Auckland Poetry.com

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.

September Rain (sonnet)

Most days, on my way to the bar or grocery shop,
I walk past an old man who sits in the shade of
an oak, on a creaky sofa that has lost its place in
the lounge. I usually stop and talk to him, he can’t
remember me from one day to the next, tells me
the same story about his parents, and where he
grew up; Portugal of yore. He isn’t here today, only
the mantle, he wraps around himself when there
is a chill in the air, is flung on the old sofa; a zephyr
whispers that he will not be back. “Will I be that old?
I ask the waning sun. I sit on a sofa on the terrace,
a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, scan the sky,
in the vale where I live and my parents too lived,
we wait for September rain.

Dance Nocturne

August night is a hellhole, hot as the day and
wind that blows comes from a fiery furnace.
Open windows in dark interior primal cry of
lovemaking, sounds like hate, and wrestling
sweaty, wriggling bodies produce a child that
soon will die, but first it has to go to the same
sick ritual as its parents, what we call love, but
is a primitive urge, copulation the planting of
a seedling before sinking back underground,
spent forgotten; in a mass graves of boredom,
decorated with wreaths that radiate the smell
of deaths to come. The Tasmanian tiger howls
to the moon, vanishes forever into an ancient
forest, but man dance and fuck the night away.

You wake up at six: intercourse with your spouse.
You’re under the blanket with tightly shut eyes.
At seven a postman arrives to your house
With two printed portions of scandals and lies.

You turn the TV on. Your damn daily dose
Of lies is exceeded with fresh morning news.
You firmly believe global changes are close -
You have no idea they’ve hidden the truth.

In life you’ve achieved less than nothing, you’re poor
Though you were the best both at college and school.
Well, man, who are you? You are not even sure.
In fact, you’re a pawn in the game of a fool.

New Zealand poet, playwright and novelist Alistair Te Ariki Campbell has died, aged 84.

NZ Herald article

Lost in Athens

Athens, confusing in August, what with the heat and pollution I had spent
the night sitting on a park bench, looking at a white wall lit up by moonlight,
waiting for a movie, any movie, to begin. Forenoon, staggered into a church,
joined a queue, a priest was handing out paper bags of sweet cakes, the old
lady behind got none since she had been in the line three times. I ate a cake
and gave the rest to the lady. Grateful she ate the rest blew up the bag and
hit it against a tree and we were surrounded by an anti terrorist squad.
The lady, a known would be terrorist, had been blowing up paper bags all
over town, was arrested, they were going to arrest me too since I had supplied
the bag, but since I was a tourist they let me go with a warning.

Deep in the park I found a grotto, walked in and saw baby Jesus inside a small
aquarium, he appeared like a dead angel as painted by Caravaggio, his Jesus
opened his eyes smiled like, a street urchin selling himself to pederasts, and
began masturbating, chocked I took a step back and collided with two nuns who
laughed hysterically. Escaped, found a cellar bar drank ouzo served by a woman
who looked like horse; she was a pony that had escaped from a Swedish circus.
We hit it off I have always been fond of horses, especially since according to an
Indian chief in, an Alice Walker’s poem I have forgotten the title of, who says
horses make the landscape more beautiful. Midnight she shut her bar, bareback
we rode through Athens mysterious night.

Lost in Athens

Athens confusing in august, what with the heat and pollution I had spent
The night sitting on a park bench, looking at a white wall on a tall building
lit up by moonlight and I had waited for a movie to begin. Forenoon,
staggered into a church, joined a queue, a priest was handing out bags of
sweet cakes, the old lady behind got none since she had been in the line
three times. I ate a cake and gave the rest to the lady. Grateful she ate
the rest blew up the bag and hit it against a tree and we were surrounded
by an anti terrorist squad. The old lady, a known would be terrorist, she had
been blowing up paper bag all over the town, was arrested, they were going
to arrest me too since I had supplied the bag, but since I was a tourist they
let me go with dire warning. Deep in the park I found a grotto, walked in and
saw baby Jesus inside a looked like an aquarium, he looked like a dead
angel as painted by Caravaggio, Jesus opened his eyes smiled like a street
urchin and began masturbating, chocked I took a step back and collided with
two nuns who laughed hysterically. Escaped the park and found a cellar cafe
drank some ouzo served by a women who looked like horse; she was a pony
that had escaped from a Swedish circus. We hit it off I have always been fond
of horses, especially since according to an Indian chief in, an Alice walker’s
poem said that they make the landscape more pretty. Midnight she closed her
bar and we bareback we rode through the moonlit August night.

A Sonnet (San Suu Kyu)

Aung San Suu Kyu the fragrant daughter of a Burmese
general is a scented lovely lady. Four years ago when
she was 60 I wrote her a poem and it disappeared into
the www. It’s her dignity and silence I find compelling
I wouldn’t mind waking up in the morning and find her
face on the pillow beside me. Yes, I know call me what
ever you want, had she looked like Hillary Clinton, I
would have protested against 18 month house arrest
but my heart wouldn’t have been involved; now I feel
as I’m losing her forever and I will never meet her and
and say the three words I have waited so long to say.
She is a symbol of peace and democracy, ok so I leave
the politics up to you, all I want her to do is to see me
smile and recognize my love for her.

Harvey’s Brother.

I paused in, the shade of a carob oak, to smoke a cigarette,
when a rabbit crossed the track, stopped sat on its haunches
and sniffed the air. Do not come nearer, my furry friend
the temptation will be too great and I’ll shoot you. It didn’t,
but I shot it any way, gutted and skinned on the spot, hoped
no one heard the bang the hunting season had yet to start.
At home I cut it into nice pieces added, onion, garlic, parsley
and with butter gently fried it in an iron pan, then I let it
simmer with red wine for some time. I went into my study to
read the papers, the rabbit sat on top of my desk eating
yesterday’s poetry, nice animal grey and blue, with silky fur,
and I thought of a movie called “Harvey.” Back in the kitchen
I put the stew in a dish and gave it to the neighbour’s dog.
Harvey has gone now he doesn’t even appear in my dreams.

Want it back
Put it on repeat
Never wanna lack
Always felt complete
Now it’s full of lies.

Trying to fill the void
Nothing compares to it
Thinking it’s destroyed
Don’t want to quit.

Seems I’m alone
This quest is my own
Shouldn’t have blown
Maybe we’ve just grown

Apart.

I watched the lights come on
on the bridge
as I took the short-cut over the sea.

Dreams float above, with the flags
and music escapes out the
white hotel’s windows.

And we suffocate on our grey lives.
And we don’t hear what we need to.
How fearful we watch one another
from our cars.

Your advice circles above like buzzards
waiting to say,”I told you so”
in their sweet voices
that call out sharply in the night.

Resonating around my ankles,
the chains rattle as we attempt to leap the fence.
You were brought down to earth with a word.

I wish you were flying,
I’d love to watch your muscles
twist in the air,
and hear the carousel notes in your song.

We wrote our names in the clouds, and
danced with our bodies as one
on the moon
in our empty beds
under the stars.

They all watch, spectating from afar
around the bed with barriers.

I love life’s mysteries.
I love the wind.
I love the sagas we create,
epics in miniature, cut short
by a journey to see the prose on the gates>

I etched my answer on the steel;
“Forever is fine for now”

Jerremy Williams
Copright 2009 Jerremy Williams