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Four Poems Poetry |
A consort of flower parts
for Jen
If the life of the mind is
a history of
interesting mistakes
then what of
the life of the body—a memorable swim
within certain boundaries?
As in a botanical diagram,
letters are usually assigned
the diverse parts:
stem, leaf, stamen, much the way
those same letters are dispersed
across the writerly sky
above Hataitai.
So, too, our marriage was
annotated, inflected.
Let’s go swimming, you said,
in your blue shoes. Who needs
an ocean
or the blustery light
all about us. Afternoons
I returned to the suit
in which I was married,
the blackness
of its incomparably blue
day—the sea of where it was
we went.
It was us, alone,
but not for long—others joined in,
names were distributed,
commas placed between them,
bedrooms added,
instruments assigned.
Chandeliers hovered above
our time together,
letters of a glass alphabet. We thought
the world. And how it was we came to be
who we were
or just west of there.
In the coral sea you were
the brightest of fishes
and I was marooned
half way through a poem called
‘Beauties of the octagonal pool’.
There were, at times, differences
concerning music, the lifespan
of a couch, number of books
on a shelf, the time anything
takes. The year the Australian
Prime Minister wouldn’t say ‘sorry’
we made a picnic
of the cold
but you were nowhere to be found
on that icy rug. We had driven
down a side road,
at the end of which
a sign: ‘Sorry, Garden Growing’.
It was the comma, carefully rendered,
that held us—this comma at the end of
Hokianga Harbour,
high above Omapere, an eyelash
or falling star. The comma
after ‘sorry’
which followed us south.
We thought the world
of each other, and
beyond the bird-like lettering
the cathedrals of
our time together
were a succession
of photo-booths. Times
we forgot to smile.
It was Spring
or thereabouts
and the high-flying punctuation
of Hataitai, all flower parts
and parts of speech, was
all about us. Out-of-service buses
bearing the word ‘sorry’
coasted by.
With its dream of
perfectly spaced
events and objects, it is the comma
that outlives these words—between
‘sorry’ and ‘garden growing’,
a seedling dropped
between adult plants. Whatever else
the season delivers
in the end all we have is
that
which exists
between us, a pod and a curl,
which holds us
together.
Love poem
Houses are likened to shoeboxes but shoeboxes are not
likened to houses. A car is likened to a heap but a heap is not
likened to a car. A child is a terror but terror is not a child.
A business might be a sinking ship but a sinking ship is no
business. A bedroom is a dog’s breakfast but a dog’s breakfast
is not a bedroom. A bad review might be a raspberry but a
raspberry is not a bad review. A haircut is likened to a disaster
but a disaster is not a haircut. Books can be turkeys but turkeys
are never books. A holiday might be a riot but a riot is not a
holiday. A garden might become a headache but a headache is
not a garden. I dream about you but you are not a dream.
Ode to fashion
for Doris de Pont
Of your over-reaching lines
and displaced
hems
enough said, fashion being
a kind of biography
in which
the shape of a life
is contained
but not
in words. Let us consider
instead what is revealed
in the measuring
room: the state of undress that lies
at the heart of dress. O
dizzying hemispheres
of Fashion, you encircle the
dangerous princesses
of Monaco
as you do the waists of young mothers
recently delivered of
their children.
Scholars listen to the rustling pages
of your collars and cuffs
as indeed they might ponder
the infinite sleeves
of your infinite arms
rocking us
both towards and away
from sleep. So like
and so unlike
the world of which you are
a part, you have
your designs
and your points of distraction
your deft marriages
and the occasional
embarrassment. Out on your limb
you wear your creases
but not as
we wear age. You are
also a museum
of gestures,
glances, with your multi-storied
wardrobes, those libraries of
previous seasons—
apartment blocks in which
evenings of a life
are stored.
If we tumble, your good skirts
will gather us
and if we fall
your lavish designs will raise us
again. Should we become
unstitched
your fabrics will wrap around the two
of us—at least until
season’s end. Then
it will be
curtains
and the wafting poetry
of curtains
for you
floating out towards the horizon
of the infinity pool
where these
cultivated waters touch
a raging sea, that
quiet seam
beside which I sit
awaiting further
instructions.
The non-singing seats
i. m. Maxwell Fernie, who from the church organ,
conducted the choir at St Mary of the Angels,
Wellington, for forty years until his death in 1999
It was air that gave the grand thing
life. Like a sailboat
or newborn, it was sprung
to song, drawing us up
the encircling staircase
to its loft
where the choirmaster directed
his forest of pipes.
You should sing as though running down
a grassy slope,
we were told, and here it was
our three sons drifted
gull-like, amidst the rackety cylinders,
and came to know this world
by measures. We were all ears,
aloft, and this way,
mouths firmly shut, we were taught
to sing—Max’s head
a rising sun above
the keyboard
feet as busy upon the pedals
as a pedestrian
taking Allenby Steps
two at a time.
Mid-song, I would lift my children
so high
above my head they became
the tallest people
in the world. And so it was,
we were, and will remain,
running down a green slope
towards a town called
Palestrina or Johann Sebastian
or simply an outline
of Wellington airport
embalmed in fog,
planes unable to land
and us, the chosen few
about to lift off.