Big Joe Clarke

Big Joe Clarke
was born into a crook,
shackled in umbilical manacles,
birthed behind basinet bars.

Big Joe Clarke
Inherited a life sentence,
got it hot from his parents.
His mum knitted him his first ankle bracelet,
kitted him with fingertips
with nails the size of fifty cent bits

Big Joe Clarke,
was crippled by his pedigree.
His clan’d crack you a can of Bitter
cause they ain’t thieve milk for tea.

Big Joe Clarke’s feral whanau
built walls around their family
without posts or putty.

Iron bars, steels boots, bricks
lino knives, sledgehammers, hacksaws
The law couldn’t leap their walls.

Golf clubs, hockey sticks, cricket bats –
not bought for sport.
The Clarke brand alone was a match
for any gang patch.

Surprise allies of the Harris boys were Clarke’s crew,
a taste, a test of the Treaty.
They put the hood in neighbourhood.

Big Joe Clarke
shook hands with his fists,
punched way above his weight.
Ignored Peer Support, instead taught walking staunch to chewed-up pups.

Big Joe Clarke, born notorious
had a posse of cuzzies clinging to his hoodies
like possum babies,
had a brother too badarse to bail,
a stab-resistant big sis.

Big Joe Clarke
kicked a dent in a kaumatua’s head.
He clocked cunts with one glance.
He showed made men the underside of his chin.

Big Joe Clarke parked where he wanted
Needed no window tints,
brawled at innocent discos,
king hit. Fists big as baseball mitts.

Big Joe Clarke
was the backbone of every First XV, the basketball, the touch team
and used a softball bat like a pen
to put his name on them who ain’t heard of him.

Joe Clarke, built like Samson
pushed the pillars til the whole unstable
temple
toppled.

Big Joe Clarke
Sprinted to the tryline years ahead of the rest.
His dad’s kid, he used a belt on himself.
Determined to win, he made the coroner’s inquest a piece o’ piss;
he was staunch, stiff, even more so with rigor mortis.

Big Joe Clarke
was the only G in his whole punching-bag country
tough enough to fuck up Big Joe Clarke.