Auckland Poetry.com

A Star.

I sit on the deck of my house far from the restive sea and see
a bright night star I have seen many times before. On rusty
iron decks of ancient ships where heaven and hell are fused
together in the gone hope of the lost. You were more radiant
before and nearer. Is it my eyes or you? I often thought if I
stood on my toes and stretched up, I would be able to touch
you and be blessed. So why didn’t I? You have followed me
in good times and in times unjust, quietly shining asking no
questions, just lightening up my path. My vanishing star soon
you will pale into the galaxy where stars go to pass away.
Without you my nights will be dreamless.

Drumsticks

On the food chain chicken score badly, millions of them are eaten every
year, I used like chicken wings; well they are not going to fly anywhere.
Soon chickens will lose their wings, not like sergeant loses his stripes, but
they have no need for them in a factory farm. All soldiers are brave- until
they are arrested for depravity- the bravest ones fight in Afghanistan, in
an army that has been mostly privatized. Soldiers kill people for us, even
If we protest, it is about duty and honour for them to do so. No one beats
the British in doing military funerals, they have such a long practice.
The Brits have a long warrior tradition, working class people are especially
proud of that. Like the chicken feed the masses, they feed the cannons.
I like chickens they put their heads on a block for us, chop, chop, chop.
The west fights war everywhere now, wants to make their presence felt,
but there is a quiet desperation in all this they are no longer in charge,
the Far East is the future and that is ok, when Europe is a byline, and US,
merits two lines, because its biggest industry is Wild West movies, Europe
can become a theme park, where Thailand’s single, or not or not so lone
men can come for a sex holiday

If I were a young Bard.

I wrote my first poem when I was about 13.I was taking a short cut home
when I saw a woman washing her herself by the fire place, few people in
those days had a bathroom. I was so enthralled by this that I wrote a poem.
My older brother found it, gave my ode to my mother, who said I was a pig.
This shocked me so much that I never wrote another poem before I was fifty
one. But all the poems I didn’t write came tumbling out it was like they had
been filed in my head waiting for me to pick up a pen. This particular well is
empty, the poems I write now are contemporary. I have a collection of
verses, edited by a friend of mine “The Tasmanian Tiger” when settlers came
to Tasmania they eradicated that animal, it will never come back and that
saddens me deeply. In Norway we very nearly killed off the wolf, my inner
ear can hear them, in a snowbound dale them when the moon is full and
I too can howl to a mythical past; a longing for harmony in a cruel world.

The last glass of Wine

This is ridiculous it has no name engulfed by sadness, two bottles of wine and cigarettes
and I’m drowning. Tomorrow no more, but I know when the sun falls so will I, succumbed
to a need to fly away to otherness. The pain in my chest is eating away, the emptiness of
my life feels like intolerable burden. I have created a world that is so small it chokes me.
The road to recovery, to palm trees and gentle sea is long. We used to laugh, my lover and
I, life was so funny; now all I can see is waste land with no oasis, there is nothing to lift
the spirit and the age old question asked by many before me:” what is it all for other to
bringing ones gene further into the future, I have not been able to do even that simple
task. The night is so long endlessly I flick from channel to channel to find something that
can bring the laughter back, but tiredness overwhelms me, l want another glass of wine,
the last glass that brings sleep. It doesn’t work anymore the more I drink the more sober
I get, Intolerable is the angst. Around and around I jumped on a carrousel and its engineer
has gone, whirling colours cacophony of screams, the undead will not be silent. Look into
the kaleidoscope of life and see a myriad of stars, bright and shiny but they are all a fading
illusion. But a voice whispers in my ear tomorrow you will get a new day, a sheet of blank
paper and crayon, so you can make clowns faces and laugh again.

gloomy Sunday

It is Only Cultural (Afghanistan)

Afghans hate America, it’s a cultural thing mostly.
US, is a democracy, they want to bring peace,
stability and obesity. Wall Street in Kabul,
the rise and fall of shares eyes glued on screens.
Everything is priced and private and Afghanistan
is theme park. Phony Taliban black beards and
fake guns. Folkloric dressed they dance to the tune
of modernity and middle class trivialities.
Afghanistan, reduced to a pretty postcard, maxi
burgers bars and jeans, until self disgust wins and
Afghanistan goes back to its tribal ways.

A weepy movie.

I have been watching a movie on TV, a love story about a girl named Sabrina. I fall for
it every time; yes, I know the technicality of filming but still believe the story. Yes,
I know it is about upper class love, the chauffeur’s daughter, and the son of the house.
They end up in Paris, where else? Nothing mundane about the film, like, can I afford
a flight ticket to Paris? Money problem kills love. Last year my wife and I took a coach
to Paris 36 hours– we are divorced now- . We spent so much time finding a place to
eat and sleep we had little time to see the sights. Saw the Eiffel tower though, you
could build a ship with all that iron. It disturbed me, the Unknown Soldier’s grave;
eternal flame. Soldiers died for business interests and the lust for power. Wish this
was the only truth, fact is young men like killing each other, they just need someone
to say it’s legal. In Paris I read poetry in defense of the Palestinians, for an audience
of Jewish people, but since they didn’t understand Norwegian they applauded.
For a moment I was a star on the firmament of vanity. I will not be back to Paris again,
less I can afford to drink a bottle of expensive wine.

Senryu
Bowed forest
Bent by the northwesterly
Boars thrive here.

Summer woods
Swimming elks in a tarn
Seem philosophical

The forest’s bear
The honey pot found
The rabbits smiled

Dawn’s forest
Deadly chilled serpent
Dazzled by the sun

The sun amid trees
Tried to set a stage of love
The breeze blew pollen

Overwhelmed

Today I saw the world’s biggest butterfly
when it flew overhead the day darkened.
the colour of it was of intense rainbow so
brilliant I helpless fell to the ground.

Slowly I woke up, trees were ashen and
the dell, so green had turned xanthous.
Too much beauty kills lesser loveliness,
It took days to find our natural stability.