- Obsolete (December 1981)
- The Shaman (January 1982)
- The Present Tense (17/7/83-18/4/97)
- The Late Romances: Pericles (8/6/86-7/1/2025)
- Pierre de Ronsard - Cassandre (1989):
- Gilt, rich in raiment, falling on my love (12/7/89)
- It's quite a metaphor (imagine this (13/7/89)
- Freed from Right Reason, turn'd to Passion's slave (14/7/89)
- Epithalamion (28/4/90)
- Tod und Verklärung (1991):
- Snow is so soft and deep … (5/8/91)
- May God help us … (9/8/91)
- It will be generally admitted … (9/8/91)
- Very soft shifting snow … (9/8/91)
- Killing Time (1997):
- Killing Time (10/9-18/11/96)
- Nightingale Fever (1996-99):
- Fever, nagging pain … (22/10/96-26/7/2000)
- A million ways … (31/12/98)
- I don’t have … (15/6/99)
- Letter to Marianne (13/11/96-24/1/97)
- Burn Old Diaries (30/11/96-27/6/2000)
- Coda (15/12/96)
- Waitakeres (28/6-9/11/97)
- Unpardonable Sins (20/8-4/11/97)
- The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (3/10-8/11/97)
- Rough Day on the Gulf (10-19/11/97)
- A Dash of Bitters (10-19/11/97)
- The Mooring of Starting Out (27/11-6/12/97)
- Midnight Mass (26/12/97)
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (1999/2000):
- Ashley Gorge (18-19/1/98)
- Travel Sonnets (1998):
- 1 – On the Road (26/1/98)
- 3 – In the Takaka Valley (30/1/98)
- 4 – Sumner (2/2/98)
- 6 – Bus (5/2/98)
- 8 – Ghost (11/2/98)
- The Longest Day (22/12/98)
- Orpheus in the Bays (5/8/97-27/2/98)
- Some More of Your Friends from Nevada (28/3/98)
- Elegy: Miriel Kyle (1/4/98)
- Meditation Exercise (5/5/98)
- La Fille que j’ai abandonnée (6/5-9/7/98)
- Aeroplane Poems (3-10/7/98)
- Tips on Stress from Seddonville (9/7/98)
- City Face (9/7/98)
- In the Ngakawau Gorge (9/7/98)
- Henry Fool (17/7-13/10/98)
- A Previously Uncollected Posthumous Work of Bukowski (24/7/98)
- M.C. (22/8/98)
- NZ Writing: the NeXt Wave (22/8/98)
- The Old School after Twenty Years (12/10/98)
- The Road to Oratia (7/11/98-26/2/2000)
- A Patina of the Antique (1998-99):
- Car Broken Down (4/12/98)
- Lean's Zhivago (30/4/99)
- The Information (4/12/98)
- Like a Japanese Christmas Card (30/12/98)
- Ohope at New Year (3/1/99)
- An Appointment with Cortázar (6/2/99)
- Christchurch Revisited (1999):
- Festival of Romance (9/2/99)
- Crossover Hits (9/2/99)
- The Vicar of Okains Bay (9/2/99)
- Last Morning (9/2/99)
- Je donne à mon espoir (10/3/99)
- The Imp of the Perverse (26/3/99)
- APEC Weekend (30/7-4/8-14/9/99)
Does death in these surroundings answer more
Effectively to death?
Or ... after all,
These towers no less cornices than breath
Allows, cannot reallocate
An office to the chanting of the dead.
A face once long-remembered undertook
Its hasty greetings, heard a simple strain
Of unacquaintance ...
After all,
(The image allocated to the Dane)
No hasty soil delivers seed.
(12/81)
Publications:
- Campus News: the alternative alternative 1 (4) (1984): 3.
•
The shaman climbing rungs inside his hut Could never find the same advanced delight As Amadeus Mozart, or define Experiences simple in themselves As avatars of unextended time. The vantage of a similar defect Makes Amazon adventures of no use, Tahitians gentle shepherds, rather loose In morals, Alligators friends And crucifixion death without the noose. Our common symbols swell to very few Unless the artist consciously extends A helping hand, repaints uncoloured men As ochre, pigment-red or black With ornamental arches at the end.
(1/82)
Publications:
- Campus News: the alternative alternative 1 (3) (1984): 10.
•
Making a virtue of necessity,
hanging an ass’s tail to conflagration –
nagging the buyers to sell out the nation;
sinking a pin in the denuded city.
Riding on wheels of highly-tempered alloy
(making a virtue of necessity):
singing too loud to overhear the city
whispering /
sending messages without joy.
(17/7/83-18/4/97)
•
We have reached the 3rd Act & Pericles is ranting on the deck the young Marina lies in her mother’s arms (still cold & dark before revival) which is coast which sea? the billows surge up to the heavens bodies bound below by mortal surges & how fares the dead?
(8/6/86-7/1/2025)
Publications:
- "The World of Shakespeare". The Imaginary Museum (7/1/2025)
•
Pierre de Ronsard:
Cassandre
(1989)
Je vouldroy bien richement jaunissant En pluye d'or goute à goute descendre Dans le beau sein de ma belle Cassandre, Lors qu'en ses yeulx le somme va glissant. Je vouldroy bien en toreau blandissant Me transformer pour finement la prendre, Quand elle va par l'herbe la plus tendre Seule à l'escart mille fleurs ravissant. Je vouldroy bien afin d'aiser ma peine Estre un Narcisse, & elle une fontaine Pour m'y plonger une nuict à sejour: Et vouldroy bien que ceste nuict encore Durast toujours sans que jamais l'Aurore D'un front nouveau nous r'allumast le jour. – Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1552): XXGilt, rich in raiment, falling on my love To reign there both as bridegroom & as dower (A trifle sordid, yes, this 'golden shower' Tho' sanctioned by the precedent of Jove) Were but one transformation – she, aloof, Strays sometimes from the path to pick a flower; I'd be the bull that waits within the bower To cozen her to live with me above. Sometimes I wish her melted to a spring That I might lie the whole night pondering My pain – self-mirrored there, Narcissus; &, like a star, desire an endless night To watch her, & that never morning's light Should come to drown the fountain's sweet susurrus.
(12/7/89)
•
Ha, seigneur dieu, que de graces écloses Dans le jardin de ce sein verdelet, Enflent le rond de deus gazons de lait, Où des Amours les fléches sont encloses! Je me transforme en cent metamorfoses, Quand je te voi, petit mont jumelet, Ains du printans un rosier nouvelet, Qui le matin bienveigne de ses roses. S'Europe avoit l'estomac aussi beau, De t'estre fait, Jupiter, un toreau, Je te pardonne. Hé, que ne sui-je puce! La baisotant, tous les jours je mordroi Ses beaus tetins, mais la nuit je voudroi Que rechanger en homme je me pusse. – Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1553): XLIIt's quite a metaphor (imagine this, Lord God!) – her verdant breasts are like a garden Fenced by Love's arrows; when the nipples harden The grass swells up with milk and ... ambergris. I'd go through any metamorphosis To mouth those mammaries – I even pardon That bugger Jove who tried to put his yard in Europa, if her belly gave such bliss. Down there, like all trained shrubs, she welcomes spring With flowers; plays Miss Coy while birdies sing. Perhaps I'll ask to be the flea that sucks Her tits (I'll bite them. kiss them, cause her pain) If every night I can turn back again – So when she feels the itch it's me she fucks.
(13/7/89)
Publications:
- Spin 29 (1997): 31.
•
Franc de raison, esclave de fureur, Je voys chassant une Fére sauvage, Or sur un mont, or le long d'un rivage, Or dans le boys de jeunesse & d'erreur. J'ay pur ma lesse un cordeau de malheur, J'ay pour limier un trop ardent courage, J'ay pour mes chiens, & le soing, & la rage, La cruaulté, la peine, & la douleur. Mais eulx voyant que plus elle est chassée, Loing loing devant plus s'enfuit eslancée, Tournant sur moy la dent de leur effort, Comme mastins affamez de repaistre, A longz morceaux se paissent de leur maistre, Et sans mercy me traisnent à la mort. – Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours (1552): LXXXIXFreed from Right Reason, turn'd to Passion's slave All day I hunt a hart through the dark wood Of Error – 'Youth will have its fling' – well, good; Through rocks & streams & valleys, rant & rave? 'My hounds are bred out of ...' – Down, sir! Behave! Hate, rage & cruelty's their livelihood; I'd leash them in from madness if I could But their huntsman's mad to kill (it's meat they crave & every minute see it fast receding The more they run). They're tired, their feet are bleeding & logic rules them inescapably: I haven't fed them for too long ... Don't look At me like that, I'm not the bloody cook ... – They tear my flesh to shreds & feast on me.
(14/7/89)
•
For the Marriage of Jack and Marianne, at the Church of St. Pancratius of Kraainem, 18th August 1990.I The Welcome Listening to Pink Floyd on the stereo – 'We don't need no education' – mark Such rapid recrudescences of dark; While, down beneath the duvet The Bride awaits her wedding-day Aghast ... So far, and yet no further, we may go. II Dieu Nous Parle To praise these nuptials' unpropitious time 's Impossible? The river's ceased to run That brought us Hymen and St. Valentine; No longer burning here 'Unchang'd for fifteene hundred yeare' – Stiff cheese! – The 'love-lamps' wicks have lost their easy rhyme. III Dieu Nous Unit And yet, our love transcends the Fictional, N'est-ce pas? (Not 'physical' – those 'black but comely' Girls are gone). The turtle's voice is dumb, we Hear, and yet the roe Still bravely gambols here below In peace – To celebrate the Union Mystical IV The Eucharist ... Of feathered choristers, the nightly Owls And Nightingale, the 'bird of loudest lay,' Finch, wren and eagle; magpie, ostrich, jay, Like Creasey's 'feathered flies' The pompous pigeons all arise In rows ... (They've televised the Parlement of Foules). V Leaving I fear that I fail to drive the message home: Where are the gods of marriage? All are gone Save Roger Waters and Marillion; All easy idiom Of liturgy and sacred hymn Downcast – The Latin crept out of the Church of Rome. VI Toute Une Vie Pour Aimer Not that we wish a tissue of dead speech To stifle our Communion, each to each. The scene is Pollock, Brussels ... then a bed (Whose narrow girth would serve to wake the dead) Safe setting for our sun – all those who scan These verses, pray for Jack and Marianne. May all their days be in such concord spent, 'With their bodies let them worship' – and pay rent! Let them not quarrel over Bread and Wine – Perceiving how impartial's the Divine. (Nor quibble, either, over wine and bread, But end all quarrels where they start – in bed).
(28/4/90)
Publications:
- For the Celebration of the Wedding of Jackie-Anne and Jack. Church of Saint Pancratius of Kraainem, 18th August 1990.
•
Tod und Verklärung
(1991)
(for J-A)
Sir Douglas Mawson, the Australian explorer, was in Adélie Land between 1912 and 1914. It is probably the most inhospitable region of Antarctica (he called his account of the expedition The Home of the Blizzard). The idea was that he should survey one side of the continent, while Ernest Shackleton travelled to meet him from the other. However, Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance, was crushed in the ice, so the crossing was never attempted.
Snow is so soft and deep
– Douglas Mawson, the Antarctic, 22nd January 1913
Ninnis dead A terrible catastrophe happened
24 miles back, soon after taking latitude ...
Xavier as well – buried in his bag. I looked behind & saw no sign of
Ninnis & his team. I stopped &
Meanwhile, in Germany, wondered, then bethought myself
orchestras attack of the crevasse ... Came back,
the lines of Richard Strauss. called & sounded for an hour.
Read the Burial Service
Rilke burrows deep – 14th December 1912
in drifts of office files
(ashamed of hymning war). Whetter was sick last night, diarrhoea.
He sleeps all day today though stating
Futile to despair – that he would get up and get ice this
discord in the hut afternoon. Whetter is not fit for a
as Whetter takes a rear ... polar expedition
– 11th June 1912
(5/8/91)
Publications:
- "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
- “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.
•
May God Help us.
– Mawson, 14th December 1912
The landscape makes one think of Greece
(Mawson himself contributes a few lines):
sun-beaten cyclamen, unceasing
wind on coastal pines.
No light from the Hut, it
Here darkness, gales, a desert is difficult to tell when
without dunes – sastrugi, one is on top of it. Outside
bitter care, crevasses, one is in touch with the
Ninnis and his dog-team. sternest of Nature – one
might be a lone soul
The bursting sun of Wagner – standing in Precambrian
what to dramatise? times or on Mars – all is
This lunar quiet, blind echoes desolation and hard in the
in a maze ... huts over the next rise? durest
– 9th April 1912
(9/8/91)
Publications:
- "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
- “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.
•
It will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth
Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated
into the ear of man
– E. M. Forster, Howards End (1910)
Let’s not blame Strauss – this landscape of the Moon 11.30 pm: … Will
was not dreamed up by Ludendorff or Haig. the hangar stick it?
The wind cuts wires, wears down the planet’s skin. Will the screens
stand the strain?
Making a “beautiful noise” is not so easy It is indeed
– the screech of amateurs offends the air. difficult to
(how can it move so fast ... relentlessly?) understand how
air can flow so
Some day the guns will be silenced; not so the howl swiftly
of the “perpetual anticyclone” of Adélie ... – 17th May 1912
King George’s land – acceptance with a scowl.
The new land east
of the Mertz glacier
we have received
his Majesty’s
gracious permission
to name King
George V. land
– 1914
(9/8/91)
Publications:
- "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
- “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.
•
Very soft shifting snow, or else I would have done better
– Mawson, 22nd January 1913
You see, my love, this disk of polished steel amongst those here at
and Mawson’s Antarctic Notes Commonwealth Bay are a
aren’t far apart. number of the very type
of men who have made
Too late, now, for revision – Great Britain what she
Four last songs composed is, and Europe what she
on the abyss. is, and will, I venture
to think, – make Heaven
What do you see when face to face … out of Hell
with nothing? Who’s to say – 3rd May 1912
except our pal?
The tent is closing in
So let’s just listen ¬– something there that’s by weight of snow and is
noble, about coffin size now
notes of a man – 25th January 1913
unbeaten,
refusing to lie down Trust in Providence
in the soft snow. and my crampons
– 3rd February 1913
(9/8/91)
Publications:
- "Four Last Songs". The Imaginary Museum (8/7/2006)
- “The Great White Silence.” brief 44 / 45 – Oceania (2012): 56-76.
every man (there’s no remedy) must scamble as he may, and shift as he can; yet Cardan comforted himself with this, “the star Fomalhaut would make him immortal,” and that after his decease his books should be found in ladies’ studies.
– Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1641)
- Auckland by Night / Brussels by Day (18/4–29/6/96)
- One Version of Pastoral (3/6/81–15/8/96)
- The Prospect of the Bungy-Jump (25/8/96-2/1/97)
- On the Occasion of Wet Snow (5/6/83-7/9/96)
- Morning at a Language School (2/9-5/9/96)
- A Road through Pylons (8/9-18/10/96)
- Killing Time (10/9-18/11/96)
- Recovery (22/10/96-15/1/97)
- C. P. Cavafy’s The God Abandons Antony (1/96-7/7/96)
- Petrarch’s Laura I-III (4/12/96-1/1/97)
- Life in a Chinese Novel (24/4/93-17/4/97)
My life doesn’t fit any more – it’s hors de ligne, synthetic, forced; high time for me to change to something kept in stock … and that means – what? Life-history in marble on the temples for the edification of youth, or random scrawls on Atiamuri’s dank urinal walls, that glade of lying out beside the dam? I’ve had it with this body – with my stomach which refuses to grow flat; my pointy nose, thin arms, thick head, fat butt, ill-fitting glasses … it’s time to trade it in for one in style: athletic, bone-bare – fit for a last mile.
(10/9-18/11/96)
Publications:
- Killing Time (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1997): 8.
•
Nightingale Fever
(i.m. Ruth Dallas)
Fever, nagging pain: ingrown
toenail? Catarrh
swimming inside your head?
Rhythm? No, a shape
sound – melody
a certain catch
repeated. Phrase?
A state of heightening
pain between your eyes
creased, not swollen – something
there to say. To whom?
God? Never
quite – next time, perhaps
(22/10/96-26/7/2000)
Publications:
- "Nightingale Fever". Some shells in a tobacco tin: Ruth Dallas. Ed. David Howard. nzepc (17/3/2009)
•
A million ways
of failing
Time to set it off
Bob See you later
Alligator
Blues log ladies
So when’s the time for
Chapeaux bas
Messieurs?
Inside a mine at midnight
Underwater lost to all
good feeling gutted
in the dark?
(31/12/98)
Publications:
- "Nightingale Fever". Some shells in a tobacco tin: Ruth Dallas. Ed. David Howard. nzepc (17/3/2009)
•
I don’t have
any more
to go on
than you do
turn aside
grey-suited
lady turn
your head he’s
writing wait
ing for the
buslane to
light up not
green or red
or amber
but B blue
(15/6/99)
Publications:
- "Nightingale Fever". Some shells in a tobacco tin: Ruth Dallas. Ed. David Howard. nzepc (17/3/2009)
•
Sorry for the long silence; it was caused by many things: hard work? – the barrier that seems to stand between us (not the sea; it’s like a mist. I can’t remember you at all: your face, your body, laughter, clothes). I feel as if this were another life I’d been born into – died into, perhaps. [A car with zebra stripes hoons by, a Westie at the wheel]. Two months ago is all the vista I can contemplate. Two tries I’ve made so far: the bungy-jump to see if that mad terror would revive me. Well, it did – in a strange way. And then last night, the swim at Muriwai; foolhardy, a rehearsal for a death I found I hadn’t wanted, hauling back against that excessive force. Can there be joy in a life that’s lived alone? Christ, don’t ask me! I keep myself busy here on Mount Despair. I miss you. Do I mean, myself with you?
(13/11/96-24/1/97)
•
Burn old diaries, rip out title-pages,
fly-leaves, sticks of chewing
gum. She’s left me hooked on
caffeine.
Take up hobbies: weights, the Territorials,
swim each morning. Fool,
to think you’ll flush your system
clean
like that. Whinge on. Take up the trade
of killing – Murder Inc. – burn down
old houses for a living:
“Sentimentalist –
one who thinks angels
are watching out for him” … Scarring
serves a purpose we’ve all
missed.
Turn again, Whittington. Perhaps
I’ll be the fucking Mayor
of Auckland – nuke the city
fast!
Whirling dervish,
Scourge of God – Your
shelter from the
blast
(30/11/96-27/6/2000)
Publications:
- Spin 38 (2000): 35.
•
Of course the fault is mine, my fault
for loving totally, without reserve
(I don’t know how one holds back from
assuming
everyday attentiveness is love).
Next time (if there’s a next time), I’ll be ready
to jump before I’m pushed – leave the stone lip
before I’ve wept and begged my way
through terror;
falling’s easy when you mean to slip.
My place is on the sea-shore with the sea-shells,
looking for kelp and pipis by the rocks;
yours is, it seems, to look for
“self-fulfilment”:
stone streets in winter snow, fast-frozen locks.
(15/12/96)
•
Auckland from above: beach-midden
shell-fragments – white rooftops. Why so white?
The sky-tower bisects the islands neatly,
Rangitoto lapping sheaves
of basking wharves.
The statues’ pricks point upwards – Mt. Aspiring
(Donald MacLean), down onto Lion Rock:
lingam and yoni? Knotty-pine Visitors’
Centre, murals, mirror-lakes …
by Sony.
We walked down to the dam: crew-cut
bush, trimmed number four; full reservoir.
My father photographed three tourists
¬– South African – who boxed us in
at the next lookout point.
(28/6-9/11/97)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 9 (4) (2006): 8.
•
Self-pity,
self-dramatisation,
being boring –
That’s what my Daddy told me
when I was ’bout knee-high …
What did I do?
Became a poet …
When my sister killed herself,
it hardly matters
what we said then –
the thing that got me most
was leaving her behind
in a wood box
When my wife said: “It’s over,”
who’s to say
what I felt then?
Perhaps, inside, a tiny spark of triumph
at being so prepared
for tragedy
The whole armour of God:
chew on your nails
until they flake away
then on the quick, till that’s gone too,
then bat the air
with the sore stumps
Self-pity,
self-dramatisation,
being boring –
That’s what my Daddy told me
when I was ’bout knee-high …
(20/8-4/11/97)
Publications:
- Where Will Massey Take You? Life Writing 2. ISBN 0-473-09551-3. Massey University: School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2005. 126-27.
Notes:
- Published under the pseudonym 'Claire Talbot'.
•
Quoting oneself is infra dig, no doubt:
non-u, chichi, and other outdated
slang – and yet, the poetry in action
of that girl’s tight cords ... Bedtime
for Bozo?
You see my point? Shop-soiled phrases:
Rag-and-bone shop of the tart,
Manuel the Mexican as lexicon
(“the Order of St. John has taken
to the air
to save more lives”) ... Smale’s quarry
sits idly by. Watch out, old man
– beneath your broad-brimmed hat –
quite soon enough a corkless night will fall,
and swallow all.
(3/10-8/11/97)
•
My suit looks better than I do … rough day
on the Gulf; the ferries are holed up
by Kauri Point. That hand laid – oh so casually –
sur le cuisse, upon the thigh: attesting what?
Fidelity?
Young lovers chatting lightly (public-
transport types: black jeans, white
supermarket bags) make me recall
my hand upon a thigh, promising what?
Fidelity?
(10-19/11/97)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 8 (9) (2005): 4.
•
Cooking idiolect: a dash of bitters. That’s clear enough. Here’s pansies, that’s for ... So what is the equivalent of curry? mixed herbs? … Irruptions on the lawn? The lake’s roiled up like sulphur. I don’t eat enough, right now, to savour tastes; still, chillies leave me with a sense of closure: tears, nose, pores purged – at peace – all passion spent.
(10-19/11/97)
•
We walk into what we’ve made already: Zapiski iz podpol’ya – underground; red spot on the right cheek, then the left, flecked off. More spacious gestures, opening to wide boulevards, the cars (Daihatsu, Hyundai), Nikkei index – minutiae of day. The renovations here fall into legend; we plot their progress, waiting, day by day. Dürer’s self-portrait in the Prado: “Can self-love go any further?" intones canned Kenneth Clark. Self-loathing, rather – through the frame dry summer, Central Otago moon-landscape ¬– six huhus rubbing together. A lake though, not these bomb-craters of metal, light-blue and red t-shirt over hipster slacks, skewed platforms. One more line completes it, your breasts rhyme with the cloudlessness of day.
(27/11-6/12/97)
Publications:
- " "Words and Places (Oban 06)". The Imaginary Museum (20/6/2006)
•
Your worst fear will be realised,
you’ll realise it yourself:
fear of falling, of
the telephone,
loss? They said I was forgiven
there, last night – High Anglican
sepulchre – how could they
know?
Beeswax candles dribbling light,
trestle-stacked choir, pro-
digious censer-swinging
by a pro.
I close my eyes, shake hands,
murmur responses, cringe
to hear my singing
praised.
Je viens de te revoir partout,
ma chère, je viens
de te revoir – to see you
everywhere.
(26/12/97)
Publications:
- Spin 32 (1998): 37.
•
Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, ed.: When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (1999)Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross & Apirana Taylor
(1999)
- Ashley Gorge (18-19/1/98)
- Travel Sonnets
- 1 – On the Road (26/1/98)
- 2 – Reading U. K. Le Guin (27/1/98)
- 3 – In the Takaka Valley (30/1/98)
- 4 – Sumner (2/2/98)
- 5 – Simple (3/2/98)
- 6 – Bus (5/2/98)
- 7 – Rental (8/2/98)
- 8 – Ghost (11/2/98)
- The Longest Day (22/12/98)
- Orpheus in the Bays (5/8/97-27/2/98)
- Sonnet (2/98)
- Freeman’s Bay (20/2-25/3/99)
For Jim on His Fortieth BirthdaySuis-je Kiwi? Estoy aquì – Akaroa bakes its own French bread …Grounding canoe on streambed – dappled stones, milk-light white quartz. Sun climbs down hot from depthless cwms. Rubber boat, spinning aground. Did I say “dappled”? Water clear as trout, rough round the bend. Bridge. Road-bridge? Difficult to tell, reciting onomastica of signs, five years ... another me, you, water, rubber boat; that afternoon, my knees on stone, paddle askew; instructions shouted from the shore (rough logs, I think); my brother, Cath, Jean, Chris: blue crystal day.
(18-19/1/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 88.
•
Travel Sonnets
Hairtrigger upthrust, giant’s bone,
eald enta geweorc
– “They look like standing stones,
don’t they?” – the Weka
Pass, Nth Canterbury.
Easter Island
sockets, topknots,
grass greyed to sand-dune.
Titicaca say the hills.
Trouble in front, beside, behind
– tears, tantrums, fist-fights –
Accelerate
your stasis!
Mountains saw the sky.
(26/1/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 89.
•
Cheryl’s poem, ten years ago: turning myself like a wheel. Yes, everything is in the dance: hill, hairpins – accelerator, brake & clutch, gear-lever, go … Tourist cunt slides by on legs. Like Clint in Heartbreak Ridge (studying Vogue to sensitise himself), I listen to The Corrs: “Leave me alone!” It’s an Old Norse saga sentence: “She I loved best, betrayed me most.” Playing the glad game, Turn the light out? – Yes. The light? – Not yet. Ten minutes more.
(30/1/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 91.
•
Nearby radios nagging, singing –
self-satisfied with sound
perhaps?
Green & blue-splashed drive
laid out in tiles – above: the hills,
slabs, falls,
fog-bound like Dartmoor:
Mr Holmes,
they were the footsteps of a gigantic hound!
Feedback loops
distort reception. Above: one tree.
The sky arcs over to the sea.
(2/2/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 92.
•
Pale – growing the orange out highlights of brown on brown No fashion victim, lines define the nose, white blouse “Not Megan that’s been changed” – or charged? Pale – Madras St Hot as India, blue knitted top, white tight trousers I 94 FM thanks you for listening
(5/2/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 94.
•
Today I saw the ghost of Smithyman
at the traffic lights, squinting up
at the ossing sky, backpack slung
over one shoulder, anxious,
hurried. He was there.
Just a momentary thing. Oh, is he
still alive? one wondered, looking so
self-sufficient, off on an
afternoon round of shops.
It’s true that the bus was empty –
phantom of a commuter line
defunct? The light a little strange.
Perhaps I expected it. There was no particular
shock.
Today I saw Kendrick wait for the green man.
(11/2/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 89.
•
The longest crawl
of cars across the bridge
The longest fall
from Sky-tower to harbour
Why do you keep
the windows closed?
It’s so we won’t
need bars
Building K
is leasing now
Quite hard to chew
and talk
(22/12/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 97.
•
Coming back, he felt like ice;
like a sawn-off limb, the past was just
a twitch –
I power-walk, discuss
‘the pump’ with chance-encountered friends.
Eurydice was successful, too,
in Hades
Brussels.
Stopped sending letters
after a while (forgot to write
as her old life rotted away?)
I told her once she always held
a grudge. She’s proved it. As for me,
I climb around the rocks to Campbells
Bay – blue slate, coffee-ground sea.
He secretly desired those Thracian
girls, of course – to kill him?
Better
that, than nothing at all. The sweet,
complacent singing-voice grew still …
Bobbing downstream, at peace, transfigured,
Orpheus sidestrokes out to sea.
(5/8/97-27/2/98)
Publications:
- When the Sea Goes Mad at Night (anthology). Poems by Alison Denham, Robin McConnell, Theresia Liemlienio Marshall, Jade Reidy, Jack Ross, and Apirana Taylor. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Birkenhead, Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999-2000): 98.
•
(for Brian Turner)
In a corner of the old Capitol
cinema
Balmoral
Now an indoor rock-climbing centre
track-suited straight
arrows
Working their way up the walls
they’ve left up one poster
Wes Craven’s
The Hills Have Eyes
a black cut-out hillside
studded with lidless red eyes
Of course it’s too late to convince you
it’s always that
friend of a friend
Who hoons off downriver
veers off the state highway
ends up getting fucked like a pig
or mown into road-spoil …
(28/3/98)
Publications:
- " "Words and Places (Oban 06)". The Imaginary Museum (20/6/2006)
- Poetry NZ 34 (2007): 76-80.
•
I
This morning dawned overcast
north, fluorescent belts
language was used up
screech of exotic birds
fog-horn of coffee
language was used up
counting my change, cash-cards
ring-ring of phone: Ken Wood
language was used up
the knights slept in their harness
under Mt. Eden – Sauron defeated
language was used up
II
I didn't know you very well – that's my excuse.
Classes this morning, got to label
paragraphs ✔ and ^ and = and F and │
in Massey @ Albany.
You were a kind woman, came to see me
when I was sick – we talked about ...
I can't remember. So long, Miriel,
ashes, now,
gone to take up your ecological niche
in the sky. By now you'll be waking up.
Is the red chamber dream a nightmare, broken
abruptly
by approaching day?
(1/4/98)
Publications:
- Takahe 35 (1998): 13.
•
Imagine a tongue. It’s red. Or is it red? Plum-purple, shading to off-cream, tufted with taste-buds (minute sensors), veined, mottled, pursing in to form a tube, rough up a gum … break the silence. Unruly member. Finger it in your mind; work it around. Do exercises with it. Yes, it’s yours – forever. If it’s not plucked out. No imminent risk, perhaps? Now bite it. Ah, that stings! Harder. You really felt that. What’s it done – or tasted – since you were last here? Was it sublime? The tang of pâté, pussy, poisson cru? Why, nothing. What is nothing? It’s your tongue.
(5/5/98)
•
Daylight moon – silkprint half-stamped on eggshell blue. Mare tranquillitatis. When you reach the end of yourself, it’s time – for a million things. Not Mickey Mouse, Vanessa. One two three.
(6/5-9/7/98)
Publications:
- Spin 40 (2001): 56.
•
I If a pretext’s needed, green sea tends to mean land – white tassels, like a Belgian rug – cloud eruptions, starburst shell of snow: fixed wiring, manufacturing nothing. ‘His air of lost connections.’ Rocks aren’t scared of bombs. Back to deep blue, the hostesses all thumbs II brown fan of silt denotes a river; clouds mass over peaks III that’s no city, it’s the sea the clouds are waves a ditch is rock, though everywhere the rain
(3-10/7/98)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 8 (10) (2005): 17.
•
Persistence of tussock
tires out Mastercard
Barns raise rooftops
in reverse
The scenic guard-rail’s
whited out
Charming Creek
takes an awkward turn
A naked tap
for Miner’s Dark
(9/7/98)
Publications:
- "for Leicester Hugo Kyle, b.1937". The Imaginary Museum (28/6/2006)
- brief #34 – war (2007): 6-12.
•
Told yesterday
I had a ‘city
face’
this morning
I spent
practising
before the glass
insouciant sneers
atrocious leers
insolent stares
till I noticed
the espresso
had gone
cold
(9/7/98)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 1 (11) (1998): 6.
- All Together Now! A Celebration of New Zealand Culture by 100 Poets. Edited by Tony Chad. ISBN 0-473-07325-0. Wellington: Valley Micropress, 2000. 85.
- "for Leicester Hugo Kyle, b.1937". The Imaginary Museum (28/6/2006)
- brief #34 – war (2007): 6-12.
Notes:
- Originally titled "Kylesque" - in imitation of the Rev. Leicester Kyle.
•
Plastic arrows broken off, DOC plaques erode to native yellow. Detour, they said, back on that tramline fuelled by gravity. Irrupting from fern- bush: creek, stream, rill, foam- berged, peat- stained. No further forth – no rain (as yet). We sat, said: What does one do with this? Cite Rilke? Prate about milady’s favours? Fail to
(9/7/98)
Publications:
- Spin 32 (1998): 37.
- "for Leicester Hugo Kyle, b.1937". The Imaginary Museum (28/6/2006)
•
“What’s this place called?”
– small boy going into the toilets
The pisshead chuckles
as the bus rides by
a breathalyser checkpoint
Mein Gott, was hast du mir getan?
exclaims the damsel
as Simon sprays her ass
Pallor of girls’ brows
in perspex, chewing a snagnail
shattered by the vibe
(17/7-13/10/98)
Publications:
- "Shorts." Poetry NZ 40 (2010): 76-81.
•
Blah blah blah
blah blah
blah
my wife & I
blah blah
my cats
blah blah
& Bach
blah
(oh, & Sartre,
Dostoevsky, Jung)
The rest of youse is dung
(24/7/98)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 2 (1) (1999): [3].
- Micropress New Zealand 4 (2) (1999): [9].
•
Poke your tongue
in the side of your mouth:
goodbye
Pause, in tight leather skirt
on the dais
with long hair
Laugh, as you say “puffed out”
forget the
party
A Friday night needs
two weeks,
Thursdays
one
(22/8/98)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 2 (1) (1999): [3].
- Three Poems for Annora Gollop, on the Occasion of Her Birthday [pamphlet] (February 26, 2000).
•
Blue lights above the car Rigel – Aldebaran shadows through the streetlight LEXX: “The Giga-shadow is the end and it is the beginning” Scott’s made a list of thirty names NZ Literature could do without Richard’s composing (“No-one writes like me”) the infinite regress; Hamish is … Miriam’s reconciling architecture with … and Anna Sol. “If Satan starts a journal up in Hell, I’ll send him something.”
(22/8/98)
•
Hoist your tracksuit bottoms, look
around
il est très doué, mais il
ne travaille pas
When I was in
Papua, in the Customs service
Eileen knows Athol
Fugard
Liane’s a colleague
– whom I’ve never met –
whose job’s to publicise
me
Here I went to school, Tom Brown
Outstretched arms
of Rangitoto – clear-felled
round the rugby field –
Here I ran cross-country, bogged
in laughing crowds of helots
It’s the same
(12/10/98)
Publications:
- Valley Micropress 8 (8) (2005): 5.
•
I am double fool, I know
Dr Jerk-off
& Massa Hide
A man today, met in a garden:
“My granddaughter is five years old
(with cerebral palsy)
she says
‘I want to be a drummer. But for a real
job, I’ll shift maths equipment.’”
Point taken
Doan’ whup me, Massa
Time to be all right
I’ll wear my cricket whites
start cadging smokes
Once more with attitude
fucked in the head
(7/11/98-26/2/2000)
Publications:
- Three Poems for Annora Gollop, on the Occasion of Her Birthday [pamphlet] (February 26, 2000).
•
A Patina of the Antique
A patina of the antique
over which picture?
David Lean’s dead cameraman
today [4th December ‘98]
O’Toole as Lawrence, Alec
Guinness, Lara
or that deviant boy
in purple windcheater
crushed up against his car
by rush-hour traffic
Tailgated? broken down?
Car Broken Down
An oval earring
in the lobe ahead
(4/12/98)
Publications:
- A Patina of the Antique (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
- “A Patina of the Antique.” Trout: online journal of arts & literature from aotearoa/new zealand and the pacific islands 14 (2007): 52.
•
Tom Courtenay parting the crowds
at the Sventitsky’s
Christmas party
Leaves scudding across her grave
as Yuri’s eyes
look up
Intensity of affect
Still the same?
More stagey?
Twenty-five years between
I’ve lived them
Haven’t I?
(30/4/99)
Publications:
- A Patina of the Antique (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
- “A Patina of the Antique.” Trout: online journal of arts & literature from aotearoa/new zealand and the pacific islands 14 (2007): 52.
•
You put about 70% in of the information says Damian – The information – “Car Broken Down” (wrote that twelve years ago) My Lara fantasies (the paperback that parted in my hands) The point? Is the point time? Un mauvais quart d’heure for Mr Breakdown leisure for me to fiddle in the bus
(4/12/98)
Publications:
- A Patina of the Antique (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
- “A Patina of the Antique.” Trout: online journal of arts & literature from aotearoa/new zealand and the pacific islands 14 (2007): 52.
•
i Strictly speaking there’s no such thing as line in nature or a word or silence dint of overlapping colours chords membranes perspex slide effects ii Nature’s curved we’re deaf to stillness girls wear buttoned shorts black silver-buttoned skirts striped tops we fail to stipple off the pattern burger-fuel it up
(30/12/98)
Publications:
- Flint 1 (1999): n.p.
•
Romances, and parables, or fables that have no truth in the matter, but honesty in the design, as also enlargement of stories by variety of phrases and manner of expression, or handsome oratory; the better to inculcate the virtue, or express the vice they design to represent, are of singular use in all discourses. – Dr. Charles Morton (17th century)Scorpio: deep passions thinly veiled Venus associates with Pluto dark volcanic god Andrew: Pluto was only spotted fifty years ago so’s scarcely of astrological significance if you press for an outcome things resolve themselves sounds ominous Alan & Corinne walk on endeavouring to ignore their scribbling companion
(3/1/99)
Publications:
- For Lisa Bieleski: New Zealand Golf (and English) Academy (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999)
•
Hidden in the grass, wait for a large cumulus cloud to drift over the hated city. Then shoot a petrifying arrow; the cloud will turn to stone … – Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds (1980)BLUE Fuck it, Jewel, stop whining! An “All I need is a good …” Enemy finger, was it? Pencilling in the They contours. All you people seem Can’t the same: sad sacks. See WHITE The anorexic look? Fiona Apple? Pretty in ringlets, A asks … (I play with the cat, Nation too, sometimes – resolving Under not to mention that Siege to other Jules). RED Tonight I lay down under a tree beside the Avon, and you can’t get A wetter than that (BENNY HINN, Crime faith-healer). I will sleep in They tomorrow (“if I’m Can’t spared”); Death’s too good Control for this [Abruptly shattered by the aproned man: “Another glass of “Are you right wine there, sir?” there, sir?” “No, fine here, thanks” I’m fine, thanks” (rent paid for two more minutes) twenty minutes) let’s face it, free for these last minutes free of these last minutes sick of these last minutes caught for these last minutes sick of these last minutes sick of sick of sick of sick sick sick …]
(6/2/99)
Publications:
- Spin 35 (1999): 46.
•
Christchurch Revisited
braided rivers Avon ladies yes that snooty bitch in the Bon Bolli last night I feel compla cent here is it Yeats or young James Joyce John Alli son asks me as we loi ter in the cloisters of the Arts Centre no sea gull grotto where the sun can never shine
(9/2/99)
Publications:
- Takahe 56 (2005): 13.
•
Crossover hits. Jack sees himself in denim, with guitar. Crocodile Shoes, perhaps. Wailing. Did it happen then? I had it sussed – no dice, just friends finally, out to see The Thief (that sexy Russian girl), but then we kissed: “I want to hug you,” “You’re a good person to know.” No, not even then – this morning. I’m so slow
(9/2/99)
Publications:
- Takahe 56 (2005): 13.
•
“The next service is at …” but the board is blank – a strong, stone-buttressed church, though (founded 1863) In the store, buying jumbo-sized sunscreen: “You must be expecting a lot of sun,” opines the man with the crooked hand Down on the beach Pacific breakers roll in from “the largest sea in the world – 5,000 miles”
(9/2/99)
Publications:
- Takahe 56 (2005): 13.
•
“… it is as if the very modernity of his intelligence has goaded a primitive stamina in his imagination.” – Seamus Heaney on Derek MahonFuck-dumb … Do you have to be dumb to fuck? No music. Why does the sun shine in the sky? Why does a bear have fur? No abstruse congeries of pre-preschool TV. Remind me it’s not in vain – talk, talk! – I want it: lips skin smile, can’t have it frozen cruciform, hog- tied, immobile, ankle- tethered – on the brink.
(9/2/99)
Publications:
- Takahe 56 (2005): 13.
•
(after Apollinaire) I give for hope my eyes semi-precious stones I give for hope my hands victory palms I give for hope my feet supermarket carts I give for hope my mouth this kiss I give for hope my nostrils sampling spring flowers I give for hope my heart keeping its promise I give for hope the future flickering like a candle far off in the forest
(10/3/99)
Publications:
- Poèmes à Lou [Chantal] – after Guillaume Apollinaire, Poèmes à Lou [Ombre de mon amour] (1915) xxxi & xlix. (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
- Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
- Takahe 56 (2005): 20.
- Je donne à mon espoir. Auckland: Pania Press, November 23, 2008.
- Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)
Notes:
Je donne à mon espoir mes yeux ces pierreries
Text from Guillaume Apollinaire, Oeuvres poétiques. Ed. Marcel Adéma & Michel Décaudin. Préface d’André Billy. 1956. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 121 (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1966): 465.
Je donne à mon espoir mes mains palmes de victoire
Je donne à mon espoir mes pieds chars de triomphe
Je donne à mon espoir ma bouche ce baiser
Je donne à mon espoir mes narines qu’embaument les fleurs de la mi-mai
Je donne à mon espoir mon cœur en ex-voto
Je donne à mon espoir tout l’avenir qui tremble comme une petite lueur au loin dans la forêt …
– Guillaume Apollinaire, “L'amour, le dédain et l'espérance,” from Poèmes à Lou [Ombre de mon amour] XLIX (1915).
•
Alas, it is too late! – Edgar Allan Poe FORT Enacting a game of control, pretending DA DA baby’s lost, the cliff’s been FORT FORT cleared, bashing DA DA FORT FORT the sod you love, to prove that love DA DA to breaking point, so when it FORT FORT shatters DA DA FORT FORT it was never there DA
(26/3/99)
Publications:
- Spin 34 (1999): 50-51.
Notes:
- Inspired by Bernard MacLaverty's novel Grace Notes (1997).
•
(10th- 14th September, 1999) Avarice Pride Envy Carnality – Columbus Coffee Shop, High Street (26/8/99) There must be public coin-operated funny things done waste in some of these disposal city pubs jack looking down trash comparison sun deflects from buildings four buffalo girls bill has gone to practise his last rest fingering tai the shaft chi sweet skin at carmel oh funny things done in college cheer-leaders some of these maybe city pubs
(30/7-4/8-14/9/99)
Publications:
- Salt Online: Poetry. [Available at: http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~mbellard/polemetics/jack_ross_apec_weekend.htm (January 2000)].
•
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