Auckland Poetry

You watch the weather, don’t you?
From the kitchen window, the patio
Even the office as it climbs four storeys
You drape yourself in whatever works
For the conditions
The weather has a major say in what you say
To the employer; the wife; the neighbour

If I were you I would keep a close eye on the weather
It has ways and means of interrupting; catapulting
Thoughts of innocence across mountain tops
Down to fears of catastrophe and calamity

There are paid people who warn you about the weather
Maps and grids and watchwords
They are concerned you might miss it
As it comes rolling over the hills like storm-troopers
The Gestapo knocking at your door
Tearing at your gutters; your roses

Make no mistake – the weather needs soothing
We stopped offering sacrifices and now we have
Weather bombs dropped on us repeatedly

I wish the weather would just go away and
Leave us with a benign void
So we know
Nothing will ever happen

© 2008 Keith Nunes

Check out review and multimedia coverage of Winter Warmers - a very charming and vital event Saturday afternoons at the Auckland Art Gallery.  And while we are looking at things - am trying out various new themes for the next cover page.  Before we select one, we will check it here.  So don’t worry - if the Golden Gate (palam11 theme) returns - am testing functionality, then will settle on one (I like the seaside one, but there is a functional problem with navigation…) - the site will work and accept your submissions or it will be tested, here.  Comments - is this seaside template too much, do ya think?

One of Aotearoa’s finest voices Mahinarangi Tocker has died in hospital at the age of 52 from complications of an asthema attack.

It is a really sad moment.  Here is the NZ Herald page of public tributes.  You can also add your own as comments on this post, if you wish.

Hope you don’t mind
if I take the time
to say good bye to
my left foot

It not due to hatred
or foul language
or even odor
its not a bad
foot either

It is just it
never does what it
has been told
no matter now carefully
its said

No the left foot has to go,
its done its dash and so I throw
it out into the trash
and the sole escapes
as it flies through the air

a fusion of particles happens in the mirror
the image of here and now
is lost before it becomes
then and when
photographs were used to remember
visits by the grandparents no longer answering
the phone
visits by generations past long gone
now here and now and opening
the gate walking up the path
about to knock on the door

The Cloak Wears Thin
Under the Soaking Rain
Clings to the Skin
too Close no Comfort
just Cold Pain
walk over Concrete
the City won’t be washed off without
needful kinetics
sins without sadness
saints without pain
killer kisses on the
blood soaked vein

The Editor is back, after starting a new job. More on that later. The next edition starts here. Poems in the Fresh queue before this date are now being considered for inclusion in the next Auckland Poetry Edition (that is our Home page). Your comments are what makes this site fantastic - as well as the poetry of course. We have just detected and removed a number of spam comments. If you get a comment on one of your poems and you do not agree with it, then you have a right to ask me to simply remove it. Of course, I will. It would be helpful if anyone leaves comments on poems published before this posting while I edit the next edition. It is a surefire way of making a poet more interesting (to me). Real comments help me grow more editorial wings. Now that the site has proven to work (even if I become unavailable) and improve itself, I can safely start the next phase. For a start, editing will be a little more selective at the edition level, and perhaps quite permission on the Fresh queue. If comments become the default editorial method, then publishing great editions should be more democratic. Art and democracy - interesting mix or horrible idea? Your comments please.

No Fuss Grandad

(A Message from one of the harem – pleasured by beck and call)

No Fuss Grandad
He wanted no bother
He wanted no fuss
He wanted the harem
And the thoughts of lust –

Of nurses and teachers
.. of those he could trust
The grandchildren gathered
around the bedside
Tenderness and tears
were today’s exercise
A beer did follow with the boys he knew best
Final farewells were downed from the chest

Who’d have thought that tooth decay
Would lead to the play out of final days
The end of an era,
Led by a chapter of tears
We’ll wait for you to slip and disappear
Into your final resting place

So you go now No Fuss Grandad
With family, love and God’s grace.

Deana Platt 12/11/07
(Kenneth William Platt RIP 13/11/07 3.35 a.m.NZ time)

It’s the end of August and we are

Low on money

Like the last summer

And the summer before that

It never ends…

It’s always like this

It will be always like this

Not exactly poverty but

A chronic lack of money,

A need to economize,

To watch your spending,

Cutting down on smoke and some food; all booze is out

Forget about clothes,

Shoes,

Socks,

Movies,

Books,

Going out,

Picnics,

Bus rides.

Hand lotion.

Pizzas,

Phone calls,

You name it…

It gets you

Year after year:

Not exactly poverty–

Just a lack of money.

And here I am,

Writing poetry.

Who gives a damn about poetry?

Yet

I persevere,

While

We economize,

Watch our spending,

Plan carefully.

Well,

At least I

Don’t have to economize

On words:

There are plenty of them

Absolutely free of charge.

I’m glad that

Writing doesn’t require much

Neither special investments nor

Expensive supplies

Just something to write on:

A piece of paper,

An old notebook.

An empty cartoon pack,

A wall,

Your skin,

My own bare ass:

In short,

Anything to scribble on.

Plus

A lot of madness

To make it

A bit more INTERESTING.

Edition 4 posts follow from this point. All posts above this being considered for inclusion in Edition 5.  Your comments on other people’s work may influence the editor.

we go out and dance,
pull leaves by the fistful,
weave them into crowns
that hold the hair over
our eyes
his sweet fingers,
a song of bonesssssticky
and dripping with honey
watery eyes and
cheeks, flowery
a sudden light from the street
flooding across the floor
like spit milk
where he sleeps, still
as crumpled as paper
after a hard day’s
flower thieving

Rebecca Isgrove

(c) Rebecca Isgrove 2007

Oxjam Event

OXJAM Open mic/Jam Night

Wed 24th October, 8pm

Roasted Addiqtion Cafe, New North Rd, Kingsland

Performers $2.50, non-performers $5.

Come out and add your voice to help make trade fair. All proceeds go to Oxfam who will match our efforts. Homemade jam for sale too.

To register to read or play text OXJAM + your name to 027 203 4847 or show up on the night and put your name down.

Cheers.

Anna Kaye

Richard Taylor

the machine music moves mechanically as it must because it is
beautiful and is based on a legal system of repeats but nothing is
yet for sure why should it be after all the law of torts and the
thinking Thinking Thing is there, and we are part of it despite
seclusion like a sheep’s or a boffin’s head, in a vision of perfect
symmetry held in a white drop as if we could know’it all, and there’s
need for change, but who looks on, and who is who who he looks at who
he looks is who — but we need all these people who don’t agree because
of the machine, which, despite its penetential and inevitable
inefficiency, is heard to cry out at deep of night to the Great One
who is probably dead and ensconced in a dream of lubricated, or
lubricious cavortings toward spittle. and flesh, words that send
shudders up my spire wire’s spine loom; one would naturally much
prefer to be the vision inside a technical robot, whose doom scenes
see wire mass everywhere, and, how does the spider know, because he,
too, is a constructor - or is it because the music nags us back down
the drain pipe into a parallel universe of incomprehensible equations,
or a crazed jumble of electronic, electrical, and machine parts
pushed into an elected enclave, whose triumph is its denseness, or the
enormous significance of an endlessly looping musical track which your
great great grandmother could well have enjoyed: some post—
Stochausian, post- Varese etc, not something tame like.the Songs for a
Mad King: but it all passes, even the wind machines, and the ape-
shaped eyes, thoughts of death, leaves, corpse valleys, memories,
inscriptions.. .you turn back to The Romantics, for there is something
about you, something nobody can see: as if you were the one in the
centre of a gigantic sound-shriek, and batting up all hell, and no one
gives a fuck, especially with everything turning into grey
gold. . .something like a cat looking into your face.

‘machine music’ by Richard Taylor

Poetry Live

from 8pm, Tuesday October 16th, 2007

at The Classic Studio, 321 Queen Street

(upstairs, next door to The Classic Comedy Club - just up from the Town Hall)

Door charge: KOHA

Open Mic (5 minute max)

MC: Renee Liang

featuring Guest Musician Fiona McEwen at 8 pm

with Steve Terry on guitar

Singer/songwriter and rhythm guitarist, Fiona McEwen’s unique, melodic style can be

described as “contemporary folk/pop/rock with a touch of flamenco”.

Fiona McEwen has been writing songs and playing music most of her life. Having studied recorder,

percussion, piano and viola while at school, in 1986 she sang backup in a band “Pacific Roadshow” which toured

around the South Island, and started learning the guitar and writing her own songs. After bringing up

three children, Fiona launched on the Auckland open mic scene in 2004 and has since performed at open mic nights

including Suede Bar, Diablo, Grand Central, Forde’s Front Bench, PR Bar, Snatch and ‘Speakeasy’ at the

Classic Comedy Bar, and at city markets, folk clubs, festivals, including Prana New Year Festival and Titirangi Festival

of Music, and various venues including Corban Estate Arts Centre, The Wine Cellar, Sky City, The Patriot,

The Occidental, Elevation Cafe and The Dogs Bollix. Fiona was also the featured singer/songwriter on

“The Verona Sessions” which screened live on Alt TV in August 2007.

www.myspace.com/fionamcewen

Guest Poet: Charis Boos

“understated and clever, has an air of sophistication, she plays with words like a pro,
carrying listeners away with her imagery and styley metaphors”

There is nobody left there

a throng gathered waiting

The people you came to kill

had vanished into thin air

they came and they called on their plastic box device

and flames we took for games fried brains and let us leave

waiting for them ask for more expired days
important truncated oats and wheat chaff to the feedthe quiet afternoon

the endless glory of minutes

Here, at the Ruinscape - we wonder at the minds that

brought us this hiddious expanse warped thoughts

executed in explosive charged seconds shades were sent

over the eyes made of silver cement

the pain left behind by thieves

and

the wooden bench

They all came to collect their debts

one by one

they left

in a queue

bent

and

harried

by death

Doris Lessing has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

As the persistent sound of her phone ringing came from inside the house, Ms. Lessing said that on second thought, she was not as surprised “because this has been going on for something like 40 years,” referring to the number of times she has been on the short list for the Nobel. “Either they were going to give it to me sometime before I popped off or not at all.”

Rangitoto

You emerge,

Upwards from water,

like the hump of a whale.

Like a grass-stained knee,

breaking the water surface in a bathtub.

But your smooth greenness,

belies your dirty red rockiness.

From Takapuna’s shore,

I can hold you in my hand.

But adventuring to your summit

feels like forever

when you’re a child.

I remember walking

in dehydrated step

short legged.

Red,

with prickly heat.

You can’t even see anything,

most of the way up.

Its just another bush walk.

Until the top.

And then,

all this effort expended,

for a view

that’s a dime a dozen anyway.

Copyright © Anna-Kaye Forsyth 2006

Welcome to the new AucklandPoetry.com - the aim is to provide writers with a social platform to present and share their work. After much software testing, it seems apparent to me that this is by far the most user friendly and idiot proof writing tool (wordpress) to allow you to join and share your work.

It is simple:

1/Register to join

2/Login to post your poems - an admin link should appear under Meta

3/Do leave comments on others poems

We will post the most commented upon poems to our blogspot archive of searchable poetry which gets indexed by google and allows you to find your works forever.

The AucklandPoetry Blogspot archive is : http://aucklandpoetry.blogspot.com - this site will become our Featured Poetry Archive in due course - featuring the best of your submissions on this site.

The previous version of the AucklandPoetry site is here: http://aucklandpoetry.com/akp - we discontinued that particular style of site as it lost work due to logging out the user. This blogging method is designed for writers and is technically superior to most others plus the templates kind of work right.

There is a living culture of poetry in Auckland. We are very interested in featuring Live Performance work with a view to publishing digital content for market.

The CONTEST.
by
Bernard V. Kyle
[C] 2007

Those minutes of longing & yearning,
Time passing, as hope starts to fade,
Pulse on the pound, the crowds raucous sound,
Has the hype, been all overplayed ??.

Some garbed in outlandish costume,
The more staid, in ritual attire,
Face paint, an added adornment,
But all, with the belly on fire.

Speakers that blare, Policemen who pair,
Players in combat, no less,
Out to succumb & overcome,
No mercy, due care, no largesse.

The siren then goes, the last whistle blows,
For some, it’s all grief & woe,
While victors gyrate, & celebrate,
A win, o’er an arch rival foe.

Blog link to Richard Taylor’s truly enigmatic work.

If ever there was a mentor for the oblique it must be Richard.  Something of a mystery the first few hundred times I heard him, but now his exotic language both infects me and ejects me from any feeling that one needs to moderate language.  Richard Taylor understands the language in a totally unique way.  Syntax is not collected under circumstances that will feel familiar and yet like the scattering of syllables we are left with insured faith.  Or at least that may be how I feel about it.  Read it and see for yourself.

http://richardinfinitex.blogspot.com/2007/09/room-23a-inside-of-eyelight-inside.html

dogs in wars

The big, white dog cowered in the shadows unseen
by soldiers marching by, there had been fighting and
many corpses lay rotting in streets, hungry dog had
been eating, first reluctantly, then with abandonment,
forgotten was ancient taboo about eating human flesh…

Soldiers, who could kill their enemies brutally and
without mercy, had an irrational fear against dogs that
ate humans. The white dog knew this, any dog seen
eating man could never again be mans best friend

When the war was over it would try to be adopted by
a nice family with small children it could look after;
but for now the dog was hungry it had to finish eating
an arm that appeared to have belonged to a soldier who
had been keen on weightlifting before joining the army
and be blown to bits by a wayside bomb.

Jan Oskar Hansen

New Zealand

by Bernie Kyle
Copyright, 2003

Do you know where New Zealand is ?
Oh where, Oh where, on Earth ?
Is it big - or is it Small ?
Just How Much is it Worth ??

It’s not so big, I must Confess,
It’s in the South Pacific,
And Money isn’t Everything !!
The Country is Terrific.

There’s a green, green Land, & Mountains too,
Within the Easy Reaches,
And Walks and Lakes and Everything,
And lots of Sandy Beaches.

Without a Care, there’s God’s Clean Air,
And Nature’s Gifts are Free,
There’s Caves and Waves and Worldly Raves,
Why don’t you come & See ?

So from this Land, of the Long White Cloud,
There comes, a welcome true,
We trust you’ll come to visit us,
And enjoy our lifestyle too.

Bernard Kyle