Month: April 2016

1              butts

 

There was nothing left to live for. I walked

home from the dog tracks with a few bucks

more than when I got there and it meant

approximately, nothing; at all: alcohol

and cigarettes; some debt, or fritting it

on necessities. But, what! I’m as dry

as a spent cock and I have everything

I need, and nothing I want.

 

2              Love comes easy

 

Love comes easy to me but there’s

always some cunt that wants more,

to stitch me up. Reader,

 

some nights I’ve nothing left, to give;

and the days are the same. The weight

of 5 decades is on my head.

 

But I still look good. It’s true. Ach,

it’s the drink you think. So?

do I. Well,

 

How odd, to see the river dive and

another flow over top. It’s the trick

of a siphon, where salmon once leapt,

scales singing to the sun.

This was where my father slid

into the water, skin as white

as chalk, and creamy soft.

He brought his salmon rod here, too,

a great cane whipper with side-on spool

and we tied on silvery ticers, and the

salmon snapped and realised too late

their mistake, and fought and fought

and lost, and I see them still on the grey

stones at the shore, mouths open.

There were others, too, eggs in redd,

who moved to the quiet side water,

and just the tail moved in a curl of water,

and they changed colour as their life ended

in the silty shallows where the river hid

I click the door shut, walk down 6 steps and I’m on

the long lovely street at midnight, at which point

I exhale long and lovingly, breathe in; cool air,

the distant swish of cars, summer stars – hunter,

dogs, hare; the wide ship that bore the Argonauts.

What are my thoughts? I envisage nothing, I cannot

fathom; walk a few steps up the street and dig

the click of my footsteps and pause, for effect –

beneath his window, lit; the yellow glow is fraught,

like me last evening, harsh in the cool darkness.

I fix upon that yellow spot and, in my mind’s eye,

the bald spot on his head. And as I focus on that

peculiar image, I evoke in that minute

the few maledictive forces I have gathered.

 

11 December 2015

[ebook_store ebook_id=”471″]       

        flip-flap
a topical ‘spout’

sweet old rag
we did not
forsake you
even for
26 million
bloodied cross
at the heart of
the jolly jack
that symbol of
the sour crown
signatory to
Te Tiriti by which
we are here
like it or not
a red-eyed
southern cross
cake-cut deep
in evening blue,
first
put our difficult
history in order
the theft with a
smile and a
capital ‘T’ of
‘fair chance’
so leaving us
‘fair game’
address this
out of kilter
land where the
rich fish the pockets
of the poor and slip
in a gaudy penny
for their pains
a humbug
referendum
then go throw
this old rag away
for something better
but
no tea towel
on a pole i pray

1.

I would be like the flowers

on the farmer’s lawn, up

for anything – death, as if

it were nothing. There is

 

no pain that can’t be borne,

understood, but your suffering

falls for good; a swift blade

in the field.

 

2

I would be like the seeds

carried on the breeze of wings,

birds that fled

suburban trees.

 

3

My love is repressed, and like my love I have repressed

my hatred. Alone at this time the light falls on you.

My tank is small, quick to fill. Call it incontinence

if you will, but lie you still, squirm. I am disturbed

by it all, but boy! will I burst my load on you!

[ebook_store ebook_id=”471″]

 

              Icon: the village

 

set
as to
close upon themselves
the careful fill
of shade
white plastered walls
retrieved cold
intact from
the light.

calloused
shutters ajar
stranding sun
in a momentary
room.
an exile’s
you’d imagine.
little of home
bed hard
against the
night-damp wall
a lull of sweet
smoke the
table boasts an
icon aged
by hand in
a city workshop

sea calm
by distance
a minute’s view
until you drink
the blood-bitter coffee.
difficultly
talk.

drepano/patmos – greece
london – venezia 1985

They who travel on the Vast Waters

Are one with the Creator and Creation

 

‘Hold me in your Hand on the rolling swell of the Universes’ waves

Let me observe the revolutions of the stars and turn with them’

 

They who travel on the Vast Waters

Are one with the Creator

Who alone spreads out the waters

Before them

 

They enter into the place from where all comes and then returns

 

They who wander the desolate realms

mourning their lost forms,

May yet again take form

And dance into the Realms of the Living

Where they who greet them, dance the same dance…

 

Hold me in your Hand on the rolling swell of the Universes’ waves

Let me observe the revolutions of the stars and turn with them

 

 

They speak the words of the Heavens

They murmur the utterances of the Deep

Where the Singing of the Seas ceases

sail into the Realm of the Resolved

 

Time…a mere loop in Consciousness

It has no beginning and no end…

The Way is paved with Light and the Wings of the Immortals.

 

At the edges of the Great Void

Swims the Mind of all Minds

Where all will enter

And from here depart.

 

If we tread the Way, so too do we become one with them

and our Wings raise us upwards.’

 

‘God commands the sun, and it does not rise;

He seals off the stars;

He spreads out the heavens;

And treads out the waves of the sea’

 

 

‘Behold in my outstretched hands

Is the answer to all your desires

On the Great Waters of the Great Void

Take my hands and come

Come to the Edge of the Great Void

Of The Great Waters

The Great Sphere reveals itself’

 

Swallowed up by the Waters of the Great Mind…

Between the Edges of the Great Void

And the Great Waters

The place of parting and of Departing

Follow the many hues

Through the Vortex

The Cone of Light

 

‘Behold in my outstretched hands

Is the answer to all your desires

On the Great Waters of the Great Void

Take my hands and come

Come to the Edge of the Great Void

Of The Great Waters

The Great Sphere reveals itself

‘They who walk the way of Righteousness

Carry the Fire of Knowing within their eyes.

 

Hold me in your Hand on the rolling swell of the Universes’ waves

Let me observe the revolutions of the stars and turn with them

 

 

 

 

[ebook_store ebook_id=”471″]              humidity

as a candle splutters,
so my heart flares.
a cut rose beneath
the fickle sou’westerly

as a candle milks the air,
so my heart pulls a
hair’s-breadth of water.

as a candle spits,
so my heart gives tongue
to its fear.

as flame is an
unsheathed thorn,
so my heart burns
its string.

vincent st
auckland
1981

She had in a hand the scrapings of the lawn,

little bits of bark and twigs, and she held a rail.

And winced and smiled and said, no, everything’s all right.

Except it wasn’t: she was doubled over, and the pain in her

back showed in the taut lines of her face.

She felt it in her heart, too; another pain: loss.

He’s gone now, the husband. Didn’t take long.

Dead and gone, and her left now with the house

and the pain and the gathering of wood scraps to

keep the fire going in all manner of weather,

and no-one to talk to except the cat, and she wasn’t fond of him.

And that’s how it was when I offered to help and she said no.

So I stayed as she clung to the rail and held the wood

and I tried to be as bright as possible.

Then she said it was nice of me to drop by and something like

a smile eased itself on to her face. It was just as the wind rose.