Birthday Song The date is sharp-edged, I pussyfoot around the real issue, as usual, wasting time on the fat maggots in the Jazz Apple’s core in the trash, how did that happen? How the name Dmitry falls out of symmetry,…
Laboratory Hill 1 The three young women, two young men – the loveliest the island of Greece could provide – were briefly joined by a sixth, a young woman who managed to burst through the cordon of priests. Then a…
Leaving Wellington At dawn I caught a taxi to the airport and saw first light ignite the hillside houses – and I thought about how still life artists deepen the surface of their objects with a bloom that, without…
The shortest day It’s close to the winter solstice in these parts though the precise moment isn’t anywhere near the same as when our northern forebears dragged huge stones for miles then raised them into rows in circles to catch…
Man at the kerb The longest road the hottest tar the fish mouth before gulls the heart attacks the heat deafens the trembling the flying in the face the pockmarks pooling the squint the lean the chancing on the…
Tohunga Crescent Across our street the Allen Curnow house sold and garden-tidied and refurbished, respectably letting as “AirBnB” is home to wild parties, and just once a riot bringing cop cars, a paddy wagon, pepper spray and more than one…
Singing … But when we began to sing Our songs, senseless and good, It seemed then that everything Stood as it once had stood. The days were merely days. Seven made a week. Killing we thought was wicked. Of dying…
Watching the Boys Play Rugby like flies swarming in black tidal pools or a milky way of sluts in short shorts and long socks, Catholic schoolboys teasing each other in the scrum. Bull-headed matadors depending on the score. The music…
An extract from Dear Tombs, Dear Horizons Remembering the Villa Isola Bella, Katherine Mansfield wrote of the warm stone on the terrace, leaning against the warm walls, the heat at her back, the furry bees in the air, and the…
