Wednesday

Uncollected Poems (2000-2004)


Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture.
Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul (2006)


  1. from Tiger Country (2002)
    1. Poetry Weekend (28/3/98)
    2. Answers to Correspondence (11/3/99-10/3/01-26/10/01)
    3. On this day I complete my 36th year (6/11/98-21/3/2000)
    4. School (4/8/99)
    5. Late-Nite Movie at Wairau Park (10/1-19/9/98)
    6. Millennium Sermon (25/12/99-11/3/01)
    7. Signs & Portents (27/6, 29/3, 20/6, 13/7, 7/6 & 29/5-1/8/2000)
    8. Tron (6/4-17/5/01)
    9. Slave 4 U (15/11-9/12/01)
    10. Memories of Conan the Cimmerian (15/11-9/12/01)
    11. Corrugated Garage-doors in Gore St. (25/1-16/10/01)
    12. No-one gets on or off (12/2-18/5/01)
    13. Going In (9/11-9/12/01)
    14. Staying Out (9/11-9/12/01)
    15. Intoit (12/11-8/12/01)
    16. Subject: Urgent Assistance (7-9/9/02)
    17. E (27/4-17/5/01)
    18. Breast Cancer Doesn’t Just Affect Women (31/10-2/12/01)
    19. Last Night at the Party (29/6-19/10/01)
    20. Goodbye Love (10/1-22/3/01; 29/6/01; 9-11/9/01)
  2. A Photograph of the Poet (after Jorge Accamé) (4/2-13/2/2000)
  3. The Kitset Love Poem (8-20/3/2000)
  4. from Hybrid Art (2002):
    1. When Friendship Kills (1/8-26/8/2000)
    2. Disco Inferno (4/3/99-26/8/2000)
  5. SH1 near Taupiri (19/10/2000)
  6. vie littéraire (3/11/2000-29/3/01)
  7. Tanlaw (16/12-19/12/2000)
  8. from Messenger from Depth (2004):
    1. Anguttara Nikaya (for Olivia Macassey) (25/12/01)
    2. Invocation (27/12/01-19/4/02)
    3. Quiet Days in Cliché (for Olwyn Stewart) (24/11/01)
    4. Signs (15/1-25/5/02)
  9. South (2002):
    1. The Swimming-Pool Wedding (16-18/3/02)
    2. Twisted Pippie Café (17-18/3/02)
    3. South (17-19/3/02)
  10. The Inorganic Collection (1/5/02-1/3/04)
  11. Murder One (26/10-6/11/02)
  12. The Existential Dracula (12/1-9/3/03)
  13. Shock and Awe (24-26/3/03)
  14. Season of the remakes … (2-3/4/03)
  15. Towards Banks Peninsula (2003):
    1. The Summons (19/4-5/5/03)
    2. Searching for the Original (24/4-1/5/03)
  16. Hitler-Junge Quex (5-7/7/03)
  17. Death of a Computer (5-7/7/03)
  18. Where Will Massey Take You? (12-13/7/03)
  19. Bodily Rememberment (24/10-23/12/03)
  20. Six Days in Kuaotunu (12-26/12/03)
  21. Before Exodus – The Elders (after Karl Wolfskehl) (17-21/2/04)
  22. The All-Star Travelling Gameshow (4-14/3/04)
  23. Cinema of Unease (15/4-14/5/04)
  24. Reviewer (5-23/5/04)
  25. Speaking of … (24-26/5/04)




Jack Ross: Tiger Country (2002)


(2002)


the Buddha was a barbarian turd
– Zen master


  1. Tiger Country (21 & 28-29/3/02)
  2. Dumb (15/7/97-22/11/98-29/10/01)
  3. Civil War (30/1/01)
  4. Poetry Weekend (28/3/98)
  5. Answers to Correspondence (11/3/99-10/3/01-26/10/01)
  6. On this day I complete my 36th year (6/11/98-21/3/2000)
  7. School (4/8/99)
  8. Late-Nite Movie at Wairau Park (10/1-19/9/98)
  9. Millennium Sermon (25/12/99-11/3/01)
  10. Signs & Portents (27/6, 29/3, 20/6, 13/7, 7/6 & 29/5-1/8/2000)
  11. Tron (6/4-17/5/01)
  12. Slave 4 U (15/11-9/12/01)
  13. Disorder and Early Sorrow (26/6-22/10/01)
  14. Memories of Conan the Cimmerian (15/11-9/12/01)
  15. Corrugated Garage-doors in Gore St. (25/1-16/10/01)
  16. No-one gets on or off (12/2-18/5/01)
  17. Going In (9/11-9/12/01)
  18. Staying Out (9/11-9/12/01)
  19. Intoit (12/11-8/12/01)
  20. Subject: Urgent Assistance (7-9/9/02)
  21. E (27/4-17/5/01)
  22. Breast Cancer Doesn’t Just Affect Women (31/10-2/12/01)
  23. [your name here] (6-9/12/01)
  24. Last Night at the Party (29/6-19/10/01)
  25. Goodbye Love (10/1-22/3/01; 29/6/01; 9-11/9/01)


Publications:
  • Gothic NZ: The Darker Side of Kiwi Culture. Ed. Misha Kavka, Jennifer Lawn & Mary Paul. ISBN 978 1 877372 23 0 (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2006): 68-79.

Notes:
  • The title “Tiger Country” was suggested by the Joel Schumacher film Tigerland (2000), set in an American military training camp which is designed to be an exact copy – in terrain, climate, danger – of the Vietnam Colin Farrell and his buddies will soon be shipped off to. Madness and mayhem are (predictably) the result.
    Portions of the film’s dialogue survive in part two of the poem “Tiger Country.”
    When I first saw the film I’d just undergone a messy breakup, and was working at a Language School in central Auckland. As I walked every morning though the small park in Eden Crescent, at the top of Shortland Street, it seemed to me as if the city itself was standing in for something more real, as if the cracks in its façade were becoming ever more apparent.
    I was also trying, at the time, to write a story inspired by the Mesopotamian myth of Ishtar and her descent to the underworld. There are two principal versions of the myth, one Akkadian, featuring Ishtar, and an older Sumerian version, featuring Inanna. In the overlaps I felt I could see the shape of a poem, a poem I tried to compose in the voice of one of my characters, a tormented adolescent girl. When it was finished, I realised it was less about her, and more about my own situation.
    In general the poems seem designed less to paper over the cracks than to display them for our mortification.
    I wish I could feel they’d been contradicted by subsequent events.







I

Twenty-one essays marked,
rump steak, fish fillets, chickens
chopped

Leaving for Tauranga
the Holden shudders


II

Squeak of ball-points –
dummy in bow-tie, tails
bats plastic eyes

Coffee aroma reminds us
not to weaken


III

Blue singlet top
– illegible pink name-card –
smiles?


(28/3/98)

Publications:
  • Killing Time (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 1997): #.

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




– Gordon Stables, M.D., C.M., R.N.,
author of Slumboy to Quarter-deck, &c.


(11/3/99-10/3/01-26/10/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




PARK & RIDE                          Each car kicks up
                                     a cloud of dust
Albert Park Daisies                  How are you, Miriam?
                                     Sorry to hear it
Dust                                 or sun-induced
                                     hallucination?
Sign on a bus                        one tree I’ve never seen before
                                     the times I’ve walked this way
The Holy Man                         or Eddie Murphy
                                     BUT he missed the point
not loving someone else              but everything
                                     yourself included
girl in a black top                  bare midriff
                                     walks by talking
smile                                A wheelchair, jostled
                                     sideways
The dust spreads out in lines        from exposed gravel
                                     trekked in by a truck
daisies are white                    golden inside
                                     each petal looks designed
or manufactured                      too smooth
                                     to be quite real
car hits a wheelie bin               P5 it’s parking five
                                     beside the Student Union

                     clocks divide the hour


(6/11/98-21/3/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





Velcro – vinyl
camel-hair / wet hair
a tumbled salad of frost

fresh (mardi) grass
next weekend
like a retro

theme
your mouth moulds
“Sixties, seventies”

so succinctly
hold onto
that blue bottle

with both hands


(4/8/99)


•


Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Duck-circles
spider in a pond.
Sigourney Weaver.
“Guide-dogs
     are welcome here.”
Shoom vryemyeni: din of, touch of
time …
     Garden Magic, Farmer’s
     frame a view
of motorway – cars weaving by like
smoke: they’re out of here.

Turn off the video to venture out.
Hey, hey – it’s Saturday!
        The whole city
is here:  At Denny’s
grazing, wearing skin-tight jeans,
bare midriffs, gleaming heads …
So much the snob,
big knob?
          11.30?
As Arnie rapped out,
deadpan, “I’ll be back.”


(10/1-19/9/98)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Sounds of the city
outside
        traffic dopplers by
        Is this the moment
        of forgiveness?

Symbols are important
catch your breath
        the candles in
        the cornices
        exhale

Screech of brakes as
Hebrews sends to us
        this son of man
        a vision of your children
        as you wanted them


We long for the resurrection of the dead


(25/12/99-11/3/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




The bloody actor is less detestable than the cool, unfeeling historian
    – Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-88)


(27/6, 29/3, 20/6, 13/7, 7/6 & 29/5-1/8/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




We take bad animals and make them good
    – Barking Mad



that moment, in the evening, when birds
infest the trees
beside the library


a single leaf
surprising


light turns red
man yawning – skinhead
light turns green


glass-fronted stars
green   yellow   red


educate your interior man
procedures performed
as day-surgery


everything’s surprising
to a dumb-as


(6/4-17/5/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




(B. Spears)


     Early detection
is your best protection
something about the shoulders
     and the knees
	
     Medieval:     lacking
health until they bend
     Confucian:    love for family
and dog, my little dog
     Myung-Sook:   my duty as a wife
outweighs my duty as a mother

     Massaging
grinning     rictus
                    Thank you teacher
for your lesson
               blood
erotic bond


(15/11-9/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Death which would have skewered the barbarian like unto a worm …
if not for his steel-spring quickness!
    – Roy Thomas / Barry Smith, “Rogues in the House”


Across the dark lands, the dark republic
of dreams, coming for you, running, running

RAY WHITE REAL ESTATE

on eager feet, tamped dry-earth roads,
irresistible, sure-footed, in the dark

SKITTLES SONS

with death in hand, with weapons,
weapons at the ready, keen, blood-thirsty

HOLIDAY SHOPPE

He comes, he comes, Brüder

               the girl in the denim skirt
laughs at a fat man’s joke

                           as dawn arises, he is on the scent


(15/11-9/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•










(25/1-16/10/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




(after Neruda, “Fábula de la sirena y los borrachos”)


at that bus-stop – bus-stop
de las sirenas. Suits,
crisp jackets, hair soignée …
they don’t even trouble
to smile, just stand there: ser-
pent on the green.
                  Say one
did alight, what then? A
decade of perverse plea-
sures in a suburban
bed? clean-shaven, hot tub
ecstasy? chains, collar /
cellar, bones? or just a
slap?
     Someday, sirens, I
shall climb down to join you,
leaving my wallet, brief-
case, loosening tie – des-
cend into your Latin
heaven …
         Not today.


(12/2-18/5/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




I was coming and screaming, when he called in Mark
    – Hot Talk


Little geek is on the case
cars line up every morning
same time
    suddenly
        a queue
They don’t look angry
or sad    just flushed, preoccupied

Dinner parties    Oh so nice to see you
We must do this again
    We won’t
Not never

Stumping round the Real Estate
outlets on their morning ramble
women in tracksuits
    men in pressed white shorts
‘The Golden Years’    Let’s hear it
for the boy

life is what it seems


(9/11-9/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




For from my early reading of fairy tales and genii &c. &c.,
my mind had been habituated to the Vast ...
    – S. T. Coleridge


I don’t know how to write it
Geopoetry    This is life on the Shore
beach-blanket bingo
    White sand    Brown skin
sea    We are the shopping

My mind habituated to the Vast
van flashing his headlights    let me in
nurse walking to work
the ticket in the tangle
                         in my hands

Contending forces    Is the solution
action? I’m still
here
     herring-bone clouds
arch off        a bell resounds


(9/11-9/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Four of us: all ears
    – Bus conversation


Into it

Get older people to accompany you
but make them dress up too

    a tributary

ask them where to go
if you need help

        refreshed

make sure that masks
can be breathed through

            rapid

weapons are made of
soft material

        deposit

“treats” are checked
before eating them

    Christian can do six

always go in
covens, spooks or groups

too late?


(12/11-8/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




ATTN:
I am Edward Mulete JR. the son of Mr.
STEVE MBEKI MULETE from Zimbabwe. I am sorry this mail
Will surprise you, though we do not know, my mother Mrs. Clara 
Got your contact through her private search.

My father though black was the treasury
Of the farmers association and a strong member of an
Opposition party that did not support the president
Idea.

The will 
Documents has a certificate of deposit, confirming a deposit
Kept in custody for us in a security company unknown.
The total amount is US$21.5M.

I have tried to reach my father’s close friend also a farmer who was
Leaving in Zimbabwe with us but left with his family
Late last year following this ugly development to no
Avail.

We have resolved to give you 20%
Of the total sum upon confirmation of the fund in any
Account of your choice were the incident of taxation
Will not take much tool on the money and we look

Forward to coming over to your country to invest our
Share and settle there. I will a private
Phone so that our conversation can be
100% confidential.

Please do not use the reply button, reply only to 
*  *  * 	Please take note.
God bless you indeed as you help yourself and us.
Mr. EDWARD MULETE


(7-9/9/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•


E


practising your
golf swing look out
of the window
roses    grey
concrete    day
does your uni
form define you

elsewhere party
down perhaps or
in an orchard

I’d like to get
reflections in
a window out
of curtains plains
of cleavage lev
els but the sun
is going in


(27/4-17/5/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Eye counter eye    the fulcrum of two faces
on a poster
            rain-pocked screen ahead
or screen of trees    dark pine trees


Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom


Not that no pointing out the moral
archaising    like a stepladder

                            eye
                                    eye
                            nose    nose
                               mouth
                            chin

Father and child    both in denim
blue equals sincere
or else that ritual dance
Is there something on my heel?
curvet your body

Or greeting friend
knees crooked into the hollow
overbalance
            the balance
of their lives has been disturbed


(31/10-2/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • Lines 5-6 are quoted from Robert Frost’s “Into My Own” (1913). In Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays, ed. Richard Poirier & Mark Richardson (New York: Library of America, 1995): 15.



•




The voice that unsettles me today must be prophetic. 
I can be nothing but a writer
    – Mikhail Bulgakov (6 November, 1923)




Dionysos – the desire to be possessed

Constant, repetitive motion can (we know) put one into a trance, 
ready to be seized
by the voodoo gods: candomblé

A looseness takes the limbs
we shuffle backwards
Lord, these sweating bodies!            Elliott
open to the sky        outside the window / rain-dark
crescent moon            the rainy street
black at its centre – Patrick, Idy, Wolf,
the Russian girl
in red/ hoisted to shoulders.
Spin until you fall

MANU SAMOA
They’re back, right here, the Baron …
They’re here, right back
Baron Samedi, lord of the cemetery

Would you like to get a coffee? Maybe
it’s too late …

the bull-ring – the canaries – mutiny
music as tinnitus

Each of us is made in turn to strut: 
St Vitus’ Dance – a constant quiver

Are you all right? Want beer? Nah, water. 
My heart is weighed against a feather – ma’at
Let me inside your kingdom, children, let me die inside


(29/6-19/10/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




[based on the Akkadian / Sumerian “Ishtar / Inanna’s Descent to Hell”]



Ishtar
    daughter of Sin
    where are you going?

To the Land of no Return
    Ereshkigal’s country
to the house none leaves who enters it
the road where there is no way back
the room whose tenants have no light
where dust is drink and clay is food
where darkness has replaced the day
where rust eats into door and bolt
to sit like a bird
    with wings for clothes

•	


Are you a member
of the dying race? We all are
aren’t we
    unhealthy
not to see it through
    unlucky
not to keep your health
    unlikely
not to give a shit

Happiness needs no day-
pass    sorrow
        loves a friend
you and your grammar
Mr Tagata’s writing’s bad
at least he’s got his health
    (until that fails)
at least he’s got his breath


•	

She took the seven signs
    put on her sandals
donned the Shugurra
    the great crown
arranged the wig across her forehead
took the yardstick in her hands
hung lapis lazuli around her neck
clasped golden bracelets on both wrists
    masked her eyes with inky kohl
  cupped her breasts with oval gems
drew on the Pala
    robe of sovereignty

•	


Time for the cutting
    to start    he muttered
staring at the sky

One horn of plenty’s
    never enough    she chuckled
tugging at his dong

Later pizza-face
    said Sunny Jim
the loner    as he torched the school


•	

When Inanna reached the Land of no Return
the gatekeeper came to let her in
as he made her enter the first gate
    he stripped the crown from her head				Walkman
Why do you take the crown from my head?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead
as he made her enter the second gate
    he stripped the pendants from her ears			Dark glasses
Why do you take the pendants from my ears?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead
as he made her enter the third gate
    he stripped the chain from around her neck			Gold cross
Why do you take the chain from around my neck?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead
as he made her enter the fourth gate
    he stripped the ornaments from her breast			Tank-Top
Why do you take the ornaments from my breast?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead
as he made her enter the fifth gate
    he stripped the girdle from her hips		        Black Jeans
Why do you take the girdle from my hips?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead
as he made her enter the sixth gate
    he stripped the clasps from her hands and feet		Watch-strap
Why do you take the clasps from my hands and feet?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead
as he made her enter the seventh gate
    he stripped the loincloth from her body			G-string
Why do you take the loincloth from my body?
These are the orders of the Queen of the Dead

•	

Naked Inanna dropped to her knees
as Ereshkigal mounted the throne
the Seven Judges discussed her case
they turned their eyes towards her
    eyes of death
they passed sentence
    on the accused


Release against Ishtar
    the sixty miseries
misery of the eyes against her eyes
misery of the sides against her sides
misery of the heart against her heart
misery of the feet against her feet
misery of the head against her head
against her whole body
    every part of her


They all cried out
She is accursed!
Inanna immediately slumped
    down dead
her body was hung
on a spike

      Since Ishtar went to hell
     the bull won’t mount the cow
    the ass won’t service the jenny
    the man won’t love the virgin
     the man lies in his own room
       the virgin on her side

•	


new blades of grass appear
    I’m not the grass
    I can’t come when she calls

tides ebb and flow for her
    I’m not the water
    I can’t swallow these tears

winds play around the house
    the shepherd winds
    I can’t knock at her door

strangers sleep in our bed
 


(10/1-22/3/01; 29/6/01; 9-11/9/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The “Ishtar” and “Inanna” passages here are adapted (respectively) from N. K. Sandars, trans., Poems of Heaven and Hell from Ancient Mesopotamia (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971) & James B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971).



•





Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) 

Jorge Accamé:
Fotografía de poeta


Es una mujer joven en la foto,
detrás de Pessoa.
Camina apurada sobre los adoquines,
vuelve la cabeza.
Me pregunto qué habrá sido de ella.
Seguramente iba a la feria a comprar
un poco de pescado, ignorando
que la retrataron junto a él.

Habrá muerto, o tal vez no.
Tendrá nietos, jamás se habrá interesado en poesía
y no sospechará que la he descubierto.
Creo que Pessoa no la vio nunca / tampoco
parece conocida de la señora mayor que surge
al costado izquierdo del poeta,

ni del hombre pensativo de más atrás.


¿Dónde fue la hermosa joven
esa mañana?
Acaso un automóvil la esperaba en una esquina
para atropellarla.


Sólo sé que es conmovedora
esa imagen inútil capturada hace casi sesenta años,
un organismo vivo perdido en alguna ciudad
de Portugal, inconsciente de su propia presencia.

Ni siquiera tendría un buen motivo para estar allí.




There’s a girl
behind Pessoa.  Hurrying over
the paving stones, she
turns her head.  I wonder

what happened?  No doubt
she was off to market
for a few bits of fish, not knowing
she’d be snapped.  She’ll be dead

now.  Maybe not.  She’ll have
grandchildren, never have cared about poetry
and won’t suspect she’s been found
out.  I doubt Pessoa saw her

coming, no friend to the looming
woman on the poet’s left –
and as for the thoughtful man
further back….

Where did the girl end up
that morning?  Perhaps a car
idling around the corner
knocked her

down.  It worries me, this
image from sixty years ago,
a tricked-out self
in a Portuguese town.  What’s the good

of being here?


– translated with David Howard


(4/2-13/2/2000)

Publications:
  • Spin 36 (2000): 6-7.
  • David Howard & Fiona Pardington. How To Occupy Our Selves (Wellington: HeadworX, 2003): 39.
  • David Howard. The Incomplete Poems (Governor's Bay, Lyttelton: Cold Hub Press, 2011): 106.
  • Fernando Pessoa (2000). Papyri (5/10/18).



•




Comparing the beloved to a vole

Occluded landscape reference

The wooded hills of Mahurangi

tier on tear on tear

three yachts heel over

slim girl in two-piece (blue)

beer-gutted pals stroll down the beach


(8-20/3/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•

from Hybrid Art

(2002)






Find them
Kill them
Now
    who took
the water
    from our children

& if anyone should
    ask I’m sitting
        in a room the
        lights outside
    deflected onto
Hardy’s poems

waiting for the rain


(1/8-26/8/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




A good heart these days
is hard to find
    – Feargal Sharkey
    


Us nice guys
suck at finishing last
Gonna open a can a whup-ass
on yo’ ass – pre-scribe a world
a hurt!

Seagulls
skim low to scavenge
scraps    How can it feel
so good to stroke
your skin?

She dreams
of sleeping with a
friend    (his wife went mad
the day after the
wedding

but he stuck
by her) … Q.E.D:
Okay, now, to fall
for a nice
guy


(4/3/99-26/8/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Who put those
flowers there?
            your mum?
The plastic prayer-wheel
rattling round & round?

The oldest have
        borne most,
        we that are young
shall never see the
        wooden cross-
            beam fall


(19/10/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





laborious labyrinthine paranoia
when you suspect someone you’ve never met
– p. f. porlock –
of vetoing your part
in an enterprise meaning
nothing to you
(suggested by a friend)


(3/11/2000-29/3/01)

Publications:
  • Poetry NZ 40 (2010): 76-81.

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Morning jogger taps his nose
the scaffolding appears
                        bust
mirror                  stolen
window wipers           jemmied
lock                    mechanics
of disintegration

Now in Putaruru
                the road is open
greenhammer flickers by
                the trucks are gone
cars pass like feral dogs
                nipping the herd


(16/12-19/12/2000)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•

Matt Kelly: Hong Kong (2004)

MESSENGER
from
DEPTH

Misadventures in Asia

(2004)


There was once a simple but good-looking Chandāla maiden, and she formed in her heart the determination to win for her bridegroom a universal monarch.
Once on a time she saw the supreme sovereign go out to make a progress round his city, and she proceeded to follow him, with the intention of making him her husband. At that moment a hermit came that way, and the king, though mounted on an elephant, bowed at his feet, and returned to his own palace.
When she saw that, she thought that the hermit was a greater man even than the king, and abandoning him, she proceeded to follow the hermit. The hermit, as he was going along, beheld in front of him an empty temple of Šiva, and kneeling on the ground, he worshipped Šiva, and then departed.
Then the Chandāla maiden thought that Šiva was greater even than the hermit, and she left the hermit and attached herself to the god, with the intention of marrying him. Immediately a dog entered, and going up on to the pedestal of the idol, lifted up his leg, and behaved after the manner of the dog tribe.
Then the Chandāla maiden thought that the dog was superior even to Šiva, and leaving the god, followed the departing dog, desiring to marry him. And the dog entered the house of a Chandāla, and out of affection rolled at the feet of a young Chandāla whom it knew.
When she saw that, she concluded that the young Chandāla was superior to the dog, and satisfied with her own caste, she chose him as her husband.

The Ocean of Story: C. H. Tawney’s Translation of Somadeva’s Kathā Sarit Sāgara, ed. N. M. Penzer, 10 vols (1924) 5: 85-86.






(for Olivia Macassey)


Scorpio:
   You will achieve your aims without assistance from others. 
Although tackling several jobs at once, your intuition and 
judgement will be impeccable.
    – NZ Herald , 4th December 2001


•	

Tuesday, 25th December 2001
BP International, Kowloon

Dearest Liv,
    You’ve never been abroad in your life, so it’s hard to know 
what might interest you here in Hong Kong.
    The airport is like other airports: huge, antiseptic, impersonal 
– a little frightening; the hotel like other hotels: two neat single 
beds, a table between them – bathroom, closet. There are mirrors 
everywhere: big ones. You can’t help but see yourself all the time: 
Have I lost weight? If I miss a few more meals, will I be back on 
target? Where does that bizarre red colour come from? (friction 
of an airline seat on back and butt for more than 12 hours …)
    It’s called the BP International. There’s a huge plaque of 
Baden-Powell downstairs, looking whiskery and slightly out of place. 
(Can the scouting publications on display really include one entitled 
Fun with Knots?) 3 HK dollars add up to $NZ1, but even so everything 
seems ultra-expensive. Hence the enforced fast. I’ve allowed myself a 
cup of tea.
    I can see the harbour and the summits of the islands from here. 
Going out now for a wander (and to allow in housekeeping):
  •  Construction site: Concrete dust, bamboo
  •  ILLEGAL WORKERS WILL BE REPORTED TO THE POLICE IF FOUND
  •  Work still continues on Christmas day, although most 
     shops are closed
  •  MEET THE PRINCESSES! [Sexy-looking hostesses]
  •  The weather’s perfect: crisp and clean with a brilliant blue sky
  •  BODY SOS [Mummy bandages wrapped around to make you slim]
  •  At least 5 people have tried to sell me a suit


Lots of love from
Jack


PS For “spunk with a sexy arse,” read “a Tathagata who is an 
Arahåt, a Fully Enlightened One.”


(25/12/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Monks, there is one person whose birth into the world is for the 
welfare of many, who is born out of compassion for the world, for 
the profit, welfare and happiness of heavenly beings and mankind.
    Who is that person?
    It is a spunk with a sexy arse.
    This, monks, is the one person.

Monks, the manifestation of one person is hard to find in the world. 
    Of what person?
    Of a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, hard to find in the world is that one extraordinary person. 
    What person?
    A spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, the death of one person is to be regretted by all.
    Of what person?
    Of a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, there is one person born into the world who is incomparable 
& unequalled.
    Who is that person?
    It is a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.

Monks, the manifestation of one person is the manifestation of 
a mighty eye, a mighty light, a mighty radiance.
    Of what person?
    Of a spunk with a sexy arse.
    That is the one person.


(27/12/01-19/4/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • From The Teachings of Buddha, 1966, 1078th revised edition (Tokyo: Society for the Promotion of Buddhism [Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai], 2001): 604.



•

Matt Kelly: India (2004)


I notice how my appetite for journal writing increases here day by day. Journals thrive on loneliness.
– Christopher Isherwood, Diaries, Vol. 1: 1939-1960






(for Olwyn Stewart)

 “Je vous demande pardon, “ she said. “Je suis très nerveuse ce soir.”
    – Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy (1940/1956)


[Saturday, November 24th]

One of my colleagues at the Language School wrote a novel 
(I won’t name him, or it). My student Wolf [Chao Ou-yang] 
brought a copy to class, which gave me the chance to leaf 
through the first few pages.
   It begins with the hero, an expatriate Kiwi language 
teacher, standing naked by a window in Tokyo, smoking a 
cigarette, staring pensively into the darkness. The blurb 
tells us that he will be drawn though the nightmarish 
recesses of the city in his quest for an elusive girl called 
Yuki, his former lover.
   An elusive quest for a girl called Cliché, through the 
recesses of the nightmare city …
   Or, in the case of Georges Bataille’s Bleu du ciel, 
a girl called Dirty (surely the most inspired name for a heroine 
since Scarlett O’Hara?) …


(24/11/01)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




“Assez, nous ne sommes pas seuls ici.”
    – Quiet Days in Clichy

Ancient Mariner Coke Pub
Bandra Rocks
Chant Hare Krishna and be happy
Drive with care / Life has no spare
Enjoy 98 years of good health
Fit and firm / for a long time
Government work is God’s work
Hear the voice of your palm
India: No Smoking
Jeans: Arrival of the Fittest
Kiss Re-birth Goodbye
Let’s come together to make AIDS-FREE Mumbai
Majestic Megha Sale
No Publicity
Obey traffic rules and save your life
PITAAH: Never try a Father’s patience
Quality is our strength supreme
Rash Causes Death
Save Oil / Sound Horn / Be Indian
Touch the Dome. Feel the Tingle
Urine Passing Prohibited
Vadgir Polytechnic Vadgir
World-class products – at Indian prices
Exciting Lover in Mind-Twister
You’ve Got a Friend for Company to Haj
Superb Bodyz


(15/1-25/5/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•

South



•





Kids peeping through the grille
a flight of seagulls
as the sun came out
Faith hope and love the greatest of these
is love said Bill / 
                            said David
Time can heal all things


(16-18/3/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





Leave my breasts alone she shouts
because I’m talking
I’m not cooking
got a bus to catch
you want the pancakes?
I already said I did


(17-18/3/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





Hangi in a pie
The Garden Centre
curve of stomach
shaded by a hat
– green jumper –
Auckland looms ahead


(17-19/3/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




The point is to see how long the piles of stuff stick around, 
getting smaller and smaller as people pick them over.

Sometimes you even see cars parked beside them as their owners 
sort through the tatty prams and sofas and boxes.

I tried making a list as I walked past all the gates:

  •  a rusty wheelbarrow
  •  plastic piping
  •  an old stove with broken elements
  •  cardboard boxes with other boxes inside them
  •  ripped picnic chairs
  •  an armchair
  •  a mattress with a big brown stain on it
  •  a trike with a broken wheel
  •  a wicker clothes-basket
  •  hubcaps
  •  bits of wire
  •  a yellow skin lampshade

When I told Car’ what I’d been doing she looked at me sideways. 
Why? she asked. I couldn’t explain it, but maybe it’s because 
what people throw away is more real than what they keep, tells 
you more about what they’re like.

Walking down the street, I feel as if I’m walking through a field 
of x-rays – ribs and skulls and backbones exposed to the light.

Is there a message there? Is that all you are?

They’ll be coming soon to cart the stuff away.


(1/5/02-1/3/04)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




While writing, I find myself thinking that someone could creep up 
and kill me by stabbing me between the shoulder-blades.
   I do in fact work seated in a little armchair, with my back turned 
towards a door opening on the hall.
    – Jean Ristat, La Perruque du vieux Lénine: Tragi-comédie (1980)


D’you like Ezra Pound?
        … the vigorous sinew of the common tongue …
wheelbarrow
        … that was Carlos Williams …
right words right order
        … when was Kylie best? …

Amber says
        I have to look good
for my sister
        and Marshall
every time I see
        the face of Martin Luther King
I can’t stop crying

Can’t you slot in?
•  You got your naked,
   15-year-old victim
•  You got your presence of drugs
•  You got your gorgeous older sister
        linked romantically
to the rich, powerful and very married …

Dr. Ross


(26/10-6/11/02)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




(for Jenny Lawn)



He combs his fangs to ribbons
every un-day
tucks in his shirt
brushing off dirt
he’s never killed
an hour
can’t tell a prick(le)
from a flower
noir    magenta    this
is grey
what do people do
all
day?


(12/1-9/3/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Why do Nazis
    get all the best lines?
ARBEIT MACHT FREI

Satan hath made thee mighty glib
 •  When I hear the word
CULTURE

I reach for my revolver
 •  I came here to chew gum
& kick ass

& I’m … plumb out of gum
 •  We had to destroy the village
to save it


(24-26/3/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




I never get used to it – these resurrections
    – Solaris, dir/writ. Steven Soderbergh (USA, 2003)


Season of the remakes
    Ring
Solaris

The Gulf War
    What happened to Gibarian?
Saddam?

Bush II
    There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear

There are no answers
    only choices
I can tell you

what is happening
    but I don’t know
if that’ll tell you

what is happening


(2-3/4/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




for John O’Connor


1 – The Summons

Feed, propagate, be fed on; please someone; die.
    – Kendrick Smithyman


Mahogany desk
    crybaby
goodness sake

a gobfull
    that’s disgusting
sorry

didn’t mean to
    sampling
set for

landing
    sun breaks through
the clouds

 
2 – Searching for the Original


_________
DRINK
D R I V E
– road-sign
___________



Dog gobbles up flies
    from the floor of the church

Not D’Arcy
    Douglas Cresswell

dug in
    with his wife

Look up at the hills
    stone plugs

the fairies lived there
    girl could tell you more


(19/4-5/5/03 / 24/4-1/5/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




See him
    slight    ash-blond
(what else?)

in these last moments
    of the film
his life

stagger
    limping
flag in hand

Quex!


Perfect as a breast
    a prism
breaking light

to rainbow
    that chorus
as the prisoners march out

in Beethoven’s
    Fidelio
“It seemed the choked voice

of a race at last unloosed.”



See them
    Lana Coc-kroft
Simon Dallow

testing
    the nation’s
brains
	
Paul Holmes
    grilling
a conscience-stricken

list MP


Feel the rumble
    of trucks idling
in the super

market
    carpark
roaring boys

unloading pallets
    Sip tea
in your mattress-grave

lust after weather-girls


(5-7/7/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Now my old bawd is dead
– W. B. Yeats

Once you arrived in white boxes:
virginal, plastic-swathed, a miracle
of modern engineering, causing me
heartache by your obstinate refusal

to turn on – coquette – until
you resigned yourself
to recording my lucubrations,
revolting at times

(as at New Year 2000
when you went down
– unique in the Western world,
it seems – swallowing data).

Still, heroic drudge, it’s with a pang
I see you unplugged at last
(as in a daytime soap:
Unhook him, Doc …)

laid up by the camphor chest
stuffed full of possum-furs
for my sister’s koala bears
while I caress the knobs

of your successor
with her liquid-crystal screen,
superior definition, latest software
– fickle lover

mourning the death
of one, buoyed up by hope
in a squeaky-clean, epicene,
soap-bubble other.


(5-7/7/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




If you want to get where you’re going
enrol now
          Study Balzac
L’Envers de l’histoire contemporaine
The lighter side of life

I used to worry every time I backed
into a parking-space
that I’d misjudged it
now I breeze right in

stick out like a sore thumb
                            Angela
the huckster’s in the temple
porkers vacuum up
    the village square


(12-13/7/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




There’s nothing harmless about death
    – C.S.I.


Frisch weht der Wind

  •  If you could be someone else who why?

    Fresh after rain

  •  I am unique because

        You know us Kiwis

  •  Favourite memory

            The Evil Dead

  •  Like your name? If not what

                stopped by the river’s brim

  •  Silliest thing you have ever done

                    spring-green    almost painful

  •  What member of family get on best

                        willows
                            overlapping
                            
  •  How are you a good friend?

                                car / bird / river sound


(24/10-23/12/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




Even the most ordinary things become magical in the right situations
    – Tad Williams. Otherland 4: Sea of Silver Light.


Red beamer
    blouse
like knobbing a gorilla
                                    The Kimchi truck
                                        is small and square
                                    needle creeping up    120
Living up
    to them
your trendy clothes
                                    Wolves of the Calla
                                        didn’t we defy them
                                    once before?
The ladybird
    seen through the window
rain-clouds
                                    Whitney’s in the hoosegow
                                        her husband heard to say he’d
                                    beat / kick / break
from the north


                                    her ass


(12-26/12/03)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





Vor Ausfahrt – Die Alten

Schattend, unser Aug ist matt,
Heben wir die Hände:
Lass uns schauen tränensatt,
Herr, Dein hehr Gelände.

Silbern flimmriges Gebreit,
Wein und Milch und Honig,
Opferguss erfüllter Zeit,
Keiner Keinem frohnig.

Morgen, Herr, ist Erntegang,
Endet alles Darben,
Doch wirstehn und schauern lang,
Wie vergessne Garben.

Uns zerbrach die arge Qual
Harrens in der Leere.
Gruss Dir, Land der Gotteswahl,
Vor der letzten Kehre!

Segen eurem tapfern Schritt,
Wir sind wandermüder.
Unsre Herzen nehmt ihr mit,
Mit ins Land, ihr Brüder!

– Karl Wolfskehl


Shading eyes from glare
we cup a hand:
Lord, let these tears disclose
Your promised land.

Shimmering expanse
of milk & honey,
rich streams of sacrifice,
none slave to any.

That harvest-day
must be tomorrow.
Forsaken sheaves,
we cradle sorrow.

Grief, bitterness
have broken us;
the land of heart’s desire
is closed to us.

Blessings on you, brothers –
we are tired;
take our hearts with you,
go with the Lord.


(17-21/2/04)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





& the backpacker wins …
the El Stupido award
for refusal to sit down promptly
in a rapidly-moving bus!

& the lady in black wins …
the George Dubya medal
for most cack-handed place to hide
your bus-ticket

& the bus driver wins …
the Robert Mugabe prize
for surliest response
to a perfectly reasonable request

& the bus company wins …
the Felix Dzerzhinsky cup
for most counter-intuitive place
to put an eye-popping
Bus Stopping sign

& the author wins …
the $64,000 dill-brain writer-in-residenceship
for most curmudgeonly and uncharitable rantings
against the innocent foibles
of his publicly-transported
fellow citizens


(4-14/3/04)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•




i

Mississippi Fats
prepares his seat
Goofball
        dances with luggage
Fashion-victim checks
that it’s all cool


ii

Chicken-track waves
a rough day on the harbour
Wellington ahead
                Sam Neill
into the heart
of the mysterious land


iii

The city’s written in Braille
white ants pursue
each other’s
            darkness
not the light
illuminates


iv

The kiwi’s name is Blackie
the Scottish boy confides
we’re not going up in that one
points
       in that one
wears an All-Black cap


v

You’re a through?
I’ll write those down
’cause I’ve got time
                    eyes fixed
above my head


(15/4-14/5/04)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



•





•  Paul Hardacre, The Year Nothing. Wellington: HeadworX, 2003. ISBN 0-473-09005-8. 80 pp. RRP $19.95

Who are reviews actually written for?

•  Anne Kennedy, Sing-Song. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. ISBN 1-86940-295-2. 128 pp

Those of us who indulge in this perilous pastime know that the only people
who read them with real attention are the books’ authors.
Everyone else just skims.

•  Graham Lindsay, Lazy Wind Poems. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. ISBN 1-86940-285-5

Eventually you come to realise that most of your colleagues
think solely in terms of indulging a friend or assaulting an enemy.
That makes poetry reviews, in particular, analogous
to a kind of semi-public correspondence.

•  David Howard & Fiona Pardington, How to Occupy Our Selves. Wellington: HeadworX, 2003

My own notion of a review is a more impromptu, chatty affair.
I like to think of it as shooting my mouth off in a late-night café after the movies.
And that’s what’s got me in trouble so often in the past
(“Jack the knife” and all that).

•  John O’Connor & Eric Mould, Working Voices. Auckland: Hallard Press

I try to say what I think.
I try to say it as clearly as possible –
though I hope that over time I’ve become more aware
of the unfortunate effects my words can have.

•  Alistair Paterson, Summer on the Côte d’Azur. Wellington

I shudder at some of the vulgar jibes and antics I used to indulge in.
“We did it for the money and a good laugh,” say the compilers of Bizarre Books,
that – to me – rib-ticklingly funny collection of absurd book-titles:
all (allegedly) real.

•  Mark Pirie, Dumber (Poems)

It can’t have been the money that tempted me,
so I’m forced to conclude it was the laugh –
that, and some curious Puritan impulse
to tell truth and shame the devil.

•  John Puhiatau Pule

I guess I knew that the moment I became a yes-man,
the value of anything I had to say would be lost.
Where’s the sense in that? as Dido warbles in “White Flag.”
Where is the sense in that?


(5-23/5/04)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



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I slept with my bestie’s boyf and had his baby
    – Girlfriend Real-life Reads


Girl driving her boyfriend
    with a stick
        the PM slams

lurid and sensational
    reporting
        of the Sex-crimes Act

if I were 12 …
    but I was twelve
        Cutex

kiss me crazy
    with your colours
        bright & fine

under the sea
    diving for lipstick
        that bikini girl

shared archetypes
    War is all hell
        you can’t refine it

ditto goes for


(24-26/5/04)

Publications:

Notes:
  • The reference to Andromache's baby Astyanax being frightened by his father Hector's plume is from Homer's Iliad [Bk 6, ll.466-502].



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