Month: April 2016

Pine scent rises on this high dry knoll, below water captured from the river eases its way north. It is lured north by a stone groyne and the water tamed by a gorge runs into concrete chambers to flow around hills, under rivers, to come out here, where the ground swells and dips and the…

I I don’t mean to blaspheme, say silly things, swear. You don’t believe, and I would not care,   behind the wheel all night; I heard the 1st bell ring Sunday last; the cock crew once and who knew! where I was.   It suits me not to think, to lie with my windows down….

dawn service In memory of my maternal grandfather for ANZAC day. He would not take part in any ANZAC dawn parade or other such ceremony, or even step foot in an RSA club. From what my mother told me, it seemed he refused to take part in any of these activities that might have a…

1st   Let them go, won’t you! Listen, must you suffer, poor devil, worm; trampled on! The madmen pound your door. Open the door.   You uncluttered your room on the top floor, all but bare – a bed, a few simple things; violets on the window sill; and the hollow notes you sang to…

[ebook_store ebook_id=”471″]     april snow                     to Prince R.I.P the pirouette of voice the cock-flash of guitar the preen of melody your smile that times went back into the sorrow brother it’s snowing here in the clear morning sun those april flakes* you wrote of a beautiful…

she whispers from the black depths of our Whanganui her face visible below the surface of the waters the Pā tuna and her voice creating eddies contrary to the sacred flow that is te ao-mārama she promises to embrace and protect me just as the Hīnaki embraces the eel haere mai, haere mai ki toku…

[ebook_store ebook_id=”471″]       magic four starlings looking for stars on the lawn thrush falling in a hush on the wing blackbird heard in the bottled sweetness of dusk magpie swaggering ambling gamboling rather than fly the white dealt out on the black. nelson st, howick domain 26 september, 2012

  The fine soft white wood comes away clean, rolls into scented coils sweet with resin as the wide drawknife is pulled fine and strong up the timber’s length. This is a man of another time in this time; a freckled cloth cap, a waistcoat, open and with fastenings that shine, leaning into his work,…

I had fantasized old age.   I’m giving up that old hat and cane; the leisurely stroll in the park; the impotence at last; the fanatic heart of the man who stares at the young bloods making love on the grass. I’m done with all that, and I shall rage as that mad old man…

Step lightly on this coastal strip, and watch for the sucking, shifting salt-and-pepper sand. Watch, too, for the rising, curling breaker, the cliff’s overburden, twitching in space on a rusting wire. This beach reaches in a frown for a town’s light and its majesty is its plainness and its wheeling birds. It was here, dug…

The river stirs and birds sing among the sun-lit branches after rain.   The trees and flowers wave across the bank.   A solitary duck nears the bank. A man stands there who has no bread.   There’s a splash, and girls lapping the water.   16/`12/15

The flames of the moon, Dance before it swallows them, When we will be left in darkness, Unsheltered of want, Dissolving our heart’s path, Devoid of any consequences, One by one, The flames and embers go out, Tracing back the steps of light, Blindness cast upon us.