Month: September 2016

       that pearl
                            for Keikei
                            see note below
I.

your father a
truly educated man
for he had that
gift of the seer
saw the woman
in the just-born
child named you
after that pearl
that grows just a
little off centre
that grows beyond
perfection
like the bump
of laughter raised
in your cheeks
when smiling
the shadow of the
hollows when the
the heart falters
that frown in your eyes
he called you after
that most original
of pearls not for
decoration but
for life and lives
after, more beauty
than any perfection
more love than
either

II.
looking further
i saw your name
means too an
astrolabe
a globe of strips
of metal stood
apart and through
which you might
track the stars
the plough of ursa
major and even
names one glitter
too among those
stars that skirt
celestial north

yet for all this
navigation from
heaven to ocean
floor, your name
from pearl
to star
i must confess
i’m still
lost in the
pearl

The various meanings of the Chinese character in Keikei’s name (repeated twice) translated from the etymology found on the Chinese Baidu website:

A pearl that is not round
An astronomical measuring instrument (astrolabe)
One of the stars of Ursa Major

1. 不圆的珠子：珠～。
2. 古代测天文的仪器璇～。：
3. 北斗星名之一。

There really was no one.

Except a visitor.

She stood before her,

lowered her head to look into her eyes

the way women do,

and pulled her in.

She was embracing loss;

a lonely woman with red eyes

who wondered how her love,

given freely as a mother

had not been returned.

So her silver hair bounced

in time with her tears.

She put her small hands

to her temples,

to search for the truth.

And found it as she looked

into the eyes of a stranger

Today she wore blue,

an old cardigan,

the buttonholes at odds.

She tried to smile;

creases of pain – the loss

at the corners of her mouth.

Broken promises, too

etched deep.

She looked away.

Then down.

She always sits there.

In blue.

Her smile is not a smile.

It is sadness pulled up.

It is creases and sorrow

in a far corner

in your pocket

your words always
few and well-used
something deep in
your pocket
you took out
and showed us
putting them back
again in a closed hand
down again into that
darkness wearing
thin the coming
light that one
afternoon
smashed in
your eyes

just when
you have a
measure of what
you’re up against
have learnt to hold
the axe and not
fear it
you find
the one who showed
you how to lift it
weigh the heft
just under the head
before the swing
jerk it from
the grip of wood
sunk into
is gone like
dust down
a summer road
no drinking
with him
no last word
to open your eyes
to all the distances
of mountain and sea
he’s left in a flurry
of sail out there

being with the
afternoon the cumulus
stalled above
the mountains
coming over
that horizon
deepening in the shadowed light
of a late sun

he’s off on horseback
round a head with
a shore breaking in white
sheep come
down to the
salt spray

you dreamed yourself
once back in those
mountains where
you panned and sluiced
for gold the paths
the mountains were
all gone to hell
no sense in any of
what your saw
no deer stepping
out against the
breadth of snow peaks
you lowering your
gun in silence
unable to kill
that moment
that pride
of living before
you

what man you were
i had to understand
as a child busy
with his own games
trying to keep up
with his own imagination
was hard enough
let alone match your
stories to echoes
of what i now might
say i’ve known
have felt

you’re off in the
quiet edge of the
bush out there
with rifle leather bag
and knife admiring
more than taking

no beer at a wooden table
with you under the heavy
umbrella we had for years
no sitting in a canvas
chair beside you a few
words more than enough then
looking up at the clear
dell of the stars
looking for remembered shapes
signs in their tingling breath of
light dangled silver

i know the tenth of
what your hand did
my eye caught something
of what your eye rode
through in a morning
of mornings the spectre of
the brocken across that
valley you and your
horse’s shadow up against
a mist with a rainbow
crown i’ve felt a
glance of the animals
you knew through
summers and dying winters

i know only i came
from some direction
you lived in as well
my own heart
drifting off
the moorings
out there
volcanic heads
fossil stones in the stream
of an island we’re
bound for

finding an evening
to anchor in the bay
cupped out of the wind
by terraced hills

stars on the water
you sleep upon

there would be
much i could say
to you over
beer and tears
still a tenth only
of what your
hand knew

a hand
to splice
the day

beijing
december 2008

becalmed in memory
of our father born
over 100 years ago

the chain

travelling the dawn
the sky all h e a r t
pale showing
the star
the bird
loose on the d a r k
of our hearing

november 1991
grandview rd., auckland

little sparrow

little sparrow
riding on the
branch of pine
in a wind
with smell of
rain
you chirp
under the
clutter of sounds
around me
chirp on
through my ear
chirp on
as though believing
the god of growing
things will kneel
to you
place fullness
into your mouth
he won’t
nor the dark
nor the wind
nor the cat
nor the final
day you sleep
heavy into,
wings slurred
frozen in a
nook between
branch and
trunk

chirp
little sparrow
for all the
worth of your
song a stitch
in a broad
trodden
mat
time
let’s call
it.

september 2012
panmure

mind cave

walking the low tide your eye
stayed far from those low caves
along the cliffs, scoops of shadow,
something troubling about caves
in mind, you were elsewhere.
kneeling on the reef at the tidal pools
an instant blown unclear
trawling your hand through the
warmish water in wait for the
treasures of miniature cod
that bulbous dab of white down
the spine. flipping over rocks
treacherous with cool slime
scattering the small purple crabs
underneath, looking for the
prized giants.

high tide those caves, low arches
upward pressing into the crumbling
sediment above become worlds
to themselves, light spinning across
the sandstone ceiling, a silver cutting out
from that lip of sand to the other
side of the estuary, a stick all you
needed to write words on that
pure sand for the next swell to take back

our voice, born of such caves.

2004 – 2005

Oh blue moon I see you so bright, as your colour reflects brightly upon the water in the night.
I see pigs flying south across the northern sea, it makes me curious what this could all be.
As i see you pull the tide, so much of a surprise to see what is inside.
Oh blue moon rarely have you come, but once in a life time has this been done.
I see that man he is eating his shoes, because he said he would if ever did lose.
Most times you will say this wont happen it cant happen to me, but a chance it can become a reality.
But things do happen and things do come true, once in a blue moon it can happen to you.

Can you taste the world, it burns festering inside of me.
Can you love at all, hating everything that it will always be.
They control the evil ones in those positions poisoning the society.
I thought it was me that was breaking to see right down the broken hearted machines.

If I had known the sings were forever, If I had a chance to show you it all.
Soul bound to try and save the prey from a wonderful life with the masters.
Leave it all can you love at all, with each dying day and all the seasons lost.
Beneath this wonderful life of the masters, shine the ray of light on those cowards.

The darkest times and days of our life, do not loose your self to those beasts.
The thought has revealed and named a few of us, I know this wrong to say I won’t bow down to the war they have waged on mankind.
I want hope and with a choice give them something to see here, Say what you want you have never lived it.

I tried to leave with my halo on but this drove me too insane, Right now I burst apart at the seams.
I see the devil and I know your name, to sink others lives so low for them to search for prey.
All the hope that is killed it slowly ends us, blood will find it as they always finds the way.

To tear us apart again it’s hard to see it clearer now, give us the time the time to refuse this.
To the dying day we hold the line the miracle of life to us all.
We are refusing what are you choosing, Can you kill the fall.

Girl you are my luck charm, the one that gives me hope and aim as to who I am
You are incredible like a rose in bloom, I’m still trying to get a grip of how lucky I am
The sun shines brighter because of you every day, because before that my world was grey
You are the reason that there is spring with life a new, and so i really want to be part of you
As two bodies with hope collide to make one soul, to share the heart as a whole
My girl i will never let you down, you are my whole world, you’re like my crown
A queen fit for more than the world let me offer the moon the stars and the heavens
My life is humble but honest and true, but I would like to be with you
One day the earth and the heavens will shake as our hearts will race make no mistake
I hope you like this little poem just for you because your worth it your special your true

I walk into the shadows the mood splits the trees, this hand of despair has me on my knees.
His weaving and plotting is all that he cares, as long as you captive and filled with his fears.
It doesn’t take long like putty in his dark hands, it beginning to crush me and destroy all my plans.
With my hope for the future has all gone up in smoke, faded into darkness where i did choke.
With the whispers of hate and the screams i did see, the feeling is shaking the whole life of me.
As I take the lightning and thunder that makes the heart stop, I drop to the floor and it feels like head is going to pop.
The evil around that makes me so sick, when everything turns against you but you wont let it stick.
As the fallen have hit the ground with a great big roar, smashing and tearing and rendering me more.
The spirit of torment is just like a game, it spits and hollers and drives you insane.
As i am breaking and shaking and dwindle within, I can not help this feeling that burrowed in the rim.
But within the cloud there is a light and a dove that is insight, who can be there and can take you out of the night.
Sometimes there some bad things that we can all go through, but you are in control and you can pull through.