Another Complex Low will probably approach the State from the Sea late Wednesday.

Innovation in toasters
Has slowed right down.

Efforts to develop
The perfect brown

Have shifted apparently
To more important things

Like dating apps
or drones’ wings.

And those of us
Who adore toast,

Who think that it
Is just the most

Beautiful food
Ever invented

Such simple fare
but when augmented

By spreads and jams
Even little fish!,

Becomes a canvas
Upon which we squish

The flavours of the world;
We have been left to fend

Off accusations like
If it ain’t broke don’t mend,

Or tasteless aesthetic
burning machinations

That make a Jesus face
Or some other incarnation

Of popular culture
On our bread!

So I propose
to you instead

That we spend some wit
On something simple

Like the perfect smile
Complemented with a dimple

And make our bread
Just that much better

A haven for a swathe
of butter

And realize that
while nothing’s perfect

Some things are just …
well, worth it.

Explode into the gap you cavalry of codeine!!!
Establish a base for rest and recoup.

The paratroopers of paracetamol have paved the way, and
Diclofenac was pitched at 0 1200 to soften the defenses,
but bursitis burns like napalm upon this shoulder’s
battleground of tendon, cartilage, and bone.
I could wheel out the big gun — cortisone!

Pain trembles at the sound, but administration requires
authorisation from one with letters after his name for that bad boy.

Bursitis Blues was originally published in Poets Unlimited on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A crack appeared in a wall around a square
that is far away from this island.

The wind stopped.

A fish broke the surface of Omiha Bay.

The innocence of the puriri tree
was suspended momentarily.

(August, 2012)

She said,
“I think you have a lot of wairua.”

At the staff table the women talk about wairua.

Words unspoken one says.
Broken apart in te reo it meant two waters.
Two streams or rivers.
Like Alph — the sacred river of Kubla
and Coleridge and the kids in my class.
“I think you have a lot of wairua.”

Wai. (noun) stream, creek, river.
Rua. (numeral) be two, both, 2.

Two waters,
two streams flowing
in different directions.
The Alph flowing into the past,
while we pull forwards
like a waka against the Omega.

II.

Leafing through old books of poetry.
The notes of an old love, when love
gave books inscribed for life, when books
lived long in our hearts — like wairua,
She said “I think sometimes you are
the revolution literature needs. Be true.”
Signed Amy with a little heart.
When you're young it’s all there to overturn;
you think it’s easy to “be true” — but it’s not.
You write heaps of poems. You pile poems up
like pyres for hangi pits, and collect little hearts.
The wairua is still there, because you’re older now
and you’re still writing poetry. Packing words in between
the picking up. Sneaking them in after the kids
go to bed.

III.

Winter is waning. The low sun streams through
pines that break the wind that flows over Piritaha
and across Te Huruhi towards the flatlands of the school.
Those trees hold many books, they watch first kisses,
stand strong against smokers, and accept hearts carved
into their bark.

Those trees have wairua.

IV.

Te Ara Wairua is the road the spirit takes to rarohenga,
it winds it’s way up there towards the thin places of our island,
leaping off Reinga into the meeting place of Tasman
and Pacific. The whenua of the dead.

lactose intolerant
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moral panic

If there is a god,
He is at the beach.
That is where the message
Has the greatest reach.
Where the rhythm of waves
Beats at his feet.

If there is a god,
He is at the beach.
A wide open space
Where he can teach
Ornithology,
As red-billed gulls screech.

If there is a god,
He is at the beach.
Far be it for me
To be the one to preach,
but the signs are all there
And I beseech.

That if there is a god,
He is at the beach.

The Beach was originally published in Poets Unlimited on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To his grandson he was
‘Sir Up and Under’.
His calf muscles were sinewed like the seams
of hand stitched leather rugby balls.

He was still strong, but slightly bent now,
and from his shoulders –
touched by accoladed scrum coaches & the Queen’s sword –
he slowly lifted the boy down, and walked the beach…

where I watched.

What had I done,
compared to the coach of te Kapa o Pango,
who walked along the beach
popping seaweed under feet
that had touched the hallowed
grass of Eden Park!?

I knew he was retelling tales of finally defeating the French
to his daughter’s son.

Ko kapa o pango e ngunguru nei!
Au, Au, Au ē Ha!

Glossary: te Kapa o Pango = All Blacks

or a drone,
a pre-emptive strike,
a terrorist attack,
or a violent protest.

I seem to have lived
my whole life with these things
disturbing the background,
bothering my peripheral.

(Pictures of pure innocence)

Today the boys
bombed Oneroa Bay off the rocks.
Leaping into the endless attack
of wave after wave.

Sounds of the real world
momentarily marbled under water.
She’s worried that her daughter
will be killed

on the way to school
by the Taliban.
I’m worried that I haven’t got
enough sunscreen on.

13 January 2015