Auckland Poetry.com

The Amazement

The track I walked, in the thorny landscape, was full of loose
stones that kept coming up from ground trying to trip me up,
where the track narrowed amongst unkempt trees, boughs
tried to push me over, and in the undergrowth I heard snarls
of animals too vicious and hideous too appear in the flesh.
Overcast day and the wind that blew had ice on its breaths,
I shivered alone in the enmity of a landscape gone feral.

But I staggered on unwilling to give into phobias and fear,
suddenly stones went subversive and the path was soft as
a carpet, unseen animals disappeared and trees welcomed
me with fluttering leaves; even a love hungry zephyr
whispered sweet words. In a shimmering glade- smooth as
a rich man’s lawn- a plum tree, full of juicy fruit, I picked and
ate some; they tasted of magic and sweet marvel.

Dizzy with pleasure I sat on a stone, formed by ten million
years of rain, like a throne, saw sirens dance to Pan’s flute and
swim with sunrays and moon waves that hadn’t made it home
and had to wait for night, and mother moon to come pick them
up. Fell asleep when I woke up a boar, with her seven piglets,
drank water by the lake’s far shore. White clouds on blue, time
to go home and remember not speak of this to anyone.

Real Art

I woke up a blue neon light, outside my hotel room,
kept lightning up my space, I looked out and saw
a man in a cafe sitting by the counter eating a burger,
he had hat on and looked ca 1948.

Knew I was in an Edward Hopper painting but didn’t
want to be a part of his bleak cityscape of lone men
who live in cheap hotels and drink coffee in a cafe,
which clientele are lost souls like me.

I splashed water in my face adjusted my tie put my
hat on and walked out, a cab drove by looking for
a fare, I opened the cafe’s door, the man with hat had
gone, drank coffee and ate a doughnut.

Make-believe

The olive tree had three trunks Siamese triplets?
It was old and gnarled, some of its branches had
no leaves and it was lost in an abstract, cosmic
dream and not aware of its surround; I touched
the perennial and thus gave it soul.

A mild breeze blew, a fluttering of leaves and
the three could see the blue sky where a silvery
bird flew northward glinting in the sun. It could
also see how cute other trees looked, when aware
how ugly it was dawn dew dripped from leaves.

Wished it could be a cosmic dream again and
not know of time and place. But look, its tears
had fertilised the ground and around its trunk
flowers so rare they had still to get a Latin name,
sprung up from red/rusty soil.

They are my creation I have created beauty out
of my distress, the plant whispered as in awe.
My children, must shade them from the hot sun
and bitter winter rain. Vanity be gone, and see,
on its naked branches green leaves grew,

The Death of Peter Pan

Peter Pan used to be black, he could sing and dance
and make jazz hands. He was so good that it made
sense to make him white, the world embraced him.
Everyone had a stake in him as he was transformed
into a pale ghost with a plastic nose, no one laughed
too much money at stake. Peter Pan liked children
too much for normal society to tolerate, but money
smoothed the way, but do not do it again.

Peter Pan was fragile doctors were always at hand to
give him injections that lifted his spirit and made him
feel good, and he needed more of it now that he was
middle aged, yet trying to look fourteen. His handlers
thought there was more money to wring out of his
tortured body. One, two, three, Peter couldn’t breath
collapsed in heap, and that’s a pity now that USA has
a black president and he could be himself again.

The Friendship

Sven and I were best friends sailed on the same ship together.
he as a third officer and I as a cook. We were both interested
in reading, cinema and politics, and we liked go dancing when
our ship docked. One night in Kingston, Jamaica, we met two
girls at a beach cafe, I liked my girl there was an easy repartee
between us and we laughed a lot. Back onboard Sven said my
the girl was not suitable for me, I smiled, thought it a joke.
Next day was Sunday Sven went ashore after breakfast, going
to the beach, he said, I had to stay onboard and cook dinner.
He came back in the evening, when I was ready to go ashore
and meet my new girlfriend; Sven said he was very tired and
wanted to stay onboard for the night. When I met my girl at
the cafe, she appeared startled looked around and behind me
but said nothing; told she had been to the beach all day and
was quite exhausted, the easy talk between us was gone and
the silence was awkward, so I wordlessly just got up and left.
Back onboard, Sven sat in the mess-hall drinking coffee and
reading, he looked up said halloo but continued to read;
In my darkened room I looked out, full moon and the lights
of Jamaica looked alluring; I also saw Sven go ashore again and
it was well after midnight.

Eternal Screen

It`s too hot to go for a walk, I stare at a blank screen
Its afternoon, in my cabin and silence is intrusive,
a low one toned hum of doom.

Intense white screen, but when looking closer I see
myriads of tiny black squares, a mask that will not
let go of its dark secret.

I try to rip it open with a volley of words, but they
bunch back, and reduced to banality of what have
been overstated a million times.

Exhausted I erase words send them into the bleak
world of Delete, a place where surplus words and
emails are sent to shuffle in obliquity.

I read the news 228 people have fallen into the sea,
hasty words fell out of them too and into silence.
Cooling breeze, must get out and hear the day sing.

Mr. Nice Guy

Saw her stacking shelves at the supermarket, my instinct
was to take her in my arms, away from all this, and ask
her marry me. But I remembered we had been married
before, how she had wanted a divorce because I had no
ambition, a mere short order cook, and how the court
secretly had sided with her, and treated me with dislike,
and yes, I had to leave our flat. Later she married a man
who sold Mercedes cars, he wore a suit to work and had
shiny fingernails, but he used too much au de cologne of
the type who doesn’t bath often and rarely changes his
underwear. He stole money from the till and ended up
in prison, and me? I’m a manager now of a burger bar,
perhaps I should offer her a job for all time sake?
No, that would be rubbing it in, so let her stack shelves.

BiMeNosMoSh
What a crazy word I hear you say,
BiMeNosMoSh
Listen to what we’re told & pray,

BiMeNosMoSh
Are prophecies from a long time ago?
BiMeNosMoSh
How do you think they could ever know?

BiMeNosMoSh
Are arranged in chronological order,
BiMeNosMoSh
Are purveyors of insights of time’s corridor?

BiMeNosMoSh
Are all written in quatrains & code?
BiMeNosMoSh
Read & think & a story they’ll show,

BiMeNosMoSh
Revelations from the Bible- to the mighty Merlin,
BiMeNosMoSh
From Nostradamus & Mother Shipton are we learning?

BiMeNosMoSh
Time draws nearer to the predicted day,
BiMeNosMoSh
Will they have the final say?

Mike Andrew
23 June 2009

Shenaragh’s plight rewrite

Gidday how are you?
Imagine being unable to say that,
Shenaragh would like to say it too,
Denied by funding & bureaucrats,

By thinking of yourself in her place,
Help us fuel this little rocket,
And bring a smile to her face,
By digging deep in the pockets,

A Mytobii is what she needs,
It’s worth forty grand,
It’s made by the Swedes,
Come on give us a hand!

Lost under the moon tales
of rain over that valley a dozen
prayers to the city

overland

seek that partner for crimes
of commitment

Worship the future their
clean rides through panic

distant when torn from
the top

that list with
segregated seasons

variable vision corrected
by a lens dust corrupted
and peering through this murky
cloud gently laid down
by the Gods, never cruel
but their laughter poured out
as they sailed on by

this insanity forged
in the pits of the disfigured
a new disease to replace the old
that vanished back to the rising
arch, harsh fear over lands
muddled by decree

My psychiatrist is the radio.

Today he is a horrible morning talkback
Show. with each line a new
Repetition. makes his test scores
Perfection. is obtainable with
Time. allows him to verge further into the
Radio. signals crackle as I mention
Wylie Coyote. really should have beaten RoadRunner at least
Once. the radio turns off the room still is not in
Silence. lurks in the air because he does not
Believe. in the words that I am
Saying.

Next is the midday
News. travels fast especially
Scandal. and rumour surrounds his disappearance from my everyday
World. class psychiatrists are hard to come by these
Days. drift and the radio becomes more and more
Unreliable. I cannot hear
The psychiatrist. cannot hear
The radio. cannot hear
Me.

Years pass and finally a Sunday sermon
Plays. and children slip back into my
Life. is more habitual
Now. I can remember the order of the letters in my middle
Name. the three objects in front of
The psychiatrist. is no longer in the
Radio. still fills my
House. with husband and kids I am
Reliable. I can hear
The radio. can hear
The psychiatrist. can hear
Me.

But he’s still not listening.

Failed Musician?

My uncle died, he was on holiday in Piraeus when a pig fell off
a balcony, he left a piano and since his wife didn’t want it in her
house, mother took it, only because it would lend an impression
of high culture, and no one else in our neighbourhood had one.
I played on it day and night, picked up tunes on radio and played
them on the piano; people where impressed, mother too, but she
needed her rest worked long hours at a canning factory; one day,
coming home from school, a big empty space, I cried mother gave
me Danish pastry, they were a day old but still tasty. I’m glad she
sold the piano, though I might have ended up a restaurant pianist
driving from town to town playing evergreens as background music
for bored diners

the glass delicacy slender muscled thigh
and animal they revere emits light
and stumbles into the city
its hoofs clip the stone
fingers tug at harp strings
slowly release the vibration
in a ritual of expression
and the crystal horse
absorbs all taking
the towns thoughts
as children sleep

The Nap

It’s time you wake up. I have slept long dreaming.
Yes, you have been sleeping too long most of your
life has passed by and you know little of this world,
how it works, not like your talk of equality which
cannot exist other than as cosmetics the icing on
the cake called democracy.

You must wake up now I don’t want you to go to
your grave a fool who thinks animal rights is a big
deal; yet eating beef; these obsessions with rights
belong to the well off middle class who can afford to
eat expensive no meat food, and too dense to know
that if you are poor, you eat cheap burgers

Wake up sentimental dreams, do become a man
your age, your mother has died and so has your dog,
tears are misplaced in the cold light of truth, so come
now you are not a boy, life is not fake, poetry made
to make you maudlin and forgiving; I want to die
bravely like Saddam Hussein did.

Wake up now do not pretend to be asleep to avoid
the final truth which is what you long have know
to be true, your mother knew that and on her death
bed refused to play the conventional game of tearful
farewells they thought she was cold, but she had
nothing to regret, she lived life her way, so you can do.

No, no. no for you who read this I want a beautiful
death with candlelight on my side, not for me
the truth of sobriety, what so wrong with a little show
flowers and moist eyes. a mahogany coffin is much
classier that one made of cardboard, style, means
a lot to me, I was never an emotionally sober man.

Peaceful Beginnings

On an island, in a big ocean, generals walk about
think they have killed a dream and call sullen
silence peace. The crushed will go on dreaming
till they get what they want, maybe by then their
vision has become a suffocating dream.

Nearer home, in the Middle East, the mighty are
trying to kill a dream by bulldozing it, they too
had a vision and should know that dreams cannot
be eradicated. Now they want power, and call it
peace; but there are those who call it a nightmare.

Of course in the immeasurable future there will
be colossal amounts of peace, the sun will cross
the heavens and the world will heal in silence; till,
on the strand of pure sand, sky and sea may give
birth to a living creature and a scream is heard.

The Peacemaker

The animal stood in the corner of the room chewing on
a bail of straw, dung on the floor; a woman, with a bucket,
came and collected it for the rose bushes. We know Israel
has nuclear weapons, but unless we are drunk and in bad
mood we are too polite to mention it; so I left the senate.
Stood on a bridge, threw tiny rocks into the river, a yacht
passed, and her navigator was hit; collapsed, but got back
on his feet again and waved to me with his fist

The Israeli army had blocked the entrance to the bridge and
Hamas, dressed in stylish black and silk scarves, the exit,
I didn’t know how to end this poem so I invented the phone,
it rang, Obama, he didn’t know either, I held up the phone
so both parties could hear his voice and they backed off long
enough for me to get away home to my thistle valley, where
eagles fly, sheep bleat, and no one pays attention to biblical
prophesies and self igniting bushes.

Cylindrical Mirrors

Crossing the raven waters of a deep fiord
he saw a light and fell into a dream, woke
up on a strand that had bleached sand, sun
and turquoise sea, knew he had been given
a second chance.

He looked in the mirror had not aged at
all and wondered if there was a painting
hidden in some dusty attic, he smiled just
kidding, but his image didn’t smile there
was too much to remember.

Last year he went back to the small town
where the fiord arm ends in five rivers,
people there had never heard of him, it was
so long ago, no memory of him existed in
anyone’s mind, as he had never existed.

The future had arrived yesterday, nothing
for him to worry about, as clear, warm light
cascaded through the window; he lived in
a handcrafted kaleidoscope, an optical toy,
yet he was free of false illusions.

Man & Tree.

There was a spruce tree in the forest, he had
watched it grow from spindly sampling to
a handsome young tree, and thought of it as
the son he never had.

But shortly before Christmas it disappeared
he went to the market in town where they sold
hundreds of trees for those who want the real
thing, but couldn’t find it there.

After the festivities he found his tree on a dump,
green needles gone, now it was brown, he took
the dead plant home and used as kindling to lit
the fire on cold, soggy days.

Senryu

As the night thickens
And darkness tranquilises life
Dawn is welcomed.

Senryu

Banality of greed
To shop for the sake of buying
Not for what you need

Senryu

Fear not the dead
They are only a copy
Of your future self

Senryu

Those who work long hours
Feel holly and virtuous
But get arthritis

From Teheran with Love.

Side by side the beaus stood, hooded and
silent, they no longer heard charivari chants as
prayers on pale, shivering lips abruptly ended.

They had been warned, their love was banned
by the law of the land and by straight people’s
norm, and now forsaken even by their families.

They had tried to conform, but their bond was
too strong. Two Iranian men twist in the wind,
will their mothers, when alone, pray for them?

Sit By the River

The dripping tap, ticking clock, the long nights
when unwanted memories surface on gloomy
waters, and my past creeps nearer and future
hides in a Saragossa mist, together they push
me nearer a non existence. Sad morning light,
rain falls like an old man’s tears when all ships
have sailed and he is stranded on the island he
shares with snakes and scorpions knowing they
will soon eat him. Driftwood in the sea of life,
I never was a master of my destiny, but I can do
a last brave thing, walk into the Savannah night
and eaten by lions or, with my luck, wolfed by
hooting hyenas, so I will stay where I’m, my
last act of cowardice, sit by the river and wait.

Just a minute while I turn 

the tide came in for years
and people felt warm
and unlatched their positions
drifted out to sea a little
trying to get traction in the wind

the time went out
and they fight
to keep their homes from sinking
down to the level of shoreline
and anenomies clumped to rocks
their arcane inspection of drifting particles

at first sight a handshake is more important than the facts
revealing the self is a faux pas when advantages
became reasons to be eaten
the pack of needful people starving
wander the streets looking
not for the empty
houses but the ones with food in them

they keep them out with
dogs and razor wire fences

a war with hunger its mediator

but the man is coming to be paid
and the money evaporated so away
he takes the wires and the alarms
and the dogs are now hungry and
they close the doors on them
barricade themselves into
shells with concrete walls

and pray
for the
good old
days