| A WAKE |
| A man of letters |
| |
'I am going to be a man
of letters,' I tell my parents.
I am 18 years old.
They look at each other,
then at me, and laugh!
'Shall I reacquaint you
with your school reports?'
my mother asks.
I read them Get Drunk! –
a poem by Baudelaire.
His words thud and clang
on my clumsy tongue.
'Isn't it great,' my father says,
'that simple folk like us
could have bred a genius!'
|
| The Beats |
| |
Allen Ginsberg wept when he heard A Hard Rain. He wept
For Bob Dylan's blue-eyed boy. He wept for joy. He wept
For William Blake. He wept for Walt Whitman. He wept
For the freewheelers Cassady and Kerouac. He wept
For the Cosmic Corpse inside his American head.
'Chant from skull to heart to ass,' he said.
*
At Phill's place The New Millennium Beats
Beat and strum. Beat and strum, illuminated
By two dollar candles. Raumati, 2006, is a world
Away from New York, 1964. But the spirit flies
A warped course. Twelve-year-old Isaac plays
His Sonic drums like the guy in The Grateful Dead.
*
I dig it. My heart thumps in the ribcage
Of an ancient man. My mind is a foetus
In the womb of a black woman. I walk home
Under a descending moon. The sea is milky,
The village surreally lit. The stars bleep and blip.
Our drummer boy sleeps like an angel. |
| Sleepwalker |
| |
My Chinese sneakers leak. They cost 15 bucks
At The Warehouse. I didn't seek poverty.
It found me grizzling on Renown Road,
It found me shivering on the Russian Steppes.
As a kid I sleepwalked. My night wandering
Became legend. I trekked to slums and to palaces.
I sleepwalked the mile to my grandparents' house.
They found me at dawn in the gold room.
They found me in the bed without sheets.
|
| Nano sleeps |
| |
Paddy's told the same story
Six times in an hour.
She nods off, then
Her snoring wakes her.
'I'm going to write a book,'
She says, 'Will you edit it?'
Paddy lives with Marcus,
Her 40-year-old son.
He was banged up in an asylum
For 20 years. There were beatings.
Schizophrenia was diagnosed.
He learnt the art of silence.
I read him the road code
For half an hour each week.
I ask him questions to test
Whether he's taking it in.
'What's the two second rule?'
Marcus wrinkles his brow.
Paddy jolts awake. 'Did I tell you
I'm going to write a book?' she asks
'It's inside my head,' she says.
I'm taken by her open mouth,
By the shape it makes
When she sleeps. |
| Give and take |
| |
Stoned, I left
my wallet
with $45 in it
on a seat
in Main Street.
A 'gang-type' guy
handed it in
to the fish shop
where I pick it up.
'It restores
your faith,'
the fishmonger says.
'Aye,' I retort,
'our guy has
helped himself
to a $40 reward!'
|
| All or nothing |
| |
I wake with a bastard hangover.
The night's detritus weeps and crusts.
I contemplate death/pure living,
Joining an order not yet found.
I go to Lorca for comfort. Alas,
All he gives me is a thrashing sea
In which I cannot drown.
|
| Age and Regret |
| |
Age and Regret take my mirror hostage,
Drop their baggage under my eyes –
'Look,' the bastards say, 'at that rotten tooth,
Your blotchy skin, that double chin.'
Years fill me with what?
Repentance? Disgust? Chagrin?
On a good drug-fuelled night
I can bogey with the slinkiest high-kicker.
This morning I slosh and creak.
Wars rage in the same old places.
|
| The visit |
| |
Outside the wind is warm,
Inside your house is cold.
Your heart is cold,
Your liver cantankerous.
You've been mean
With the furnishings,
You've been mean
With yourself
O poor man,
O poor, miserable man
It's no fun to visit
Your house of discontent.
|
| Getting even |
| |
No one promised me happiness.
No, I lie – there was a pastor
And a lover. Mostly it's chatter
In the livingroom of desire.
Watching the Antiques Road Show,
What will become of me?
Death most certainly. But not yet.
No, not yet. There are scores to settle,
The family silver to flog off.
|
| Home |
| |
Home's inside my head.
-Bob Marley
Home is where
the milk and sugar are.
-Geoff Cochrane
Home, happy to be
Here lying on my bed
Watching the trees
Through the window
Thinking who's been
Here before? Who
Erected the stone wall,
Planted the big gum?
Who thought it better
To plant an Australian tree,
Rather than a native?
Was the decision singular
Or plural? Was it political
Or accidental? Why am I
Happy today when yesterday
I felt jaded, mildly toxic?
Home sweet, home sour -
So much depends upon
What you're thinking,
The milk's use by date.
|
| Catholic tastes |
| |
I heard it on the radio: Kennedy's death; the assassination
attempt on Pope John Paul; Alistair Cooke's Letter
from America, his stolen bones; The Rolling Stones;
Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas In Wales.
I heard it: the Wahine disaster; the standoff in The Bay
of Pigs; the Boxing Day tsunami; Lee Hatherly's sexier-
than-sex voice; Vera Lynn singing there'll be blue
birds over the white cliffs of Dover . . .
They washed over me – the voices that repeat, repeat.
The voice that recalls Peter Snell's Wanganui mile
introduces a syrupy Burt Bacharach tune. But listen!
Leonard Cohen's singing the Sisters of Mercy . . .
Ours was a Pye – valve, cased in bakelite. Now I have a
Groupmen clock radio – digital, slipped in plastic.
Ah, an amalgam of memories! I wept, admittedly
drunk, listening to Pita Sharple's maiden speech:
Tihei mauri ora! Kia ora.
Ah, ock aye! Oh, me, me, my, my . . . Neil Young stays
forever in 1969, and Tom Waits croaks: It's time,
it's time, time, time, time . . . In the Helen Young
studio Dave Dobbyn sings his Welcome Home . . .
Haere mai, haere mai . . .
Oh, the chant that pulls a crowd! I drift. I dance with the
stars – step out of a Norm Hewitt interview: What
does it mean to be a good man? It's common sense,
he says. And I paraphrase: Love the wife and kids,
and go easy on the sauce.
|
| Head over heels |
| |
H's thing
is shoes
She slips in
and out of
my life
She says
I'll be
no man's
wife
And being
as I am
in love
with H
I wait
for her
footfall
at my
door
I wait
for the
RUSHSH
as she
steps
in
in her
shag-me
boots
|
| Q |
| |
She arrived in a flutter,
All frock and earrings –
Cute and raunchy.
We loved her plump lips,
The way she moved her hips.
She stayed for a summer,
For one sexy summer
She energised our libidos
With her appetite for danger.
She left with the dark stranger.
|
| Hello |
| |
The old Scottish lady
who lives in
the pensioner flats
down the road
calls me sweetie
and I call her dear.
Every so often
we meet and greet
and go our own ways.
We've learnt that
nature abhors
a needy lover.
|
| Culinary art |
| |
Danny, our Welsh chef,
ever so carefully lattices
his prawn terrine
with zucchini strips.
His attention to detail
is palpable, loving . . .
'Like,' he says, 'putting
a baby to bed.'
|
| Taste |
| |
I desire
Some sensual thing
For the tongue
To soothe the body. |
| Bob |
| |
Love poems
have a way of sounding
like Robert Creeley.
Dig his one eye –
His iris of dead reckoning.
His flower of truth.
|
| The look |
| |
Miles had the look -
demonic chic.
The look of
a right bastard.
But when he blew
angels flew.
|
| True fiction |
| |
By happy coincidence the cosmic tribe
Is 'shopping for images' at my local
Supermarket. Geoff Cochrane's grinning
At a baby while Leonard Cohen charms
Its mother. By the fruit and vegetables
Marianne Faithfull's making eyes at Nick Cave
And lo . . . here comes Jesus Christ incarnate
Rapping the Song of Himself in Te Reo Maori.
On the bus I catch the Ratana Brass Band
Playing outside a halfway house on Rimu Road.
Getting off, I'm greeted by the ghost of Hemi Baxter,
His timeworn face 'wrinkled with the tribal smile'.
|
| After reading Cochrane |
| |
I come away
with that feeling
I had as a kid -
Just after
a successful raid
of the cake tins.
|
| For Bill Manhire’s asterisk machine |
| |
The poet is in trouble.
He has mislaid his voice.
*
He's going around whispering
Lost language, lost language.
*
A colleague suggests
He speaks in sign.
*
He opens his hands &
Lines jump to mind.
*
He opens his heart
To word surgery.
*
He is beginning to
Like children's games.
*
He is becoming
All the fun of the fair.
|
| An IOU |
| |
They say poetry is the highest art,
but cashwise it nets the lowest return.
That's what you get for subversion,
my friend, that's what you get.
Take this poem as an IOU
for the collateral I've borrowed
from your account.
|
| The other side |
| |
'I've been to the other side
and let me tell you, son,
there's nothing fucking there.'
- Kerry Packer
'I've come to believe,' I tell Will, my Christian friend,
'There's no afterlife.' He looks at me with his Jesus eyes.
Behind him floats a dreamy daytime moon.
'Since I came to that conclusion,' I add, 'I feel much
Happier.' Will smiles. 'Happier?' he asks.
I toe the ground. 'Okay,' I say, 'let's watch the match.'
*
Australia's richest man died twice: the first time
For eight minutes; fifteen years later forever.
Forever? Maybe it's a cheap shot to quote
Matthew 19:24, Christ's improbable analogy
About the camel and the rich man. I buckle
At the knees on the boundary of understanding,
Then rise to applaud the big man for giving us
The Pajama Game, for giving us one-day cricket.
|
| Go figure |
| |
I dreamt last night
A man I know well
Was mutilated
With a machete.
His assailant
Was a shadowy figure.
The man I know well
Told him where to cut.
Three wolf-like dogs
Lay in pools of blood.
The victim's wife
Walked into shot.
Then I woke –
Horrified!
It's taken the morning
To get over it.
|
| Carl Jung |
| |
Carl Jung
was a man with beady eyes
and an animal warmth.
Carl Jung
was a famous analyst
who lived by a lake.
Carl Jung
was a deep well
of information.
Carl Jung
was in his time
before his time.
Carl Jung
created history
collecting herstory.
Carl Jung
built his house
storey by story.
|
| PRAYERS FOR THE LIVING & THE DEAD |
| Give us a child . . . |
| |
The nuns taught us our prayers –
Our Fathers and Hail Marys –
The priests gave them
As penance for our sins.
We were born, Sister said,
Stained with original sin.
If that has the sound of
A midwife's bum rap,
Consider this: today
I hear Islamic prayers
For the kids killed
On the Gaza Strip.
|
| May |
| |
In the Southern Hemisphere
May is the saddest month.
But sadness is no bad thing.
My father died in May.
I was born in May.
There was blood,
mucus and afterbirth.
The big oak shed its leaves
and my grandfather raked them
into piles. In May we make
friends with death. We make
our wills. We stoically tend
our part of the world. |
| Day of The Dead |
| |
My barber grandfather,
Dead for 23 years,
Whispers in my ear
'Keep your skull still.'
My publican father,
Dead for 19 years,
Chants above the din
'Next! Who's next?'
My sweet son,
Dead for 7 years,
Smiles as if, as if to say
'Remember, remember me.'
- November 2, 2007 |
| Dad |
| |
Dad had lovely hands.
They flowed as he spoke.
He danced a kind of jig
When he told a joke.
Dad was an outgoing man,
Fast with a witty quip:
'Make a noise like a quid
And I'll come quick.'
Dad ran a good pub,
His punters an earthy mix.
In the Maniototo,
On the road to the Styx.
Dad served the thirsty
Who worked this arid land,
And gladly took their money
With either lovely hand.
|
| John |
| |
You come to mind
Like an ancient
Call to prayer.
You come to mind
With Buddha consciousness
And a knowing smile
You give while listening
To my fanciful ego
Parade its awful pride.
I've no wish to carry
That dreadful weight
Into old age or the grave.
Good to catch up,
John, sweet John,
Wherever you are.
|
| Prayer for Leon |
| |
'Every atom belonging to me,
As good belongs to you.'
As good belongs to you, Leon.
We pledged at Boggy's and Emily's
Prayer will wrap you at sundown.
This evening I sit mellow
As mist sits on the hills
Reading Whitman's Song of Myself:
'I loafe and invite my Soul.'
The deep green trees sway
To a cosmic bass line.
The beautiful sky's singing, Leon:
Every atom belonging to me,
Brother, as good belongs to you.
|
| In the spirit |
| |
Your body moves like a prayer.
Once it would have crazed me
With desire. Now I watch you
Come and go contentedly.
O Aphrodite, your body moves
Comfort an old salt like me;
Adonis isn't the only benefactor
Of your Goddess sensuality.
|
| I renounce |
| |
I renounce myself - all vestiges of self consciousness self hate self
serving self aggrandising self wealth self poverty.
I renounce myself - body and soul mind and spirit and shed ideas
of utopia heaven and hell and the afterlife.
I renounce gods and goddesses religious orders sects fellowships
and shrines to the great mercantile fathers.
I renounce the legislators of guilt – politicians judges critical parents
charismatic preachers and righteous new agers.
I renounce hero worship false ideals lousy science cleverness for its
own sake and the celebrity yak yak yak of the media machines.
I renounce the mind crap that is self evident in this poem just to spend
some quality time with you.
|
| A short story |
| |
The chills of autumn can be cruel.
There are winter clothes to be bought
And little money to buy them.
Mother is irritated by my wants,
So I go to my room and read
A book that is sad.
Outside the sky darkens.
Hints of the year's first snow
Form as the pages turn.
|
| To suffering |
| |
Grief and loss, the poet called.
Grief and loss, she said.
Autumn sets my mind to death,
What's to come and what is left.
*
I turn the suffering inward
(Carry it like a child)
And my mother's pain
I feel again as a little boy,
But my mother's pain
Sits uneasy in my gut,
Because she is old now,
And that boy I'm not.
*
Grief and loss, the poet called
Grief and loss, she said.
Autumn sets my mind to death,
What's to come and what is left.
|
| Night sweats |
| |
Moonlight soaks
The floor in my cell.
On the pocked walls
I project a particular hell.
My thoughts are as dark as
A poem by Edgar Allen Poe:
Nevermore, nevermore,
Caws the prison crow.
*
It could be the 1800s
Or the present day:
Reading Jail
Or Guantánamo Bay.
It could be the caves
In Dunedin Harbour
Where Taranaki Maori
Served hard labour.
*
Yesterday's politics
Begets today's crime,
My nervous system
Is doing hard time.
I'm no Te Whiti
Or Mahatma Gandhi,
But I'm not a despot
Or a Charlie Manson.
*
I itch and I scratch,
Sweat bad history.
(Imagine some place
Steeped in misery.)
I'm in Tangier with
William Burroughs,
Casting a shadow
On his bodily functions.
*
I toss and I turn
Wrestle ghosts in my head,
Looking for comfort
In my single man's bed.
Grant me sleep,
I whisper in prayer,
Help me, help me.
Get me out of here.
|
| Let it be known |
| |
A yellow moon peeks through the trees.
My socks soak in the sink.
The transistor radio's kaput.
I hear the agitated sea,
The insistent drip drop in the toilet,
And a bus labouring through its gears.
Let it be known:
I picture you
On the last bus home.
|
| A winter’s tale |
| |
The morning starts out sickly blue
And drifts into gunmetal grey.
When I reach Marine Parade
The sea seems dull, indifferent,
And very cold. Many have died
Within minutes in these waters
That stretch out to Cook Strait
Across to the top of the South Island,
Which on a clear day appears
As if it is a mythical archipelago.
But today a ghostly mist obscures
Mana Island and Kapiti Island is only a hint
Of itself. The air is damp and chilly,
And I button my coat up to the neck.
I, a man on the cusp of sixty,
Going nowhere in particular,
Just walking, happy enough to be
Alive with an almost quiet mind.
(Every man is his own religion,
Cochrane said.) I linger at the spot
Where I once encountered a seal,
A little fur seal with big brown eyes.
I could have reached out and touched it.
We looked at each other without fear,
Conversed, if you will, across species.
After time suspended the wee mammal
Slipped from rock to sea, swam awhile,
Turned back and gazed, I swear,
With eyes that encompassed eternity.
It's summer on another coast.
In Los Angeles the world-weary
Michael Jackson is rehearsing
His moon walk. Yes, poor Jacko,
That sickly talented 50-year-old boy,
Is once again cranking up his act.
He's sold out, sold out in Europe.
But Michael's heart is about to seize.
O Michael, O Michael, rest in peace. |
| Internal |
| |
After a certain age
Squalor is unbecoming.
That's why old ladies
Keep their houses neat -
Dust-free, knick-knacked,
Doily-laced, flower-scented.
I see my mother's house
Replicated. Sometimes
I'll see a woman crocheting
Like my grandmother did.
I'll smell her - hear the tick
Of her mother's clock,
And time settles. Then
I'll clean my shack,
Order bits and pieces,
Open doors and windows,
Let out stale male odour,
Become my own mother.
|
| Out in the cold |
| |
Darkness licks you
with a ghostly tongue.
You shiver like a German soldier
in a Russian winter.
In the dark and the cold,
and a long way from home.
|
| Old Eskimos |
| |
You fantasise about leaving
All that is familiar,
Letting go the corporeal,
Which in reality is a calling
Heard by the other-worldly
Who travel holy space,
Or felt by the unredeemed
Driven into oblivion,
Or sensed by the old Eskimos
Who walked into whiteness
And died, you imagine, dreaming
Of the day they were born.
|
