Auckland Poetry

Delusional storms of hail decay the sky
In this sleep, we shall fly
When awake, have but voiceless wings
We had the feathers, now the tears
Why would anyone provide the fear-oh dear!
Unlock beliefs which measure despair
Why cry? For the hornbull once flied

Disavowing wings in these cold cellophane nights
True dreaming now dead!
Forced keys to reality
A destined death, a future life

Purists in bliss, pure woolen glee
Fallen through clouds of peril
Light shunned through damp decree
Those demeaning souls standing high in the hills,
Fall down laughing, yet I cried

Leaving sins forevermore asleep
Breathes, though frowned upon
To love all hope, die anew

Those soulless dreamers, consume all life
True existence is dead!

Sunken hopes appease the herd
Sacrifice freedom and die twice our featherman friend
This was a drowning here!

Swallows life, only to serve the captain of the sin ship
Hold my regards! Come ashore, we sail no more.

Tanka

 
There was a time
When the famous kept leopards
As an accessory
Now they keep an orphanage
Of colourful children

Wick and Candle

I woke up in a strange room, couldn’t find my way out
collided with a standard lamp, thought it was an intruder
and wrestled it to the ground. Ice on the living room floor
fell many times till a Chinese lady, dressed in a short,
green shirt and blouse, showed me where the loo was.

When I came out I was very tired I’m a fireman, you see,
and there had been a forest fire, laid down on the ground
and could smell freshly dug earth and noticed, before
falling asleep, white coffins being unloaded from a truck.

Awoke it was morning in the mirror I saw a dead man he
had sot in his face a victim of the fire? I tried to get him
out of there but couldn’t break the mirror; and anyway he
disappeared when I got up from the floor.

“Not your fault, he died of a heart attack,” the Chinese lady
said and with that she climbed back into the picture on
the wall. “Your heart is weak” the cardiologist said,
“Walk an hour a day, you have to let go, someone else has
to extinguish the forest fire.”

Encounter

Profound tiredness I’m sinking into myself
body gone, weightless now but my mind
sees that sea and sky are one, the aimless
cosmic cloud is a redundant god that has
been alone so long it will see no one.

Mother Teresa tried to talk to It, but failed;
she was very tired when she died. There is
stillness here where there is no night or day
and a forever fading cumulous;

I have great fear, will not sleep before dawn
is here, delivering me another day.

She searched too long with the trees and the woods

It was the hollow airy spaces in between that was

The poignant reminder that life was contrary.

The facets and nature of entwining weeds

Crescending and suffocating over

Earth and sprawling upwards

To engulf nature primarily before it –

To overtake the dinosaur – to destroy the native.

A want to be an invader.

Are we to be the crusaders?

Copyright Deana Platt 2001 (Emancipation Planz)

A owl in the crystal lens it tells & capturing face; emotion & heavy eyed. Lifts lid & stared & copy cat wrists in bangle & everything is silver he needs to escape through & break this dislike. “I don’t know ya, But,… I can understand ya” -repeat silently back & forever knowing anger & wants you to forget & he stares at you taking of his hat & borrows time for you I’m staying.

Surrounded by the imagination of my dreams, beauty ill forever hang on to.. Capturing the essence of real purity, as it forever lies within; draining me of the torture my soul has tried to base its life upon. “Live and learn, live and learn”… engraved, memorized throughout my world. “It made you stronger” her voice will always remind me!

New Europe

The white face of Europe is slowly fading away, middleclass
couples have few children; there are exiting careers to follow
in the world of business, media and the glitzy entertainment
industry. Shake their heads, in united dismay, when reading
about a poor woman, from a sink estate, unmarried and with
seven healthy, white children; they reward her with contempt and without shame let her live in disgraceful poverty. There was a time, not so long ago, when women like that got a medal and was called mother of a grateful nation.

When the same couples are mid forties and successful they
miss children and import some, 3, 4 or 5, preferable healthy
ones from Asia or Chad in Africa, shower them with riches
and a good education. Should we worry? No, not at all, they
will grow up and be as, say, French, middleclass and tedious
as their surrogate parents. Famous film stars, that before had a tame leopard as accessory, now travel with a multi racial orphanage on tow; and there is nothing to add to that, they are children rescued from poverty…we must rejoice.

Europe now has a new face, a smoother, darker skinned one,
on holiday it can sit longer in the sun without getting burned.
There are, however, a minority of people set against this they want a pure white race talk about European culture, without ever having read a book other than pamphlets of hate; losers with minds blinded by fear of the future and with hearts that know not of love, fight desperately against a tide of humanity that will drown them, and their loathsome racism, till there is no trace left of them to tell us they ever existed.

Still Life

He sat in a rowboat, in the deep fiord, with
a bottle of vodka, a flask of tea, bacon butty
and an apple. A mild spring day and he was
fishing mackerel; many he hooked too, soon
the boat was quite full of blue, silvery bodies
writhing and painfully dying.

Tea and vodka he drank munched the butty,
ate the apple; lit a cigarette inhaled deeply
and enjoyed his solitude.

Bodily functions never stop, he stood up to
have a pee, slipped on his catch and fell into
the sea; heavy boots he soon sank down to
where the sea is dark and unforgiving; rain
fell on an empty bottle of booze, apple core,
thermos flask and fish that had lost their glow.

The Future

When the last fishing boat docked it had only
a sardine and a haddock onboard; and eerily
the empty sea washed an indifferent shoreline;

the rich moved inland to escape the stench
of rotting seaweed that grew so thick that
one could walk form Calais to Dover in a day;

the poor took over what once were posh villas
but since they had no money for upkeep, houses
sank into ruin and stank as much as the sea did;

and the moneyed class said: look at the poor
we gave them fine housing and they have ruined
it all, their slothfulness is genetic you know;

the sardine and the haddock were preserved in
spirit so future generation could see what filthy
food people, in the old days, ate;

everyone is vegan now, the poor only have potatoes
to eat and that makes them fat, the rich live on
soy beans, cuscus and fried bananas.

Senryu

Epiphany me now
With your enchanted smile
The forever I’ll see.

Tanka

Lucid as the day
Blinding sunlight obscured you
When I could see
The night had devoured you
The time when all is too late

Tanka

Mirror in the hall
Don’t sarcastically laugh
When I walk past
On my way to the kitchen
To eat another strawberry tart

Senryu

Night time lonely
Fear the encroaching stillness
Till you call my name

As The Clock Ticks

Shall I resign to old age be a kind elderly man
who sits on a park bench and smile to passers by,
and wait for something, not knowing what it is,
but serenely accept the ending of the script and
not fighting back as brain cells die and my body
is a ruined edifice where the elevator has ceased
and the plumbing is unreliable?

Much time has been fritted away on sugar coated
banalities, sweet tarts and grapes of the reddest
kind; hang on, I’m so wrong, tell myself lies, this
was life, that and bawdy songs agreeing with my
sentiment; my salient friend literary learning is of
little use, hollow pursuit, what matters is human
companionship, the rest is a waste of time

The Mislaid   It was a strange October day, yet it behaved as that month does, blowing leaves off trees and filling gutters into fast flowing rivers where a child can launch a matchbox and call it a ship, it was just as I had misplaced something of value by my own carelessness and now it was out of my reach.  Went into a bar, beside me sat a blond, big busted woman in her late forties, she looked like the archetypical barmaid, only she was a cook at the Excelsior Hotel, up the street, on her day off. I told her I had lost a thing of great sentiment, together we went from bar to bar looking for this nameless thing.  Woke up in a strange bedroom, pink, and it had teddy bears strew around, mostly on the floor; I looked out of the window it was raining and remembered that yesterday was my birthday. The archetypical was sleeping, in the grey morning light she looked vulnerable and forty eight.            

Filling in the blanks

A spindrift of an abstract screen,
it blinds me I can’t think of words to write down
to break the monotony of whiteness,

Bush’s wet-nurse was a Mexican,
peasant woman, that’s why he likes to hug,
and touch people;

maybe he’s a nice man
who has only seen war movie and think
all wars are like that;

he only wanted to be president
because his father had been one, wanted to prove
that he wasn’t stupid;

but he was hypnotized by an evil neo-com,
and lost the thread of his dream in
blinding spindrift

Getting Away

I rubbed my eyeballs and
saw a universe of millions of stars,
not unlike the one I see at nights,
only here stars where rainbow coloured baubles
on a stygian background
and void of life;

not even a bambi or a lion cub crossing
this firmament of endless night,
and soon it will be christmas,
baubles, coloured light and worried faces
everywhere, except for the grinning shadow
that brings winter wind.

Knowledge.

“Listen to him he has long experience,” be careful
do not heed the old man’s words his experience is
based on a time gone by, his mind lags far behind.

Be free to make your own mistake, but do listen to
your inner voice it isn’t god’s, as some will say, but
your own voice of quiet reasons

If you do this I cannot promise, you’ll be man, and
why should you if you’re a woman; I have nothing
to give you except a smile of encouragement.

The Kismet

Eerie, heaven has sunk, roof on houses have
disappeared, as has freedom of disagreement,
“anti” is stamped on the forehead on those who
dare question the righteousness of the mighty.

It doesn’t matter now though, silent and without
mercy the heaven presses us into the soil, it is
useless to scream; on the other hand if we look
up, we may angles be, or failing that; tiny stars.

Mist clouds drift passed my window, looks in
with a communal eye, seek revenge for the tree
I vandalized; and there will be no peace before
we get it: “nature will heal itself without us!”

Another Yule

“Jingle bells”- “I’m dreaming of…” waft endlessly through
The supermarket and will do so for weeks; christmas is here
This time of banalities and forced goodwill, I only came here
To buy a pound of potatoes and was wished a happy Sunday
By a check-out girl dressed in a smart santa outfit and a smile
That didn’t reach her tired, soft bambi eyes; she was dying
For a break, a cup of coffee, and a quick drag of a cigarette.

There were beddings for sale at greatly reduced prices, but
Who wants a double-bed flannel sheet for Christmas? Mind,
It could be used to wrap around the baby in the arms of
The young gypsy woman breast feeding her child and begging
At the door of this Aladdin’s cave; this grand daughter of
Holocaust survivors, who never exploited their suffering; and
No remorse, no collective guilt ever sanctified them.

Humans designed for pain wee man thinks & destinations death, hollow legions capture our pavements gutter & lay lost, solitude found in question & interrogation the weak he still belches & answering the ego’s fears the fool stands faking his theory & he must need it, needs to know & leader wept & ambassador to his he finds some comfort & answer uncovers the jukebox den & his deceased soul hides behind his tombstone & needs to be shown sorrow & love “would anybody care, I was a somebody?” & silence seekers moan…fool crys & wonders when a tune is ever played for him - “who’s demeaning who?” sings wee man.

In my hands lays a life

In this life is power and in the power is the opportunity

And the opportunity is greatness.

How often as one small lone voice changed the course of history for ever

How often has one small deed done by just one person changed the lives of so many for so long?

And yet all this is thrust into my hands in just a moment of time

It is thrust in my hands in the form of the most innocent, fragile and beautiful creature that god has created – a new born baby.

A baby with no more or less chance in the world than the other baby that was born just the other day

A baby whose beauty far surpasses that of the father’s dreams and whose grace, discipline and potential shall be forged in the fires of life.

But what is it worth to forge a life if you can’t grow it in wisdom.

So to this new born baby with all the potential, and all the trust and love that the world could provide in just one person I say: “I shall lead with Joy so you can follow with glee”

(* dedicated in waves of love for the greatest Mammalian flotilla

    This is a wail of a song not to die for)

One thousand wails

Southern Ocean sales

Guised is no deception

For a belly ton of indigestion

Spurious lashings of what’s for dinner

Served with the repetitious wail

The minke has got thinner

Japan you’re not a winner

Think environmental sinner

Have I harpooned on enough?

Does it echo my disgust?

via Cetaceans communicated calibrations

swum to intelligent sound deliberations  

The minke has got thinner

Japan you’re not a winner

Think environmental sinner

Deana Platt Copyright 19/11/07

Slaves

Wish I were an owner of a couple of slaves,
they can do the work in the house and paint
outside as well; I have to feed them, of course,
rancid butter and stale bread; they can sleep
on a mat in the garage, and if they get a cold
I’ll be kind and give them an aspirin.

I have a wife, who does of the housework,
but she isn’t reliable, often I have to do my
own ironing and washing up after dinner;
to get something done I have to kiss cuddle
and flatter her, my god she even wants me
to make love to once a week!

With poverty around there will be many,
hungry enough to work as slaves, perhaps
they are people who show initiative don’t
hang around, hands in pockets, demanding
handouts from the state, or beg outside
supermarkets and at the railway station.

The song of Autumn.

By the dried up lake a once blue painted rowing boat
lays on it side like an animal that has died of thirst and
rots under an abusive sun.

I drove across it on my scooter a trail of dust behind me,
had the lake been full I might have drowned and found
years later by amateur divers on a Sunday outing. .

“These bones are not from here they belong to one who
lived in the cold north” the coroner will weightily say,
look at his watch, lunch time, and close the case

There is whisper in the room “time for you to go home.”
Yes I will when spring comes around, I’ll drive across
Europe on my scooter, and admire the new EU wonder.

This will take long as I would like to see Rome again,
so the winter just might get north again before me (it has
a shorter way.) Think I will stay in my valley for… now.

There is, in a village called Benafim, a sunlit cemetery
on all saint’s day women put flowers on every grave;
a lovely place of peace, sotto voce and Nirvana’s wonder.

No Fuss Grandad

(A Message from one of the harem – pleasured by beck and call)

No Fuss Grandad
He wanted no bother
He wanted no fuss
He wanted the harem
And the thoughts of lust –

Of nurses and teachers
.. of those he could trust
The grandchildren gathered
around the bedside
Tenderness and tears
were today’s exercise
A beer did follow with the boys he knew best
Final farewells were downed from the chest

Who’d have thought that tooth decay
Would lead to the play out of final days
The end of an era,
Led by a chapter of tears
We’ll wait for you to slip and disappear
Into your final resting place

So you go now No Fuss Grandad
With family, love and God’s grace.

Deana Platt 12/11/07
(Kenneth William Platt RIP 13/11/07 3.35 a.m.NZ time)