b e g i n i n g s

of the end

[selected poems]
[ 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 9 6 ]

D A V ID M E R R ITT
b e g i n n i n g s
of the end

[selected poems]
[ 1 9 8 5 - 1 9 9 6 ]

DAVID MERRITT

f o r H a m i s h a n d R a u k a w a
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
Some of these poems have previously ap-
peared inThe Whole Crack, Arena, Critic,
Takahe, Otago University Literary Review,
Wrapper, In Flight, Poetry New Zealand,
SNAFU, Killing Capitalism with Kindness
and Runner

The assistance of the former Literary Fund of the

QEII Arts Council is acknowledged.

ISBN
© 1986/1998 Kitchen Table Press
© All rights reserved.
This edition made as part of the Book-
works Module for the MA Arts and
Design course at Auckland Institute of
Technology

Colophon:
Usual assortment of assistance.
Created entirely without the use of Mi-
crosoft Products

Copyright

Except for brief passages quoted in newspa-

per, magazine, radio or television review, no
part of this book may be republished, repro-
duced, performed, distributed or transmitted
in any form or media, or by any other means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information data storage or
retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without permission in writing from the author,
his authorised agent(s) or his heirs.
Contents

In Overdraft at the Bank of Human Kindness 1985

Eric Remember.....................................................................................................................................1
Taxi Driver............................................................................................................................................1
Ralph.....................................................................................................................................................2
Very Incongruous Sight.........................................................................................................................2
Ferry Crossing.......................................................................................................................................2
Fishing Haiku........................................................................................................................................3
Housekeeping........................................................................................................................................3
Parihaka I & II......................................................................................................................................3
The Saddest Thing................................................................................................................................4
The Last Time I Went Hydrosliding.....................................................................................................4
Watching New Zealand Films...............................................................................................................5
A Long Time/No Sleep.........................................................................................................................6
Auction at Noon....................................................................................................................................6
Saw Karl the Other Day........................................................................................................................6
Kate and Fran........................................................................................................................................7
Last Night..............................................................................................................................................7
Did not cheer.........................................................................................................................................7

Executives.....................................................................................................................................................................................8
Job Interview for Poets Wanted....................................................................................................................................................8
People ain’t sure about Bruce’s Guitar.........................................................................................................................................9
The Weekly Shave........................................................................................................................................................................9
The Works Do...............................................................................................................................................................................9
Here Comes the Colonel...............................................................................................................................................................10
Whiteware Rustlers in South Dakota............................................................................................................................................10
Exclusive Bretheren......................................................................................................................................................................10
55 Five Minute Poems 1987
Ringing Ears..................................................................................................................................................................................11
Home to Town...............................................................................................................................................................................11
Things of Interest..........................................................................................................................................................................11
Taxpack.........................................................................................................................................................................................12
House of Bethany..........................................................................................................................................................................12
Toilet, 7.30 pm..............................................................................................................................................................................13
Migraine Meals.............................................................................................................................................................................13
Voyeur...........................................................................................................................................................................................13
Dinner Partners.............................................................................................................................................................................14
Cures for Canine Depression........................................................................................................................................................14
Polish Coffee.................................................................................................................................................................................15
Getting into the Clock...................................................................................................................................................................15
Before You Start............................................................................................................................................................................16
Words Words Words......................................................................................................................................................................16
Recurring Dream...........................................................................................................................................................................17
Smokers........................................................................................................................................................................................17
Some Things About Datura...........................................................................................................................................................17
Incognito Manual..........................................................................................................................................................................18
The End of the World is Making...................................................................................................................................................18
Play the Kerosene Heater..............................................................................................................................................................19
Country Kids Day in Town...........................................................................................................................................................20
Jehovah Witnesses........................................................................................................................................................................20
Career Opportunity.......................................................................................................................................................................20
Big on Old Cars 1989
Visit to the ANZ Bank...................................................................................................................................................................21
Squash Racquet Man.....................................................................................................................................................................22
Plenty of time for mascara............................................................................................................................................................22
John...............................................................................................................................................................................................23
Helensville....................................................................................................................................................................................23
Poolside attraction.........................................................................................................................................................................24
Coldsore remedies.........................................................................................................................................................................24
Permission to busk........................................................................................................................................................................25
Graeme Drives over from Titirangi...............................................................................................................................................25
Waste of Money #204...................................................................................................................................................................25
Fourteen steps...............................................................................................................................................................................26
Old Dog, New Tricks....................................................................................................................................................................26
You can find music everywhere....................................................................................................................................................26
Be wary of the Health Professionals.............................................................................................................................................27
All the Yellow Cars that have past
in the last eight Minutes................................................................................................................................................................27
Land Developer.............................................................................................................................................................................27
These are the Ingredients in the Coffee
that my Father drinks, but only on Saturday.................................................................................................................................28
Commodity Buying.......................................................................................................................................................................28
Party in West Auckland.................................................................................................................................................................29
Hasty Notes/Frantic Scrawl 1990
SNAFU.......................................................................................................................29
Lets talk diameters......................................................................................................29
13 things about chewing gum.....................................................................................30
Things sitting on the shelf above Stella’s head while she is doing the dishes............30
Dot matrix...................................................................................................................31
Christmas/Summer/Armageddon comes
early in the Remuera New World................................................................................31
Frank...........................................................................................................................31
Beach Scene #25, Dogs...............................................................................................31
Magnolia Tree.............................................................................................................32
Not many People notice..............................................................................................32
It’s not just the young..................................................................................................32
Sometimes it takes one thing to trigger another thing off...........................................32
Mr Harley Davidson...................................................................................................33
Bittersweet diary entry song.......................................................................................33
Which one is the Shark? 1991
Taro.............................................................................................................................33
I’ll Let Your Ex-Husband Think
Whatever it is He Wants to Think...............................................................................34
A Few Ways For Lovers to Hold Hands.....................................................................34
Advice For Twentieth Century Romantics..................................................................34
4.06 am........................................................................................................................34
4.08am.........................................................................................................................35
Hands..........................................................................................................................35
Only Poet at the Night-Club.......................................................................................35
Can’t Get a Cup of Tea at the Railway Station 1992
Hard Arteries...............................................................................................................35
Big Shoes....................................................................................................................35
Family Resemblance...................................................................................................36
Nuance........................................................................................................................36
Dusk............................................................................................................................36
Things strike you at the oddest of moments...............................................................36
Body Language...........................................................................................................37
Rivers of America.......................................................................................................37
Old Friends, New Aquaintances.................................................................................37
Lobby..........................................................................................................................37
Flipside........................................................................................................................38
I Give My Heart to You 1992
Your ex-lover is obviously a better role mode for your son than me..........................38
If I let my mind wander, the odd tear falls down my face..........................................39
We will all watch each other grow old together..........................................................39
Downside....................................................................................................................40
Taumaranui Railway Station.......................................................................................41
This day starts out happy but by the end
you are inconsolable...................................................................................................42
Going Back is never the same.....................................................................................42
Here’s to the end.........................................................................................................43
Notes from 1966 1989
First the Bad News . ...................................................................................................43
Cars and Trolley Buses...............................................................................................43
Babies..........................................................................................................................43
I get here.....................................................................................................................44
Anxiety........................................................................................................................44
Power gets generated..................................................................................................44
Milk.............................................................................................................................44
Mystical Interlude.......................................................................................................44
We get Contemporary.................................................................................................45
Introduction.

These poems were written under actrociuos

circumstances between 1986 to 1997. They
were written to the backdrop of incredible
times, not just for me in a personal sense but
in a national and global way as well.

During these 12 years a lot happened - and in

retrospect, from the comfort of the computer
this afternoon, most of it wasn’t pretty. It was a
time of nepotism on a grand scale, of thought-
less stupidity, of banality, of cruelty, senseless
assinine policies of government, it was the
time of jenny shipley and bolger, douglas and
prebble. the tradgedy is that even as I type
this it is still their time, belittling the fact that
while things change - well, nothing much of
substance changes, much.

I’m dead. Dead to the world and dead within

my soul. So I guess its ok to write these
things. Nobody is going to lean over my
shoulder, read these words and say “oh no,
you can’t go writing things like that.” Because
I’ve died and gone to the kingdom of poetry.
Where stanza weilding gods and godessess
walk the earth and sneer at the lesser mortals
coming out of the cookie cutter factory of Bill
manhires “creative writing” course.

As if some bunch of assholes know snit about

that. Slick well grooomed assholes with an
MA in their back pocket and market rhetoric
in their hearts. Fuckwits. Drop dead like I
have and see how the other half live, thats
what I say. Get a real job. I used to think that.
Really.

I used to believe in so much. Not big things

like the sancredness of the unborn child or
of marriage or consume, be good and get a
firstclass busticket to the kingdom of heaven.
Poets arn’t made in courses taught by gate
keeping figures weilding immense literary
power who open and shut the portals to those
they deem fit, no, poets are made in the
crucible of fire known as the unemployment
line, the scrapheap, the dosshouse, the last
twenty cents in the trouser pocket with the
hole in the bottom.

Hear me out on this. Its important. Maybe.

Yet. Yeah, yet. You know that time is passing

when you start getting referenced by others
as influential in their lives, work and careers.
What have I done? I ask myself that question
every night before fitfull sleep.

Behad children, two of them. A plethora of

crap up to my ears and a fraction below my
nostrils. Slept in shite. Watched others, my so
called peers and contemporaries, scramble
to the top of their respective dungheaps and
still realise that its still a pile of crap they built
their “reputations” on.

Do I sound angry. Ha. Outside its gray and

raining. Hear me on a bad day. And drop
dead yourself.

david merritt
september 6, 1998.
In Overdraft at the Bank of Human Kindness [1985]
there I was, all sad and raggedy-
assed on the train from Christchurch
to dunedin, imperial typewriter and a
teas chest of possessions, moving
south to get away from auckland and all
that it had entailed., burnt out shadow
of self but exhilerated, on the train!
in auckland I had worked as the
tour manager of a regae band called
herbs, a great job for a pot smoking
politcally active left wing twenty-
something. But the endless nights
of parties and sleep deprivation - the
“if its Tuesday it must be Hastings”
mentality - by the end of the last tour
I did with them I remember that I
crept into bed and stayed there for 10
days, blinds drawn, not answering the
phone or the increasingly incessant
knocks on the door. I was fucked.
Before that I’d worked for bands
up and down the country, booking
tours and practisng fatherly forms of
psycho-analyitical theories on the
“artisitic temperament” in rock music.
I’d had too many girlfriends.
Too many bad relationships.
To o m a n y t h a t l a s t e d a
matter of nights, days, weeks
or months and then petered out
because I was “unwilling to commit”
A n d w h y ? it meant you took your gloves off
Something inside me at the
time said to me that I was different
- to beware and to cultivate those
differences - to revel in them infact.
The stifling confines of my own parents
marriage had a lot to do with this as
well as the jaundiced eye on other
peoples relationships around me.
A car , a home, a radiogram
a clean well fitted diaphram
two and a half children
s a i d B a x t e r .
And it was the early eighties.
I’m not offering up any
excuses for my own chauvanistic
standards of behaviour - hell -
loose morals were all around me
on both sides of the gender gap.
That was just the way it was I guess.
Eric Remember
Eric remember the day of the drive to
Ashburton, a slipping timing chain on the 12TL
caused us grief and eventually a court action,
a civil case, an appeal to Fair Go but that
months away - with grey overhead weather
and spring drizzle going to Dunedin you said
and I was a willing accomplice but we
only got as far as three joints before the
malevolent clacking noise brought us to a halt
by fields of delicate yellow flowers that seemed
to serve no commercial purpose.
We tramped the two-strand fence with dog
and beat a path into the interior, lay down flat
with only the sky and flowers visible -
there was light rainfall, the drone from afar
of cars on State Highway 1.
Later we had more joints and called sheep
maggots nibbling away at the land.
The dog could hardly be restrained.
Taxi Driver
He took one look
at my shoes
then
the shirt on backwards
the paint - smeared trousers
the dahlia in lapel
the fresh cuts on the nose,
wrist and forehead.
He said life was
like a boxing bout,
if you drank too much
and life slipped you a punch.
Ralph
Please
don’t
stroke
that
dog.
It
only
makes
him
psychotic
and
sexual.
Very Incongruous Sight
To celebrate Christmas,
the maindrag streetsweep man
has tied two balloons, red and yellow
to the handle of his cart. The music
is by Verdi, Sibelius and Stravinsky.
Ferry Crossing
This place is packed
with American tourists,
sad droopy faces
crowned with glasses
that show big brown eyes.

In their twilight years

they grow baseball caps,
faces like beagles.

Fishing Haiku
#7 One voyage upon estuary
leaking craft
headlong to mangroves.

#12 Summer spent tackle trolling

with no effect or cause
fish ignored bait.

#18 Beercan buoys atop net

snare set to catch
those who feed in shallows.

Housekeeping
Once a roaring fundy
now a gentle trickle,
the water torture.

drip - drip - drip - drip

the tide sweeps the kitchen

the floor is awash with polish

it ebbs slowly like lost love.

Parihaka

(i)
Wood pile, open fire,
pinetrees and sheep, bleat
beyond the kai tent
to Bob Marley’s stir it up and
kids playing in the kitchen
as the milk truck delivers
todays 80 crates and ten of cream.

I’m on a bucket
weeping bitter tears
weeping sweet tears.

Taranaki is clouded today.

(ii)
Later, shedding pinefire tears
down smoke flavoured cheeks
we share cigarettes
past lives
present togethers.
The Saddest Thing
The saddest thing I’ve heard to date
relates to the career choices
among seven year old children.
“Wanna be a typist/secretary
‘cos they earn good money”

The saddest thing is that the

work ethic is so ingrained,
sadder still is the way of the
world we’re trapped in.

Somebody is going to take

her life from her and
pay some bucks in compensation
(as if those bucks could be
compensation for lost lives)

Taking our labour to make more

capital, (it’s the way of the world)

I’ve seen this land change from

a hick town to Chicago
in the space of twenty years
and now I see kids turn into
workers in less than seven...

The Last Time I Went Hydrosliding

The last time I went hydrosliding
we were all on LSD
and I had my pet dolphin with me,
a blue plastic model called Flipper,
who got his very own rubber mat
from the kindly attendant.

I kept thinking my nose was bleeding

and running red down my face
but no, though later the germanic
supervisor ordered me from the pool
because my shorts were not of regulation.

But I had stopped to grapple with the lane

floats which had become like long water
pythons coiled ready to strike.

She called the pool security men

and they were menacing big blokes with
moustaches and regulation shorts over
regulation bodies.

Later in the changing sheds, I tried

to talk to some young kids about the
benefits of revolutionary socialism which
I explained as meaning a jet boat in everybody’s
backyard and then and only then did I notice, the
kids all clustered around me in a curious knot,
their fathers, all glowering and troubled by
my presence, confirming their worst Jaycee
fears about druggie, commie, child enlighteners.

Outside in bright sunlight we threw eggs

into the sky which broke yolks like a thousand
suns and later we drove through an empty
cemetery eating spearmint lollies.
Watching New Zealand Films
(i)
In rows we sit poles apart,
fingers linked on
unbending chair arms.

(ii)
Our eyes flicker across
the room but avoid contact.
In film glow we circle
venus, suck on jaffas.

Long Time/No Sleep

The third sunset brought it on,
white flashes,
horizontal/diagonal bars
light and dark.
Increased heartbeat
laboured breathing
indecisiveness.
I’m withdrawn
introspective
blocked nose
lips cracked
face tight
heat patches
cheeks burning
lids heavy.
Head sinks onto chest easily
shaking hands
delirium trembles
muscles bunched into knots
occasional spasms in legs
pins and needles
cramp
sore throat
acidic stomach
band of pain across top of waist
speech slurred
poor intonation
some tendency to hyperventilate.

Auction at Noon
A right assortment of
social misfits and
outcasts, old and new,
dulled and sharp as pin.

Some attempting to retain past

personal journeys of memory,
some engaged in spirited bidding
to capture the present.
Saw Karl the Other Day
Saw Karl the other day, skipping over kleensak piles,
weaving and diving between the deadend
walkers of the lunchtime office worker crowd,
selling the dummy to old ladies in old coats,
looping and soaring with 5 G’s of gravitational pull,
leaving a curious wake of turned heads and delighted smiles.
Across his chest on the dankest of white tee-shirts were the
words “Karl’s Lawnlaying - Avondale”. His business was
lawn laying - Holden stationwagon and trailer - out in the suburbs - creating
front lawns, backyards, poolside surrounds. He pulled up inches from
my face, stood on one leg, bent the other up so sharp his heel touched the
bottom of his spine, angling his head like a giant crane or heron. He was wearing
bright fluorescent orange M.O.W. pants. His walk, a daily celebration, was the
result of therapy he had received for a childhood polio attack, the luck of the
GP draw saw him well matched with a bewildered doctor
who later travelled through Thailand in the mid-fifties, a journey that finally
ended in Hong Kong, where he was a thin aesthetic who frequented the opium dens,
studied herbal medicines and Taoism.

Kate and Fran

Pullovers - polonecked, paintsplattered,
ripped at elbows and hem,
I have a photo of you
in a close embrace,
backgrounded by alps,

two smiling heads in a

big black shapeless body.

Last Night
To see you both brought wry smile.

But, sometime later you lost

sight of each other amid the darkened
crowded noisy smoking drinking
partying goodtime people.

Then I watched you stalk

each other around the room
with fear in your eyes.

Did not cheer

Today at times, no sight heartens.
Lovers, arm in arm, bum pinching,
fondling,
did not cheer.

Bunches of spring daffodils

bright yellows, greens
held at jaunty angles in cradled bosom
did not cheer.

No smiles touched me - not one -

as I lurked, slouched, stooped -
watching sights today that
did not cheer.
Job Interview for Poets Wanted
I wanted to let them know that
what they saw was what they got
so I wore my worst clothing and
previewed my three hour walks and
how I sat in parks and coffee bars
watching people - eavesdropping for
alliteration and syntax and shape and
form and then I told them that I was not
really an office person and may not appear
for weeks on end sometimes but they should
rest assured that I would always be working even
when I was asleep or during my lunchbreak.

The Weekly Shave

I’ve been here for god knows how long
trussed like a chicken in the straitjacket.

Once I got wheeled outside onto the terrace.

They kept the straps on even when I wet myself
and had to lie there uncomfortably all afternoon.

I hear voices - whispers and screams -

sometimes in languages I don’t understand.

The drugs I’m on are good - the kind that

amplify the sound of a leaf falling into
that of a kettledrum or make the shadows
creeping seem like stalking panthers.

The Works Do
We had a works do
the last Friday before Christmas,
shut the doors and took
the phone off the hook.
Ross shot down in the truck
and got a dozen dozen,
a few 40’s of vodka
and some orange juice.

In three hours flat we

get blind drunk,
urinate noisily against the
walls of public buildings
then go home to
argue with the wives.
Here Comes the Colonel
When I was eleven, still a lad in shorts
I walked twice daily past the site of the
first ever Kentucky Fried Chicken place in
New Zealand. It was at Royal Oak - I was at
intermediate school. I watched in awe as it
was built - the now familiar but at that time
architecturally unique pyramid - shaped roof with its
gaudy red and white stripe paint job, and laughing at the
cut-out, life size figures of the Colonel. On the day it
opened there was a queue of people stretching around the
block and then some, eager to win the prizes of
coleslaw and cocacola. The police watched as scuffles
broke out amid the noise and fumes of peak hour Auckland traffic.

Inside it was much more relaxed. I remember all this with

sadness, the first ever Kentucky Fried Chicken place, because
it put the humble lamb burger back 15 years.

Whiteware Rustlers in South Dakota

No sheriff had been found game or dumb enough to rid the
county of the wild Hissock boys, banditos who crossed the
border and stole whiteware - washing machines, fridges,
freezers, tumbler dryers - the odd dishwasher too.

In town the people cowered behind their wardrobes,

nothing was going to save them when those wild
Hissock boys rode into town, with rustling whiteware on their minds.

Exclusive Brethren
The women are wearing
their hair long and straight,
covered by headscarves,
sit
quiet and still,
draw their coats closer
around their legs and
crochet baby booties.

While husbands read magazines

about hot rods.
55 Five Minute Poems 1988

Before You Start

You adjust the light
just so above the paper,
wipe your nose
on your sleeve
and lean forward onto the desk.

the thumb presses

the chest a bit
and four fingers
hold the pages flat.

You wait for the time to come up

on the clock and start to write this.

Behind you are the sounds

of your dog asleep - snoring,
your lover in bed,
reading , yawning.

Ringing Ears
The morality bells were
strong that morning.

Home to Town
The car is sick,
barely does 40.

Smoke appears up hills

rumbles grumble down
the other side.

In a short while a line

of cars appear in the
rear vision mirror.
The nearest one draws
close, blinks furiously,
overtakes angrily,
and is gone.
Things of Interest
It’s a yuppie couple, betrothed and
in love exchanging glances in front
of a jeweller’s shop display of
engagement and wedding rings.

It’s an elderly couple shopping

around for a new compact disc
player.

It’s a drunk teenager standing

up through the open sunroof
of a Fiat Bambina and giggling.

It’s five Friday night kids

squashed into a phonebox
ringing around for action.

It’s discovering that somebody

you once knew a long, long time ago
now runs a pornographic
secondhand bookshop.

These are things of interest.

Taxpack
I’ve never ever filed a tax return,
twelve years now, never earnt enough
money to pay too much tax.

However the year I do will mark

the turning point for the New Zealand economy.

It’s the trickledown effect.

My tax return is the light at the

end of the economic tunnel.

House of Bethany
You’re a good looker,
lots around to have a squizz at
over a pie and a Pall Mall plain.

An old man comes out and stands

under the awning, away from the
hard sun. The House of Bethany, you
cannot miss, it has signs from all angles.

A younger man wearing tattoos,

slippers, runs out across the
road. He buys Winfield red,
runs back in.

He mutters something to the old man

who follows him inside.
Toilet, 7.30 pm
When you urinate
for longer than normal,
you wonder if it’s the garlic.

You flush and weigh in on the scales.

Look in the mirror,
check size of pupils,
mess with eyebrows.
wash hands and run wet
fingers through hair
and over face.

You leave the toilet and

stand quietly in the
hallway for a bit.

Migraine Meals
Take 10 fish fingers,
wrap each in a slice of buttered white bread,
dip into fried egg yolk.
Add tomato sauce, vinegar, salt.

Drink two cups of strong sweet coffee.

Smoke three cigarettes.
Read the morning paper.
Eat your breakfast slowly.

Voyeur

Watch the wavering mannerisms

of drunk young people
as they down another and smile
softly to themselves/their peer groups

They
drop their bags
lower their guard
light their fags
lean forward attentively.

Dinner Partners
The man in the grey suit was once
the lover of the woman in blue.

The woman in blue with the leather

satchel and too much makeup is now

the lover of the man with the hearing

aid and the Austrian accent

and the quiet woman in black is

flirting with the man in the grey suit

while nobody is paying much attention

to the nice man at the head of the table with the big nose...
Cures for Canine Depression
Concerned about the canine
I took him from one white robed
vet to another
who reckoned on a variety
of ailments and cures but charged
a uniformity of exorbitant fee.

the ailments ranged from mites,

skin allergies, eczema, bad fleas,
full anal glands, athlete’s foot
and bronchitis.

the dog was prodded and poked and shot

full of Thorazine and other anti-scratching
suppressants

which kept him very quiet and

made him lie down in the shade alot.
Finally I took him to a naturopathic
vet in Papatoetoe.

She said take him off the drugs,

feed him more vegetables and brown rice,
garnished with parsley and brewer’s yeast,
stop using plastic drinking bowls,
take him for swims in the sea and
games in the park, make lots of
eye contact, tell him you love him,
scratch behind his ear, blow gently down his nose.

Polish Coffee
You can write these words
at the top of a page and
cast your mind back to
supermarket shopping last
week ago exactly,
sipping it now
that stuff called Polish Coffee
standing cupped hands,
remembering it drunk by my sister
a two-time benefit mother/vegetarian/
painter/pipe smoker/french scholar

ten years ago she scorned lamb.

let me tell you that if you

put in two teaspoons of clover honey
or two nips of whiskey
it tastes just fine
either way it’s nice
- black of course
take a sip and think that
at two-thirds the price of
instant detergent/coffee
it’s another cent a cup
for the Polish economy
which needs the money real
bad just at the moment.
Getting into the Clock
Put your face three inches away from the digital
clockface, where the flashing numerals blur.
Relax and count the on/offs on/offs on/offs.

Eventually the last number on the right

changes and a minute will have past.
Draw back until everything focuses.

Realise you have been getting into the clock.

Words Words Words

Dad stood feet firmly planted
on a pile of clay,
stretched his gaze the length of the section
taking in the house,
the low-maintenance woodchip garden
and the brick path to the front door.

He said...

when I first moved here four

years ago - I was with my own
kind - brick layers, night-
shift process workers...

now, I’m the last left in

the street - up there there’s
an insurance broker - across
the road, accountants - next
door a dentist.

They don’t talk to me much.

I think if I stay here I’ve

got to learn a new vocab.

Recurring Dream
Auckland’s become another Beirut,
with regular rocket attacks
and bazooka blasts
and machinegun rattle.
A Methodist Archbishop is
mediating the release of
hostages held in Hillsbourgh
while a UN peacekeeping force
consisting of officers from Pakistan,
Denmark and North Korea have just
moved into place in Parnell.
Smokers
Recent increases in the tax on tobacco brings to mind
several things - one, a memory of dropping all
butts into an empty paint tin and in the weekend
making fat vile cigarettes with two filters
on the rolling machine.

Some Things About Datura

are OK - but not Many
If you sleep under the
flowering bush on
summer nights, stars
ablaze in outside
blackness, constellations
swirl - you have really
vivid dreams.

That sounds fine.

If however,
in springtime you
cut off a whole lot
of leaves and flowers
and boil them down and
swallow them you end
up blind and naked,
crawling along gutters
at 4 am, destined to
meet the police and
a bevy of psychiatric counsellors.

This is not so good.

Incognito Manual
To walk across town
down the main
shopping drag
on thursday afternoons
briskly and without
fear of interruption,
buy a ten dollar
two-piece black suit
from the schizophrenia
opportunity shop -
go the whole hog with a
tie, shoes, socks and
thick-lensed glasses
that make the world
seem like an uphill
fishbowl and your feet
like giant paddles.

wear your disguise,

don’t look up,
relax your eyes.
Career Opportunity
Before the bankmanager dashed hopes
I had the notion to travel overseas
first stop was Manchester, England.

I wrote to my uncle Les,

asking about work.

He was a shop steward for British

Leyland, a hard line Stalinist.

The End of the World is Making

an Early Appearance (Again)
I have seen the spectre of the end
of capitalism and it ain’t attractive -
in the supermarket last Thursday night,
folks arriving to consume
and there were no trundlers for them,
harassed staff despatched to bring them
back from the far reaches of the carparks,
shoppers start to queue for trundlers
it’s cool - but those minutes drag into the
quarter hours and the shoppers are backed up
out the door - waiting for trundlers
those that get their carts set off,
but it’s saturation shopping in the supermarket,
a peak - like Christmas - but everyday,
tempers flare as grannies careen off yuppies
small children commandeer the cart and play
stockcars amid the perishable goods section
this is hell - aisle to aisle trundlers
nobody indicates before pulling out
no one-way system - no stop signs,
some stop suddenly for fabric softener
others do a series of nose/tail collisions
behind them - then, baskets full of consumer
goodies later,
it’s the checkout counters which
have all got three or four full trundlers parked in them,
blocking the aisles - a fight has broken out
in the magazine section - could store security
please report to the Womans’ Weekly stand.
I get to the checkout and tell the woman that she
should quit now before the going gets really tough -
she agrees and contemplates a course on
interior design at Carrington Polytech.
Play the Kerosene Heater
To play the kerosene heater
you need a kerosene heater,
that floods kerosene
flares kerosene
fumes kerosene
looks like a Bauhaus
design kerosene heater
with soft contours
and white enamelled
metal emblazoned with ZIP
and lighting instructions,
a grille, blocked
fuel lines
and...

to play the kerosene heater

you need only to light a match
and...

to play the kerosene heater

you have to go to the
local hardware store
or petrol station
and...

to play the kerosene heater

you need a clean wick
and a stiff brush
and...

to play the kerosene heater

you must know the right
amount of kick
to stop
phase two flareout

Country Kids Day in Town

you see them pinned down firmly in wide back seats,
child restraint devices, or noses pressed against
window glass leaving snotty marks -
father and mother sit ramrod straight

Jehovah Witnesses
It’s early Wednesday morning
it’s a loud knock on the door
it’s the clothes thrown on
it’s a head full of police with warrant theories.

I freefall down the stairs

to two Jehovah Witness ladies
who smile and ask me to
buy a book for five bucks.

Embossed in gold lettering

on a loud green background
are the words
EVOLUTION vs CREATION.
One of them said
your house just didn’t
evolve onto this section -
it was created.
Big on Old Cars 1989
Visit to the Bank
Productivity is pretty low around here.

Sure, there’s the painter, check shirt,

overalls, painting something
at one end of the counter but there’s this
guy in a ski jersey, RED WHITE BLACK loud
stripes, moustache, talking with another
minor functionary about the weekend
spent skiing. There are no ties on them.

And there’s muzak - I’ll have the last waltz

with you into the manager’s offices which take
up the four rooms on my left. The predominant
colours are pink and grey and light blue.

There is a smokers please tray over by a

power point. Both are disused. On the table in
front of me are a stack of last week’s NBR,
with 8 signatures on the top right
hand corner of each front page.

A manager emerges from one office and goes

towards another. He taps on a door, says excuse
me. I overhear a bit of a nothing conversation,
yes, yes, yes, then he’s back out, off
into another office.

The painter has now moved along the counter

closer to me. He is carefully sanding something smooth.

There are two more smokers please trays to the right.

I look around, nobody is smoking.

A secretary approaches and asks me

if he is aware I have an appointment.

I am not dressed like anyone else here

except the painter - who has now disappeared
behind a stack of pamphlets explaining
high interest rates and the unavailability
of new home finance.

I figure now they see me, they don’t

want to see me. I am not a corporate
high flyer. I am more of a subterranean
type. My trousers are stained with oil
and kerosene and dirt and coal and ash
and leek and potato soup and porridge.

One guy has spent all this time talking

loudly on the phone. He is trying to get
somebody to repay their loan faster.

Party, West Auckland

The wild west of New Zealand,
a golden land of leather trousered opportunity,
dress in black, ride a Harley, fall over in the mud,
chew on a pigs head, drink beer, tend the fire,
watch it all happening, wake up in clothes
smelling strongly of wood smoke.
Squash Racquet Man
He is walking down the steep gradient
leading from Albert Park to Queen Street,
carrying a full shoulder bag and a squash racquet.

An instant before his feet touch

the final flight of steps - he pauses -
spins around - his fingers fly to his
mouth, I see his stance go tense.

He is undecided, looking up towards the place

where he has just come from, he spins around and
taps his leg with the squash racquet, shrugs, turns,

walks slowly up the hill, back into his past.

Plenty of time for mascara

(i)
I’ve been asking around for the ages of kids
on school holidays, there is this tendency
for children to look older, makeup has a
levelling effect - they may look older
but they are still kids at heart.

(ii)
while their appearance is a decade into
the future, the talk is still pre-teen,
you can judge better by the boys,
who are gawky, goofy,
uncertain, unconfident, they remain
quiet, contribute little, wish they
were older - hold out hope for
their future.

(iii)
These are good kids - you can tell by
the haircuts - they are the products
of marriages between people with
university degrees.

(iv)
They say that beauty is skin deep but
nowadays beauty is only as good as
a coating of Revlon products, worn as
warpaint on the faces of 11
year old girls.

Frank
John is a meticulous kind of guy,
save this - save that.

He gets used teabags, collects them after

every pot of tea, tosses them onto a
bed of chicken wire, lets them
dry out in the sun.

Then he stores them between sheets of

newspaper, several months later he
has enough to make a
recycled
tea bag
duvet.
Helensville
We’re a nation of people who
aspire to drive on wide wheels,
fats, starve the kids but...

if childhood memories of places

you once lived in are true,
every small town would be a Gotham

City. Instead, this Sunday afternoon,

Helensille seems small and sad and drab and rusted.

Poolside attraction

Swimtime is over at the pool.

The boys are nervous,
their legs swing ceaselessly under
the table. They are growing up.

Swimtime is over at the pool.

It’s time to meet girls
and sit at separate tables.

Coldsore remedies
Propolis tincture
zinc cream
aftershave
witch hazel
massive doses vitamin C
garlic
solarcaine spray
ungvita
comfrey ointment
carrot oil
aloe vera
5 litres of purified water
gentian violet
methylated spirits
diluted dettol
iodine
marmite
mercurochrome
clearasil
nylex
salt water
rexona
stoxil
lanacaine
bergamot oil
steam
geranium oil
fresh marigolds
grow a beard
don’t pick them.
Permission to busk
I refer to your request for permission to busk on City
streets playing a clarinet and saxophone.

Since I spoke with you, I have received several complaints

about your performance and I am led to believe that the
instruments which you are playing are not really suitable
for busking on the streets as it is too difficult to keep
the sound to an acceptable level.

I am sorry therefore that I must decline your request for

permission to busk, but would reconsider an application
that involved a different kind of instrument.

A clarinet and a saxophone, however, may be quite acceptable

in a larger open space and you could try playing perhaps
on the Museum Reserve or Queens Gardens where lunchtime
crowds gather. If complaints are received though, I would
have to ask you to refrain from playing in those areas also.

Graeme Drives over from Titirangi

It’s a good feeling to phone round
and talk just hours before you boarded the
plane for OZ. You drop everything, drive
across town at high speed to talk, take stock,
touch fingers - it may have been three years
since I last saw you but again, as always,
everytime we meet it’s just like yesterday.

If only for a few hours we can sit, talk,

smoke, drink, most of all laugh, this is a
friendship built on laughter, smiles, jokes,
puns - for we have memories built on memories -
and tonight we’ll build a new set to smile about,
you and me, bastards both of us, but in the best
possible way. You could say that we are a
couple of good kiwi jokers.

Waste of Money #204

Launching top secret U.S.
Intelligence spy satellites
to read Soviet newspaper
headlines from 140,000
feet is not so smart.

Why can’t the Americans just

buy their newspapers like everybody
else? or have them sent by facsimilie
from the embassy in Moscow.

Fourteen steps
Some days - there is no reason to it,
an empty mailbox will be full five
minutes later. It’s a fine line
between joy and despair when you
walk the fourteen long steps
down to the mailbox.
Old Dog, New Tricks
Now his relationship was over,
Eddie reverted to a bachelor diet
baked beans from tins,
cheese on toast,
takeaways.

He avoided lentils, never

threw a cup of barley into
a pot of boiling water.

Best he ever did was

a vegetable stirfry, once.

You can find music everywhere

To add to his problems,
noises came from
the electricity meter box,
in the still of the house at
midnight he would make out
strange subharmonics -
buzzes, clicks and whirrrs.

Be wary of the Health Professionals

The dentist’s books are filled
with appointments, names next
to every 40 minute slot
stretching three weeks ahead.

My own name is nestled into the

future, it’s my tooth here I say
and point a begrimed finger.

It hurts like hell.

All the Yellow Cars that have passed

in the last eight Minutes
Datsun C20 van, tinted windows
Mazda 323 stationwagon, grey primer touch spots
Ford Laser, bad surface rust
Volkswagen Passat stationwagon, l.h. drive
Ford Sierra stationwagon, black trim, towing canoe trailer
Toyota Corolla hatchback, AA driving school
Ford Escort van, muddy, curtained, running on three cylinders
Hillman Hunter, driven by an old guy in good nick
Honda Civic, glimpsed in rear mirror, stopped for pedestrians
Vauxhall Chevette, red pinstripe, bad stains around petrol cap
Mercedes SE230, man, woman, dog, grey interior
Volkswagen Kombi, nuclear free with bullbars
Mitsubishi Mirage, strange engine noises, aggressive
Mini 850, brake lights working nonstop
Renault 12TC, bad bog job and respray
Ford Escort, missing trim and smoking
Mercedes Bus, two-thirds empty, rear panel damage.
Land Developer

He walks a measured metronomic

tread as if sizing street frontages and
square feet. I’ve got my eye on you,
Mr Nouveau land developer.

Black trousers, shoes, white shirt

tanned leather jacket.

The clients arrive, he smiles,

hands over his business card.
they file inside the house.

These are the Ingredients in the Coffee

that my Father drinks, but only on Saturday
Sugar
hydrogenated coconut oil
corn syrup solids
instant coffee
artificial flavour
cocoa (processed with alkali)
tripotassium citrate (aids dissolving)
sodium caseinate
dipotassium phosphate (aids dissolving)
mono and diglycerides (emulsifier)
carrageenan (vegetable oil)
silicon dioxide (prevents caking)
lecithin
tetrasodium pyrophosphate (aids dissolving)

Commodity Buying
(i)
There’s a big pause over by the apples
flatmates on the edge of becoming lovers
have meaningful eye contact in the
fruit and vegetable section.
Both are smiling.

(ii)
The diet of the anorexic is
potato chips, rice wafers,
cracker biscuits and pepsi.

(iii)
Sad men in long black coats
wander by clutching a tin of
beetroot and a packet of chops.

(iv)
Mothers in the glow, grimace
as child tugs hard on dangly earrings.

(v)
Indulged children are allowed
their own trolley which they
fill with junk food.

Dad is buying the groceries this week.

Hasty Notes Frantic Scrawl 1990

SNAFU

Pregnant bellies swelling like seedpods,

some things are easy to see,
I’m looking for signs of cracks opening
up in other peoples relationships.

Lets talk diameters

Take the surface of a wide, flat, plank
and equipped with the latest Black and Decker jig saw
cut a circular hole 18 inches in diameter. This allows
sly objects to pass through into other spaces, to fall
and tumble, fall and tumble, they are falling and tumbling,
forever.

13 things about chewing gum

1. The main ingredient in chewing gum is Chicle.
2. Chicle is the milky juice extracted from the Balata and Sapodilla tree.
3. The Sapodilla and Balata trees grow mostly in parts of South America.
4. When you’ve chewed your way through the worlds
supplies of Chicle, you can always start on Gutta-percha,
a greyish-black latex from the rubber trees of Malaya.
5. Chicle and Gutta-percha are mostly cellulose.
6. Chicle and Gutta-percha are mucilage.
7. If you swallow chewing gum it forms a ball in your stomach.
8. There it does not dissolve.
9. Rather it hangs out for the next seven years.
10. Unless you do some really violent exercises which may
force it to move out from the stomach and go flatting in the
appendix
11. Where it goes crazy, complains about the rent and finally
inflames into a full-blown case of peritonitis.
12. Now, chewing gum is no good for holes in the teeth.
13. You always find chewing gum stuck to the underside of desks.
14. Wrigleys is the biggest chewing gum manufacturer in the
western world/universe/encampment/ of the global village.
Things sitting on the shelf above
Stella’s head while she is doing the dishes
Spray and wipe aerosol, full
Spray and wipe aerosol, empty
2 litre plastic bottle, lemon fresh janola
Plastic Methylated spirits bottle, 93% empty
Bowl of soap shavings
Bottle of new 350 ml Glint blue glass cleaner
Can Revolutionary Zippy oven master spray,
Attacks grime in half the time
500ml bottle of Sunlight dishwash liquid, 2 thirds empty
small packet of Panadol.

Dot matrix
Who would have predicted the day when the sound
of the dot matrix printer would form the aural
wallpaper backdrop to the doctor’s waiting room.

It’s a far cry - a long long way away

from being aged 9, seeing my first electronic calculator and then,
a month or so later, classmates starting to sport the
digital watches their parents had recently brought back from
holidays overseas.

Christmas/Summer/Armageddon comes
early in the Remuera New World
Interesting, a whole section devoted to imported
cold-pressed cooking oils, a full two aisles of
beauty and health care products. I check, there
is no rat poison for sale.

Frank
She is a woman sitting under U.V. lights,
white top, purple, pink, shimmering.
She glows for patrons, her
hands are stretched, her
fingers splayed out on knees.

Beach Scene #25: Dogs

(i)
Black female Labrador suffering from poor self image.
The owner is wearing more clothes than me.
When the dog fetches sticks from the water,
it has an annoying bark.

(ii)
Large tan, fluffy, oriental Chow, it wades in up
to nosetip, very delighted, it has a walrus face, it shakes over
a group of culturally inappropriate people.
The Chow has a germanic nature.

(iii)
Brown Ridgeback spoiling for a fight with a
Yorkshire terrier, but they turn out later to be good friends
who go swimming together over 30 metres beyond the flags.

(iv)
Alsatian called Alfie, frenetic sex fiend, he
wallows in the shallows.
Magnolia Tree
The lower arms of the magnolia tree have been
pruned, there are a few stumps - all night people
reached out to touch the truncated branches, hold
onto them for a minute or two.

One woman shook hands for a whole half hour.

Not many People notice.

Shadows under trampolines...
a fine grey and white mesh with the
darker black blobs of happy children
bouncing up and down.

It’s not just the young

I notice lovers passing, stop,
midflight in a crowd, they
exchange soft biting kisses, he flicks a
gentle palm across a nipple, she slips a
hand down the back of his waistband.

Sometimes it takes one thing

to trigger another thing off
The fat man hoists his Pekinese out of the knee deep waters -
his daughter/sister/wife/lover, paper thin, splashes water onto the
dog’s back as it heads for shore,

where it stands forlorn, dripping and shaking,

the waves running out of steam inches from his feet.

Moments later the fat man in the striped trunks hoists

his daughter/sister/wife/lover onto his shoulders
and piggy backs her out into deeper waters,

where they embrace in a way which father and daughter ought not to do.

He carries her out of the water, they ignore the dog,

fold up their towels, and walk off.

Mr Harley Davidson
His hands rove over front pockets, thumbs outstretched,
back in again up to his chest, then in a vertical line they move
quickly upwards, he’s on a tab, his mana in this bar is great.
Bittersweet diary entry song
Smart young things, cuffs of trousers turned up that regulation
inch, shoes, socks that match. I’m under the stairs in a quiet
alcove, on a couch, sitting and smoking.

Men are looking increasingly Italian, slavishly follow trends

and looks and things created 9000 miles away, they ignore the
house, the street, the suburb, the city, their culture, their history.

Yearn instead for greener overseas pastures, adopt a couldn’t-

care-less attitude. Jane, my friend, sez they’re sleazy, the hair is oiled
and slicked back, shoulders are broad - the back is straight - the gait
is a lope, they wouldn’t be seen dead in flares.

Another Evening Spent at the Bottom

End of the Hamilton Night Club Market.
Let’s look around, there’s one of those computer
generated displays - the words ‘meet your dream
partner’ slide slowly sideways - there is something
appealing about being the only poet at the nightclub -
except I’m with my friend James who is finding it hard
to write in public places - ‘just do it‘ I say - ‘keep your
head down’ - ‘there is nothing to it’ - we are all shaped
by our environment - this is a good example - poets
shaped by environment - environment shaped by poetry.

the beers are working - noise levels have increased

people are sitting on each other’s laps - lambada is
breaking out all over the place - minutes later the
first ugly scene - this is the happy hour -
booze is a dollar a glass - one man gets twelve glasses
for his two mates - I watch his fingers coil and dip
into each glass - frankly I am depressed.

Two beers later and I don’t feel too bad

one woman - a reformed smoker - has
tried lighting up a straw and only
now has she noticed that

on the big screen by the end of the bar

they are endlessly showing Hollywood interpretations
of the American experience in Vietnam.

She was another teen bride for christ.

One man has a experimental hand over

the shoulder of a woman - both are drunk -
they watch bemused as their friend sculls
8 glasses of beer in a row - he burps -
wipes his lips - sculls 3 more.

Happy hour is now over - James dances with

his dream woman - nothing will come of this -
I never listen to my fingers - this is where it
all happens. fullstop. We clink glasses,
toast reality, I’m going home to it soon enough.
Which one is the Shark? 1991

Taro
Aroid, araceous plant,
large bracted, petaloid spathe
with small sessile flowers
massed on a spadix

Taro has panicle inflorescence.

I’ll Let Your Ex-Husband Think

Whatever it is He Wants to Think
Every morning so far, your flat-mates have
inspected the bed, they are looking for crumplings
of sheets and blankets or obscene stains
which cannot be explained away as being
tea or coffee or milo.

A Few Ways For Lovers to Hold Hands

Hands can float inches away, mimic movements,
have the merest of contact, flutter like butterflies.

One thumb can gently stroke the area below the wrist.

Fingers can intertwine, can be warm, calm,

palm to palm or tip to tip, lightly
linked, spoon-curled, squeezing.

Advice For Twentieth Century Romantics

1. Never wear your heart on your sleeve,
people hardly ever notice.

2. They are all too busy looking at shoe styles.

3. Hearts worn on sleeves end up mis-shapen,

rotting, fly-blown - resemble sad
pieces of dead meat.

4. Stomped, gory, hearts attract little attention.

5. Rather wear your heart beneath layers of

silk, wool, cotton, leather - hide it away,
keep it private, exercise it rarely
in fresh air, guard it with your intellect.
4:06 am
At the counter, the well-dressed man is
planting a hand on his wife’s bum -
later he stands directly behind her while
they are waiting for their coffee.

I watch their bodies press, rub, fit together.

4:08 am
Exotic woman in tuxedo and leotards, she is
belligerant, wealthy, casting imperious
glances. Other women are openly envious -
they wish they were exotic, dressed in
tuxedo and leotards, with a drunk
man pinching their backside.

Hands
Expressive, they shape and define blocks
of air as ideas, circle around arguments,
scoop and implore, outstretched,
a fist outlining parameters for
discussion, locked in a clasp, abstract,
linear, one moment a slab of concrete,
the next a flight of feathers falling from
ceiling to floor, elaborate, waving.
Can’t Get a Cup of Tea at the Railway Station.
Hard Arteries
He was aware that the shape of his face
had gradually changed, his lips took on
a disgruntled pout, his mouth drawn
down at the corners.

This in itself didn’t worry him.

Big Shoes
Later;
his brother confided that he’d
not been out with the boys for over
three years - he felt ineffectual -
a toddler cast to fill a size
he couldn’t possibly fit.

Why are you wearing those big shoes ?

they were always asking him.

Family Resemblance
Later;
his parents claimed that having him
there so clean shaven, with his hair washed and
combed, was like having a long dead uncle
drop in for a visit.

Nuance
Toadies of the heart, people walking past,
he was able to accurately speculate on all
manner of small nuance. He discovered
later that people were always looking for
more than what was really there.

Going Back is never the same...

Later he returned, felt a blue green intensity,
penned words in a fever, outdoors, he sat and
listened ablaze, his fingers tapped, his lips sipped
coffee, contemplated a shaved head, heard voices,
ephemeral, whisper, calling.

He was falling out of love, a grey place where eye

contact is avoided, looks made without connection.
He was frightened by lonliness and Tuesdays, when the
two of them struck at the same time, he was lost.
Early swimming experience
Children can be quite cruel
and forty minutes of sport can
seem like forever, aged eight,
examining the roll of fat with probing fingers,
watching them sink into the first knuckle,
I started to eat in earnest after that, fill out the
crack, make my stomach smooth, not in two rounded parts.

Dream
Finally the police cars only travel in pairs,
they are lightly armoured V8 grunties, they have
squads of six in the back with tear gas and batons,
they are fighting pitched street battles with molotov throwing
polynesians amid the burnt out remains of housing corp houses.

I notice the green jacket

For a start I watch the absent minded and pre-occupied
professor walk past, he is dressed by a committee of ex-wives
who hate him. As each marriage crumbled there remained a legacy
of synthetic fibre jackets and trousers, several sizes too big or
too small.

Your own backyard never seems the same .

Ugliness, overseas, in all forms,
exciting, alluring, romantic.
Ugliness here, people slowly ground
down by successive political stupidity.
These are the days of innocent ugliness,
walking past strangers, on the brink, teetering.

Dusk
It takes poets to point out things
which people previously had never noticed before.

Thermometers that chime

clocks which measure temperature

These are small instances glimpsed

out of the corner of the eye, concrete
objects living in a liquid peripheral

fluid, wavering.

Things strike you at the oddest of moments

Later;
four years ago he became aware of tiny
instinctive voices deep inside calling - he
always kept an internal ear half tuned into
them, welcomed their arrival at the oddest
of moments, sitting bolt upright in bed,
or alone in a room of people,
unable to sustain conversation,
worried about his past.
Body Language
When they meet again by accident
he is continuously hooking his thumbs
through a belt, he leans over her,
intimidating, rocking gently on
balls of feet, plunges hands deep
in pockets, hitches up his trousers for
maximum effect and an increase in
comfort.

Rivers of America
Later;
I asked her about the rivers of
America.- which direction do they
travel in? - from east to west or
west to east? Is there a great
divide? - a point from which all
water flows? - where all water
drains to?

Old Friends, New Acquaintance

I’d always wondered what happened to the
middle-class snobs I went to school with

and on Wednesday night at the pub near the

ski-fields, it’s packed, reminded me of
inbred bars in hill-billy country,

the faces are brown and taut from the sun on the snow

they have dead fish eyes with a big game glitter,

with something hard and metallic to them.

Lobby
After shooting up in the hotel room they
return downstairs to the lobby much more

composed.They manage a game of pool.

Flipside
Later;
he went quite crazy, spent his time
walking around the more affluent suburbs with
a water pistol full of brake fluid, he was spraying
derogatory things onto the bonnets of cars
which were worth $35,000 or more.

Later;
up a narrow alley he found
her serving coffee in his dreams.

Later;
he spent whole months inert, moving little,
soaking up the passing of life like a sponge,
he was happy when these opportunities
presented themselves, he was, after all, glad
to be working at his own pace.
I Give My Heart to You 1992
Your ex-lover is obviously a better role
model for your son than me
Its all about the search for someone the boy can
look up to and respect - model fathers are sucessful
at a distance, glimpsed for a few minutes on
television or in the pages of the Womans Weekly -
its not a warts and all existence - he is not here to growl
and tell off - hold and comfort when sick or hurting - sure
I’m bitter - it would show, I can‘t disguise the fact - a
sucessful long distance biological father is far superior
than the flawed one close at hand - enough.

If I let my mind wander, the odd tear falls down my

face.

I know that last night

in your room,
cocooned by
low cloud, headland,
street light and stars, there
was the sound of your adenoidal
son sleeping. We found peace.

My fingers rift
through
your
short
soft
clean
hair.

I taste the taste of

almond and cinnamon
and sugar.
I feel joy beyond relief.

Songs such as no radio

play will spin and reel.

We kiss to keep warm,

at dawn I go out into grey
light, half awake, shaken,
stuffed, doomed, down the tubes.

Exaltant;
you light a fire on the
beach, you write the names of
ex-lovers, ex-wives, past
lives one to twelve.

You
read the list to the wind
three times and then burn it.

Here’s to the end

During the last years he became an expert on body
language, the miniature of gestures, mannerisms,
little things that spoke louder than words, any
number of which added up to a bigger picture.

Which is what we are all looking for here -

a snapshot - a portrait - a profile.
We will all watch each other grow old together.
You never know it but I always watch you
walking away - when we say goodbye we both
turn but I turn around after a few yards to
catch my emotional breath, I look to see if you ever
do the same, catch a brief backwards glance,
ever have those second thoughts or
are plagued by doubt.

I like you, this is assured.

Its just that I know your feelings are
not set - I’m waiting for that time when
you turn around too - we will see
each other, both smile and know
that all things will be fine

Downside
It took a big picture of the soul, hard earth,
a window. No dreamers here she said, Scientists
only deal in the the practicalities of physics.
Some days it all comes down to a simple
question of hormones - the position of the stars,
the size and shape of the moon overhead.

Taumaranui Railway Station.

I am thinking about the sliver
of land that separates me from
you, a crow flies distance, not
too large - not too short - it is
raining today - a Maori woman,
aged, approaches and tells me I
have the light of God in my eyes,
she blesses me for the new new year,
already five days old - it has been
hard yakka so far - for a moment I
feel close to tears but the moment
dosen’t last long - forlorn with a
heart full of lament - a song long
unsung stirs - I feel the rhythm of
grief - this is a sadness for inexplicable
reasons - not to be documented here and
now, but carried around invisible like
a missing limb, truncated, shortened.

When the rain stops it is time to say

goodbye - it is heartfelt - we will
never see each other again - you who have
left your children behind - me on my way to
find my own, the universal truth of small boys
straight talk - posing questions you
have no answers for.
This day starts out happy but by the end
you are inconsolable
It has been a great day, full
of achievement and love, things
getting done - everything working out fine.

You shop for food, buy second hand

windows, a door, some seeds, nails, a
tape measure, a new element for the stove.

The kids have a ball. You buy them fish

and chips for lunch, an endless supply
of lollies, potato chips, milk shakes all
afternoon. They play happily
in the park, you push them on the swings,
help the little one up and down on the jungle gym,
let them jump all over you for ages.

The car drives wonderfully, like a greased pig. It uses a lot of

gas but you don’t mind because there is no sign of the
radiator overheating on the hills. You fly.

As dusk falls you head home. A full moon pops up over a

hill around a corner - there is little traffic. The surf on the beaches is
hypnotic, a warm spring night, the car smells of salt air and orange peel.

You stop at a deserted beach and quickly collect a heap of dry

driftwood. You light a fire, fry sausages and eggs, smother them in
tomato sauce, slap between slices of white bread. They taste the best.

You hold hands happy, stupidly invincible.

Later you are back in the car driving, the kids stretch out,
you sing song after song in beautiful harmony, they quietly fall asleep.
You take little sips of fine whiskey, smoke a pipe of good dak.

A while later up the road you pull over next to a flowering

pohutukawa tree, let your mate mimi in the shadow of the moon.

This day shows no sign of getting any better

It starts full of promise - this is
going to be alright you think but by
mid afternoon there is that familiar
feeling - some may call it angst - others
may call it desperation - you are in a
strange town, friendless - empty bellied -
you have five hours to kill before the bus
arrives - the only open toilet is blocked,
backed up, overflowing - you have matches
but no cigarettes - you have thoughts but none
of them are any good - they crowd and jostle,
crowd and jostle, crowd and jostle...

Steady you say to yourself, steady on here,

you may be in trouble but not know the full
extent of your own worries - remember he who
laughs now does not know the bad news.
Notes From 1966 1990
First the Bad News
Back in 1966, 23672 people worked for the Railways, some
travelled back and forth on the Aranui, others in one of 625
engines of various motive power. Yearly during nearly half a
million passenger miles, 15 people were killed at level crossings,
another three during shunting accidents.

Cars and Trolley Buses

Two and a half people per motor vehicle. 26551 trailer
registrations, 1906 convictions for failure to yield right
of way. Of the 265 buses in Wellington, 144 of them run
off the trolley wires.

Babies
60188 births, 589 sets of twins, 5 sets of triplets. Many of
my friends are in these figures but they do not know it yet.
The 100 marriage guidance counsellors vie with the 246
registered opticians. I notice 18 Greeks arrive on assisted passage.

I get here
There were no days of frost in Wellington.
There were 22929 registered marriages, 3660 Officiating
Ministers - 48 of them were from the Ringatau Church.
A DC-8 touches down after a flight from Sydney.
My first meal in New Zealand? - a breakfast of bacon and
eggs. I lick the plate clean. This is surely the land of milk and honey.

Anxiety
11945 people register at mental hospitals - most are there
for anxiety reasons. Near Mangakino one morning, I discover
a strange new fungus that looks like a see-through soccer ball.
I am afraid to walk past it and run home crying. Such is the power
of the strange fungus upon the impressionable young mind.

Power gets generated

On ANZAC Day, 11 Boer War veterans line up. At Social
Welfare for the whole year there are 133 registrations for
the dole, which in those days was worth $23.50 per week.
One day my dad takes me through a turbine room at a
power station. The air hums. My hair stands on end.
First mention of Drugs
482000 watch television in 60% of homes. We watch the
Commonwealth Games highlights from Jamaica, flown
back to New Zealand by fast jet. My family moves to
Tatanui, 200,000 vote for National Prohibition, nobody
gets busted for LSD.

Milk
We lived next to a dairy factory that made powdered
milk and casein. Getting the daily milk is one of my
chores, it meant a quart billy and climbing a fence over
to where a tanker driver fills my container from a large vat.

Milk tastes different, I haven’t started smoking yet.

Mystical Interlude
On June the sixth I carefully write the date at the top of an open
page in my exercise book. It reads 6/6/66. I feel like I have
discovered one of the secrets of the ages. I will not feel like
this again until well into the late seventies.

For You, Stan

Keith Holyoake orders the artillery advisors down from
the Vietnamese highlands. The American president visits
and there are protests. Do the Springboks tour? I think so.
Does Stan Meads play? - if so in what position and for which province?

Rugby is big in 1966, even before all the marketing.

We get Contemporary
Twenty five years later in Dunedin I often found myself telling
friends from up north that Port Chalmers feels like 1966. Our
two-stroke garden excavator is named after a local artist - Mr
Ralph Rotary. When later I tell him about this he laughs
but I notice that I am the one who is always buying the beer...
Acrynoms of rock - a
work continually in
progress. 1994
OSRARP
Old School Rock and Roll Promoter.
Clad in leather jacket the OSRARP proves there is no
evolutionary progress in Rock. Neccessary accoutrements
are FMB (full metal briefcase), cell phone. All OSRARP
are chauvanists of the worst order. They have no grasp
of historical inevitability or dialectical materialism. In fact
no analysis at all. Favourite comment....AMAFU (all musi-
cians are fucking useless).
IWGO
It will go off
The comforting cry of the OSRARP before the gig
to bouy up others involved who are experiencing severe
second thoughts or misgivings. Pre-Hype. The Samoans
have a saying .. when an OSRARP says IWGO, it gener-
ally won’t.
NZIASPS
New Zealand - Its a small place syndrome
Band on third tour of the country see the same people
coming to gigs in every centre. All know the sister of the
bass player. All say YWG (“you were great”).
NBIS
Now based in Sydney
Where you go to hide your alcohol or drug addiction
from the New Zealand media. Where you go when you’ve
burnt all your bridges in New Zealand. Where you go to
hang out because of the NZIASPS.
YGTBYAITPF
You Got to Bust your Ass in the Provinces First.
Before what? Busting your ass in the 6 major centres
thats what. One traditional OS approach to rock career.
Make your fuckups in Wanganui or Oamaru on a Tuesday
night rather than in a crowded Gluepot on a Friday. Learn
to Grin and Bear it Syndrome (LTGABIS).

HWGASL
Have we got a set list?
Sure you have. You either have a copy of every gig
ever played, listing every song, ready to file for perform-
ance royalties with the Assholes or you have just the one
set list because you have no time to write new material
and have been playing the same songs for the last 9
months in the same order 5 nights out of seven.

ITCGIT...
If they could get it together...
Yeah. Sure. Be as big as fuckin’ Dance Exponents.
Sell as many records in the US as the Mutton Birds. Yeah.
Sure.

IHCFASLU
If he can find a stable line up.
Temperamental asshole/primadonna/besot. GTPLSR
(Goes through people like snot rags).

GACITSBV
Get Annie Crummer in to sing backing vocals
On anything. Anywhere. Anytime.
BTMDTIHCOC
Been through more drummers than I’ve had cups of cof-
fee.
I don’t know why this is but drummers seem the most
expendable and/or vulnerable. Yet they are traditionally the
rock animals of any band. This preference for the OSLS (Old
School Life Style) can at times cause conflicts with NSLS
(New School Life Style) or vice-versa. Also known as the KLS
(King Loser Syndrome).

SBITNZMA
Still Believes in the NZ Music Awards
Fool. Those shoddy pieces of $4.95 plastic and cheap glitter are’nt worth
the cookie cutter they get mass-produced out on. (Same with a gold cas-
sette!). Supposedly the crowning pinacle for your achievements to the NZ
music Industry (sic) the corrupt, nepotistic fucks that sit on the selection
and the award panels hardly ever get it right in any catagory. No justice
here. Definatly OS.

IMD
Irreconcilable Musical Differences.
This means almost anything. I hate your guts. You play guitar for shit. You
never let me sing the songs I write. Your fuckin socks smell in the van and
you snore like a stuck pig. I’m better off in a solo career. I’m better off in a
VU tribute band or playing in the orchestra for Jesus Christ Superstar.

TSIOONA
This song is off our new Album.
Self explanatory. To be repeated three or four times a gig, often with an
endearing combination of coy arrogance.

TNSIONS
This next song is our new single.
See above.

TNSIONSIWBITSNW
This next song is our new single, it will be in the shops next week.
Qualifying amendment on the previous two. Musician is lying. Nothing comes
out next week. Best you can hope for is later this year. Hopefully before
Christmas. Maybe.

CYPSMSTTDF
Can you put some more snare through the drum fill?
Overpowered amps? Stage stretches the length of Western Springs? Can’t
hear the singer/guitarist/bass? Fuck them all. Just as long as you can hear
your own snare, mate, that’s all you need.

CYPSMGTTFB
Can you put some more guitar through the fold back?
Underpowered stage amp? Incredibly loud bass rig? Drummer hitting the
cymbals all the time? Losing hearing? All of the above?

SLTK
Sounds like Three Kilohertz
Pre-gig equalisation chant. Sometimes adapted to SLTPTKM (sounds like
three point two k man). The frequency which seems to most grate the teeth,
cause pain in the frontal lobes and bleeding from the ears. Ability to recreate
this is considered major kudos by sound engineers.
TTOTTTTOTTCC
Testing-testing-one-two-three-testing-testing-one-two-three-check-
check.
Another popular pre-gig chant - mostly for foldback testing. Why do sound
engineers say this? There is no song yet written with this lyric. Why don’t
they say baby-baby-gas-funkin-station-love-my-leather-jacket-bad-politics-
baby jerusalem-jerusalem ad infinitum?.

KWICSSDM?
Know where I can score some dak man?
Day anytime of tour. Nelson/Whakatane/Christchurch. Approaching total
strangers in public bar or the support band. Driving around in the dark from
one unknown address to another. Getting lost in the suburbs. US (Ugly
scenes).

SSS
Screaming Skull Syndrome
Day 11 of tour. No dak in sight. No posters up in Wellington. Nobody gives
a fuck about your new single. Nine people at the gig. Amp blows up. You all
hate each other. Next morning the van breaks down.

ICSITS
Indie cult status in the States
You were once too weird for New Zealanders. Not too weird for a significant
niche of kiwiophiles in America. They love your quirky jandals. One day you
will wake up and recognise yourself for what you have become, an obnox-
ious, pompus middle aged media slut working for the Herald. Remember
the maxim - WWOEQBC

WWOEQBC
What was once experimental quickly becomes conventional.
Mutton chops and sideboards are back man! Being an asshole is cool! Lets
hear it for the commodification of rock! Wear that uniform of the Grunge
revolution!

HDIMABOOT?
How do I make a buck out of this?
Give it a name. Give it a fashion flow on. Sell it to teenagers unable to think
for themselves. In the sixties it was psychedelia, seventies, call it reggae,
eighties - new wave, nineties, grunge.

YHGTGAITW
You have got to go about it this way.
BYAITP. OSRARE. PWDD (Play with Dave Dobbyn). DLAF (Drink like a
fish). Be a performing dog. Bark to order. NBIS.

IWLT
It works like this.
Similar to above. Sign to a multinational. Be a “star” in your own country.
Fame but no money (not much). Sign to an indie. Be an “unknown” in your
own country. Some money (not much). ICSITS. Sign to a US major. Tour
your ass. Break Up. Forget everything you ever learnt the hard way. End up
owing the major label three albums or $110,000 (US).