Category: Uncategorized

Whether in your eyes or in the night
sky, I need the stars
to guide me.

To show me the way home to your
heart, to your sturdy
arms that hold me in the only solid
peace I have ever
known and I can sleep without waking.

For how can night let us sleep without
the stars to watch
over us?

How can love let us fall without arms
to catch us?

There it goes.
Love goes out the window.
When you’re betrayed, closer than close becomes East is East and West is West and never the
twain shall meet again!!
Physical distance wished is a million miles apart in the head.
A silent hostile divide.
Unspoken.
And so it widens, from Earth to Space.
You fill it with blame, ‘he said’, ‘she said’, ‘I’m right, ‘you’re wrong’.
Each wrong justifies a right.
Each right is testified at the Church of Betrayal,
On the Alter of Smashed up Love.
It’s all gone awry.
And you stand clothed there wronged.
Sprinkle hate generously to keep the good cause justified and alive.
Here there is raison d’etre,
Reasonable reason leaves,
Irresponsible insanity arrives and approves.
Yet a mad Despot needs not reason, crazy love makes Tyrants.
Ah yup…there it goes…Love’s done a runner through the Window!
Forever turns out to be ‘just for now’, or ‘until something better comes along’.
The beauty of sensual lovemaking now unsatisfied boring sex.
The roses now stink of shit,
The Cats have been pissing abundantly raising weeds,
Velvet petals turn dry to dust,
The flowers wither and emotions to mulch,
Thorns prick and Love bleeds,
It grieves for those good old ‘could’ve beens’,
That’ll get you each time.
Oh those loving looks to resent,
That festers in the heart and governs the head. And there it settles and ferments.
Oh me, oh my, Love does a running jump through the Window!
Lovers to strangers, friends to enemies.
Who would’ve thought it would come to this??
Fighting over possessions once unitedly purchased.
Care and Share becomes Keep and Reap.
Love songs to fight songs Anthems.
No more climb high mountains or swim deep oceans,
Or nimbly skip and jump through flowered meadows,
Whilst happily chucking daisies in the air.
Now all you feel is that humiliating sting of love up for sale and no potential buyers.
Looks like Love is sprinting through the Window!
Oh what a fool!
Forever love really is the pits!
Nothing like rubbing your face in Love Sick!
You know they say ignorance is such bliss.
And foresight I hear is such a bitch!
There’s broken hearts and loneliness,
Time heals all wounds,
forgive and forget,
You’ll say you won’t make the same mistake again.
No way!, No how!
Where is true love?
It will happen to you.
it will be for real..next time for sure!
As you longingly ponder when,
Licking love’s past wounds,
Cupid cherubically sniggers….
Has Love swiftly flies out the Window!

my mother’s like a village
a place for ancestral wisdom

my mother’s like a town
a home for growth and learning

my mother’s like a city
welcoming all who enter her domain

my mother’s like a river
adapting to the times and constantly learning

my mother’s like a mountain
a foundation for future growth

my mother’s like an ocean
healing those who seek her wisdom

my mother’s like Africa
vibrant colorful mysterious

my mother’s like America
wealthy abundant resourceful

my mother’s like Asia
venerated ancient mystical

my mother’s like Australia
wild independent fun-loving

my mother’s like Europe
stylish elegant well-mannered

my mother’s like Atlantis
alive in the hearts of many

“Oh, Icarus” they say. “How cruel was your fate?”

All the nights you spent trapped beneath the ground,
Your heart, it longed to be free
Way up there you soared so high!
Did it hurt when you fell? Not from Heaven but from Earthly skies,
Down, down, down, to meet your demise.

“Oh, Icarus” he wept. “How foolish my son has been!”

The nights I spent forging our winged escape,
Only for your hubris to take shape.
Was it greed? What could have possessed you?
Down, down, down, all my work undone.

“Oh, Icarus” I sigh. “I wish I could change your ways.”

You never did learn how to fly, you could only fall, what other ending could there be for you,
after all.
What else could I have done? I broke you out, he had locked you in a cage,
Up, up, up you’re heading towards the sun

growing up was tough for him,
learning all his responsibilities,
before he had the chance to talk,
his father yelled at him for not working,
he was 9,
his mother had left,
she died when he was younger,
leaving her messy memories with her
pain filled son,
his father yelled at him for not working,
he was 12,
and just starting middle school,
it felt like his father was inside of every kid,
and he had no place that felt like home,
he finally found a place,
to make his father proud,
his father yelled at him for not working enough,
he was 14,
he’s in high school now,
blade in his pocket
carrying his demise of promises
etched into his arms
he drinks his problems away now,
he thinks his dreams are
at the bottom of the bottle,
his father yelled at him for getting fired,
he was 17,
excited to leave,
he didn’t wish to stay much longer,
if it was up to him,
he would’ve left the second he learned
to take a step,
his father yelled at him for not working,
he turned 18,
excited to step,
his father begged him to stay,
yet there was nothing else to say,
he still left,
with his father having no one
to yell at but himself.

you give me lemonade and i make lemons
you give me flowers and i find a jar to put them in
you give me instant words and i give you instant soups
you give me your roommate’s cereal and i give you my roommate’s eggs
you give me your fake-silken pyjamas, with cranes
and i give you my auntie’s pyjamas cause why not
you give me your oily shampoo and i oil your heart
you give me your wi-fi password and i give you my spotify’s account
you give me ideas of airplanes and i bring you to the airport

Witness to my birth, so filled with memory
Janet Frames’ Kingdom by the Sea
A seaside town built on a promise
A boom that never came
Testament to optimism, the vagaries of fortune
Wide streets, buildings of creamy shining stone
Turning apricot in the setting sun
Intricate porticos, majestic Corinthian columns
Tied to the common toil, the fruits of the hinterland… while feigning big smoke airs
Cow Cockies to wipe boots at the threshold… the true aroma of the breadwinner far from polite society
Notables dressed in Victorian garb or part of the Steampunk scene
Everyday folk beneath the Toff’s notice out of their farm clothes, HI-VIS, or “Works” blood `n’ guts
Little Blue Penguins prove popular prey for the I-Phone hunters, harbourside
But it’s the shags and their “business” seemingly keeping the wharves from crumbling ruin
Birthplace of frozen meat exports
Witness of fanfare for the Terranova and hope for success…
And first to inform the world of Scott’s fate
Not everyone’s cup of tea, this place, one could love or hate…
It’s true
I’ve felt both over the years, now I’ve come full circle
Now? I’m content in my hometown, Oamaru.

Flight takes hold
across the southern ocean’s depths—
Spring,
nestling to create anew.

Lifelong they are together,
older but forever here.
Their young will rise
as they disperse,
carrying the thread they’ve sewn.

A chick, coated in warmth,
loved—fed fish, squid, and more.
Hunting grows harder
as numbers thin,
yet down they dive,
again and again,
to nourish her.

Aged, they struggle on—
days blur into weeks, months.
She grows.
Feathers of flight unfold,
her wings flapping
until it is time.

Proud, though their last,
as age holds fast,
the chick, now an albatross,
flies on.

—

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

36- 26 -36
My measurements were an hour glass shape
Before children
After children
Before menopause
Before breast cancer

Doctors scooped out cancer like ice cream
a triple scoop, a banana split of tissue
until I was left with divots
valleys or hollows haunting me in the mirror after my shower
a river of angry red stitches surrounding the bottom,
u-shaped moat or the demented smile of a clown

My body is an amorphous shape
not quite a rectangle, not a pear or apple
too small in places that were too big
too big in places that were so small
the hour glass only measures time
grains of sand run faster than liquid through a sieve