Auckland Poetry.com

Tanka with humour

Into my café
Came whispering elephant
Drank hot chocolate
Ate fifty five croissants
Then, trumpeted like Satchmo

Into my café
Came an out of breath gossip
Told me a story
Napkins turned crimson
But it left without paying

Dawn.

On a night beach in Costa Rica,
behind me the light of Puerto Lemon.
A white strip of sand held an ocean,
a black towering mountain,
from drowning the land.
I was what I saw, timeless.
And the world whispered in my ears.
The sky paled, a cooling sea breeze caressed me
and it was dawn.

That curve of the tongue of the spiny anteater
engaged in a deliberate sequence of elevation
conscious decisions each fully automated
each androgynous circumstance
a little death in silence
all turned inside

exotic crisp light intrudes
the morning hurts in the back of the head
if light itself were the blade
it’s illumination effected mayhem

the moon and its memory of fading away
is now growing strong
its light over the valley
as she dances in the trees
her life erasing details
in the sand under the sweep of her
missing foot

Guys, all you are good at is scolding a cop,
Yes, some of your statements have meaning, indeed,
But words with no reasons won’t get you on top,
You’re giving your fellows a casual feed
Of rhyming curse words that you cast out loud,
So over-inflated and false-emphasized,
You try to be brusque, and you merge with the crowd,
Your ego is stained by the fact you are biased.

You crave for a rebel, so get it all planned,
Clean out the dump in your mind for a start!
Use word as a weapon when perfectly penned,
Withdrawn from the ultimate depth of your heart.

Guys, all you are good at is scolding a cop,
As they are subdued by the careless chief
For dubious joys of a desperate job.
They’ve sold their true and most cherished beliefs.
But what you are doing is always the same,
You’re telling them what they are waiting to hear.
You know they quote you, you choke on your fame,
You don’t even care if it sounds sincere.

You crave for a rebel, so get it all planned,
Clean out the dump in your mind for a start!
Use word as a weapon when perfectly penned,
Withdrawn from the ultimate depth of your heart.

The crowds keep rocking, applauding, exclaiming,
Quoting your words, lacking ones of their own,
If being a poet is what you are claiming,
Declare what really needs to be known!

You crave for a rebel, so get it all planned,
Clean out the dump in your mind for a start!
Use word as a weapon when perfectly penned,
Withdrawn from the ultimate depth of your heart.

Haiku

Icy is the fjord
The fluidity of blue crystals
Echo of childhood

Haiku

The Nordic cord
Strong as freedom’s call
Forgotten lullaby

Nautical Terms

The night above me is like an elastic balloon, a plane penetrates
flies through and disappear only its engine roar remains and echoes
into the infinite. I can see its light, green for starboard and red for
portside. On a tramp ship I served on, the old captain, when he got
up on the bridge in the morning, open a locked drawer he only had
the key to; read on a piece of paper and closed the drawer again.
When he resigned, the first officer took over, he was curious about
the piece of paper, opened the drawer and found a folded piece of
paper. On it was written: right is starboard and left is portside.
It is good to meet people who know they are fallible.

The Widow

When my best friend died we, his wife and I, went up a hillside and
strewed his ashes about. The wind was against us and some of his
ashes landed on my lips. Going down from the hill, his widow was
very tender, clung to me. Back in my house we made love or rather
she made love to me. Inexhaustible, she wanted to do everything
even things I didn’t know about. I, being a man, enjoyed it, but in
the back of my mind bells rang. Finally she fell asleep, I got up had
a shower and sat in the living room watching TV. When she woke,
I drove her home, she didn’t speak, neither did I. A few days later
she took a plane back to Britain and I never saw her again.

Family Drama

A couple, in their fifties, is coming out of the supermarket,
he sits in wheelchair she pushes him along. He is grumpy,
swears at her for a reason I don’t know, perhaps he thought
she had spent too much money on groceries. She loses her
temper; parks him on the pavement, puts the shopping in
the car and drives off. He just sits there smoking a cigarette
and waits. Five minutes later she returns, helps him into
the car, folds up the wheel chair puts it in the boot and
drives off. On his lips a smile quivers, is it of triumph or love?

DIRE

Le mariage est plein
De grandes espérances
Irréalisées.