Jimmy Thunder

Whatever happened to Jimmy Thunder
who crawled back
from down under
a rock and a hard place
well off the pace?

His fastest knockout
was not a cop out
and his medal was made of gold
all told a life
that should have brought success

But boxing brains don't weather pain nor loss
triumph tossed into a Vegas jail cell
a life of destitution and hell.

Roger Smith
July 2016

For a former NZ boxing star - Jimmy Peau (a.k.a. Jimmy Thunder)

Jimmy Thunder

Whatever happened to Jimmy Thunder
who crawled back
from down under
a rock and a hard place
well off the pace?

His fastest knockout
was not a cop out
and his medal was made of gold
all told a life
that should have brought success

But boxing brains don't weather pain nor loss
triumph tossed into a Vegas jail cell
a life of destitution and hell.

Roger Smith
July 2016

For a former NZ boxing star - Jimmy Peau (a.k.a. Jimmy Thunder)

Dreams Of A Better Land

‘til the dreams of a better land
where the verdant Kauaeranga rolls down
a river
a bed
for meditation on summer tanned rocks

further north
northeast to Kennedy’s Bay
the call of the morepork echoing through the dusk
and the bush rat that woke me from my whare slumber
scampering heavy across the sleeping bag
in search of food

carefree tramping through head high manuka
past stilled mining mills and kauri dams abandoned
no gold here except in friendship and laughter shared

we dived for crays you and I
off Coromandel’s rugged shore
in a kelp forest that seemed to wave goodbye
and perhaps it was

still dreaming of a better land