and a glimmer of well being to write and laugh……and as a continuing theme in my life, laugh mostly at myself.
I do believe that I can say that the kiwivagabond is ‘back’.
Back from the brink of his own destruction, back from the dead, back to life and all its fullness.
Back for no other reason than having lain fellow like soil while winter while the season pass over and each do some form of erosional therapy that have me emerging with new skin, and laughter in the wind. (more like a desire to chuckle).
Yes folks, life can be a bastard, and the living of it the same.
Time for a coffee and think about this me that just woke up after a long sleep and rather than being groggy, I woke sharp as a pin.
Now theres a theme. More to come on the word pin.

Don’t Forget Your Roots My Friend

Six60 – Don’t Forget Your Roots [Official Video]
I love this video, it so captures what it means to me to be a kiwi, a New Zealander. We are unique and long may we stay that way, with all the colour that has made us us. Tangata Whenua, Pacifika, Asian, Chinese……….its all good

Belated Post