Ano
Poem with keys on your belt
writing like a touchstone,
at ease
with ink on the page,
hoping the rain will take away the whakamaa
miss
unlocking and locking the doors
miss
the group
being a student
hope to play please stay sit down
wholes holes and despite the crossings
away with the fairies
holed up hold up holdup
thrown a bone a leaf falls a thousand
leaves fall – that was deciduous Autumn the insignia
insignia the rope white – reedy,
hope persistent against the clay
slip and tension,
It’s the wheel turning, the pulling
of the jeep the van the needed escape
movement inertia
and up on the road again,
prestigious in development of notary blade synapse
Spin spin spin the world packed up
reeled it in thrown
a line and peeled the skin
of the fish caught gaping
knife through brain little boy
It’s got to be dead now
but it’s wriggling then
throw it back little boy drop it in,
see the swim push of all the fins?
In the middle of the harbour
Rinsed out
by blood on the inside
I wished for the colour of the tree
I held the tree and planted it
I chainsaw the tree and I wished
for the years of life in a story
sapping, what has happened
I have wished far too hard,
far far too
because now I have all the stories
cook ups cockups my freeing light
ever hopeful flights
miss
calculations
my fatal mistakes my
disconsolate pressured divulgences
the inalienable slum in the back,
the slump of my spine her chin
in my kitchen
yanked
up by the tendons at her back
like a parachutist yanked from the mud
by captors
these stories these stores
have so much to do with us
so much over us
the soldiers in us
and how can we assuage that?
It’s not fine weathering that.
you can’t expect us to
not take it off.
In the middle of the harbour
the Mataa
Use a boat if your arms aren’t long enough
take the men if your arms aren’t strong enough
hold the weight steady then drop it
down drop it down
