The view from here VII

  In these troubled times

It’s a small enough thing to contribute,
but hanging out washing, dipping time
and again to the green basket so I
think of a crane at a friendly pond –
well, poetry’s notions aside, it is one
man’s small but significant shot
at a better world.
                               I would not, friend,
be too surprised should aliens
think this is how earthlings connect
on Mondays right along the street,
the suburb, the other side of town,
as answers return by camisoles,
vests, shirts spread solemnly
which may speak of death, more
sensual signings off with flimsier
colourful garments.
                                  I have red pegs
in my mouth which might be mistaken
for draculean thirst, a taste for
jugular embrace. (Oh, we joke
too, we washerfolk, slapping
sheets in place!)  One might erect
a library – more than that – a truly
fictive world, our taut lines
stretching their crisp goodwill
one city, one continent, to another. . .
Annunciations might whizz across wires
like shooting dockets in old-time shops. . .
Being Monday wherever. Yours ever,
Sock.


Vincent O’Sullivan


More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Breach — Cilla McQueen

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

The view from here VI

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands



Cast your mind back to the first time you came this way,

      the road windy, corrugated, dusty,

the surface mostly the colour of yellow clay, cuttings

      stained with the leer of water seeping.



On the left the ever-ascending slopes,

      the Old Man Range, white flecks

in blue gullys near the summit,

      and your young old man wondering when



we’d ever get to Alexandra, your mum complaining

      about ‘the blessed dust’, both of them

cursing the ‘wash-board surface’ and you thinking

      about the number of times she told your father



that ‘it didn’t matter’ when it clearly did. And that

      was the way it always was with them,

it is with you, it is, period. Until, you might say,

      something happens that’s never happened before.



Like love came back and sent hate packing

      never to return, and peace of mind arrived

like a dove from afar, decided to stay, and you

      no longer dreamed of what might have been.



Brian Turner

More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Breach — Cilla McQueen

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan

The view from here V

Breach


First check your meniscus
then step into the air
where Bluff lies silver-grey
in calm seclusion,

Sky oyster silk       like kissing
when once we used to touch      to scent
each other's skin          soft
as a thistledown clock.

Tomorrow the daylight hours turn back
towards a colder quarantine,
when trees hiss through their teeth
and sunlight leaves the deck;

This winter, to write at the outside table
I'll wear my old fur coat,
'Pichanaki' penned in some elder hand
on the note left in its pleated satin pocket.


Cilla McQueen
Motupōhue
April 2020


More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan

The view from here IV

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e

remembering that we don’t always read to believe, 
sometimes we do it to travel, to forget, to dream, to change
Martin Edmond


there is a path that climbs
out of sleep with clear notes
on five fingers
blown across sweet grassy
plains    there is no holding
them they move like the wind
over your sleeping face
which knows where it has been
and why it must remember
the path that climbs
out of sleep and into the green
heartstring morning


vibrato the bell in the throat
the ball in the whistle when it’s low
and your breath is the slow bounce
of ropes that braid and twist
and hold up the floating planet
as if by magic
tremolo a fibrillation of the air
and its concertos better even
than a neighbour deciding between
harpsichord and salt fish
running through his fingers
and over the dark garden to where
we’re walking along
looking for the sound
of a word so deep in theft
its adventures have hardly begun


delirium    lady
in Illyria with a lily he calls
Elysium    the newly alighted angel’s
lineal poise    lirio what would you
on her silver tomb lirica
the white notebook up against
the red wall the black words
going on into the light 
lady I am negative wingspan
in Illyria and he is
Elysium    a lily a lyric
a white delirium


I saw you, you were
a minim wraith of silver light
the day moon a figure
on the road the blue moon
resurrected    sister lucy gone
to heaven in her silver boat
grass ghosts beginning to sing
and you on the spiral road


when I walk sea waves
as I turn glass mallets
and turn again wind chimes
sleeping with the last track
climbing the stairs in the dark


I wait and wait
and the weight of waiting
is impossible    cicadas shrill
above the cricket boys
over the daughter chorus 
that pearly necklace
I’m looking for in all the stations
on the way to Ocean City
Go with Eros    it’s plain as day
a mob of arboreal lorikeets
another kind of whistle
for the chorus
chiasmos comes and goes
thiasos is my east
my new looking my ghost
along the spiral road


looking up
from the dark garden
the vision of the boat
sailing in the sky
Fra Angelico’s room and nobody
left behind    no one missing
out on its mother of pearl ceilings
I cannot bear the pain
liths of orange    what does it mean
liths of orange roughy on
a big white plate
life and limb    kith and kin 
lift us into heaven tonight


she is a wounded bird
ringnecked dove where the air stopped
being vitreous and she fell
like a stone    the sonic boom
of her catastrophe
left a hole in the air the shape
of one meeting disaster
on a clear blue day
she could tell us
what it feels like to hit aporia
he has found her
on the ground who was a blur
of wings in her world
immaculate Viennese
coffee with cream what is that word
she is dying and he is sixteen
he lifts her tenderly
who has never touched death
soft feathers and dark eyes
lined with kohl mama
you were beautiful    schlagobers
dancing on the tables
of the Kaffeekammer Katzenjammer
whipped cream with ruffles
he buries her
by the white flowered ginger
and the air repairs itself
becoming the way she was
becoming the way it was
always about to be


sun in Aries monarchs sailing
in blue air
wingprints like blossom
or leaves on the ground
in front of the iron gate
an egg, an echo
riro on the hill leading
the grass ghosts
who are everywhere now
we’re listening
and here they come
two kids with a camera
by the obelisk
wanting a photograph
hand in hand
and a long way off
the sound of someone
breathing as if every breath
is a memento
Easter moon frangipani
lifting out of the ocean
how could we have known
wingprints blossom leaves
riro ghost the sound
of years running backwards
and forwards over the grass
against the blue air
and the inexorable weave
Easter moon white ginger
sun in Aries we stop swimming


flutes and bells
in the dark garden
and above it
passiflora making her way
across the sky
low whistles and white shells
touching the ears as we go
past the ghosts of ourselves
who have been here
who will go with her now
as she climbs molo molo
into the sky
O Easterners day by day
we are drawn
to your opulent diary
the cabbage trees tika tika tika
the grass that says only
thiasos 
break one string
and ten thousand things
will replace it
bells and flutes and drums
on the seaward side above
the place called Paradise
morning sun
and the boy who roars
swimming along the beach
I don’t see him
but I know he’s there
the whole neighbourhood
hears him and knows
he’s singing
hello and goodbye


Michele Leggott

More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

Breach — Cilla McQueen

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan

The view from here III

Cilla, writing


We are the shortest laureates*. But this afternoon
Cilla almost touches the sky, writing
on her motel balcony, two storeys up.

Her head in its peaked cap, her pen
are outlined in a strange significant shadow
a little laureate traced by Rouault

and in the shadows a shorter laureate watching
admiring her application, her skywriting.
The day moon is there, the blinding sun.

Her neck grows warm, her neat head bends
over the page, she stretches her arms
and seems to frown and squint.

It is words, you clowns, the other laureate thinks
not sun in her eyes, not pain of thought
but heart and pen at work again.


Elizabeth Smither

*Cilla McQueen (2009-2011) and Elizabeth Smither (2001-2003) are the two shortest New Zealand poets’ laureate.

More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Breach — Cilla McQueen

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan

The view from here II

Takahe


I’m takahe
I eat all day
don’t bother me
can’t you see

I’m feeding

my big red beak
my big strong legs
I call a lot
I plod a lot

I’m heavy

I’m takahe
I’m bad ballet                                   
I love the sky
I see birds fly

above me

I’m looking down
I love the ground
I’m here to stay
I’m A-okay

I’m standing

I am not loud
I eat pale cloud
I eat blue sky
I multiply

but slowly

oh I was lost
to deer and frost
the tussock sang
around the man

who found me

found and saved
and unafraid
found and saved
and unafraid

I eat all day
I eat all day
I’m takahe
I’m takahe

I’m feeding


Bill Manhire



This poem is part of a commission from baritone Julien van Mellaerts to Bill Manhire and Gareth Farr for a set of songs about New Zealand birds. The other birds are the dotterel, the tui, and the huia.

Watch this YouTube video of the 2019 performance of the full set.


More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Breach — Cilla McQueen

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan

The view from here I

It is a time of the view from here, where each of us is, ensconced in our bubble, and so this seemed like a good peg to suggest to former poets’ laureate, on which to hang a few poems. The response to the invitation was generous and diverse in range. With poems came email conversations and further views, ‘of this place, this time of year, new footsteps overlaying the old ones’ from Michele Leggott. This view of Bluff port from Cilla McQueen: ‘In my study looking out at the port. The cranes immobile, little movement on the wharf, occasional trucks across the bridge. Log piles, woodchips, containers, pale blue sky, bright sun, slanting shadows, misty horizon. It feels like a solemn public holiday.’

A view of ‘a beautiful tree with shadow branches’ from Ian Wedde. Of Elizabeth Smither’s neighbourhood, ‘first quietened’ now resuming ‘some of its activities – lawnmowers and chainsaws but also music and conversations.’

My thanks to Bill Manhire, Brian Turner, Elizabeth Smither, Michele Leggott, Cilla McQueen, Ian Wedde and Vincent O’Sullivan for the gift of these poems. Gathered together in solidarity with current Laureate David Eggleton, poets everywhere, readers of poetry, and as Vincent O’Sullivan put it, ‘to keep poetry flickering away, whatever the adverse winds.’

Peter Ireland


The view from here


For David Eggleton, Poet Laureate, Sunday 5 April 2020


The view from our balcony
three floors up

in the leafy canopy of a
lush late summer tree

whose shadow branches
scaffold an almost

empty street
and a lone walker

whistling down the
middle of the road

unaware of the ghostly other
London 1970

a heavy Christmas Eve snowfall
and on Christmas morning

a lone black baritone
sauntering down the middle

of frozen Brixton Road
singing Good King Wenceslas

first looked out
on the Feast of Stephen.

Bet that sun feels good
and the tree’s

filigreed sampler
of blue sky.


Ian Wedde

More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Breach — Cilla McQueen

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan

Poets’ Night In

The weekend of the 4th and 5th of April was to have seen a gathering of poets at Matahiwi marae in Hawkes Bay, where David Eggleton, current New Zealand Poet Laureate, would receive his laureate’s tokotoko, carved by Jacob Scott. Like most public gatherings at present, this couldn’t happen, though it will, later in the year.

Not doing something creates an opportunity to do something else in its stead and over the next few weeks we are featuring poetry to mark the weekend we couldn’t have. We begin with poems by David and the fellow poets he invited to join him at Matahiwi: Michael O’Leary, Jenny Powell and Kay McKenzie Cooke.

Then, from next week, there will be poems by former Poets’ Laureate: Bill Manhire, Elizabeth Smither, Michele Leggott, Cilla McQueen, Ian Wedde, Vincent O’Sullivan and Brian Turner, in solidarity with David, fellow poets, and friends of poetry everywhere.

Laureate readings began as part of the programme for the Te Mata Poet Laureate, and Bill Manhire started these with a reading in the Barrel Room at Te Mata Estate.

Poets’ Night Out has been part of the Matahiwi weekend since 2014 and has become a fixture in the cultural calendar of Hawkes Bay. Given present circumstances, it seemed appropriate to adjust that banner to Poets’ Night In for the first selection of poetry.

Poet, teacher and horse racing enthusiast, Marty Smith, has been an essential part of all our Laureate visits to Hawkes Bay, both at Matahiwi and as MC for Poets’ Night Out. So, let’s imagine we have a seat at the Havelock North Function Centre and Marty is about to introduce the evening of poetry.


Peter Ireland



Tēnā koutou, Tēnā koutou, Tēnā koutou katoa

Here in Hawkes Bay, where I am, it’s warm and bright; so still you can hear all the notes in tūī’s song, and even the thrushes and starlings. It was like this last Saturday, a day to welcome a Poet Laureate onto Matahiwi marae to receive a tokotoko. Early autumn, still unseasonably warm, the sun still in the leaves in the carpark where people would get out of their cars, come to hear David and his guests read for Poets’ Night Out. That day is still coming, whenever when, and may it be such weather again.

It’s very quiet. You can see a long way from here. There are no cars on the road that goes across from Bayview to Napier; there are no planes at the airport, not even parked. There’s this enormous silence, so still you could hear things growing. And into this come the poems, some known, some freshly grown and picked in these strange times, by David and his guests, Kay McKenzie Cooke, Michael O’Leary, and Jenny Powell. They have put them together for our celebration, Poets’ Night In.

Cheering on from the balconies to tautoko David are Bill Manhire, Elizabeth Smither, Cilla McQueen, Michele Leggott, Ian Wedde, Vincent O’Sullivan and Brian Turner.

It’s quiet enough to hear all the notes in these songs. May they be like cats’ eyes, glowing in the dark, watching over, and watching out.

Please join me in celebrating our Poet Laureate, David Eggleton. David, we’re all clapping.



The Archaic Order

Inside a fubsy dream,
bees treasure summer,
its gorse and bloom entanglements,
its gravid hush before the storm,
in lilac or violet flexure of irises.

Daylight is burnished by bird wings,
by the lazy ripple of the wind.
Crickets hop about as spiders abseil,
flies waft to hie themselves hither and yon,
a hedgehog rambles beneath brambles while tabby cats yawn.

A sunshower trips the light fantastic,
with pitch contour shifting upwards,
to be fainter and fainter, and away,
leaving rooftops drenched in raindrop finery,
so the hydrangea-headed suburb shines.


Sargeson Towers

The Sargeson offers NZ contemporary design with 2 six-level towers...The Sargeson presents the ultimate lifestyle of convenience in the heart of Takapuna...

Not in narrow seas light fires of no return,
nor where blows the wind of fruitfulness,
but at dead low tide amongst brooding mangroves,
while the crab scuttles, the lone gull crarks,
and the mudflat poets gather buckets of cockles.
A plumb bob swung through an open portal
might leave us no wiser as to where we are,
but think of it as Auckland in the 1950s,
crossing the pitch and toss of the Waitemata
on a harbour ferry, to the fabled poverties
of the North Shore bohemians trying to survive
in Grog's Own Country when bliss it was to be alive,
under an overstory of mythic timber heights,
lately cut down and burnt to black stumps.
Thus a window opens in a villa's kauri heartwood,
and a hooting ruru eyes doubtfully the dawn.
Oh, for the days when every town had a fountain,
jetting coloured water, pinks and greens, like a dream
of what might yet be spouted in Takapuna, where
Keith Sinclair plays tea-chest bass, Smithyman's at the forge,
and in sackcloth and ashes McCahon sips bodgie's blood.
From Bruce Mason's navel, thespians wander and yarn,
stewing on the rhubarb of a play's first night.
Then the smoky green, countersunk, koru spiral,
sly mileage of a coastal steamer, a yacht groping a zephyr,
dense gloom, hidden light, Grafton Cemetery vapours,
volcanic caves glowing with spittle of worms.
A thousand city planning boo-boos owned up to;
that barge Glover sat in, poled by King Rex Fairburn,
shorewards to the tootle and fife of good old Sarge,
leading the way to jugs of gleaming Lemora,
and a sugar-sack full of withering lemons,
beneath a skull-white George Wilder moon.
In the Lounge Bar, ladies perch on the good chairs,
as if pubs might be shrines to higher thoughts;
in the public bar, blokes get soused on bowsers of booze,
swearing the longest word they know is corrugated-iron.
They howl, miaou, bark, bray; they yell hooray.
Outside, sparrows settle on toetoe plumes to peck away.
Enter the poet with face like a map of New Zealand,
A.R.D. Fairburn, all his china ducks lined in a row,
announcing free pot-shots on for young and old,
as the beer goes flat and the ashtrays stale.
Here's the New Zealand of how are you getting on,
here's the New Zealand of get out of it yah mongrel,
New Zealand of get stuffed, get a gorse bush up yah,
New Zealand of get back to from where you came,
get away and never darken our Customs Shed again.
Then Rex steps forth like a pukeko risen from manuka,
the alchemical man with gladiator sandals,
saying don't talk wet and pour us another one.
He's got an affinity with eels, with damsels and dragonflies,
launches into his riverrun of Finnegan's wakespeak,
claims he's lost his marbles, but most of them are in his mouth.
Like flagpole halyards whistling in the wind, sings Rex,
of the blab of the pave, the paper boy's call,
a wolf whistle from the railway station bookstall,
the blokes raising crown-and-anchor on tar-spotted canvas,
Maurice, Maurice and Maurice tapping typewriter keys,
ivory towers making hay bales into learned academese.
Bob Lowry's on the rocks with the Opononi dolphin;
R.N.Z.A.F. Mason makes his books into flying boats,
and skates them off the end of the Devonport Wharf.
Then hail crashes like a flail to clear muggy air,
for romantic North Shore's dead and gone,
it's with A.R.D. Fairburn in the graveyard,
and so is the Sarge, and all the Sons of Sarge,
and now only brand-new Sargeson Towers stand
as deluxe living for those with ready cash in hand.


David Eggleton



A Working Holiday in Wanaka     

(Lake Wanaka, 1938)

Attracted to the mirror of a solitary tree,
attached to the willow-weeping of stark branches,
we trial the angles of beginning.

Petals of sun graze on the drift of water
as singular cells of paper light

or

Weak sun-spill through summer’s parasol husk
dapples the lake’s gentle edge.

Gold tinged roam of hills
ripple and rise in a history of place

or

Mounds of tussock retreat
to the saffron shade of hills.

Mountains range in shy peaks

or

Mountains ruffle a pearl sky.


Through empty branches
a stillness of sky enters the lake

or

Sky enters lake
lake is sky.


Love’s Elevation                                                                          

(Rita Angus and Douglas Lilburn)

In him                                                                  you made landfall                       
anchored yourself                                  in his likeness
explored high country passes
                     surveyed the relief
                     of love’s elevation.


In his eyes
your glacial melt

In his hands
your jagged protection

In the shock of passion
a shift of fault lines.


Cartographers of the unsaid
both of you
reached the source                                               of a new edge.                       




Jenny Powell


Jenny Powell
Image: Craig Cumming
Jenny Powell is a Dunedin poet. Her most recent collection is "South D Poet Lorikeet" (Cold Hub Press, 2017). She is currently researching and writing poems based on New Zealand artist, Rita Angus.



Brown Purple Haze

The brown purple haze
Hung over old Sydney town
The surrounding bushes blaze

Breathing its dragon breath
The fiery red Rainbow Serpent
Brought destruction and death

All down the line of land
Central and South coast burned
Also too the areas inland

The first-nation people
Knew to move on when the fires
Covered the skies brown purple

Then the others came
With their guns and convicts and plans
To build towns and cities that remain

In the same place with millions
Of people: buildings, railways and
Roads from which you can’t just move on

So the fires and the beds still burn
A billion animals and several people consumed
No one knows when it is their turn

The whole nation may yet go walkabout
My brother, his family, my cousins and the rest
Australia my be beset by eternal drought

The lucky country has lost its bet
There is a price to pay for driving people over the edge
So the brown purple haze of guilt has yet

To expunge the memories of dream-timers
Whose loved-ones were driven over cliffs
Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide & Perth
Great icons of Western Kultur & birth
Yet, the brown purple haze is upon their brain
To recognise the memories of dream-timers


With Serah at St Heliers

(for Serah Fesolai)

Sitting together, two old friends
A gentle breeze in the air, we
Talked, with Rangitoto behind
Swaying trees on the beach front.

Like the trees we were at ease
As the evening sun’s last light
Shadowed the darkening sea
Which shimmered along the small

Waves breaking onto the beach
As buses stopped at regular
Intervals near the table we ate
From, perhaps to remind us

We both had come from difficult,
Poverty stricken backgrounds;
To gently tell us how special it
Is for the two of us to be able

To experience the finer things
In life, a glass of wine, a bowl
Of seafood chowder, and a plate
Of whitebait fritters, in such beautiful

Surroundings. Remembering my
Time in Auckland last year when,
Like two children who had discovered
The giant’s house, you would

Visit me nearly daily in Westmere
Saying it was almost like the time
We shared a house together in
Mt Albert all those years ago.

So, take this poem as the poem
I have always meant to write to you

Alofa – Michael



Michael O’Leary


Michael O'Leary standing outside a KiwiRail train
Image: Dave Johnson
Michael O’Leary lives on the Kapiti Coast. His writing includes five novels, non-fiction publications, a book of his artwork, and ten volumes of poetry: including a selected poems, "Toku Tinihanga"; collected railway poems "Main Trunk Lines; and Collected Poems": 1981-2016, all published by HeadworX.  His Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop imprint has published over 180 titles of New Zealand literary works (mainly poetry), and in 2019 celebrated 35 years of publishing.



warding off

Again today
the mid-afternoon flight
of two oyster catchers
zip-lining

pale, low cloud,
riding the grey light
in quick, flick-knife flight,
not missing a beat,

winging it, avid
for the ocean, their cries
sounding out
a kind of homesickness, or

a repeated one-note song
that is both a warning
and a warding off. I saw them
the same time

yesterday
– easy now
to remember particular
sightings and sounds

in these numbered days
of confinement.
And at night
I hear their calls,
perceiving
in each note
transmitted grief
emphasised

by the dark.
These birds always travel
in pairs, stick together,
insist not all is well.


glass paperweight

Friend, I hold your birthday present,
this glass paperweight,
and test its measure of sand
turned by fire to liquid then
to clear and solid containment. An entire world
I am able to hold in one hand, to look
inside and see an ocean frozen in motion

where indigo-and-dandelion cat’s eyes float
on candy-striped waves of periwinkle
and mint. Suspended
in the rounded space that such a snow globe
sphere allows, the artist’s trademark
flower flies with starfish wings — petals of a lily
worn to a skeleton of filigreed sunlight,

like the frayed remnant of a dress
in a coloured, Instagram photograph
yellowed with age, or leaked sunlight
from that day over fifty years ago now
when we both discovered
a common disregard for the shallow
and the popular and laughed at how easy

it would be to become friends for life, surely
sensing back then the possibility that all
could be weighed and kept, like the heat
from the fiery core of the globed planet
on which we both stood and turned and even now,
keep on standing, spinning under a golden,
lily-sky spent from the weight of sun.



Kay McKenzie Cooke


Kay McKenzie Cooke
Image: Kate Cooke
Kay McKenzie Cooke lives in Dunedin. Her fourth poetry collection is being published by The Cuba Press and at this point is scheduled for release in June 2020.