Saturday

Chantal's Book (2002)


Cover image: Anne Ross / Cover design: Timon Maxey /
Book design: Mark Pirie



(October 26) Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8. Wellington: HeadworX, 2002. 112 pp.
  1. Bronze (20/2-2/12/98)
  2. Melting the Ice-Block (27-28/12/98)
  3. E-Mailing Venus (4/12/98)
  4. Bashō (12/98)
  5. A Woman Named Intrepid (6/12/98)
  6. Ngongotaha (12/98)
  7. There’s Something about Chantal … (20/12/98)
  8. Situations i: Albany
    1. Edge City (21/7/98)
    2. Between OR and Main Campus (10/9/98)
  9. Situations ii: CBD
    1. Auckland nach dem Regen (13/7/98)
    2. Between “The Newton Boys” and “The Big Hit” (31/7/98)
  10. Situations iii: Tauranga
    1. Poetry Festival (29/3/98)
    2. Girls on Film (11/9/98)
  11. Situations iv: Coromandel (2/9/98)
  12. The title (12/98)
  13. Chantal at an Opening (11/12/98)
  14. "It's not the despair ..." (12/98)
  15. Chantal’s Housewarming (11/12/98)
  16. No lonely like tonight (12/98)
  17. Christmas Cards – Tension Headache – The Madwoman in the Bus – Her Plastic Shopping Bags – Thoughts of Marianne (11/12/98)
  18. If (12/98)
  19. Lock, Stock , and … (22/12/98)
  20. All at Sea (23/12/98)
  21. Proverbial Philosophy (28/12/98)
  22. Not the Director’s Cut (6/1/99)
  23. Body Fictions
    1. Water-marbling (7/1/99)
    2. Insight in (12/10/98-16/1/99)
    3. The music of the rain (4/7-14/10/98)
  24. Valentine’s Day ’99 (11/2/99)
  25. The Consolations of Chantal
    1. Mute (13/7/98)
    2. Walk Back (16/10/98)
    3. The Mask of Zorro (17/9/98)
    4. Bound (15/10/98)
    5. Aztec (15/10/98)
  26. Freeman’s Bay (20/2-25/3/99)
  27. Sound Culture (13/3-9/4/99)
  28. The Reason Why (21/3/99)
  29. Idyll (27/3-22/4/99)
  30. Phoenix (after Giordano Bruno):
    1. Tell Briar I got a hammer (28/4/99)
    2. … life is not in our hands … (28/9/98-29/4/99)
    3. les sages et beaux paysages (30/4/99)
  31. Dream-Chantal
    1. ACTS (15/6/99)
    2. Whatever you do (30/6/99)
  32. Life-Mask (21/7/99)
  33. Chantal: A Creed (4/8/99)
  34. Beloved (13-14/8/99)

  35. Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year

    1. [Wednesday, 29th December - 4 p.m.] (29/12/99)
    2. Gathering I: Motueka Midday (30/12/99)
    3. [Thursday, 30th December - 3.15 p.m.] (30/12/99)
    4. Gathering II: Canaan Downs (31/12/99)
    5. [Friday, 31st December - 4 p.m. to Midnight] (31/12/99)
    6. Gathering III: Zone Five (31/12/99)
    7. [Wednesday, 5th January - 1.40 p.m.] (5/1/2000)
    8. Shades of Meaning at Cape Foulwind (5/1/2000)
    9. Vuelvo al Sur (5/1/2000)
    10. Time and Space on the Okari River (5/1/2000)
    11. [Friday, 7th January - 12.40 p.m.] (7/1/2000)
    12. Perseverence Rd (7/1/2000)
    13. [Saturday, 1st January - 5.50 p.m.] (1/1/2000)
    14. Gematria on the Great Divide (7/1/2000)
    15. [Tuesday, 18th January - 11.15 a.m.] (18/1/2000)
    16. ART (7/1/2000)
    17. [Tuesday, 11th January - 3.05 p.m.] (11/1/2000)
    18. Death and The Maiden (14/1/2000)
    19. [Sunday, 16th January - 8.40 p.m.] (16/1/2000)
    20. Approaches to Aoraki (16/1/2000)
    21. [Monday, 8th March - 23:20:57-0500] (8/3/2000)
    22. Tautuku Bush Walk (20/1/2000)
    23. [Monday, 17th January - 1.50 p.m.] (17/1/2000)
    24. Waituna Gorge (21/1/2000)
    25. [Monday, 24th January - 8.20 a.m.] (24/1/2000)
    26. In the Footsteps of Ice Giants (24/1/2000)
    27. Calypso (24/1/2000)
    28. Extreme Green (25/1/2000)
    29. [Monday, 3rd January - 10.55 a.m.] (3/1/2000)
    30. Der Berggeist (26/1/2000)
    31. [Sunday, 23rd January – 3.15 p.m.] (23/1/2000)
    32. Now Entering Parnassus (31/1/2000)
    33. [Sunday, 30th January - 12.15 p.m.] (30/1/2000)
    34. Christchurch from the Air (4/2/2000)
    35. Voyeur (30/12/99-26-27/1/2000)
    36. Chaos AD (4/2/2000)
    37. [Tuesday, 25th January - 9.40 p.m.] (25/1/2000)
    38. What You Read in My Diary (11/2/2000)
    39. [Monday, 27th December - 10.45 a.m.] (27/12/99)
    40. The Bachelors of the Quintessence (11/2/2000)



for S-



•

Jack Ross: Chantal’s Book (2002)


Blurb:
Jack Ross's new book is a witty addition to our genre of experimental poetry. It explores the male perspective of love in a contemporary relationship, using postmodern styles/forms of analysis of the text, Romanticism and traditional thoughts and feelings. Rich in detail, typography and quotation, the book finishes with a long sequence 'Lessons of the Genji' (extracts from which were first featured in Poetry NZ 22).

'Prose sections and widely various poetic formats meld into each other creating a kaleidoscopic pattern of references and images ... [Ross's work] represents L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry at its best ...' Alistair Paterson.

Jack Ross lives in Mairangi Bay, Auckland, on the North Shore. He has published the book of poems City of Strange Brunettes (Pohutukawa Press, 1998) and the novel, Nights with Giordano Bruno (Bumper Books, 2000). He has been an editor of The Pander, and more recently of the poetry magazines Spin and brief. His articles, reviews and interviews have been widely published.



•


It was customary for a young City gentleman to woo his intended by presenting her with a hand-written anthology of improving texts and stories to demonstrate the principles he would bring to their union.
- Richard West, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Daniel Defoe (1998)





Is Chantal bronze?
That makes me – what?
Lost wax?

Bodies are clay,
albeit they’ve
been washed,
and glazed, and fired.

Is love smoke?
That makes me fire. If water,
land. If sea,
I am the sky.


(20/2-2/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • JAAM 14 (2000): 48-52.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 10.
  • HeadworX Publishers Website (November 29, 2002) [Available at: http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/chantal_sample.php3].



•





You know my favourite saying by now:
“Nature abhors a vacuum.”

I don’t know, though, if you understand
how momentous these emotions are for me –
how intense, unheimlich. I think about
you every day, see you round every street corner.

I’m set up, in short, for a fall.

But also for the unimaginable joy of success,
reciprocation: provoking feeling for myself in 
another – such another – human being.


(27-28/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 11.



•





A tidal slick of water
over the grass
beside the Northcote
exit

TIME TO STRENGTHEN
above three hatchet chins
in the newspaper
ahead

Were you testing me?
Your e-mail came out
as indecipherable
symbols

I suppose I was


(4/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 12.



•




During his 1682 courtship, Daniel Defoe relied, we’re told, 
on stories from the Roman classics. Do I know any? I do know 
a story about Bashō, the great Japanese haiku poet. I even 
wrote a clumsy poem about it when I was – what? Sixteen?


Bashō throughout the fastness of a day
Took horse with five companions up the track.
The mountains plunged in shadow to a gorge,
The poet’s mind was moved to stop and pray.

The altitude, the river and the day
Combined to cranial music in a forge.
The advent of an abbot clad in sack
In conversation drowned what he would say.


It’s not quite the same as the story of Coleridge and the person 
from Porlock – there the interruption was business [“Porlock 
Vice Squad, Coleridge – You’re busted,” as a Punch cartoon I 
saw once had it]; here it was politeness: mere aimless 
garrulousness.


(12/98)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 13.



•





Questing – like a gun-dog –
for a route around
Pohutukawa branches
at Okura

Busting through supplejack
– Sportsgirl –
above the Piha
dams

“I can’t climb that” – climbing
sheer reservoir walls,
you dangle back
to lend a hand

“It’s cold; you’re used to it”
in the clay pool


(6/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • JAAM 14 (2000): 48-52.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 14.
  • The Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Compiled and edited by Jan Kemp and Jack Ross. Special Collections Dept, Auckland University Library, October 31, 2004.
  • New New Zealand Poets in Performance. Edited by Jack Ross. Poems Selected by Jack Ross and Jan Kemp. ISBN 978 1 86940 4093. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008. 47-51.



•




Ngongotaha – can you say that name? Ngo-ngo-tà-ha … like the “ng” 
in “singing”. I can’t.
   I’ve just spent three days there, coughing and spluttering 
with hayfever, and performing a strange set of controlled, 
riskless “death-defying stunts” – the flying fox, the luge, 
paragliding. Last time it was the rocket bungy, the rope swings 
at Lake Taupo; the time before, the bungy-jump itself.
   It’s my extreme fearfulness about these things that commends 
them to me. The pleasure comes when they’re over. It is, I 
suppose, a slightly more drastic equivalent to pinching yourself 
to make sure you’re awake. This dream is so detailed, so 
comprehensive, so horrible (at least at times – like the one I 
had last night, where I was forbidden to read my essay out loud 
to the English class, though I’d been waiting patiently for hours) 
that you need to convince yourself it’s real.


(12/98)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 15.



•




Tartar brows
    hide secrets (Bernice
Bobs Her Hair);

thin waist, slim hips …
    That’s not a cop-out,
is it?

Eyes, though!
    Akhenaten
optics;

Laugh! Throaty,
    hoarse, insane:
the Magna Mater

loose in a storm-drain.
    Jags of spleen:
“You’re wrong!”

What is it, then?
    She’s kind
to people:

speaks to gallery
    guards,
shop-keepers,

has a … a
    loving heart
(can I say that?)

I like her upper lip.


(20/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 16-17.
  • JAAM 21: “Greatest Hits.” Ed. Michael O’Leary & Mark Pirie. ISBN 1-86942-038-1. Wellington: JAAM Publishing Collective & HeadworX / Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 2004: 168-70.



•

Situations i: Albany





        No this-ness
in planned landscapes; my effects
depend on being smelt – felt – heard.
“Don’t pull that city face.” So
Julia, six months ago:
no flame-trees in my garden,
rosebud gone: “dark fields
of the republic.” Is it time
to shoulder wood, blue sky?

        Albany signs –
a long jog to the light.


(21/7/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 18.
  • Wildes Licht: Poems / Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland, englisch-deutsch. Ed. & trans. Dieter Riemenschneider (Christchurch & Kronberg im Taunus: Tranzlit, 2010): 70.

Notes:
  • Wildes Licht: Poems / Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland, englisch-deutsch. Ed. & trans. Dieter Riemenschneider (Christchurch & Kronberg im Taunus: Tranzlit, 2010): 71.
    Ortsverhalte i: Albany

    Randstadt

    Kein Dies-Sein
    in entworfenen Landschaften;     meine Wirkung
    beruht darauf gerochen - gefühlt - gehört zu werden.
    "Mach nicht dein Stadtgesicht." So
    Julia vor sechs Monaten:
    keine Flammenbäume in meinem Garten
    Rosenknospen dahin: "dunkle Felder
    der Republik." Ist es Zeit
    Holt zu schultern, blauer Himmel?

    Albany Schilder -
    ein langer Trab zum Licht.



•




But I walk faster
        asphalt oyster-
catcher tracks    turned cracks
forbid
enamelled synaesthesia
        of landscape after
rain        shoulder-slung
jacket
outdistance me
    the sun goes out
grey storm-front    coming yes
outdistance me


(10/9/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 19.
  • Wildes Licht: Poems / Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland, englisch-deutsch. Ed. & trans. Dieter Riemenschneider (Christchurch & Kronberg im Taunus: Tranzlit, 2010): 70.

Notes:
  • Wildes Licht: Poems / Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland, englisch-deutsch. Ed. & trans. Dieter Riemenschneider (Christchurch & Kronberg im Taunus: Tranzlit, 2010): 71.
    Ortsverhalte i: Albany

    Zwischen OR und Hauptcampus

    Doch ich gehe schneller
    Asphalt Austern-
    fischerspurenumgestülpte Risse
    verwehren
    glasierte Synästhesie
    der Landschaft nach
    dem Regenschultergeworfene
    Jacke
    überflügeln mich
    die Sonne verlöscht
    graue Sturmfrontkommt ja
    überflügeln mich.




•

Situations ii: CBD





NO VACANCIES
        at the “City of Sails” motel.
It’s hard to convey how strange that is:
dark, skid-marked streets; day after day
of grey …
            Who the fuck’s there?

Two loonies
        standing by the road
(blue parka, beige kagoul)
not waiting for anything
        – just waiting.
By a roundabout.

It’s ten at night.

Rain-slick streets are cool.


(13/7/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 20.
  • Wildes Licht: Poems / Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland, englisch-deutsch. Ed. & trans. Dieter Riemenschneider (Christchurch & Kronberg im Taunus: Tranzlit, 2010): 72.
  • "Wildes Licht / Wild Light." The Imaginary Museum (1/4/10).

Notes:
  • Europa nach dem Regen II (1940-42), is the title of Max Ernst's disturbing vision of Europe during the Second World War: "Are we witnesses to an apocalypse, or uncontrolled, cancerous growth? ... The title dates back to an earlier painting sculpted from plaster and oil (and painted on plywood) to create an imaginary relief map of a remodeled Europe completed in 1933, the year Hitler took power." [Max Ernst: Paintings, Biography, and Quotes].
  • Wildes Licht: Poems / Gedichte aus Aotearoa Neuseeland, englisch-deutsch. Ed. & trans. Dieter Riemenschneider (Christchurch & Kronberg im Taunus: Tranzlit, 2010): 73.
    Ortsverhalte ii: CBD

    Auckland nach dem Regen

    BELEGT
    das “City of Sails” Motel.
    's ist schwer zu sagen wie     merkwürdig das ist:
    dunkle Schleuderspurenstraßen; tagelanges
    Grau …
    Wer verdammt ist da?

    Zwei Verrückte
    stehen am Straßenrand
    (blauer Parka, beiger Anorak)
    warten auf nichts
    – warten nur.
    An einem Verkehrskreisel.

    ’s ist zehn am Abend.


    Die regenglatten Straßen sind kühl.


    •


    Jack Ross (*1962) aus Auckland erwarb seinen PhD (Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft) in Edinburgh und lehrt seit 1991 an der Massey University (Albany Campus). Seinem ersten Lyrikband, City of Strange Brunettes (1998), folgten weitere Sammlungen sowie Prosabände. Er edierte Anthologien, darunter (gemeinsam mit Jan Kemp) Classic, Contemporary und New New Zealand Poets in Performance (2006-2008). Siehe auch http://aonzpsa.blogspot.com/; 2008 erschein EMO, der letzte Band einer Romantrilogie.
    Situations i: Albany; Situations ii: CBD, Jack Ross, Chantal's Book, Wellington: HeadworX, 2002 [167]



•




Ground Zero:    The line between
                man and machine
                should never be erased …
Look at your faces, children of
the glass arcade – leaf-brittle.
    Chantal’s eyes look past
me, pupils to one side.
    Two friends stride by,
waving, laughing; I’ve never seen them
look so happy.
                We trade more remarks:
life – jobs – art.
        Her skin is chapped
in patches, underneath pale eyes.
I want to kiss them.

We talk for an hour.


(31/7/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 21.



•

Situations iii: Tauranga





Futility is a kind of dislocation
too, whatever Bill
may say – cover yourself
with ordure, vomit in
the gutter, fail to
come on time.
              That last time,
sweating, I scarcely
saw in a hollow-cheek’d child
– Sleepyhead mattress torque –
myself, self-satisfied with
Speights.
        Look forward to
    a morning of revelations:
lightning blasting buzzards from the sky.


(29/3/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 22.



•





Stress	Relax
like the JANSPORT blue backpack
strapped over your shoulders
your black pull
grey trousers
ponytail

Don’t frown
Sun’s out, tickets
in hand. We talked till four
the other night –
voyeur:

You carry
a green fabric dinosaur


(11/9/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 23.



•




Who cares what happens when they’re dead?
It’s bad enough now.
                        Or good. Who knows?
                        Swimming at Opito,
                        arguing
Emmanuelle Béart
                        with an old friend:
La Belle Noiseuse …

Refusing to hear
                        the story of the ghost
again
                        at the Brian Boru in Thames –
the carriage trade
                        a monstrous cat.


(2/9/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • The Journal of Australian-Canadian Studies 18 (2001): 189-94.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 24.



•




The title Situations is cribbed from Jean-Paul Sartre. I was 
trying to apply the idea of getting a fix on a particular time 
or place by putting different (contradictory?) impressions in 
italic and roman script, roughly corresponding with negatives 
and positives.
   The other settings are Albany University, The Tauranga Poetry 
Festival, and the Auckland CBD. The allusions in the last are to 
Max Ernst’s Europa nach dem Regen [Europe After the Rains], that 
strange, melting, apocalyptic landscape from the mid-forties; as 
well (of course) as our first meeting in that Lorne Street café, 
Alba.
   The Coromandel poem is here mainly because of its reference to 
La Belle Noiseuse, a four-hour film starring Emmanuelle Béart, 
which I didn’t then realise was based on Balzac’s Chef-d’Oeuvre 
Inconnu, so minutely – somewhat inconclusively? – analysed in 
that Christmas present you gave me, Dore Ashton’s Fable of 
Modern Art …


(12/98)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 25.



•





I imagined him (Chantal’s friend)
politely asking:
“What do you write about?”

Chantal.
Of course.
But I can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t …

“No wonder you can’t write women,”
Annora says:
reified – deified … beatified?

No wonder I can’t describe you.
You were kind 
to me today. Not very kind. Just nice.

Do I embarrass you?
This yule be cool.
“I want this year to end.”


(11/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 26.



•




“It’s not the despair that gets me, Sharon, it’s the hope,” gasps 
John Cleese, as he staggers along a wooded country lane in a monk’s 
robe, halfway through the movie Clockwise.
   I realise that what lends this compilation its fatal lack of a 
consistent tone is, similarly, hope – the fact that I can’t despair 
of finally showing it to you some day.
   And, on that day, what would I like it to say, to be? Caring, 
passionate, well-informed … the list of clichés rolls on, each 
suggesting a dark alternative: rabid, obsessive, cluttered, gloomy …
   I want it to say your name.


(12/98)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 27.



•




Expect nothing
    and you won’t be
disappointed

Nothing changes
    in sidereal time
except the concrete

grows
    Exploding into
theatres

why can’t it not
    be Saturday?
No lonely like tonight


(11/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • JAAM 14 (2000): 48-52.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 28.



•




David Howard tells me that what I’ve been doing in pursuing this 
relationship is trying to make love (in the old sense, you understand) 
to myself – devising a romantic image in order to fall in love with it 
… Perhaps even simply in order to write about it.
   Certainly, leafing through these poems, I wonder if he’s right. 
They’re all about me – my feelings, hopes, despairs – not in the least 
about you.
   It’s not that you’re entirely absent – just that you’re not really 
allowed to speak, express a concrete point of view.
   Did I start pursuing you because I knew it was safe? Because you 
constituted no threat to my way of life? It must have been clear to me 
from the beginning (the way these things always are clear) that you 
would never feel about me the way I felt I felt about you.


(12/98)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 29.



•




We haven’t said a word
the other heard,
    except for silence.

Sitting with Chantal in her underwear
should choke despair
    until that dialogue

begins.
    Perhaps this afternoon,
    tomorrow – sometime soon.


(11/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • JAAM 14 (2000): 48-52.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 30.



•




If, like me, you have that puritanical sense that pleasures have 
to be bought and paid for, you find yourself doing disagreeable 
things in order somehow to tip the balance onto your side of the 
scales:
   I have a terror of needles and hate the sight of blood, so go 
regularly to the donation centre …


I like company – I live alone.

I like sex – I sleep alone.

I like going out – I’m staying in.

I’m lazy – I work too hard.

I loved my wife – she’s a stranger now.

Is that enough? – I’m not in the mood.


(12/98)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 31.



•




The more we talk,
    the less
it happened

places, people,
    kisses
You’re leaving

Thursday
    Wanganui,
Melbourne, Kawhia

I’m staying here


(22/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 32.



•




Did I say
    I loved you?
No – that I was

in love with you
    (subtle distinction)
But, you tell me

we should just be friends
    Is “keen on you”
more apposite, then

(denoting non-reciprocation)?
    Obsessional? Psycho
about you?

Fantasising
    madly … slave
to your least whim


(23/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 33.
  • JAAM 21: “Greatest Hits.” Ed. Michael O’Leary & Mark Pirie. ISBN 1-86942-038-1. Wellington: JAAM Publishing Collective & HeadworX / Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 2004: 168-70.



•




                 Treat every day
                  as if it were
                    your last

Spent loafing, cursing,        But what does that
    darting bare–                 mean?
foot from                      Rumours

patch to patch                 and yourself?
    of shade                       The same old
on Woodend beach;              clack? Shut up!

writing this drivel,           Ships on fire
    making notes                   off the shoulder of
for more on                    Orion?

                cocktail napkins;
            taking a bloody big gulp
                    of wine

               smack on the cheek


(28/12/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 34.
  • The Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Compiled and edited by Jan Kemp and Jack Ross. Special Collections Dept, Auckland University Library, October 31, 2004.



•




As if one were on the verge
    of something extra-
ordinary – blue

highlights? Not precisely;
    more a sense
of always inhabiting

night. Not a panther, nor a faun
    (The wanton Troopers riding by
Have shot my Faun and it will

dye) exactly, either:
    the perfect punk?
Still, unquestionably, one-

self. But that’s the attraction
    (allegedly), despite all
obstacles: sandbags,

duff magicians?
    Thank you, Tasha,
anyway.


(6/1/99)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 35.



•




i


Water-marbling
… glassie, cool, translucent
wave … amber
sealed around
a sound


ii


Insight in
a booklined room
talk on the phone
back to the street
the light reveals you


iii
                The music of the rain
                        from underneath the duvet

                        “Why can’t she put
                her feet over her head?”
                                        says
                                            Heather


(7/1/99 / 12/10/98-16/1/99 / 4/7-14/10/98)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Spin 34 (1999): 51.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 36.



•




I’m only human
out of longing
    for you

What would I be
if you loved me?
    god … or pig?

Long longing
leaning forward
    at Shinchoku

– tender treats –
to give me a chaste hug
    and one last kiss


(11/2/99)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 37.



•

The Consolations of Chantal





Hunc enim vitae immobilis praesentarium statum infinitus 
ille temporalium rerum motus imitatur



The doors are open	
    but the lights are off	
Chantal hasn’t arrived	
    Street-corner man		
Hombre de la esquina rosada	
    prop up that wall	
in your well-worn jacket
    unanomalous

•

For the perpetual motion of time
                                        imitates
    the infinite state of eternal life

– Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (c.480-524)


(13/7/98)

Publications:
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1998).
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs, by Bananarama, Amanda Marshall, Kylie Minogue & Jack Ross (Christchurch, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 38-39.



•




cumque eum effingere atque aequare non possit, ex immobilitate 
deficit in motum, ex simplicitate praesentiae decrescit in 
infinitam futuri ac praeteriti quantitatem



Walk back to seven years ago	
the patter of the rain	
dissolves in puddles	
no more truth tonight

A liner on the thrust of the horizon		
I was thin, I think
the streetlights hummed in tune
the streetlights hum

Talk quietly to me
how could I know you then?
don’t turn the computer
off

•

since, however, it cannot feign
                        or equal it,	
it declines from immobility into motion,
    from the simplicity of presentness
    into an infinite quantity
                            of future and past


(16/10/98)

Publications:
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1998).
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs, by Bananarama, Amanda Marshall, Kylie Minogue & Jack Ross (Christchurch, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 40-41.



•




et, cum totam pariter vitae suae plenitudinem nequeat possidere, 
hoc ipso, quod aliquo modo numquam esse desinit, illud, quod 
implere atque exprimere non potest




As you watch the dust clear,
Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones
come striding from it
con el pueblo [with the people]
los de abajo [from the world below]
and you think, “She looks like Chantal”
narrow, almond eyes, enamelled
cheekbones:
eucatastrophe


•


and
– because it cannot possess at once
the whole round of its life –
by never ceasing to exist in some manner,
that which it cannot fulfil
or express,
it seems to imitate to an extent


(17/9/98)

Publications:
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1998).
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs, by Bananarama, Amanda Marshall, Kylie Minogue & Jack Ross (Christchurch, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 42-43.



•




aliquatenus videtur aemulari alligans se ad qualemcumque 
praesentiam huius exigui voluscrisque momenti




That tale you told
of marking the bounds
up north
a feral child

Then, caged in Auckland,
waiting till night
to roam
through darkest Newton

Marianne, too,
in the Forêt des Soignes
no thought of distance
then


•

binding itself to the experience
        (such as it is)
       of this tenuous
        and fleeting moment


(15/10/98)

Publications:
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1998).
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs, by Bananarama, Amanda Marshall, Kylie Minogue & Jack Ross (Christchurch, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 44-45.



•




quae, quoniam manentis illius praesentiae quandam gestat imaginem, 
quibuscumque contigerit, id praestat, ut esse videantur



Aztec princess
    svelte, dark
bright under white
      Popocatépetl	
      Chimborazo
      Aconcagua
  
I want to sketch you

Am I so self-centred?

You reached over once
      to kiss me
it burned all the way home

•

which, since it carries an image of that abiding presence,
    gives this benefit to everyone who possesses it,
                                                    that they seem
                                                          to exist	

De Consolatione Philosophiae 5, Prose 6





feign
       equal
              fulfil
                     express
              tenuous

fleeting


(15/10/98)

Publications:
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1998).
  • The Consolations of Chantal / Torch Songs, by Bananarama, Amanda Marshall, Kylie Minogue & Jack Ross (Christchurch, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 46-47.



•




He loves her most                                He loves her most
    when she’s                                when she’s
        most there                        not there

        pressed up                        late night
            against him                alone
                under gossamer      lights of the city

                tipped in           or breath
            from a                     upon
        medieval window                    his arm

        He loves her most                  He loves her most
    when she’s                                 when she’s
not there                                         most there


(20/2-25/3/99)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • When the Sea Goes Mad at Night. Ed. Theresia Liemlienio Marshall (Auckland: Christian Gray New Zealand, 1999): 100.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 48.



•




Your face splits off
                        the grain

The spire of St John’s
                        Ponsonby

Here in the windy uplands
                        Western Park

Someone’s idling
                        their car

Chantal’s sleeping
                        in the etching


(13/3-9/4/99)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 49.



•




what the suicides abandon the living hug
    – Herman Melville



MARVEL    Is that the secret of the universe?
                 accomplish every task            NOT
THAT            without thinking about
                     what follows?                HE
SHOULD
            Chantal rises, rifles through her     WITH
AVIDITY        drawers – from Rajasthan –
                takes out her white dress,        SEIZE
THESE                   irons it,
                                                  RAGS
WHAT           turns on Morning Report,
              showers, cooks us breakfast,        THE
SUICIDES       drives Ed to the airport
                (kissing Jack goodbye:            ABANDON
THE
                     until tonight?)              LIVING
HUG


(21/3/99)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • JAAM 13 (2000): 95-96.
  • Creative Forum: A Quarterly Journal of Contemporary Writing 13 (1-2) (2001): 80-82.
  • Something Between Breaths: A Collection of Poetry from New Zealand. Edited by Patricia Prime. ISSN 0254-0193. Sell: Series in English Language and Literature, 54. New Delhi: Bahri Publications, 2000/1. 80-82.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 50.



•




Portage, mate
    – beach conversation (28/3/99)



Starlight        Communicate this moment:
asked            When Clouds Collide!
Non-                 blue steps a mask for space,
Entity           the seagull swoops.

“Master,         Chantal’s reading
do               Ursula Le Guin:
you	                 “what will the mind do,
exist?”          each morning, waking?”

He               Adam and Eve
received         in Mahurangi. “It’s only
no                   up to here” – sardonic man
answer           beside the submerged road.

to               Communicate this moment:
his              hair filled with sand / pohutukawa
question,            tangle / boat coming round the
however.         bend / munching a golden delicious /

– Chuang-Tzu     naked in the surf.


(27/3-22/4/99)

Publications:
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • JAAM 13 (2000): 95-96.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 51.
  • The Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive. Compiled and edited by Jan Kemp and Jack Ross. Special Collections Dept, Auckland University Library, October 31, 2004.
  • New New Zealand Poets in Performance. Edited by Jack Ross. Poems Selected by Jack Ross and Jan Kemp. ISBN 978 1 86940 4093. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008. 47-51.



•

Phoenix

after Giordano Bruno,
De gli eroici furori (1585)



I


Tell Briar I got a hammer
    – Small boy at Murrays Bay (28/9/98)



Chi femmi ad altro amor la mente desta,
    Chi femmi ogn’altra diva e vile e vana,
    In cui beltade e la bontà sovrana
    Unicamente più si manifesta;
	
Quell’è ch’io viddi uscir de la foresta,
    Cacciatrice di me, la mia Diana,
    Tra belle ninfe su l’aura Campana,
    Per cui dissi ad Amor: – Mi rendo a questa. –

Ed egli a me: – O fortunato amante!
    O dal tuo fato gradito consorte!
    Chè colei sola, che, fra tante e tante,

Quai ha nel grembo la vita e la morte,
    Più adorna il mondo con le grazie sante,
    Ottenesti per studio e per sorte;

Ne l’amorosa corte
    Sì altamente felice cattivo,
    Che non invidii a sciolto altr’uomo, o divo.
 

•

Chi femmi ad altro amor la mente desta
Key femme        It’s true the mind closes
ad altro amor la mente desta
adulterer        other beauties half-baked somehow
amor la mente desta
hammer           in a sea-bound bach at Easter
la mente desta
lamented         crossing the dunes with a shovel

She whom I saw trip down the stairs
    of the Gallery, dark-skirted Chantal:
    “I know I don’t look old enough
    to have a grown-up daughter.”

(But it wasn’t for ages yet,
    and I don’t talk to myself
    … or not all that much – or that often),

yet Love undoubtedly
    would have replied:
    “life and death lie in that lap.”

In a third-floor flat
    captive, watching her sleep
    envying neither god nor man.


(28/4/99)

Publications:
  • Phoenix – after Giordano Bruno, De gli eroici furori (1585). (Auckland, Perdrix Press, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Nights with Giordano Bruno. R.E.M. Trilogy 1. ISBN 0-9582225-0-9 (Wellington: Bumper Books, 2000): 74.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 52-53.



•




… life is not in our hands. You are lived / by
    – Kendrick Smithyman, “Idyll” (17/5/71)



Unico augel del sol, vaga Fenice,
    Ch’appareggi col mondo gli anni tui,
    Quai colmi ne l’Arabia felice,
    Tu sei chi fuste, io son quel che non fui.

Io per caldo d’amor muoio infelice;
    Ma te ravviva il sol co’ raggi sui.
    Tu bruggi ’n un, ed io in ogni loco;
    Io da Cupido, hai tu da Febo il foco.

Hai termini prefissi
    Di lunga vita, e io ho breve fine,
    Che pronto s’offre per mille ruine;

Nè so quei che vivrò, nè quel che vissi:
    Me cieco fato adduce,
    Tu certo torni a riveder tua luce.


•

Unico augel del sol, vaga Fenice,
Unique, O angel soul, sole, solar phoenix,
Ch’appareggi col mondo gli anni tui,
who’ve paired your years to this ellipsing disc
Quai colmi ne l’Arabia felice,
– burn, are reborn to burn again in Felix
Arabia.
Tu sei chi fuste, io son quel che non fui.
    You orbit; I’m eclipsed.

You are what you were, I am …
    nothing that I was
    what I never was

love’s heat drives me, dries me – I die, unhappy
    the sun revives you with his healing rays
    you burn in one, I in every place
    Phoebus fires you, as Cupid’s fires scorch me

In railway terminals
    I track stiff fines
    to pimp for me through miles of ruins

I can’t see what I’ll see;
    Blind fate blinds me.
    You. You’re guided back by your own light.


(28/9/98-29/4/99)

Publications:
  • Phoenix – after Giordano Bruno, De gli eroici furori (1585). (Auckland, Perdrix Press, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Nights with Giordano Bruno. R.E.M. Trilogy 1. ISBN 0-9582225-0-9 (Wellington: Bumper Books, 2000): 142.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 54-55.



•




les sages et beaux paysages
font les ombres sages aussi
    – Jean-Jacques Goldman (85-86)



Questa fenice, ch’al bel sol s’accende,
    E a dramma a dramma consumando vassi,
    Mentre, di splendor cinta, ardendo stassi,
    Contrario fio al suo pianeta rende;

Perchè quel che da lei al ciel ascende,
    Tepido fumo ed atra nebbia fassi,
    Onde i raggi a’ nostri occhi occolti lassi
    E quello avvele, per cui arde e splende.

Tal il mio spirto (ch’il divin splendore
    Accende e illustra), mentre va spiegando
    Quel che tanto riluce nel pensiero,

Manda da l’alto suo concetto fore
    Rima, ch’il vago sol vad’oscurando,
    Mentre mi struggo e liquefaccio intiero.

Oimè! questo atro e nero
    Nuvol di foco infosca col suo stile
    Quel ch’aggrandir vorrebbe, e’l rende umile.
 

•

Questa fenice, ch’al bel sol s’accende,
Questing phoenix, who brave solar ascent
E a dramma a dramma consumando vassi,
from drama to drama consuming vastly
Mentre, di splendor cinta, ardendo stassi,
Men trade your splendour for ardent ecstasy
Contrario fio al suo pianeta rende;
Contrary flesh back to your planet send

“Perky” – perky nana. D’you remember
    that vile expression
    from a TV ad? (Nana’s French
    for “chick”). We’ve made ourselves

A kind of gutless language,
    dirtying everything
    it touches: Perky tits, arse, tush …

How can I say
    what you mean to me
    – Rima, spirit of the forest?

Your soul evades those nets,
    black, crusted fogs.
    You go out singing in the pouring rain.


(30/4/99)

Publications:
  • Phoenix – after Giordano Bruno, De gli eroici furori (1585). (Auckland, Perdrix Press, 1999).
  • Shonagh’s Book / Jack’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 84 pp.
  • Chantal’s Book (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999): 2 pp.
  • Nights with Giordano Bruno. R.E.M. Trilogy 1. ISBN 0-9582225-0-9 (Wellington: Bumper Books, 2000): 105 & 53.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 56-57.



•




The forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear
    – Andrew Marvell


I



ACTS
on an
articulated
truck
steel snarl

I wrote Chantal
I love you
but do I?
Alexander fights Persians
in the sky



II


Whatever you do
still sounds like you

Ship catalogues, excluded
middles, triple

columns – baked sun on
white buildings

Jie-Young and J. J. Lee,
Gab-Soon, Eun-Sook,

Ichiro, Faisal, me …


(15/6/99 / 30/6/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 58-59.



•




Feeding the mutant within
    – Fridge magnet



        Time out and no
mistake

There’s many ways to watch a wo-
man sleep – demented
and forgiving
              Singing
three notes at once (yo-
delling, really) while you
breathe it in: the music

        Can’t be bad for
some

I thought I’d had it
but there’s more to take
just no more ways to take
it: iron pills, ant-
oxidants
         the fact of want-
ing it’s a smile


(21/7/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 60.



•




•   She could almost get away
    with a black beret
	
•   She’s coming to a cinema
    near you
	
•   where she’ll drink merlot
	
•   One hand toys with the fur
    behind the car-seat
	
•   The other inches up
    your sober leg
	
•   MAINZEAL would welcome her
    for sale or lease
	
•   PROJEX would hire her out
	
•   Her destination’s somewhere
    south of Rio
	
•   She spells suspense, romance, & …
    cranberries


(4/8/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 61.



•




after Paul Éluard


She is on top of my eyelids
her hair is tangled in mine
the same shape as my hands
the same colour as my eyes
she’s swallowed by my shadow
like a stone against the sky

Her eyes are always open
there’s no way I can sleep
Her technicolor dreams
make the sun dry up
make me laugh, laugh and cry,
talk with nothing to say


(13-14/8/99)

Publications:
  • Happy Six Months Anniversary! (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
  • Three Surrealist Poems, for the Engagement of Lisa Bieleski & Kendall Clements (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1999).
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 62.

Notes:
  • The text of "L'Amoureuse", by Paul Éluard, from Mourir de ne pas mourir (1924), can be found in La poésie surréaliste: Édition revue et augmentée. Ed. Jean-Louis Bédouin. 1964 (Paris: Éditions Seghers, 1970): 164.



•

Lessons of the Genji

Around the South Island
at New Year


Vuelvo al Sur
como se vuelve siempre al amor
Vuelvo a vos
con mi deseo con mi temor …
Te quiero, Sur

– Astor Piazzolla




We are still talking in generalities when suddenly he is off, 
murmuring something about there being ‘too many maiden-flowers 
in the field.’ I remember thinking how like the hero of a 
romance he seemed.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki


_________________________________________________________________

                         Stilwell Bay

          blue sky, shading from chalky to cerulean

                                   banks of cumulus

                    far-off, the Marlborough ranges

                              gradations of green
                                   & blue

                                   grained golden
                                     silica sand

_________________________________________________________________

Much thinking as we walked along the Abel Tasman track – mostly 
about poetry (a girl stoops to stroke her boyfriend’s hair, green-
blue shorts moulding to her youthful finish – he, a burly, oafish 
character follows her blonde perfection up the beach).


(29/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 66.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).




•


Motueka Midday


Vertige des pays chauds
     – France Gall



A matter of the heart
between two brothers
                     drive through thistledown
in C’s Toyota     sudden
Sensurround

St Thomas     FOOD     A sausage
sizzle draws the tribes
     the Gathering     the
Gathering

A simulacrum here
of inner weather     talk
last night
     from two am
This morning     back to tension
Sit on a split-bark bench
     in the hot sun


(30/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 67.



•




It was a relief that no-one could actually recall how anyone else 
had looked on that occasion.
     – Diary of Lady Murasaki



… A helicopter soars effortlessly by (a snake of metal from his 
vantage-point). “Another 5 k up to the turn,” said the man with 
orange shades behind us. Someone blows iridescent bubbles up ahead. 
   “They’re clambering down the bank for their piss,” says Chantal. 
“I was going to go down there, but now everyone’s been there I 
think I won’t …” Birds sing on, unperturbed. Cyclists barely pause.
   A taxi-van trundles past. “A bus went over the bank, & the crane 
had to pull it out, but it’s done now, so you should be moving soon.” 
At least this long wait’s in the shade.
   Girl ahead, in shades, grey trousers, red top, cowboy hat, dips 
& blows her bubbles. “I’m going to need a new me, for the new 
millennium,” she confides, flipping through a magazine.
   “If I was a true radical, a bolshie, I’d hoist up my skirts 
& do it here.”
   “They’re expecting heavy rain,” says one more passer-by.

From here, it looks like a little parable of the 20th century – a long 
line of dusty cars going God knows where as dark begins to fall.


(30/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 68.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•


Canaan Downs


I can see Richard Killeen walking through here
with a bemused look on his face
     – Chantal



In the rain     everyone is equal
mustard-soaked hot dogs
in a sodden tent

     It doesn’t take that much
          to make a legend

     three plums make up
          a piece of fruit

     I just saw a one-legged man
          go by on crutches

Chew in your green-blue hood
young lady     chew

bite spit swallow bite spit swallow spew


(31/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 69.



•




On the last night of the year the ceremony of casting out devils 
was over very early; I was resting in my room, blackening my teeth 
and putting on a light powder, when Ben no Naishi came in ...
     – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Gibbon, vol. IV, p.188: “… the enthusiast who entered the dome of 
St. Sophia might be tempted to suppose that it was the residence, 
or even the workmanship of the Deity. Yet how dull is the artifice, 
how insignificant is the labour, if it be compared with the 
formation of the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface of 
the temple.” [writing interrupted by the returning rain]


Tomorrow? / Just be free / Ecstasy


at the mud-soaked tribal dance area.
   The countdown came a few minutes too late, by my reckoning. 
There was also a Māori chant and some singing, though somewhat 
half-hearted. They were still going at it when we turned & groped 
our way back to bed (the car radio had told us that Chch, too, 
was grey that night … ditto Auckland, which was charting the life 
of Christ in song).


(31/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 71.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•


Zone Five


The second-coolest place to be at New Year’s
    – Oprah Winfrey



Should we be like trees?
                        A goblin
prompts the question    slowing down
the dance to trance

Yellow red and blue on bracken
    thunder in the sky

Choose    I’d like to tell you
    that it’s easy
as the bells are struck
You know it’s hard

to tune in    when
    the answers
to the questions
    are absurd


(31/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 70.



•




How is it that a little incident like this suddenly comes back to 
one, whereas something that moved one deeply is forgotten with the 
passage of the years?
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



… Staring down at the lazy-looking kekeno fur seals stumbling 
over the rocks near Wall Island. Time to confess my terrible crime. 
It took a wee while to back out from the café parking area (with 
Chantal booming “plenty of room’). Mr Suave-o with the designer 
wife & nuclear kids was close behind me in a grey four-wheel drive, 
so I was anxious to escape. As I drove up to the narrow gap between 
the banks, another four-wheel drive came in sight. I stopped & 
tried to nose in out of the way, but there wasn’t much margin. 
He went past & I went on, but caught a glimpse of him in my rear-
view mirror yawing over into the ditch.
   I panicked & drove on, hoping to get away before having to:
1.  help them out;
2.  endure their recriminations;
3.  exchange addresses etc. for damages.
   Was it my fault? Perhaps – but not very culpably. I am bad, 
though, for running away. Maybe they took our licence number & 
will hunt us down …
   Now sitting on a hill overlooking the sea & rocks, whinging 
of birds below us.


(5/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 72.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




How soon the silver fades in the dust! How soon the black figure 
slips from the wrinkled sheet! How softly the sheet falls to the 
ground!
    – Wallace Stevens




Lying with hat on head
tipped over    staring up
through the brim at red
more prepositions
yellow inside red inside green-grey    reach out
from sweating Panama to touch
her shoulder    Chantal
hot in this new sun
supine not stable    seals cry down below
Lying    present participle    Seize
the moment
Why?    Is it momentous?
no    or glad?    sweet?    somewhat    yes
side-swiped a car three miles back
my fault    or his
one slip    or less
entanglement with business    Tartarus of day
An aphid passes
greetings green
comrade


(5/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 73.



•




‘And the duckweed upon the lake,’ came the words of the song. 
There was also a flute accompanying them which somehow 
intensified the coolness of the dawn breeze. The most 
insignificant thing can have its season.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



    Vuelvo al Sur                        Back to the South
como se vuelve siempre al amor        as one returns from love
    Vuelvo a vos                      from fear    feared loss
con mi deseo con mi temor                     desire

    Llevo el Sur                         Dream of the South
como un destino del corazón               heart’s destiny
    Soy del Sur                            where I belong
como los aires del bandoneón             like the accordion

    Sueño el Sur                         Back to the South
immensa luna cielo al revés            blank moon    backward
    Volto al Sur                       skies    green seasons
el tiempo abierto y su después           and their aftermath

    Quiero al Sur                        I love the South
su buena gente su dignidad            its gentle people their
    Siento el Sur                         dignity    your
como tu cuerpo en la intimidad              body’s poise

    Te quiero Sur                        I love you South
        Sur                                    South
    Te quiero                                I love you


– Astor Piazzolla


(5/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Best Wishes to Lisa & Kendall, on the Occasion of Their Wedding [pamphlet] (March 26, 2000).
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 74.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




It’s bigger on the inside than the outside
    – Doctor Who



Time for the crabs to come out

    And scuttle back and forth

Relative to the singing wires


Dimensions    foreshore sedge & tussock

    In a gnarled white tree-trunk

Space to share

    in shallow waters


(5/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 75.



•




I was about to send the fan back with the poem:

Chrysanthemum dew
I brush my sleeve just once
restoring the thousand years to you

But then they told me that Her Excellency had already returned 
to her apartments. There was no point, I told myself, so let 
the matter drop.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



PERSEVERENCE RD – outside Reefton. A message to me in that?
BRAZILS RD No Exit.
CHATTERTON RD No Exit – near Hanmer Springs.
    So familiar, all this.

Sandwiches at the Jay Walk café:
    BLT	    Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato
    BETR    Bacon, Egg & Tomato Relish
    BLAT    Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado & Tomato
    BLGT    Bacon, Lettuce, Gruyere & Tomato
    SCBLT   Smoked Chicken, Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato.


(7/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 76.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•





My darling, my beauty, I am not your aunt, but your willing slave!
    – Anton Chekhov




I’m very keen on nectarines
at the moment
they taste of Summer

Dragonflies obey
their nature
bowing to the stream

I munch an apple
going round and round
the edges

scoring down
the core
to pips

The road-signs seem to
speak to me
flashing me messages

↗ 45 go
CHATTERTON – No Exit
Perseverence Rd


(7/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 77.



•




… but I fear if I single out everything for comment, I will 
never finish.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Vignette:    Whirling cage, seen from afar in the half-light as we 
             entered the Gathering past that strange ghost army the 
             first night. It cost me ten dollars to go on it at about 
             quarter past eleven on New Year’s Eve. It was an 
             exquisitely unpleasant experience – being bashed against 
             the cage, with minimal padding. It left me dazed & dizzy 
             afterwards.

Vignette:    Two girls sitting in a white car, crying their eyes out, 
             expressions of total hopelessness, as we drove past them 
             on our way out of Canaan Downs. Had they broken down? 
             For the first time I felt really worried, not just tense 
             & anxious (the security people seemed nice but 
             overstretched – the nightmarish quagmire caused by 
             8,000 cars heading over the same piece of grass hadn’t 
             yet got home to them).


(1/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 78.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




comme un pharaon en amnésie
    – Jean-Jacques Goldman




day more	some day
there’ll be
no more	no some
blue speck		goings
creek the			creek all
artist					    over
former						over
ly known					   nothing
as rest						at all
stops on				car strewn
the Lew			with leaves
is pass			so long
some more	no more
there’ll be
some day	no day


(7/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 79.



•




The nobles had been amusing themselves painting small white pagodas 
on as many petals as they could …
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



In the Otago Museum. Rather a fine one, actually – excellent, 
if creepy, collection of Melanesian artefacts downstairs, 
along with Maori canoes, meres, etc. Upstairs now. Chantal 
goes slowly though the Egyptian stuff while I sit in a hall 
of amulets and clothes, having my hair packaged for remote 
posterity.

Very much liked a painting by Monet in the Art Gallery called 
“la Débâcle” (1880). A marshy winter landscape with red, cloudy 
sky (towards evening?)

_________________________________________________________________


        a calm                           usual
        peaceful                         insanely
        coldness.                        heavy
        absolutely                       &
        dead                             ornate
        still                            frame

_________________________________________________________________


(18/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 80.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




Can all men, together, avenge
One of the leaves that have fallen in autumn?
But the wise man avenges by building his city in snow
    – Wallace Stevens



on a camper-van                 cabbage moths
                                beside the road
headlights on
Midday	                        squaring the circle
                                Novalis said
no more than two or three
intelligible stanzas	        thunderheads mass
                                across the plain
ex-partner’s friend’s sister
works at Pegasus Bay            Welcome to Amberley
                                Take your time	
Is that truck overtaking?


(7/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • "from Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 17." Poetry NZ Website (July 8, 2001) [Available at: http://www.geocities.com/poetrynz/Sample22.html]
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 81.



•




I pulled back the sleeve that covered her face.
   ‘You remind me of a fairy-tale princess!’ I said.
   She looked up with a start.
   ‘You are dreadful!’ she said, propping herself up. “Waking 
people up like that so thoughtlessly!’
   I remember being struck by the attractive way her face 
suddenly flushed. Someone very beautiful can look even more 
beautiful on occasion.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Went for a swim in the icy cold waters of Okains Bay to cool down 
a bit after playing with C’s pussy through her bikini panties. 
Water straight from Antarctica, through the empty leagues of the 
South Pacific. Water turquoise-blue against the tawny lion-sand 
colour of the hills. I was very cold when I returned & Chantal 
proceeded to warm me up by playing with my cock with her hand 
while I pulled down my shirt to hide this activity from prying 
eyes. Luckily, the beach is vast & the cars and people were some 
distance off. I fingered her till she came, but was left tumescent 
when a red car pulled up in front of us. A boy got out and started 
dancing around in the sand with admirable unselfconsciousness.
   Heat-shimmer now between us and the hills. One would scarcely 
imagine the scene had ever been different: single sail, three 
lines or blocks or areas of green-blue sea, brown, turquoise, 
ultramarine, one fat man paddling, another sitting in white 
towelling hat to read, three gazing out to sea – Chantal’s 
head on my knees as she reads The Alexandria Quartet: 
“Alexandria, the capital of memory.”


(11/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 82-83.
  • HeadworX Publishers Website (November 29, 2002) [Available at: http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz/poetry/chantal_sample.php3].

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




Brief life is here our portion
Brief sorrow, short-lived care
The life that knows no parting
The endless life is there
    – Lyttelton cemetery



    Fire-dancing on a hillside
     tangled in the strings
      the laser strikes you

    Fog and rain surround you


(14/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 84.



•




Each one of us is quite different. Some are confident, open and 
forthcoming. Others are born pessimists, amused by nothing, the 
kind who search through old letters, carry out penances, intone 
sūtras without end, and clack their beads.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Signs on the road to Mt. Cook:

      MT          JACK        DEADHORSE
     COCK        STREAM        STREAM

Drawn in the moving car:

_________________________________________________________________

    Great rock bluffs        a series of foreheads 
                                     of massy rock

            mist bank
                            rocky tussock landscape
      elephant feet
      in the hills

_________________________________________________________________


So much sketching – so little writing: the science of the 
vignette. No thinking, that’s for sure.


(16/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 85.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




Mt. Cock
    – turnoff sign



no thinking here            too cold
warm in the car though
    Pukaki turquoise
    Arabia Petraea red

only the penitent man
shall pass
            A face
grows from the ground
black truck-treads score
       blank tar

A Christmas tree is left outside to spoil


(16/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Spin 37 (2000): 51.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 86.



•




His Excellency happened to see that Her Majesty had the Tale 
of Genji with her. Out came the usual comments …
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Jack, 
   I’ve seen your letter about Genji both at the Amazon and 
Suite101 sites. I’ve begun developing a documentary about the 
book and its influence. If you have any additional references 
or ideas about the book you’d like to send along, I’d like to 
hear them. 
                Thanks, Elliot Berlin

_________________________________________________________________



The first moment of jarring strangeness in Lady Murasaki’s 
great novel comes when her hero, the shining Genji, settles 
for the embraces of a young boy go-between, rather than his 
reluctant sister. From there, the novel goes on to explore 
ever more complex psychological dimensions of incest, the 
Don Juan complex, and married love. Each chapter is composed 
with the care and precision of a poem, and the author’s 
elusive/allusive prose conceals the Jane Austen-like 
precision with which she charts her two heroes’ foibles 
and self-delusions. Somewhere in between Seidensticker’s 
robust and spare translation and Arthur Waley’s Proustian 
expansion it may, perhaps, be possible for the English 
reader to grasp the lineaments of the original work. 
The greatest novel ever written? The first psychological 
novel in any language? The first anti-hero (Kaoru, Genji’s 
nephew) in world literature? Each of these statements 
could be defended, but perhaps it would be more to the 
point to say that the Genji should be as essential to 
the truly educated reader as Homer or Tolstoy …


[12th July, 1997]

_________________________________________________________________


(8/3/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 87.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




There were many more bones on Cormorant Island, but they were 
all fishbones
    – Arthur Ransome




Generally very cryptic
and active by night

VPL
visible planty line

Please keep to boardwalks
fragile area

Upside down world
Under brown water

Lancewood?
just a branch

You don’t see a lot of
epiphytes here

Or maybe you do


(20/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 88.



•




That was the night Lady Koma had her embarrassing experience.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Am I censoring myself? I get the impression this diary is a 
hostage to fortune. The official version, then:
   Sitting in a sylvan glade on the Lindis pass, where we’ve 
been for a swim in an icy-cold swimming hole, complete with 
fast-flowing waterslide. Both feeling very Homeric: Chantal 
at doing her washing like Nausicäa, me at bestriding the 
stream like the resourceful Odysseus (now up to tape 4 of 
the Penguin Classics Odyssey).

Driving down lake Dunstan, between Cromwell & Clyde, saw an 
immense construction on the hillside: monumental, Egyptian,

_________________________________________________________________

                    long terrace
                                         pipes
        massive frieze                for run-off
     with (half-effaced?) graffiti

_________________________________________________________________

which I presume must be the Goldfields Memorial.


(17/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 89.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




what on earth is the good of a lighted window?
    – T. E. Lawrence



The heavy skies of Southland
Waimakaha
Odysseus
    at whose expense you’re living
       whose wife you’re courting
                    whose son you are plotting to kill

Last night the moon’s corona
        circled stars
as fog crept up the stream


the chance of returning home
      has gone forever


(21/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 90.



•




A number of the preachers caused amusement because they kept on 
interrupting each other and getting tongue-tied.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Had a strange dream last night. I got back to Auckland to find 
the whole of Mairangi Bay in ruins – part of a redevelopment 
scheme. P. was in charge at the Uni, & laying down the law most 
tediously about an essay he’d written in England, republished 
here anonymously. The computers wouldn’t work because my 
brothers had stuffed them up.  Marianne was also in the dream 
somehow. She said she couldn’t stand me hanging out with U so 
much.

This is not a guide book. Rather it is a journey I want to share 
with you.  I invite you to see the Catlins through my eyes, but 
it might also happen that your own spark of creativity will kindle 
when you hear the ocean in counterpoint to the birds of shore 
and bush …
    – Lynley Millar, The Catlins Collection: Verse & Vistas 
    – A Personal Journey (Invercargill: Morepork Press, 1998) 2.


(24/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 91.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




Young ones everywhere
holding hands to show they care
    – Princesse Stéphanie




don’t want to make up images
combine expected words
Vuelvo al Sur
back to the south
Astor Piazzolla sings
at Latitude 45°

FLATMATES LIVES BARED
TO THE WORLD
beside an ironing board
that beech tree took
600 years to grow
the rock riddle is slow


(24/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 92.



•




The Minister of the Right, Akimitsu, became somewhat over-
enthusiastic about the koto playing and started to play pranks 
which ended up with his making a dreadful fool of himself. 
We all shuddered to watch.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Il me disait y’a qu’le look qui compte
Et moi bien sûr j’me suis pas rendue compte
Qu’il regardait par dessus mon épaule
Cette fille lui a fait le coup du sang chaud
Et moi j’avais pas la couleur de peau

Pour le Calypso
besame mucho
Vertige des pays chauds
Il disait let’s go
J’ai besoin d’autre chose
Calypso
Il rêvait tout haut
Danser là-bas bientôt
Le Calypso, tico tico tico Calypso

A chacun ses héros
Lui Dario Moreno
Moi Police ou Toto
Moi Elton ou Bowie
Et lui Luis Mariano …


He told me, all that counts is the look.
Of course, I didn’t know at the time 
that he was looking over my shoulder; 
eyeing that other girl – the one who made him hot.  
Me, I didn’t have the right skin colour … 
   For Calypso … 
kiss me madly, 
hot country vertigo. 
He said, “let’s go,” 
I need a change right now.  
Calypso.  
His dreams were bold: 
dancing there, soon: 
the Calypso … 
   We all have our heroes: 
him Dario Moreno, 
me Police or Toto; 
me Elton or Bowie, 
him Luis Mariano.


    – Michel Berger / France Gall


(24/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 93.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




I feel that now … my love for her is purer and loftier than it was 
in the past; and that is why I want to go up to her, to stamp hard 
on her toe with my heel, to hurt her and smile as I do it
    – Anton Chekhov




That branch that caught my arm
like a hand
above Lake Wakatipu
did that mean
Track washed out
ahead    Turn back unfinished
business    Drop-off zone
above the Kawarau?

It’s not as high
as I thought it’d be

 
  A moment’s pause            I’ll let you go
   then over backwards       off the side of the cliff
 down the precipice            Mother to Child


(25/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 94.



•




‘If there were no small pines in the fields,’ he murmured to himself. 
Such a fitting reference, I felt; far better than any new poem of 
mine could have been. I was most impressed.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Leicester has found a strange orchid, which he wishes to collect. 
Time for an orange-break.

_________________________________________________________________



Sunlight gleams

the leafy spot
we passed on the track

foaming, tannin-brown stream

miraculously green rock


_________________________________________________________________

“The weather’s not doing what it should be – I don’t have it 
properly trained” – Leicester Kyle in the Fisherman’s Rest, 
Granity.


(3/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 95.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




Tom’s words laid bare the hearts of trees
    – J. R. R. Tolkien



Bush-lawyer    glow-worms
in the garden    butcher’s
shop ground to stone
slabs    Dracophyllum
Mountain Neinei    Dr
Seuss Trees    the yellow
orchid    like
Aladdin’s cave    a pothole
in the moors    with water
flowing by    the Christmas
bush    so long
as no-one mentions
anything to do
with Christmas 
green    like that stone
you picked up last
time from the Gentle
Annie


(26/1/2000)

Publications:



•




Poems were composed and we all prepared ourselves, reciting one 
just in case the cup should come round to the women … but in the 
end, perhaps because they were so busy and it was getting late, 
they retired before picking out any of us.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



The Fishing Frenzy


It begins with one dark-haired boy with a new fishing-rod, 
his older sister, and their father. The hook drops, & the 
fish gather.
   “Are there any big fish there?” asks a little red-headed 
boy with a grating voice. “There’s a big salmon,” replies 
the father.
   “I’ve never seen a salmon – do you have a spare hook?” 
asks the boy again. Silence. Much dropping in of bait, fish, 
scraps. Red-headed boy: “Where’d you get those mussels?” 
Father: “Ulva Island.”
   “Sam, have you got a line?” the r-h boy asks of an older 
brother. No answer.  Soon after he reappears with a line, but 
still no hook. By now, older, more capable-looking boys are 
gathering, with lines on wooden reels. The r-h boy now begins 
vainly requesting bait and hooks of a certain James, who remains 
discreetly invisible. 
   “Look over here!” cries a boy further up the wharf. “Don’t 
push me back, Sam,” whines the r-h boy at Sam. ‘This is my fishing 
spot,” ripostes the latter. One or two tiny spotties are caught, 
but the whole scene dissolves when the Foveaux Express’s engines 
start up. The r-h boy is last heard making vain enquiries of his 
green-clad, canvas-belted father. ‘What was it, Dad?” his hands 
spread wide apart in mute enquiry.
   “Die,” says Sam.


(23/1/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 97-98.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




… all the lousy little poets
coming around
trying to sound like Charlie Manson
    – Leonard Cohen



Hills flat as our photograph

Skies green as noon

Are ambulances needed?

– Hanmer Springs –

Police patrol their detour
        with a smile


(31/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 99.



•





She is a fruit that no one has yet tasted –
Who then can smack his lips and talk of tartness?

‘I am shocked,’ I replied.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



Garrulous girl at the table opposite in the Coffee House: “Guys 
are cruel to ugly girls … You know how girls tend to do better 
than guys, generally.” Is she a doctor? Some of her conversation 
implies as much.
   “I want to go home – I don’t have a home,” sounds from the 
kitchen.


            AUDI    VIDE    TACE

Inscription on the Freemasons’ Hall in Lyttelton

            HEAR    SEE    SHH!


(30/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 100.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




The lady Celalta had whispered a thought
to her lover and master … “To the stars?”
    – Cordwainer Smith



  More trees than buildings

  more buildings than cars

     oases of activity


Sign o’ the Bellbird
                        in the Port Hills

three weeks ago
                        the fog gave me a warning

𖨆 man with red stop sign
                                on the wing


(4/2/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 101.



•




… hanging curtains were all that separated us. His Excellency 
was amused.
   ‘What happens when you entertain someone the other one does 
not know?’ he said. A tasteless remark. In any case, we are both 
very close to each other, so there would be no problem.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



[Thursday, 30th December – 12.35 p.m.]

“Watching the people .. you mean, being a voyeur?” (Chantal) 


[Wednesday, 26th January – 3.35 p.m.]


I know
on a telegraph pole
in Westland



[Thursday, 27th January – 9.10 p.m.]

At Punakaiki. “A threshy sea,” says Chantal. Indeed. Orange 
light through the clouds. Mist steams off the road after rain.


(30/12/99-26-27/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 102.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




While living
be a dead man
    – Bunan




Stonehenge on Barrington

Coronation Street

WELCOME HOME
BLAIR
in red on green


(4/2/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 103.



•




… people who have become so precious that they go out of their 
way to try and be sensitive in the most unpromising situations, 
trying to capture every moment of interest, however slight, are 
bound to look ridiculous and superficial.
    – Diary of Lady Murasaki



In the Glendhu Camp Toilets:

 
    Sam Harpur                  For sex 	[area code a
        4                  PH: 03 217 8445 	nice touch]
    Pumpin’ Pubes               ask for
                                Stoody
    Richard 2000        
    For sex                    DC – 2000
    ____
    2000                    some people come
    Drunk        


JACK? 20'
BRAD
JANES-
sux!!!



It’s beautiful here. The hills were like velvet last night, as C 
remarked – egg tempera, by Grahame Sydney. Today, animal pelt 
with muscles.


(25/1/2000)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 104.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




There is no serenity so fair as that which is just established 
in a tearful eye
    – Henry Thoreau



Start naked    while all of the others
    are down on the dirt floor
but no-one gets too far
that way

Look up at heaven    blue blue ciel
    the ceiling    take another
breath	
    I used to know a
woman once

& cry    not for yourself    nor
    destiny    nor any two-bit
word but    those you’ve hurt
however many times


(11/2/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 105.



•




Why should I hesitate to say what I want to? Whatever others 
might say, I intend to immerse myself in reading sūtras for 
Amida Buddha.
– Diary of Lady Murasaki



In Ohakune. Woke up this morning & looked at Chantal (wrapped 
in her sleeping-bag – too sulky last night to speak to me) & 
realised that I didn’t care. It is, to all intents & purposes, 
over. I know I’ve written – & said – that before, but I really 
wonder if there’s any going back. I also wonder if she feels 
the same thing. Certainly it’s a useful discovery for the 
beginning of a stressful five-week Odyssey around the South 
Island.

“I wrote Chantal / I love you / but do I? / Alexander fights 
Persians / in the sky.” When she asks me, it is (or seems to 
be) so. Are these doubts real, or chimerical? I need to be 
cleansed – away from tension-knots in the stomach, fear of loss, 
of damage – fear of the other.


(27/12/99)

Publications:
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 106.

Notes:
  • Quotations from Murasaki Shikibu's diary come from The Diary of Lady Murasaki. Trans. Richard Bowring. 1982. Penguin Classics (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996).



•




He was between stories, and he felt despicable
    – Raymond Carver



Russell Crowe    the man of heart
in Mystery Alaska

            Ali off
a lumpish boy is sitting on a car
    inside the parking lot as
        raindrops cycle
            in the lake

Poetic    crossing out
the words    stamina
baby son    not all
the ones that
count

Scrape off
the graveyard
snow    turn in your
night-stick    dick
        above duty
        guard
the magic puck


(11/2/2000)

Publications:
  • “from Lessons of the Genji: Around the South Island at New Year.” [Featured Poet]: Poetry NZ 22 (2001): 11-26.
  • Chantal’s Book. ISBN 0-473-08744-8 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2002): 107.



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