Auckland Poetry

Winter hastened her steps. Though not yet here,
Her grey and tearful complexion already
Frowned over Summer’s last canopy.
Bluesy notes, trickling down from
Guitarist’s fingers, across the roads they swam
Celebrating another page blankly written, idly flipped.
Is it always so hard? Hammering lines into
Poorly formed shapes and watch them
With grievous eyes like a father would an ill born child.
But when thinking of that filled was a new ardent page.

Senryu

If one truth is deep
Is there a hidden one too
Dressed up as a lie?

April Love

Now that it is spring I remember Lucy Lee
once upon a time, when the old people died,
we promised each other an eternity of love.

Then you had to go to France and in April
Paris is a perilous place, but I had to plough
the soil, sow grain and think of you

When you came back you said merci and oui,
there was a loss of innocence about you;
somehow the love between had gone stale

So I married another woman then, one who
could milk and feed cows, bend her knees
and pull up weed that strangulate carrots.

But it is spring Lucy Lee and I think of you,
and wonder where you are, perhaps you are
A dream because you are forever young.

The Good Sleep

She was late coming home from work, wanted to rest
a bit before dinner, at nine I ate in the kitchen, didn’t
like to wake her yet she was so tired.
I had a drink and watched telly till eleven, then worried,
the silence in the bedroom ominous, what would I do if
she had slipped into the deepest sleep of all?
I knocked softly on the bedroom’s door; “Are you ok
darling?” No answer. I switched on the light came nearer
to the bed, her face was smooth and free of worries,
a smile on her Marilyn Monroe lips, and she was breathing
easily. Relieved I grumpily woke her and asked if she
wasn’t going to eat anything.

The Tax Payer

The old lady, so small she almost disappears in the tall spring
grass, is 104 today. Quick on her feet this early morning she’s
letting the goats out of the barn, in her youth wolves roamed,
now there are people in vans trying to steal a goat or two.
Never married, looked after her parents who lived long, and
the few suitable men around here where of the lazy drinking
types, so there are no children to send her flowers and wish her
well, the goats don’t care as long as she’s there to let them in
at night. Her face has the colour of the brown rich soil around
here, where potatoes grow big and are suitable for baking; her
blue eyes are hazy by age and hold eternities peace; she never
asked for anything and now she has got it all. At a tax office in
The town an inspector looks up from his screen and says: “There
Is a lady in the valley, she 104 today and has never paid any tax.”

The Transitory

I swam across a field,
an ocean of chlorophyll
time stopped,
so did I; looked back, lost faith
and sank into greenness
that took my breath away.
Fear helped me up to the surface
and I swam to the lane,
dried myself on thistles that
burned my skin dry,
sat under an olive tree,
waited for my youth to join me;
it didn’t make it
and I lamented the passing
of eternity.

Offspring of Sedition

In narrow streets between factories that had
never been adorned by paint, as out of grey
walls they came silent children of a different
and darker world.

Don’t speak to them my brother said they are
foreigners and enemies of the country, a by
product of a lost army and treasonous women
who are forever outcasts.

Where the street widened to a square, near
The clear blue, unpolluted sea, there was
sunlight and the unspeakable children slunk
back into damp walls and not seen again.

The Iris

In my garden I saw the biggest rainbow ever seen
and it had a shadow too, I bathed in its glare, and
was the original multi coloured raincoat man.
Dug with my bare hands to find the crock of gold,
a big diamond found gave it to my distant brother
for safe keeping, while I dug but found no more.
My brother fled to Rotterdam where he sold my gem
to men with beards and black suites, where it was
cut into pieces, each one worth the price of a statelet.
My brother lives in Swiss, he hate me because I’m
his bad consciences talks bad about me and send me
letters that oozes of bitter resentment. I don’t care
now that I live inside kaleidoscope, and wear a multi
coloured raincoat, I need not precious stones.

Evening Mood (onboard a tankship))

The crew has had their evening meal
now they smoke and play cards in
the mess hall, the cook and his helper
have more work to do, their day is long.

The bright light in the galley keeps
the night at bay, the cook stands in
the doorway, a mug of coffee in hand
and smoking a small cigar;

He has to go down to the store room
take out the food needed for tomorrow;
the sea is calm, the sea breeze a caress,
and he’s glad to be far from shore.

The New Road (Modern Algarve)

The lane up to the village- from the main road-
begins where the old olive tree stands, and
now it has got street lights and been asphalted
and tries to look like a suburban road.

The lane, in the old days, was strewn with
white sea sand, was easy to walk on and only
needed a few stars to shine; asphalt eats light
and the lane only shines when it rains.

Lower Road, it’s called to it ends in a natural
square that has no name, after that it’s called
Upper Road till it makes a turn and ends back
on the main road again.

The “upper roaders” tend to be a bit snotty,
it’s the “upper” thing you see, and the bread
van stops there -‘cause it comes in the wrong
way- ; and one of them has got a Mercedes.

We at the lower end, laughs at their snobbery,
the square belongs to us, the fish van stops
there too, as do tourists who take pictures of us
as we sit along stone walls looking rustic.

French Lessons

The baguette on kitchen table, is
still warm and emits an aroma of
a Parisian boulangerie.

I put a bottle of red wine beside
it, a piece of moist Roquefort too,
and said: O, la, la.

A Magic Moment

Full moon in the Caribbean Sea, floes
of silver on black water, and the sea’s
calm heaves is that of a giant’s at sleep.

The hum of the ship’s engine heightens
silence, only briefly interrupted when
a door is opened and slammed shut.

On starboard I see the brilliant light of
a cruise ship, it really is a floating hotel,
I’m glad not to work on a ship like that.

My breath as easy as the giant’s, I think
of nothing and no one; weightless now
I join the seascape of my dreams.

The Roman Soldier

It was late evening, when walking along the walls of
the ancient city of Chester, I saw him, the old centurion,
he stood alone dreaming of retirement, the land and
slaves he had been promised when he joined the army.
He and his kind was hated here, in his own beloved land
the almond tree stood in ornate regalia whishing spring
welcome by strewing a carpet of flowers on its path.

He didn’t see the two terrorists sneak up on him, when
he did it was too late, and slowed by age he was knifed
repeatedly. I think they must have sensed my presence,
looking my way they stopped, jumped over the parapet
and vanished. I held the centurion’s hands, he opened
his brown eyes, a brave little smile, and said: “Guess
I shan’t see the flowering of the almond tree this year.”

(Chester is in the North West of England)

Death of a Stream 

The plaint of the stream is but a whisper now, a trickle of water amongst bleached stones;  

we used to bath here in summers, on its grassy banks drink wine, cooled by the stream;  

now the moon bathes the river and sees its own landscapein reverse.    

Shaving Cream  

On the day, yet, another car bomb exploded in
Baghdad, I forgot to buy shaving cream and had to go back to the shop; there is weariness about bad news from
Iraq. I also forgot to buy a litre of milk and a goat cheese.   

Four thousand
US troops killed, which, after five years of war, as an amazing small number; but then, this is a war where civilians get to do the dying. Six hundred thousand or a million dead Iraqis? No one knows, but it might end up as being as great a crime as the holocaust:  

Was it five or six million Jews who perished? This is a number that concerns deniers greatly, who are of the opinion that only about 2oo Jews died, regrettably of typhus, on a train journey between
Poland and
Russia.   

What we do know, is that the holocaust was worst criminal act known to man; it’s therefore an eternal shame that
Israel uses this tragedy to silence us when they continue to unlawfully take more of Palestinian land  

It is much easier to take up
Tibet’s cause, isn’t strange that the riots it happens know as the Olympic in
Beijing looms? Forget
Iraq and the
Gaza strip, where our hands are bloodied; this new cause will make us feel morally superior     

angel of death

when i never think of you, you come

when i avoid you, you get close

it sucks u know but maudlin movies we’re never meant

for me but

i can’t hold you back

i cant stop you now..

if you want to carry me away

go ahead..

i know..

my happiness

lies between us…

march 10,2008

—neon_angel

I glanced towards his face
Tumble weeds drifted by
He looked older than before
He’d aged like his brother
His face was drawn
He said my name
I did not recognized him at first
But then the memories flooded back
I asked where he had been.
“Porridge” was the state
It showed in his face
This friend an institutionalized statistic now
Not the fresh faced school boy he once was
I asked him how he got there
“Stupid thing” he replied “I kept getting caught”
We sat down on the bench and shared a cigarette
He explained how he had lost his wife, his children
His past had dissolved within
Yes a statistic now
For him now it is too late
Prison cost him his fate.

Settling of Scores

My house had been empty for a long time no one came
here and that suited me fine I’ve got everything I need,
by looking out of the windows I can see life passing by.
Then it all changed a youngish couple moved in, totally
ignoring me, after all I’m the owner of this house, but
what could I do, I’m ancient and no one listens to us old
people any longer unless we are royalty or presidents
As my irritation grew I took to screaming, till the woman
said; “Did you hear that Fred? “What?” “That voice, like
someone is trying to speak to us. “Nonsense,” the taciturn
Fred said. In the night pictures took to falling on the floor,
Fred blamed it on tiny earthquakes. I got angry and threw
objects hard across the room when they were out… and
they blamed their little dog, which was my secret friend.
But the night when I stroked Linda’s hair till she woke up
screaming telling her husband that she wouldn’t stay in this
house a minute more, I had won. No one lives here now
save for me, locals say the home is haunted, suits me fine.
There are children outside they are here to feel deliciously
scared by knocking on my door, it amuses me think how
shocked they will be if I, one day, opened up and said Hi!

Easter Snow

This mortal tiredness I was glad leaving
the private clinic doing a job I had come
to detest, convert rich people into future
members of AA.

The world outside was quiet and white
as death, getting whiter still as it began
snowing again, when a bullet of despair
hit my chest and I staggered back.

At the hospital I dreamt of vivid colours,
but when snow appeared, doctors dashed
in a spindrift of white coats. I now live in
an olive orchard where red poppies grow.

Is it the same,
when you go from the place
you call home

from place to place

never go
from here
your clothes fit like furniture

your eyes are on the sun
rising

I dreamt about the world
how it spins so terribly.
I dreamt about the world,
Rationally.
I thought about the world how it, rotates
from out of view.
I thought about the world
Then me , then you.
Then me , then you.
I lived upon this world
I lived for but a second in time.
I lived upon this world
That was yours , then was mine
That was yours , then was mine.
I fell upon this world it spins, so
terribly.
I fell upon this world
I was once you, then you where me.
I died upon this world.
Now I rotate so out of mind.
I died upon this world.

C/W John A Duffy 2005

The Sage

Oran, Algeria I stood on deck as the ship docked,
on the pier an old man, tall and thin, dressed in
what appeared to be pajamas kept looking straight
at me. So penetrating was his eyes that I had to look
into the sea. I knew he was a holy man a guru, but
why was he looking at me? Was he trying to send
me a message; when I dared to look up and at him
he had vanished and I felt a sense of deep loss, had
I held out my hands met his eyes unafraid, he would
have given me his wisdom, but for my fear I spent
years in the wasteland before finding my own bitter
insight: In the sand of time all footsteps are erased,
but the hum of the seas tell me of a deep harmony,
I need not fear the tomorrow.

The end of working Days

Lazy, they said I was, the old hands ‘cause I didn’t
want to sit in a foul bus at seven going to work at
a noisy factory, eight hours of recurring boredom

“Work makes you free!” Words written in blood on
an iron gate. “Labor is healthy,” the slaves say, men
whose will is broken, have no dreams only the pub.

A photo in the paper, my contemporaries has
retired from the factory, a golden, a handshake from
the boss they got, and didn’t expect anymore

I’m out if it I simply ran away, my life has been
abundantly spent doing as little work as possible;
yes know I’ll have to forego the golden watch.

Walking Home

Going home from the tavern, it’s gone non smoking
and for once I don’t smell like a walking ashtray, it’s
very late it has been snowing and I’m an unsteady
the wine was strong and I’m old, only a few stars out,
the rest have gone to a late A. A. meeting.

I listen to strange sounds; night is the day dreaming,
muffled echoes of past’s voices and deep sighs, and
deep within me a sense of guilt I ought not go out so
much the tavern is not your place, I firmly tell myself
better than watching telly, my meek defense.

No streetlights, a temporary power failure; I thank
the sober stars reflecting light on snow. Near the house
my dog barks, but only once, greets me by the door
runs back to her mat on the floor, I know she has slept
on the sofa, but I smile grateful for her fidelity.