A Brief Heads-Up On That Maori Fellah J.C. Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

I saw your mate again today J.K.
He was on the quay near the TSB arena
And we had a brief chat - he's looking well -
Hair in dreads with a lost front tooth.
He tells me he's working for J.T. Crouch
The foundation and construction outfit
On replacing the wharf-side piling
That was totalled by the last earthquake.
He still looks more than good for a few beers.

I told him that you had written a poem about him
And that like as not I would write another
To put you two back in touch.
It seems that he's got his life back together
With a new woman who has a couple of kids
And apart from the odd fracas
In the Zoo Bar in Newtown, things are looking up.
As for the twelve disciples
The call-girl met an old fella who set her up with a shop
In the arcade off the Left Bank in Cuba Street
But the housewife who forgot the Pill
Is working her arse off providing cheap-thrills
For pick-ups somewhere behind Courtenay Place.
He's lost touch with the queen and the alky-priest
And most of the others, apart from one who
Just got elected to Parliament under Labour.

That'll be a bloody miracle:
I'll sing along with that one!

Behind him the harbour was still glorious
It was kind of crisp and bright and luminous
And as the conversation trailed
He shrugged his broken-tooth killer smile.
I had meant to ask him about persecution
And redemption and revelation
And shock-treatment and the end of the world
And the mile-deep civilised dystopia
Where the flickering light in the void
Is being snuffed out by mountainous darkness
But the option was closed by his ‘Nice One - See You Mate'.
He went back to his white van and climbed in
Saying to his offsider: ‘I tell them to keep it simple
Just one day at a time. I will never be lost.
E kore au e ngaro he kakono i ruia
Mai I rangiatea - for I am a seed sown in heaven'.

But he says to tell J.K from J.C: ‘Neh mind eh bro?
Turn and face the sun
And let your shadow fall behind you:
E huri to aroaro ki te ra tukuna to ataarangi ki muri I koe.
E iti noa ana, nā te aroha:
Although it is small - it is given with love'.