No Title.

Seal Ends.

Seal ends

Metal begins

Short change

Clatter in the wheel arch


Metal ends

Track begins

Bog down

Get out and walk


Track ends

End begins

Sharp reef

On bare feet


End starts

Tide turns

Step off

the end

The Cruel Sea.

Horizon.

The horizon is keen and bright

Where it meets forbidding land

Darkening under the shadow of sea cloud

To reverse the agreement


Silver sea and dark land

Shining cloud and lead sea.


The sharply ruled line borders

The yeasty churn of the cycles

The pull of the moon

The draw of the tide


If priest at the marriage of Moon and tide

Then midwife and pall bearer

Between Sun and light.


And a God

All encompassing

But for you alone.

8-02

17-01

Snap.

Point to point

Across the bay

A wet in wet

Wash of cloud

Grey grim over

Stone green sea

The pot o gold

Over by the wharf

Another End.

The Bowler.

Island of fat trees in the park

Branches hanging low to make a fortress

For kids and others


The trees half in half out

Scratching at the red tin shelter

For the old bowlers


Pin stripes of pee green lawn

Framed by a chalky rectangle

And a fence that would only keep an old man in

Starched and tipsy


Crumpled forms in the fortress

A dark nest for the destitute

Of cardboard and weed and drink


Warm daylit oblivion huddle

Next to the gentle clack of the jack

Until the game is over and

Hard night comes with cold lungs

And nocturnal stir and trudge till

Dawn and another end.

On A Clear Day.

Spring Light.

Shades.

Along with the bright spring sunshine

Are the cold deep shadows cast

by headlands and obstructions

To the long low light.


Not shade for the reef birds

inspecting the shore break but

a place to avoid or endure.


Not the cool refuge from summer heat

But the dwelling place for

the opposite of the expanding joy

Of the new sun after a long winter


The long season captures the shadows

With its sharp fingers

And hoards the gloom


Only relaxing its grip when the night comes

To rob the day of light

Like the tide seeping up the estuary

Mixing waters, salt with fresh to brack.


A barnacled cliff rock drips tears of delight

Into a sky pool clouded by dusk

and bright ripples enchant

as the sky darkens.

Shades.

Huia.

Reader

Leaving space to read

In between the lines and entering

that place that needs filling


Sharply focussed or in the peripheral

Clarity in the optic or

Fun house mirror


My reflection in the pool

Your shadow on the page

Pitching your doubt into my

Shifting conceit


The words entombed in a tightly closed book

Never read

But hugging their meaning close

In the terrifying darkness

Leaves.

Cast concrete stairs climb up in the empty forest

Rainbowed glass and corrugated iron rotting

Webbed with the delicate skeletons of dropped leaves


Sentried by skewed posts with no wire

Dry water pipes and lives out of time


Pa with empty pits

Slipped terraces

Unmanned lookout


Once seen lovers in the gentle currents

Youth and age gone, their descendants

return with the new season.