Fractionation

Colour was a location etched on her face -
culture to be seen, not heard

- not a choice.

But oh, 
her woven stories were known

beyond he mountains.

Rumbles reverberated through

the cracks of the earth

     raising life from soil

     releasing breaths from roots

that carried to the circumference of Rā's fervor;

Papatūānuku echoing Ranginui's lost embrace.  

Published in 'Blackmail Press' - March 2017
http://nzpoetsonline.homestead.com/RM42.html

Trailing Through Tāmaki Makaurau

1.     Images of a pixel galaxy

    glide across the underbelly of Stardome.

    Collective retinas dot-to-dot constellations.

    We pulse neon in the womb of genesis.

2.     IMAX movie magic

    projects 3-D lips through darkness,

    past the row of popcorn kids

    to surround sound me a kiss.

3.     Western Springs gangster geese

    waddle their feathered rumps to encircle tourists;

    hustling for bread – standard fees demanded

    for click-click-click of Nikons.

4.     Chevalier, your waters tremor beautiful

    under the moon and the sun.

    When I dive beneath your skin-deep

    I dissolve into ballerina ocean.

5.     At one end of Long Bay

    stands a cliff engraved with white noise

    that blares in the barnacle ears

    of hacked rock whales.

6.     Bark-skin of fat octopus limbs

    spew from Albert Park’s dank incense earth.

    Feels like wooden elephants;

    smells like Papatūānuku giving birth.

7.     Swollen dancer extends a butterfly greeting --

    temptation at Botanic Gardens.

    Beware of efflorescent thorns in fluorescent fields

    when the sun sets at Eve.

8.     A crucifix of tubular lights

    carried up Mount Roskill by orange vest workers;

    Auckland Council Christianity

    burns noughts and crosses confessions.

9.     An army of miniature green blades

    stand at attention in my backyard.

    A neighbour visits in his wheelchair.

    His feet do not bleed.

Published in 'Blackmail Press' - March 2017

Chipped China

How can Brian -
the street bully -
be this delicate giant?

Eleven-year-old Tumema
peered through the slits
of the wooden slats
under Brian's house.

The same thick fingers
that dragged her by the hair
across the school field

nimbly raised a china cup
to the porcelain doll's
love-heart lips.


Published in 'Blackmail Press' - March 2017

NZ Best Poems 2017
https://www.bestnewzealandpoems.org.nz/2017-contents/

Parousia

Jesus died this morning

in a nameless alleyway

hunched between an

ex-jailbird and a homeless girl.

I saw him last night  

    tickling the feet of fa’afafine

    with his bearded kisses.

   

I heard him last night

    laughing with hardened Magdalenas

    over plastic cups of street brew.

       

I felt him last night

    lick sanction across the punctured

    creases of my inner elbows.

You missed him –

the Second Coming has come and gone.

    You were too preoccupied

scouring penthouse suites in trump hotels

    singing psalms to molesting podiums

tasting bleach from make-it-rain teeth

    and stroking feathers of corrupt wings.

    Did you not learn from his first visitation

that he would come as One

of the wandering and uncrowned?

    Did you not learn from his first stopover

that Sinner and Saviour

walk shoeless side by side

along bleeding crossroads?

Jesus died this morning

in a nameless alleyway

beneath your feet

while your noses pointed to the skies.  

Published by 'Blackmail Press' - March 2017

Benedict Brunch

Stabbed sunrise

hemorrhages yolk

to dying sunset

salmon pinstripe veins

scrawled into

craters of a muffin moon .

Tarawera erupts pepper ashes

bomb Pollock hues

of fire lakes and liquid flames

spill across ghostly rocket trees -

Nature competes with Herself

on my plate.

Colonised Aladdin Lamp

grants Earl Tea and milking maids.

Sweetened with manuka cubes

mined from Pharoah’s resting place.

An eye-glass on a microphone stand

sings for its number 24.

Published in 'Plate in the Mirror: Poetry Anthology' - Nov 2016

NOUGHTS AND CROSSES

You Adams

I was never your sundown at Eve.

Your patriarchal ribs

built the cage in my chest

but the drumming of my heartbeat

was always to my own anthem.

You God

I was never your fallen.

Your old testaments

had no cause to be

carved as stone prophecies

into the wells of my palms.

You Demons

I was never your battlefield.

So I lay down sword and shield

and kneel within the circle

of your Legion

with open arms and spirit. 

For I belong whole.

I belong precious.

I belong living.

I belong.

I always have.  


Translated into Spanish online at 'CÍRCULO DE POESÍA' - Sep 2016

Moving Still

We dizzy ourselves sick
on the wheels of calamity
spin after spin after spin
we glutton our addiction to suffering.
We were brainwashed to believe
salvation explodes only from chaos
- Beauty splattered from Bing Bang.

However, I have found
perpetual struggle only grows
heart into stone
from which I cannot
taste the colours of this land
or hear the contractions of my pulse
or see words dance into voice
or smell the sizzle of spitfire passion
or feel the dawn of belonging

just a lump of jagged motionless
                  alone
in a meadow of surrounding sighs.


Translated into Spanish online at 'Circulo De Poesia' - Sep 2016