Poet's Land

To paraphrase Joan Baez, it was a happy April for this happy fool. I loved the focus and intensity of NaPoWriMo and the autumn season of poets in performance at the Madras Street Cafe. The month was drenched in poetry and I find it hard to let go. To keep the momentum going I am taking Joanna Preston's series of classes, Reading for Writing at CPIT, starting soon. Thanks to all who commented and cheered me on in April, it was such fun!

29 and 30 April

Sitting down to blog my last two poems only to discover...I've left my manuscript at school. Well that's an anticlimax. I guess it will be Monday before I can show them.

Tuesday 27 April 2010

surviving a break up

swoon words drip fed
from old letters embolise

the palliative stone burns
like oxygen on my sternum

unsleeved pulmonary veins
form new tissue

Monday 26 April 2010

Island Home

I stray like a willful egg
the new zealand bird nudges
me back into the nest

I arrive like a spinning top
braids of water tangle
in my legs birch trees lean in
kiss me tip me blanket me
with upside down mountain clouds

I colour right up to the crinkly edges
a cuckoo afloat in a floating home

Sunday 25 April 2010

Poppy Day

replant your bulbs
on ANZAC Day
right after dawn service
according to her grandmother

lay fresh flowers at the feet
of your hero's photo
his eyes bewildered
as the flash flares

his thoughts were
roast lamb
the shape of your hands
when you sew
the scurry of your heels
and hair blown back in the breeze
as you run for the bus

Saturday 24 April 2010

Eulogy

my determined flame
here you are I am

curious to see what you've brought me

I greet
the dry lake bed of you
turn and sit down
inside your absence

rise on warm
thermals of death
learn the new terrain

Wednesday 21 April

no moon tonight

tubular bell stars
burnished silver pipes of light
extend endless into resinous night

you touch and upwards I fall
tuned to your gravity
strike the columns and call
astral music