Life Around My Father Poem by Thomas Golding

You gave us life then paused
A roof but never dried a tear
Even in anger we were never touched
Was it so unmanly to hold a child?
Did you wish it wasn’t so
As you turned away?

You had passion to spare
About your political genesis
At New Zealand’s own Gulag in the north
Planting pine trees by the score
Growing angry by the hour.

Those rotten First World War army tents
Sugar bags on poles for beds
Rancid meat damp bedding
To a man you all knew
It was to get the unemployed out of town.

Bank clerks and managers
The proud and the profane
Comrades in mud and sleet
Some you watched give up and die
You remembered.

Leaving for a job in town
You became an early Labour Party Man
A Red Fed no less with scars both out and in
Like all the other comrades
Singing the Red Flag.

You fought the good fight
With the establishment of the day
Hoisted party members through a few rear windows
The rank and file in the front
Fighting to delay the law.

How disillusioned you were
When Labour became the establishment
Moving to the right
Our house kept its principles
No capitalists allowed
Punters, poker players and fishermen exempted
Of course.

I still hear those horses coming up the straight
Lost by a nose again
Mother will have to make do again
She speaks of responsibility
Even as your eyes turn to the racing page.

You frequently came home
With empty pockets
“Running into an old friend in need”
Who bought to an inside straight
Mother speaks of responsibility
As you look longingly
Towards the racing page.

You gave up your chance to shape the party
And remained a life long working man
What would you think now of your successors
Those bright young men and women
And their idealized history of your time.


Better you’re not here now old Fabian
Wouldn't you make them scatter?
Old wolf amongst the rabbits and crows
Back to their clubs and towers
Where they can view you safely from afar
Thankful their roots are buried in the past
Together with the ashes of your utopia.

When you lifted your hand at last
Unable to speak or hear
Did we communicate then?
Did you now who it was
That unmanly fool
Who held your hand and cried?