Wednesday

Uncollected Poems (2000-2004)


Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture.
Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul (2006)


  1. from Tiger Country (2002)
    1. Poetry Weekend (28/3/98)
    2. Answers to Correspondence (11/3/99-10/3/01-26/10/01)
    3. On this day I complete my 36th year (6/11/98-21/3/2000)
    4. School (4/8/99)
    5. Late-Nite Movie at Wairau Park (10/1-19/9/98)
    6. Millennium Sermon (25/12/99-11/3/01)
    7. Signs & Portents (27/6, 29/3, 20/6, 13/7, 7/6 & 29/5-1/8/2000)
    8. Tron (6/4-17/5/01)
    9. Slave 4 U (15/11-9/12/01)
    10. Memories of Conan the Cimmerian (15/11-9/12/01)
    11. Corrugated Garage-doors in Gore St. (25/1-16/10/01)
    12. No-one gets on or off (12/2-18/5/01)
    13. Going In (9/11-9/12/01)
    14. Staying Out (9/11-9/12/01)
    15. Intoit (12/11-8/12/01)
    16. Subject: Urgent Assistance (7-9/9/02)
    17. E (27/4-17/5/01)
    18. Breast Cancer Doesn’t Just Affect Women (31/10-2/12/01)
    19. Last Night at the Party (29/6-19/10/01)
    20. Goodbye Love (10/1-22/3/01; 29/6/01; 9-11/9/01)
  2. A Photograph of the Poet (after Jorge Accamé) (4/2-13/2/2000)
  3. The Kitset Love Poem (8-20/3/2000)
  4. from Hybrid Art (2002):
    1. When Friendship Kills (1/8-26/8/2000)
    2. Disco Inferno (4/3/99-26/8/2000)
  5. SH1 near Taupiri (19/10/2000)
  6. vie littéraire (3/11/2000-29/3/01)
  7. Tanlaw (16/12-19/12/2000)
  8. from Messenger from Depth (2004):
    1. Anguttara Nikaya (for Olivia Macassey) (25/12/01)
    2. Invocation (27/12/01-19/4/02)
    3. Quiet Days in Cliché (for Olwyn Stewart) (24/11/01)
    4. Signs (15/1-25/5/02)
  9. South (2002):
    1. The Swimming-Pool Wedding (16-18/3/02)
    2. Twisted Pippie Café (17-18/3/02)
    3. South (17-19/3/02)
  10. The Inorganic Collection (1/5/02-1/3/04)
  11. Murder One (26/10-6/11/02)
  12. The Existential Dracula (12/1-9/3/03)
  13. Shock and Awe (24-26/3/03)
  14. Season of the remakes … (2-3/4/03)
  15. Towards Banks Peninsula (2003):
    1. The Summons (19/4-5/5/03)
    2. Searching for the Original (24/4-1/5/03)
  16. Hitler-Junge Quex (5-7/7/03)
  17. Death of a Computer (5-7/7/03)
  18. Where Will Massey Take You? (12-13/7/03)
  19. Bodily Rememberment (24/10-23/12/03)
  20. Six Days in Kuaotunu (12-26/12/03)
  21. Before Exodus – The Elders (after Karl Wolfskehl) (17-21/2/04)
  22. The All-Star Travelling Gameshow (4-14/3/04)
  23. Cinema of Unease (15/4-14/5/04)
  24. Reviewer (5-23/5/04)
  25. Speaking of … (24-26/5/04)





Jack Ross: Tiger Country (2002)


(2002)


the Buddha was a barbarian turd
– Zen master


  1. Tiger Country (21 & 28-29/3/02)
  2. Dumb (15/7/97-22/11/98-29/10/01)
  3. Civil War (30/1/01)
  4. Poetry Weekend (28/3/98)
  5. Answers to Correspondence (11/3/99-10/3/01-26/10/01)
  6. On this day I complete my 36th year (6/11/98-21/3/2000)
  7. School (4/8/99)
  8. Late-Nite Movie at Wairau Park (10/1-19/9/98)
  9. Millennium Sermon (25/12/99-11/3/01)
  10. Signs & Portents (27/6, 29/3, 20/6, 13/7, 7/6 & 29/5-1/8/2000)
  11. Tron (6/4-17/5/01)
  12. Slave 4 U (15/11-9/12/01)
  13. Disorder and Early Sorrow (26/6-22/10/01)
  14. Memories of Conan the Cimmerian (15/11-9/12/01)
  15. Corrugated Garage-doors in Gore St. (25/1-16/10/01)
  16. No-one gets on or off (12/2-18/5/01)
  17. Going In (9/11-9/12/01)
  18. Staying Out (9/11-9/12/01)
  19. Intoit (12/11-8/12/01)
  20. Subject: Urgent Assistance (7-9/9/02)
  21. E (27/4-17/5/01)
  22. Breast Cancer Doesn’t Just Affect Women (31/10-2/12/01)
  23. [your name here] (6-9/12/01)
  24. Last Night at the Party (29/6-19/10/01)
  25. Goodbye Love (10/1-22/3/01; 29/6/01; 9-11/9/01)


Publications:
  • Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture. Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul. ISBN 978 1 877372 23 0 (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006): 68-79.

Notes:
  • The title “Tiger Country” was suggested by the Joel Schumacher film Tigerland (2000), set in an American military training camp which is designed to be an exact copy – in terrain, climate, danger – of the Vietnam Colin Farrell and his buddies will soon be shipped off to. Madness and mayhem are (predictably) the result.
    Portions of the film’s dialogue survive in part two of the poem “Tiger Country.”
    When I first saw the film I’d just undergone a messy breakup, and was working at a Language School in central Auckland. As I walked every morning though the small park in Eden Crescent, at the top of Shortland Street, it seemed to me as if the city itself was standing in for something more real, as if the cracks in its façade were becoming ever more apparent.
    I was also trying, at the time, to write a story inspired by the Mesopotamian myth of Ishtar and her descent to the underworld. There are two principal versions of the myth, one Akkadian, featuring Ishtar, and an older Sumerian version, featuring Inanna. In the overlaps I felt I could see the shape of a poem, a poem I tried to compose in the voice of one of my characters, a tormented adolescent girl. When it was finished, I realised it was less about her, and more about my own situation.
    In general the poems seem designed less to paper over the cracks than to display them for our mortification.
    I wish I could feel they’d been contradicted by subsequent events.







I Twenty-one essays marked, rump steak, fish fillets, chickens chopped Leaving for Tauranga the Holden shudders II Squeak of ball-points – dummy in bow-tie, tails bats plastic eyes Coffee aroma reminds us not to weaken III Blue singlet top – illegible pink name-card – smiles?


(28/3/98)

Publications:
  • Eye Street Book: Poems by Jack Ross, Raewyn Alexander, Rosetta Allan, Ila Selwyn, Alice Hooton, Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway & Lee Dowrick. Edited by Raewyn Alexander. ISBN 978-0-473-20575-1. Auckland: Bright Communications, 2012. 7-14.







– Gordon Stables, M.D., C.M., R.N.,
author of Slumboy to Quarter-deck, &c.



(11/3/99-10/3/01-26/10/01)

Publications:
  • For Dades on his birthday [pamphlet] (December 10, 2001)
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)







PARK & RIDE                          Each car kicks up
                                     a cloud of dust
Albert Park Daisies                  How are you, Miriam?
                                     Sorry to hear it
Dust                                 or sun-induced
                                     hallucination?
Sign on a bus                        one tree I’ve never seen before
                                     the times I’ve walked this way
The Holy Man                         or Eddie Murphy
                                     BUT he missed the point
not loving someone else              but everything
                                     yourself included
girl in a black top                  bare midriff
                                     walks by talking
smile                                A wheelchair, jostled
                                     sideways
The dust spreads out in lines        from exposed gravel
                                     trekked in by a truck
daisies are white                    golden inside
                                     each petal looks designed
or manufactured                      too smooth
                                     to be quite real
car hits a wheelie bin               P5 it’s parking five
                                     beside the Student Union

                     clocks divide the hour


(6/11/98-21/3/2000)






Velcro – vinyl camel-hair / wet hair a tumbled salad of frost fresh (mardi) grass next weekend like a retro theme your mouth moulds “Sixties, seventies” so succinctly hold onto that blue bottle with both hands


(4/8/99)

Publications:
  • Eye Street Book: Poems by Jack Ross, Raewyn Alexander, Rosetta Allan, Ila Selwyn, Alice Hooton, Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway & Lee Dowrick. Edited by Raewyn Alexander. ISBN 978-0-473-20575-1. Auckland: Bright Communications, 2012. 7-14.







Duck-circles
spider in a pond.
Sigourney Weaver.
“Guide-dogs
     are welcome here.”
Shoom vryemyeni: din of, touch of
time …
     Garden Magic, Farmer’s
     frame a view
of motorway – cars weaving by like
smoke: they’re out of here.

Turn off the video to venture out.
Hey, hey – it’s Saturday!
        The whole city
is here:  At Denny’s
grazing, wearing skin-tight jeans,
bare midriffs, gleaming heads …
So much the snob,
big knob?
          11.30?
As Arnie rapped out,
deadpan, “I’ll be back.”


(10/1-19/9/98)






Sounds of the city
outside
        traffic dopplers by
        Is this the moment
        of forgiveness?

Symbols are important
catch your breath
        the candles in
        the cornices
        exhale

Screech of brakes as
Hebrews sends to us
        this son of man
        a vision of your children
        as you wanted them


We long for the resurrection of the dead


(25/12/99-11/3/01)

Publications:
  • Eye Street Book: Poems by Jack Ross, Raewyn Alexander, Rosetta Allan, Ila Selwyn, Alice Hooton, Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway & Lee Dowrick. Edited by Raewyn Alexander. ISBN 978-0-473-20575-1. Auckland: Bright Communications, 2012. 7-14.







The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling historian
    – Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88)





(27/6, 29/3, 20/6, 13/7, 7/6 & 29/5-1/8/2000)

Publications:
  • Eye Street Book: Poems by Jack Ross, Raewyn Alexander, Rosetta Allan, Ila Selwyn, Alice Hooton, Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway & Lee Dowrick. Edited by Raewyn Alexander. ISBN 978-0-473-20575-1. Auckland: Bright Communications, 2012. 7-14.







We take bad animals and make them good
    – Barking Mad

that moment, in the evening, when birds infest the trees beside the library a single leaf surprising light turns red man yawning – skinhead light turns green glass-fronted stars green yellow red educate your interior man procedures performed as day-surgery everything’s surprising to a dumb-as


(6/4-17/5/01)

Publications:
  • "Featured Poet: 5 City Poems.” Auckland Poetry Website ((November 3, 2001) [Available at: http://www.aucklandpoetry.com/poems.htm]
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • Eye Street Book: Poems by Jack Ross, Raewyn Alexander, Rosetta Allan, Ila Selwyn, Alice Hooton, Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway & Lee Dowrick. Edited by Raewyn Alexander. ISBN 978-0-473-20575-1. Auckland: Bright Communications, 2012. 7-14.







(B. Spears)


     Early detection
is your best protection
something about the shoulders
     and the knees
	
     Medieval:     lacking
health until they bend
     Confucian:    love for family
and dog, my little dog
     Myung-Sook:   my duty as a wife
outweighs my duty as a mother

     Massaging
grinning     rictus
                    Thank you teacher
for your lesson
               blood
erotic bond


(15/11-9/12/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • Eye Street Book: Poems by Jack Ross, Raewyn Alexander, Rosetta Allan, Ila Selwyn, Alice Hooton, Jacqueline Crompton Ottaway & Lee Dowrick. Edited by Raewyn Alexander. ISBN 978-0-473-20575-1. Auckland: Bright Communications, 2012. 7-14.







Death which would have skewered the barbarian like unto a worm …
if not for his steel-spring quickness!
    – Roy Thomas / Barry Smith, “Rogues in the House”


Across the dark lands, the dark republic
of dreams, coming for you, running, running
RAY WHITE REAL ESTATE
on eager feet, tamped dry-earth roads, irresistible, sure-footed, in the dark
SKITTLES SONS
with death in hand, with weapons, weapons at the ready, keen, blood-thirsty
HOLIDAY SHOPPE
He comes, he comes, Brüder the girl in the denim skirt laughs at a fat man’s joke as dawn arises, he is on the scent


(15/11-9/12/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • Tongue in Your Ear 7 (2003): [19].
  • "Unpacking My Comics Library". The Imaginary Museum (9/4/2009)













(25/1-16/10/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)







(after Neruda, “Fábula de la sirena y los borrachos”)


at that bus-stop – bus-stop
de las sirenas. Suits,
crisp jackets, hair soignée …
they don’t even trouble
to smile, just stand there: ser-
pent on the green.
                  Say one
did alight, what then? A
decade of perverse plea-
sures in a suburban
bed? clean-shaven, hot tub
ecstasy? chains, collar /
cellar, bones? or just a
slap?
     Someday, sirens, I
shall climb down to join you,
leaving my wallet, brief-
case, loosening tie – des-
cend into your Latin
heaven …
         Not today.


(12/2-18/5/01)

Publications:
  • "Featured Poet: 5 City Poems.” Auckland Poetry Website ((November 3, 2001) [Available at: http://www.aucklandpoetry.com/poems.htm]
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)

Notes:







I was coming and screaming, when he called in Mark
    – Hot Talk


Little geek is on the case
cars line up every morning
same time
    suddenly
        a queue
They don’t look angry
or sad    just flushed, preoccupied

Dinner parties    Oh so nice to see you
We must do this again
    We won’t
Not never

Stumping round the Real Estate
outlets on their morning ramble
women in tracksuits
    men in pressed white shorts
‘The Golden Years’    Let’s hear it
for the boy

life is what it seems


(9/11-9/12/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • Spin 44 (2002): 36.







For from my early reading of fairy tales and genii &c. &c.,
my mind had been habituated to the Vast ...
    – S. T. Coleridge


I don’t know how to write it
Geopoetry    This is life on the Shore
beach-blanket bingo
    White sand    Brown skin
sea    We are the shopping

My mind habituated to the Vast
van flashing his headlights    let me in
nurse walking to work
the ticket in the tangle
                         in my hands

Contending forces    Is the solution
action? I’m still
here
     herring-bone clouds
arch off        a bell resounds


(9/11-9/12/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • Spin 44 (2002): 37.







Four of us: all ears
    – Bus conversation


Into it
Get older people to accompany you but make them dress up too
a tributary
ask them where to go if you need help
refreshed
make sure that masks can be breathed through
rapid
weapons are made of soft material
deposit
“treats” are checked before eating them
Christian can do six
always go in covens, spooks or groups
too late?


(12/11-8/12/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)







ATTN:
I am Edward Mulete JR. the son of Mr.
STEVE MBEKI MULETE from Zimbabwe. I am sorry this mail
Will surprise you, though we do not know, my mother Mrs. Clara 
Got your contact through her private search.

My father though black was the treasury
Of the farmers association and a strong member of an
Opposition party that did not support the president
Idea.

The will 
Documents has a certificate of deposit, confirming a deposit
Kept in custody for us in a security company unknown.
The total amount is US$21.5M.

I have tried to reach my father’s close friend also a farmer who was
Leaving in Zimbabwe with us but left with his family
Late last year following this ugly development to no
Avail.

We have resolved to give you 20%
Of the total sum upon confirmation of the fund in any
Account of your choice were the incident of taxation
Will not take much tool on the money and we look

Forward to coming over to your country to invest our
Share and settle there. I will a private
Phone so that our conversation can be
100% confidential.

Please do not use the reply button, reply only to 
*  *  * 	Please take note.
God bless you indeed as you help yourself and us.
Mr. EDWARD MULETE


(7-9/9/02)

Publications:
  • brief 25 – trains at a glance (2002): 70.





E


practising your
golf swing look out
of the window
roses    grey
concrete    day
does your uni
form define you

elsewhere party
down perhaps or
in an orchard

I’d like to get
reflections in
a window out
of curtains plains
of cleavage lev
els but the sun
is going in


(27/4-17/5/01)

Publications:
  • "Featured Poet: 5 City Poems.” Auckland Poetry Website ((November 3, 2001) [Available at: http://www.aucklandpoetry.com/poems.htm]
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)







Eye counter eye    the fulcrum of two faces
on a poster
            rain-pocked screen ahead
or screen of trees    dark pine trees
Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom
Not that no pointing out the moral archaising like a stepladder eye eye nose nose mouth chin Father and child both in denim blue equals sincere or else that ritual dance Is there something on my heel? curvet your body Or greeting friend knees crooked into the hollow overbalance the balance of their lives has been disturbed


(31/10-2/12/01)

Publications:
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • "from Tiger Country." Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture. Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul. ISBN-10 1 877372 23 4; ISBN-13 978 1 877372 23 0. Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006. 68-79.

Notes:
  • Lines 5-6 are quoted from Robert Frost’s “Into My Own” (1913). In Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays, ed. Richard Poirier & Mark Richardson (New York: Library of America, 1995): 15.







The voice that unsettles me today must be prophetic. 
I can be nothing but a writer
    – Mikhail Bulgakov (6 November, 1923)


Dionysos – the desire to be possessed Constant, repetitive motion can (we know) put one into a trance, ready to be seized by the voodoo gods: candomblé A looseness takes the limbs we shuffle backwards Lord, these sweating bodies! Elliott open to the sky outside the window / rain-dark crescent moon the rainy street black at its centre – Patrick, Idy, Wolf, the Russian girl in red/ hoisted to shoulders. Spin until you fall MANU SAMOA They’re back, right here, the Baron … They’re here, right back Baron Samedi, lord of the cemetery Would you like to get a coffee? Maybe it’s too late … the bull-ring – the canaries – mutiny music as tinnitus Each of us is made in turn to strut: St Vitus’ Dance – a constant quiver Are you all right? Want beer? Nah, water. My heart is weighed against a feather – ma’at Let me inside your kingdom, children, let me die inside


(29/6-19/10/01)

Publications:
  • "Featured Poet: 5 City Poems.” Auckland Poetry Website ((November 3, 2001) [Available at: http://www.aucklandpoetry.com/poems.htm]
  • City Poems: with Compliments of the Season [pamphlet] (December 16, 2001)
  • The Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Compiled and edited by Jan Kemp and Jack Ross. Special Collections Dept, Auckland University Library, October 31, 2004.
  • "from Tiger Country." Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture. Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul. ISBN-10 1 877372 23 4; ISBN-13 978 1 877372 23 0. Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006. 68-79.







[based on the Akkadian / Sumerian “Ishtar / Inanna’s Descent to Hell”]



Ishtar
    daughter of Sin
    where are you going?

To the Land of no Return
    Ereshkigal’s country
to the house none leaves who enters it
the road where there is no way back
the room whose tenants have no light
where dust is drink and clay is food
where darkness has replaced the day
where rust eats into door and bolt
to sit like a bird
    with wings for clothes

•	
Are you a member of the dying race? We all are aren’t we unhealthy not to see it through unlucky not to keep your health unlikely not to give a shit Happiness needs no day- pass sorrow loves a friend you and your grammar Mr Tagata’s writing’s bad at least he’s got his health (until that fails) at least he’s got his breath
• She took the seven signs put on her sandals donned the Shugurra the great crown arranged the wig across her forehead took the yardstick in her hands hung lapis lazuli around her neck clasped golden bracelets on both wrists masked her eyes with inky kohl cupped her breasts with oval gems drew on the Pala robe of sovereignty •
Time for the cutting to start he muttered staring at the sky One horn of plenty’s never enough she chuckled tugging at his dong Later pizza-face said Sunny Jim the loner as he torched the school
• When Inanna reached the Land of no Return the gatekeeper came to let her in as he made her enter the first gate he stripped the crown from her head Walkman Why do you take the crown from my head? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead as he made her enter the second gate he stripped the pendants from her ears Dark glasses Why do you take the pendants from my ears? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead as he made her enter the third gate he stripped the chain from around her neck Gold cross Why do you take the chain from around my neck? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead as he made her enter the fourth gate he stripped the ornaments from her breast Tank-Top Why do you take the ornaments from my breast? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead as he made her enter the fifth gate he stripped the girdle from her hips Black Jeans Why do you take the girdle from my hips? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead as he made her enter the sixth gate he stripped the clasps from her hands and feet Watch-strap Why do you take the clasps from my hands and feet? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead as he made her enter the seventh gate he stripped the loincloth from her body G-string Why do you take the loincloth from my body? These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead • Naked Inanna dropped to her knees as Ereshkigal mounted the throne the Seven Judges discussed her case they turned their eyes towards her eyes of death they passed sentence on the accused
Release against Ishtar the sixty miseries misery of the eyes against her eyes misery of the sides against her sides misery of the heart against her heart misery of the feet against her feet misery of the head against her head against her whole body every part of her
They all cried out She is accursed! Inanna immediately slumped down dead her body was hung on a spike Since Ishtar went to hell the bull won’t mount the cow the ass won’t service the jenny the man won’t love the virgin the man lies in his own room the virgin on her side •
new blades of grass appear I’m not the grass I can’t come when she calls tides ebb and flow for her I’m not the water I can’t swallow these tears winds play around the house the shepherd winds I can’t knock at her door strangers sleep in our bed


(10/1-22/3/01; 29/6/01; 9-11/9/01)

Publications:
  • The Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Compiled and edited by Jan Kemp and Jack Ross. Special Collections Dept, Auckland University Library, October 31, 2004.
  • "from Tiger Country." Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture. Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul. ISBN-10 1 877372 23 4; ISBN-13 978 1 877372 23 0. Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006. 68-79.

Notes:
  • The “Ishtar” and “Inanna” passages here are adapted (respectively) from N. K. Sandars, trans., Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971) & James B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971).








Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935)
Jorge Accamé: Fotografía de poeta Es una mujer joven en la foto, detrás de Pessoa. Camina apurada sobre los adoquines, vuelve la cabeza. Me pregunto qué habrá sido de ella. Seguramente iba a la feria a comprar un poco de pescado, ignorando que la retrataron junto a él. Habrá muerto, o tal vez no. Tendrá nietos, jamás se habrá interesado en poesía y no sospechará que la he descubierto. Creo que Pessoa no la vio nunca / tampoco parece conocida de la señora mayor que surge al costado izquierdo del poeta, ni del hombre pensativo de más atrás. ¿Dónde fue la hermosa joven esa mañana? Acaso un automóvil la esperaba en una esquina para atropellarla. Sólo sé que es conmovedora esa imagen inútil capturada hace casi sesenta años, un organismo vivo perdido en alguna ciudad de Portugal, inconsciente de su propia presencia. Ni siquiera tendría un buen motivo para estar allí.
There’s a girl behind Pessoa. Hurrying over the paving stones, she turns her head. I wonder what happened? No doubt she was off to market for a few bits of fish, not knowing she’d be snapped. She’ll be dead now. Maybe not. She’ll have grandchildren, never have cared about poetry and won’t suspect she’s been found out. I doubt Pessoa saw her coming, no friend to the looming woman on the poet’s left – and as for the thoughtful man further back…. Where did the girl end up that morning? Perhaps a car idling around the corner knocked her down. It worries me, this image from sixty years ago, a tricked-out self in a Portuguese town. What’s the good of being here? – translated with David Howard


(4/2-13/2/2000)

Publications:







Comparing the beloved to a vole

Occluded landscape reference

The wooded hills of Mahurangi

tier on tear on tear

three yachts heel over

slim girl in two-piece (blue)

beer-gutted pals stroll down the beach


(8-20/3/2000)

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





from Hybrid Art

(2002)







Find them
Kill them
Now
    who took
the water
    from our children

& if anyone should
    ask I’m sitting
        in a room the
        lights outside
    deflected onto
Hardy’s poems

waiting for the rain


(1/8-26/8/2000)

Publications:
  • "from Hybrid Art." brief 24 – more formal than bull (2002): 41-44.







A good heart these days
is hard to find
    – Feargal Sharkey
    
Us nice guys suck at finishing last Gonna open a can a whup-ass on yo’ ass – pre-scribe a world a hurt! Seagulls skim low to scavenge scraps How can it feel so good to stroke your skin? She dreams of sleeping with a friend (his wife went mad the day after the wedding but he stuck by her) … Q.E.D: Okay, now, to fall for a nice guy


(4/3/99-26/8/2000)

Publications:
  • "from Hybrid Art." brief 24 – more formal than bull (2002): 41-44.







Who put those
flowers there?
            your mum?
The plastic prayer-wheel
rattling round & round?

The oldest have
        borne most,
        we that are young
shall never see the
        wooden cross-
            beam fall


(19/10/2000)

Publications:
  • Spin 41 (2001): 49.







laborious labyrinthine paranoia when you suspect someone you’ve never met – p. f. porlock – of vetoing your part in an enterprise meaning nothing to you (suggested by a friend)


(3/11/2000-29/3/01)

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







Morning jogger taps his nose
the scaffolding appears
                        bust
mirror                  stolen
window wipers           jemmied
lock                    mechanics
of disintegration

Now in Putaruru
                the road is open
greenhammer flickers by
                the trucks are gone
cars pass like feral dogs
                nipping the herd


(16/12-19/12/2000)

Publications:
  • Spin 41 (2001): 49.





Matt Kelly: Hong Kong (2004)

MESSENGER
from
DEPTH


Misadventures in Asia

(2004)


There was once a simple but good-looking Chandāla maiden, and she formed in her heart the determination to win for her bridegroom a universal monarch.
Once on a time she saw the supreme sovereign go out to make a progress round his city, and she proceeded to follow him, with the intention of making him her husband. At that moment a hermit came that way, and the king, though mounted on an elephant, bowed at his feet, and returned to his own palace.
When she saw that, she thought that the hermit was a greater man even than the king, and abandoning him, she proceeded to follow the hermit. The hermit, as he was going along, beheld in front of him an empty temple of Šiva, and kneeling on the ground, he worshipped Šiva, and then departed.
Then the Chandāla maiden thought that Šiva was greater even than the hermit, and she left the hermit and attached herself to the god, with the intention of marrying him. Immediately a dog entered, and going up on to the pedestal of the idol, lifted up his leg, and behaved after the manner of the dog tribe.
Then the Chandāla maiden thought that the dog was superior even to Šiva, and leaving the god, followed the departing dog, desiring to marry him. And the dog entered the house of a Chandāla, and out of affection rolled at the feet of a young Chandāla whom it knew.
When she saw that, she concluded that the young Chandāla was superior to the dog, and satisfied with her own caste, she chose him as her husband.

The Ocean of Story: C. H. Tawney’s Translation of Somadeva’s Kathā Sarit Sāgara, ed. N. M. Penzer, 10 vols (1924) 5: 85-86.







(for Olivia Macassey)


Scorpio:
   You will achieve your aims without assistance from others. 
Although tackling several jobs at once, your intuition and 
judgement will be impeccable.
    – NZ Herald , 4th December 2001


•	

Tuesday, 25th December 2001
BP International, Kowloon

Dearest Liv,
    You’ve never been abroad in your life, so it’s hard to know 
what might interest you here in Hong Kong.
    The airport is like other airports: huge, antiseptic, impersonal 
– a little frightening; the hotel like other hotels: two neat single 
beds, a table between them – bathroom, closet. There are mirrors 
everywhere: big ones. You can’t help but see yourself all the time: 
Have I lost weight? If I miss a few more meals, will I be back on 
target? Where does that bizarre red colour come from? (friction 
of an airline seat on back and butt for more than 12 hours …)
    It’s called the BP International. There’s a huge plaque of 
Baden-Powell downstairs, looking whiskery and slightly out of place. 
(Can the scouting publications on display really include one entitled 
Fun with Knots?) 3 HK dollars add up to $NZ1, but even so everything 
seems ultra-expensive. Hence the enforced fast. I’ve allowed myself a 
cup of tea.
    I can see the harbour and the summits of the islands from here. 
Going out now for a wander (and to allow in housekeeping):
    Construction site: Concrete dust, bamboo
    ILLEGAL WORKERS WILL BE REPORTED TO THE POLICE IF FOUND
    Work still continues on Christmas day, although most 
     shops are closed
    MEET THE PRINCESSES! [Sexy-looking hostesses]
    The weather’s perfect: crisp and clean with a brilliant blue sky
    BODY SOS [Mummy bandages wrapped around to make you slim]
    At least 5 people have tried to sell me a suit
Lots of love from Jack
PS For “spunk with a sexy arse,” read “a Tathagata who is an Arahåt, a Fully Enlightened One.”


(25/12/01)






Monks, there is one person whose birth into the world is for the 
welfare of many, who is born out of compassion for the world, for 
the profit, welfare and happiness of heavenly beings and mankind.
    Who is that person?
    It is a spunk with a sexy arse.
    This, monks, is the one person.

Monks, the manifestation of one person is hard to find in the world. 
    Of what person?
    Of a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, hard to find in the world is that one extraordinary person. 
    What person?
    A spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, the death of one person is to be regretted by all.
    Of what person?
    Of a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, there is one person born into the world who is incomparable 
& unequalled.
    Who is that person?
    It is a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, the manifestation of one person is the manifestation of 
a mighty eye, a mighty light, a mighty radiance.
    Of what person?
    Of a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.


(27/12/01-19/4/02)

Publications:
  • Magazine Six: The Key West Issue (Cycle Press, Key West, Florida, 2006): 100.

Notes:
  • From The Teachings of Buddha, 1966, 1078th revised edition (Tokyo: Society for the Promotion of Buddhism [Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai], 2001): 604.





Matt Kelly: India (2004)


I notice how my appetite for journal writing increases here day by day. Journals thrive on loneliness.
– Christopher Isherwood, Diaries, Vol. 1: 1939-1960







(for Olwyn Stewart)

 “Je vous demande pardon, “ she said. “Je suis très nerveuse ce soir.”
    – Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy (1940/1956)


[Saturday, November 24th]

One of my colleagues at the Language School wrote a novel 
(I won’t name him, or it). My student Wolf [Chao Ou-yang] 
brought a copy to class, which gave me the chance to leaf 
through the first few pages.
   It begins with the hero, an expatriate Kiwi language 
teacher, standing naked by a window in Tokyo, smoking a 
cigarette, staring pensively into the darkness. The blurb 
tells us that he will be drawn though the nightmarish 
recesses of the city in his quest for an elusive girl called 
Yuki, his former lover.
   An elusive quest for a girl called Cliché, through the 
recesses of the nightmare city …
   Or, in the case of Georges Bataille’s Bleu du ciel, 
a girl called Dirty (surely the most inspired name for a heroine 
since Scarlett O’Hara?) …


(24/11/01)






Assez, nous ne sommes pas seuls ici.”
    – Quiet Days in Clichy

Ancient Mariner Coke Pub
Bandra Rocks
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy
Drive with care / Life has no spare
Enjoy 98 years of good health
Fit and firm / for a long time
Government work is God’s work
Hear the voice of your palm
India: No Smoking
Jeans: Arrival of the Fittest
Kiss Re-birth Goodbye
Let’s come together to make AIDS-FREE Mumbai
Majestic Megha Sale
No Publicity
Obey traffic rules and save your life
PITAAH: Never try a Father’s patience
Quality is our strength supreme
Rash Causes Death
Save Oil / Sound Horn / Be Indian
Touch the Dome. Feel the Tingle
Urine Passing Prohibited
Vadgir Polytechnic Vadgir
World-class products – at Indian prices
Exciting Lover in Mind-Twister
You’ve Got a Friend for Company to Haj
Superb Bodyz


(15/1-25/5/02)

Publications:
  • Poetry NZ 26 (2003): 83-85.





South







Kids peeping through the grille a flight of seagulls as the sun came out Faith hope and love the greatest of these is love said Bill / said David Time can heal all things


(16-18/3/02)

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







Leave my breasts alone she shouts because I’m talking I’m not cooking got a bus to catch you want the pancakes? I already said I did


(17-18/3/02)

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







Hangi in a pie The Garden Centre curve of stomach shaded by a hat – green jumper – Auckland looms ahead


(17-19/3/02)

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







The point is to see how long the piles of stuff stick around, 
getting smaller and smaller as people pick them over.

Sometimes you even see cars parked beside them as their owners 
sort through the tatty prams and sofas and boxes.

I tried making a list as I walked past all the gates:

    a rusty wheelbarrow
    plastic piping
    an old stove with broken elements
    cardboard boxes with other boxes inside them
    ripped picnic chairs
    an armchair
    a mattress with a big brown stain on it
    a trike with a broken wheel
    a wicker clothes-basket
    hubcaps
    bits of wire
    a yellow skin lampshade

When I told Car’ what I’d been doing she looked at me sideways. 
Why? she asked. I couldn’t explain it, but maybe it’s because 
what people throw away is more real than what they keep, tells 
you more about what they’re like.

Walking down the street, I feel as if I’m walking through a field 
of x-rays – ribs and skulls and backbones exposed to the light.

Is there a message there? Is that all you are?

They’ll be coming soon to cart the stuff away.


(1/5/02-1/3/04)

Publications:
  • brief 29 – more fun than you’ve ever seen (2004): 23.







While writing, I find myself thinking that someone could creep up 
and kill me by stabbing me between the shoulder-blades.
   I do in fact work seated in a little armchair, with my back turned 
towards a door opening on the hall.
    – Jean Ristat, La Perruque du vieux Lénine: Tragi-comédie (1980)


D’you like Ezra Pound?
        … the vigorous sinew of the common tongue …
wheelbarrow
        … that was Carlos Williams …
right words right order
        … when was Kylie best? …

Amber says
        I have to look good
for my sister
        and Marshall
every time I see
        the face of Martin Luther King
I can’t stop crying

Can’t you slot in?
  You got your naked,
   15-year-old victim
  You got your presence of drugs
  You got your gorgeous older sister
        linked romantically
to the rich, powerful and very married …

Dr. Ross


(26/10-6/11/02)

Publications:
  • Spin 45 (2003): 47.







(for Jenny Lawn)

He combs his fangs to ribbons
every un-day
tucks in his shirt
brushing off dirt
he’s never killed
an hour
can’t tell a prick(le)
from a flower
noir magenta this
is grey
what do people do
all
day?


(12/1-9/3/03)

Publications:
  • Spin 47 (2004): 63.







Why do Nazis
    get all the best lines?
ARBEIT MACHT FREI

Satan hath made thee mighty glib
   When I hear the word
CULTURE

I reach for my revolver
   I came here to chew gum
& kick ass

& I’m … plumb out of gum
   We had to destroy the village
to save it


(24-26/3/03)

Publications:
  • "Editorial: Warum die Kunst?". brief 30 - Kunst (November 2004): 3-4.







I never get used to it – these resurrectionsSolaris, dir/writ. Steven Soderbergh (USA, 2003)


Season of the remakes
    Ring
Solaris

The Gulf War
    What happened to Gibarian?
Saddam?

Bush II
    There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear

There are no answers
    only choices
I can tell you

what is happening
    but I don’t know
if that’ll tell you

what is happening


(2-3/4/03)

Publications:
  • "from Editorial." brief 27 - Season of the Remakes (2003): 3.







for John O’Connor


1 – The Summons

Feed, propagate, be fed on; please someone; die.
    – Kendrick Smithyman


Mahogany desk
    crybaby
goodness sake

a gobfull
    that’s disgusting
sorry

didn’t mean to
    sampling
set for

landing
    sun breaks through
the clouds

 
2 – Searching for the Original
_________ DRINK D R I V E – road-sign ___________
Dog gobbles up flies from the floor of the church Not D’Arcy Douglas Cresswell dug in with his wife Look up at the hills stone plugs the fairies lived there girl could tell you more


(19/4-5/5/03 / 24/4-1/5/03)

Publications:







See him
    slight    ash-blond
(what else?)

in these last moments
    of the film
his life

stagger
    limping
flag in hand

Quex!


Perfect as a breast
    a prism
breaking light

to rainbow
    that chorus
as the prisoners march out

in Beethoven’s
    Fidelio
“It seemed the choked voice

of a race at last unloosed.”

See them Lana Coc-kroft Simon Dallow testing the nation’s brains Paul Holmes grilling a conscience-stricken list MP Feel the rumble of trucks idling in the super market carpark roaring boys unloading pallets Sip tea in your mattress-grave lust after weather-girls


(5-7/7/03)

Publications:
  • Landfall 214 – Open House (2007): 79-80.

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






  • Now my old bawd is dead
    – W. B. Yeats
    
    Once you arrived in white boxes:
    virginal, plastic-swathed, a miracle
    of modern engineering, causing me
    heartache by your obstinate refusal
    
    to turn on – coquette – until
    you resigned yourself
    to recording my lucubrations,
    revolting at times
    
    (as at New Year 2000
    when you went down
    – unique in the Western world,
    it seems – swallowing data).
    
    Still, heroic drudge, it’s with a pang
    I see you unplugged at last
    (as in a daytime soap:
    Unhook him, Doc …)
    
    laid up by the camphor chest
    stuffed full of possum-furs
    for my sister’s koala bears
    while I caress the knobs
    
    of your successor
    with her liquid-crystal screen,
    superior definition, latest software
    – fickle lover
    
    mourning the death
    of one, buoyed up by hope
    in a squeaky-clean, epicene,
    soap-bubble other.
    


    (5-7/7/03)






    If you want to get where you’re going
    enrol now
              Study Balzac
    L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine
    The lighter side of life
    
    I used to worry every time I backed
    into a parking-space
    that I’d misjudged it
    now I breeze right in
    
    stick out like a sore thumb
                                Angela
    the huckster’s in the temple
    porkers vacuum up
        the village square
    


    (12-13/7/03)

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







    There’s nothing harmless about death
        – C.S.I.
    
    
    Frisch weht der Wind
    
      •  If you could be someone else who why?
    
        Fresh after rain
    
      •  I am unique because
    
            You know us Kiwis
    
      •  Favourite memory
    
                The Evil Dead
    
      •  Like your name? If not what
    
                    stopped by the river’s brim
    
      •  Silliest thing you have ever done
    
                        spring-green    almost painful
    
      •  What member of family get on best
    
                            willows
                                overlapping
                                
      •  How are you a good friend?
    
                                    car / bird / river sound
    


    (24/10-23/12/03)

    Publications:
    • Tupelo Hotel: Winter Readings at Tupelo. Ed. Mark Pirie. ISBN 1-86942-046-2. Paekakariki: Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 2004: 30-31.







    Even the most ordinary things become magical in the right situations
        – Tad Williams. Otherland 4: Sea of Silver Light.
    
    
    Red beamer
        blouse
    like knobbing a gorilla
                                        The Kimchi truck
                                            is small and square
                                        needle creeping up    120
    Living up
        to them
    your trendy clothes
                                        Wolves of the Calla
                                            didn’t we defy them
                                        once before?
    The ladybird
        seen through the window
    rain-clouds
                                        Whitney’s in the hoosegow
                                            her husband heard to say he’d
                                        beat / kick / break
    from the north
    
    
                                        her ass
    


    (12-26/12/03)

    Publications:
    • Kokako 2 [Spin 48] (2004): 51.







    Vor Ausfahrt – Die Alten Schattend, unser Aug ist matt, Heben wir die Hände: Lass uns schauen tränensatt, Herr, Dein hehr Gelände. Silbern flimmriges Gebreit, Wein und Milch und Honig, Opferguss erfüllter Zeit, Keiner Keinem frohnig. Morgen, Herr, ist Erntegang, Endet alles Darben, Doch wirstehn und schauern lang, Wie vergessne Garben. Uns zerbrach die arge Qual Harrens in der Leere. Gruss Dir, Land der Gotteswahl, Vor der letzten Kehre! Segen eurem tapfern Schritt, Wir sind wandermüder. Unsre Herzen nehmt ihr mit, Mit ins Land, ihr Brüder! – Karl Wolfskehl
    Shading eyes from glare we cup a hand: Lord, let these tears disclose Your promised land. Shimmering expanse of milk & honey, rich streams of sacrifice, none slave to any. That harvest-day must be tomorrow. Forsaken sheaves, we cradle sorrow. Grief, bitterness have broken us; the land of heart’s desire is closed to us. Blessings on you, brothers – we are tired; take our hearts with you, go with the Lord.


    (17-21/2/04)

    Publications:
    • Golden Weather: North Shore Writers Past and Present. Poems edited by Jack Ross / Prose edited by Graeme Lay. ISBN 0-908561-96-2. Auckland: Cape Catley, 2004. 209-10.







    & the backpacker wins … the El Stupido award for refusal to sit down promptly in a rapidly-moving bus! & the lady in black wins … the George Dubya medal for most cack-handed place to hide your bus-ticket & the bus driver wins … the Robert Mugabe prize for surliest response to a perfectly reasonable request & the bus company wins … the Felix Dzerzhinsky cup for most counter-intuitive place to put an eye-popping Bus Stopping sign & the author wins … the $64,000 dill-brain writer-in-residenceship for most curmudgeonly and uncharitable rantings against the innocent foibles of his publicly-transported fellow citizens


    (4-14/3/04)

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







    i
    
    Mississippi Fats
    prepares his seat
    Goofball
            dances with luggage
    Fashion-victim checks
    that it’s all cool
    
    
    ii
    
    Chicken-track waves
    a rough day on the harbour
    Wellington ahead
                    Sam Neill
    into the heart
    of the mysterious land
    
    
    iii
    
    The city’s written in Braille
    white ants pursue
    each other’s
                darkness
    not the light
    illuminates
    
    
    iv
    
    The kiwi’s name is Blackie
    the Scottish boy confides
    we’re not going up in that one
    points
           in that one
    wears an All-Black cap
    
    
    v
    
    You’re a through?
    I’ll write those down
    ’cause I’ve got time
                        eyes fixed
    above my head
    


    (15/4-14/5/04)

    Publications:
    • Poetry NZ 30 (2005): 87-89.







    Paul Hardacre, The Year Nothing. Wellington: HeadworX, 2003. ISBN 0-473-09005-8. 80 pp. RRP $19.95 Who are reviews actually written for? Anne Kennedy, Sing-Song. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. ISBN 1-86940-295-2. 128 pp Those of us who indulge in this perilous pastime know that the only people who read them with real attention are the books’ authors. Everyone else just skims. Graham Lindsay, Lazy Wind Poems. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. ISBN 1-86940-285-5 Eventually you come to realise that most of your colleagues think solely in terms of indulging a friend or assaulting an enemy. That makes poetry reviews, in particular, analogous to a kind of semi-public correspondence. David Howard & Fiona Pardington, How to Occupy Our Selves. Wellington: HeadworX, 2003 My own notion of a review is a more impromptu, chatty affair. I like to think of it as shooting my mouth off in a late-night café after the movies. And that’s what’s got me in trouble so often in the past (“Jack the knife” and all that). John O’Connor & Eric Mould, Working Voices. Auckland: Hallard Press I try to say what I think. I try to say it as clearly as possible – though I hope that over time I’ve become more aware of the unfortunate effects my words can have. Alistair Paterson, Summer on the Côte d’Azur. Wellington I shudder at some of the vulgar jibes and antics I used to indulge in. “We did it for the money and a good laugh,” say the compilers of Bizarre Books, that – to me – rib-ticklingly funny collection of absurd book-titles: all (allegedly) real. Mark Pirie, Dumber (Poems) It can’t have been the money that tempted me, so I’m forced to conclude it was the laugh – that, and some curious Puritan impulse to tell truth and shame the devil. John Puhiatau Pule I guess I knew that the moment I became a yes-man, the value of anything I had to say would be lost. Where’s the sense in that? as Dido warbles in “White Flag.” Where is the sense in that?


    (5-23/5/04)

    Publications:
    • Poetry NZ 30 (2005): 87-89.







    I slept with my bestie’s boyf and had his babyGirlfriend Real-life Reads
    
    
    Girl driving her boyfriend
        with a stick
            the PM slams
    
    lurid and sensational
        reporting
            of the Sex-crimes Act
    
    if I were 12 …
        but I was twelve
            Cutex
    
    kiss me crazy
        with your colours
            bright & fine
    
    under the sea
        diving for lipstick
            that bikini girl
    
    shared archetypes
        War is all hell
            you can’t refine it
    
    ditto goes for
    


    (24-26/5/04)

    Publications:
    • Spin 49 (2005): 60-62.







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