Auckland Poetry

New Zealand

by Bernie Kyle
Copyright, 2003

Do you know where New Zealand is ?
Oh where, Oh where, on Earth ?
Is it big - or is it Small ?
Just How Much is it Worth ??

It’s not so big, I must Confess,
It’s in the South Pacific,
And Money isn’t Everything !!
The Country is Terrific.

There’s a green, green Land, & Mountains too,
Within the Easy Reaches,
And Walks and Lakes and Everything,
And lots of Sandy Beaches.

Without a Care, there’s God’s Clean Air,
And Nature’s Gifts are Free,
There’s Caves and Waves and Worldly Raves,
Why don’t you come & See ?

So from this Land, of the Long White Cloud,
There comes, a welcome true,
We trust you’ll come to visit us,
And enjoy our lifestyle too.

Bernard Kyle

Lost Pearl

When she went, she left behind her family of six
Her blanket and bed she lay on for seven years

Old Bentley slept on the well worn spot
and her books lay open in the bright sunlight

but her pearl brooch was nowhere to be seen
Something strong she could take over the end

a grasped for thing that stayed with her
like her accent or that way of looking at you

Pantry Skulking

My eyes flare wide
No tomb robbers would dare
Unyet you gamble with my skin

I do not wish to be screwed
Or unscrewed -
I want to sit upon the pantry shelf
And swing my feet

I can see a lot from way up here
I see through you
my transparent friend

I lost my rose specs long ago
In a pile of tissues on the floor

© Julie Walker 2007

Of all the online writing tools I have used, I rate Google Docs as the best. I hardly feel secure about a manuscript unless there is a copy of it on Google Docs. It will take the End of the World as We Know It to reduce that mountain of servers to rubble. I think my writing is safer there than my hard disk but multiple DVD copies and USBs with copies are also ways of preserving digital data. The main thing is do not rely upon location and that is why Google Docs is better than Microsoft Word which I long ago found too interested in how I was writing than allowing me to break what rules I wished to…

So now publishing on line is supported by filing on line. But google docs is not so good for a shared magazine style of poetry publication where we can find videos of poets alongside great work published by the poets themselves and perhaps edited due to constructive comments. Doubt it will ever work - poets are like other people: competitive.

I personally do not like competitive poetry slams or such like. I like that they exist and others enjoy them, but for me poetry does not inhabit the same cells as rugby or other sports where I want to feel like cheering it own. It is a little more like catching the elusive moments for me, just some poetry is up there in some kind of intellectual cloudscape waiting to be ignited by your words.

We keep on performing Shakespeare for good reasons. It is not due to how fast it can be rendered or how loudly we can stamp its essence into each other’s brain-space. I have decided to declare this site as open to a general membership as the elusive will only be captured if an online writing community supports it - not with rampant approval - but with constructive criticism or at least some kind of feedback.

My hopes that poets would adopt this publication easily are being hampered by the short attention span of modem users and some stupidity on my own part. I have been severely admonished by some past users who felt that I was not savage enough as an editor, or that the site was too hard to use. The trouble is that I totally agree. So, here I present a site that does work - does not lose your precious moments of inspriation and lets you instantly publish poetry. Plus its category and tagging system is easy and sensible - you can find your works on the site instantly.

The Editors can now take individual poems from the Wordpress site and publish them on the google indexed blogger site - which will be updated with a new design sometime soon.

We invite Auckland Poets to join in and enjoy each other’s poetry.

Poetry must be of a standard or please leave comments if you think a poem should be removed. I would rather see fireworks and broken egos with lots of poems being discussed than a few perfect poems. This is the internet - things may get a little rough! That said, comments should always address the work, the writing or the subject, never insult anyone or your access may get removed.

Oh, the new site just got noticed by Google - perhaps this boat will launch!