This database is full! I have started a new one: if you like watching a poet in action, please visit C for Blog, where poems from March 2007 will be stored and worked on. Thanks for reading A for Blog!
(For Celia, 10)
Sunrise salsa stripes
a double scoop of sky.
You will shine
with red lips
and black hair
like Snow White.
You’ll be a bard
in a band of boys.
They’ll jostle you,
sing and play with you,
dote on you.
You’ll wear a black dress
and a red beret.
Salmon lacerations melt
to whipped cream
and ice-blue
in the eastern sky.
And the best boy will tickle
the back of your neck.
Strong men like difficult girls.
Difficult girls grow up
as clever, happy women.
For weeks the weather
has bullied and teased.
We are displeased
but fully woollied.
* Headline in Dominion Post today.
Stories
in the mesh of nerves
combed aside
for the scalpel.
Stories
in the blades of water
slicing ever downwards
over boulders.
Stories in the stones.
Stories in the blood.
Let’s let
Daddy kiss it better.
A baby’s cry
in a pop song.
How can a baby pray?
A baby’s cry
in a chapel.
How can a baby disobey?
You rambled for violets
random and sharp.
You tucked them into
your playmate’s hands.
We believe every day
before breakfast
we will not die
not yet, not now.
I know why
we perform
this impossible thing
but not how.
Sky is infinity
airbrushed in lilac.
Tide is logic
surging upstream.
Toes are security
toasty in waders.
Whitebait are slicks
of swivelling glass.
(For Cecilia Vincent)
She wasn’t afraid of angina.
She wasn’t afraid of the buzz-saw
carving through her ribs:
just fix it, she said.
She wasn’t afraid of lazy brain:
give me a jigsaw, she said.
She wasn’t afraid of loneliness:
just love me, she said.
While everyone else
was fixing and giving and loving
she dragged her life from under the bed
and made it dance again.
Some can only sing in a choir.
Some can only sing solo.
Some know when to join the crowd
and when they need to follow.
Some have a Yea Lord! back-up choir
they cannot see or swallow.
Not your say
but the build of your say
and hear and ask and listen
can soothe or sway
assault or isolate
or sweeten.
So build the walls
but also doors and windows
hearths and chimneys.
Invite me in
and sit me down
make tea, and ask a question.
My wife’s
from Singapore,
you know.
I’m not
racist,
see.
My wife’s
from Singapore, so
let’s make our law
more like the law
of Singapore.
Hello!
Inside attaching
poly luck-beckoning lyrics,
sticking them
for immediate realizations.
I will, I will.
And luck will enter my hose.
The smoking civil servants
sit on stone in sun
with smiles and multisyllables.
Looks like fun.
How can you think like a poet
if you can think
“like a poet”,
if you can think you think
too much.
Boy racer
your future
is a tooth
you are drilling.
It is thrilling.
You are killing
the root.
See how right
I can be
when you whiten
my nights
and you tighten
my ears
like a bee.
Don’t be afraid.
I never
say “never”
or “always”.
Oops.
San-ctus, squeak, lip synch,
sing sing sing sing,
pretty bit,
attention, attention, top A on the way,
Ho-san-na in ex-cel-sis,
O lip synch, lip synch, squeak,
ex-cel-sis
sing sing sing Amen.
O total Untitled,
would I had time.
O tragic Untitled,
you won’t bring a dime.
O tacky Untitled,
why underline
your bright blue crime?
Some words set the world on fire
(flambé, brulé, hooray)
and some are served on ice
and some are served
(preserved, deserved)
on blue ice, pack ice, brash ice
wild ice, old ice, told ice.
On the brink of rotten ice
or ice blink, think twice.
Some poems are of and in
the ice… not mild… not nice…
And locked in rock, more ice
archives the past and meta-past.
Haloed now in diamond dust
ice falls upon ice.
Some words set the world on fire
and some are served on ice.
Brain goes faster than the mind.
Which is which and which is us?
Mind is a necessary friend.
Brain is a stranger, brain is the boss.
Instructions > procedures > policies>
lollies > threats > commandments >
conscience > categorical imperative >
and genes.
Whims > promises > vows > laws >
and lifelong quests.
Dear Ms. R. McAlpine,
Thank you for your letter.
We will answer your letter about royalties.
A sum of money
which our company must pay you
hasn’t occurred yet.
Sincerely,
Tairyusha.
The charms of my apartment
are negative. Doors
not there. Squares deleted.
Absence of rubble.
Absence of trouble.
Wax books (hollow).
Mini-Shinto gate to nowhere.
Empty. Mysterious. Blank.
If I had a tree
I would carve it.
If I had a pie
I would halve it.
If I had your heart
I would marvel
all over again.
Mind,
remind me:
are you still mine?
A moment in hell
solders the fractures,
seasons the steel.
All will be well.
The poems I have lost are many
and many and many and many.
For instance, where is the usability
test about suspenders?
Now I am writing poems
about money. Poor money.
No one writes poetry for you:
there isn’t any.
The symmetry of love
let loose
holds the balance,
keeps the peace.
My skull is an occupied
sofa. When someone
makes a home in your head—
no room for poems.
Talk English, techie.
I just drive this thing.
It might not work,
invading raping
beating biting shooting
bruising abusing and debasing.
But then again they say
this is not the American way.
Now’s your once
in a lifetime chance.
Take a stroll
around my soul.
Hands off
the software, please.
You can stuff it up with lies,
you can stuff it up with trues.
Eat up and up and up
what’s on your plate:
the staff of life, your greens, your blues,
your chews, your bait, your fate.
How’s it going?
Where’s it going?
Why does it not stand still?
When’s it going?
What’s it doing?
Don’t let it go without you,
don’t let it go downhill.
I made a mistake
at Maths Club
in my youth.
Logarithms, algorithms,
then the aftermath.
Inside your pineapple shell
you have dreams
of being happy,
being well.
Love is God
antique and electronic,
lighting up the logic
of the past.
Love is a fine
fat grounded word
all above board
like me. I will not write
a poem for you,
I will not.
Nostalgia has a bad name.
Nasturtiums. Neuralgia.
Remember them
without blame.
If anyone tells your secret,
let it be you
and let it be true.
You hear the frozen notes
of roses in the air.
So did you learn
how to think?
You think so.
I may think not
if you don’t
think like me.
The forecast for your life
is mainly fine.
The harbour glistens
like grey velvet.
Elsie wants to walk
but her baby legs
roll like commas,
dangle like italic Js.
One day they’ll stand
a sturdy A
and she will walk
vertical, away.
Nobody knows your neck squeaks.
Nobody knows your heart
is a bowl of poems.
That stone
waits in water
like a moon.
Someone threw it
from Vancouver
to Peru.
Was it you?
Better come and get it
Real soon.
“You look young.
For your age, that is.”
That’s cool?
Worship my wrinkles,
you fool.
(for Max, 5)
Run around roses,
run through the maze,
run around reds
for days and days.
Run around Monday,
run around thorns,
run until Sunday,
roll on the lawns.
Run until you’re lost,
jump until you’re found,
run around the rose beds
around and around.
Run through hedges
and perfume,
find your way out
and run back home.
Up the mountains go
the foolish ones
followed by
the rescue volunteers.
Why do they climb
sans boots, sans food,
sans sleeping bags?
Blame Frodo. Make Frodo foot the bill.
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