Sep 30, 2014 | Poems
It will have to go, they said,
as if it could pack up its roots
and move to another country
where the landlords were kinder.
Once, I saw a flock of herons
settle in that tree, wind
fingered its branches like a lyre.
All yesterday the chainsaws bayed
and bit into the bark
and the gum tree
knowing it was cornered
shuddered.
They cheered when it fell.
Now the trunk lies, segmented
among its own broken branches
a wooden caterpillar
with a monstrous head.
soon dentist bulldozers
will extract even the stump
and there will be more space
to plant kiwifruit
Carol Markwell
Sep 23, 2014 | Poems
O how we dance, O how we dance
round and round and round and round
we dance by the lecturn dripping with fire
past the camps, the ghosts, the hands on the wire
we skirt past the thorns and sidestep the stones
our ears turn away from the chorus of bones.
the dry cliffs hiss warnings a cyclonic chime
the black ice moves closer — the Maestro is Time
we stop and see clearly the chains on our hands
we stumble on iron waves collapse over sand
our song is salt seaweed the dead fruit the bells
measure our footsteps and muffle our calls
we fall and we stagger we cling to the sea
and there are the crossroads and there is the tree
but O how we dance O how we dance
round and round and round and round
O how we dance O how we dance,
round and round and round.
Renée
Sep 16, 2014 | Poems
She wants to go out slanted
with her feet in leaves.
She looks through her stringy hair
at the children. She has no idea
how old she looks.
She feels young, nothing changed.
She doesn’t want them to bring apples
or cute drawings. She wants to box
with them. She lifts her fist
to challenge them. And one fights back.
‘Okay Nana.’ He has one hand up
to protect his chin, the other
a balled fist. ‘Ready?’
‘Yep.’ She takes her stance.
Harder when you’re sitting down.
He has a height advantage but not much.
He’s nine, or is he ten, she’s not sure now.
He jabs a fist, she fends it off
with hers, then jabs right back
and lightly clips his cheek.
‘You win.’ He doesn’t hug her,
he rubs his hand roughly through her hair.
He’s the one. He’ll make sure
she goes out slanted, feet in leaves
not stretched out straight and boxed.
Adrienne Jansen
Sep 9, 2014 | Poems
I’m thinking now, I shouldn’t have
been so forthright. I should’ve
simpered out my love like my
sisters did – those two stupid girls
with their names like diseases.
‘Course it all turned to custard
in the end. I might’ve stopped it
from happening if I’d been less
mouthy. I get it from him you know,
that pig-headed stubbornness.
You should have heard him roar.
I’d been his darling, the one he
doted on. I think now they were
jealous. He wanted everyone
to jump when he said jump. No
wonder he booted me off to France.
I held my head up high then, proud
that France still wanted me, without
a dowry. But my face was burning.
I never even looked back – till now
He’s changed. The storm sucked
it out of him, what my sisters
hadn’t already stolen. He’s on
his knees now, wittering on in his reedy
voice about birds and a cage and something
about singing. But it doesn’t look good.
Sometimes the things you do for the best
turn out to be the worst, in the end.
Carol Markwell
Sep 2, 2014 | Poems
Below me, cars do their morning run,
ambulances practice scales,
buses meditate on tourists, tour guides,
and the way luggage takes off
without even leaving a note.
On the balcony parched pots
mint sage thyme chives parsley
geraniums begonias succulents
all plead for water.
Wellington’s winds show no mercy
and neither do I.
I have a play to finish, a poem,
a monthly progress report, a book review,
journal entries, guests to dinner, no food.
I’m on a marathon, out of steam
and losing it.
I fill the watering can, race smooth-footed
through the space between the windows
out to the space in space and tip. It’s ok on
mint sage thyme chives parsley
but at the geraniums it turns nasty.
From below I hear, ‘Fucking hell –
was that rain?’
I creep backwards
through the space over space and,
tea-towel over my giggly, snorty,
five-year-old response, reflect on guilt
and how rain falls on the just and the unjust
and, it seems, the just passing.
Renée
Aug 26, 2014 | Poems
Our mother would say,
‘The blessed thing is stuck,
could you open it?’
He made a particular sound
a particular grimace,
our father opening jars,
he would say, ‘only
a circus strongman or I
could’ve opened it’,
which I just said
after my wife handed me
a jar. I opened it
with a particular sound
a particular grimace.
Out popped our father.
Richard Langston
