Friday

Uncollected Poems (1981-1999)


Alistair Paterson, ed.: Poetry NZ 22 (2001)


  1. Obsolete (December 1981)
  2. The Shaman (January 1982)
  3. The Present Tense (17/7/83-18/4/97)
  4. Pierre de Ronsard - Cassandre (1989):
    1. Gilt, rich in raiment, falling on my love (12/7/89)
    2. It's quite a metaphor (imagine this (13/7/89)
    3. Freed from Right Reason, turn'd to Passion's slave (14/7/89)
  5. Epithalamion (28/4/90)
  6. Tod und Verklärung (1991):
    1. Snow is so soft and deep … (5/8/91)
    2. May God help us … (9/8/91)
    3. It will be generally admitted … (9/8/91)
    4. Very soft shifting snow … (9/8/91)
  7. Killing Time (1997):
    1. Killing Time (10/9-18/11/96)
  8. Nightingale Fever (1996-99):
    1. Fever, nagging pain … (22/10/96-26/7/2000)
    2. A million ways … (31/12/98)
    3. I don’t have … (15/6/99)
  9. Letter to Marianne (13/11/96-24/1/97)
  10. Burn Old Diaries (30/11/96-27/6/2000)
  11. Coda (15/12/96)
  12. Waitakeres (28/6-9/11/97)
  13. Unpardonable Sins (20/8-4/11/97)
  14. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (3/10-8/11/97)
  15. Rough Day on the Gulf (10-19/11/97)
  16. A Dash of Bitters (10-19/11/97)
  17. The Mooring of Starting Out (27/11-6/12/97)
  18. Midnight Mass (26/12/97)
  19. When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (1999/2000):
    1. Ashley Gorge (18-19/1/98)
    2. Travel Sonnets (1998):
    3. The Longest Day (22/12/98)
    4. Orpheus in the Bays (5/8/97-27/2/98)
  20. Some More of Your Friends from Nevada (28/3/98)
  21. Elegy: Miriel Kyle (1/4/98)
  22. Meditation Exercise (5/5/98)
  23. La Fille que j’ai abandonnée (6/5-9/7/98)
  24. Aeroplane Poems (3-10/7/98)
  25. Tips on Stress from Seddonville (9/7/98)
  26. City Face (9/7/98)
  27. In the Ngakawau Gorge (9/7/98)
  28. Henry Fool (17/7-13/10/98)
  29. A Previously Uncollected Posthumous Work of Bukowski (24/7/98)
  30. M.C. (22/8/98)
  31. NZ Writing: the NeXt Wave (22/8/98)
  32. The Old School after Twenty Years (12/10/98)
  33. The Road to Oratia (7/11/98-26/2/2000)
  34. A Patina of the Antique (1998-99):
    1. Car Broken Down (4/12/98)
    2. Lean's Zhivago (30/4/99)
    3. The Information (4/12/98)
  35. Like a Japanese Christmas Card (30/12/98)
  36. Ohope at New Year (3/1/99)
  37. An Appointment with Cortázar (6/2/99)
  38. Christchurch Revisited (1999):
    1. Festival of Romance (9/2/99)
    2. Crossover Hits (9/2/99)
    3. The Vicar of Okains Bay (9/2/99)
    4. Last Morning (9/2/99)
  39. Je donne à mon espoir (10/3/99)
  40. The Imp of the Perverse (26/3/99)
  41. APEC Weekend (30/7-4/8-14/9/99)






Does death in these surroundings answer more
Effectively to death?
                      Or ... after all,
These towers no less cornices than breath
Allows, cannot reallocate
An office to the chanting of the dead.

    A face once long-remembered undertook
    Its hasty greetings, heard a simple strain
    Of unacquaintance ...
                          After all,
    (The image allocated to the Dane)
    No hasty soil delivers seed.


(12/81)

Publications:
  • Campus News: the alternative alternative 1 (4) (1984): 3.







The shaman climbing rungs inside his hut
Could never find the same advanced delight
As Amadeus Mozart, or define
Experiences simple in themselves
As avatars of unextended time.

The vantage of a similar defect
Makes Amazon adventures of no use,
Tahitians gentle shepherds, rather loose
In morals, Alligators friends
And crucifixion death without the noose.

Our common symbols swell to very few
Unless the artist consciously extends
A helping hand, repaints uncoloured men
As ochre, pigment-red or black
With ornamental arches at the end.


(1/82)

Publications:
  • Campus News: the alternative alternative 1 (3) (1984): 10.







Making a virtue of necessity,
hanging an ass’s tail to conflagration –
nagging the buyers to sell out the nation;
sinking a pin in the denuded city.

Riding on wheels of highly-tempered alloy
(making a virtue of necessity):
singing too loud to overhear the city
whispering /
            sending messages without joy.


(17/7/83-18/4/97)




Pierre de Ronsard:

Cassandre

(1989)






I


Je vouldroy bien richement jaunissant En pluye d'or goute à goute descendre Dans le beau sein de ma belle Cassandre, Lors qu'en ses yeulx le somme va glissant. Je vouldroy bien en toreau blandissant Me transformer pour finement la prendre, Quand elle va par l'herbe la plus tendre Seule à l'escart mille fleurs ravissant. Je vouldroy bien afin d'aiser ma peine Estre un Narcisse, & elle une fontaine Pour m'y plonger une nuict à sejour: Et vouldroy bien que ceste nuict encore Durast toujours sans que jamais l'Aurore D'un front nouveau nous r'allumast le jour. – Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1552): XX
Gilt, rich in raiment, falling on my love To reign there both as bridegroom & as dower (A trifle sordid, yes, this 'golden shower' Tho' sanctioned by the precedent of Jove) Were but one transformation – she, aloof, Strays sometimes from the path to pick a flower; I'd be the bull that waits within the bower To cozen her to live with me above. Sometimes I wish her melted to a spring That I might lie the whole night pondering My pain – self-mirrored there, Narcissus; &, like a star, desire an endless night To watch her, & that never morning's light Should come to drown the fountain's sweet susurrus.


(12/7/89)






Ha, seigneur dieu, que de graces écloses Dans le jardin de ce sein verdelet, Enflent le rond de deus gazons de lait, Où des Amours les fléches sont encloses! Je me transforme en cent metamorfoses, Quand je te voi, petit mont jumelet, Ains du printans un rosier nouvelet, Qui le matin bienveigne de ses roses. S'Europe avoit l'estomac aussi beau, De t'estre fait, Jupiter, un toreau, Je te pardonne. Hé, que ne sui-je puce! La baisotant, tous les jours je mordroi Ses beaus tetins, mais la nuit je voudroi Que rechanger en homme je me pusse. – Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1553): XLI
It's quite a metaphor (imagine this, Lord God!) – her verdant breasts are like a garden Fenced by Love's arrows; when the nipples harden The grass swells up with milk and ... ambergris. I'd go through any metamorphosis To mouth those mammaries – I even pardon That bugger Jove who tried to put his yard in Europa, if her belly gave such bliss. Down there, like all trained shrubs, she welcomes spring With flowers; plays Miss Coy while birdies sing. Perhaps I'll ask to be the flea that sucks Her tits (I'll bite them. kiss them, cause her pain) If every night I can turn back again – So when she feels the itch it's me she fucks.


(13/7/89)

Publications:
  • Spin 29 (1997): 31.






  • Franc de raison, esclave de fureur, Je voys chassant une Fére sauvage, Or sur un mont, or le long d'un rivage, Or dans le boys de jeunesse & d'erreur. J'ay pur ma lesse un cordeau de malheur, J'ay pour limier un trop ardent courage, J'ay pour mes chiens, & le soing, & la rage, La cruaulté, la peine, & la douleur. Mais eulx voyant que plus elle est chassée, Loing loing devant plus s'enfuit eslancée, Tournant sur moy la dent de leur effort, Comme mastins affamez de repaistre, A longz morceaux se paissent de leur maistre, Et sans mercy me traisnent à la mort. – Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1552): LXXXIX
    Freed from Right Reason, turn'd to Passion's slave All day I hunt a hart through the dark wood Of Error – 'Youth will have its fling' – well, good; Through rocks & streams & valleys, rant & rave? 'My hounds are bred out of ...' – Down, sir! Behave! Hate, rage & cruelty's their livelihood; I'd leash them in from madness if I could But their huntsman's mad to kill (it's meat they crave & every minute see it fast receding The more they run). They're tired, their feet are bleeding & logic rules them inescapably: I haven't fed them for too long ... Don't look At me like that, I'm not the bloody cook ... – They tear my flesh to shreds & feast on me.


    (14/7/89)






    For the Marriage of Jack and Marianne, at the Church of St. Pancratius of Kraainem, 18th August 1990.
    I The Welcome Listening to Pink Floyd on the stereo – 'We don't need no education' – mark Such rapid recrudescences of dark; While, down beneath the duvet The Bride awaits her wedding-day Aghast ... So far, and yet no further, we may go. II Dieu Nous Parle To praise these nuptials' unpropitious time 's Impossible? The river's ceased to run That brought us Hymen and St. Valentine; No longer burning here 'Unchang'd for fifteene hundred yeare' – Stiff cheese! – The 'love-lamps' wicks have lost their easy rhyme. III Dieu Nous Unit And yet, our love transcends the Fictional, N'est-ce pas? (Not 'physical' – those 'black but comely' Girls are gone). The turtle's voice is dumb, we Hear, and yet the roe Still bravely gambols here below In peace – To celebrate the Union Mystical IV The Eucharist ... Of feathered choristers, the nightly Owls And Nightingale, the 'bird of loudest lay,' Finch, wren and eagle; magpie, ostrich, jay, Like Creasey's 'feathered flies' The pompous pigeons all arise In rows ... (They've televised the Parlement of Foules). V Leaving I fear that I fail to drive the message home: Where are the gods of marriage? All are gone Save Roger Waters and Marillion; All easy idiom Of liturgy and sacred hymn Downcast – The Latin crept out of the Church of Rome. VI Toute Une Vie Pour Aimer Not that we wish a tissue of dead speech To stifle our Communion, each to each. The scene is Pollock, Brussels ... then a bed (Whose narrow girth would serve to wake the dead) Safe setting for our sun – all those who scan These verses, pray for Jack and Marianne. May all their days be in such concord spent, 'With their bodies let them worship' – and pay rent! Let them not quarrel over Bread and Wine – Perceiving how impartial's the Divine. (Nor quibble, either, over wine and bread, But end all quarrels where they start – in bed).


    (28/4/90)

    Publications:
    • For the Celebration of the Wedding of Jackie-Anne and Jack. Church of Saint Pancratius of Kraainem, 18th August 1990.





    Tod und Verklärung

    (1991)

    (for J-A)


    Sir Douglas Mawson, the Australian explorer, was in Adélie Land between 1912 and 1914. It is probably the most inhospitable region of Antarctica (he called his account of the expedition The Home of the Blizzard). The idea was that he should survey one side of the continent, while Ernest Shackleton travelled to meet him from the other. However, Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was crushed in the ice, so the crossing was never attempted.





    I


    Snow is so soft and deep
        – Douglas Mawson, the Antarctic, 22nd January 1913
    
    
     
    Ninnis dead                           A terrible catastrophe happened
        24 miles back,                    soon after taking latitude ... 
    Xavier as well – buried in his bag.   I looked behind & saw no sign of 
                                          Ninnis & his team. I stopped & 
    Meanwhile, in Germany,                wondered, then bethought myself 
        orchestras attack                 of the crevasse ... Came back, 
    the lines of Richard Strauss.         called & sounded for an hour. 
                                          Read the Burial Service
    Rilke burrows deep                         – 14th December 1912
        in drifts of office files
    (ashamed of hymning war).             Whetter was sick last night, diarrhoea. 
                                          He sleeps all day today though stating 
    Futile to despair –                   that he would get up and get ice this 
        discord in the hut                afternoon. Whetter is not fit for a 
    as Whetter takes a rear ...           polar expedition
                                              – 11th June 1912
    


    (5/8/91)

    Publications:
    • "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
    • “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.







    May God Help us.
        – Mawson, 14th December 1912
    
    
     
    The landscape makes one think of Greece
    (Mawson himself contributes a few lines):
    sun-beaten cyclamen, unceasing
        wind on coastal pines.
                                               No light from the Hut, it 
    Here darkness, gales, a desert             is difficult to tell when 
    without dunes – sastrugi,                  one is on top of it. Outside 
    bitter care, crevasses,                    one is in touch with the 
        Ninnis and his dog-team.               sternest of Nature – one
                                               might be a lone soul 
    The bursting sun of Wagner –               standing in Precambrian 
        what to dramatise?                     times or on Mars – all is 
    This lunar quiet, blind echoes             desolation and hard in the 
    in a maze ... huts over the next rise?     durest
                                                   – 9th April 1912
    


    (9/8/91)

    Publications:
    • "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
    • “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.







    It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth 
    Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated 
    into the ear of man
        – E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910)
    
    
     
    Let’s not blame Strauss – this landscape of the Moon    11.30 pm: … Will 
    was not dreamed up by Ludendorff or Haig.               the hangar stick it? 
    The wind cuts wires, wears down the planet’s skin.      Will the screens 
                                                            stand the strain? 
    Making a “beautiful noise” is not so easy               It is indeed 
    – the screech of amateurs offends the air.              difficult to 
    (how can it move so fast ... relentlessly?)             understand how 
                                                            air can flow so 
    Some day the guns will be silenced; not so the howl     swiftly
    of the “perpetual anticyclone” of Adélie ...                – 17th May 1912
    King George’s land – acceptance with a scowl.	
                                                            The new land east 
                                                            of the Mertz glacier 
                                                            we have received 
                                                            his Majesty’s 
                                                            gracious permission 
                                                            to name King 
                                                            George V. land
                                                                – 1914
    


    (9/8/91)

    Publications:
    • "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
    • “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.







    Very soft shifting snow, or else I would have done better
        – Mawson, 22nd January 1913
    
    
     
    You see, my love, this disk of polished steel    amongst those here at 
    and Mawson’s Antarctic Notes                     Commonwealth Bay are a 
    aren’t far apart.                                number of the very type 
                                                     of men who have made 
    Too late, now, for revision –                    Great Britain what she 
    Four last songs composed                         is, and Europe what she 
    on the abyss.                                    is, and will, I venture 
                                                     to think, – make Heaven 
    What do you see when face to face …              out of Hell
    with nothing? Who’s to say                           – 3rd May 1912
    except our pal?	
                                                     The tent is closing in 
    So let’s just listen ¬– something there that’s   by weight of snow and is 
    noble,                                           about coffin size now
    notes of a man                                       – 25th January 1913 
    unbeaten,                                                     
    refusing to lie down                             Trust in Providence 
        in the soft snow.                            and my crampons
                                                         – 3rd February 1913
    


    (9/8/91)

    Publications:
    • "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
    • “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.





    Jack Ross: Killing Time (1997)



    (1997)


    every man (there’s no remedy) must scamble as he may, and shift as he can; yet Cardan comforted himself with this, “the star Fomalhaut would make him immortal,” and that after his decease his books should be found in ladies’ studies.

    – Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1641)


    1. Auckland by Night / Brussels by Day (18/4–29/6/96)
    2. One Version of Pastoral (3/6/81–15/8/96)
    3. The Prospect of the Bungy-Jump (25/8/96-2/1/97)
    4. On the Occasion of Wet Snow (5/6/83-7/9/96)
    5. Morning at a Language School (2/9-5/9/96)
    6. A Road through Pylons (8/9-18/10/96)
    7. Killing Time (10/9-18/11/96)
    8. Recovery (22/10/96-15/1/97)
    9. C. P. Cavafy’s The God Abandons Antony (1/96-7/7/96)
    10. Petrarch’s Laura I-III (4/12/96-1/1/97)
    11. Life in a Chinese Novel (24/4/93-17/4/97)







    My life doesn’t fit any more – it’s hors de ligne,
    synthetic, forced; high time for me to change
    to something kept in stock … and that means – what?
    Life-history in marble on the temples
    for the edification of youth, or random scrawls
    on Atiamuri’s dank urinal walls,
    that glade of lying out beside the dam?
    
    I’ve had it with this body – with my stomach
    which refuses to grow flat; my pointy nose,
    thin arms, thick head, fat butt, ill-fitting glasses …
    it’s time to trade it in for one in style:
    athletic, bone-bare – fit for a last mile.
    


    (10/9-18/11/96)

    Publications:
    • Killing Time (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1997): 8.











    Nightingale Fever
    (i.m. Ruth Dallas)







    Fever, nagging pain: ingrown
        toenail? Catarrh
            swimming inside your head?
    
    Rhythm? No, a shape
        sound – melody
            a certain catch
    
    repeated. Phrase?
        A state of heightening
            pain between your eyes
    
    creased, not swollen – something
        there to say. To whom?
            God? Never
    
    quite – next time, perhaps
    


    (22/10/96-26/7/2000)

    Publications:
    • "Nightingale Fever". Some shells in a tobacco tin: Ruth Dallas. Ed. David Howard. nzepc (17/3/2009)







    A million ways
        of failing
            Time to set it off
    
    Bob    See you later
        Alligator
            Blues    log ladies
    
    So when’s the time for
        Chapeaux bas
            Messieurs?
    
    Inside a mine    at midnight
        Underwater    lost to all
            good feeling    gutted
    
    in the dark?
    


    (31/12/98)

    Publications:
    • "Nightingale Fever". Some shells in a tobacco tin: Ruth Dallas. Ed. David Howard. nzepc (17/3/2009)







    I don’t have
                  any more
    to go on
                  than you do
    turn aside
                  grey-suited
    lady turn
                  your head he’s
    writing wait
                  ing for the
    buslane to
                  light up not
    green or red
                  or amber
    but B blue
    


    (15/6/99)

    Publications:
    • "Nightingale Fever". Some shells in a tobacco tin: Ruth Dallas. Ed. David Howard. nzepc (17/3/2009)







    Sorry for the long silence; it was caused
    by many things: hard work?  – the barrier
    that seems to stand between us (not the sea;
    it’s like a mist.  I can’t remember you
    at all: your face, your body, laughter, clothes).
    I feel as if this were another life
    I’d been born into – died into, perhaps.
    [A car with zebra stripes hoons by,
    a Westie at the wheel].  Two months ago
    is all the vista I can contemplate.
    
    Two tries I’ve made so far: the bungy-jump
    to see if that mad terror would revive
    me.  Well, it did – in a strange way.
    And then last night, the swim at Muriwai;
    foolhardy, a rehearsal for a death
    I found I hadn’t wanted, hauling back
    against that excessive force.  Can there be joy
    in a life that’s lived alone?  Christ, don’t ask me!
    I keep myself busy here on Mount Despair.
    I miss you.  Do I mean, myself with you?
    


    (13/11/96-24/1/97)






    Burn old diaries, rip out title-pages,
    fly-leaves, sticks of chewing
    gum.  She’s left me hooked on
        caffeine.
    
    Take up hobbies: weights, the Territorials,
    swim each morning.  Fool,
    to think you’ll flush your system
        clean
    
    like that.  Whinge on.  Take up the trade
    of killing – Murder Inc. – burn down
    old houses for a living:
        “Sentimentalist –
    
    one who thinks angels
    are watching out for him” … Scarring 
    serves a purpose we’ve all
        missed.
    
    Turn again, Whittington.  Perhaps
    I’ll be the fucking Mayor
    of Auckland – nuke the city
        fast!
    
    Whirling dervish,
    Scourge of God – Your
    shelter from the
        blast
    


    (30/11/96-27/6/2000)

    Publications:
    • Spin 38 (2000): 35.







    Of course the fault is mine, my fault
    for loving totally, without reserve
    (I don’t know how one holds back from
        assuming
    everyday attentiveness is love).
    
    Next time (if there’s a next time), I’ll be ready
    to jump before I’m pushed – leave the stone lip
    before I’ve wept and begged my way
        through terror;
    falling’s easy when you mean to slip.
    
    My place is on the sea-shore with the sea-shells,
    looking for kelp and pipis by the rocks;
    yours is, it seems, to look for
        “self-fulfilment”:
    stone streets in winter snow, fast-frozen locks.
    


    (15/12/96)






    Auckland from above: beach-midden
    shell-fragments – white rooftops.  Why so white?
    The sky-tower bisects the islands neatly,
    Rangitoto lapping sheaves
        of basking wharves.
    
    The statues’ pricks point upwards – Mt. Aspiring
    (Donald MacLean), down onto Lion Rock:
    lingam and yoni?  Knotty-pine Visitors’
    Centre, murals, mirror-lakes …
        by Sony.
    
    We walked down to the dam: crew-cut
    bush, trimmed number four; full reservoir.
    My father photographed three tourists
    ¬– South African – who boxed us in
        at the next lookout point.
    


    (28/6-9/11/97)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 9 (4) (2006): 8.







    Self-pity,
        self-dramatisation,
            being boring –
    That’s what my Daddy told me
    when I was ’bout knee-high …
    	What did I do?
    	Became a poet …
    
    When my sister killed herself,
        it hardly matters
        what we said then –
    the thing that got me most
        was leaving her behind
        in a wood box
    
    When my wife said: “It’s over,”
        who’s to say
        what I felt then?
    Perhaps, inside, a tiny spark of triumph
        at being so prepared
        for tragedy
    
    The whole armour of God:
        chew on your nails
        until they flake away
    then on the quick, till that’s gone too,
        then bat the air
        with the sore stumps
    
    Self-pity,
        self-dramatisation,
            being boring –
    That’s what my Daddy told me
    when I was ’bout knee-high


    (20/8-4/11/97)

    Publications:
    • Where Will Massey Take You? Life Writing 2. ISBN 0-473-09551-3. Massey University: School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2005. 126-27.

    Notes:
    • Published under the pseudonym 'Claire Talbot'.







    Quoting oneself is infra dig, no doubt:
    non-u, chichi, and other outdated
    slang – and yet, the poetry in action
    of that girl’s tight cords ... Bedtime
            for Bozo?
    
    You see my point?  Shop-soiled phrases:
    Rag-and-bone shop of the tart,
    Manuel the Mexican as lexicon
    (“the Order of St. John has taken
            to the air
    
    to save more lives”) ... Smale’s quarry
    sits idly by.  Watch out, old man
    – beneath your broad-brimmed hat –
    quite soon enough a corkless night will fall,
            and swallow all.
    


    (3/10-8/11/97)






    My suit looks better than I do … rough day
    on the Gulf; the ferries are holed up
    by Kauri Point.  That hand laid – oh so casually –
    sur le cuisse, upon the thigh: attesting what?
            Fidelity?
    
    Young lovers chatting lightly (public-
    transport types: black jeans, white
    supermarket bags) make me recall
    my hand upon a thigh, promising what?
            Fidelity?
    


    (10-19/11/97)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 8 (9) (2005): 4.







    Cooking idiolect: a dash of bitters.
    That’s clear enough.  Here’s pansies, that’s for ...
    So what is the equivalent of curry?
    mixed herbs? … Irruptions on the lawn?
    
    The lake’s roiled up like sulphur.  I don’t
    eat enough, right now, to savour tastes;
    still, chillies leave me with a sense of closure:
    tears, nose, pores purged – at peace – all passion spent.
    


    (10-19/11/97)






    We walk into what we’ve made already: Zapiski
    iz podpol’ya – underground; red spot on the right cheek,
    then the left, flecked off.  More spacious gestures,
    opening to wide boulevards, the cars (Daihatsu, Hyundai),
    Nikkei index – minutiae of day.
    The renovations here fall into legend; we plot their progress,
    waiting, day by day.
    
    Dürer’s self-portrait in the Prado: “Can self-love
    go any further?" intones canned Kenneth Clark.  Self-loathing,
    rather – through the frame dry summer, Central
    Otago moon-landscape ¬– six huhus rubbing together.
    A lake though, not these bomb-craters of metal,
    light-blue and red t-shirt over hipster slacks, skewed platforms.
    One more line completes it,
    
    your breasts rhyme with the cloudlessness of day.
    


    (27/11-6/12/97)

    Publications:







    Your worst fear will be realised,
    you’ll realise it yourself:
    fear of falling, of
        the telephone,
    
    loss?  They said I was forgiven
    there, last night – High Anglican
    sepulchre – how could they
        know?
    
    Beeswax candles dribbling light,
    trestle-stacked choir, pro-
    digious censer-swinging
        by a pro.
    
    I close my eyes, shake hands,
    murmur responses, cringe
    to hear my singing
        praised.
    
    Je viens de te revoir partout,
    ma chère, je viens
    de te revoir – to see you
        everywhere.
    


    (26/12/97)

    Publications:
    • Spin 32 (1998): 37.





    Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, ed.: When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (1999)



    Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross & Apirana Taylor

    (1999)


    1. Ashley Gorge (18-19/1/98)
    2. Travel Sonnets
    3. The Longest Day (22/12/98)
    4. Orpheus in the Bays (5/8/97-27/2/98)
    5. Sonnet (2/98)
    6. Freeman’s Bay (20/2-25/3/99)







    For Jim on His Fortieth Birthday
    
    
    Suis-je Kiwi? Estoy aquì – Akaroa bakes its own French bread …
    Grounding canoe on streambed – dappled stones, milk-light white quartz. Sun climbs down hot from depthless cwms. Rubber boat, spinning aground. Did I say “dappled”? Water clear as trout, rough round the bend. Bridge. Road-bridge? Difficult to tell, reciting onomastica of signs, five years ... another me, you, water, rubber boat; that afternoon, my knees on stone, paddle askew; instructions shouted from the shore (rough logs, I think); my brother, Cath, Jean, Chris: blue crystal day.


    (18-19/1/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 88.





    Travel Sonnets







    Hairtrigger upthrust, giant’s bone,
    eald enta geweorc
    – “They look like standing stones,
    don’t they?” – the Weka
    Pass, Nth Canterbury.
    
    Easter Island 
    sockets, topknots,
    grass greyed to sand-dune.
    Titicaca say the hills.
    
    Trouble in front, beside, behind
    – tears, tantrums, fist-fights –
    Accelerate
               your stasis!
    Mountains saw the sky.
    


    (26/1/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 89.







    Cheryl’s poem, ten years ago:
    turning myself like a wheel.  Yes,
    everything is in the dance: hill,
    hairpins – accelerator,
    brake & clutch, gear-lever, go …
    
    Tourist cunt slides by on legs.  Like Clint
    in Heartbreak Ridge (studying Vogue
    to sensitise himself), I listen to
    The Corrs: “Leave me alone!”
    
    It’s an Old Norse saga sentence:
    “She I loved best, betrayed me most.”
    Playing the glad game,
    Turn the light out? – Yes.  The light?
    – Not yet.  Ten minutes more.
    


    (30/1/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 91.







    Nearby radios nagging, singing –
    self-satisfied with sound
    perhaps? 
    
    Green & blue-splashed drive
    laid out in tiles – above: the hills,
    slabs, falls,
    
    fog-bound like Dartmoor:
                             Mr Holmes,
    they were the footsteps of a gigantic hound!
    
    Feedback loops
    distort reception.  Above: one tree.
    The sky arcs over to the sea.
    


    (2/2/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 92.







    Pale – growing the orange out
    highlights of brown
    on brown
    
    No fashion victim, lines
    define the nose,
    white blouse
    
    “Not Megan that’s been changed”
    – or charged?  Pale –
    Madras St
    
    Hot as India, blue knitted
    top, white tight
    trousers
    
    I 94 FM thanks you
    for listening
    


    (5/2/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 94.







    Today I saw the ghost of Smithyman
    at the traffic lights, squinting up
    at the ossing sky, backpack slung
    over one shoulder, anxious,
    hurried.  He was there.
    
    Just a momentary thing.  Oh, is he
    still alive? one wondered, looking so
    self-sufficient, off on an
    afternoon round of shops.
    
    It’s true that the bus was empty –
    phantom of a commuter line
    defunct?  The light a little strange.
    Perhaps I expected it.  There was no particular
    shock.
          Today I saw Kendrick wait for the green man.
    


    (11/2/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 89.







    The longest crawl
        of cars across the bridge
        The longest fall
    from Sky-tower to harbour
    
    Why do you keep
        the windows closed?
        It’s so we won’t
    need bars
    
    Building K
        is leasing now
        Quite hard to chew
    and talk
    


    (22/12/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 97.







    Coming back, he felt like ice;
    like a sawn-off limb, the past was just
    a twitch –
    	       I power-walk, discuss
        ‘the pump’ with chance-encountered friends.
    
    Eurydice was successful, too,
    in Hades
             Brussels. 
                       Stopped sending letters
    after a while (forgot to write
    as her old life rotted away?)
    
        I told her once she always held
        a grudge.  She’s proved it.  As for me,
        I climb around the rocks to Campbells
        Bay – blue slate, coffee-ground sea.
    
    He secretly desired those Thracian
    girls, of course –  to kill him?
                                     Better
        that, than nothing at all.  The sweet, 
        complacent singing-voice grew still …
    
    Bobbing downstream, at peace, transfigured,
    Orpheus sidestrokes out to sea.
    


    (5/8/97-27/2/98)

    Publications:
    • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 98.













    (for Brian Turner)
    
    
    In a corner of the old Capitol
        cinema
            Balmoral
    
    Now an indoor rock-climbing centre
        track-suited straight
            arrows
    
    Working their way up the walls
        they’ve left up one poster
            Wes Craven’s
    	
    The Hills Have Eyes
        a black cut-out hillside
            studded with lidless red eyes
    
    Of course it’s too late to convince you
        it’s always that
            friend of a friend
    
    Who hoons off downriver
        veers off the state highway
            ends up getting fucked like a pig
    
    or mown into road-spoil …
    


    (28/3/98)

    Publications:







    I
    
    This morning dawned overcast
    north, fluorescent belts
        language was used up
    
    screech of exotic birds
    fog-horn of coffee
        language was used up
    
    counting my change, cash-cards
    ring-ring of phone: Ken Wood
        language was used up
    
    the knights slept in their harness
    under Mt. Eden – Sauron defeated
        language was used up
    
    
    II
    
    I didn't know you very well – that's my excuse.
    Classes this morning, got to label
    paragraphs  and ^ and = and F and 
        in Massey @ Albany.
    
    You were a kind woman, came to see me
    when I was sick – we talked about ...
    I can't remember.  So long, Miriel,
        ashes, now,
    
    gone to take up your ecological niche
    in the sky.  By now you'll be waking up.
    Is the red chamber dream a nightmare, broken
        abruptly
    
    by approaching day?			
    


    (1/4/98)

    Publications:
    • Takahe 35 (1998): 13.







    Imagine a tongue. It’s red. Or is it red? Plum-purple, shading to off-cream, tufted with taste-buds (minute sensors), veined, mottled, pursing in to form a tube, rough up a gum … break the silence. Unruly member. Finger it in your mind; work it around. Do exercises with it. Yes, it’s yours – forever. If it’s not plucked out. No imminent risk, perhaps? Now bite it. Ah, that stings! Harder. You really felt that. What’s it done – or tasted – since you were last here? Was it sublime? The tang of pâté, pussy, poisson cru? Why, nothing. What is nothing? It’s your tongue.


    (5/5/98)






    Daylight moon – silkprint
    half-stamped on eggshell blue.
    
    Mare tranquillitatis.  When you reach
    the end of yourself, it’s time
    
    – for a million things.  Not Mickey
    Mouse, Vanessa.  One two three.
    


    (6/5-9/7/98)

    Publications:
    • Spin 40 (2001): 56.







    I
    
    If a pretext’s needed, green sea
    tends to mean land – white
    tassels, like a Belgian rug –
    
    cloud eruptions, starburst shell
    of snow: fixed wiring,
    manufacturing
    
    nothing.  ‘His air
    of lost connections.’  Rocks
    aren’t scared of bombs.
    
    Back to
    deep blue, the hostesses all thumbs
    
    
    II
    
    brown fan of silt
    denotes a river; clouds
    mass over peaks
    
    
    III
    
    that’s no city, it’s the sea
    the clouds are waves
    a ditch is rock, though
    everywhere the rain
    


    (3-10/7/98)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 8 (10) (2005): 17.







    Persistence of tussock
                            tires out Mastercard
    Barns raise rooftops
                            in reverse
    The scenic guard-rail’s
                            whited out
    Charming Creek
                            takes an awkward turn
    A naked tap
                            for Miner’s Dark
    


    (9/7/98)

    Publications:







    Told yesterday
    I had a ‘city
            face’
    
    this morning
                I spent
            practising
    before the glass
    
            insouciant sneers
            atrocious leers
            insolent stares
    
    till I noticed
        the espresso
            had gone
                cold
    


    (9/7/98)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 1 (11) (1998): 6.
    • All Together Now! A Celebration of New Zealand Culture by 100 Poets. Edited by Tony Chad. ISBN 0-473-07325-0. Wellington: Valley Micropress, 2000. 85.
    • "for Leicester Hugo Kyle, b.1937". The Imaginary Museum (28/6/2006)
    • brief #34 – war (2007): 6-12.

    Notes:
    • Originally titled "Kylesque" - in imitation of the Rev. Leicester Kyle.







    Plastic arrows broken off, DOC plaques erode to native yellow. Detour, they said, back on that tramline fuelled by gravity. Irrupting from fern- bush: creek, stream, rill, foam- berged, peat- stained. No further forth – no rain (as yet). We sat, said: What does one do with this? Cite Rilke? Prate about milady’s favours? Fail to


    (9/7/98)

    Publications:







    “What’s this place called?”
        – small boy going into the toilets
    
    
    The pisshead chuckles
        as the bus rides by
    a breathalyser checkpoint
    
    Mein Gott, was hast du mir getan?
        exclaims the damsel
    as Simon sprays her ass
    
    Pallor of girls’ brows
        in perspex, chewing a snagnail
    shattered by the vibe
    


    (17/7-13/10/98)

    Publications:
    • "Shorts." Poetry NZ 40 (2010): 76-81.







    Blah    blah    blah
            blah    blah
            blah
    
    my wife & I
    
            blah    blah
    
    my cats
    
            blah    blah
    
    & Bach
            blah
                (oh, & Sartre,
        Dostoevsky, Jung)
    
    The rest of youse is dung
    


    (24/7/98)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 2 (1) (1999): [3].
    • Micropress New Zealand 4 (2) (1999): [9].







    Poke your tongue
        in the side of your mouth:
    goodbye
    
    Pause, in tight leather skirt
        on the dais
    with long hair
    
    Laugh, as you say “puffed out”
        forget the
    party
    
    A Friday night needs
        two weeks,
        Thursdays
    one
    


    (22/8/98)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 2 (1) (1999): [3].
    • Three Poems for Annora Gollop, on the Occasion of Her Birthday [pamphlet] (February 26, 2000).







    Blue lights above the car Rigel – Aldebaran shadows through the streetlight LEXX: “The Giga-shadow is the end and it is the beginning” Scott’s made a list of thirty names NZ Literature could do without Richard’s composing (“No-one writes like me”) the infinite regress; Hamish is … Miriam’s reconciling architecture with … and Anna Sol. “If Satan starts a journal up in Hell, I’ll send him something.”


    (22/8/98)






    Hoist your tracksuit bottoms, look
    around
           il est très doué, mais il
    ne travaille pas
                When I was in
    Papua, in the Customs service
    
    Eileen knows Athol
    Fugard
           Liane’s a colleague
    – whom I’ve never met –
    whose job’s to publicise
    me
    
    Here I went to school, Tom Brown
        Outstretched arms
    of Rangitoto – clear-felled
    round the rugby field –
        Here I ran cross-country, bogged
    in laughing crowds of helots
    
    It’s the same
    


    (12/10/98)

    Publications:
    • Valley Micropress 8 (8) (2005): 5.







    I am double fool, I know
          Dr Jerk-off
        & Massa Hide
    
    A man today, met in a garden:
    “My granddaughter is five years old
    (with cerebral palsy)
                          she says
    ‘I want to be a drummer.  But for a real
    job, I’ll shift maths equipment.’”
    
    Point taken
        Doan’ whup me, Massa
    Time to be all right
        I’ll wear my cricket whites
    start cadging smokes
        Once more with attitude
    fucked in the head
    


    (7/11/98-26/2/2000)

    Publications:
    • Three Poems for Annora Gollop, on the Occasion of Her Birthday [pamphlet] (February 26, 2000).





    A Patina of the Antique







    A patina of the antique
        over which picture?
    
    David Lean’s dead cameraman
        today [4th December ‘98]
    
    O’Toole as Lawrence, Alec
        Guinness, Lara
    
    or that deviant boy
        in purple windcheater
    
    crushed up against his car
        by rush-hour traffic
    
    Tailgated? broken down?
        Car Broken Down
    
    An oval earring
        in the lobe ahead
    


    (4/12/98)

    Publications:
    • A Patina of the Antique (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
    • A Patina of the Antique.” Trout: online journal of arts & literature from aotearoa/new zealand and the pacific islands 14 (2007): 52.







    Tom Courtenay parting the crowds
        at the Sventitsky’s
    Christmas party
    
    Leaves scudding across her grave
        as Yuri’s eyes
    look up
    
    Intensity of affect
        Still the same?
    More stagey?
    
    Twenty-five years between
        I’ve lived them
    Haven’t I?
    


    (30/4/99)

    Publications:
    • A Patina of the Antique (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
    • A Patina of the Antique.” Trout: online journal of arts & literature from aotearoa/new zealand and the pacific islands 14 (2007): 52.







    You put about 70% in of the information says Damian – The information – “Car Broken Down” (wrote that twelve years ago) My Lara fantasies (the paperback that parted in my hands) The point? Is the point time? Un mauvais quart d’heure for Mr Breakdown leisure for me to fiddle in the bus


    (4/12/98)

    Publications:
    • A Patina of the Antique (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
    • A Patina of the Antique.” Trout: online journal of arts & literature from aotearoa/new zealand and the pacific islands 14 (2007): 52.







    i	Strictly speaking
    	there’s no such
    	thing as
    	line
    
    	in nature
    	or a word
    	or silence
    	dint
    
    	of overlapping
    	colours
    	chords
    	membranes
    
    	perspex
    	slide effects
    
     
    ii	Nature’s curved
    	we’re deaf to
    	stillness
    	girls wear
    
    	buttoned shorts
    	black silver-buttoned
    	skirts
    	striped
    
    	tops
    	we fail
    	to stipple off
    	the pattern
    
    	burger-fuel
    	it up
    


    (30/12/98)

    Publications:
    • Flint 1 (1999): n.p.







    Romances, and parables, or fables that have no truth in the matter, but honesty in the design, as also enlargement of stories by variety of phrases and manner of expression, or handsome oratory; the better to inculcate the virtue, or express the vice they design to represent, are of singular use in all discourses. – Dr. Charles Morton (17th century)
    Scorpio: deep passions thinly veiled Venus associates with Pluto dark volcanic god Andrew: Pluto was only spotted fifty years ago so’s scarcely of astrological significance if you press for an outcome things resolve themselves sounds ominous Alan & Corinne walk on endeavouring to ignore their scribbling companion


    (3/1/99)

    Publications:
    • For Lisa Bieleski: New Zealand Golf (and English) Academy (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999)







    Hidden in the grass, wait for a large cumulus cloud to drift over the hated city. Then shoot a petrifying arrow; the cloud will turn to stone … – Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds (1980)
    BLUE Fuck it, Jewel, stop whining! AnAll I need is a good …Enemy finger, was it? Pencilling in the They contours. All you people seem Can’t the same: sad sacks. See WHITE The anorexic look? Fiona Apple? Pretty in ringlets, A asks … (I play with the cat, Nation too, sometimes – resolving Under not to mention that Siege to other Jules). RED Tonight I lay down under a tree beside the Avon, and you can’t get A wetter than that (BENNY HINN, Crime faith-healer). I will sleep in They tomorrow (“if I’m Can’t spared”); Death’s too good Control for this [Abruptly shattered by the aproned man: “Another glass of “Are you right wine there, sir?” there, sir?” “No, fine here, thanks” I’m fine, thanks” (rent paid for two more minutes) twenty minutes) let’s face it, free for these last minutes free of these last minutes sick of these last minutes caught for these last minutes sick of these last minutes sick of sick of sick of sick sick sick …]


    (6/2/99)

    Publications:
    • Spin 35 (1999): 46.





      Christchurch Revisited







      braided rivers Avon
      ladies yes that snooty
      bitch in the Bon Bolli
      last night I feel compla
      cent here is it Yeats or
      young James Joyce John Alli
      son asks me as we loi
      ter in the cloisters of
      the Arts Centre no sea
      gull grotto where the sun
      can never shine
      


      (9/2/99)

      Publications:
      • Takahe 56 (2005): 13.







      Crossover hits. Jack sees himself in denim,
      with guitar. Crocodile Shoes, perhaps.
      Wailing. Did it happen then? I had it
      sussed – no dice, just friends
          finally, out to see
      The Thief (that sexy Russian girl),
      
      but then we kissed: “I want to hug you,”
      “You’re a good person to know.”
                                      No,
      not even then – this morning. I’m so
      slow
      


      (9/2/99)

      Publications:
      • Takahe 56 (2005): 13.







      “The next service is at …” but the board is
      blank – a strong, stone-buttressed
      church, though (founded 1863)
      
      In the store, buying jumbo-sized
      sunscreen: “You must be expecting
      a lot of sun,” opines the man
      
      with the crooked hand
                            Down on the beach
      Pacific breakers roll in from
      “the largest sea in the world –
      5,000 miles”
      


      (9/2/99)

      Publications:
      • Takahe 56 (2005): 13.







      “… it is as if the very modernity of his intelligence
      has goaded a primitive stamina in his imagination.”
          – Seamus Heaney on Derek Mahon
      
      
      Fuck-dumb … Do you have to be dumb to fuck? No music. Why does the sun shine in the sky? Why does a bear have fur? No abstruse congeries of pre-preschool TV. Remind me it’s not in vain – talk, talk! – I want it: lips skin smile, can’t have it frozen cruciform, hog- tied, immobile, ankle- tethered – on the brink.


      (9/2/99)

      Publications:
      • Takahe 56 (2005): 13.







      (after Apollinaire)
      
      
      I give for hope my eyes semi-precious stones
      I give for hope my hands victory palms
      I give for hope my feet supermarket carts
      I give for hope my mouth this kiss
      I give for hope my nostrils sampling spring flowers
      I give for hope my heart keeping its promise
      I give for hope the future flickering like a candle
              far off in the forest
      


      (10/3/99)

      Publications:
      • Poèmes à Lou [Chantal] – after Guillaume Apollinaire, Poèmes à Lou [Ombre de mon amour] (1915) xxxi & xlix. (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
      • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
      • Takahe 56 (2005): 20.
      • Je donne à mon espoir. Auckland: Pania Press, November 23, 2008.
      • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)

      Notes:
      • Je donne à mon espoir mes yeux ces pierreries
        Je donne à mon espoir mes mains palmes de victoire
        Je donne à mon espoir mes pieds chars de triomphe
        Je donne à mon espoir ma bouche ce baiser
        Je donne à mon espoir mes narines qu’embaument les fleurs de la mi-mai
        Je donne à mon espoir mon cœur en ex-voto
        Je donne à mon espoir tout l’avenir qui tremble comme une petite lueur au loin dans la forêt

        – Guillaume Apollinaire, “L'amour, le dédain et l'espérance,” from Poèmes à Lou [Ombre de mon amour] XLIX (1915).
        Text from Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques. Ed. Marcel Adéma & Michel Décaudin. Préface d’André Billy. 1956. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 121 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1966): 465.








      Alas, it is too late!
          – Edgar Allan Poe
      
      
      FORT    Enacting a game of control, pretending    DA
       DA          baby’s lost, the cliff’s been       FORT
      FORT              cleared, bashing                DA
       DA                                              FORT
      FORT     the sod you love, to prove that love     DA
       DA          to breaking point, so when it       FORT
      FORT                    shatters                  DA
       DA                                              FORT
      FORT               it was never there             DA
      


      (26/3/99)

      Publications:
      • Spin 34 (1999): 50-51.

      Notes:
      • Inspired by Bernard MacLaverty's novel Grace Notes (1997).







      (10th- 14th September, 1999)
      
      Avarice
      Pride
      Envy
      Carnality
          – Columbus Coffee Shop, High Street (26/8/99)
      
      
      There must be public
      coin-operated funny things
      done waste in some
      of these disposal city
      pubs jack looking down
      trash comparison sun deflects
      from buildings four buffalo
      girls bill has gone
      to practise his last
      rest fingering tai the
      shaft chi sweet skin
      at carmel oh funny
      things done in college
      cheer-leaders some of
      these maybe city pubs
      


      (30/7-4/8-14/9/99)

      Publications:







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