Auckland Poetry.com

At the moment I have a large bruise
On my shin,
I fell over a drag queen. At Calluzi bar,

I was pleased she was Talking to me,

That night she was my hero,
To be free, to be so elegantly
And so expressively wounded and
Distasteful of convention,

I told myself

Beneath the barbed witticisms exchanged
By her and her generously proportioned co-host
There must be some comradery, there must
Be an element of trust, in each other more so

Than a world which has cast them in harsh relief

She showed me some footage on her
Mobile of her and a footballer’s erection

What a beauty to know one’s place in the world.

My feet that night ran away with me
And my mouth, and my hungry hungry booze stomach
Which yawned and pleaded with me to be fed
Pleaded until I poured wine without tasting it

I hope it will lead – Me to what I want.

I want to lose my presumptions and precursory freedom
It is not real freedom

Sex and the older man

As an illness settles in my body, things I took
for granted have now disappeared, say, like
a proper morning erection.
Slack and shriveled I have to sit down to pee,
less I soil the front of my trousers.
Sex for the aged is up (pardon the pun) and
running, many aged have sex trice a week,
I read in the paper. Old men bragging, ask their
wives, who will giggle, say their men are
dreaming. Sex isn’t that important a celibate
once said, (how would he know?) yet, I agree
on the scale, of interesting things to do I rate
sex only at nine and a half… the tenth used to
be a smoke after it is done.

Summer Paradise.

It was a beautiful Sunday at the beach, sea and sand
everyone wanted a deep tan, not many swam water
still restless after yesterday’s storm. A pair of ten
years old gypsy girls whose parents live in a camp
nearby, braved the waves but soon got into trouble
and as many looked on the girls were swept away.
When life guards brought them back ashore they had
both drowned. In the midst of life they lay covered
by a beach towel, arms and legs sticking out just like
rag dolls. What could we do, the beach was crowded,
this people’s day off, and no one knew the dead girls.
Four men came, carrying one coffin, the girls so tiny
space, even for one more child. A tawny looking ice-
cream seller came hobbling along I saw his tears, if he
was related to the girls he shouldn’t go about selling
stuff and thinking of making money (no one is that
poor) but go home and grief with the family

http://www.freewebs.com/lapwingpoetry/

is the title of my latest collection from Lapwing publishers

Belfast

http://waterforestpress.com/Books/EndOfTheVoyageJanOHansen.htm

http://wwwYouTube.com/user/345bambi

Summer Paradise.   

It was a beautiful Sunday at the beach, sea and sand everyone wanted a deep tan, not many swam water still restless after yesterday’s  storm. A pair of ten years old gypsy girls whose parents live in a camp nearby, braved the waves but soon got into trouble and as many looked on the girls were swept away. When life guards brought them back ashore they had both drowned. In the midst of life they lay covered by a beach towel, arms and legs stic
king out just like rag dolls. What could we do, the beach was crowded, this people’s day off, and no one knew the dead girls. Four men came, carrying one coffin, the girls so tiny space, even for one more child. A tawny loo
king ice-cream seller came hobbling along I saw his tears, if he was related to the girls he shouldn’t go about selling stuff and thin
king of ma
king money (no one is be that poor) but go home and grief with the family       

The humaneness beaten
And flamed
Into that museumed
Grecian mask
Was the same sorrow
And wisdom
I had seen
On the faces of the Madonnas,
Framed with rocks,
By Da Vinci.
Though it was the first time,
I had seen such life in that bronze,
I was not,
After that morning’s joy,
At such loving laughter,
Surprised.
Brothers and sisters with us all.
Such makers
Whose names we may
Or may not know.
And the many,
Who in so many living ages
Will have seen so much.
I beam in the companionship
Of Pete Green,
And the hurrahs of saints.

Vic West

One Morning…

Dawns silence gives me comfort,
My night has been restless, showing
In sharp black& white, movies of
The bygone; till bitter regret awoke
Me and filled me with dread of
The future. A door opens and shuts,
Steps in the hall and a car starts,
Tells me I’m not alone, and as dark
Gives way to light, my past slowly
Regresses. To day I will not be sad.

Love’s Sorrow

The silent distance between us whispers,
A widening plateau of the unspoken as
Pale starlight shimmers on leafless trees.

The river of love ran dry it never met
The ocean, a twig snapped in the apple
Orchard as tears flow inwards.

Barn Dance Wyoming 1887

My dream was to be a cowboy I had seen
movies of big men in Stetson hats riding
into town from the vast plain ready to take
on the bad guys. Then I saw a picture of
men dancing with each other the caption
said they were cowboys a bunch of filthy
looking men and none of them wore guns.

I went to sea instead and it is bigger than
the plains of Texas combined, but it’s all
water and keep changing hue; and horses
were made of sea spray and harbour bars
had no swing doors. I do realize, sadly,
life is more complex than a boy’s dream
of celluloid heroes shooting holes in the sky

Paris Mon Amour

I’m going to Paris in the fall, last time I was there
it was a June, I feel into the Seine when I waved
to a girl who walked on its other side. Two days
I hung on a hook behind a door that led down to
a wine cellar, drying out; people were rude to me
because I didn’t speak French and ever since I get
easily offended when I hear Parisians laugh.

Paris in September, is melancholia, I’m a guest at
a white wedding to a couple I have never met; yet
I’m worried I sense a Sagan type tristesse as when
rain fall like gentle sorrow, trickling down a girl’s
soft cheek; blue twilight and the whisper of fallen
leaves. What do I know? Whatever, happens I must
be careful not to fall into the Seine

Literature & Alcohol

Poor Edgar his world was dark, laughter was
a gasp on dying lips. He mined the deepest
ravine where not even the summer sun reaches
but he was able to, in moment of clarity that
lit up his tunnel, to give us great literature,
a look into his world of horror.

There are other Edgars who walk in our streets
or sit in lonely rooms wearing a cape of despair,
their laughter too is a shriek of agony, a bitter
smile set in a pale face of utter defeat, for they
cannot articulate and share with us or turn their
suffering into a readable literature.

A beautiful curve
made by a flower
standing in the midst
of nowhere.
In every minute
and in every hour,
she faces life
with the least care