Tuesday

Uncollected Poems (2016-2024)


Dianne Firth: Canberra Tales (2016)


  1. from Family Plot (2016):
    1. A Traveller on the Road to Emmaus (2/1-29/8/16)
    2. Drying Out the Bach (3/1/16-1/1/17)
    3. Bowie at Slane (12/1/16-13/7/17)
    4. A boy was drowned (13/1/16-13/7/17)
    5. 3,000 unopened emails (17/1/16-22/10/17)
    6. New Year (19/1/16-19/10/17)
    7. Gettysburg (20/1/16-22/10/17)
    8. Faith Hill (22/1/16-3/9/21)
    9. Time for an outing (23/1/16-19/10/17)
    10. We used some (24/1/16-22/10/17)
    11. Trump said (25/1/16-20/1/17)
    12. The new laptop (26/1/16-7/5/17)
    13. Last night the heat got (28/1/16-7/5/17)
  2. from Canberra Tales (2016)
    1. 1948 (25/3-4/12/16)
    2. 1984 (24/3-4/12/16)
    3. 2016 (16/9-4/12/16)
  3. Terrorist or theorist? (16/9-4/12/16)
  4. The President of the Philippines (30/10-24/11/16)
  5. Grenfell Tower Block Fire (15-21/6/17)
  6. Feet splayed (6/7-19/10/17)
  7. Christchurch, 15th March 2019 (19/3-14/4/19)
  8. Just Like the Others (27-28/10/20)
  9. Scurvy Grass (6/2-22/7/21)
  10. The Gulf (for Michele) (25/3-4/9/21)
  11. Stormy Weather (6/6-27/8/21)
  12. Bus lanes (12/5-11/8/22)
  13. No time but the present (for Paula Green) (24/5-7/10/22)
  14. Insomnia. Homer. Reefed sails ... (after Mandelstam) (24-27/12/22)
  15. Amerika (after Goethe) (14-15/5/24)
  16. It was so and not so (after Richard von Sturmer) (19/6/24)
  17. Unpopular Mechanics: Crossing Auckland for Emma Smith (7-9/9/24)




Family Plot

(2016)






And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he 
made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained 
him, saying, ‘Abide with us: for it is towards evening, and the 
day is far spent’. And he went in to tarry with them.
    – Luke 24: 13-15.


Wars and rumours of wars
even the sparrows look shell-shocked

as they huddle on the clothesline
seeing the New Year in 

with beating rain and wind
the kitten steals the warm spot on the duvet

when I get up for a moment
treatises on how best to treat your slaves

from ISIS
shock when an All-Black

tweets corpse-snaps
from a refugee village

it should have come with a warning
prates some Tom Fool

so should the world
come in and tarry with us

even though I don’t believe in you
doubt that you ever existed

I like to think of that dusty road
that traveller joining the others

making as though he would have gone further
tarry with us a while

and bring a friend


(2/1-29/8/16)

Publications:
  • Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2021 [Issue #55]. Ed. Tracey Slaughter. ISBN 978-0-9951354-2-0. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2021: 245-49.
  • "The Zero Suite." Papyri (2/5/23)



•




Ever since we learned
the leaks around the windows
couldn’t be fixed
by pulling out rusty nails
we’ve known
it needed a new roof

in the meantime
a three-day rainstorm means
towels round the sills
bed on its back
books on high alert

and now the morning after
airing out the place
wringing out soaked linen
sensing the return

of sweat in the form of duty
work in the name of peace
Tim Powers put it best

in The Anubis Gates
dark solidifies to crystal

rain to residual silt


(3/1/16-1/1/17)


•




It was 1987
driving around Ireland
in my beat-up Ford
with a friend

Mike Dean
and every five minutes
a bit of a song
would come on the radio

part of a contest for tickets
to Bowie’s live concert
at Slane
and Mike’d shout out

Diamond Dogs
Ashes to Ashes
since it turned out he knew
not only the words

to everything 
the Thin White Duke
had done to date
but all the riffs

he tried at one point
to explain
the greatness of the man
I think à propos of the song

We built this City
no we didn’t 
he’d shout
we didn’t build this city

on rock’n’roll
no bullshit
that’s what it came down to
no lies 

or not such obvious ones
in Bowie’s songs
which makes me feel sad
to read the ridiculous crap

in the guise of tributes
on the news this morning
for someone who was something
out of the box

not just another
exchangeable name
It’s a dirty job but
someone had to do it

as he said one time


(12/1/16-13/7/17)

Publications:
  • Poetry New Zealand Yearbook 2022 [Issue #56]. Ed. Tracey Slaughter. ISBN 978-1-991151-11-7. Auckland: Massey University Press, 2022: 207-08.



•




sneaking across the river
to Slane 
to listen to David Bowie

no matter how good a time
everyone had
the fact remains

a boy was drowned
he died doing what he loved
cold comfort

served up
on the news
night after night 

while as for us
we drove blithely past
the guard towers

down the verdant lanes
so-and-so was shot over there
and this is where

they blew up our factory
safe as houses
tourists in a war-zone

just once or twice
with a twinge of anxiety
my car had GB plates

and people did stare
can we park here?
by the wharf?

I’m sure not a problem in the world


(13/1/16-13/7/17)


•




Driving back from Timaru
    he was feeling okay
        went to the fair 
            and bought some books
        woke up to hear his car
    grinding along 
the median barrier

and then last night
    he managed to stab himself
        on a stray tack in the floor
            had to lie down
        with his foot in the air
    for me to put a plaster
on the puncture

the vital importance of 
    due process
        Health & Safety
            needs to get involved
        everyone
    should get involved
talk it all through

have a preliminary
    discussion
        before thrashing it out
            in full caucus
        the subject
    our inheritance
obstacle

the church


(17/1/16-22/10/17)


•




It takes quite a while
for things to crank into
their usual chaos

no heavy traffic on the road
for instance
parking places everywhere

no replies to emails
plaintive cries
for rooms to be changed

bodies counted
classes organised
while I sit here

typing out old titles
from the NZ Poetry Yearbook
full of sage reflections

on the scandal of Ezra Pound’s Cantos
Songs for this that & the other
what a lot of singing they did

back then    the early names 
of subsequently celebrated writers
Jowsey for Ireland

I A H Paterson for Alistair
and I think to myself
that I share this taste for stasis

dread to encounter
more ghastly bombings
what is it with building bombs?

when did that become 
the sine qua non 
of strong political opinions?

but    I suppose    up lad
thews that cumber
sunlit pallets never thrive

Zero can go back to bed 
after keeping us up half the night
With demands for food

and succour
but we must endure
I’m afraid

we must endure


(19/1/16-19/10/17)

Publications:



•




The worst fake beards 
in the history of cinema

Tom Berenger in particular
looked like the pirate king

in panto
but more to the point

I never realized
so many Confederates

detested slavery
regretted it hadn’t

already been abolished
what they were fighting for

was liberty of conscience
independence

pushing back Northern invaders
(by invading the North)

nor did I know Robert E. Lee
had never abandoned a battlefield

in the face of the enemy
Antietam?

so the whole thing was just
a ghastly mistake

where the Northerners took advantage
of their nobler opponents

in their mechanistic way
In Gods and Generals

the prequel
we further learn

that not only did Jackson 
too    hate slavery

but that he used to prance round
playing horsey

with five-year-old girls
and weeping buckets 

when the latter died
he’s crying for all of us

for the whole war
said an awestruck aide

I knew just how he felt


(19/1/16-19/10/17)


•




I remember hearing her belting out
    some anthem
        looking staunch

yet somehow soft and nurturing
    like a supersonic
        Delta Goodrem

and thinking
    what an ideal name
        Faith

then Hill
    solid realities
        but also (I suppose)

that stuff from “Dover Beach”
    the sea of faith
        and down the vast edges drear

and felt a little better placed
    to stare
        out over those 

naked shingles of the world


(22/1/16-3/9/21)

Publications:
  • Titirangi Poets Ezine 11. Ed. Piers Davies (September 2021)
  • From the Fringe of Heaven: Titirangi Poets. Ed. Piers Davies, Ron Riddell, Amanda Eason, & Gretchen Carroll. Auckland: Printable Reality, 2022. 103.



•




for the boys
to monkey island
by way of the sea

of pillow cases
wooden junks
plying their trade

between the great birds
of the mainland
and the tiny

animalculae
so sedulously collected
from Browns Bay market

until the Gran
who knitted up
their pipe-cleaner bodies

each brandishing
a banana
above the head

to the lips
held out to make
a point

collapsed in harness
leaving the owls
and caterpillars to mourn


(23/1/16-19/10/17)

Publications:



•




concrete blocks
the hollow kind
that let the grass
grow through
to make a carport
then took a few
out back to
plant a herb garden
parsley    thyme
used to step out
mid-dish to snip off
fronds till 
it all went to seed
now my mother’s 
not been out the 
back door in
more than a year
they’ve grown into
massive aberrant
plants to match
the trampolines
around the flats
on either side


(24/1/16-22/10/17)

Publications:



•




… and the Republic summons Ike,
the mausoleum in her heart.
    – Robert Lowell, ‘Inauguration Day: January 1953’



that he could stand
in the middle of Fifth Avenue
and shoot someone
and not lose any voters

it’s, like, incredible!
what he was touching on
was the phenomenon
of fandom

and it was no mirage
there really were
sufficient boneheads
dumb enough to vote

for that buffoon
no matter how outrageously
he talked
how stupid his ideas

we used to laugh
at countries where soap opera stars
could win a seat in parliament 
because they loved them so

who’s laughing now?


(25/1/16-20/1/17)

Publications:



•




won’t work of course
because I didn’t have the brains
to add the software

to all that hardware
even though I seemed to be buying
half the shop

Super-drive
Bluetooth mouse
and all mod cons

I can’t say no swearing went
into the installation
but what with the new roof

on the bach
out back
the new front porch across the way

one gets a slight sense of exposure
to the winds of the world
to the ‘Oceanic feeling’

teleology


(26/1/16-7/5/17)


•




so extreme
    we dragged our mattress
        into the living room
    under the heat pump
turned to maximum cold

even that didn’t work
    because the cat
        confused by the new arrangements
    meowed all night
and kept us up

my mother’s memory
    is quite defective
        ever since the events of 2012
    a migraine
said the doctors

the aphasia did wear off
    but now she can’t 
        kickstart her memory
    she often gets it if reminded
but seldom admits to knowing anything

it’s hard to explain what it’s like
    she tells us
        I believe her
    what can it feel like
to wander in a haze

making decisions you go back on
    five minutes later
        no longer knowing
    who your childhood stories
happened to?

perhaps it’s like
    these humid nights
        wrapped in a sweat sheet
    unable to bear the covers
ticking away the time

in shapeless fog?


(28/1/16-7/5/17)

Publications:



•

Dianne Firth: Poetry and Place (2017)



(2016)


  1. 1942 (17/9-4/12/16)
  2. 1948 (25/3-4/12/16)
  3. 1984 (24/3-4/12/16)
  4. 2016 (16/9-4/12/16)






My father and my grandmother
crossed the Tasman

in a flying boat
for my uncle’s graduation

from Duntroon
they took off from Mechanics Bay

my father said of Canberra
there was only tenuously

a city there
even by Auckland standards

a building
trees and fields

far off
another building

like Brasilia


(25/3-4/12/16)

Publications:
  • Dianne Firth. Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
  • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)



•




They held a faculty reception
at ANU

for the visiting professor
Frank Kermode

said my buddy Claire
and somehow she

got seated next to him
she asked

d’you see that mountain over there?
he allowed he did

I just ran up and down it seven times
really? why?

to become iron woman!
bemused look

no doubt a story for
High Table

back in the real world


(24/3-4/12/16)

Publications:
  • Dianne Firth. Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
  • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)



•




Somebody snaffled my cab
that first morning

at the Premier Hotel
I’d rung up to order it

half an hour before
But after sitting stumm

in the lounge
I just had to ask

it’s coming any moment now
said the man on the desk

(hastily ordering it)
but when it did turn up

the cab-driver wouldn’t let me in
it was reserved for Paul

he said
(who turned out to be 

the guy on the desk)
he’d got into trouble that way before

at one of the bigger hotels
two punters

both with the number seven
that one turned quite nasty

he said


(16/9-4/12/16)

Publications:
  • Dianne Firth. Poetry and Place: Catalogue for the Poetry and Place Exhibition, Belconnen Art Centre, 25 August – 17 September 2017. ISBN 978-1-74088-460-0. Canberra: University of Canberra, 2017: 10.
  • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)








•




Never write for anyone stupider than yourself – Discuss
    – Simon Armitage, University of Canberra (2016)


The first anxiety
is the taxi

how to approach again
the man at the desk

to order me a cab
when I glared at him

so much
the other day

•	

Exposing my ignorance 
to the visiting writer

only took seconds
when I revealed

that I hadn’t understood
the poem by Paul Muldoon

that ended with
a man sawing a woman in half

I’d always assumed
it was just that

a conjuror practising
for the Big Top

but no
it was a man

and a woman doing it
he said

•	

are these rules for your own benefit
asked the man at the q-&-a

or does anyone else
agree with them?

for myself
I admitted

then
that I’d meant them to be

just a teeny bit controversial
above all

the one about letting THEORY
into my poetry mag

•	

I already have one at home
said the little boy

when the visiting team
tried to give him

a rugby ball
but don’t you want another one?

asked the footy star
no he replied

what for?


(16/9-4/12/16)

Publications:

Notes:
  • Simon Armitage, UK Poet Laureate 2019-?, was invited to judge the Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize at the Poetry on the Move: Poetry Adventures on and off the page Festival at the University of Canberra, 6-16 September 2016. As one of three longlist judges, I was invited to join him at a reading. He seems like a very nice man.



•




told us his vision
last night
on the evening news
he was in a plane

flying back from Japan
when he heard a voice
who are you?
he said

it was God
I want you to stop 
using bad language
said God

so no more slang
no more cuss words
you could see the reporters
wanted to laugh

at first
but they sobered up fast
that morning ten men
were shot dead in the street

the mayor of a town
and all his staff
involved in the drug trade
they said

no cuss words now
the doors are open
something that used to live
out in the cold

is shouldering in


(30/10-24/11/16)

Publications:



•




Waving two children onto the ride
ahead of you    it crashes

what does that say
about divine mercy

or coincidence?
they heard them calling out

from the upper floors
as the flames rose

someone threw out a baby
someone else caught it

the others died


(15-21/6/17)

Publications:



•





Antonio Ruiz: El sueño de la Malinche (1939)


apart
    lightning strikes 
        at
    the Earth Mother 
she awakes 

bedspread
    turned back
        on its axis 
    arches
bridges

clouds 
    fall
        into creases 
    something
breaking through

the sky 
    is overhead 
        no roof to it 
    Malinche dreams 
of Cortés’ son’s

return


(6/7-19/10/17)

Publications:
  • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)
  • Malinche Dreams. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd. Auckland: Pania Press, 2018.



•





Du mußt dein Leben ändern
    – Rainer Maria Rilke



Do we have to feel that pixilated head
burning behind our eyes?    the media
keep broadcasting a manacled muscular 
torso signalling triumph over the dead

his fingers cocked to a smirk    the score
perhaps    Jacinda Ardern’s noble face
caught in a rictus of grief can’t quite displace
the bluntness of his semaphore

on this darkest of days it feels like our worst fears
were always justified    our impotence 
out in the open for all to see    our pain

trumped by the old familiar reptile brain
but scrolling down those flowers those faces those tears 
I can’t see them as nothing    aren’t they us?


(19/3-14/4/19)

Publications:



•




All you have to learn
is how to be alone 

my Dad wrote Admit nothing 
in his diary

in the retirement home
I used to duck inside 

the library at school
to foil the wolfpacks

go undercover
if your earbuds

secretly connect
to nothing

broadcasting silence
smile    disguise it 

with a whistle
eventually you’ll find

the one who shows
the sign you need

received and understood


(27-28/10/20)

Publications:
  • Singlets, Briefs & Shorts: An Anthology of Poems from the Show Me Shorts! New Zealand Short Film Festival 2020. Ed. Trevor M. Landers. PMT Press in association with 99% Press. Auckland: Lasavia Publishing Ltd., 2021. 88-89.



•





Lepidium Oleraceum (Scurvy Grass)


(for Bronwyn)


The other place I landed at was the north point of the Bay 
where I got as much Sellery and Scurvy grass as loaded the Boat
    – Captain James Cook (27/10/1769)




It’s quite a ways from Napier
over the worst of roads 

but a trip to Tolaga Bay
must have seemed something 

for kids who’d never been there
on arrival at the campground 

Dad went out
there may not be much

but there is a pub
hours later he came back

with two velvet paintings 
he’d blued all their money on

we stopped there a year or so ago 
on a road trip around East Cape

the immense beach choked with driftwood 
the epic wooden pier

there were organised walks 
we didn’t join in

a lack of seabird habitats 
is blamed for the decline 

in this native plant
the rich environments they need 

no longer plentiful enough


(6/2-22/7/21)

Publications:
  • Poetry Specials: 2008-2018. Papyri (28/12/2017)
  • Scurvy Grass. Poem by Jack Ross. Design by Bronwyn Lloyd. Auckland, 2022.
  • Mike Johnson: A Festschrift. Ed. Trevor Landers. Auckland: www.matatuhitaranaki.ac.nz, 2024)


Notes:
  • While visiting Tolaga Bay in New Zealand on his first voyage, Cook noted in his journal on 27 October 1769: "the other place I landed at was the north point of the Bay where I got as much Sellery and Scurvy grass as loaded the Boat." - P. J. Lange & D.A. Norton (1996). "To what New Zealand plant does the vernacular 'scurvy grass' refer?". New Zealand Journal of Botany. 34 (3): 417–420.



•




(for Michele Leggott)


There was a moment
    just a moment
        in The Gulf

when I found myself 
    able to believe
        that the head-down cop

in her bullet-proof vest
    holding her arms out
        like a bear

was willing to die
    to save the child
        she’d freed

from her Dad
    and that I 
        might just be

too


(25/3-4/9/21)

Publications:
  • Michele 2021: A Birthday Festschrift for Michele Joy Leggott (18/10/21)

Notes:
  • The reference is to episode 3, season 1, of NZ TV series The Gulf (2019).



•




Do I have your permission to dress you?
After you lose the weight?

I suppose it comes down to the choice
between Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway

those were the stakes in Edinburgh
some thirty years ago

when I went to the Filmhouse daily
On the one hand Jarman’s Tempest

I wanted to hear them sing Stormy Weather
that’s why I made the film

On the other Prospero’s Books
a torrent of images    books being drowned

in the sea    legions of nude extras 
playing chess with their bodies

On one side The Last of England
an old ripped t-shirt 

and a boy choking down raw cabbage
on the other The Draughtman’s Contract

inexplicable alphabets of symbolism
a mind-numbing tour-de-force

it’s what got me here 
(wherever here is)

I’m very excited about the brooches
I like to see you in that peacock shirt


(6/6-27/8/21)

Publications:
  • Stormy Weather. Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers Special Edition. Guest Ed. Lincoln Jaques. Live Encounters: Free Online Magazine from Planet Earth. Ed. Mark Ulyseas (April 2023).



•




are fucking brilliant
slipping you past
all the stalled traffic 
out in Otherworld

likewise that looming
skyline hypodermic
poised to vaccinate
a queasy sky

is it wrong
this ease of access
V.I.P. entry?
better than

the half-hour in the café 
yesterday
knowing we’d ordered lunch
not knowing they’d forgotten

the kitchen printer had run dry


(12/5-11/8/22)

Publications:
  • Stormy Weather. Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers Special Edition. Guest Ed. Lincoln Jaques. Live Encounters: Free Online Magazine from Planet Earth. Ed. Mark Ulyseas (April 2023).



•




(for Paula Green)


No time but the present. That’s not quite it, is it? No time 
like the present is the usual phrase. Do it now, in other words 
– don’t put it off. But, as H. G. Wells’s Time Traveller explains 
so clearly in the story, there’s no such thing as an instantaneous 
object: it must have duration, as well as height, length and breadth, 
in order to be perceived (let alone possessed) by us. Now is a moment 
which is over so quickly that it’s only perceptible in the rearview 
mirror, as a part of the long spool of experience unwinding behind 
us. So all we really have is the past – that is to say, the memory 
of what is already done and dusted. But do we have that, even? It’s 
no longer with us, so I’d have to say no – all we have, then, is 
that quavering moment, poised on “Time’s toppling wave,” in W. H. 
Auden’s phrase. But since we can’t perceive it till it’s over, you 
could argue that all we have is anticipation: the prospect of what 
the next moment will bring. You’d think that might make us a bit 
less greedy: less determined to collect the leavings of all these 
moments, past and to come, and more prepared to enjoy them to the 
uttermost. We’re only conscious for a small part of the time 
allotted to us: there’ll never be any more of it, so let’s dance.


(24/5-7/10/22)

Publications:



•





Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса ...

Бессоница, Гомер, тугие паруса.
Я список кораблей прочел до середины ...
Сей длинный выводок, сей поезд журавлиный,
Что над Элладою когда-то поднялся.

Как журавлиный клин в чужие рубежи
На головаx царей божественная пена ...
Куда плывете вы? Когда бы не Элена,
Что Троя вам одна, аxейские мужи??

И море и Гомер все движимо любовью..
Куда же деться мне? И вот, Гомер молчит..
И море Черное витийствуя шумит
И с страшным гроxотом подxодит к изголовью ...

- Осип Мандельштам (1915)


•	


Insomnia. Homer. Reefed sails.
I've read halfway through the ship catalogue;
this inbred tribe, this siege of cranes
which once took flight from Hellas.

A wedge of cranes into foreign shores
drenching your kings with spray ...
Where are you going? If not for Helen,
what would Troy matter to you, men of Achaea?

The sea and Homer are moved by love.
Where should I turn? Homer is silent.
The Black Sea roars,
booms up the beach to my bed.


(24-27/12/22)

Publications:



•





Den Vereinigten Staaten

Amerika, du hast es besser
Als unser Kontinent, der alte,
Hast keine verfallenen Schlösser
Und keine Basalte.
Dich stört nicht im Innern,
Zu lebendiger Zeit,
Unnützes Erinnern
Und vergeblicher Streit.

Benutzt die Gegenwart mit Glück!
Und wenn nun Eure Kinder dichten,
Bewahre sie ein gut Geschick
Vor Ritter-, Räuber- und Gespenstergeschichten.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1831)


•	


America you're better off
than our continent    the old one
you've got no fallen castles
no ruins to build on
your inner life
is free
of futile strife
and fruitless memory

live in the moment    good luck to you
and when your kids write poetry
try to keep them well away
from robbers ghosts and chivalry


(14-15/5/24)

Publications:



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(after Richard von Sturmer)


As we approached the square 
I said to Bronwyn 

I bet we’ll see Farrell there
he always comes to these sorts of things

sure enough there he was
I didn't go over to say hello

we had a nice spot in the shade
and he looked okay with his friends

it took a long time to get going
there were lots of speeches

they ranged from impassioned 
to business-like

they taught us some chants
which I promptly forgot 

but once we started
they mostly came back

we felt very virtuous walking along
some ladies with parcels 

came out of a dress-shop
we shouted

    WHILE YOU'RE SHOPPING
    BOMBS ARE DROPPING

but they didn't look too 
abashed

it was  hard to keep pace 
with the people in front

I'd bought a big flag
and it flapped in the faces 

of the people behind 
unless I held it high

which I found very tiring
Bronwyn wore her flag 

draped round her shoulders
which was handy when it came on to rain

the loudspeakers were a trial
a chant would start up next to my head

which is bad for my hearing aids
they can't handle quick changes 

in ambient noise
we had to stop every time 

we came to an intersection
which caused the procession 

to contract like a snake
most of the chants I agreed with 

but not all of them
I went silent for those

eventually we decided to go home 
when we reached downtown

and a new set of speeches began 
the buses weren't running 

because of the demonstration
so we had to walk quite a way 

it was coming down pretty hard by then
but such a relief 

to run in the rain


(19/6/24)

Publications:



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Relying on Kylie the GPS voice
to route us round the roadworks 
at the entrance we drove into 
the campus found a parking place 
no payment needed after 4 pm 
walked over to the exhibition space 
past the table of refreshments quite 
a spread wine fruit-juice grapes chips 
dips then into the high L-shaped 
room

     Emma was around the bend 
three paintings on one wall the 
other facing them grey roiling clouds 
a few brave emblems flapping in 
the wind like shards of Pharaoh’s 
army drowned in the Red Sea 
caught as a Renaissance painter might
if they wanted to display their 
dexterity

         then after a few words 
with Emma handing her a book 
for Will my erstwhile publisher we 
went out past the kids walked 
over to the car and drove 
off on our way back home 
two hours from go to woe 
on the way out I waited 
for the red light for right-turning 
traffic rather than the free left 
turn


(7-9/9/24)

Publications:
  • Emma Smith: The Municipal Gardens (5-6 October 2024). Auckland: The Waiting Room, 2024.



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