III. And Both Must Take A Lesser Path
III
Rakiura Wren [for Sheila Natusch]
Diminutive, sticky-beak bird questing
Hopping hither along the window frame
Inquiring into life - looking, tapping
Always wide-eyed and eager … spin-drift tame.
No housing-keeping for you Rakiura wren
No offspring to mind other than your books:
Only the shingle-wash as it breaks again
And the sky clearing snagged cloud bait hooks
The scream of the gulls and their shrill arising
Spinifex, sand tussock, native musk … flax
Raukawa dolphins and whales surfacing
The whip of the wind with its foremast lash
The songs of the straits and the lost islands
Brought to reflection with claw-pen hands.
Reconciliation
The trouble is:
Our understanding of space-time,
And gravity in particular,
Is built from Einstein’s equations of general relativity,
Whereas the extreme conditions of the very early universe
Can only be described by quantum mechanics -
No one knows how to reconcile the two
And has Rovelli has explained:
‘The sun bends space around itself
And the Earth does not turn around it because of a mysterious force
But because it is racing directly in a space which inclines,
Like a marble that rolls in a funnel.
There are no mysterious forces generated at the centre of the funnel;
It is the curved nature of the walls which causes the marble to roll.
...
In short, the general theory of relativity
Describes a colourful and amazing world where universes explode,
Space collapses into bottomless holes,
Time sags and slows near a planet,
And the unbounded extensions of interstellar space
Ripple and sway like the surface of the sea’.
Just so are the mysteries
Of our relationships
Where spun by an austere imperative like love
We find colourful and amazing worlds
Where rainbows shimmer
As suns shine
And when it is lost
Time slows and the unbounded
Miseries of loneliness
Diffuse endlessly left untouched.
As for quantum mechanics
It seems that all exists in a haze of probability
So that we have a certain chance of being
At Point A
Another chance of being at Point B...
Ad infinitum.
And what is true of mass
Is also true of a particle's other properties,
Like its momentum, energy and spin
Such that there will always be imprecision -
As this is a fundamental property.
So my stars
My loved ones
I might never have found you
In the crowd
And my universe might never have become.
So my insights
My understandings
Might have been forever mute,
Out of place, out of time
And my heart and thoughts
Unreconciled.
Reflections On Island Bay
I live in a house with plenty of glass
So that vistas and perspectives and mirages
Are part of every day in plain sight -
Grandeur stretched across and beyond the little town.
I often rise early - as dawn‘s gold gloves
Finger the rims of the Rimutakas
And the stars start to fade,
Spilt like gemstones from the robber sun.
And Pencarrow and Baring Head,
Like jewels that have dropped to earth,
Sparkle on the steel grey cloths of the headlands
As fold after fold wraps back from shadow.
And the Bay below is still or wild or fierce
And though this may seem incongruous
And un-poetic, the blue frontage and night-long
Glare of the Fu Xian Takeaway retreats.
...
Skylines distorted and re-aligned by the windows -
A slice of the Orongorongo ridgeline matched
With the Oku Street Reserve; with the horizon
Levelled and the sea picking up the quilt.
The gap across to the Seaward Kaikouras
Shows no mountains, touches no new edges
But the reddening evening sky holds clouds
That hint of land, and I swear I see the sea beneath.
...
Rinsing glasses in the late evening at the sink
The lights of Island Bay are mirrored
In the windows that enfold my dreamtime
And the cars buzz across the glass and bolt.
Houses and streets spark against the hillside
A second world refracted in the panes -
Like a hobbit village, glowing with hearths,
Open to a visitation from the wizard.
...
And I am here, an oakenshield with a grey beard
And my straw Stetson hat bannered 'New Zealand'
On the black band - set and ready to retake treasure
From the pendants that flicker on the dragon's back -
And feast a summer's eve on paua fritters,
Spring rolls, and fish and chips in Shorland Park.
Reflections On The Arab World - So Much Lost
In the beginning the word made man
Keening for Eden where it all began -
Bargain a son for a better life
But bleed the ram in sacrifice.
Forsaking hunts and herds and skins
For riverside cities where science begins
Growing corn to the water's edge
Finding a founder in rush and sedge
Tablets and marks in mud as token
Pictures to sign where words are broken
Back from the desert the prophet utters
What scribes from Byblos seal in letters.
All revealed and then recorded
The covenant that God awarded
All concealed and then discarded
It only heals the broken-hearted.
So many cities but so much lost
So many pyres where books are tossed
So empires rise and empires fall
Divine the writing on the wall.
...
Our barber here in Island Bay
Is a neat little man from Iraq
Who is a lapsed Moslem
Because he likes bacon and booze:
I get to say: ‘shukran kteer'
And he says: 'ma'a salama'.
And this morning I talked to May
Who runs the Blue Belle cafe
And is a Maronite from Zahlé
Whose sad dark eyes weep for home:
I get to say: ‘shukran kteer'.
And she says: 'ma'a salama'.
It sets me thinking about the time I spent
In the Middle East back in the 1970s:
...
Zapping across the pitch-black Green Line,
In war-broken Beirut -
With a friend I met having coffee on shari' al-hamra -
In his backfiring jalopy during a cease fire
To visit a crêperie in Jounieh
Risking it all for a taste of life.
...
Negotiating a road block around a sleepy sentry
With a friend at in Beiteddine and being shot at
Only to be redeemed when a column
Of Druze army trucks came into view
And the firing stopped as the
Officer inspected our passports.
...
Stealing a weekend in Jerusalem
With a lovely curly-headed English nurse
And being buzzed past the Silver Star
In Beit Lehem where Jesus was born
By a Greek Orthodox Monk who was clearly
‘Majnoon' beyond the point of crazy.
...
And spending time in the Gulf States
Half wisely - on reclaiming sand from the harbour
For industrial estates or developing
A milk-recombining plant and dairy
That used the emir's air-conditioned
Friesians as a selling gimmick.
...
Or sleeping out under a crescent moon
On the flat roof of the Authority offices
In the terraces or zhors of the Jordan Valley
Debating with my Arab friends
The merits of dehydrating irrigated tomatoes
For paste while the cities parched.
...
Or Damascus as it used to be
A glimmering but dusty Parisian jewel
And a trip to North East Syria
To the Caliphate where Halabiye or Fort Zenobia
Had been built as an outpost on the Euphrates
By the Romans - and left deserted.
...
And living in Dokki and Zamalek in Cairo
Troubled with heart's unease from loss
And seeing a little girl twirl before me,
Dress and no knickers, on the footpath at El-Gabalayah
Then being swept by an invisible force to
Smack against a bus and lie broken and lifeless.
...
And returning to an apartment block
With its dark steps in the centre of Cairo
Trying to find Clea in the confusion
Finding the right door but missing the right floor:
Starched crisp sheets tousled in Crete
And walls paved with mosquitoes in Mamoura.
...
And back further in the 1960s:
About camping with our Land Rover
In the grounds of Mena House near Cairo
And the yard of the Coptic Cathedral
At Sohag under the auspices of the archbishop -
And one of my fellow student adventurers
Casually squashing a scorpion under his sandal.
...
And how there used to be a Barclay's Bank
In the main street in Tobruk
And we tried to get photographs
Of a thermos flask in an unusual place
Among the totally deserted grandeur of Leptis Magna -
Where the August sun furnaced and forged.
...
And how my mind died to fragments in Tunis
Laid low by sunstroke and dehydration,
Moving into a nightmare limbo land
As the gates closed and the seas retreated
Only to recover to copious draughts of lime cordial
And the wolfing of fresh fig jam on baguettes.
...
Of trying to set to rights more recently
Now time is slipping underneath my feet:
When I returned full of good intentions
Bitter among the lemon trees at Marna House
In Gaza pondering the devil of a state
Of peace without promise, meanness without ends
Presaging dead children swaddled in white cloth:
‘Shukran kteer - ma'a salama.'
Where will I find you my lost world
That youth's sweet scented text should close?
With Durrell in Alexandria?
'I have been thinking about the girl
I met last night in the mirror:
Dark on the marble-ivory white:
Glossy black hair:
Deep suspiring eyes in which one's glances sink
Because they are nervous, curious...'
Or with Cavafy - burning leaves?
'Don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
Work gone wrong, your plans
All proving deceptive — don't mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
Say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
It was a dream, your ears deceived you:
Don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.'
Or perhaps with the Prophet Ghibran
Weighing impulses and the impetuous:
'The devastating wars which destroyed empires
Were a thought that existed in the mind of an individual.
The supreme teachings that changed the course of humanity
Were the ideas of a man whose genius became distinct.
A single thought build the Pyramids,
Founded the glory of Islam
And set ablaze the library at Alexandria'.
And all I love, may verse confide
A deeper truth mere breath may hide.
'Books are written in Cairo,
Published in Beirut and read in Baghdad'
Was the old saying - and before that
There used to be a library in Alexandria.
...
And who tried to burn so many truths?
Was it the ruthlessness of the pagan Emperors Caesar or Aurelian?
Or the mobs of the Christian Patriarch Pope Theophilus?
Or the Muslim army of Amr ibn al `Aas ordered by Caliph Omar?
So many cities but so much lost
So many pyres where books are tossed
So empires rise and empires fall
Writing must weigh and measure all.
Reflections On The World Refugee And Illegal
Immigration Crisis
WITH EARTH OF MISERY BEYOND
These frolicked aisles of bling, these spoilt spots
Of worth and property, fenced and barred -
Heavenly consumer paradises -
Fastnesses armed for the fortunate
Against immigration with the writ of law,
These lucky breeds of men, these wealthy worlds,
These gated homes in global misery,
Which exclude by wall and strict patrol
As with a moat defensive to a keep,
Against the entry of aspiring hands, -
These blessed spots - the democratic lands.
'Retard The Sun With Gentle Mist'
A Morning Walk with Robert Frost
Let me watch you walk on alone
The dawn is rising, darkness gone:
The day will bring a closer death
And both must take a lesser path
‘Retard the sun with gentle mist
Enchant the land with amethyst'
That we may sip and taste again
The anise dew and absinthe rain
But as you turn to bid farewell
Invoke the amaranthine spell
That we may drink in day-break's care
And not be taken drunkard there.
Returning from the Land of Youth
There was a time and place no smile was feigned.
Once there was neither change nor death
In the land where youth and beauty reigned.
Each joy was blessed in kindly merry breath
All colours bright and gemstones fiery
Each fear felt lightly, careless then to harm,
No rules or law too strict, no task too weary
Bright and quick the eye to every spell and charm.
This Isle of Apple Trees, the better Eden,
Where the fruits of life and joy were hung
All now wasted, it cannot come again,
Except in mind's eye and the lilt of song.
So Oisin journeyed back and touched the past
And all was lost in dissolution at the last.
Returning To Miyanoshita.
Young Lieutenant Fujita has returned
In the early dawn to his village Miyanoshita.
His commander lent him his favourite mare
To make the trip across the mountains -
Slowly making his way through the mist
To his homecoming.
It was a boy who caught the train to Yokohama
In his navy greatcoat, buttons shining, kitbag packed -
But now a man returns from his duty to the Emperor.
How will he tell the village mayor of his service?
And speak to his own family - of steel melting as shells landed -
Of the losses of his friends?
He swam 18 miles to shore from the Hitachi Maru
When it was blown apart by Russian gunships
After spies had disclosed that it transported
A high calibre cannon that could win Port Arthur.
The morning is cold - when will he turn again
To seek his unmarked grave in Manchuria?
Returning To The Farm
No quay waits there - I will not build a ship
To reach that disadvantageous land.
It has no need of me, aged and paltry
As I am - its shores will not welcome me.
It is no country for old men it seems -
Neither those past, nor passing nor to come.
Rather I will saddle up the spent bay pony
And take him back to the lanes that we loved
Kicking up a canter along the verge
Past the hawthorn hedges under the oaks
Not seeking Ithaca or Byzantium
But homecoming to the farm's fields.
I have learned the names of many places
And travelled skies and highways aplenty
But when I was young the world was mine
There in the cowsheds, lofts and stockyard
And it will be well enough to amble back
To greet the boy who waits and never left.
Reverie
Summer came today
With sun bright across golden gorse and white arum lilies,
Glistening and glossy in the native Bush,
And flat with shadows amid the grey and beige
And white houses on the hillsides below.
In the morning I had sat
In a kind of ancient reverie
Half sleeping – half non-thinking
While I avoided the tasks
That I had assigned.
And I pondered on how,
Growing old, I had become more like a cat
Looking now for chances
To sun myself and slow the pulse
Of life and just be.
The thing with the cats though
Is that many dreams later
They can bound up and kill
While I am left to track day-dreams
And bring them to bay.
The musing become laziness
I finally set to planting some flax
And to weeding the terraced garden
Below the steps, watched by my favourite cat
Who made her disdain all too clear.
Occasionally I would throw weeds down
To the Bush below or wave a dead stalk
And the little tabby would get the wind up,
Her tail whip-staff steering
A galleon that had sighted pirates.
Tonight no doubt she will raid the Bush
For field mice and skinks
Or the early nestlings of blackbirds
But all that I will have to show
Is soil under my nails and these lines.
Riders To Avalon
Beautiful flaxen-haired one
Daughter of the Sea-King
Riding alone from the beach
Outlined on the hillside
As the sun sets westward.
Spindrift lady of the wave-crests
On your father's white horse
Chased inland by the deer hunters
The protectors of the shores
Brought to bay by their leader.
Too late in chastened hesitation
To break the encirclement
Fascinated by the strangers
So much like and so much not
In the meeting's enchantment.
Pale princess, fairy and bewitched
At the mercy of a love of the land
Taken aback by the hero youth -
The bright bronze bridle seized
That she should come to fastness.
But her horse stalled and would not move
At which, while holding her gaze he
Mounted the sure-swift steed
To take its reins and she for fear
Grasped his waist as the stallion flinched.
Then the wondrous horse Enbarr,
Shaking his mane, free now of curb and rein
Bolted abruptly, swiftly for the shore
Galloping down to the broad, dry beach
Thence into the sun-dipped shallows.
Until his furious hooves, plashing the surf
Bore his prize of lovers to the open sea
And across its waves and wastes
To Avalon the Blossomed Isle of Apples -
Home to the mares and fillies of his following.
It was thus the riders were borne to Eden,
Neve the pearl-pale high-born lady of the sea
And Oisin the land-guardian, hunter and hero -
Set down at last on the gold-screed beach
All former longings faint and only scarce recalled.
O treacherous and self-willed steed
Tremulous, headstrong and untrammelled
Bearing heedlessly, endlessly into the night
Those lost to the ride's enticements
Amidst the sea-spray moonlit storm
How many others have you deceived
Coupled by your breakneck homeward flight
Thighs and limbs locked against your flanks
Aching for release from clouded blissful pain
In the headlong riding of the tides of love?
Ridge Attack
Whistle ready for the boots' clambering
At the off … over the top … shell-fire led:
An unfamiliar distance singing … stinging …
Bright from the wire and the ridge ahead.
The One-Pip's yelling, revolver firing
The sergeant curses and takes a fall
Stumbling forward stifles rifles' aiming
It's no longer the time for one for all.
Uncoordinated mindless chaos
Blood raised and spilled in clamorous terror
Emptied with killing, eddied with loss
A vortex of scrambling, fumbling error.
The company now ragged and tiring
Orders forgotten as the watch hands still,
With losses so heavy it's time for retiring
No chance today of retaking the hill.
Back in the trench, rum and stretchers out
Bound for the wounded in No-mans-land
They'll not get far from the first redoubt
The task is too hard for the war-worn hand.
At nightfall, sounds from the darkening lands
As the broken pray and the dying pass
The fingers of numbers of failing hands
Grasping and scratching tear-stained glass.
Riverton Dawn
I had been reading about Nietzsche
In ‘The Consolations of Philosophy'
And woke early pondering
His strange walrus moustache,
Clumsy way with women, and the causes of his early death.
So I went into the purpure blazoned dawn
Took my camera and tried to catch the ebbing night
As it cleared across the estuary
And the moon still silvered the mirror
Of the calm water behind the harbour bar -
And the lights of the little town
Led me down towards reflection,
Where walking on the grass strip
In my bare feet in that most beautiful of mornings,
I squished a dog's droppings.
Strangely there was no irritation
And as I cleaned my sole on the grass
Descended towards the bridge
And said good morning to the sheep
In the empty lot over the road
I clicked.
But gradually
That magic subsided as the moments
Between dark and light merged into colour.
It wasn't bouncing out into the Alpine mists
To stake a claim on the next striven ridge
Accompanied by a hound named ‘Ego' -
But there was a moment of becoming
A destined over-man
Even if I had my feet in clay.
Rocky Time For Poor Conversationalist
[Bodhidharma's ‘Four Essential Practices' versified]:
Practice of Retribution of Enmity
Having given up the fundamental
And followed the superficial
I have engendered much injustice
The evil of my past calamities has ripened
And I have left behind limitless harm:
Therefore I accept my sufferings.
Practice of Acceptance of Circumstances
The changing seas of circumstances
Have brought forth consequences:
Everything that is desirable will fail
And all joys are transient.
Therefore I seek a steady mind
Without increase or decrease.
Practice of Non-craving
To be attached to things is delusion
I will try to rest my heart and ask for nothing
All existences are empty
Both merits and darkness follow in step.
I will set fire to the house
And find calm in the ruins.
Practice of Abiding by the Dharma
Though the self stains sentient beings
Instances are emptied by non-clinging.
There is no self in the dharma:
I will practice without miserliness
I will practice with generosity
I will practice without hesitation and regret.
Room 11-01
Another good man made love here
To his chaste and ever-loving wife,
In room 11-01 in the Moscow Ritz Carlton:
But the video held little spice for Vladimir -
Just kisses and caresses Chicago-style
Of a beautiful black woman and her man:
A prelude of sassy foreplay and passion -
A goodnight farewell of caring smiles.
…
‘Not to worry Sir there is something else -
Your Presidential Security Service
Kept filming less salubrious encounters
During the 2013 Miss Universe Contest -
And in this very same suite we struck gold
When a real estate con man and swindler
Who later became President of the USA,
Made a special point of booking the room'.
‘Watch as three of our girls from the FSB
Turn up as requested and peel back the covers
To delight the client, and please each other,
Before releasing the contents of their bladders.'
…
And this strange fellow celebrated hatred there
Reinforcing his insecurities in degeneracy,
In room 11-01 in the Moscow Ritz Carlton:
Becoming hostage with this video to Vladimir -
The subject of almost unutterable scorn
Among the dolls who donated their urine -
Playing perversion and deviance Vegas-style,
Netted into the gulag of subservient golems.
Roses And Wine In The Golden Weather
The brown cut grass on the estate lies rough
Beneath the bent and dusty olive trees
And welcome swallows lee-ho, pitch and luff
The fading light to hunt the sun-crushed leas.
So are the vintners poets to our tongues
With intense fruits from spicy forest floors
Sweet-scented palettes ringed with Côte-d'Or tones
And berry truffle shades when sipping soars?
And are the artists poets to our eyes
Deep-delving Provencal perfection
Where iceberg roses brushstroke eves
And life must still to light's refraction?
So must words such revelations trust
That evening settles doubts with kindly dusk.
[High Summer 2015 at the Brodie Estate, Martinborough]
Rough And Blatant
The Rough Beast - the Blatant Beast
Has appeared in the ordinary places
Morphed in the supermarket car park
Transpired in the Macdonalds drive-thru.
It wasn't what we expected
Of strange times, interesting times.
Who could guess the shape of anxiety
Was so much piss, so little vinegar -
That what was eating us
Was more like a gigantic tendrilled fungus
Grown humungous though hyphae
Fine filaments massing enormous bulk
Or colonies of Argentine Ants
That cooperate and combine in vast numbers
Their sheer aggregation and huge appetite
Betraying the small individual mandible -
That what was bothering us
Was above all the product of proliferation
The inevitable spillage of profusion
The natural consequences of excess?
Rough Sleeper
Life itself is an unfavourable condition
And God himself is in rags at the doorway.
None can enter - the threshold is barred
Queue if you like, but you won't get in.
The doors are closed, the windows shuttered
Try explaining to the bouncer or the doorman
That you are an artist, a musician, a writer … a poet
It won't work, they have heard it before.
It is not as though there is no heaven
It is more that everything is there on the pavement.
Late in the early hours the old man will sleep
And in his dreams things will open up.
Rounds With Li Bai In The Tavern
SAME OLD TIMES FRIEND
The portents are troubling
Armies of the poor march
Towers are raised in defence
Silent spring to empty harvest
Quiet ashes, grey embers
The phoenix chicks are gone
Their first songs are mute
Presaging interesting times
The pebble strikes
The bamboo thicket
Somewhere a z'tick
Nicks the sapling lath
Early summer
The lilies have passed
The flax is unfolding
Hatchlings and butterflies
Sinking his goods
Into the pond
The old merchant
Found a mirror
So much sadness
In the ten thousand things
Gaining so much
We have lost everything
Falling off a boat
Into the Yangtse
Taken by the river
Embracing the moon
Toppling into the water
Did you catch the moon?
Now the surface is still
The moonbeams still swarm
Sailing Cook Strait
The white-sailed 25-footer
Out from Evans Bay for the weekend
Makes steady way across the Strait
Heading for Queen Charlotte Sound.
Her mast shoulders the 15-knot wind
Dark swells kick up defiant sprays:
Heading on she gives no quarter
Heedless of challenge or safe harbour.
She is ready for a rumble
Standing off or making ground:
White knife slicing fume blue steel
Striking sparks of sunlight.
Sappho's Welcome For Anaktoria
So you return, my repentant beauty
And I deny my kisses and my lyre:
I will match no notes to your entreaty
Our songs long since consigned to fire.
No lyrics left for us my worthless maid
My heart once shaken now is still:
My lips no longer voice the love I vowed
As oft they did before you played me ill.
...
Such indifference cannot count for much
A fever blush now runs upon my cheek -
I hear a strain that longs for finger's touch
The music tells me you are mine to seek.
Eros plucks the petals from the flower
So come once more into my arms this hour
Let us segue desire's awoken power
Breached walls and heaven's broken tower.
Scarlet Scandal
Dawn arose and left the Ocean sleeping
Smiling now for secrets she was keeping
With roseate cheeks she braves the light
Blushing deep to mark her night’s delight
Her lantern tints her crimson dress
So hem in hand she feigns distress
And saffron trimmings o’er the hillsides pour
As golden shafts spill out from daylight’s door.
Seeking Blessing
Saint Marina of Antioch be praised:
That this may gain your intercession
And we who love you be delivered
From the devil dragon and temptation.
You took the evil one and threw him down
Jamming your left foot on his scaly neck,
Pushing his slavering maw to the ground,
Demanding ‘yield you scabrous wretch! '
Quickly he twisted - and then shook free -
Taking you whole within his ravenous jaws,
Swallowing your sacred body entirely,
At which your holy virtue rived his guts.
Breaker of the monstrous demon's substance:
Pray for us that we may live in heavenly grace.
Separate
‘No man is an island'.
True - though some come close.
Amid racist hysteria
And panic about contagion
In 1903
A Chinese gardener
Named Kim Lee
Was marooned alone
On a tiny islet
Off Somes Island
In Wellington Harbour
New Zealand
Accused of having leprosy.
Left to live in an open cave
Given packing cases
From which to make furniture
His foodstuffs were delivered
By the lighthouse keeper
In a rowboat
Or by means of a jury-rigged
Overhead wire
If seas were rough.
Kim didn't last long
Before the howling wind
The isolation and the terror
And his TB did for him.
Today the sun was shining on
Mokopuna Island
And I thought of Liu Xia
Under house arrest in China
Now for eight years.
And her husband Liu Xiaobo
Who died in custody,
Hospitalised like Pablo Neruda,
Incarcerated for speaking out
For simply affirming
That any authority
Which creates or condones
Enmity has no legitimacy
And that freedom of speech
Is basic to being human,
Being the mother of decency:
That we are all the less
If we are not involved
In caring about its erosion.
Accused only of love and loyalty
In her isolation, Liu Xia says:
'There is nothing I fear now.
If I can't leave,
I'll just die at home.
Xiaobo has already left,
There is nothing in this world for me.
Dying is easier than living:
There is nothing simpler for me
Than to protest with death.'
Does that make sense Kim?
Looking across from Days Bay
I was diminished by the islet
Of the island in the harbour
And the grief and anger
And guilt that separates us:
The remorseless grasping sea
Tearing away at compassion.
But addressing his wife
In statement to the court
In her enforced absence
Liu Xiaobo had this to say:
'I am full of regret
Become an insensate stone
In the wilderness
Whipped by fierce wind
And torrential rain
So cold none dares touch.
But my love for you
Though broken away
Is still part of the whole
And even if it is crushed
The dust will cling to you'.
Shadow Fall
[For Jackie Trent (6 September 1940 – 21 March 2015) ]
Fifty years of shadows now have fallen
But the minding is recalled unbroken
Soft rain gently beating
Walking with only kisses spoken
It is winter now but wonder has not faded
Our lifetime love stays undefeated
Though clouds grow dark above
The light remains that love created
I no longer wonder what went wrong
Though lost and distant we still belong
And in my mind you come to me
To see how I’ve been faring every day
And watch the years pass on their way
So as my caring sets things to right
It gives life to you again in love and light.
There you are now my love
There you are now my love
Sharing With Rembrandt
MUG SHOTS
Rembrandt van Rijn painted
Dozens of self-portraits
He liked a good face look.
Some of these were ‘tronies'
Or mug shots -
‘Selfies' without a smile.
But florid and pudgy
He was no oil painting
Most of the time
And as far as we know,
Thankfully, he never sat nude
For himself or his apprentices
'Saved As' to the Cloud on a Apple
Having given friends Permission
To ‘Like' on Facebook.
She Cried But She Could Do Nothing
There were other terrified children
Wounded - bloodied - brought
To seeing the reality that evil
Is everywhere and that love is
Ephemeral and always in need
Of renewal - and that hate
Can be more lasting than revulsion -
As told by those who insist
The day of individual security is past.
In the chaos of domestic terror
And the fear of foreign infiltration
The conditions are ripening
For making things new by force.
A self-perpetuating war for the future
Where the threat of surprise
Terror, sabotage and assassination
Arises within the masses themselves
Triggering the psychotic and deranged.
If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses,
You must tell them the crudest and most stupid things:
Tell them that liberty consists
Of one in five owning enough guns for every person
Tell them that success is the sole earthly judge
Of what is right and wrong and that
The victor will never be asked if he told the truth -
That human kindness is the expression of stupidity and cowardice -
That life never forgives weaknesses.
Popular support is the first element
Which is necessary for the creation of authority.
But an authority resting on that foundation alone
Is still quite frail, uncertain and vacillating.
Hence everyone who finds himself vested
With an authority that is based only on popular support
Must take measures to improve and consolidate
The foundations of that authority by the creation of force.
If popular support, power, and tradition are united together,
Then the authority based on them may be looked upon as invincible.
But then remember the young people seeking a life
Like 14-year-old Czeslawa Kwoka, tattoed 26947,
A Polish Catholic girl murdered at Auschswtz-Birkenau
Deported and transported from the Zamosc region
To create Lebensraum for the Master Race.
And the photographs taken by Wilhelm Brasse
Who was forced to collaborate in this final solution:
'She was so young and so terrified.
The girl didn't understand why she was there
And she couldn't understand what was being said to her.
… this woman Kapo (a prisoner overseer)
Took a stick and beat her about the face.
The woman was just taking out her anger on the girl.
Such a beautiful young girl, so innocent.
She cried but she could do nothing.
Before the photograph was taken,
The girl dried her tears and the blood from the cut on her lip.
To tell you the truth, I felt as if I was being hit myself
But I couldn't interfere. It would have been fatal for me.
You could never say anything'.
Shelley's Sonnet For Theresa May
An obdurate robotic ruler dancing on a string -
Tories - the sparkles on an Eton Mess, all for show -
Immune to public scorn while muddying the spring -
Cozeners who neither see, nor feel, nor know -
Austerity a heist on which they've built their sway
An emptiness of empathy revealed -
They flaunt and fawn and then extend their stay
With massive laws - and liberties repealed.
All leech-like to their failing country cling
Blood-sucking liars in deed and reputation low -
A people bamboozled / conned with virtue veiled -
A government which should for God's Sake Go.
But given time the salt of sense and circumstance
Will plump and drop the slugs' inconsequence.
Ship Of Gold
Bright ship of gold under a silver mast
Are you safe to the twelve towns at last?
Have you come home from the green stone sea
Landing your wares at the crystal quay?
And are the markets now busy with trade
With filigree trinkets and jewels displayed
That each with his share will treasure that shore
And none go short as the stock comes to store?
Then let us settle by the side of the sea
And live out our lives in a fine white court
Amid the sapphire and jet stone tapestry
That the breakers and cliffs and spin drift wrought.
You promised me all this - I understood -
When the precious landfall came to good?
Shit Happens
Old monk shits himself in the dojo
A pebble hits the bamboo thicket:
In the sacred everything is profane
In the profane everything is sacred.
Short Sharp Script
She is small and perfect the young actor -
Playing the girl who runs down her friend /
And an attending mortuary doctor -
Avoiding a dissemblance to the end.
Perfect in the ceremony of art
Pleading for drama's rites with eloquence
Not looking for approval in each part
Oblivious to praise or recompense.
How do we know that her skill is perfect?
That what is revealed is the absolute -
That relatively there is no defect -
That what is intrinsic is resolute?
Her intuition unveils role, form and space -
All for truth and everything in its place.
Shot? So Quick, So Clean An Ending?
I hear from a friend that Wenlock Books is closing
And she has asked for a valedictory poem from me.
What to say?
More than 60 years ago now, a snub-nose round-top bus
Picked up my cousins and I from the village of Longville
And took us, part of a rowdy and excited group of youths
From the villages between Church Stretton and Much Wenlock,
To the ‘Flix' on Saturday Night to see a Cowboys Western.
I'm not sure of the film - but I do remember the jostling and singing -
Not quite what A.E. Housman had in mind - he didn't do frolicking:
Right you guessed the rising morrow
And scorned to tread the mire you must;
Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,
But men may come to worse than dust.
Possibly, the Wenlock Cinema movie might have been ‘Big Country'
In which Gregory Peck secretly breaks the stallion ‘Old Thunder'
And challenges The Baddies for water rights from the ‘Big Muddy'
After which he wins a stake-out six-shooter duel against Buck
And ends up marrying sweetheart Patricia after the Old Timers kill each other.
Perhaps A.E. would have provided a valedictory for the losers -
[Ignoring Gregory Peck's character the victorious James McKay]:
Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By pools I used to know.
And what of the bookshop?
'The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we
read,
we shall never come to the end of our story-book.'
Well that doesn't look so sure nowadays.
They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.
Sketching In The Platypus
The Platypus is not monotonous
It’s at the opposite extreme.
In fact it’s quite preposterous,
This jumbled bush-land monotreme.
As with the curious brontosaurus
The platypus lays eggs
But is twenty meters shorter
And has stingers on its legs
The hippopotamus is perhaps analogous
In haunting stream and creek
Excepting an extra 4 tons gross
And any signs of fins or beak.
The whale shark, also relatively enormous
Shares sounding through its nose
But takes in plankton through a sluice
Discarding worms the sieving may disclose.
The elephant gives further room to pause
But diverges most dissimilarly
It does without wet fur or claws
And has big ears that radiate capillary.
It seems that likenesses are of little use
And similes just make plus the fuss
When sketching in the platypus.
So Much Lost
In the beginning the word made man
Keening for Eden where it all began -
Bargain a son for a better life
But bleed the ram in sacrifice.
Forsaking hunts and herds and skins
For riverside cities where science begins
Growing corn to the water's edge
Finding a founder in rush and sedge
Tablets and marks in mud as token
Pictures to sign where words are broken
Back from the desert the prophet utters
What scribes from Byblos seal in letters.
All revealed and then recorded
The covenant that God awarded
All concealed and then discarded
It only heals the broken-hearted.
So many cities but so much lost
So many pyres where books are tossed
So empires rise and empires fall
Divine the writing on the wall.
…
So many cities but so much lost
So many pyres where books are tossed
So empires rise and empires fall
Writing must weigh and measure all.
Some Limericks for Melania and Donald Trump
Pity Melania Trump
Who was sculpted out of a stump:
This rough-cut clump
Was wooden to hump
And came down to earth with a thump.
O beauteous Melania
Our modern Cytherea:
An Aphrodite
In a rough-bark nightie
Become our sylvan Galatea.
Pygmalion searches the bare-trunked trees,
Getting wood from boles he sees:
He comes, he saws, he chops
And falls in love with what he lops -
Chipping ‘such a dryad's not so hard to please'.
A girl called Melania from Slovenia
[A frontier forest or so from Transylvania]:
Was naughtier than Little Red Riding Hood
And turned a few tricks in the wood -
Winding up notching 1600 Pennsylvania!
The woodman saw a pussy up a tree,
No finer judge of cougar cats than he:
He had no need of love - just power -
Knowing that for him the good grew sour -
And so he carved a wooden kitty - isn't she pretty?
Song of Everlasting Regret [for Hong Kong]
A certain Emperor longed for perpetual civil peace
And this he thought would be obtained by uniformity
Such that all would conform to his mandates of beauty -
Though there were those with integrity who swore loyalty
And averred that strength lay in difference and diversity
Bound by a common understanding of interdependence -
But for the most part, the majority feigned adherence,
Coquettish and purportedly delicate like Yang Guifei,
Their subservience presaged an empire drowned by the tide of history.
Sonnet For Ithaca
A little song will sound out fear and hope:
Play out the knots and ease away the rope
To fathom out the depths and rocky floor
To skirt the reefs and safely land to shore.
These are songs for which the Sirens yearn
And steal away to hear at Circe's court,
Leaving the furious breakers left unsung
And giving pass to those who dare the strait.
These are the songs to calm Charybdis
And assuage the mountainous oceans
Staving impending wreck and castaway
With mystic chants and lyre-played wave-spray charms.
And we the crew that served Odysseus well
Will sound all out in songs we sing and tales we tell.
Soul Taker - Judgment Day
What if that past should mute a life-end song?
It cast my heart, stranger, with darkest spell
And worse for years was nothing I could tell
Or ever bring myself to voice that wrong.
All along, down along, memories be
I still reassemble the terror of thee.
Poor old man acting the devil a spell
Molesting a child and leaving him hell.
Wicked spirits are horrid shapes assigned
Though half-forgotten in a youngster's mind
All this and more left bare and lost behind
Peak a boo pops up when hopes unwind.
Poor old soul taker fumbling with fright
Will you be present at the world's last night?
Source of Irritation
Sprung from the horse's arse or gouged by hooves
There is a stream of desperation
That carries fools on viewless wings of poesy
And stains their lips with inspiration.
Improbably feather-winged Pegasus
Equine aerodynamic stallion
You certainly farted or kicked up a fuss
Knocking a wet spot on Mt Helicon:
The later source of much irritation
By those who abjure the beaded bubbles
And consequent inebriation
Attributable to poetic fantasies -
Avoiding maddening draughts that might have been
'Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene'.
Spring Sunshine Plays With The Wind
Spring sunshine plays with the wind,
What thoughts come to mind?
Delight, like children at the beach
Playing tag - plashing the rippled edge.
Delight like the bushland birds,
Wheeling in joy - alert, newly paired.
Delight like the old man without regrets,
Free of the demons of success and failure,
Throwing a poem into the stream of time.
Stable Node
When the phone rings 12-thousand miles away
You don't quite know what to expect
As somebody finally picks up the receiver:
So it was a great relief to know that they
Were all alright and then to find that
Hollies Croft was flush with Aussie visitors -
My niece having come home for a spell from Brizzy
With her daughter Immy who adores England.
I know that feeling so well as you adjust
To the pale-green lens of Constable's pince-nez
And the mizzle-drizzle that makes the oaks bulk out,
Picking up the smell of swaths of new cut grass,
Listening to the song of blackbirds and whoop of the cuckoo -
Everything suffused with a sort of crazy glamour
That comes from an absolute delight in the old ordinary
Suddenly rediscovered from a Rainy-Day Box of Treasures.
While I chatted to my niece, one Antipodean to another,
The conversation rapidly drifted to blackberry and apple pie
Though she had been charged with preparing an Oriental dish
For dinner that involved something or other with coconut vinegar -
But both of us had to set aside memory and reconciliation
As I had to make sure that I asked about her father
Who is a bit middling, knocking on as he is on 83
And who gets a bit bothered one road and another.
John was as well as you could be expected Di assured me
As at first one and then a second grandfather clock
Began to chime eleven o'clock in the morning though it
Was coming to the end of that self-same day in Wellington -
There being two clocks because my sister had inherited
The antique clock left by her grandmother Gladys when she died
And been bequeathed the 'twin' from her mother Meg when she died
Not having the heartlessness to choose between them.
And I knew that in my mind's eye, I could walk away from the oak chest
In the recess where the phone was kept, out through the front door
Onto the sandstone forecourt and be bedazzled by white and red roses
And all manner of wildly thriving plants in-flower from the garden centre,
Looking to where my older boys used to play forts and shops in the hay-bays -
And that, now that the hayshed had been taken down,
If the day had been clearer, I would have been able to catch a glimpse
Of Beeston Crag - as I had from beside my mother's deathbed at Crewe Hospital.
[For when she had been first struck down she had been taken to Leighton
Or what we always knew as Letton - like we knew Cholmondeley
As Chumley and Cholmondeston as Chumston before our betters put us right -
With the new hospital being less than half a mile from Hoolgrave Manor farm
Where my stepfather grew up between Church Minshull and Minshull Vernon.
‘A man who loved the land' as I said in the Foreword to my PhD Thesis
On the Northern Territory Beef Industry - a man of whom our neighbour
Fred Elwood used to say - carrying top-weight with a skin-full after Beeston
Auction:
‘Horace - I Iike him'].
And my niece chatted about how it would be lovely to keep the old place on
Though as we were both well aware it was not really ancient
Having been, along with another two fine houses in the terrace,
Constructed in the footprint of farm's old cow sheds or shippons.
Not that it's history of less than thirty years was uneventful
With all manner of family gatherings in grief or celebration
Like my lovely old ‘Wharfedale Terrier' Rangi straining every fibre
To entertain my young sons in a ball-throw even though she was more than
past-it.
All of which set me musing on how time can heal and make things right
From what had been a very crimped and damaged family
For my sister and I, what with the loss of our grandfather David in the First War
And the death of our own father Jay in the Royal Air Force in 1943.
I told her how much the house was loved and that it would be classed
By sociologists as a ‘stable node behaviour setting' - but she was off to lay the
table
For lunch and when I let slip that one of my poems had been selected
For a 2017 National Anthology she added kindly: ‘if it makes you happy Luv'.
Steel Enema
It is no secret - what passes
Just thunder in the thickets -
Guns - wild anger - a gold mine.
Confused by deception
And predatory gangs
Capital flows to their pockets.
Greedy dogs and black sheep
Which tail is wagging now?
Tufts of hair or hanks of wool?
According to the creed
Meanness is not a vice
Now that's the secret.
In America there is gold
And coal and iron ore aplenty
For both greedy and unfed mouths.
But it is no place for dreams
Every second counting the $
The rivers turning to dust.
Everything is linked by tracks
Covering moaning sleepers
Rails that carry off - carry out.
The trains whistle and rush by
Leaving the work crews in the shit
Tending to the miles passed over.
And greed is the locomotive
Of banditry - a steel enema -
Can't you hear the farting?
Come the swept-gold sunrise
The rich will have feasted
And be ready to gorge again.
Sticking Point
Poems are like a Pooh Stick -
You hunt around for something gnarly
That can be recognized
But that irrepressibly
Has pretension towards fluid dynamics.
When you have found your stick
Pare off the redundant twigs carefully
Leaving only what’s designed
So that inevitably
It projects personal ergonomics.
Then take a cast and launch the stick -
Run across the bridge eagerly
To see it bob and broach the other side
Hopefully incredibly
Taking leeway free of snags and hitches.
Too often though the stick sticks
Stuck against a barrier irritatingly
Dead in the water or tugged aside
Though ineffably
The wise old stream flows free and wide.
Stirrings In The Gruel Sea - For The North Pacific Gyre
And Its 100 Million Tons Of Garbage
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The void will not impede the reveller;
Things cast aside; an empty tale is told;
Banality is tossed upon the world,
The speck-filled tide is loosed, and everywhere
The purity of Eden’s shore is littered;
The best lack understanding, while the worst
Regale in pleasured apathy.
Surely some retribution is at hand;
Surely a Second Fall is now at hand.
A new exile mocking our Garden Genesis
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the seas of earth
A shape of plastic drifts where listless currents run
A haze blank and pointless as drunken daybreak fun
Is moving its dark slime, while all about it
Reel shadows of the flocking starveling birds.
The darkness deepens yet again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of slop have marred the deep
Have made the ocean Bumble’s ladle,
And we the silly, greedy festive crew at last
Slouch to perdition and still ask for more.
[with acknowledgement to William Butler Yeats]
Stonestacker
He lies on the footpath looking up
Admiring his handiwork stalagmites -
Pinnacles of beach rocks raised high
Composed of smooth stones super-glued together.
Does he see any more than you see
After you have finished your briefing paper
For the Minister or the plumber sees
After he stands back to admire his new tap fittings,
Or I see after I ‘finish' a writing and move on
Calmed, more content and self-satisfied
To a cup of coffee or to watch an old episode
Of Midsomer Murders or flick for sentimental reasons
To the Last of the Summer Wine -
Or perhaps hit Channel 89 'BBC World'
To get a gutful of saddening and sickening events?
That said, I drive my wife nuts looking for relevance
Trying to make a difference, trying to save the world:
‘Just relax', she says, ‘the world does not want to be saved'.
But is an inherent property of mankind
That we seek to create, to leave a legacy,
Conscious as we are of our limited lease
On life and the necessity or desirability
Of generativity and passing something down to posterity
'No stone unturned', as Moses would have said.
Who is to say then that the shoreline pinnacles
Do not represent something profound
And that their builder with his infinite care
Is not adjusting the very foundations to our benefit?
Stop
Somebody just flew
A full plane of passengers
Into a mountain
Proving that if
You fly a plane into a mountain
It will stop suddenly
And disintegrate.
But as the new day came
I looked out to Baring Head
And saw the lamp
Of the light house winking
Protecting the ships from the rocks
Proving that if
You are careful
And let your mind
Come to a full stop .
Summat Not Reet
Words have been bothering me.
Sometime back I wrote a poem
About returning to the farm
Where I spent my growing up
Among the intricate expanses of the Cheshire Plain.
I talked of returning to the cowsheds
And stockyards that I knew as a boy
Sixty or more years ago now -
When I really meant the shippons
And stackyards of Corner Farm.
I thought that it was better
To look forward and please
The occasional new reader -
When I really wanted to talk
With the past and of what was gone.
And hearing the poem
Read by a robot Siri
In American on PoemHunter
I feel sorry for the botty lady
When she talks about ‘co -sh- edds'
As oo flummoxes the word.
I will go back and please the past -
To hell with the odd understanding.
I love the word shippon
And it needs my comfort now
That most of them have been converted
Into £500,000-plus swanky terraced housing.
The standard etymology is that
It derives from ‘sheep pen'
But I find this unsatisfactory -
Preferring derivation from
The dialect word ‘shape'
Much used to denote careful purpose.
‘Tha' mun shape up lad'
Was a common admonition
And ‘ee dunna shape up gradely'
Was a chastening criticism -
So, I am afraid that I can't let this go
And will have to straighten things.
And it makes sense that the cattle
Should have been enclosed with careful purpose -
Though animal husbandry is a thing of the past
Now that money and morality have been split
And carelessness is regarded as cost-cutting
And a necessary adjunct to profit and greed.
Take The Chance
Karma is a bitch - it comes back at you -
Nothing lacking, no safe space, losing ground
It comes right back at you - false becomes true.
What goes around, goes around, goes around.
Time is always short, time to make amends.
If we want a better life, then we must change -
Pacing our responses after challenge -
Right thinking - whatever bad karma sends.
What is given light must endure burning
But true light always shines above the flames:
Answer for your life, you only live once
Kill sequels - break sequences - take the chance.
'Live as if you were living a second time
As though you had acted wrongly the first time'
Tane And Hine-Nui-Te-Po: The Maori Legend
Concerning The Permanence Of Death
May verse seed hope in death,
Being spent in bliss of love,
Into that great darkness
Where Tane came in dread
To seek redemption and redress.
Formed from the earth
His wife gave birth
And their daughter
The girl of the flashing dawn
Was born in sunlit splendor
But he took this daughter
As his slave and plaything
Until shame caught her
And she fled and sought
The spirit world.
And at its gate
She stopped her lover-father
Bidding him return
To care for their children
Saying: ‘I will see them again
They will come to me in due time'
So death itself was born
And she became the night.
But Tane grew angry,
As those he loved were claimed,
Hating the Dark Child-Mother
But lusting for her still
Then he sought to enter her,
A once and final act,
This time to claim her forever,
Becoming a penis for the task,
Penetrating so deep
He would leave through her mouth
To void the curse.
But vain as he was,
He had summoned the birds
To watch his vengeance
And the little pied tumbler
Or pi'waka'waka laughed,
Waking Hine-nui-te-Po
Who slew Tane with her thighs
And she appointed
Thenceforth the tiny fantail
As her messenger.
Then was mankind lost.
Now as we seek release
Each little death quietens
To an after-silence
Sacred to the dark daughter
And only poetry betrays
Our longings and regrets
For that ever-risen dawn
Still misted from her breath.
Tau
A young carpenter would use a T-brace
Nowadays to lock support and house beams
But then tenons, joints, pins and mortices
Were crafted to close together the seams.
Regardless, the workman crafts the lattice
To set out the frame on the foundation
Working with care under the open sky
To bind together design and creation.
Set in such a fashion to bear loads
With ribs of joists readied to carry boards
The body of the building can be floored
Topping out spaces - closure the reward.
And each upright speaks of the mystery
The arcane letters of the bridging cross
Tau, iota, eta - and Christ's mastery
At last of death itself and the soul's loss.
Te Amo Mi Chorizo
FOR MARIA
That I had been kinder would have been better now
You like the driven snow, me like the driven sleet.
Your mother told you: ‘Older men have sharp teeth
Beware of lust and desire and the storms beneath -
Cuidado con lujuria y el deseo'.
That I had been kinder, it would have been better so
You with your angelic freckled face and flame-red hair:
‘I will fill you with babies and leave you in a council flat'.
And you pouted and held back tears: ‘Don't be malo:
Te amo mi chorizo - I love you silly sausage'.
Te Kahu - The NZ Swamp Hawk
E hui o nga kahu
Ko te whenua i haroa e te kahu:
Let those of noble intention
Meet in the lands soared over by the hawk.
Te haaro o te kahu ki tuawhakararere
E hoa ma, ina te ora o te tangata:
Let us view the future with the insight of a hawk -
My friends, this is the essence of life!
Te kahu i runga whakaaorangi ana e ra,
Te pera koia toku rite inawa e!
The hawk keeps watch from the heavens -
Let us do the same, inawa e!
Me haere i raro i te kahu korako
Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata:
Give us the keen discernment of the hawk -
Let us care for the land, care for the people.
Tell Me Everything Is Now Forgiven
The needle tears a hole in every dream
And there are livid scars that can't be seen
The cloth once white - its threads now give and fray
As heaven's fabric wastes and wears away
The stains of time have marred both hem and seam
You can't repair what is or might have been
So tuck me tight, hold fast my hand and stay
As eons fold against the lifelong day
From the liar's chair give hope tight-lipped
Puff the pillow ere the bed be stripped
Shush my broken thoughts as I awaken
Sweetest friend before the cloths are taken
While the peace in token sleep is kept
Remember he who rose and he who wept
Tell me everything is now forgiven
And that Lazarus has since arisen.
Text For The Day
Early this morning I woke in dull persistent pain,
From the disease that is slowly enveloping my life -
And alone, I tried to deal with these demands by
Preparing 10 milligrams of ‘quick release' elixir in a little plastic cone
But struggled hopelessly with the unopened bottle top -
And having already decided against a fold-over breaded smidgeon of the ‘wacky
butter' supplied by a kind friend -
I finally settle in desperation for crimping two more paracetamol tablets from a
blister pack.
And In my almost tearful confusion,
I am haunted by the concrete furrows
of the streets of New York -
A drone skimming the grand canyons -
As I rearrange my duvet -
The city and I folded in synchronized
Secluded vigil.
And like the good book itself, we settle on chapter and verse,
The city and I in our dark imaginings:
‘For thou whose property is always to have mercy -
Not weighing our merits but pardoning our offences' -
With the empty streets / the sweat-stained sheets as our texts for the day.
The Bellinger River Snapping Turtle
Ms Bellinger River Snapping-Turtle
Would happily rarely stir till
It was time for a gin
And an accompanying grin
That showed when Myrtle was fertile.
The Bilby
How are things in Yooka Murra?
Are the bilbys still snuffling there?
A pixie, pootling mixture rare -
Of chihuahua, wallaby and hare?
How are things in Yooka Murra?
Is that black stump still baking there?
Does that bilby with the beady eye
Still come a’lolloping by?
How are things in Yooka Murra?
Amid the creeks and coolibah -
Does bracketed [macrotis lagotis]
Still fossick lizards, seeds and flies?
How are things in Yooka Murra?
Is the bilby species there still rooted
By shrub and log and burrow,
Sniff and snouting bandicooted?
How’s that little pinkie down in Yooka Murra?
Does he hide from prying kangaroos
And never stop to jabber in his yakka
Except to sing extinction blues?
The Bramble Cay Melomys
Drat we missed and now we miss
The Bramble Cay melomys:
A mouse-like rodent on a cay
First washed up then washed away
It's kicked a clod - like us one day.
Any loss like this diminishes me
When a tiny creature's lost at sea
It's the first but not the final one
And I'm the lesser that it's gone
When all is said and Donne.
The Bridge Over The Brook
Sometimes I’m Pooh
And sometimes Tigger
Sometimes I’m Roo
Only somewhat bigger
Sometimes a boy
Where the ripples gleam
But mostly a donkey
Swept by the stream
The Bronze Girl
The rising sun trapped the willow princess
As she bathed hidden among the shallows.
He had plaited a copper basket to catch her
That first she thought a palace not a prison.
But the sun rose in the sky and shut the door
And forced himself upon the frightened girl
Who fought and set herself against him,
Caring nothing for his overarching majesty.
Then spent in his lust and rage, the risen sun
Gave the girl to the demons as a plaything
And she became a helpless, friendless outcast
Visited and revisited endlessly by nightmares.
Set free, she sought the sallow water's edge,
Unable to smile or love or feel or heal her terror,
Turned hard as bronze to match her hated cell
Whose copper laths grew tarnished green - and wept.
But then her father, the river ruler, returned
Righteous in his anger at the violent rising sun
And set to work to clear the debris of this folly
That osiers might greet again the rain of evening.
And this same sullied girl became a goddess
In her suffering, weaving talismans and charms,
A source of spells protecting hearth and child,
In quests for justice, honour and compassion.
The Bryde's Whale
Bride's or brooder's either way
This dinky whale's a party animal:
It only lives from day to day
An Auckland swell ephemeral
And likes to spout and bask away
As JAFAs do in general.
The Budgerigar
NOT SEEN FOR DUST
So trills the Budgie - in the curtains high
As vacuuming the housewife lists his cheeps.
Missing awhile the avian treasure nigh
Changing the dust bag, lax attention creeps.
Now Joey downward from the pelmet flies
And mounts a shoulder on the matron's blouse
To strut his stuff, as she the draw string ties!
A journey out to void the bag brings open sky
And from the very temple of deceits -
Its cuttle bone and swings and bells and treats -
Bidding adieu the bird soars out the house.
Empty now the melancholy sovran shrine
Joy's bubble burst, he mounts the washing line
Disclosing dusty deals from parakeets.
[for my mother and 'Joey']
The Calamity ('Aitua') of Creation
Night had conceived the seed of night;
The heart, the foundation of night,
Had stood forth self-existing even in the gloom.
The shadows screen the faintest gleam of light:
The procreating power, the ecstasy of life first known,
And joy of issuing forth from silence into sound -
The progeny of the Great-extending filled the heavens' expanse.
[Tane's chant for Creation]
Our ancestors and the elders
Tell of how the sky father Ranginui
And the earth mother Papatuanuku
Were locked together in the ecstasy
Of nothingness, darkness and chaos
Until they were torn apart
Giving birth to Te Ao: the creation
Of the elements and sensation,
Of light and the natural world.
Consider then the pain with which the lovers were parted
Consider the flames, their dangers and their warmth
The lull and anger of the wind in storms and quiet,
The splash of water against your cheek, and the wild seas,
The grounding of the earth as it receives endlessly.
Look again at your lover's smile beckoning:
Hear her say softly or in passion ‘I love you'
Sense again the scent of her hair above the ear
Taste her breath and the saltiness of her lips
Touch the shy curl at the nape of her neck
Or the clefts and furrows that show she is a duality
Joined in symmetry by seams and couplings.
Look again at the sun and its light, and its loss in shadows
Hear the music of the wind caressing and scolding
Sense again the scent of earth after the rain has ended
Taste the dew, and the salt spray from the ocean,
Touch the land that is raised and the land that falls away
That has come together in foregrounds and horizons:
This is the body of the earth mother given anew for you.
'Fire is hot, wind moves,
water is wet, earth hard.
Eyes see, ears hear, nose smells,
tongue tastes the salt and sour.
Each is independent of the other;
cause and effect must return to the great reality
Like leaves that come from the same root.
The words high and low are used relatively.
Within light there is darkness,
but do not try to understand that darkness;
Within darkness there is light,
but do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair,
like the foot before
and the foot behind, in walking.
Each thing has its own intrinsic value
and is related to everything else in function and position'.
Consider then the pain with which the lovers were parted
Then there was the impenetrable and profound darkness -
The inestimable presence that permeates the universe.
Of only dark matter and the matter of darkness
That constituted two lovers locked within the essence of touching.
Then there was no source, no clarity, no brightness
No subjective, no objective, no relative, no absolute:
The lovers were inseparable, dependent, interdependent
There were no edges, no boundaries, no erasures in their love.
Nothing could be lost, nothing pulled away, nothing broken
And they loved each other coalesced, congealed, entangled
Without recognition, atoned only by a raw emotion
The passion to quicken the primordial chaos with our reality.
The Canterbury Knobbled Weevil
Leave well alone that scabby little devil
The Canterbury Knobbled Weevil
Hadramphus tuberculatus
Is almost no longer with us
So beetling past's the better lesser evil.
The Carpet Pythons and The Banana-Bender Laocoön
Grandma
Under the shade of the hood
Under the domed canopy
We seek the grilling gate
And the ancillary hot plate
Come to light with a switch
And the spreading of our meats
Given a light oil spray
And the promise of cauterization.
Lo! In the summered garden
Invested with seasonal flies
Sauced family members wait
Oblivious to burger or sausage
The anticipated breaded slot -
Except at times when a friend
Jostles to the fore to have a gander
Out of his place at the bar
Temporarily, mutters an advisory
About the necessity of onions
And the advantages of mushrooms,
The longed-for accessories -
Not for ourselves, indeed,
Seeing that this is our hope,
But for our children and wives!
So, under Brisbane skies
Compass the inebriated throng
When the barbecue is opened up
Neither anxious nor afraid
Of unseen labyrinthine gloom -
But quickly lost to consternation
When the pythons wreathe
Out of place in this festivity
Unwelcome serpents at the feast -
And in the crowd, the cry goes up:
‘Who will save us from these snakes
Infesting as they do the grills and jets
Denying sustenance from cinder
Seeing that a good feed is our right
For us, our children and our wives? '
Neither miffed nor feared
Of the Lamia of this circumstance -
The marbled coils of mishap
That girdle the unlit griddle -
Grandma reaches in
Grabbing serpentine musculature
And tugging free the first of two
Drops it into a waiting chilly bin
Followed soon by a second -
Unencumbered unlike Laocoön -
Unafraid, putting all to right
The snake-snagged barbecue.
The Chesterfield Skink
The Chesterfield Skink
Liked to plump and sink
On a quilted roll-armed sofa:
But fate has forced a rethink
And now its sits upon the brink
No staid lounge lizard loafer.
Keith Shorrocks Johnson
The City After The Storm
In the silent movies, a girl will smile slowly
And the camera will linger as we fall in love:
She will glow and the vision will shimmer
[The results it seems of rubbing Vaseline
On the lens or optical flat sitting before it,
Suitably and softly lit by subtle chiaroscuro,
Aided by skilfully-caked theatrical make-up].
Being a person at the mercy of illusion
Especially of wiles and ethereal pretence,
Easily captivated by gloss and halalation,
Artifice or not, I am hopelessly smitten..
Cue camera action: the object of obsession
Daubed with sunlight bewitches the scene
Setting herself in a steady gaze that turns
Slowly to amusement at devotees' sighs
Her tumultuous wayward storms now past
The tantrums of the dressing room forsaken
Her presence haloed hauntingly with glamour.
The Good Swineherd
As a farmer’s boy in Cheshire back in the 1950s
I read the Bible extensively with the Scripture Union
But some unlikely things bothered me
[Gentile that I was, gathering crumbs under the table]
Like the Gadarene Swine going over the cliff:
And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the
Gadarenes.
And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the
tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs; and
no man could bind him, no, not with chains:
because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains
had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could
any man tame him.
And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying,
and cutting himself with stones.
But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, and cried with a
loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most
high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is
Legion: for we are many.
And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the
country.
Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.
And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may
enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits
went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep
place into the sea, (they were about two thousand,) and were choked in the sea.
And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And
they went out to see what it was that was done.
And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had
the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind; and they were afraid.
And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the
devil, and also concerning the swine.
And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.
And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil
prayed him that he might be with him.
Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and
tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion
on thee.
And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had
done for him: and all men did marvel.
Now Gadara was at the very edge of the deep cleft
Of the Jordan Valley and the last staging post
For trading caravans from the Fertile Crescent and beyond
Before they wound their way down to Galilee and Nazareth
And thence to Caesarea or Ptolemais-Acre and the Med.
And we neglect I think that Jesus was caught between two cultures
And that he would have visited the Decapolis cities
Smelling pork roasting and bacon frying
Perhaps even listening to a mendicant Buddhist teacher or two
Preaching the virtues of tolerance and compassion.
As for me, I always loved pigs and it seemed so sad to me
Sending those beautiful animals to the Devil -
So here I had to differ with the quiet young man
From Nazareth with his mesmeric admonitions
Wanting me to forsake all and follow him.
Years later I had to farrow four sows
Over the space of a week and my sometimes midnight
Midwifery resulted in 42 healthy piglets
That I sold at 12 weeks old and lost money on -
Having been far too generous with the weaner nuts.
And we had four saddle back gilts that I became very fond of
Though they didn’t prosper on a concrete floor
And needed to be run free – notwithstanding
My going over the Larkey’s paddock to the big oak
On Cornhill Drive to collect acorns for them in a bucket.
Years later again, I found myself on mission in Bangladesh
In the Chittagong Hill Tracts as we toured a Hill Tribes village
And my excitable young Bengali guide asked me a tough question:
‘That animal you see there – What is it? ’
And I found myself telling him to his consternation that pigs were not halal –
haram
Where I came from and that I had once been a pig-farmer.
Now my charismatic young Yeshua tell me something:
Why the Good Shepherd and not the Good Swineherd?
Does it simply boil down to the fact that pigs
Like humans are inquisitive, gregarious, awkward and indolent
And resent being herded with the camels in the desert scrub?
The Greater Short-Tailed Bat
The Greater Short-tailed Bat
Being prey to stoat and rat and cat
Goes incognito in a furry hat:
A refugee on Big South Cape
With disguise it may yet escape -
So now forget I told you that.
The Grey Nurse Shark
The Grey Nurse Shark is much misunderstood
Being best regarded not as bad but good
Calm and gentle like the Killer Whale
A sort of fishy Florence Nightingale
It would bring a bed pan if it could
And check your stool for signs of blood.
The Grey-Headed Flying-Fox
The Grey-headed flying fox
A wise nocturnal frugivore
Keeps apricots in its socks
And it's where it likes to store,
Eschewing any kind of box,
A plum or two in fruity paw.
The Heroes And The True Treasures
There is more to be told about Death and Sin and Satan
About the shroud spectre, the tarn hag and the dragon
And how sin coupled with the dawn-devouring serpent
Bearing in her turn the loathed all-consuming adversary -
And how the Christ himself gave his life in redemption
Of that dreadful compact of a daughter's rape and incest
That the ghastly child, the unremitting arbiter of life itself,
Should feel the loss of hope as resurrection triumphed -
And how Beowulf the hero also gained honour at the last
By ripping down the indiscriminate slayer of our kinfolk
And descending into the dark mere to seize a tokened sword
By which to kill the fish-tailed harlot and crop her son's corpse -
And how our heroes bested the fire-unleashing guardian
Of hell's treasures and all its beguiling wealth and plenty
Taking nothing from this earthly realm in just reward -
Leaving only the steadfast gifts of honest hearts and wholesome life.
The House Of Life: Non-Renewal of Subscription
Pale Dante Rossetti - wan and intense
(‘Might-have-been, No-more, Too-late, Farewell') :
Upon the beach, nought but a soundless shell
Is left of noble thought and faith's pretence.
Heed me, how pissed off I am old bean:
One moment through thy soul the soft surprise
Of cast up life and its foam-fretted sighs
And next the emptiness where beauty's been.
Mark thine eyes the tweets where that is seen
Which had Truth's form in Lies but by their spell
Are become rampant memes intolerable
Of things best left unuttered, best unseen
And shamelessness spins tides of ignorance
That foul the shore with washed-up bitterness.
The Identity of Relative and Absolute
'Everybody's shit is relative to their own shit:
And shit just happens -
Even if you don't give a shit
You have to get your shit together
No shit -
Because life is a shitty business.
The Inky Raindrops Of Calligraphy
Finally at the furthest point of my walk
I prepared for the harbour to have its say
But first popping into the Academy of Fine Arts
I found myself almost alone wishing bright life:
Listening to Hokai Shibayama's brush strokes
And the imaginary inky sounds of Japanese calligraphy.
Apricot blossoms on the way
Are in beautiful bloom
Spring birds are calling in a sweet voice
Everywhere in the mountains:
I have help while I am unaware of it.
I have no container
I will take it in my hands -
Is it the sound of drizzling rain?
Go into the rain and listen
And understand feelings with heaviness.
And Akiko sort of materialized
In a most beautiful kimono
Smiling that sweet, blinking slight smile
That is something of a Japanese speciality
And I said: Are you the calligrapher?
‘No' she replied ‘But I also practice'
As for me, I am at home I told her
Having somewhat studied Zen -
Minded of the Paramita Heart Sutra
And the Identity of Relative and Absolute -
Like the foot before and the foot behind in walking:
We are nothing special but nothing is lacking.
Let me respectfully remind you
That Life and Death are of Supreme Importance:
Time Swiftly Passes and Opportunity is Lost
Each of us should strive to awaken
Awaken! Take heed:
Do Not Squander Your Life.
And we bowed to each other with gentle hearts
But cynic that I am, I later recalled
That everything in the sacred is profane
And everything in the profane is sacred,
When mulling a wheat beer by the harbour.
So I watched a young crowd joss and dance
To a lazy Sunday afternoon of groovy music
The girls jumping into the laps of their men
Playfully smooching and mounting other girls
With one brave-heart tipsy sailing a skate-board.
As the froth fell in my glass - foam ring by foam ring
I thought again of one of my earliest memories
Of the farm that we had moved to when I was four
And of sitting at the window of the farm kitchen,
Watching the raindrops in the darkening autumn,
Waiting for them to coalesce and resolve
On the glass and for the heavy droplets
To suddenly streak down, racing each other
To the broken paintwork of the window sill
Disappearing like mirages in mirror form.
And how this always reminded me of the first story
That I had been read by my primary school teacher
About a scarecrow that had come to stuffed-straw life,
Miraculously animated by her stern but smiling face,
As she communed with words and their mysterious letters
And how all my conscious life, words had befriended me
With their letters like the gentle patter of rain -
Or droplets of words rushing to a meaning -
And I laughed, as I walked near Frank Kitts' Park,
That somebody had written in chalk in an excellent hand:
'Save the Whales - Eat the Japanese'.
The Italian Cross
By Mikhail Arkadyevich Svetlov (1903 - 1964) - a 'translation'
A ‘translation' by Keith Johnson
There was a black cross on his chest
No engraving, no design, no patina:
A treasured heirloom charm
Bequeathed to this alien Italian.
My Neapolitan boy what will be left
Of you here on the Russian fields?
Were you not happy enough
On that magnificent bay?
I shot you dead near Mozdok
As you dreamt of distant Vesuvius!
As I dreamed of the Volga flowing free!
Perhaps we could have shared a gondola!
Mind you, I did not come with a gun
To ruin an Italian Summer:
My bullets didn't whine
Above the sacred land of Raphael.
Here I killed you! But we were both born
Where there is friendship and pride
Where there are epics and sagas
That defy translation. But I ask you:
Are the meanders of the River Don
Much studied by overseas geographers?
Has our ancient homeland Russia
Been ploughed and sown by outsiders?
No! But you were armed and marshalled
To seize and dispossess distant lands -
That cross of yours from your ancestral home
Destined to overshadow your grave.
I will not let you take my country
And enslave it from foreign shores!
I'll shoot - it is not a matter of justice
Ultimately just a matter of bullets.
You have never had the right to be here!
But glistening in these snowy fields
Your eyes tell of Italy's blue skies
As they glaze and their light fades.
The Kaka [NZ Parrot] and the Kuku [NZ Wood Pigeon]
– Funny Old Birds
The kuku loves domestic bliss
The kaka likes life’s turns and twists
The kuku is at its best at home
The kaka though is prone to roam
While kukus plump for picturesque
The kaka goes for picaresque
For the kuku absences are antithetic
Contrast the kaka - he’s peripatetic
Like Zorro the kaka wears a red bolero
Not so, the demure and retired kereru
The kuku is polite and workaholic
Where kakas are ever prone to frolic
At a party, you can guess who’s most shambolic
The kaka always gins without the tonic
The kuku rarely doffs its vest
While kakas often dance a wild burlesque
The kaka will raise the decibels with yakka
And soon he’ll ask his mates to haka
So all in all, the kuku’s just an early player
And it’s the kaka who’s the party-stayer
Birds of a different feather they may be.
“Have a drink! Which of them do you think is me? '
‘He kuku ki te kainga,
He kaka ki te haere.’
[“He is a wood-pigeon (kuku / kereru) when he's at home but a noisy parrot
(kaka) when he's out and about.”]
The Kakapo
Let me elaborate on ambassador Sirocco
A bird whose trysts are often quite rococo:
This kakapo is all trundle, boom and bust
And indiscriminate in terms of lust
So before your scalp reflects the light
Beware this flightless 'parrot of the night'.
The Kea
DOUBLE CROSS DAYS:
[Whereby Picnickers Are Forced to Attend an Annual
Torment in the Southern Alps]
Mischievously wickedly back they fly
Clowns from the clouds, with tricks from the sky
Pulling out rubber, pecking on wire
Loosening the windscreen, slicing the tyre
Skating the tiles and sliding the roof
Looking for weakness but charmingly goof
Seeking out back-packs and shiny white plastic
Dissecting pack lunches and twanging elastic
Out from the mountains and skirting the snows
With tumbles and jokes and red furbelows
Nodding so sagely but eyeing its chance
The Kea is ready to lead us a dance.
Hist! Square shoulders, tidy your crumbs
And clean up the teacups — here he comes.
The Kune Kune Piggy
The Kune Kune is a sort of Maori Pig
Whose face is dewlapped with a whiskery bib
These wattles, tassels or piri piri
Make them look both cute and silly.
Their name in Maori means fat and round
So much so, they seem to lard the ground
And when they grunt they make you laugh -
And look for slops to fill their trough.
Pot-bellied, friendly hairy creatures
They beg you: 'Mrs - kindly treat us! '
So save the peelings, bread and cold spaghetti
And drop them off ere you forgettey.
[Pronounced 'Coonie Coonie']
The Last Word?
They may never come again who knew the joy
Of youth among the mountains there
As time and use degrade and then destroy
All but the memories those hearts alone still bear.
But yet the hillsides graft a gentle scar
To bind the happenings of those who care
So that neither time nor loss can mar
The roots that land and lives forever share.
The Legend Of Morven Mere
It was thus in the time of siege and famine:
A poor farmer sold his little daughter
To the asrais and nixies of the mere
So that the harvest might not fail again.
Then the farm prospered and all were fed
So no more was thought of the bargain
Though the reeds at the water's edge
Sang of the prize that was expected.
And Meggan, growing fair but also strong
Took to ploughing with her horse,
Coming on her sixteenth birthday
To till the rich silty fields by the lake.
It was springtime and fine weather
And she and her horse Meadowmane
Worked quietly from shore to headland
As the gulls followed the turned turf.
On a start, a milk-white charger appeared
Its golden mane and tail flashing in the sun
Its dappled flanks afire with rainbow flecks
Snorting and prancing in courtship and display.
‘I know you Brookenhorse', said the girl
‘The mount of Jenny Greenteeth Grindlelow
Sent from the dark depths of the mere
To claim me as a prize for the tarn-hag'.
Then the enchanted stallion came up
And nuzzled Meadowmane on the cheek
Nipping the old cart horse on the neck
At which the Brookenhorse shape-shifted
And took up the plough collar and traces
Heaving the ploughshare and coulter
With such force that the task was soon done
And the meadow seared with perfect furrows.
At which the Brookenhorse bolted for the lake
Taking with it both the plough and its mistress -
And she trapped by the reins that she had wound
To the handles was dragged beneath the water.
‘Welcome my beauty' said Mother Grindelow
‘You my drowned princess are my catch now
Take up your deathly pallor and sleeves of green
And sing with us amid the mere of midnight silver'
‘I have my prizes now - my temptress Morgwen Fey
And the sharp steels of the foreshare and coulter
With which to forge a sword of endless enmity -
The enchanted plough become the stuff of strife'.
But Meggan shunned the hell-bride and her watermaids
And dreamed of the bright spring meadow flowers
And the warm sun and scent of heaving Meadowmane -
Finding at last the Brookenhorse in its watery stall.
At which it flared its nostrils, reared and stamped,
Abject in its thrall to the monstrous Borrag Queen,
Now become once more an ancient broken steed
Mere knucker bones and hide, bleached by the depths.
But Meggan wept that it had lost its rainbow glimmer
And placed her arms around its neck in comfort
Reaching to her kirtle purse to find a scrap of bread
That she had kept to share with Meadowmane.
At which the Brookenhorse glowed fine and white again
Lustrous and resplendent in its strength and beauty
And she broke down the stall gate and freed the horse
Leaping to its back as it bolted for the sunlit sky
Seizing the sword of enmity now become destiny
That mystical Cut Steel - Cleft Evil wand Excalibur
Until at last they came to safety and the light of day
Where she became her maiden self with Meadowmane.
And her father threw his arms around her with joy
Lamenting only the loss of his much-loved plough
But handling with amazement the magic sword
That shone among the peaceful fields of plenty.
So in time a knight came, seeking justice and love
And found at last the sword beaten from the share
Taking it up reverently from the Lady of the Lake
Bringing her and her treasured milk-white foal to Camelot.
The Longer You Live The Force Becomes The Farce
How do you translate black laughter?
Medical professionals in Australia
Have devised a 29-point predictor
Of death within the short term -
Thirty days, thirty pieces of silver,
And the medium term of 12 weeks -
Eighty-four days, Three Moons.
In the hope that treatments are not wasted
And honest discussions can be engaged
With Older People who are frail and sick.
We speak of release: we speak of the quick hit,
Even as preferable to the thing that lingers.
If you are over 65 and admitted to the accident ward
In an emergency
You have a 25 percent chance of
Popping your clogs or dropping off your perch
In the next twelve months.
And one of the causes of dementia
Is that older brains slow
Knowing too much and getting jammed.
And many of us will not do it well
Although we have carried its mark for a long time.
'He or she died following a short illness',
The obituaries note.
At least now I know that a short
Illness is one lasting less than Lent or Ramadan
And that a medium illness is one lasting
Less than the payment schedule for your property rates
Providing absolutely no relief
For what may be outstanding.
At the last, some can only be seen as they were always seen
Not ennobled by it but reduced.
I did a quick check of the twenty-nine points
And scored eight
But my wife who is a nurse
Hadn't a single tick
In my boxes
So from a clinical perspective
There are no thieves evident in my night.
Why we are frightened is that we in part
Know ourselves and what is possible.
Walls fall; doors slam on daily lives more
Often than caution prepares for -
Where there is blood some is likely to spill.
And whether the kiss or the curse is the truer
Metre of passion is difficult to foretell.
NOTE: Quotations from 'True Confessions of the Last Cannibal' by NZ Poet Louis
Johnson (1924-1988].
The Loss Of Everyday Goodness
There revealed from a bend in the river
Was the most perfect of little towns
A cathedral's cupolas crowning the bluff:
At the wharf a nose-bagged nag
And his tipsy, sleepy drosky driver.
Sophia, this is peaceful perfection
A place for us both to paint, to love:
I will be your frog here by the river
And you can sing to me from a terrace
And kiss me that I become a prince.
I have one small secret though
As an artist I despise the ordinary
And as a frog, I eat grasshoppers:
Be sure that you can set aside
The loss of everyday goodness.
The Northern Quoll
The importunate Northern Quoll
Finds its hunger hard to control:
For snacks it's a sucker
Scoffing cane toads for tucker
That rissole its last patrol.
The NZ Bellbird
If you should read these lines or hear
The bells sound deep in the forest
Then those you loved of old will near
And in your sweet thoughts find their rest.
Toll for them for heaven's sake
As the bellbird chimes at daybreak
And in the incantation
Ring their celebration.
And if your love for them grows faint
Let the wise world take up the song
And sing of them without restraint
In tones to which all dawns belong
‘he rite ki te kopara
e ko nei te ata'.
The Nz Kakapo: The Nocturnal, Grounded, LekBreeding Parrot
Randy but bandy and late
The kakapo booms for its mate
As skyward it trudges
Not the least like the budgies
In its rotund and flightless state.
The NZ Kingfisher or Kotare
Anticipating... it holds harmony
With the surface in reflection -
Life and death in quiet economy
Perfect in its delved completion.
So does te Kotare, the kingfisher,
In stillness and silence dive deep,
As it hunts the perilous river
In reaches that fierce spates make steep.
No need of whetstone or stropping
This knife in the water stays keen -
Its point and its edges redeeming
The intent of patience unseen.
Take heed of this sacred privilege
That sharp awareness keep its edge.
The Particularity And The Dream
The impressively monikered Karl du Fresne
Has just given ‘social scientist' Camille Nakhid
A good wigging for expressing the view
That immigrants should be given longer shrift.
Karl grew up in a small Hawkes Bay town
And he walks across his lawn every day
In the Wairarapa to write in his shed
For the Pakeha Establishment in Wellington.
Actually, I'm amazed at how tolerant
Our new immigrants are about how stuck
Up and up themselves the Old Chums
Are about their tightly-held corners.
And I think Karl is missing something
When he snides that we can safely assume
That people immigrate to New Zealand
Because it's infinitely better than the place they left.
...
And I get pissed off when the Oxford Companion
Makes a big point of the fact that Allen Curnow
Was a fourth generation New Zealander
Who lived in a succession of Anglican vicarages in Canterbury.
And that the keepers of New Zealand literature
Quibble about whether Greville Texidor or Eve Langley
Exhibited a sufficiently restrictive desideratum
In articulating a New Zealand particularity or ‘common problem'.
And that Kendrick Smithyman slags
Tanned, earnest Slavic Polynesian faces
Or that David McKee Wright assumes that
The native who is a brother is a Pakeha.
Or that my beloved Iris Wilkinson
Talks so casually - so disparagingly about Nigger Jack...
Or that Tariana Turia cites an enormous public ignorance
That is starting to become actual hostility towards Maori.
...
Time to give some ground, time to move on
Time to open things up and make some space.
Let's face it, a quarter of us were born abroad
And then there are the more and more mixed.
Maybe the New Chums from Cambodia, Tonga
China, India, Iraq, Somalia, Nepal and Kingdom Come
Really need a bit more slack so that we can all pull together
To bring up the future with a golden tether.
The young, the best, the intelligent, brave and beautiful,
Have made a long migration under compulsions they hardly understand -
New generations are homing from distant shores
Imprinted with this destination by their dreams.
And an extraordinary thing may be happening.
From the edge of the universe, New Zealand
May become not only the site of our own dreams
But a place where the world wakes refreshed.
The Poetry Reading
There are five young women on the dais
And four of them read their poetry
In fits and starts - sometimes hesitant
Sometimes assured and bold
Speaking from the floor that represents
What is well-founded and fertile
The earth mother Papatuanuku
Above which extraordinary images
Traceries, totems and grotesques
Make claims for the world of men,
And questions are asked about
Forms and motivations
One of the poets mentions
The high seat or sky-throne of Odin
With an unpronounceable name Hliskjálf
And a tree big enough and old enough
To grow roots right through the earth
To become sea-serpents in the welcoming oceans.
But I think of Yggdrasil and the Norns
Who draw water from the Well of Fate
To sustain the tree - and tell of what is
What was and what should be
Drawing up meanings cast as runes or names
For what is lost but may yet be found.
Doubtless now it will come to women
To have the last word in the last days
In a world run from the alpha to the omega
To the seventh seal and the seventh angel.
This is the dawning of the Age of Amazons
As beauty awakes and ancient veils are lifted -
Of the Warrior Princess and Wonder Woman
Bouncy, chosen daughters in leather pelmets
Trained and equipped with sword and buckler
To take arms against a sea of male foibles
And rescue the world from perfidy and dishonour
In a maelstrom of improbably costumed martial arts.
The Poetry Round
TAKING ON WATER AS I TACK HOME
Up at the bar, the timber looks new
Shiny, stripped back and light in colour.
I have moored my yawl on reclaimed land
And set my money down for an IPA
Here at our oldest pub, The Thistle.
As I enter, a sign claims ‘Founded 1840'
And I browse between the prints and photos
Showing the building's sepia history,
Circumnavigating a table of bright young things -
And a dark lady in the corner.
She notices my trawling and asks
Are you interested in the past?
She brings her drink and then her hand bag over
And we sit and share a conversation
At first about the Wearable Arts Show.
Soon, we share common ground at the shore
And I remind her that the great Chief Te Rauparaha
Used to drag his waka up the muddy beach
And order a whiskey or two, while chatting to the whalers,
Yarning stories about his kids and his massacres.
Then we exchange names at which she is playfully precise:
'Hine Mahoney but you can call me Jenny -
Don't say Maloney - don't say baloney.
You say you are a writer, let's do rounds of poems'.
This more or less was one of mine.
When it has come to my advantage, I call
‘The Love of My Life' to tie the rondeau.
She responds - dreamily, insistently
'My whakapapa: for I am wahine atua
From te whare tangata (the doorway of life) ...
They took our language not just our land'.
I chide them for her, the Founding Fathers:
The only country in the world founded
By Real Estate Agents, who divided before they grew -
Still speculating on a housing or a dairy boom.
Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black.
In the old age black was not counted fair
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
The fisherman has tide and fish to catch
The sea has beach and cliff to own
The heart breasts waves that ebb and die
Swimming deep it falters by and by
And those who grieve are oft bereft alone.
Two is my limit, I'm afraid -
I don't want to wrap the car round a lamp post.
My young sons were overwrought from
The school production and set to watch a Pokemon film
And there is a 20: 20 later tonight from India.
The Pohutakawa On The Driveway
Into the stark retaining wall
Formed of planking and stanchions
Seed-dust was blown in late autumn
Finding a foothold.
Thin sustenance and moisture:
But a form, a chance of life
For an indomitable spirit
Seeking the light, and the hope of grounding
As lost and distant as the early earth itself -
Where flowering first cast back the sunlight,
And stem and leaf drew nectar from the soil -
The dreamt land for which all hungers seek.
Slowly the seedling crown is formed
Its roots edging apart the piles -
Coming increasingly to culmination,
Branches standing out, standing up.
And then hope against hope and more
Adventurous adventitious rootlets drop,
Trailing, searching red-ragged for crevices
And pockets of dirt - for a place to stand.
Come this summer, bedrock has been gained
Interminable to calculus and ecstasy -
And happy in that delightful, loose release of ease
Festivities of flowers now celebrate in fountain sprays.
The Possibility Of Refuge
No doubt love was born in attraction and protection.
The attraction of sexuality to ensure procreation
And the necessity of protection for its creations -
The ability to foster the defenceless and needy young
And the partnerships that protect and defend caregivers.
And the age-old pain, chronicled in numberless forms -
Of being apart and being together, of return and farewell,
Of intimations of predation, famine, disease and madness -
Is an inexorable and necessary precursor and condition
Of universal joy, universal sorrow and universal life.
What then of the light of the lode-star, the guiding star
Piercing the immensity of the dark sky and its eternity?
Such stars we know are not fixed but trace out circles
On the celestial sphere aligning, revolving and retreating
Timelessly in our reckoning but also inevitably finite.
The starlight brings us back to what we feel and hear
Touching the clear stream, listening to the necklace
Of songs remade of the spellbound heart, born of affection,
Given life by desire, coition, neediness and sustenance
And the possibility of refuge as the stars endlessly align.
The Pukeko And The Kiwi
RED-NOSED STICKY BEAKS AND QUIET ACHIEVERS
Pukeko:
You wouldn't come down from the tree
To grub the forest free
Like the good Kiwi.
Quirky- perky; gawky-jerky,
Clumsy-lurky; swampie-turkey
Pukeko:
Now a stubborn mean old marshy
Poking a red flash nosey
How would you be?
Quirky- perky; gawky-jerky,
Clumsy-lurky; swampie-turkey
...
Kiwi:
Once aloft flight-borne and feathery
Adorned in coloured finery
Nought left to see.
Quaintly-quietly; darkly-shyly
Dimly-dainty; delving-nightly
Kiwi:
Brave one, flying down from the tree
To grub the forest free
Loved by Tane.
Quaintly-quietly; darkly-shyly
Dimly-dainty; delving-nightly.
The Raspberry On The Window Sill
And so after twenty years I returned to her cottage
There is an otherness to its steps and roof and lights
But the porch still creaks, the awning still moves in the wind.
I am twelve again – I run barefoot across the rough ground
Having picked raspberries and held them in the palm of my hand.
I stretch up to the kitchen window and there is grandma at the stove
I put one raspberry on the window sill as a keepsake
And then I hide. The time has gone to pick gooseberries
Eat veggie soup or water the garden flowers.
But this scene will always be with me.
Still we must gather and eat - there will be black bread with white salt and
golden oil
And loved ones around the fire – though here the hearth is cold and we have
parted.
I simply can’t pick gooseberries without grandma.
The house grew tired of waiting for me but now at least it is happy
That I am standing in the kitchen sensing a whiff of home-made soup.
[Translation / adaptation of a poem by the contemporary Russian poet Anna
Horwitz]
The Red-Tailed Black Cockatoo
Lonely and lofty in the Stringybark Gum
With scarcely a chance of seeing a chum
Even with a bright red flash on its bum
There's rarely two of this black cockatoo:
Which gets it down and makes it blue
As would be true too for me and you
The Reproof
The old king reigned over bounty and plenty
But justice failed and none respected his rule -
Until a warrior came who stood firm in renown
Pledging honour and truth at the hill fort gates.
And the king, who was enchanted, wagered
The highest prizes of the kingdom's manifest
For the emblems that the warrior displayed
Signifying the everlasting beauty of what is true.
For the warrior held a staff bearing nine apples
Of red gold bonded from the orchards of Avalon,
And at his waist was hung the sword Answerer
That none could gainsay with lies at the last,
While in his pack he carried a golden bowl
That would break three times if lies were spoken
And meld three times, becoming whole again -
Bringing the dead to life - if the truth was spoken.
‘Take them all old man, for what is right is right -
That there be no more deceit or double-dealing,
That honour becomes the mainstay and cornerstone
Of your kingdom - the music of justice a delight
And amusement for those who are well, and a healing
For those who are ill - bringing joy, sleep and solace.
And as for me, I will take in return nothing that is special
Simply that which in nature is love and therefore truest.
And betimes the warrior returned to take up the bargain
Standing fierce in the power that honour brought -
First taking the king's daughter and then his son
And then his beloved wife - leaving only the honesty of loss.
Then the king saw beyond the excess of what had been -
Beyond heaviness, sadness, jealousy, envy, and pride -
Hearing true melody when the bough was shaken
The sword tested, and the golden bowl resealed.
Watch! Riders thatching with the wings of swans
Will not close the roof tree against the stars:
And the young lord turned profligate and wastrel
Will burn fine oak beyond replenishment:
See! The five streams of scant understanding
Run to sand from the Well of Knowledge:
And silence beset men of artistry and deception
As lies, dishonour and discredit come to nought.
For what was given must be received
And the cattle which stray be returned:
Such that which was brought is checked
And each ones' granary holding affirmed:
And the milk of the seven cows is yielded
As the fleece of the seven sheep lies shared:
That the king and his kindred be then restored
And the debts of the Land of Promise redeemed.
And so the old king slept, awakening to the truth
That to safeguard those he loved he must rule well,
That truth is to be seen in the smiles of those beloved
And that the commonplace is the source of what is sound.
And it passed in a dream - the sword was not put to the test,
The bough was not brought to harvest and the bowl held whole:
And the warrior who wrought the judgment reproving falsehood
Returned to the sea's enchanted realm and its righteous constancy.
The Right Tempo
ROAD PATROL
I was on road patrol this term.
My team Hannah and Claire
Did a great job.
I was supposed to have been
With my ten-year old son
Theo and his mate Otis.
Theo said: 'Please dad don't
We'll be fine'.
Anyhow, Hannah and Claire
Were always on time
And used the lollipops well
Weighing up the traffic
And the kids, mums and strollers
Carefully.
‘Poles out - Cross Now'
Looking left and right
And left again.
The one time I did it with Theo
He nearly totalled a toddler
With a lollipop backswing.
It's just a shame
That the world is not run
By ten-year old girls.
The Scarcely-Seen
There are signs from past places that find us
Times from past phases that surprise us
Presences drawn from beyond the veil
From other lives, other planes, lost regions.
At the drop of a latch at midnight
The guttering of a spent candle
The start of a droplet of rain or blood
Can you sense them, the scarcely seen?
At the passing of the moon into cloud
The wolf's howling come to silence
The charcoal hand-print on the rock wall
Can you sense them, the scarcely seen?
At the black rising of the rookery
The alertness of the fox at earth-break
The dropping of the burning stave
Can you sense them, the scarcely seen?
At the failing of the winter sun
The gathering of bats in the eves
The hiding of vermin in the wainscot
Can you sense them, the scarcely seen?
At the enfolding onset of slumber,
As dreams are wrapped sleep-tight
And there is a sudden violent tumbling
Can you sense them, the scarcely seen?
The Seat Divine Sees Monarchy Renew
TO THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE
MADAM
Thus we have welcomed you with bare delight
And shown the promise of our swelling throngs
So we display our best within thy sight
And you may share our native thongs and songs.
But soon the reasons why you're loved by all,
Grow infinite, and pass what glimpsing teaches,
Regardless of the straps that rise or fall
Betraying gaps the Maori challenge breeches.
Since you are then Will's masterpiece, and know
His token for our loves, do as you do;
Make your return home gracious, and so
Vouchsafe this sight for us - the best of you.
But as, although a squint short-sightedness
Be ungracious, you cannot leave our lands;
Without a moment that I might express
My love, when I perceive the zephyr lift your dress.
As the helicopter eclipses and despoils
Royal modesty when the rotors ground,
Amid the turmoil so the vesture roils
And photographic flashes there abound.
Venus help me, I could not miss you there,
Your Kallipygos guise has claimed my token,
And any ills that flesh may bear
Erase with awe and majesty awoken.
Plain and sweet the left, plain and sweet the right;
By these we thus divine the absence of tattoo
The rumps which have the blessing of the light,
The seat divine sees monarchy renew.
In everything where nature grows
Are winds to keep it fresh and new
And turning cheeks the rear end shows;
Your birth and beauty are this balm in you.
The Sentence Of Sentience - And All That Bulldust
What Richard Dawkins can't seem to get his head around
Is that our creation or evolution or whatever you want to call it
Is just an enormous joke - a life form jest punctuating eternity
So now we have seven to ten billion of us standing at the edge
Of a kind of cosmic black hole wavering on the brink of
Our own subsequent anonymity - largely oblivious to the abyss
But there is a kind of collective half-understanding
That we are reaching an impasse and that there may be nothing
Sensible to be done - that our time is disappearing into singularity.
Sometimes steers go mad when they near the slaughterhouse
And although they are limited in terms of imagination and intelligence
They sense the horror of the end - upsetting the equilibrium -
And the abattoir guardians of the stun-gun impose order on chaos,
Just as strong men and women are now arising amid human confusion
Appearing to promise hope - and a return to an ordered processing.
But more generally we infer that space and time may exhibit 'holes' or 'edges'
With singularities that are best defined as some kind of 'pathological behaviour'
That takes place on the swilled floor provided by infinity - inevitably.
Anyhow, as gates are closed on the mob, I'm determined to stand back
And cherish the small glimmerings of collective empathy
And noble purpose that we glimpsed on our stock-truck trip - what a laugh!
The Seven Sisters Lost
In the dreaming time
The Napaljarri sisters
Were wooed by Wardilyka
An old Jampijinpa man
Whose skin-token
Matched the tribal taboo
But the seven girls
Did not love him.
Then as the sky darkened
Jukurra-Jukurra
A Jakamarra brave
From a rival caste and clan
Also sought the girls
Though his skin was forbidden
And in delight the seven maids
Loved him from afar in fear.
And so the seven sisters fled
From both shame and love -
Sought by the unwise old man
And the young stranger warrior -
Until in their haste
They fell from the edge of the earth
And were chased into the dark sky
Becoming pure but pitiable stars.
The Silvereye or 'Stranger' [Tauhou]
Farewell my love, the ship slips hove
With mollies set shore-side
Our whalers' rove in Sydney Cove
Has reached its time and tide.
Finches flocking high above
Pigs on deck, rum and cheese to hold
Sails are furled out-wide -
A whale-ship bold with harpoons stowed
And eyes now quickly dried.
A cloud to mast-trees tied
Beyond the heads the course is set
For Tasman’s eastern isles
To Zealand’s coast where whales are met
And lads must face their trials.
The flock ne'er once resiles
The skipper looks up top and smiles
To see the sweet birds wheel
With passage fair, far the miles
The shadows rigging-resting steal.
And the mascots sleep aloft
The tops break white and bright
The weather light in breeze
A sea with greenstone azure tint
That sparkles bright turquoise.
Stranger now the die is cast
Twenty sunny endless days have past
Amid the rocking trees -
The flock grows weaker at the last
Abreast the western breeze.
A nau mai haere mai tauhou
The morning dawns to gulls at sea
And fresh dews on the deck -
See long white clouds at distant lee
With land a hinted speck.
A nau mai haere mai tauhou
And soon the old brig draws to shore
Near Paritutu Rock
And warriors to whalers roar
While gifts are taken stock.
A nau mai haere mai tauhou
As Maori break the musket chest
Whalers gather daughters
But silvereyes are now at rest
That wide calm sea has brought us.
A nau mai haere mai tauhou
...
'Kia korero koe i te ngutu o te manu,
Kia hoki ana mai to wairua ki te ao nei—i—i! '
[Welcome - welcome stranger.
Speak with the bill of a bird
Reincarnated to this world.]
The Slow, Low Ache Of Seasoned Testing
I very much suspect that growing pains
Continue as our substance lays down rings:
Like the monsoon trees that grow with the rains -
Or the temperate trees that winter brings
To stasis and sleep for the time being
When the frosts and snows value strength not growth -
With the Spring mere creed for the believing
And Summer's prophesy a doubtful oath.
Rough bark, thin-skin, bast, sapwood, heartwood, pith
They are there within us. Cut through and see
The outer shell sawn back to seedling birth
Each scarred circle the making of the tree.
Can't you feel the deadwood and its dying
The slow, low ache of seasoned testing?
The Song Of The Cicada [[Maori 'Tatarakihi']
Singing children:
School platoon on the march,
shepherded carefully
by the harbourside
to Te Papa.
I listen
to the song
of this wiggly taniwha
telling of the cicadas
lost to the night
… and Parihaka.
Tara ra ta ki ta ki ta
Tara ra ta ki ta ki ta
Stumbling-bumping,
kerfuffle-shuffling
clumsily-queuing:
chanting their haka.
Nga tamariki e waiata
ana i te Tatarakihi
The children
and their song
about the cicada.
The Southern Cassowary
The flightless Southern Cassowary
Casuarius casuarius johnsonii
Has a dad who is customarily
Abusive
So is understandably
Shyly and warily
Reclusive.
The Southern Corroboree Frog
The Southern Corroboree Frog
Used to sing in the tussockland bog
With squiggle-top skin
It hopped out and in
To serenade logs in the fog.
The Sthenurus
COMING OUT AS BI
Roo keep movin' - youse swankin' something dilly
Something's up your pouch so confess
You've been flammin' when you should have been griffin'
And now science has put it to the test
Youse roos were made for walking
And that's just what youse did
Spruikin' won't unsure us
Youse struthin' Sthenurus.
Yeah, you keep amblin' when you oughta be hoppin'
And you keep stuntin' when you oughta upped it
You keep slopin' when you oughta be a scotchin'
Now, what's right is right but you ain't been right yet
Youse roos were made for walking
And that's just what youse did
Spruikin' won't unsure us
Youse struthin' Sthenurus.
You keep strollin' when you should have be stillin'
And you keep thinkin' that you'll never get caught
But I've just found me a brand new box of fossils
That ends the lies I never should have bought
Youse roos were made for walking
And that's just what youse did
Spruikin' won't unsure us
Youse struthin' Sthenurus.
The Stubborn Fragility Of Orchids
We have two orchids which had become very much neglected.
The one, though apparently healthy but barren and austere,
Denied sufficient water and nutrients, overtopped its pot
And struck roots deep into the emptiness below the glass cabinet,
An ugly, straggled tangle, in places scarring the surface of the wood
Desperate for sustenance and an opportunity for life -
The other, in a small pottery box, was beset with a hardy weed
That grew like tousled cress and came to tiny blue flowers
But the container, lacking any kind of drainage,
Ponded what little water had been provided, stunting
The second orchid so that only two shriveled, scarred leaves
Protruded from its alternately saturated and dessicated cup.
After I had visited my sister and seen how her orchids flourished
The reproaches of the Buddha that guarded the glass cabinet
Became too much to bear and I resolved to amend my caring.
I bought two deep identical plastic containers that hold basal water,
And a sufficiency of enriched wood chips appropriate to orchids.
In the first place, I carefully wrapped all the excess roots into the container
And packed the flakes of bark around them leaving the plant standing proud
In the second, I gently nestled the damp and half-decayed roots
Among a cornucopia of woody detritus that simulated a tree bole
And then I reminded myself to water gently, considerately, consistently
My two adopted green orphans, new charges for my daily rounds
In setting things to right and creating space for growth in homely order.
This morning when I learned of the death of an old friend,
Heavy with regret and reminiscence I wrote to his wife:
'Heather, I was so sorry to hear your news - a wonderful man.
Please accept my most sincere condolences and best wishes'.
Now I don't think that he would have complained of being neglected
And nor can I claim indifference in the great scheme of things:
We have had good lives, well lived with friends and family,
With consistent caring ultimately making all the difference -
As for the orchids, they are going gang-busters under the new regime
With the larger one parading a bunch of magenta blossoms
And the smaller and most neglected first opening and greening its two leaves
To then disclose the promise of tight overlapping buds at its centre.
No doubt there are lessons to be learned here about men and orchids
About the processes of renewal and transcendence
But considering the mix of nature, nurture and fragile vitality
It is beyond me as to exactly who or what is contained.
The Swift Parrot - Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing
NAUGHTINESS OF THE SWIFTIE: Canto 1
[AFTER ALEXANDER POPE]
Nolueram, Velocita, tuos violare pennae;
Sed juvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis.
I was long unwilling, Swiftie, to violate your feathers
But am pleased now that I acceded to your entreaties
(Martial, Epigrams: 12: 84)
What flighty congress rises up on rainbow wings
What dire distress from polly-amory springs?
May I suppress this verse though it be due
That even Long John may forego to view:
The subject is the Swiftie and its lays
And If the Muse conspires, its sexy ways.
What strange motive, Polly, could compel
A reclusive forest dweller to a polly-androus hell
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplored
Could make of innocence a promiscuous bird?
And in the trees the lure of casual dalliance
Give all but pornographic parrots deep offence?
The Taipan
The taipan is an 8 foot snake
Whose treading on is some mistake.
Deep in the Aussie Outback yonder
If off the beaten track you wander
You may feel an elapid mandibular crush -
Then a shikkering neurotoxic rush
While its haemolytics clot the blood -
And curse the spot where once you stood.
Its coagulopathics should not be vilipended
You may be short on time to be amended.
The Tasmanian Devil
A handsome Tasmanian Devil
Strayed from the straight and level
He preyed on the chicks
And tricked them for kicks
In tandem depravity revel.
The Thrymskvitha - In Modern Poetry
Then Thor the son of Odin and of Mother Earth
Woke to find that his thunderous hammer
Had been taken as he slept and that his power was gone.
And his beard and hair afire with anger
At the loss of the moulder and melder of fates -
He sought out his sly brother Loki
Raging that the striker down
That grounded sky to earth
Had been stolen by the giants.
Then Loki went to Freya the Fair
The Mistress of the Heavens
And asked to borrow her cloak
And fearing massive devilry
She gave her cloak willingly
With its silver clouds and golden dawns
And Loki flew far abroad with the sky-cape
Coming at last to the Home of the Giants -
Cunning and enchanted from the Elf-kingdom -
There Thrym the mighty giant king hailed him,
As he flexed the golden leashes of his hounds
And stroked the flowing manes of his steeds.
'Ghostly one, how are the gods faring now
Have they sent you to bring me good news?'
'Alas' said Loki, 'things go badly now with us
The hammer that anneals and tempers has been lost'.
Unwisely Thrym confided to the spectre
'I have taken the hammer and hidden it
Eight miles deep in the heartless iron beneath
It will no longer ring for the making of things -
It will be locked within the anvil itself
Unless Freya the Fair becomes my wife'.
Then Loki returned to the realm of the gods
Meeting Thor in the forecourt of Asgard
Both downcast with their separate sorrows.
'What news do you bring from the far realms
Tell me truly - is there an answer for our loss?
Quickly speak before the understanding fades'.
'My honest brother, the news I bring is bad -
Thrym the king of giants has stolen the hammer
And will not return it until Freya is his wife'.
Then they went to Freya, telling her the news
That she should bind on a bridal veil
To safeguard the bringing together of things
But she grew angry and snorted her disgust
At the thought of slaking the King of Giant's lust
Bursting the Brising-elfin Necklace on her breast.
Then the far-famed gods met in counsel
To plot for the recovery of the lightning-striker
And its return to the hands of its wielder Thor.
And Heimdall the white - the wisest of all -
Who foresaw the waxing and waning of fate
Said: ‘Thor must wear the bridal veil and necklace -
Dress him in a woman's pretty skirt and shift
Let there be keys hanging from his perfumed girdle
Gems in his hair and a fetching little cap for his head'
But Thor answered bashfully, blushing with wroth:
'It speaks badly of my honour and manhood
That I should be brought betrothed behind a veil'.
Then Loki spoke up: 'Thor accept your trial -
If you can no longer temper the earth with heaven's fire
The giants will become the rulers of Asgard'.
And so they decked out Thor for the bridal feast
With the keys to pleasure rattling from his sash
And his beard well-hidden beneath a silken mask
And Loki went first as the bride's maid servant
Announcing to Thrym the arrival of Freya the Fair
Bringing the dowry demanded from the gods
And the giants made ready the beasts of sacrifice
And as the blood ran into the altar cauldrons
The mountains burst and earth burned with fire
Then Thrym ordered the giants to make ready:
'Put fresh straw on the floors and benches
Cleanse the tables and unseal the mead flagons
Now they are bringing Freya the Fair my bride -
Beyond compare to the gold-horned cattle of my byres
The jet-black oxen of my yards, and my gems and jewels -
She is come and with her beauty I will lack for nothing'.
Then the feasting began - and beer and mead were served -
And Thor ate an ox, ten swans and eight salmon
And all the dainty treats that were set for the women
And out-drank all the other wedding guests together
Quaffing three tuns of mead and many horns of ale.
Then Thrym the leader of the giants became uneasy
'Whoever saw a bride with such a bite on her
Or a maiden who drank to the dregs of mead like this?'
But Loki the arch and artful handmaiden
Answered convincingly for her mistress:
'She has fasted eight days longing for Jotunheim and you'.
Then Thrym lifted aside the silk - longing for a kiss
But became fearful and leaped back in dread:
'Why do the eyes of my beloved burn so fiercely?'
And again Loki, serving the goddess, answered:
Have no fear, her eyes are over-bright with dreaming
She has not slept for eight nights longing for Jotunheim and you'
And the giant's luckless sister asked for the bridal fee:
'Take off the rings of red gold that kept you whole
And take up willingly the welcome of your husband'.
Then Thrym set to seal the wedding with spells:
'Bring in the hammer that it may hallow the bride
Let it lie on the maid's lap that we may be bonded'.
But Thor, the hard-souled one laughed cruelly
Seizing the fiery hammer of the heavens to beat down
First Thrym his giant suitor and then his warriors and followers
Until finally, he slew the giant king's uncomely sister -
And she who had demanded the bridal fee of rings
Received scot-free a death blow from the hammer.
And the hammer Mjolnir was returned in triumph to Asgard
The moulder and melder once more of outcomes
The bringer of victories - the creator of lasting harmonies.
The Titipounamu or 'Rifleman' Wren
Seeking escape from enslaved beguilement
The young warrior turned against the crone
Who had kept him in enchanted confinement
Persuading him her love fused them to one.
But he took heart and courage, when she left
The cave to hunt the forest floors and shades,
And killed the trophy captures that she kept
To celebrate her bloody sharp-toothed raids.
Fearing her wroth and reprisal, he fled
Thinking none survived to tell the tale -
But one small agate-jewelled wren hid
And brought the news to her of his betrayal.
So she, tracking her mocking, faithless lover
Found him hidden within a monstrous stone
That shone bright with jade from core to cover -
Seizing there a precious greenstone boon.
The Tui
The Tui chortles mid the trees
With cheerily yodelled ease -
A ruffian with a vicar's collar
He fluffs it up, and then lets holler:
'ck 'uk gerk garr quolla!
He flits among the flaxes
To extract the nectary waxes
And lodges where he pleases
To dodge refractory squeezes
'ck 'uk gerk garr quolla!
Tuis never sing the Blues
And almost always come in twos
One plus Tui rare makes three
Oh my, oh boy, how could that be?
'ck 'uk gerk garr quolla!
The Wisdom In The Rending Wind - The Ruru Or
Morepork
The storm is shifting rafters, lifting eves.
It’s dangerous to walk against the wind
And black rains lash and sting the hillsides blind
As now, so then hau puhi howls and heaves.
Those born of rutting sky and earth have sinned
And sorrows blow against the cliffs and trees.
The children rend the darkness, seize the light
And grief and yearning strain the breaking seas.
Now owlish eyes can turn from side to side
And guard as spirits stray and wander wide.
Dark and emptiness flee before the sight
Of warmth and wisdom as the gale retreats -
And you my friend will croon ruru tonight
When the waking Bush its dusky lover greets.
The Wombat
Apparently the wombat sucks its thumb
Away from home and missing mum -
Very sensitive and shy it seems
It’s prone to nerves and scary dreams.
Hairy bottom, hairy nose
And none too clean between the toes –
With hygiene less than ones desiring
It’s not surprising it’s retiring.
Left without shampoo or soap
The lovelorn then run out of rope -
Lacking cuddles, grope or hope
They stay at home and simply mope.
And when they seek a pal or mate
They’re oft too meek to score a date -
Eschewing roots and fruits the while
Neither philogynous nor androphile.
The numbers in the Warrumbungles
Face brooder's droop and lack of bundles -
And things are hardly fine and dandy
In Warnambool and Dirranbandi.
Across in Broken Hill just broken hearts
As dating agents wait for starts -
And bunga bunga’s out in Cunnamulla
Wagga Wagga, Toowoomba, Bulla Bulla...
With baby wombats rare in Hay
The gastronomes just stay away -
In Gundaroo there are so few
They’re using mutton now for stew.
But veterinarians are planning scripts to suit
With Viagra applied to stump and root -
Plus anxiety suppressing medication
And an social network application.
The World It Seems Is Ending In Fire
The world it seems is ending in fire,
As favored by the more passionate,
Whose first thoughts are of desire
Which kindles like the quickest element.
And whatever else comes to pass
It consumes its three rivals indifferently
Water and air to void and pallid gas
Earth to ash and cinder indiscriminately.
Not with a bang nor with a whimper -
Nor that hateful ice would ever suffice -
We will burn baby, spark to ember
In tender embassy of love - nice eh?
Dead water, dead sand, and burnt roses
Are where the story's ending smolders.
This Is How They Ara: The Tuatara
Our Te Ara
It’s the be’s and he’s
Our tuatara
He’s a fossil tease.
But I will bet
Your gold tiara
You won't find
No three-atara.
Those Girls
I used to keep a score and tick the list
Of names of girls who'd graced my bed
And on command they'd keep a tryst
And parade their beauty round my head.
It was a dream that froze and broke
As time took down my selfish youth
And I began to hear when women spoke
And saw when beauty was or wasn't truth.
‘I love you' were the words so lightly said
To lively smiles and curves and curls
Amusedly among the years that fled
Leaving loss and wonder in their stead
Now as careless boys and older lovers will
I set you free but hope you love me still.
Three Hares
Tell me, how can you distinguish
The male from the female hare?
Is it that the male sits on its haunches
And that the female has moist eyes?
Is it that the buck goes hoppity-skip
And the doe's eyes are misted and glazed
Or that he tucks his legs when sitting
And that she dims her gaze when he is near?
For the male has a lilting, scampering gait,
And the female's eyes become wild:
And the male's feet strike and kick
When she is fearful and at the edge of tears
But when Jack and Jill run together
How much alike they seem -
Who can see which is he and which is she
As they bound away side by side?
And when two hares are fighting, it is clear
A third, whether he or she, will refrain;
Unless perhaps in a shared innocence
That presages peace and tranquility.
Alone in likeness they have become an illusion
In fighting and pairing they become a dream
In the possibility of the third way a mirage
Nothing distinguished - impermanent, insubstantial
Thursday Morning
BLOSSOM THROSTLE
Every morning, I say:
'Do you want some coffee
Blossom Throstle?'
And you say:
'That would be great'
Or, 'Maybe'
Or, 'I have to have a shower
Because I need to do my hair'
Or, 'I‘ll just do my make-up'.
You like it strong with a dash of milk
I like buckets of Trim
But we both abjure sugar
As it is a modern-day excess.
After my heart has stopped
Palpitating, I settle
In my favourite green chair
And meditate.
I always look at the bank
Under the mustard-coloured house
And try to see how far
My planting is coming along.
On Thursdays, we take out the rubbish
In our green wheelie bins
Because the trucks might
Damage the road.
This morning, Joanne scurried out
Through the morning rain
With her bin and sprinted back -
More of a wet chook than a thrush.
And you are taking the boys
Early for road patrol
And then on to sort the clothes
With Justine for the School Fair.
Now the rain has died down
The birds are singing again.
To My Tart Mistress - Enough Of The Hissy Fit Storm
Wellington
You were in a foul mood this morn
Tossing your curls at every turn -
As the sun rose, there were salt tears
And shrill scolds and glowers fierce.
Hell hath no fury like that gale
That puts hearts down to shrink and fail.
Had we but world enough and time
This temper lady were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To quieten and set to rights the play
Across the storm-tossed harbour side
Where lingers love upon the tide.
Still unchecked blasts bemoan no good
As breakers cross the beach and flood
And so I must forgo your praise
As on destruction wide I gaze.
Once adored now a harpy beast
I set you now amongst the least.
But smiles will come on other days
When freshling conquests test thy ways -
Lady none can with thee compare
When skies are blue and sun is fair.
No more complaints - I love you still
And see it clear and always will.
To The Objects Of Our Desires And Any Necessary
Objections
Everything is talking to us - if we stop to listen.
Look out then for the notes in signs
The sounds in the unsound and the sound
The melodic in the iconic
Even the symbolic in unclashed cymbals.
Take a crank shaft - it is indicative
Or an egg tray as an ideogram
Or a plant become a pictogram
Or a Rubik Cube that is transformed.
Look out then for the clear notes, the strong sounds
The signs, the symbols, the icons, the ideas - the emotions
Picking up the rhemes, themes and memes that are fundamental
To our own wellbeing and the safety of society
Picking up the rhythm - letting things strike a chord.
No doubt it is easier if you are versed in Chinese writing
Where chunks of text are sorted and arrayed and clicked into place
And more difficult for us in that our sentences are strings
That run on loosely - largely lacking in form -
Depending more on punctuation and instrumentation.
But we can still listen deeply to the sounds of objects -
To the objects of our desires and any necessary objections -
To the essence of things - transformations and translations.
Toad Redux
If you stay still you will freeze
Even with a blanket round your knees.
Purposefully I search for a florin
In my pocket seams to slot in.
The waning gas has popped
Growing shallow, yellow … greyed.
Huddle still towards the fire's lattices
Oblivion and hibernation crevices
Soaking up the last rays
In the final passable days:
‘Girl there's a better life, can't you see
For you and me' - you have to agree.
As the cold gathers and the coin is slotted
Move now before the toad has squatted.
Traces
[Losses brought forward from 1970]
An image retrieved from the USB
Shows a girl in a drill-knit turtleneck -
High cheeks, her hair swept up. She looks at me
She is strong, she is afraid - she turns to check.
Kindly, she has been scanned as a keepsake.
Such likeness no longer hurts me or her:
For goodness sake, long lost, our joy's mistake.
But I too turn from present strength to fear.
Traces of love that didn’t work out right
Memories of guilt in bits and pieces
Smiles that were better never brought to life
I close my eyes until the prayer ceases.
Two score years and five and still I live
Trusting we who failed must now forgive.
Tragic And Novel
The first of my four wives
Once described my life
As a Bad Russian Novel
And this morning my
Current and fourth wife
Responding to my observation
That after going Up to Cambridge
I wore cravats and breakfasted
On wild strawberries and pink champagne
In the company of my teddy bear Algernon
Said that it had been all downhill since then
And that my life had all the bathos of a Greek Tragedy.
Australian and New Zealand girls
Can be very cutting
But as Ned Kelly said
In less fortunate circumstances:
‘Such is life’.
Train Time
[for my small sons]
In the TV room
Trains on the floor
Down in the hallway
Trains by the door
Up on the bench
Engines galore
Pile on the table
More than before
Thomas is tugging
Troublesome trucks
Bill’s in the siding
And Douglas is stuck
Spencer needs water
But Gordon’s in luck
Salty loves fishing
And Percy hates muck
Daisy is smiling
And purring around
Settebello is cruising
With scarcely a sound
While Diesel is plotting
Tram Toby is found
And Harold is whizzing
Way off the ground
Steam in the funnel
Down at the zoo
Trains in the tunnel
Got to come through.
Trucking Fatstock By Road Train From Urupunga To
Katherine Meatworks In The Northern Territory
This is a country of rushes and ringing in,
Of clean-skins and bang-tailed musters,
Of hunting strays from the shrinking waters
Of the smell of leather and horses and diesel
Of yard gates closed and road trains rolling up.
This is a country of scrub bulls and trap cattle,
Of endless plains and dead-end tracks
Where insignificance rolls onwards and forward
Under red dust through sparse scrub
And the rigs will find their station late of day.
This is a country where the land falls away
Behind the horizon as the brutal sun
Glows ochre-daubed and heat glimmered
At close of play and the loading ramp goes quiet
And the driver checks tires and couplings
This is a country where stock is broken
And those untamed are fenced and penned
And even the wildest from the bush runs
Are lulled by rubbing girths and stifles
As the road train runs on into the night
Come the deepest dark the lights shine out
Across the red country and its dusty trails
Into the black soil plains, fighting for the hard top,
Culvert by culvert, marker by marker flash-lighting
Tremors and shadows from the convoy.
Hands too tired and lips too dry to seal a roll-your-own,
Come the dawn and the bitumen straight as a die
Leads on to Katherine, stun gun and skinning knife:
This is a land of small and very grudging mercies
With no holds barred on driving hell for leather.
Trump Koi About Muddied Waters
BIG FISH HAIKU
Orange and flaky
Floundering the closing net
Fishy to the gills.
Twenty-Five Degrees Celsius
... as the political temperature rises:
Can you hear a ripple of imminence?
The sense that things are changing impalpably
That we are being morphed to a new state
Amused, bemused, beguiled, placated
Locked into a soporific sauna of clammy lies
And that those who tend the embers envision
Our frog consciousness will slowly dwindle.
Can you feel the rise of prescience?
A fear that rights are degrading irremediably
Being eroded gradually without debate
Abused, refused, reviled, negated
As the fug stupefies and the will dies
And those who intend to rob us of decision
Slop the coals with a swindle ladle.
But also conceive sentience in the silence?
The dictate that lines must be drawn finally -
That soft-soaping set aside, it is never too late
Awakened, goaded, riled, rededicated
To step up, green as we are, blinking our eyes
Rejecting the parboiled amphibian option
To fight for truth and love as best we are able.
Two Chairs
Take a seat, let it take your weight
And let us sit together quietly
Setting aside stories and end-points
For presence and being.
Look - the space between us is open:
An altar if it suits your purpose
Or a surface for the prayer mat.
…
God's very own the West
God's very own the East;
As also the North and South
Gathered in love and truth.
…
Set aside racing the run of day
For the time the seconds chase
Will never show a fairer face;
Come close and let the stillness show
Where we must put the world away
To draw it closer as the silence grows:
Let's tell unheard our secret sorrows
To the shadows that the sundial throws,
For what goes forward and what is past
Will never alter time or stay its haste:
Then let what's left unsaid in quietness strengthen
The amity that calmly sharing space will lengthen.
…
God's very own the West
God's very own the East;
As also the North and South
Gathered in love and truth.
…
So let us study distinction and its absence:
That there is no separation
Of what is apart and what is in contact;
That there is no form or formlessness
As edges and envelopes are unsealed;
That there is no resting or resolution
As emptiness and decay are inevitable;
That thusness is fleeting and yet perceptible
With reality and illusion in mutual shadow;
That life and its converse co-arise
The sentient born of and returning to the insentient;
That we may distinguish the qualities of people
All special - but then there is nothing special;
That when we get up from the chair,
And return to the world from the mountain,
Or from the wilderness, it is in the natural order
That we should recognise compassion.
…
God's very own the West
God's very own the East;
As also the North and South
Gathered in love and truth.
…
The place between has now been won
Our streams of thought together run
And in the catchment likeness grows
Perfect in the peace that confluence knows.
Set down the books that mention blame
And hear our hearts make thinking tame:
Catch the breath and count its pulse
Still the drives that thoughts convulse
Quicken so the quietened revelation
That kindness alone is ample adoration
And togetherness itself a heavenly dedication.
...
God's very own the West
God's very own the East;
As also the North and South
Gathered in love and truth.
Two Points - For Damian Mackenzie
He settles into his kicking
Looking to convert a try.
Just what is he thinking -
And why is he smiling?
The heart's own quiet gathers
Looking for the sweet spot.
At this moment nothing matters
Just a memory and slotting the shot.
Unconditional Acceptance
It is a fine autumn morning
In the riverside park
Backed by bush-clothed hills
At the start of the trail run.
The flats are green with long-mown grass
Specked with celandines, dandelions and daisies
And the trees curl leaves to the retreating
Northern sun - catching the best of the day.
There are oaks, sycamores and willows
And plantings from North America
Like the maple that is turning bronze
Mimicking its forbears in the Fall.
I talk directly and tersely to God
Offering a brusque thank you for it all.
I don't do obeisance and obedience anymore
We have come over the years to an understanding:
When I sit and then kneel
For a which art in heaven
Or thy kingdom come
I don't do reverence when I stand up
When I pay my dues
And burn a candle
For what I have lost
And for those I love
I stand back determinedly
Turning quickly on my heels
Walking away without regret -
After all we have come a long way together.
But I recite my prayer nonetheless:
Of those things that you forgive
But that I cannot forgive
Of those things that I forgive
But that I cannot forget
Of those things that others did
That rankle still
Of the things I think
But would rather have not come to mind
Of the ending already compromised
And the promise only part fulfilled
Of being sometimes without skin
And feeling the pain of others like my own
Of being neglectful and unthinking
Averting my eyes and shrinking back my hand.
Yet as the sun shines and the birds sing
I know that we both mean well.
Along the river bank, the path narrows
And there is a giant Macrocarpa Cypress
Massive and magnificent (its partner stumped)
Singled out now by a red-painted cross.
I go up and give it a hug
Turning away determinedly.
I don't do reverence anymore
Only unconditional acceptance.
Unlike The Stateless
In the pitch-black of the pin-drop night
Deep-sleep wakened to an estranged bed
Unsure of flight or fight, or wrong and right
I toss in nightmare of the life I led.
I am at the end of a work assignment
In a far distant and hostile country
Alone - trapped deep in a predicament
Of suspended payments not knowing why.
Unable to access the funds I need,
Packing, unpacking, missing my plane flight:
In despair to resolve things and make speed
Doubling-back desperate to make things right.
But I am here at home and all is well
Unlike the stateless in this living hell.
Up Grogan's Creek
[For the Magazine 'Overland']
What the f**k ago-go
In the lip-trap embargo
Secular segmented
Variously allocated
I will outline your body
With a terminal array
Of schist louvres
Claws hors d'oeuvres
Come the tessellated moments
Pitching horseshoes and tents
the bunyip in the wadi
camel akimbo humping lonely
Burke and Wills upskirt queer
Drop bear, digeridoo - dig here
Leering the taipan surviving the goanna
A selfie-starting Pianola login or Joanna
No more quarter or stock horse
Neither here or there a matter of course
A tool-scarred coolibah the last resource
Utility And Creative Licence
And I said
I don’t see how it helps you
To humiliate me
And she sobbed
I don’t want to humiliate you.
And later that night after
Grand-standing and sulks
Thong and high heels
We made love
And she thought of the ironing
And I thought
Worriedly - hurriedly
Of the clandestine
And I slept that deep dark sleep
And she tossed and turned.
So my country
We survive
You and I
Utility and
Creative Licence
Rubbing along:
To you I am full
Of misplaced arrogance
Questioning everything
Taking nothing for granted
To me you are full
Of misplaced ignorance
Questioning nothing
Taking everything for granted.
And yet you sobbed
Deep heaving regrets
And I offered
To clean the bathroom
Saying
It’s not about Tall Poppies
It’s about taking stock
And then turning the page
And you said:
The everyday is everything
We don’t do too badly.
Wanderer
The year has drawn to a close
And the shortest day is near -
Another winter for the wanderer.
Just as the evening traveller
Nears the fireside of an inn
Only to find ruin in a cold hearth
There is no feast to enliven us -
Not even wild grain and mallows
For wasteland gruels and stews.
Having made haste on the highway,
The river has swept away the ford -
Turning back, the roads are longer.
We sleep finally under the sky
And our solo lifetime journey
Passes like dust from our heels.
Vitality and decay follow in season,
Metal and stone are more enduring -
Awareness is the only true treasure.
The muted dead have gone ahead
The old graves have become fields -
Rather then look west to the new sun
And set aside some time for the record.
An archer who can pull a strong bow
Falls short of the writer of a single character.
War Is A Shitty Business
Hannibal traipsed thousands of men,
Horses and mules and 37 elephants over the Alps
At the Col de la Traversette in a brilliant ruse
That saw a bog en route being seeded
With the faeces of ruminants like elefantidae
And that of their accompanying primates,
Such that the hunt is now on for tapeworm cysts
Which were deposited in the peat as keepsakes for posterity.
Humans create around 1.4 litres of urine a day
And around 125 grams of faeces:
Assuming a Punic army of 40,000 men
This equates to 56 cubic metres of urine
And 5 tons of human excrement a day
[Never mind the elephants] -
Because as we all know
Armies march on their stomachs and like a drink or two.
And if Darius had an army of one hundred thousand
At the Battle of Gaugamela [modern Erbil in Iraq]
It would have been relieved of 12.5 tons of poop
And 140 cubic metres of pee on the day
Of his catastrophic battle against Alexander the Great -
But you could raise that by two and half on some estimates.
And if you apply the same factors to the Battle of Waterloo
Where there were 200,000 men [and several thousand horses]
You come up with 25 tons of ordure and 280 cubic meters of human urine
On the 18th of June 1815, in a close run thing.
And let's just pursue the stream to its Niagara
In the First World War 9 million died [along with 8 million horses],
And 22 million men were wounded
After 70 million had been mobilized all told.
So that if you take the last figure on 28th July 1914
You get 8,750 tons of Number 9 and
98,000 cubic metres of Werris Creek or Gypsy's Kiss
From a fine bunch of lads.\
So next time you see neat lines of marching men
With stripes and lanyards, pips and even plumes
Remember the US Marines at Iwo Jima
A first rate body of men - semper fidelis -
Who had to keep their heads down and defecate
In their trousers because their foxholes were so cramped
And all the stats that show
That war is a shitty business.
We Are Surrounded By Ghosts – Now We Have To
Live With Them
Watching you, I felt chill winds of springtime blow
Among white cherry trees and purple sprays -
Saw the lost gardens amid the scents of long ago
Of the last lands whose lids are closed in final days.
Pressing flowers into the leaves and loneliness
Kneeling to the mud or delving for the sand
Quiet frames of countenance and loveliness
I longed to comfort you and take your hand
And catch your eyes and gaze at you my lost girl
In wonder at the years now left in beauty’s stead
And you would laugh and say ‘Kind Sir’ and twirl -
Tossing bemusedly your wise angelic head.
Only time divides our souls – and time is on our side
And those who went before will leave the window wide.
We Were Together … That Is Enough, I Tell Myself
Join the living to those who have fallen
... te pito ora ki te pito mate -
‘What is it like to die? ' my young son asks?
‘It is like living', I answer too quickly,
Part intuitively, partly flippantly -
Self-transparency in my response.
…
I will try harder.
I see myself as somehow the author
Of a story that is yet to find an ending:
Mysteriously entangled within the plot
As both its subject and its principal actor.
Be calm … articulate, I tell myself.
I see myself descending a stairway
Carefully negotiating each down tread
Fearful of any dreadful tumble ahead
That might take this still living stance away.
Don't slip … don't fall, I tell myself.
I see myself surfing probabilities
As successive treatments build and recede:
Still fortunate to be wave-riding steadily
The momentum of medical interventions.
Stand firm … don't flinch, I tell myself.
I see myself at the helm of a crewless vessel
Trying to bring her to land, to port, to quay -
Captain of the closing of this little history
Desperate to make all good, all equal.
Be alert … don't fail, I tell myself.
I see myself as a sad white-visaged clown
Left bobbing, waving my life's steering wheel -
Missing the bus, once the talk of the town -
My gash of a grin sometimes unnerving, unreal.
Keep smiling … its an act, I tell myself
I see myself as a nuisance to be resolved
Commonplace evidence of half-existence:
The residue from a cup that overflowed
The ashes of some flames that fortune kissed.
Bear up … there is love enough still.
I see myself knowing nothing of that finality -
Fearful of pain, the edging, encroaching none-self -
Not wanting to make a spectacle or a fool of myself
Hoping to redeem at the last some dignity.
No matter … there is no place for pride.
And if I answer too carelessly and too lightly
Take no harm from my answer. It is well meant -
For a transaction where the self itself is spent
But sparks of lovingness from this glow brightly.
We were together … that is enough, I tell myself.
Wellington's Safe Harbour
Brought together at lunchtime in Unity
there is a kindly bonhomie of Kiwi poets
celebrating Wellington and the creative
life that it inspires with its Big Weather:
voices that have been moved to ‘record
their responses to the steep streets and myriad people,
the food and political energy, the cable car and cenotaphs,
the wharves' - and the winds that can leave you hanging!
‘I want to make people feel, cry out - for poetry
to be a dagger brought to bone', she says in tears
‘for it to eviscerate the ordinary - for it to be real',
she who was brought to this city from civil war:
'I was eight years old when they built the port in Novi.
At that age most children know how to swim — I didn't know how yet.
While playing about the harbour I fell into the sea.
I sank.
The water buoyed me up.
I saw the children above me on the wall
— I extended my hands — tried to shout, — I couldn't!
I was swallowing sea water, — I was sinking — I was lost!
In that instant I flew through my entire life.
All the sins of my young life appeared again before me:
I was stealing sugar, I was beating my brother,
I was lying, I was climbing the fruit tree
— My last thought was 'I was descending into Hell!'
— and I lost consciousness.
They got me out — and for what?'
It is not as though this doesn't happen here -
last year a young man in his cups and overbold,
revelling late at night on the harbourside promenade,
climbed the iron lattice of our ancient floating crane the Hikitia
dropped down and failed to surface.
Wharariki Dawn
The Pavilion Terrace, the Peacock and the Butterfly
The peacock is as always magnificent
With his brightest of iridescent blues
And tufted top-knot of feather flowers.
He is scrounging the terrace
For crumbs from the campers.
Above the slowly subsiding flooded creek
Flax and cabbage trees
Fringe the driveway, and the cabins
Where the wary and provident have taken refuge -
As the mist and drizzle gust and billow
Mizzling out the old hills above.
A tiny and perfect six-year old Japanese girl
Kicks her heels against her wooden chair,
Lost for worlds in her screen game,
Her face framed by a cloche of blue hair with bubble-gum streaks
Painted by her loving mums in the modern fashion -
Her devices suddenly astart from the peacock's inquisition.
You have to smile.
I sit still longer on the communal couch
Cradling my precious morning coffee
Shaking off the earth's premature embrace -
Sodden tenting and rope stumbling
And a night-time of wails and keening.
The heavy, murky fog continues to roll in.
A brave butterfly flitters before me,
Perfuming its wings on the droplet-dewed pathway jasmine.
Li Bai and Basho, what are you two old rascals doing here?
Have you nothing better do to do
Than hang around the Wharariki Camping Ground on a wet dawn?
What The World Needs Now
What the world needs now is oxytocin
It's the main thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is bubby love
No not just for some but for everyone
Lord we don't need another mountain.
There are landscapes and hillsides
We can strip mine.
There are oceans and tides,
Though the fish stocks slide,
That'll last our time
What the world needs now is snuffle love
What we need now is snuggly inhalation
Not just for us but for every nation.
It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
Lord we don't need another meadow
Or corn fields and oil palms
In irradiated afterglow.
We have sun beams and moon beams
Above the smog it seems -
Just listen Lord, if you want to know
What the world needs now is Agent O
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
And what the world needs so
No not just for some but for everyone
Lord we don't need more medication -
There are pharmaceuticals to spare
That blank immoderation.
But when the baby's bum is bare
Take a sniff and linger there
In loved-up meditation.
Oxytocin - nobody can get enough
It's the only thing that there's just too little of.
What the world needs now is nappy-happy love
Not just for some - but for everyone.
What’s To See Has Just Begun
[Taking a child to see the doctor]
Do you like goldfish
In a bubbling tank
And a tiny diver
With a treasure chest
That spilled and sank?
Do you like babyish
Picture books and puzzle tests
On the playpen bench -
And the battered toys -
Which one is best?
Do you like foolish
Adults in a tizz
Worrying too much
About the state you is -
They need a rest!
Do you like unselfish
Kindly docs and nurses’
Gentle looks and gentle touch -
Making better girls and boys
So ‘ickiness reverses?
I think I like this waiting room
With its many little teases
There is lots of joy and fun
And what’s to see has just begun
Even though I’ve got the sneezes!
When All That Flowers In Truth
Nightshade, bittersweet beyond concealing,
Knows waning beauty is better if not found,
And violets like to tears must face revealing
Heartsease is rare - false hopes abound.
Forget-me-not the sorrow of the gathering in:
No balm in Gilead - no laurels crowned -
No respite for the rose, no special pleading!
Move along - nothing to see - love-lies-bleeding!
The vacant land stands stark, the tares abound -
With what is left to straw and dust succeeding
When all that flowers in truth is cut to ground.
When Last Did We Give The Earth Its Due Day?
When did we last give back without constraint?
Let foregone beauty slip beneath the surface -
Giving up readily without restraint -
Surrendering to time and place?
When last did we give the earth its due day
Recognising its grounded verity
Gifting the sun itself in Sunday pay
Celebrating its integrity?
Consider three thousand years have passed
At the spring where the holy torc was laid:
And now how we only take to the last
Honouring nothing but what is paid?
And how that gilded gift was everything:
Fearsome in its deftcraft intricacy
Signifying the summer sun's rising
And filling every hand with beauty -
Then willingly, joyfully released
Laid down without sanction or regret,
For unity and harmony increased,
Acknowledging no slight, or doubt or debt.
We are a lesser people long estranged
From heaven's heartfelt generosity
Seizing what can only be awarded
By gainsaying reciprocity.
We have lost the ability to gift
Unable to dedicate or conserve
Even though the earth cries out for uplift
And only selflessness will truly serve.
Why I Never Visited NZ from Oz in 1970
... AND WHY I LOVE IT NOW
I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of you:
'Too many sheep and neither here nor there',
I wasn't thrilled with the promise of you
As a Pom in the Sixties who hated square,
I wasn't thrilled with the reports of you:
‘A Little England' they said: ‘No Where'.
But I've come right with the wonder of you
The shores and the greenstone crystal sprays
Yes, I've come right with the wonder of you
The quilted hills that fray into salty bays
I've come so right with the wonder of you
And the mountains that sing at the end of the days
I am bright with the wonder of you.
Why I Write
I can assure you that I have no wish to annoy you.
I write because I have no option - it is my only recourse.
If my writing irritates you, kindly ignore it - I am not
Seeking vengeance and my delusions of recognition
Are admitted cloud-capped towers of baseless fabric.
I write for myself because it is my better self that writes -
A self I need to hear interspersed with white page silences.
And I write for one who follows, one who is curious
About this man and of what and where he dreamed -
This being whose insubstantial pageant has melted into thin air.
Forty years past, I sat in a compound of mud houses
In the Nigerian town of Bauchi asking questions
About how people's lives could be improved by better
This and better that, and a most beautiful dusky child
Sidled up to listen to the interpreter, deep brown eyes in wonder.
Four or five years old, she smiled shyly and held my gaze.
Lost in the wonder, I said to her father, 'she is so beautiful'.
'If you like her, take her - she is better off with you', he said.
But I made my excuses, lacking a wife and home for her -
But perhaps now she is grown, she wants to read of me.
And five years earlier on the corniche in Zamalek, Cairo
A little girl of similar age twirled on the pavement,
Her dance betraying that she was naked beneath her shift -
But taken like a leaf by a casual eddy of wind
She skipped into the street only to fall limp and lifeless.
At this, the bus driver stopped and picked up the child
And I, in dreadful nightmare dreams that return,
Ran into an apartment block and hammered at a door
Seeking fruitlessly to call an ambulance in execrable Arabic.
Possibly she survived, and now she wants to read of this.
And then there was the little girl that I loved
My almost daughter, with whom a friend said
I was so very caring - who when her mother broke with me,
I used to go to see at lunch times at her school
Talking to her through the yard railings, bringing sweets.
Years later, I went to see her and she told me:
'I do remember you - and the time you broke my arm
When I fell off the swing in the park and you dropped me'.
But I replied 'That was not me, it was another of
Your mother's friends' - and I write for our severance.
And somewhere in the future, there may be others
Who are related or bonded in some manner -
A future grand-daughter or great niece perhaps -
Who sees something in my writing that catches them,
Lifts them up, and for a moment holds them.
Why This Age Is Even Worse
Forget stupor and dread, hope is dead.
Those unhealed wounds that we touched
Do not suppurate - ‘you are mistaken:
You are wrong to believe that they ever existed'.
This is an age in which truth is erased -
The bully smacking your head against the wall
Of the schoolyard - ‘it didn't happen
There is nobody to tell, they won't believe you'.
And death again chalks the doors with crosses,
As the ravens are gathering and wheeling,
But there will be nothing to be seen
Hope and truth have been back-slash deleted.
This is an age when all decency is ended.
The little boy assaulted and soiled but rewarded
With a broken toy soldier - ‘best not to mention this:
It is too out of line - can it be substantiated? '
This is an age of contempt for the disadvantaged -
Like the little girl who is abused for her disability,
The butt of mimed mimicry - ‘facts contended,
Cruelty easily become ambiguity - easily contained'.
This is an age without heroes, honour, and quests
Where a new race of sardonic rats prepare their feasts,
But there will be nothing to be seen
When the junk files of decency and compassion are cleaned.
Winnin' Streak
But Strewth, the winnin'! Ow they loves this ‘frill
Scrabblin' with the kids at Bondi on the beach
When a ‘wowser' gets yous double-word
And Strine is spelt as well as heard:
Fer Auntie Lil is on the plonk and puzzlin' still
And Uncle Norm is lost for words until
He pulls a double-zed he's hidden out of reach
In his togs like a nipper with a purloined peach -
At which Dad squares up Norm for biffo
If he dirty-deals with budgie-smugglin' lingo
But Mum is equal to this shonky deal
And puts down 'prezzie' with a bonza squeal
At which Cutie Tiffany comes right
And ends it all without a fight
With another dinkum straya noun
By crossing prezzie with her cozzie down.
Winter Lighthouse Rainbow
They've done some very fancy planting
Outside the Marine Research Centre
And though it was cold in the shadows
That slanted down from the north -
In the sun it was glorious and there were flowers.
Midway through my walk, I stopped to talk
To a young American from Wisconsin
Who was learning Japanese from
Notes that kept blowing away - with him
Complaining justifiably about arcane complexity.
Later, a girl was riding along the beach shingle
On her pebbled-back half-stock horse
Half appaloosa pony, testing the shallows
Sitting back deep, straight and prim
On her English saddle, English-style.
And earlier, on my walk from the park
Westwards along the sandy pavement,
I had sat on a memorial wooden seat,
Dedicated to Martha Dunn who died aged 30 -
Me pondering poetically about ephemerality.
But don't let me forget the rainbow
On Baring Head that was my first impression
Of the bay, the harbour entrance and the Strait -
Taking it as a propitious portent or good omen
That despite everything, the covenant was still honoured.
Wisdom In Slices
Sophie I talked to your sister in Whanaurua Bay.
She has lost her teeth but her smile is beautiful.
She makes the most wonderful apple pie
Mounding and smothering it in cream from a squirty tube.
I asked her: ‘Can I take a photograph? ’
She was shy about her teeth but appreciative
Of my attention and half-agreed that she should
Treat herself to a set of dentures that she could enjoy.
I added kindly, like a Pakeha gentleman:
'I have reached the stage in life where
I appreciate women of character'.
There is no doubt there Sophie of the Mana that you both share -
It would have animated Jung archetypically
If either of you had served him a tan slice or a custard square.
Wonder Woman
Once a sweet little girl in a white toga
An innocent among the denizens
Your adolescence on Themyscira
Aroused bare-thigh but leathered Amazons
Whose patriarchy-upending mayhem,
Disturbed by a DV Fokker nose-dive,
Planted the seed of what you became
When you brought the pilot ashore alive -
Diana the kick-ass demi-goddess
Daughter of Hippolyta and Zeus
Laced in a boob-hugging bodice,
The War God's micro-skirted nemesis -
A Wonder Woman who stayed fate's hand
To save mankind - but stole a kiss in no-man's land.
Yearloss
In the deep days, death was a bountiful land
Of meadows and pastures and fat cattle
Of evergreen plains, brooks and willow stands
Of wildfowl, teeming fish, and game aplenty
Its waters were not below nor the land above
For both were of one substance in form and flow
With rain and mist and ebb and flood and tide
Inherent, translucent, awash and without surface
And the souls that journeyed there were adrift -
Always seeking out landings within and beneath,
Ever driven to coming at last to the water margins
To finding safety under open skies with fast footholds.
Then fearful of firm standing and curious of its nature
Its inconstant ruler stole a child from the over-world
With this boy being the tenth son of his adversary
Who ruled the heavens with severances of lightening
But growing in love and awe of the watery dominions
Though grieving for the bright sun and pitch-black night
The child became a young warrior torn in understanding
Between what was ever-shifting and what was ever-fixed
Troubled, he found his way to the edge of the underworld
Breaking back once more into the distinct firmament
In rainbow iridescence, casting wide his cape of green
That rising mists and falling rain might nourish nature.
At which time and place became both separate and apart
Surfacing - and the seasons were set in motion and sequence,
With the great world turning, wrapping itself in his cloak
In the winter and setting it aside in the warmth of summer
But come the half-year's end, the youth was set lose his life
To reconcile the obligations that each court demanded
Returning the ransom and paying homage to his sky-father
To be reunited with his guardian to enjoy death's plenty
And each year mankind marked the journey from the deep realm
Rejoicing in the glory of the summer solstice and its champion
But with the autumn darkness came unease as the sun wavered
And the twice-lost son was drawn again to what was concealed.
Year's End 2019
Like us the year had life, was born and dies:
Its immediacy did not exist
Before we were born to sentience -
And all too soon will be dismissed.
Departure always asks us what was done -
And what's revealed - and what you cannot tell -
And now the year itself is passing on
Its muted questions mar farewell.
Looking forward, looking back - stand steady
On how time turns and takes back what it gives
But mark its profligacy make ready
A promised newness that revivifies.
As our past lives become the tales of old
For youth, a new day breaks whose dawns are gold.
Maori Proverb:
Maku te ra e to ana;
kei a koe te urunga ake o te ra.
Let mine be the setting sun
Yours is the dawning of a new day.
You Can't Kill Squitch
SWARD
Her father died when she was three years old
Beached and bloated in his sea captain's coat
Her mother made a poor job of widowhood
Taking to dark colours and languishing.
Lacking attention and prone to tempers
She grew, ache hurt wounded and wilful.
As a child I was always under her feet
Too much seen but scarcely heard
A boy of few words who slipped away to read
Or took the dog over the fields for long walks
And dreaded coming back to tirades
Lashing the farmhouse beams with fury.
But I used to love to hear her laugh
Telling or savouring a naughty tale
And waited so eagerly for letters
In her bold strong hand on Basildon Bond
Telling of wet harvests and point to points
Hatching, matching and dispatching.
We never got on well though I tried hard
She always looked for openings to weakness
I was too soft and never stood up to her
Easily persuaded I was wrong and she supreme
Afraid to have it out once and for all
In case she burst into ragged, raging tears.
I wanted to go beyond and share her fear
But she was too sly and proud to come clean
And I was left never having known the girl
Who played and swam from the riverside
In distant summers late evenings
Baked as brown as a hawthorn berry.
These are the clumps that grow wherever my land
Hard to uproot and quick to break and bind
If you want me again look deep and delve
Take the stem and trace the broken ends
Though the rough grass still strikes and tangles
As she would say: ‘You can't kill squitch'.
['Squitch' is the Cheshire Dialect term for Couch Grass]
You Must Believe In Life
Beneath the summer skies
The rose its secrets keeps
But its perfume still betrays
The essence springtime steeps.
And in the mid-year's glow,
When skies are fierce and dry,
Fresh blooms wilt bye-and-bye -
And winter longings know.
Each season changes state,
And as the Winter ends,
The chill of Autumn waits
For snows the next year sends.
The mountain streams will thin
As drought and ice take hold
The one from shrinking in
The next from love grown cold.
You must accept life goes
Through ever constant change
And that each dying rose
Will scent a time-pressed page.
Spring is everlasting
And so is Autumn too -
And in their kindness bring
The truths the moments choose
As life itself renews.
LET US
[a Translation of Natalia Evstigneeva’s Poem]
Let us be careful with each other:
Avoid harsh words
Or 'petit point' needling
And cut out invoicing for good behaviour.
Let us do without slights and snubs
And slapping sore spots
Like meddling clowns
Who flatter, jostle and deceive.
Let us be honest with each other
And stop bamboozling with confetti -
Putting the brake on being
A nose ahead, one-up and on-top.
Let us care for each other’s time
And not leave things hanging -
Respecting others' rights to have their say
Without being judged in advance.
Let us be careful in endorsing opinions
There is no need to label everything
Remember it is so easy to hurt -
There are gossips enough already.
Let us avoid the suffering and misery
We create by holding back
And muttering ‘Hi’ through clenched teeth
To lace welcome with bad intentions.
Let us always try to be a little kinder,
A little easier, more straightforward and careful
And the world will become more beautiful and brighter
So that it is born again with love.
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