Auckland Poetry.com

POETRY LIVE

Tuesday 01st September 09, 8 pm – Late
at The Thirsty Dog
469 K- road (Karangahape road )

Please note: Guest Poet Murray Edmond kicks off at 8pm

Guest Poet : Murray Edmond

Has published 11 books of poems, the latest THE FRUITS OF from Holloway Press in June this year and a 12th book called WALLS TO KICK AND HILLS TO SING FROM: A COMEDY WITH INTERRUPTIONS will be published by Auckland University Press in 2010. Also editor of 3 anthologies (BIG SMOKE: NEW ZEALAND POEMS 1960 – 1975, AUP, 2000), a book about the influence of Noh drama on the Western avant-garde (Atelos Press, Berkeley, 2005) and editor of the on-line journal KA MATE KA ORA: A NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF POETRY AND POETICS

Open Mic

Guest Musician : Ed
on acoustic guitar and brass instruments

Guest Poet : Joshua Goodwind

Is about 7 feet tall, with the wide, bloodshot eyes of a rabid hyena. Arms like great redwoods and feet like a pair of cinder blocks. He’s from Te Aroha, and spend most of his time shooting at woodland creatures with his trusty crossbow. His favourite colour is midnight.

Open Mic

Tanka

Opened the curtain
Dawn’s light got stuck in my eyes
Intense brilliance
Furniture became the foe
Slept on the carpet till noon

Tanka (boredom?)

Lived in dad’s house
August heat, he trekked north
I looked after it
Nothing to do, drank brandy
And dynamited his abode

August Night

Black, starless late August sky, a sliver of moon,
golden scythe mowing down the old, harvest
time. They had forgotten to close windows and
chill will settle in old lungs, spitting of blood.

Church bells toll the day is hot and gives nothing
away, the old priest is still on holiday, the new
one is clumsy, hasn’t had a bath and a shave for
days; unspoken murmur of discontent.

The cleric sweats, there is a smell of brandy, one
of the church’s rejects? But they do take care of
their own. This isn’t swine flu, nothing to report,
just old people dying as they must.

A Likely Story

She was a swan the way she tackled the swells whether on
Atlantic Sea or the Pacific Ocean, alas she was old had seen her
best days, but she was nicely painted and for us she was home.
Wouldn’t that be a nice story to tell? The owner didn’t want to
spend money crewing her, what we got were harbour rats, and
her officers had gone all the way down from new ships, to this
last chance saloon. Tired men, no way back, fuck this job up and
there is only the cold sea; so we struggled from one obscure
port to the next often in a mist of rum. Seafarer, of the fairy isle,
close your cabin door, bow your head and cry.

Yes, she was our home which we also shared with five million
cockroaches and no money for insect spray; keep the light on
man, they only crawl over you face and up your nose in the dark;
and then she was sold to the Greeks and we’re made homeless.
On the docks of Piraeus a group of men with quivering hands,
old fashioned suitcases, and suits in need of a dry cleaner, what
now my friends? Never saw them again, but when I opened my
suitcase at the B&B hotel two roaches had followed me ashore,
they were alive and quickly found dark corners, like me they had
voyages the seven oceans and lived to tell a tale.

You were the sun.
The center, the retainer,
The leader that held us all together.

I was afar, but I looked rather close
To all of those on the earth’s surface.
The miles were vast,
But in reality,
The expanding universe was much vaster.

I held myself up,
But you held me much better.
Your vibrancy,
Your light
Shined off of me.

I reflected you gratefully, I accepted the task;
I was lucky enough to be the moon.
And, oh, how marvelous we looked together
High in the sky,
Together at noon.

You were the sun.
The warmer, the director,
The spirit that always kept us together.

I reflected your spirit and took it for my own;
I felt unworthy, but I still was the moon.

And, oh, how marvelous we looked together
High in the sky,
Together at noon.

Copyright 2009 Nicole Perreira

A Village in Iberia

Drove to the village where I was born, hadn’t been there
for forty years, the lane was muddy and houses deserted;
this village had been abandoned long time ago; what was
I thinking of coming here? A tree had grown right through
our cottage, roof smashed now walls were tumbling down.
Puny human dwellings, here today and gone in less than
Ten decades, the tree seemed to say. What a nostalgic fool
I’m, this idea of returning, rebuild the old house and live
here in happy retirement.

This was no longer a village but a graveyard, houses were
tombstones of a past that had nothing to offer but poverty,
glassless window resembled crosses of a defunct faith.
I sat on a stone smoking a cigarette the aroma of wafted
through the drab silence, from behind a broken wall a dog
came, young, and it looked eerily like Stella the dog I loved
all those years ago, don’t tell me she has waited for five
dog generations, to return from the wasteland of eternity
just for me?

“I’ll call you Stella”, I said and stroked the dog’s head.
She knitted her brows together as to say, “What else?”
I opened the right hand car door, Stella jumped in like she
had done this a thousand time before, drove off and didn’t
look back once, the only memory I need of my childhood,
was alive and snoozing in the seat beside me.

The Cruise

At a corner, in the inner harbour where unseemly debris
tend to float about, three men- in a rowing boat- sit and
drink beer. It is a lovely summer evening they fall asleep.
In the morning there are only two of them the third must
have gone home. The two agree that their friend was old
so they go ashore with the empty crate of beer and buy
some more beer. Midsummer now and it is good to sit in
boats, with a friend drink beer and talk about old days.

Daybreak, only one man left in the boat, the lone one
shrugs, his friends have no stamina so he lugs the empty
crate of beer for refill to the shop. This summer is endless,
the weather holds and a boy spots a rowing boat with no
one onboard except an empty crate of ale which he takes
to the shop and sell. At the bottom of the sea, in the inner
harbour where unseemly debris tend float, three old men
sway in the sea’s gentle heave in an everlasting summer.

Tanka

White foam on azure sea
Spindrift, brother of the cloud
Spins a magic rug
On which we can forever fly
Till fairytales come true

The Road

The road going into a town I don’t know the name of
is only used by people too poor to drive cars and by
those who can afford cars but hate them.

Part of the road was going back to roman time it even
has steps on its verge where the road is steep, and
there are wayside cafes at regular intervals.

Animals to use this road too, mules made homeless,
turkeys that had escaped thanksgiving, ducks and
an emu that used to be a part of a variety act

The animals keep the road verge trimmed when not
begging for stale bread and cake crumbs which are
freely given, it is begging children we dislike.

Yet there is something odd about the road and its
users, it is forever leading into a town but not getting
there and everyone is going in the same direction.

Some walk fast other leisurely, yet no one stops other
for a meal and something to drink, it appears they
have a common destiny whatever that may be.

Erection

August heat I sent in a comment to an article in the Guardian,
dislike many of their readers, but it is a good paper, even if it
tends to lose its nerves and waffle a bit when the pressure is on.
I look to see if anything is written about lack of erection, not long
ago my member could carry a beach towel, a party trick for one
witness, now it will not even carry a paper napkin. I could write
and ask the woman who is married to a comedian and has a sexual
healing column in the Guardian, only I don`t like her much I think
she’s fraud; and the comedian she married stop being funny after
he dastardly divorced his first wife and married her. When working
class people are successful they tend to marry “up” that is because
they meet lots of new and well spoken people, who flatter them,
but they are wrong they will be sandpapered down lose their strength
to suit the middle class taste; rich they will be, so who cares?

Ten Euro Note

The old road into town is only used by walkers
now, weird people, who would look out of place
anywhere else and Marian Hyde, who writes
about alternative lifestyles, in the Guardian.

I had found a wallet with a twenty euro note,
photos of a posing nude woman, it belonged to
someone named Carol. I asked around, they all
knew her, a pro who often walked this way.

A handmade and of real leather and on and
impulse I added a ten euro note and wondered
if when I caught up with her she would notice,
or was my motive more self serving?

I met up with Carol at a road side pub gave her
the purse, she opened it counted the money,
said nothing, but she was talking to a footballer
who wanted to be tennis professional.

I walked where I was accosted by a Liverpool
comedian who couldn’t stop telling jokes,
I soon stopped laughing, smiling and listening,
but my disinterest didn’t matter anyway.

Carol came out, joined us, she had bought me
a beer and was in a good mood, the comedian
had fallen asleep, she knew the why of my ten
euro note and I knew of her nude pictures.