Auckland Poetry

Senryu

warm was summer
we swam in various rivers,
in a mere once

no man or woman
can win a war on mars
or on a new moon

Employment

At the office by the docks where sailors go to get
a job, wretched people in drab jeans, I went there
dressed as always, in a striped business suit; they
thought I was a captain in need of a crew. I handed
my papers to the man at the desk, he leafed through
them, looked up and said; my man you’re seventy
five.” So what! I’m have been ship cook for fifty
years and can make Irish stew and Danish meatballs.

A whisper flew amongst the harbour dredge, “he’s
only an old cook,” their laughter had no mercy,
I had given the sea scum something to make them
feel less inferior, but only for a moment; till the clerk
said: “but we have a job for you on the Staten Island
ferry, starting tonight; knew it wasn’t true, adjusted
my tie walked out of the office ram rod straight, as
only an old sailor on his last job can do

Noah the Seafarer.

There was an inundation years ago, seas rose up and flooded
the landscape, what used to be valleys became lakes. Why?
I don’t know, only have a degree in domestic science, my ship
this had engine problems just followed the surge and cast
anchor in one of those lakes. I saw villagers clinging to hill
tops waiting for the water to sink; and it did, my ship was sunk
in the mud only her super structure was visible. The crew,
faithless as the oceans, fled to the coast, I didn’t and soon mud greened into grassland. I bought land and sheep, the bridge of
my ship is a roof terrace, a house now but I do speak of her as
she. I know what they say about me around here that I’m a relic
from the sea, a flotsam, let them I’m a hill farmer know and
don’t miss the sea at all; however should there be another flood
I’m ready to rescue my sheep and set sail again

Mad men and muses on my screen appear
Scribes of pieces prized
texturalised justifications neutralised
lobotomized
rationalised
war-tified

Not a Victim

It is important for me to begin my day by not
feeling guilty or inferior for what happened
when I was a child; abuse, those grasping hands
I should have pulled a way, didn’t -out of fear-
but I also wished to please an adult world.

It is important for me to believe this every day
and not let the past break me down into despair
and hate them, for they are dead and lived a life
of little moral value; but I must be unafraid and
forgive myself for what was done to me.

Gun Culture.

They teased the black teenager in the school yard,
his older twin sisters went to university and dated
white boys; he had lost street credibility and respect.
“So he bought himself a gun” as the song goes, four
bullets too. Next day at school when one of the boys
taunted him he pulled out his gun and shot him three
times in the chest.

So much blood coming out of the shot boy’s mouth;
so much noise he couldn’t hear, he ran and ran didn’t
know where; into a park where a blizzard of autumn
leaves fell and he was lost in a world of delusion.
“They will respect me, look up to me, I’m their hero,”
he said to the trees, one bullet left he shot himself in
the head, empty gun and end of dreams.

The Politics of the Ridicules

Dear teacher, from Liverpool, going to work in Sudan and
let the children at your school call a teddy bear Muhammad.
Didn’t you know you’re dealing with bigots scouring texts
to find an excuse to say that Europe has insulted them again?

You are amongst people, who are three centuries behind us,
and in no hurry catching up. Odin is the name of my cat, and
that’s also the name of Iceland’s god, I better be careful when
going to Reykjavik on my holiday next year.