Auckland Poetry

Bash baby, smash baby, into the night

Nation wakes in morning to another fright

Bash baby, smash baby, have you no shame

Nation suffers in mourning and feels all pain

Bash baby, smash baby, we have had enough

Go get help right now, there is no place left for tough

Bash baby, smash baby, another one is dead

We pay with consciences’ and all bow our heads

Bash baby, smash baby, there is no lullaby

Cruelty seeps in my town and I weep sad goodbyes

Copyright Deana Platt 10/4/08

she’ll smile and cry
when she receives my postcard nine months later
I’ll cry when I’m forced to walk nine miles
because I can’t support myself on a paper leg
we’ll say it was such a waste
until I get married
have a few peacocks, sheep, stone house
field of lavender and nine kids
I’ll purge myself of all the jam I ate straight from the jar
please infiltrate my dreams
please fill my head with good thoughts
these jam eater blues have got me down
my belly has grown since then
I’ve sent three postcards
can you sense the urgency of this letter?
-it’s only a nightmare!
leaving will bring me back to sleep every night
postcards will show I’m happy
walking nine miles to the post office
notes in my best handwriting (hands shake)
dig up my last thirty-seven cents and forge my own signature
-that’s me!
he threw a carrot at me and it left a bruise
I kicked him and injured my foot
escaping night and sleep
an empty stomach and empty pockets
running away from happy home poverty and nightmares
to lonely away poverty and nightmares
it’s all different
it’s very much alike-
one step closer to big bellies and stone houses
poverty that is my own
empty pockets that grin widely
nine miles I spit at the cars that pass
swinging my fists at steering wheels
every day
dusty grins toward nine
no more postcards
only crying when belly sinks
and pain shifts to beauty
and beauty in a tiny hand clutching a white breast
in a finite universe.

for a mind-wind that blasts

and blows so intense that  

it drains colour from the

blue sky and gnaws roots

of roses scattering comfortable earth

earthshaking the giant chimneys of

fossil factories mere words that

can cartwheel this fragile gravity

throwing paper and debris and

scattering fetid, letter’d music in

a contagion of new life

Chris Parsons

Ghost Onboard.

When our elderly English deckhand Jimmy slipped
on iron deck, bumped his head on the railing and died,
his demise shocked the young who didn’t know that
the claw of death could strike that fast.

We rolled Jimmy in a blue sheet (white beddings for
the officers and blue for the crew) and put him in
the ship’s meat freezer so small that his body was
rubbing up against carcasses of New Zealand lamb.

The cook next day came up from the storeroom, white
in face, claiming Jimmy sat there with a blanket over
his shoulders complaining that he was cold; and yes,
he had been seen on deck too just wandering about.

Twenty two, mostly young, men were now thoroughly
spooked by an elderly dead deckhand and we still had
a three weeks voyage before reaching port, where we
may not be allowed to bury him ashore.

Burial at sea, to everyone’s relief, bits of iron fastened
to his body, the captain read something from the bible,
Jimmy’s body lowered into the water, a splash and
horror struck we saw it sink very slowly

The Grand Illusion

Happiness is all about pretence
I used to be cynical and bitter
looking for my youth, laughed
at by young girls who found me
so utterly absurd. Now that I’ve
decided to be a crusty old man,
slightly cynical, yet wise I feel
so good about myself that a trite
word like happiness is quite apt.

The Ghost.

My dog had been knocked down by a car,
still she lay, blood on her snout, thought
she was dead, put her in a large bin liner
drove through the night into the highland
where she was born and I thought of Edith
Piaf, dead in the back of a van, and driven
from Marseille to Paris in the night.

In the corner of a potato field I dug a hole
while the dog got out of the sack and sat
watching me wondering what I was up to.
When I saw her I thought she was a ghost
shocked fell into the hole and bumped my
head on a stone, woke up when the dog
licked my face trying to save my life.

I was a tired first- world- war soldiers sat
on the edge of a Flanders’ trench listening to
the silence, Christmas Eve, cannons booms
had ceased only their ominous echo rang in
my ears, men from both side of the war zone
sang carols into the cold unforgiving night.
“War’s over Bambi let’s go home and eat. . .

The Scream

We now know why
the sky in
Edward Munk’s
painting
was so oddly red
and frightening,
there had been
a volcanic eruption in
the East,
pity the man on
the bridge, who had
his anguish
painted on
the afternoon sky

The Wedding

I’m going to a wedding in June; in the part of
Brussels where even street cleaners speaks
French, all be it, with a working class accent.

The bride and groom have lived together for
twenty years and have adult children, their parents
will look ancient walking down the aisle.

Their children, both at university, are slightly
embarrassed they had hoped, as had the groom
for a modest registrar office affair.

But the bride wants her day, a wedding as big
as the one her younger sister had ten years
ago in the splendid city of Paris; so there.

I’m not a party animal, if sober I’m ill at ease,
if I drink I talk a lot till peoples’ eyes glaze
over, or I fall asleep on the nearest couch.

I have promised to be on my best behaviour
these means diet coke on ice and try not to
look at my wrist watch every five minutes.

Senryu

Street bravado
A frantic way to cover
For lack of self worth

Senryu

Street credibility
Is to be on friendly terms
With the bully

Senryu

Only true cowards
Have the intelligence needed
To leave street life

Senryu

Israel’s creation
Confirms beyond doubt
That violence works.

Senryu

Often murder is…
A small man’s easy answer
To a big problem
Tanka

To tell Palestinians:
“Get a life, forget Nakba.”
Is like telling Jews:
“Get a life, forget Holocaust
It never happened anyway.”

Tanka.

Time is a vacuum
Through its enormity we walk
On paths unseen,
Yet each one is made for us
And leads to where sky meets sea.

Than I think.
I’m.

gold teeth, grin
hairy chest, black with grey
sin
eyes that say nothing
dirty
old man smell
big cock
old man grunts
have your fun
tip
if i did okay
cum
and say, look
to show it was fun
enough for another hundred
good job
you have the goods.

A Burial

My dog lay on the backseat dripping blood
my wife worried about the seat, I screamed
to her to “fuck off”; rain obscure my mind
I have known my dog for fifteen years.

Stopped at a supermarket, bought a black bin
liner, to get the dog into it was hard work, she
was unyielding and suddenly so very heavy
and I had her blood on my hands.

I borrowed a spade from a farmer, dug a hole,
ground stony, it took time and I couldn’t see
for rain; when the hole was big enough it was
also full of mud as First World War trench

I put her into the grave anyway and filled it
with stones wouldn’t like other animals to
find and eat her. Sappy crap you may say, but
we had been together for fifteen years.

Senryu (Food for Thought)

The moral base
For consuming human flesh
Is a green answer

Senryu

Is cannibalism
The practical green way
To save our planet?

Senryu

Let the old feel useful
Make them into hamburgers
And feed for cattle.

Senryu

Everybody can,
Not just Italians,
Be made into salami

Tanka

Pornography films
Freedom of ones expression
Embarrassing I think
Private acts made public
Do make love cynical

Porno of the Mind

If you go into the woods tonight, I murmured
a song, but it isn’t needed for I saw a ghost at
the supermarket, it hovered above the head of
of a hog that had an apple in its gob and saw
my ex girlfriend, lift the head up and kiss it
square on its leering lips and the fruit fall out
revealing a brown tongue; all the while she
whispered a name that had a familiar echo.
from an poisonous fairy specializing in weird,
semen drinking sex to a hag with teeth that
could chop a trunk in half. I will not go into
the woods to night, but she has such intense
eyes boring into my soul and seeing my secret
desires drawing me into her netherworld.

Senryu

Sixty years today
Army parade and arrogance
While Gaza burns

Senryu

Pity the Eskimo
With the vanishing ice cap
He can’t build a home

The Transplant

I have a bus on which I drive tourists from the coast
to the inland and show them roman ruins and a bit an
ancient road that used to lead to Rome.

But I have been losing business to the competition,
when I tout for business it is that I look too gloomy,
like I don’t really want anyone on my bus.

I told this to my dentist Jerry, he’s an American and
as such eternally optimistic, he is also a part time
cosmetic surgeon and a planter of hair on bare heads

He was only going to whiten my front teeth but when
waking up I had blond nylon hair sewed into my scalp
a permanent smile and Hollywood teeth.

Now I look as Berluscone, the Italian prime minister,
passengers think I’m a comic; when I say: “we leave
at four, you silly people” tourists laugh think I’m funny.

The Smiling Lady

We sat holding hands I was seduced by her smile,
yes, no doubt in my mind the fair lady loved me.
I did vaguely remember having seen her, not long
ago, looking up to another man just like that but
this wasn’t the time to think pettily. Since she had
rented out her flat she moved into mine, two bags
four suitcases and a wine cooler made of silver.

New love exiting time we had, she was so full
of life, not for us to sit in front of the TV to have
an easy night at home, life was too short for that.
I tried my best to keep the newness of our love
fresh, but I felt as she was drifting away from me
and quietly despaired, she was getting restless and
one day she left me for another man.

I do miss her smile, but feel a sense of relived
sleep well I do, enjoy sitting on my sofa seeing
a western movie and I remember the man she was
with before me, he looked happy to now. Lovely
lady not for her to eat yesterdays cake, wonder
what she will do when her flat is free, and music
is a dripping tap in her joyless flat.

The Video

They sent me a video from a time gone,
a family gathering, wine glasses held aloft
happy faces, what a grand illusion,

Moving pictures only mirrors a surface,
of something passing, it is not like the sea
mirroring the sky and telling a story

These moving pictures tell a big lie, nothing
about the anguish and betrayal anger and
clenched fist, voices shouting obscenities.

I knew those people once a Nordic year is
so short only lasts from April till September,
the rest is gloom and drunken melancholy.

The winter Coat

Cold day in March, mother wore a coat at least three
generations old; in the centre of town we’re stopped
by a lady highborn with a noble nose, a very distant
relation, she gave mother a 5 crown note, ( I remember
it was blue) mother was glad for that now that the fish
factory had closed and she was out of work. The fine
lady made a mistake she told mother what to buy, like
potatoes and milk, but noblesse oblige, we walked into
a very classy café where the waitresses wore uniforms
and looked down their noses; mother put the note on
the table and ordered hot chocolate and gateau, we sat
by the window in the hope the highborn should see us,
mother smoked and held the cigarette aloft the way film
stars did, but for the coat she could have pulled it off.

Wings.

Once I could fly, celebrating my return from the sea
My wife wouldn’t let me in, standing there in the yard
I stretched out my arm like a large phoenix bird and
Flew high above the roofs in the close where I lived
And could see I didn’t belong and could clearly see
That I didn’t belong amongst tax inspectors, office
Managers and police Sergeants.

My arms got tired I landed on the roof of my house
Where I tired fell asleep, when I awoke a fireman was
There insisted on helping me down, and days later,
When found guilty of disturbing the peace, the magistrate
Asked me how I got up on to the roof. I flew…sir
And there was talk of psychiatric valuation, but luckily
My ship came in and off I sailed never to return

Summer night in Rome

In the Fontana Dei Guattro Fiumi in the piazza Navona
I had a cooling dip after coming out of a smoke filled
bar, I stripped but modestly kept my underwear on and
watched over by an elderly patrolman, who wasn’t looking
for promotion, he knew everyone on his turf and when
needed he didn’t see a thing which was good for keeping
the peace. Dawn and the local market opened, I had oven
fresh bread and cheese; coffee, also a grappa to stave of
a slight chill after my douse. I sat there eyes half closed
listening the voice of humanity and it was good to be alive.
Walking back to my little hotel I saw the police officer
again he was talking to a prostitute, he smiled and said
good morning I did like-ways; it’s handy to have a friendly
lawman on my side. I went to bed, widow open and white
curtains moving the breeze, listening to the outside noises,
and drifting on the ocean of dreamy sleep, I knew I would
wake up at noon by the aroma of Italian food