Auckland Poetry

A stationary point-unmoving
Upon the stillness sits my throne
From which I behold the crowds
Come and go-in haste-ever changing
Like thoughts-devoured by stormy clouds

A building Site

On weed cleared bed of earth light bulbs
grew… fifteen watts green blue and
shocking pink, one of the worker’s had
a male lover.

In a corner a hundred watt’s shone without
mercy, blinding butterflies, but gave stage
light to a pair of muddy shoes thrown
away by an artless person who didn’t see
that Günter Grass had made them.

A tramp took pity took the boots, a boy
threw a stone knocked out the offensively
hundred watt bulb, lesser bulbs sighed cast
a mellow glow and enjoyed themselves.

Senryu

Poverty is a myth
Look at the poor they are fat
Live on sweet and crisp

Blue
Ocean

When I awoke it was Sunday morning and the seashore

had disappeared, lie in the grass by a stream that has its

nascent where winter shawls cover the blue mountain.

A white owl, ogled me as tiny snakes slithered across my

belly, dived into the streams coolness, which hurt since it

was only two feet deep.

Bleeding from a head wound, but having got rid of

the serpents, I hung my clothes to dry on an oak’s

inviting branch.

Sat on a boulder as morning sun warmed my nudeness,

when the maid who milks morning dew walked by,

she paused and asked: ” Are you a satyr?’

 “No dear, I’m a sailor rejected by the sea”. She gave me

roses’ dew to drink, intoxicated I embraced her ephemeral

body and was free of the ocean’s pull.

Fernando Pessoa.

Carved on a stone, in the park, a poem
by Fernando Pessoa, since it was written
in Portuguese I didn’t understand it, but
nevertheless savoured the words them
rolled them on my tongue and enjoyed
the internal rhyme.

She came had been to the dentist new,
gleaming teeth, she looked radiant and
kissable so I took her out for dinner;
the poem could wait, for now, but I’ll be
back to night, armed with a dictionary to
see if it was a poem about love or satire.

Morning Raid

I hear the swishing sound of the helicopter gunship coming
our way, dogs whine and hide in barns as the chopper hangs
in the air just outside the kitchen window blowing up a dust
storm. A solder slides down a rope I open the window, he
hands me a toaster and smartly salutes before climbing back up.

When I plug in the toaster it detonate in a cacophony of finely
chopped rainbows, bacon in the frying pan burns a plume of
reeking smoke thickens the air. Chopper down, hit by a ground
to air missile; I settle for oats mixed with cream and strawberry
As dogs turn feral and tear into crispy bacon.

The New Poor

Many middleclass people are poor, I read,
when house and car are paid for there is no
money for food; they could sell the car and
move to a smaller house, but the indignity of
no longer being thought of as middleclass,
stops them from doing just that. Trapped in
a spiral of debt and their own insatiability,
they are stuck in semi poverty mitigated by
new the Volvo in the driveway

Oxjam Event

OXJAM Open mic/Jam Night

Wed 24th October, 8pm

Roasted Addiqtion Cafe, New North Rd, Kingsland

Performers $2.50, non-performers $5.

Come out and add your voice to help make trade fair. All proceeds go to Oxfam who will match our efforts. Homemade jam for sale too.

To register to read or play text OXJAM + your name to 027 203 4847 or show up on the night and put your name down.

Cheers.

Anna Kaye

Richard Taylor

the machine music moves mechanically as it must because it is
beautiful and is based on a legal system of repeats but nothing is
yet for sure why should it be after all the law of torts and the
thinking Thinking Thing is there, and we are part of it despite
seclusion like a sheep’s or a boffin’s head, in a vision of perfect
symmetry held in a white drop as if we could know’it all, and there’s
need for change, but who looks on, and who is who who he looks at who
he looks is who — but we need all these people who don’t agree because
of the machine, which, despite its penetential and inevitable
inefficiency, is heard to cry out at deep of night to the Great One
who is probably dead and ensconced in a dream of lubricated, or
lubricious cavortings toward spittle. and flesh, words that send
shudders up my spire wire’s spine loom; one would naturally much
prefer to be the vision inside a technical robot, whose doom scenes
see wire mass everywhere, and, how does the spider know, because he,
too, is a constructor - or is it because the music nags us back down
the drain pipe into a parallel universe of incomprehensible equations,
or a crazed jumble of electronic, electrical, and machine parts
pushed into an elected enclave, whose triumph is its denseness, or the
enormous significance of an endlessly looping musical track which your
great great grandmother could well have enjoyed: some post—
Stochausian, post- Varese etc, not something tame like.the Songs for a
Mad King: but it all passes, even the wind machines, and the ape-
shaped eyes, thoughts of death, leaves, corpse valleys, memories,
inscriptions.. .you turn back to The Romantics, for there is something
about you, something nobody can see: as if you were the one in the
centre of a gigantic sound-shriek, and batting up all hell, and no one
gives a fuck, especially with everything turning into grey
gold. . .something like a cat looking into your face.

‘machine music’ by Richard Taylor

A New Beginning

Her kisses tasted of iron railing a frosty morning,
tore skin off my lips, her eyes were frozen stars
set in a deadly sea of tranquillity, a beauty flawless
and free of guilt. Her body…unbending, unwilling,
an ice maiden in a winter forest, no warm May sun
could ever hope to thaw.

Her pale lips had spots of cardinal crystal residue
of my attempt of resurrection, my love for her I lay
at her feet struck a match in the vast night of silence.
Free, in the glade she stood my new smiling love,
surrounded by flowers of spring; hand in hand we
walked to where days begin.

The Thrifty

Moonlight in the park of passion, they sat reading each
others bank statement, in her lap a posy of flowers he
had taken from a day fresh grave and as owls in an old
tree hooted, serenading them; inhaling the melancholic
sent of stolen flowers she said:
“We can’t get married yet, my love.” “I know dear, we
have to wait till your parents’ die, since you are looking
after them, as I do mine, we just have to be patient and
wait, what they leave will be ours.”
He fumbled in his pocket and gave her a penny a child
had lost outside a tuck-shop, a token of his love for her,
although she had a handbag, so full of lost coins, that it
needed an extra shoulder strap and a reinforced bottom.
The moon kept on shining for the thrifty pair where they
sat, on a green bench of love, whispering slowly, exciting
numbers to one another: “million five hundred thousand
dollars and much, much more,” as orgasmic lust frugally
swelled in their loins

Through a candle’s essence
Crimson borders soothe the edge
Pulsating to the beat
The sounds dance on the eyelid
The visions a striking purple
Equally green too
But why the film of the photograph
Capturing inside the minds eye
At time opaque
Even transparent
But always certain
Creation imprisoned
Freedom is a memory
This place can be hell
Convalescence will be
When she finally presides next to me.

8:14am 13th Oct 2007

Poetry Live

from 8pm, Tuesday October 16th, 2007

at The Classic Studio, 321 Queen Street

(upstairs, next door to The Classic Comedy Club - just up from the Town Hall)

Door charge: KOHA

Open Mic (5 minute max)

MC: Renee Liang

featuring Guest Musician Fiona McEwen at 8 pm

with Steve Terry on guitar

Singer/songwriter and rhythm guitarist, Fiona McEwen’s unique, melodic style can be

described as “contemporary folk/pop/rock with a touch of flamenco”.

Fiona McEwen has been writing songs and playing music most of her life. Having studied recorder,

percussion, piano and viola while at school, in 1986 she sang backup in a band “Pacific Roadshow” which toured

around the South Island, and started learning the guitar and writing her own songs. After bringing up

three children, Fiona launched on the Auckland open mic scene in 2004 and has since performed at open mic nights

including Suede Bar, Diablo, Grand Central, Forde’s Front Bench, PR Bar, Snatch and ‘Speakeasy’ at the

Classic Comedy Bar, and at city markets, folk clubs, festivals, including Prana New Year Festival and Titirangi Festival

of Music, and various venues including Corban Estate Arts Centre, The Wine Cellar, Sky City, The Patriot,

The Occidental, Elevation Cafe and The Dogs Bollix. Fiona was also the featured singer/songwriter on

“The Verona Sessions” which screened live on Alt TV in August 2007.

www.myspace.com/fionamcewen

Guest Poet: Charis Boos

“understated and clever, has an air of sophistication, she plays with words like a pro,
carrying listeners away with her imagery and styley metaphors”

There is nobody left there

a throng gathered waiting

The people you came to kill

had vanished into thin air

they came and they called on their plastic box device

and flames we took for games fried brains and let us leave

waiting for them ask for more expired days
important truncated oats and wheat chaff to the feedthe quiet afternoon

the endless glory of minutes

Here, at the Ruinscape - we wonder at the minds that

brought us this hiddious expanse warped thoughts

executed in explosive charged seconds shades were sent

over the eyes made of silver cement

the pain left behind by thieves

and

the wooden bench

They all came to collect their debts

one by one

they left

in a queue

bent

and

harried

by death

mystic island

A Voyage

The ship was loaded we were going to
an island in the Saragossa that cannot be
seen by radar as it is always surrounded by
a miasma of sadness, here daybreak is
only a five second glimmer in an endless
night and only expert navigators are able
to find this island…

Our cargo consisted of discarded dreams
the islanders had lived so long in peace
that they had lost the ability to think of
esoteric things, their word expanse was
of seaweed and monster cods; but they
needed this diversion if not they would
sink into apathy and die

When the ship blew its siren for the third
time and the gangway was lifted, I was
hiding behind a warehouse that was full
of dreams destined for another island,
I wouldn’t like to be a part of this, giving
people second hand dreams when the could
consisting of clichés and spent phrases.

I could have lived with this mild betrayal
if it hadn’t been for the rule that no crew
member were allowed to dream or read
or sing, but be, as often long time sailors
are, men who have lost their ability to
remember that once they were children
and not blinded by endless tediousness.

Worst of all, perhaps, it was said that ships
going there were crewed by the world
weary, men who are shadows of themselves
who drowned when crossing the vastest
expands, too far away from a priests soothing
words where love had lost its meaning and
the last thought was of a whore in Santiago.

A walk through the park does it
When it rains and then shines
there are trees speaking a foreign language
and some that, like trees, stand up straight
if I were a bird and alighted on a tree
I would want to know all about it
Trees have no idea what to do except
hang on for dear life
the corruption of innocence happens commonly in clear daylight
there is nothing you can do when its a tree that has bent on its resolve
but a will of the wisp dragonfly is easy to brush aside
its far more likely to have taken the time to explore avenues of escape
it has darted this way and that
made a flute whistle under the willow
and sucked fig sap from the tree
nothing was out of range by extending its filament wings
new ground appeared but it never settled very long
so its ideas were grand and tended to be forgotten
like enthusiastic laughter
And in between, we have the union of the King and Queen
Henry and Winifred the reigning monarchs of the monkey
These bipedal beings that breed huge families - they
grow roots and settle in the forest
some just sit there and stare at the trees
during the rain the wind pushes great branches about
they wheeze like aching lungs whispering a chorus
and yet minutes later its calm again
the sun clear and sharp
The monkey had developed a new trick
it could consider the tree, drink and flick
a dragonfly onto its waiting tongue
the trick was to be both quick and still
Its luck improved with the
development of skill

14 October 2007
9:50am

The War Weary

When I think of war I think of Falluja, massive
firepower total obliteration till silence descends
and one can hear blood dripping from the cross.

No heroes here only scarred and scared soldiers
who will take this horror home and remember it;
and for whom the war will go on in nightmares.

Falluja, here a miasma of fear obscure the ruined
dwellings workers are rebuilding, but how do we
repair a heart that has seen too much blood shed?

Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

As the persistent sound of her phone ringing came from inside the house, Ms. Lessing said that on second thought, she was not as surprised “because this has been going on for something like 40 years,” referring to the number of times she has been on the short list for the Nobel. “Either they were going to give it to me sometime before I popped off or not at all.”

On A Day Like This  

Parked in a side-street, decided to walk into the town centre to buy my newspaper; legs ached, so very tired, and since it was July I wore shorts, my legs looked fine calf-muscles still strong; had I been a woman I would have said: “look at that man hasn’t he a pair of sex legs,a masculine Marlene Dietrich.” Perhaps not, but as I was thinking of her and Ernest Hemingway, they had loved each other, but never got around to do anything about it, I had walked out of the town wandering along a lane, made of sea sand and crushed shells, till I came to a crossing and at the left of it there was an enormous carob tree and under it heavy low hanging branches I found shade. Breeze filtered through the fleshy leaves making it cool; I leaned on its solid trunk and felt at ease with the world.  

I was running up a very steep hill, light footed as an onyx, the breeze…me, the act of running was a joy. At the top I could see the glittering sea and to meet my love I raced down hill faster than a stone could fall, and on the flatland waved to farmers tilling their soil; and without pausing, at the beach, I dived into the sea and began swimming till all land disappeared.  

I was at one with nature, around me circled happy dolphins, but suddenly, flecks of dark shadows appeared on the surfaceof the sea and it was cold despite the warm sun, I was utterly alone, my arms were thin and belonging to someone very old; as I throw my head back as not to drown my head hit the trunk of the tree, I looked out the sun had just gone down, but was still sending streaks of gold and orange across the sky. Back in town I thought of the lovely story of Adam & Eve, a pity that we’ll never know the name of the person, who wrote it; at a grocer’s I bought an apple and went looking for my car

A Weather Forecast

It is slowly raining in New York City today, bigdrops lazy fall,roll along42^nd streetpick up dust, collide with other drops and become dirty water that runs down a sewer hole with vertical bars.

Hudson River runs full too, much rain upland, and
New Jersey, where Tony lives, got a drenching too, Mr. Soprano slouches in his pajamas feels ancient at 47, and worries about the future

In the City, where the absence of the Twin
Towers is still seen, the
Central Park need a good soaking; a big rat put its snout through the vertical bars, looks up at the mournful sky and sighs.

Rangitoto

You emerge,

Upwards from water,

like the hump of a whale.

Like a grass-stained knee,

breaking the water surface in a bathtub.

But your smooth greenness,

belies your dirty red rockiness.

From Takapuna’s shore,

I can hold you in my hand.

But adventuring to your summit

feels like forever

when you’re a child.

I remember walking

in dehydrated step

short legged.

Red,

with prickly heat.

You can’t even see anything,

most of the way up.

Its just another bush walk.

Until the top.

And then,

all this effort expended,

for a view

that’s a dime a dozen anyway.

Copyright © Anna-Kaye Forsyth 2006

Senryu

Diamonds are forever

But you’ll not always be there

To see their sparkle.

I’m unable to breathe; and I don’t mind 

Just don’t move me or I might break lose of you

An uncomplicated flash of stillness and intrigue locks me in Like a magical moment created by poetry  

Yet I don’t know you, by name sure, by smell and touch, I’ve studied you very well;

You speak like language is liquid, an ode to Sade and Al Green

While I strum to your words on my guitar that holds a thousand of my deepest thoughts under the strings

So I add you – without telling you

I don’t think you’d mind 

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