Orange Doesn't Suit Me

All it took was a certain somebody and his 'call a spade a spade' comment. "Well, it's vulgar'. Period. I am confronted with a reality I have been attempting to shield myself from. Disguise. Trying to convince myself otherwise. It's different. A bold statement. If I just change the scotia and skirting colour. Tone it down a little. Perhaps. Maybe. Fingers crossed. Nah! You're right. Damn you. It's vulgar. Hideous. Nothing for it but to apply a coat of sealer and repaint. Forget about the wasted hours of work. The remaining litres of unused paint etc etc. Most of all, I feel humiliated. To have made such a grosse mistake. Me? Surely not. As if I were infallible. Get over it girl!

Chants d'Auvergne

Unexpectedly, music conjurs a welcome calm. Chants d'Auvergne. Late afternoon. The day, glorious in its latter hours. Kauri on the ridge. My horizon. That wonderful yellow-tinged green. Sky, blue fit to burst. Male blackbird on the fence. Cleans its beak. Newly planted kowhai. Encircled by stones. Sports new growth. Visible from my perch. Tuis, watch this space. Rhododendron, at other times tolerated, forgiven in its cerise splendour. De-nuded liquid amber, in silvery winter guise. A distraction for the mind. Harsher reality temporarily laid aside. Evidence of parallel realities. Juxtaposed.

9 Dragon Village Torch Festival

I would be feeling justifiably chuffed if this were my work Jacq. The hair. The colours. The directness of the gaze. The off-centredness. Everything. Wonderful stuff. Congratulations from me. Whatever that's worth.

Night of the Mandalay

They’re demolishing the building
Not loved for its beauty;
The sudden collapse of roof
Behind brick façade
More tangible than
Tired New York images.

Under streetlight, passers-by
With strange fondnesses for girls
Kissed beneath laminated beams,
Gaze with unconcealed fascination;
Revisiting school balls, overtaken
By affection only history can afford.

We squat on the pavement,
Destruction the vehicle for acquaintance;
The man who made your Turtle casserole
Unexpectedly at your side
Smoking hand-rolled cigarettes
Down to the butt and then some.

We discuss all manner of things:
The Wanganui meetings that never were,
Len Castle, Barry Brickell, Jim Greig,
Even your mother’s name;
The weaver becomes part of the weft,
One more thread in the night’s cloth.

With companionable acknowledgement,
As if to underline the fantastic,
A late night goods train salutes us
Through a gap between two buildings
While stoic young men gather up orange cones
Into big-boys toy baskets.

2002

A World Away...

....in more ways than one.


(The eyes of the world are upon you now Jacq)

Breakfast In America

Oh no, it's raining again....

It's raining
It's pouring
The old man is snoring
He went to bed
And bumped his head
And couldn't get up
In the morning.

Supertramp
(Famous Last Words)

Anthem For Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen

How Like Life

The day starts. Promising. Sunshine! A window of opportunity. Life on the outside. Real life..... The time comes. Promise withdrawn. I pull my head back in. Fold away today's minor dream. All too familiar déjà vu.

Being A Poet

Yesterday I bought
a blender — blue — from
Briscoes, just like
Marion’s. Today
we’re dealing with the big
issues, like: How the World
Began and
Can We Have Fruit Loops
For Breakfast?
Friends ask
what I’m reading.
By the bed is Go, dog. Go.
We looked at it this morning
just before our fight
over the nature of
Weetbix. But it’s soggy
every morning, I hear myself say
that’s just what Weetbix does
that’s just its way.

Jenny Bornholdt

I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed

I taste a liquor never brewed
From tankards scooped in pearl
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air am I
And Debauchee of Dew
Reeling, thro' endless summer days
From inns of molten Blue

When 'Landlords' turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door
When Butterflies renounce their 'drams'
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats
And Saints to windows run
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the Sun!

Emily Dickinson

Weather For Ducks

The Scornful Moon
Originally uploaded by Adagio.

Great weather for ducks. I'm on my bed. Thinking it's the best place to be on a day such as this. Listening to National Radio. Planning on a spot of reading. Maurice Gee's The Scornful Moon. Slowly catching up with books. Reacquainting myself. Feeling my way amongst the written word again.

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke