The woman who held me 10 years is dead. But this is about me, how I got here, survived the cold, bronchitis, you name it – to be. Did you imagine it! – me with osteoporosis, thin hair, hitting the hay at 9 bro because… If she was here to see her boy…
Meet me
~ Meet me Where the end begins Where we Buried our beaten hearts Where we fell in love Love at first sight! In a moment Where no one sees us But you and me ~
apples & pears
Being in a position of weakness, of no power, it’s easy for me to be critical; to see thru everything; to praise, to condemn. * Suppose the universe is ruled by a moral force & that the weaknesses, the aberrations – the evil – if you will – are negations, mere bomb holes in…
two trees
two trees to Kelly don’t’ really talk these days much less meet stuck in different sea towns yet having known you fourty something years just wanted to say those two pohutukawa that shadowed the lawn afternoons of that house well back from the beach, from the road, where you lived for a while, they’re still…
transpira
It happens to you, when you’re yawning, scratching your beard, seen thru the gap in the curtain – you don’t know it yet but you’re news, soon history, sort of – eating a sandwich. The yellow light reveals, stuck between your teeth, spinach, lettuce leaf…You sense this: pale, out the window, like you’ve…
A Hospital Dies
The nurses said there were ghosts dragging robes in the under-storey; they said they heard them as night drew down – an unseen hand on the door, a feather on a face. The hospital is gone, its long corridors falling before machines; scalpels and stainless forceps taken from the empty wards. When it closed, the…
loft
loft rain piano* loft piano cloud piano drops on glass piano cluster and slip in piano scale on the edge of winds piano rain on sea piano eastern beach 11 february 2018 *’piano’, as a musical term meaning ‘soft, subdued’, from the italian *as in ‘piano(forte)’, the musical instrument from…
la rabbia *
for an uncle Never mind sometimes I never answer you. I’m not obliged, even now to respond drop my pen when I hear a foot-fall on the step; or a drum upon – like it was a mouse – the tablecloth: ladies, gentlemen, some discreet caller. When I got home after…
Window On Life
Was he cold as life left? That blanket didn’t do much. Drawn as it was, just to the knee. And the window was open, to let in the south’s breath. They are all here: The Forgotten: the war hero, his mind in the Spitfire, raking fire up the line, teeth set in a blazing low…
imploding
imploding the sky this dusk wreathed with din and squawk of mynah birds packed in by the dozen some dropping out fluttering upward back into the scabbards of dark under the fronds of the phoenix palm safe as houses there in the dry out to sea rangitoto holding to that line under which it darkens…
Thunder On The Line
He works alone now, hands puffed and slow. He stands rod stiff, trousers buckling at the hem. He is at the carriage, unlocking its secrets. It is old as he is old; out of service. Here, they judge him well; he lent a hand when no-one would. His pals were there, too – and just…
Under the Sheltering Sky
Rows of phoenix palms at a national border, The Somalian-Ethiopian wall by a highway near a city, English-built in rocks like Cornwall, The white resident smiles and explains in friendly talk That life was good anyway. A small death ahead and we go on towards At cruising speed in a beamer, The palm trees at…