What is nearest at hand … these nerves in my fingertips are eyes, five pairs of eyes pressing the pillow where your head might lie, looking for your face, one day. Time, now and then, allows for intimation that…

  Today as I step away and out of myself to look, I wonder about me and bump: it’s your birthday Forgive me: but it is not too late to send a kumara or book. which seems ordinary Outside there’s…

Papa-Tu-A-Nuku (Earth Mother) We are stroking, caressing the spine of the land. We are massaging the ricked back of the land with our sore but ever-loving feet: hell, she loves it! Squirming, the land wriggles in delight. We love her….

  I left my life, held captive by a dream, and stood in the middle of the Californian Spanish Mission Revival beachfront learning how to build cumulus clouds. I saw Napier’s blue sky pour it on in the high noon…

  Two or three backs settle against wicker and prepare to take in sunset. A man who knows balance has ordered that precise patch of sky. The drinks stand at right angles to the lawn. Bamboos quiver from the baseline…

  Zac’s dead buried with his brother Wallace beside the carport under the pongas. Zac of the goldfish eyes and nice-smelling fur who when I had a problem with a poem slept on it, who lived to put his paw-print…

The Long Road to Teatime: Part 2 5 I wake up amongst the lustful gluttons I wake up and at first I think I am back on Ponsonby Road.A greasy cheesy smell of food thickens the airtill I lift my…

from Memorial: Part 2 The priest of Hephaestus Hot-faced from staring at flames Prayed every morning the same prayer Please god respect my status Protect my sons PHEGEUS and IDAEUS Calm down their horses lift them Out of the fight…