<![CDATA[W.F. Stubbs

<![CDATA[W.F. Stubbs - Poetry]]>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:19:02 +1300Weebly<![CDATA[Awakening Memories]]>Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:00:00 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/awakening-memories
Here I lie
in my casket of sleep,
Unknown dreams
Resist repeats.

Dialogue with darkness,
Winds in the night,
Everything after
Awakening memories.

* * *

But how long will I keep this vigil?
when tiredness slept through the evening of night,
and all that is left to inhabit
is the midnight to dawn shift . . .

of wakefulness.

]]><![CDATA[RUME]]>Tue, 11 Feb 2025 06:27:42 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/rume        How long have you been watching?
        - Long enough to see the digital distortion. Why do you ask?
        The audio programme seems to be scrambled.
        - Is there a replacement channel?
        No. Just wind batting the palms along the street, the occasional spats of rain while blank screens leave me wondering if I will ever get back on the horse again.
        - I didn’t know you rode.
        I was being figurative.
        - Did you mean to say back on the cart, because you had fallen off?

       I am in an empty room. A painting of an empty row boat without oars hangs on the wall. The boat is moored in shallow water without a tether. It just sits there. Three palm fronds dip into the picture from the top left corner, hills across the bay beyond. The water is clear.
        I am unclear. A haze. Fog through the window.
        Ambivalence draining motivation.
        Jumping isn’t an option. Running isn’t an option. I only have floors and branches, arms and legs,
and reflections on the water.
        Clear, still water.
        There are voices in the wild, and salt on my tongue.
        Conversations down the corridor where light is hiding from the ashes.

        Am I my own son?
    The one, who was born again on the side of the ambivalent river; the one, who shed the umbilical cord into the water, rose again washed and fresh, and welcomed the morning sun against retired eyes?
        Time to stop looking
          into the past;
                  into the future;
        Time to start living, as mindfulness is imparted upon the fabric of existence.

        I am, and is,
        me upon the stones,
        Dreamer who let go.
        Feather on a discerning breeze.

11/02/2025, 7:36 pm; Tūranganui-a-Kiwa

]]><![CDATA[Bones]]>Thu, 18 Jul 2024 22:40:20 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/bonesRats live around here
        shuffling bones from wall to wall,
I shuffle along with them
The smell of shit on my hands
        reminding me of growth,
While laughing cockroaches
        invade my home.

I think I recognise these bones:
        they sound like the ones I guarded under my skin once.
But now they are instruments
        clanging rhythms for the hallway service,
While laughing cockroaches
        take out their hammers and claws.

        What is that noise?
        - silence to ignore, silence to placate.
        What is the source?
        - of the noise?
        No, the silence. Why is there silence? Where is it coming from?
        - that is the sound of me listening.
        But why do you not ask questions?
        - I thought you were speaking.
        Don't you care?

Renovators are removing the door.

        Can I have my door back, please?
        It opened a new world to me.

"Silence!" speak the laughing cockroaches.

What are these walls collecting?
Instruments rattling backwards and forwards.
Are there ghosts living lives down this hall?
No, there are only rats
        beating rhythms on bones
        that once clattered under my skin.

19th July, 2024; Motueka

]]><![CDATA[HeadQuarters]]>Fri, 12 Apr 2024 09:36:11 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/headquartersAnd I emerged
        from the void that is silence
        to erupt with fire
        over the horizon.

I smothered the tundra,
        creeping vines, and willow branches;
I laughed at hyenas,
        as they scattered from the ashes;
I claimed all the homes,
        and disowned the occupants;
I incinerated every treaty
        proclaiming peace and friendships,

And I returned
        from the blackened earth
        with vengeance and renewed desire
        to corrupt the liars
        hiding in the rafters,
        to have them ply their skills
        with half-truths
        for the vines to grow gullible opinions on.

Where the soft crusts will pluck their budding agreements from and nod along righteously,
Where the hardening weeds will feed their determined antagonisms through dribbling jowls.

You see,
        it was not your gardeners tending your soil for you,
        it was not your harvesters discarding rotten fruit,

It was I, bleeding into your brain
        delusions of division, chaos,
        and foolish pursuits.
        To have the lambs lie down in submission,
        To have the pack of dogs rise in retaliation,
and then to have,
        one-sided opinions flavouring the conversations,
        accusations based on hidden agendas,
        hard facts forgotten
        in exchange for soft truths comforting.

It was I all along
        with hand in the cookie jar
        laughing at every courtesy your enemy took from you,
        so that you could refill the jar with blame,
        and never see the hand that severed you from your own humanity.

This was my greatest achievement:
        To forever dissuade all from joining hands to grow peaceful prosperity.

And you all heard,
And you all listened,
And you all played a part in my raising of the lands, the destruction of temples, the raping of wives and daughters, the
murdering of fathers and brothers, the killing of your children,

While your beliefs grew, and grew, and reconfirmed all you believed you knew.

17/12/23; Brightwater

]]><![CDATA[Song Lyric Without Music]]>Sat, 05 Aug 2023 22:07:17 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/song-lyric-without-music
Fell down on my knees, show me something please
Will you show me something please?
Will I still be here when you leave?
Standing alone on a bridge of dreams?

A flower on the door, a cross on the floor.
I have steps to climb, but no burdens to bind.
This heart on the shelf, beating bated breaths;
This empty lung exhaling expired tests.
]]><![CDATA[Palms and Skin]]>Thu, 10 Nov 2022 01:00:38 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/palms-and-skinI’m a late night wake of wakefullness, rolling through the hours of wide-eyed emptiness. A free loving hippy snoozer without the snooziness. I sleep in between the rays of the moon and ride the coattails of evening stars. Love me two times and I might come back for more, shy me once and I may never return. But the other out there welcomes me, saturates me, harbours a full sea of

something.

Something filled with tentacles and slippery shoes,
reaching arms to entangle my hair in the rush of void-winds.
Gas,
the breath of giants encircling my mind
and
forever orbiting each thought with tidal moons.

Saltarello,
Saltarello,
Scherzo in the depths,
Smothering Sunday into each other’s steps.
A violin in the spheres
singing to the absent audience
and
awaiting their applause with bated breath.
I dance on the boards between each crescent
watching rockets take to the skies,
and
laughing each moment that rushes by.

A hand for two,
palms and skin
sensitive teachers.

07th November, 2022; Upper Moutere

]]><![CDATA[Untitled Poem]]>Wed, 12 Jan 2022 10:32:54 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/untitled-poemFor you I ache and fall apart,
For you I tend these tender scars,
For you I hope the stars will shine
While I lie in dust upon the stairs.

12/01/22 11:14pm, Waikanae

]]><![CDATA[The Bells of Countenance]]>Fri, 24 Dec 2021 01:50:49 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/the-bells-of-countenanceBells are sounding on the ocean floor
Calling en-masse quietened voices,
Though grumbling feet pass with heavy countenance
Through every remembered door.

~//~

Bells ring out sounding forlorn:
The remembrance of a past unshorn;
Life now swelling into mists of time
Scrambling as naked countenance looks on.

~//~

Because it is here, this taste will stay
An end to pondering,
An end to wandering.
Should these ends meet,
Driving sand into studied toes
And gathering gulls into a flock of followers,
Bells will ring out overhead
To remind a sullen face
Of the debt owed to paper thoughts
Stranded on the ocean floor.

10:00am, 24th December, 2021; Paekākāriki

]]><![CDATA[Christmas is Near]]>Mon, 20 Dec 2021 21:48:50 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/christmas-is-nearHere it comes, young man
Clouds on every horizon,
A fire burning bright into the long night.
We waged war on our heroes,
Dug graves for our ghosts,
Sneaked love into tents as though
We had forgotten the lessons
Our mother taught us
Over this timid plate of hors-d'œuvre.

Tally the falling giant upon the stones
Where we once built a wall to obfuscate glory,
Dismembered parts levy the starved and hungry,

Equal among us are the stomachs that remember this fate.

~ ~ ~

Are we old enough to harbour the wisdom of age,
See through the soft glaze
Appropriating kindness on a stage?
Can we forgive our sins when all is remembered,
Chipping away at our present state
And ushering in the endgame?

See that smoke rising,
Bristling with static energy,
Coalescing with storms and anger,
Birthing the new frontier.
Frustration mates with the enemy
And gives conception to holiness and penalties.

In this hour,
In this day,
In this year
I hear you say:
Lay your bones down
now
upon this hallowed ground.

]]><![CDATA[This Beautiful Life]]>Sat, 18 Sep 2021 10:15:44 GMThttps://www.warstub.com/poetry/this-beautiful-life
This beautiful life
With stars to battle over,
Longing to swim in an ocean of,
Feelings to dwell in the haven of;
Where we search for meaning
      and assume learning through reflections.
Have you held enough hands to warm your heart
      with integrity's shadow?
Have you felt enough grains fall loosely
      through eager fingers of morning's sorrow?

This beautiful life so lost in tides,
Here I swim again returning thoughts to horizons
Where ships spread their sails like birds on the wind,
Breezes for salt spray and crustaceans,
A laughing northerly and biting southerly,
The creaking wood that needs caulking,
Sealing boards of their sulking.
Yesterday’s tomorrow has yet to arrive
      and harbour intentions with harmless playthings.

This beautiful life is yours for the keeping,
This beautiful life is mine for the taking.
Have we these thoughts together,
Or are we separate like the sea and the sky?

Love without a bridge between earth and stars.

18th September, 2021; Paekākāriki

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