Tryst

i
See emeralds dance in her mind,
the lewd way they wink in the light,

how her hands travel, so far -
all the way -
over the planes of his back,
grasp the lift and curve of muscle
with pin-tipped fingers.

How her tongue is cocked to fire.
Trails of flame
like witch-burnings -

a tryst of skin.

ii
See her ruby teeth,
how they glitter in the night kitchen
as she turns to go.

She's left a lamb cutlet,
new potatoes in fresh chopped mint,
and the other half of her cab Merlot.

The baby dozes,
rocked by her red breath lullaby.

The dream has broken
into an a cappella over cracked tongue
and her heart-
a broken bell.

!

I figured out how to do links finally, lol!

I'll add more in as I get time.

New Books!

My poem Alphabetical just won me a $100 book prize at the university I attend, so I just went out and bought myself some yummy books:

T.S. Eliot The Waste Land and other poems

T.S. Eliot Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Katherine Mansfield Letters and Journals by C.K. Stead

Witi Ihimaera His Best Short Stories

Lord knows when I'll get time to read them ...

Revisiting Auschwitz

It seems right to return in winter -
the red brick entrance crested with snow,
guard towers like black shrines
cut from soft cold white.

'The end of history' began here
in the failure of language,
in the silence
of the inexpressible.

The unmaking of creation
in petals of flame flowering from bone;
the response to God -
this is the fruition of your planting -
ravenous ovens stuffed to spitting
pits of flesh soup stirred
and fallen to ashes - ashen snow.

And what was the point?
What do we take from the experiment?

Only that it failed.
That life continued,
began afresh, though not so innocent,
never so trusting.
Life chooses - chose - life.

Vespers whisper endlessly
amongst the wreaths and fresh blooms
laid to rest against the firing squad wall.

A Response Poem

This is a response to The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges


Alphabetical

The extent to which the book extends
is bound within its cover and stretches
through the vaunted halls of mind cathedrals
in signs and codes.

The book whose spine
follows the circle of library walls
is God - according to Borges -
and spins circles through space.

The space between books on shelves
in the library,
any library at any time,
remains a universal constant
over which a librarian has no control.

This page, a leaf that turns through cycles.
These letters, catalogue of scrawl on the toilet wall
by those who seek light
as they travel down rows of shelves,
neatly filed volumes dissolving into atoms
of information
transmogrified,
transmittable via brainwaves
anatomical cables bridge from print to thought.

A conversation with God,
with gods of words in ceremonial procession
covering page after page,
alphabetically,
systematically
coordinated page and word.

Titles by authors long dead,
the scarecrow straw and stuff of their heads.
'Oh time thy pyramids,
thy labyrinth of letters'
how we scramble and climb
through their thorns and dust
for meaning
and find only the beauty of symbols,
a simulacrum of beauty.
We search now for alternatives
through spaces, silences, the narratives unwritten.

How long have we stumbled uncomprehending,
and who writes the findings of the search,
the narratives of the searchers?

Is there, somewhere, a writer penning words
in slanting gold calligraphy ...
'In the beginning the word was ...'

Promises

When I promised myself to live in the moment
the moment scurried to expand
until it encompassed all years behind me
and all those still to come.

This took place inside my head
and squashed out all my carefully nurtured silences
stored during meditations and life coach sessions.

When I promised to find tranquility
it promptly drowned in a puddle
and my resolution to learn to sleep
in a house by myself resulted
in a plethora of bumps and howling,
racing cars with squealing tyres
involved in neighbourhood drive-by shootings,
and the dog decided to rustle and burrow
outside my window like fifteen
different types of burgular.

It has to be acknowledged that so far
my venture into being phenomenal,
with limitless resolve, has been less
than spectacular.

But paycheck by paycheck I've passed
from one birthday to another
in sole charge of my life
until my bravado is almost honest,
independence almost the truth.

Southern Alps at Midnight

The soldier on manoeuvres
stands in the howling dark,
on rock crystallized to white.

The night strips away camouflage,
opens his ribs and creeps around lungs,
to germinate a small seed,
the dream of his life,
whenever he thinks of home.

The Sand Kissed

I could write a poem of alien sand
where water is the sweetest touch,
where MacDonald's golden arches
and John Wayne cast no shadow
and the beach of the Western frontier
burns forever without the respite of ocean.

I could write a poem of reporters,
camera bulbs exploding, firing questions,
planting microphones to spout official party lines.

Men in flowing robes beneath headwear
announcing their usurpery of God
weilding official party lines like scriptures,
papal blessing kissed
like a bruise from snake lips,
as righteous as jihad.

But the poem I'm writing is of a mother,
waking from the sound of carrion wings
flapping dark knives across the sun,
to realise it's the fan ticking sweat
from the mattress where she lays listening
for her son's tread on the stair,
remembering her fingers
on the silk bristle of his army-cut hair.

In memory of:

Sgt. Jose M. Velez
Hometown: Bronx, New York, U.S.

Age: 35 years old

Died: June 9, 2006 in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Unit: Army Reserves, 773rd Transportation Company, Army Reserve, Fort Totten, N.Y.

Incident: Died of injuries sustained when a makeshift bomb exploded near his Humvee during combat operations in Kirkuk.