New Zealand Poetry

We hurled it up off the floor. 10 foot high/ four across.

Like a crucifix. It was.

 

I’d driven in from Damascus. 6-inch bloody nails. The first:

the head bent on the third

 

blow so I had to claw the cunt off and Jimmy’s giving me shit: hit

the fuckin thing straight. Christ

 

the man’s in mortal fucking pain but otherwise taking it good.

Cursing under his breath. That’s all.

 

Fuck me some days I wish it was me but I’m not fit

to even cry & I got no business to.

There was metal in his leg and his back

So it was an effort to make boats he could not sail.

He used his little strong hands to cut and shape toi toi.

He pulled out the fibre and made outriggers and masts,

And from a spiky mast flew a red spotted sail.

And the boat bounced on the creek’s little rapids,

Flicking reeds and sailing over shadows and ‘bullies.

It never tipped. Not this man’s boat.

We did not know he had seen too much death and been shot,

And that his pillow was full of tears.

We only knew that as he whittled, his smile pushed up his face

In the beginning, she smiled & said Hello.

It might have been nothing. But by the 6^th day, I was on her bed, the long grass by the river, taking in the scent of her hair which is like honey it’s true, & her skin and the pink between her thighs… Sandalwood, Royal Blue, her cotton dress, & on the 7^th, resting beside her.

He smiled also & said Hello & he knew & she knew that nothing now would be the same. And he thought about her that night; & the next morning – the interplay of shadow/light, their hands…

 

On the 6^th day they fell…tender, her soft folds caved, filled, full of him, falling…

 

& when she came

 

& when he came…

 

Flowers in bloom. She brought him violets, still wet from her garden

& at 10 past 3 he leapt over the fence onto the street & when he got home the flowers were still tight in his hand & at 3.30 she was still looking out the window when Stephen came home with the children.

 

 

 

 

a painter reflects 
         to Klingsor of ‘Klingsor’s Last Summer’ by Hermann Hesse

for me the loveliest lovers
were the landscapes the
aged the young naked in
sun or shower and no obvious
face to stare you down in
disdain to question your eyes
and whatever right you might
or might not have to even look
they simply lay in the fullness
of harvest or lean with winter
honest to the point they cracked
open in summer dryness swelled
with river cried out in the flush
of light an afternoon storm
cast upon them entered your
eyes fumbled about your heart
warming the stones of old
loves burned out in fires
kindled under the wind-risen
pines they wore the loveliest
of perfumes summer hay
lavender jasmine loosed
across the dusk no face
at all yet held you against
their body as you lay
to gather the first star
in the palm of your eye
they were the loveliest the
truest of those i loved
i served them only
as long as i could
lay them under
the brush lay remembrance
thick upon them dabbed up
from a bloody palette of
beauties i gutted there once
and drank to the dregs
served them then broke
with them for yet another
and as for faces?
there were always
the women who haunted
my glass of wine my cigar
with a splash of skin to
stagger the eye and drag
me toward whatever curve
of body or soul they
would put my way.
god the heart’s
but a foolish
piano this
old bird has
banged out
one-finger
melodies
upon.
the loveliest of lovers
were the landscapes
and i was only
true hopelessly
true to them
as long as
i needed.

july 2015

He caught me in the dark room stood,
a disused lamp, cornered; saw thru,
understood, as god would, subjectively.

But no-one ever knows what I think
as my pen scores the page. I’m alone:
not like when I’m by the river tho,

dark after the funeral, or in a crowd,
where an inner eye still lights me; but free,
beneath myself.

 

I can’t tell you
what I’m seeing, groups of
thug youths, with real,
sex and violence on their minds,
all over me
hitting shop windows with
fists
a toddlers drum, perfectly contained
“Beautiful Bitches’ spat from one
of the innocents
looking for all the action they can handle,
the street out side mcdonalds, as mainstream as it can get
all greed, violence and misogyny, celebrated in a kind of end of the world
melee
social groupings, the litteralisation of different tv channels
manifest as groups of people. young people cut off, alone with all of it
let to sit spewing in space, in a helmet.

And why not, let it all be.
I see them, see our programs aped mocked and swum in.
All us solders at camp
waiting to be shipped out
to nameless slaughter
on behalf of a name equally submitted to
and remain voicelessed.
Ships to pull up, pull out this crop, whores sluts and violent producers brimming with over flowing froth.
to throw up like a cloud of dust signifying nothing, nothing here
but the very heart of the matter,
seeing won’t be the test of it
this has gone on far to complicated
instead everything just working out
anyway, right

*‘worry’ of love
*either as in ‘worry about’ or ‘bother’

near the school
mothers worry
their children
across the road
at the gate
a mother worries
her daughter’s
hair into place
a father his
son’s jacket
a boy runs
to worry his
friend from the
same class
up ahead
a young man
worries his
girlfriend across
the cafe morning
table to open the
gift he’s given her
sellotaped up himself
late last night
a lady before
the quiet mirror
in the bedroom
worries the brooch
her husband gave
her fourty years ago,
fourty years that
just went,
on the balcony
worries her
husband’s eyes
looking out on
a sea deep
in blue, eyes
that see
only clouds
these days.

nelson st, howick
morning, 10 june 2013

hear us. score across

yr skin. understand:

 

we’re poor but..

content. even if

you fix us good; give

that we must live.

 

you, I’m sure,

care even less.

There’s no time.

 

alone. we don’t mind

the black sky

wide. i have

an eye on a star not

especially prominent.

low in the South. it’s cold.

the last night of the year

& i might be high

on lithium. i’m in

1979 &..

10/9/

8/7/6…

I’m up. get hit again/

5/4/ & I’m down/

3/2 looking up

at a star not

especially prominent/

1/ & I know but

can’t place the

face O my daughter! what now?

where do I go

& with Whom & what for?

(If this was the last sheet of paper in the world,

what would I write on it? Your name.

Lie it flat

in my drawer, which I lock.)

 

2

I’m high on lemonade, playing games

as the men drink & become

more tolerant. Long days:

 

at night, the warm fuzz, of ale,

urinal piss: the gardens

of Belsize Park, Maida Vale.

 

3

in the flat I score

my arm: what I know or feel,

spill across the wide

 

page. In a room

next door, bodies

nailed against the wall.

 

1st time: home

from the theatre, I lay

in the wild dark,

aflame, beating time,

a pulse between

my ears; remembering:

 

the bodies, lithe

like African

figurines; long,

serpentine. Men

built like horses;

drums.

I lay

half-crazed, eyes shut

tight on the top bunk,

which shook at the knees.

 

My cousin,

her summer sheet astir,

lay beneath.

 

 

4

I grew my hair. Then,

repulsed at what I was,

cut it short, wore suits, good shoes.

 

I make for myself a myth.

It’s not the whole truth but ought,

is if you dig

long enough.

 

Who wants to look like shit?:

be someone who is

nothing, does nothing but

suck air;

 

wear slippers

wander the aisles of supermarkets;

ponder the merits

of liquid detergents?

Spend a dollar more

on more absorbent paper?

 

At the playcentre,

this kid sat on the bog

with the door open,

showed me the smear

of his shit on the hard

toilet paper, & smiled.

 

5

 

The boy woke in his bed

at midnight. He saw the window

held up by a stick.

He doesn’t remember if a wind

tugged the curtain,

or if the moon looked in;

if the trees said Hello

in a voice so low no-one

heard (it) – a sigh

or nothing, a stranger

holding his breath,

the bare movement

of a gloved hand…

What happened next?

 

6

 

He stuffed her on the steep bank

of the river for a week one summer

(’86); held tight her hair, butt,

hips, loose rocks – to stop

from falling, and after that

sat & smoked cigarettes,

listening to the trees & water.

 

 

By the time he was 30, he had a mortgage.

 

At 31, I’m on the road again.

Not really, but loose,

like the chickens on my lawn.

 

I went to London, hung there

a while, bored myself;

went home, married again.

 

7

 

The tables are empty.

 

I remember the hall. Blue smoke

fingered the air, wound the chandeliers,

curled your hair: you smile

but I can’t hear & I forget

the music which fills with longing.

I’m in the garden, w-ndering,

in love but happy.

 

it’s a dream

or a Fellini film,

but true.

 

pinned

woken
somewhere
on that long
run from
midnight
to the dawn
pinned by
the relentless
adamant
feeling
of self
narrow
as a
matchbox
coffin
pinned by
that feeling
squirming on it
butterfly
nailed
against the
cold-hearted
wall
of
night
finding
yourself
to be
self
and not
a damned
thing to
do about
it

may 2015