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The weather is dull and grey, threatened by a persistent drizzle;
I sit in the porch: drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette.
Greers Road is busy, a much used thoroughfare: it's noisy.
Here I sit, back again in a broken city; resilient, determined to re-build.
It was 35 years ago, I fled this place; abandoned family,
head held low, feeling disgraced. Went to Auckland, start a new life,
found adventure, lost a wife. Continued my liaison with she who must be obeyed;
only to part some years later: bills to be paid, reality rules.
Played the game, assumed the part; donned the mask,
put on a suit and tie. It worked for some years; flashing moments of despair,
lonely walks in the dark: why must reality be so stark?
Fell in love, married; how the decades pass.
Played private enterprise, learned from mistakes;
how many times, how much effort does it take?
Dreamed big dreams, stalked grand ambition;
to find what? Miracles are suffocated by tradition?
I do not weep, I do not mourn; long gone is the question, why was I born?
Decades pass, death and divorce takes it toll; let the dice roll.
My mother is dead, to my family I am a stranger.
My sons are maturing; I trust they will not face the danger
of paralysing self doubt, vicious voices in the head,
taunting cruelly, would you be better of dead?
Times, they have changed; things remain the same.
All that is deemed "new", is only a change of name.
I shall not wax philosophical; that is not my aim.
I am back, home; in a city in disrepair. This time is different.
It is not a matter of despair, not a place to wait out the years.
I have done my time, not necessarily with reason or rhyme.
Here I write poetry, stare at a screen; consort with the gods
of creativity, a global family without peer.
The weather is dull and grey; Greers Road is busy.
I am home. Neither I nor Christchurch will disappear.
Tagged in les bush