James MacKenzie 1855-1856
Poem published in Memories Magazine Issue 73
Where sheep graze on sun stunted fodder
and dewy flats lie
a lone shepherd with a dog
cast a thoughtful eye
the stockman walked a rugged route
above the tawny grass
James MacKenzie herding sheep
fron north of Timaru
by Dunstan Ranges
through Lindis Pass
was the route he took them through
An overseer saw him
and with two Maori tied him up
as the strong eyed dog Friday
ran like a frightened pup
Then MacKenzie made his own escape
below the mountain tops
but one hundred miles north at Lyttelton
was recaptured by the cops
He went to court a Scottish man
accused of stealing sheep
where he yawned or muttered Gaelic
while looking half asleep
Twice he escaped from capture
but didn’t get away
the public cried their sympathy
and wanted to have their say
five years hard labour
was finally quashed
and a Magistrate pardoned him
And it was true and it was odd
how James and dog would fade from view
A Kaimanawa herd Poem in Poetry New Zealand magazine Issue 43
bares teeth audaciously
bouncing he squeals short and sharp
then screams
The skies are frayed
with black puffs and garish blues
the erroneous prediction of a quake hangs
as ground hugging plants cling safely downward
The stock header has never known
the long stride of this man zoned
His dusty herd lazes
heads hung heavy looking
a mare lies sideway with laminitis
others are amenable
as he visits with a prancing gait
some mares are submissive
or stands collected ears held softly backward
or moving sideways
as their tails flick
 |
| . |
A hind bellows a fretting sound,
as she stumbles onto bush clear ground,
then bolts away up a track.A hunter goes in her wake.
But the deer barks to let the others know
that behind her follows deadly Joe,
with .303 Enfield, wood cut back.
The hunter struggles
to the top of the Teatree Track
to peer down at the gully below.
As sleet turns to gales of rain and snow,
the shooter looks for a big red doe
to shoot, or dreams of a twelve-point stag.
Or sweeps through the bush, with a rifle butt,
or stops with a green-river knife to gut
a deer fallen from the sky;
or should I say, a ridge up high,
that another deer culler shot?
He puts the small deer on his back
then walks along a slippery track,
on a journey to a decrepit shack.
He eats and sleeps, and tells stories of woe,
or dreams of wild dogs, brindle and black,
sleeping in holes or logs, making bones crack.
In the hut, the hunter thinks of these things,
as he eats spuds, bread or wild turkey roast.
Some modern hunters ride the chain,
look down at a view of hoof-running
venison stew, while chopper pilots show their skill
In Hughes 300 or 5.
A few years before
a face full of sun,
a plane pilot made a septic run,
as nature almost claimed his life,
scraping rushes and boulders, and the odd tree trunk.
A Cessna continued to fly and bump
to the last place it could land
on a river bed of grey soft sand.
Or five hundred pounds or more on a horse,
as it stamps and puffs up through the gorse,
leaving you struggling behind his rump.
He carries those deer that start to slump.
Two on each side, and two on his back,
he pulls you along, holding onto his tail.
Some men come to the bush
in jeeps, cars, or a crappy old truck-
anything to carry a hind or a buck.
The story finishes with over eighty dead
on deer recovery, they said,
risking their life to make a shilling.
Raw and willing.
Engine Driver Poem published in Memories Magazine Issue 72
stands with a bike calliper braked,
at a railway crossing
as a KA936 J10 approaches
a mile a minute a mile a minute
over Manawatu plains
where a hawk dives over burnt grasses
and cats sit in draped windows,
while an old man lies dying
in an old railway cottage
pondering the Mangaweka viaduct
and dreaming of the Raurimu Spiral
with thoughts of ti whanake ( cabbage tree )
or straw hats in blackberry bushes
as a tocking clock ticks Brown’s dog
holds its own against the ravages
of a deep snooze
or barks on a chain with exploding teeth
in the guts of Aotearoa
where passengers drink from cups
thick as your lips,
eating old railway pies
with apparitions clear,
as a more-pork is heard
close to where the old man lies dying
in an old railway cottage
remembering the picture train
between Taumarunui and Ohakune
with thoughts of Tangiwai 1953
or a steam train belching black
to inviting skys,
the main trunk rising
1200 feet from Taihape to Waiouru
shepherds land,
the old man in the railway cottage
Knows the gobbling of oranges
at the Cascade Cup
or remembers the children with pig tails
catching a late train with lunch bags full
of unwelcomed homework,
they threw rocks on the rail track
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