Notice period
I hear that you're on notice.
Can you believe
That it is what it is?
No, it's a tease.
More like no notice at all.
Such a short phrase it is
Between her noticing no period
And calling time.
Down tools.
Punctuation a full stop.
Why not dash or dot dot dot?
Now we're in overtime,
. . .
Clutha
She begins, as we all do,
a pouring forth, a rage of cold-eye blue.
Canny ancestors smile and wink,
knowing that the river’s tumult will be forced to rest
into spreading lake by Dunstan.
Then pent up again at Roxburgh.
But no feat of engineering will tame a mother
when the heart breaks.
At Kaitangata
. . .
Stolen kiss at Fox River
A clammer of indignant seabirds at our arrival.
Tired and carping car-cramped humans.
The children run past us, past warning signs
right onto the storm-broken bridge.
Two hunched cormorants stand at a rock altar
like shabby elderly priests awaiting their congregation.
Wind-blown petrels make a precarious landing
. . .
When love is old
The tired, dying dog
has not moved or eaten
for two days
but summons up a wag
when I say “love time”
or “puppy-mine”
as if there is no memory of
years wearing teeth
to yellow stumps.
Neither can we fathom
we’ve crumpled
under the weight of it all.
And that our frisky, wriggling
infatuation . . .
Love a duck
Love a duck
my boy remember?
When your Year One teacher
gave you the very outline
of a duck
fill it in with the
correct ducky hues
but whatever you do
STAY INSIDE THE LINES
or what will become of you
Boy
maybe you'll have a dream
and blaze out on some lonely hill
so that . . .
Everything must go
Try now buy now
end it must
have and hold as
soon to dust
closing sale
closest male
one last bite is
not enough
final deal
ferris wheel
fairy lights
folding, packing
over Rover
never lover.
Pukerua Bay summer
Harakeke flowers do
their comic jerky dance.
My dog is a fast flying reptile kite.
The surf whips itself into peaks
of soft buttery icing .
Tired Christmas baubles rattle
on a driftwood tree.
Amongst the detritus piled up
after all this last straw
party of a storm
was a small heart-shaped stone.
. . .
