Unnecessary Recollection.

The old scullery sink, concrete trough with divider

Steel rim and lead pipes.

Mismatched taps bright chrome and dull brass

Sturdy timber structure on wide floorboards.


Lifted once for some plumb adventure

Domestic archeology, desiccated shoe and cat bone

Dry soil and chutney glass elsewhere.


Here a job lot of the same scullery sinks inverted

Along with a serried row of yellow bricks

A futile but homely breakwater playing

Peek a boo with the shiftless sands


A wry weekend battlement built by

An earnest Kiwi Cnut defining

The extent of the Kingdom

The Bailey the Papakianga.



The palace raised and the king in exile

The bush has returned with weeds rampant

And the remnant of a tended garden

Bright blooms of the season garland

Rusting tin and crushed gutter

Unnecessary Protection.

It is nearly spring, a new year, and

There is new growth on the old trees that

Line the derelict parade.


A warm winter sun drops below

Gull grey storm clouds, casting

Painters light and promises.


A jumble of red brick and shell shot cement

Clutter the sand.

Slain lamp posts and wormed jarrah lie.

A sea defence against a tide

That will never now wrong.


The vulnerable have already succumbed

To their forgotten fates leaving

A midden, an unnecessary protection

For dwellings long abandoned and for

Care free seabirds

Impressions.

Footprints in the sand

Duck feet in the mud

Flick of the trowel in once wet cement


Wind on water

Scar on my eye

Salt tear on your tongue.

Soundings

Walking on hard wet sand

By the gentlest tide

Still and quiet except


For some guy hitting an oil drum with a spanner

The he haw saw of the mynah birds

The furnace roar of the flight path

The slap of the cormorants wing on water

The shrill soundings of children

The doppler chop of a helicopter.



The harbour the sound of an elegant lady bathing



The hollow hammer of the engine in the belly of a fishing boat

The cries of success and failure from the fishermen on the wharf


Silent splash of a plunging seabird

The proud silence of the Totora trees.

Bar and Mote.

Breeze steady, cool air,

Crisp light, association free.

Memory from 40 light years ago

Not nostalgia but

With a dread of light with no meaning.



The Sun darts behind a cloud

Like a hand over a lamp.

But it soon returns

As fearful and revealing as before.



Four decades ago,

The light was unexamined

Angles of refraction and

Angels of reflection

Bar and mote

Mist glow

All joyful oblivion.

Post Storm Huiku.

Water flows through reeds

Golden cloud crowns dark hills

Hills lie in washes.



Sound of small steady stream

Sea fret smudges the island

Bird cries on the reef



Water drips down

Saturated swamp streams

Dead octopus points.

Lake On A Still Sunny Day.

Rain Huiku.

White shells on black sand

Bowing branches drip water

Water filled foot print.

Cold rain falls on sand

Seal the shape of stone

Puddles ice the reef.

Grey green sea cloudscape

Wharf fades into pale mist

Heron rows the air.

Tarawera 1

Tarawera.

Landlocked lake with short fetch

Sorts out a sharp slap of

Fresh water on foamy stone.


The cold wind cuts through crisp light

From the amputated peaks of the mountain.


Peace now like peace before but not then.


From when the fundamentals weren't

When drowned ships sailed

And night sky was fire bright

And the silent earth wasn't

And stones rained down.


The science of it explains the mechanism

But strange Gods to test faith so harshly

The why of stone turned to liquid,

Of air turned to fire,

And all beauty turned to ash.

Pacific Colours.

Cerulean between the dark clouds

Wash ultramarine on the water.


To the North a squall blurs

To the right a beautiful broken rainbow falls

Onto a grey monument on an overgrown headland.


Squall curdles to storm

Flash and roll

The horizon closes

And our heads are bowed down by a hard rain.


Why did we come out here?

Shouldn't we have listened to the forecast?


It's because we wanted to see the beautiful colours in the sky.

NB.

Conjunction.

Fog has trapped warm air under its weight.

On still water at full tide

Lying in horizonless tranquility.


Pale lit mist smudging geometries and bewildering.

Reflecting reflection echoing silence

A discreet veil for Aurora, spotlight moon

And Venus coupling with Jupiter.

NB 17.

Two Gates One Journey. (for Jacqui Miles)

 I.    Two gates, one journey.


II.    33 tanalised pine posts in a line.


III.   33 spindly lancewood trees down to the boardwalk.


V.    A stand of kauri.


VI.   Pine Ave   1/2 hr


VII.  Seven wooden steps in the clay.


VIII.  One more thing.


IX.    A slippery wooden bridge nine paces long.


X.    Two barking dogs.


XI.   Three cabbage trees.


XII.   One fern bird calling.


XIII.  Thirteen oystercatchers crying.


XIV.  Seven buoys silent.