sleight of hand
at high school
with an upward
sweep of the arm
the boy would rake
his hand back through
his wiry hair
look a moment
to the side
fold his arms
even tighter
shoulders hunched forward
before carrying on to
tell the story
fourty years on
the man does
exactly the same
that gesture
suggesting
those same
fourty years
mere illusion
gone with a
sleight of
hand
december 2014
I stop the gaps between the silences and the murmurs of another room – a baritone
talks to himself or a sleeping partner stirred between the sheets. Outside, the crystal street tree-
lined birds discuss the seasons So long to spring.
Since I started to think this, a man with nothing else to do is out with his chainsaw and the whole fucking thing’s gone.
Let me just say this:
Fuck suburbia. Fuck America’s Cup. And fuck odes to winter.
God, the elections.
The empty promises.
It’s an auction – for the gullible.
Who will believe me?
Anyone ?
We’ve seen it all before.
We’ve felt the fiscal screw.
The numbers never add up.
I saw a politician in action.
He was all arms and long boots.
He was at the airport,
looking for a flight and approval.
He found the first.
Everyone ignored him.
Everyone knew him.
It was awful – for his pride.
We read and looked up over pages.
It’s was hurtful, mean.
He stood, and his tan boots pressed into the carpet – blue.
Not even his colour.
Then he got into a line of five and looked ahead.
There was just a plane –
and a resignation to prepare
i am a criminal, an outlaw indeed. born with no morals but values of greed.
inherit my leathers, abide by the gang. a wicked young man with steel in my hand.
blood means nothing. my family is false. i ride for my brothers we share the same pulse.
now i belong to something so great. i earned my own stripe. enforcer of hate.4
leading the front. new lands we had claimed. earning my brothers their fortune and fame.
corrupting the young sickening their minds as long as i earn the longer i ride.
convince them with me, there is meaning in life. their loyalty kept crystallized in a pipe.
i am a criminal, an outlaw indeed. turns out the police had thought the same thing.
i kept to my pact and mentioned no names, so my brothers could keep their fortune and fame.
years had gone by so close to be free. no word from my crew, not one single peep.
the day is here, i can taste my good freedom. but these bars remain closed, i will not be leaving.
sergeant in arms gave life for the gang, repaid me with charges and left here to hang.
betrayed by everything i gave so much for, they gave me the weight worth life and plus more
here i now sit, a man without pride. i write to my mother who’s love i denied.
a letter returns, i opened with haste. too see her reply an empty blank page.
i’ll die in this cell, nobody will care. a sad broken man shedding my tear.
i was a gangster, my life i have wasted. my legacy nothing but surely has faded.
feared by the worst and richer than most, and here i now tie this sheet to a post.
i was a sergeant, learn from my mistakes, all you young soldiers seeking fortune and fame.
i am a criminal, an outlaw indeed. ill die with no morals because of my greed.
1 4 E 9
L 7 7 Q
Q T 8 I
K l L 3
This was a poem written by my uncle the day he took his own life in prison. I wish to share this to help our youth in aotearoa turn away from the gang life, but unfortunately i am unable to fully express my support without contradiction as i have also followed in my uncles footsteps, but after i saw this my footsteps will be changing direction.
and me fallen, which is the worst thing that could happen
to a man like you but better; with the weight of everything
on my shoulders.
I’m like you, as a man resembles another,
fly, a flower…etc – from behind: I have
eyes, your personality…etc
fixed for good, nailed: I get
dark joy at our suffering, which isn’t
your fault or mine,
bitch. Degenerate. You could try walk
my heels, you know,
study the multitudinous forms that flourish
in the bower, the fish bowl you’d disown
if you could.
See what happens when I tune in/
turn on for so long, stuffed
in my sodden hole.
I shut my eyes to my situation;
all the better to enjoy you,
the filth of yr creation.
And from my window I can see
So many things that call to me
Trees and shrubs, spring flowers are there
Birds are darting everywhere
Busy nesting come what may
From dawn until the end of day
And from my window I can see
The ocean and it calls to me
Waves breaking gently on the shores
Their whispers turning into roars
On windy nights when gales blow
Their billows shining white like snow
And from my window I can see
A grassy bank and in its lee
Sea-lions lounging out of reach
And rolling on the sandy beach
One or two, with bodies great
Just lonely males without a mate
And from my window I can see
the river flows beyond the trees
I follow as it starts to wind
From distant hills that lie behind
And just before a rocky ridge
Trains clatter noisy on a bridge
The low hills rolling far and wide
Far mountains standing side by side
Backdrop to vistas that I know
Sky above with clouds below
And from my window I can see
So many things that call to me
I won’t pass judgement on those hands.
For a start, they knew work.
Opening and closing the sprung blades of shears,
hefting escaped ewes over fences.
He was driving, but I saw the tendons ping;
I saw him in a hot shed, head down,
sweat trailing across a wool-grease floor,
back pen-knifed to flick back the pen gate –
– aiming for the big tally again today –
plunging a crowbar into frosted ground,
stopping only to say: she’s cold today, mate.
Yet here he was, up a winding river path,
a good bugger, voice as gentle as the wind
I get a measure here of solitude when the street turns in
& the night is soft & distant.
I hear the blue light of a siren dying, & in the silence,
the corrugated iron clawed by the cold fingers of the plum tree.
This is my table in the corner, photographs, postcards
bought on holiday; the body of Christ
post crucifixion; de-nailed, tender – it’s queer
to think of him that way – & other memorabilia:
a Madonna, for instance, presented after a funeral.
I remember because i’m swayed now & then,
believe for no reason. Even Immoral things.
I react i think to rational politics, the nightmare
of production-production: i’m for the risen Christ,
the soft night; the flashing blue light in the distance.
of roman parchment
a Marco, poeta e traduttore
i saw
a wind of olives
clung to the
mountain
heard the
leaves a rain
of finest silver
come through
the dark greenness
along the branches
splaying out
like broken roads
that traced the
empire
i saw you,
mother, in the
time of lords
and ladies the
pheasants grooming
down the air
with their
trailing
feathers
you wrote me
a letter with the
quill of one
a simple letter
of tears and
golden
signature
and wished
me well.
june 2013
I hear, as if
on a grey day.
If all I have is through,
the pool moves.
Un-tuck me
at the scribble
of feathered wrist;
and dribble
at God’s window-pane.
Gust is the scrawl
I see as wonder;
crippled at the hillside.
her stars align.
fortuitously.
each line
*
discrete
has something like
blood stone
torn limb
skin prick
a flesh wound that actually
hurts
kick-starts her
heart some part
of herself half
known
*
so she was
here her syllables
clues missed
by the meticulous
casuals in blue
on the sand-flecked
floor for instance her
back room
at the end of a long
hall for instance the
sun-tipped straw o the wide
round of days days long
sky the riverbed
grey a face
in water her dress
weighed
by stones that had lain
among the bric-a-brac
of the bank sand
& flowers
she lay in the hollow
pool of shallows where
spectres bowed
disfigured eyes wide
saw the line that
divides this world
from another
*
I need to be high like
this at her feet. beneath
her skirt I fell
on purpose tried
all night to see
nothing but her white
stars head high &
the blue light of an ambulance
*
she was here one summer
& when she left I shook at the knees.
In dreams her hair’s
real short her eyes
glazed wide
like strangers
in the night
cars on the highways
of your sleep
& when you wake
miles away
cows graze
fields
buttercups
of spring
worlds away
but you anyway are.
really there
*
in the curves
of her line
breaks snake
hip syllables
coil slumber
sometimes
crawl. shed skin.
score bark. round
my neck down
the boughs & twigs
of my finger
tips
no big deal
but still
*
try me
she says ok
I will
*
it’s winter.
tuesday. we had lunch
by the lakes.
the sun shone.
the sky was blue
& the water…
birds flew
both ways because it’s all so
beautiful
*
we met
in the cherry red
mirror between
2 brush strokes
The man in tweed with his leg in the air is trying to mount
a tall steel horse
but his eye is on the cobbles and he’s falling
into a trap of his own making
silly bugger – and his cloth cap won’t save him
so we watch as he wobbles and wonder why
grown men wear silly clothes, especially
when they are not at all his colour –
grey indeed – and with his undercarriage in such danger
