Auckland Poetry

Tanka

If a cowboy
Had an awfully big ranch
And hundred horses
You wouldn’t hear him holler:
“A horse, a kingdom for a horse.”

Senryu

The light is off
In the hospital’s morgue
At night

Senryu

The rabbit spoors
On new fallen snow
Were bloody

Life’s Avenue

By the left hand corner, where the avenue begins,
a group of old men stand - in the afternoon shade-
talk about the gone days, life was so much better
then. They nod friendly when they see me, like I
should be one of them; but I do resist, smile back,
stop not for a chat
…………………………
The German pope has nice silvery hair, if he dyes
it black he will look years younger, should he do
so people will snigger, and he’ll go down in
history as “Pope, the conceited.” I dislike talking
about the past, it fills me with sorrow, so I won’t
loiter at the old men’s corner

Invisible Friend  

We sat on the pier spat into the sea, sharing a bottle of plonk and a packet of crisp, when I heard a splash, thought someone was swimming didn’t see a bather though, then realized you had fallen into the water and were sinking into the mud.  

Courageously I jumped into the water and dragged you ashore; wet, we walked through town looking nonchalant, yet feeling daft.  At home I changed my clothes, blue blazer, grey slacks, green socks and brown shoes, lovingly polished by my mother.   

Looked in the mirror, saw a sophisticated man, but you had gone, if you’re not real I hope you’re a wolf they have got wise eyes and are not dumb like rabbits, canary birds, battery chickens and dogs infantilized by lonely women  

I saw an enormous rabbit once, or was it a hare? A winter day when it is dark till noon. I was cycling through the forest, on my way to school, it tried to grab me, but I got away, told myteacher, she laughed and called me a little fool.         

Áse. 

“So there you are I sensed you would be here today,come sit here by the west wall and warm your oldbody and see the sun gently fall into the sea. Don’t try to speak I can see your eyes are full of regret and sorrow, so let me tell you about myself. When you left, years ago, I thought my life had come to an end, my body ached for your caress, I thought my heartwould never mend. I have had a husband and have children who have flown away, I don’t know where, all I have is this cabin, a goat a cow and a cabbage patch; and now you are here. Stay till your feet get restless and you are off again chasing the same old dream of riches and success, and I will sit here and remember you well.”  

Senryu  

Dog hair on sofa

A sentimental memory

Hard to brush off   

Tanka 

The face I saw

Behind me in the mirror W

asn’t my dad’s Yet, eerily familiar  I

s there a story untold?  

 Zen   

Rainwater

In cupped hands

Seeps away   

Zen 

A rain drop

On an almond leaf

Reflects silence  

The Cork Tree  

The phellem oak, that stands alone where the roadbends north, has been debarked- or denuded- from waist down; had it been bare-chested with cork pants  on it wouldn’t have been so bad, in Julies everyone   around here dresses like that, some wear even less.  

Its flesh of is pale and slightly blue, but what can one expect a January day, with hint of snow in the air and a cold wind that brazenly prods its trunk. In five years time the bark will grow back; since the plant lives to be 800 hundred years, a few naked years ain’t that bad. 

Westerly Landscape  

The wind blows here, over the flat landscape, storm come in from the sea, tastes salt on lips when bluster stills for a few days in the
summer voices carry long and people look up surprised by their own clarity, as they are not used to whisper their words here where wind screams   like women betrayed to a life of drudgery; only the women stops hollering when their backs are bent, but the wind never ceases its blaring    Winter here is full of hailstones and christianity, traveling preachers rule this harsh landscape till it softens in May when the fiddlers come around and there is dance and moonshine made in barns. The men of god stay away then, but they have collected enough money to live in comfort, till it is time, when autumnal wind freezes the loins, preach from one cold hall to the next and in the name of god keep sinners subdued till spring comes around again and crude sex is made andeuphemistically called love      

Gratuitous Violence  

A vast plateau somewhere in the middle a lone oak,perhaps a lone survivor of a time when this highlandwas a gigantic forest. It wasn’t a nice, tall tree, no not at all, it was nobly, stubby and bent by age, yet it was there and today it was giving shade to a man who was crossing the plateau on foot, this for the simple reason that he couldn’t afford to buy a horse nor a mule. From the horizon, shimmering at first, riders, cow hands who spent weeks in the saddle looking for lost cattle, which must be one of the most boring jobs man has to endure, and seeing the lone man they decided he was a thief and hung him on the old tree. And as life seeped out of his struggling body, the dance of death relieved their ennui;  then they rode on, they were not men of deep thoughts. When night fell they made a fire, ate beans, drank coffee, farted loudly, laughed and went soundly to sleep