Firstly, Secondly

Another poem written some time in the last couple of years, and again, somewhat revised....

Firstly, Secondly. 

Firstly, in a house full of

paper, I can’t find a scrap

to write on.   The chaos of

carpet-laying has put everything

where it doesn’t belong.

Secondly, reading Billy

Collins writing about

reading Thomas Traherne

I wonder if Billy

will be remembered

300 years from now.

Will he be rediscovered, as

Bach was rediscovered – supposedly –

by Felix Mendelssohn.

Felix was a bit of a

fraud, (though without malice)

since Bach had never been

undiscovered, even when

Felix found some of his

manuscripts being used to wrap

meat in a butcher’s shop,

(so the story goes),

even though Bach’s

Mass in B Minor was

unknown to the English

musical cognoscenti.

So Billy’s Apple that

Discovered Paris, or his

Trouble with Poetry might

well go out of fashion, but

who’s to say what will survive.

With so much alive and well

on the Net, it’s a probable

bet that Billy and Bach and

Thomas Traherne will

continue their timeless travels -

unless the Net unravels.

In spite of the news

In spite of the news,

the body got up next morning

continued to

go for a pee,

wash its face,

eat breakfast,

put on clean underwear,

check for holes in the toes of socks,

put one leg into trousers and then the next,

make sure it had a handkerchief,

brush its teeth,

comb its hair,

kiss its wife goodbye

and head off to work.

No one noticed the news on the bus.

The bus driver was cheerful as usual,

the passengers nonchalant, or oblivious,

or listening to their MP3s.

The traffic in general was busy,

checking for red lights,

beeping at drivers cutting in,

whistling along with the pop songs

and, some of them,

talking on their cellphones.

In the office, all was normal,

the news was not remarked upon.

Not even when the body told them.

It barely rippled the surface of their

newspaper, magazine, Codecracker lives.

And the ripples it did make caused

no more than an

Oh.   Ah.   Sorry.

I wrote this poem on the 29.10.08, and have slightly revised it.   I have no idea what the particular 'news' was anymore, and of course, it's not important....

Photo by Olly F

Two Dunedin poems

Two Dunedin poems

A small boy

Turns over each of the

Octagon’s metal chesspieces

With a clang reminiscent of a

Coke can being crushed.

When he has finished,

Having excelled in the

Art of overturning chessmen,

He stands arms akimbo.

There is a man I see everywhere I go;

In fact there are two.

The first always wears a t-shirt over his skivvy, and

Always carries a bag slung over one shoulder.

The other one is always seated drinking coffee,

Always talking intently to at least one other person –

Mostly one other person.

The first man is always alone.

I never know whether the second man’s conversation

Is as intellectual as it looks, or whether he is a fool full of words.

I know nothing about the first man.

He is always alone.

13 ways of looking at race

 An attempt to write a piece along the lines of Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird ...

13 ways of looking at race

1.      One way is looking for my pen before I can write.

2.      Race is black, even when it’s brown.

3.      The opposite of black isn’t white. 
Sometimes it’s brown.

4.      White Michael Jackson.

5.      In New Zealand black is
Maori, Tongan, Fijian, Samoan -
you name it.
Do they all think black?
Do they all look black?
Is that my reflection looking back?

6.      Do I see black when I watch
(a) Sione’s Weddding?
(b) Once were Warriors?
(a) No. 
(b) Yes.

7.      Black is someone’s anger expressed in
news reports, TV reports, negative reports:

“They always...” “Just what you’d expect....”

8.      Black is our national colour,
but not the colour of most of our

nationals.

9.      No, I am not a colonialist.
No, I am not a chauvinist.
No! I am not a white supremacist.
            Sometimes the man in the mirror is.

10.  The Dominion Council of the
Returned Services Association
has adopted a recommendation
from its Immigration Committee
to reaffirm the policy of
“a white New Zealand”
and express the opinion
that every obstacle should be
placed in the way of
Asiatics entering the Dominion.
Mr C J Dickie, the MP, in

moving the motion, said it applied,
of course, to Hindus and other
Asiatic British subjects, and it was a
serious problem.
Once they were admitted they would
soon overrun the country.[1]

11.  Dear God, don’t let me be like Mr Dickie.
Of course I’d love all people to be white,
just like You are;
was it Your fault You put some
tint in the mix?

12.  I love Maori people.
What choice do I have?
                But I don’t love Muslims.

13.  We’re All Blacks at heart.
Aren’t we?

---

[1] June 5^th, 1926  Otago Daily Times

Image from Edward Picot's blog. 

Two recent haiku

This blog has been out of action for some time, since the subject matter is no longer top of the pile.   So I thought I might utilise it for the odd poem I write...

If you search for #haiku on Twitter, you'll not only come up instantly with a heap of haiku of all shapes and sizes, but even while you're beginning to read those on the screen, another twenty to forty tweets will appear with more haikus in them (if haiku can be pluralised like that....) 

It's a simple form that everyone and his/her brother/sister has a go at.  Including yours truly...

Cooking silverbeet soup

last year's crop

stalks of gold, red, yellow, green.                                           23.9.11

curly-headed blonde toddler –

mysteries of genes –

straight-haired ginger-coloured dad                                       28.9.11

At the moment I'm trying to get the hang of the form itself, in its best-known arrangement. 

Alibris comes alive again

Yesterday I arrived home to find an email from Alibris telling me that they were charging my credit card US$19.95. I was a bit puzzled about this, as there didn't seem to be any obvious reason why they should be charging me, but an enquiry to them got an answer that this was (of course!) the annual fee.
I haven't had a thing from Alibris over the last year, so in a way it's a bit of a fizzer to be charged that annual fee again.
However, within 24 hours there was another email telling me that a book that's been on there since I first joined up with Alibris has sold. Weird. Things being what they are in the exchange rate at the moment, it's probably a good time to sell to the US. The postage rate they automatically pay us Kiwis is US$10, which at the moment translates to about $18.90. The book price is quite tidy too, though not quite on a par with my last Alibris sale. (My one and only other Alibris sale!)
The book that's just gone was The Book of Books, by Annalee Skarin, one of those strange versions of Christian thinking that seem to intrigue some people. I got it with a bunch of other similar titles from a secondhand dealer, to sell on behalf. It's the first to go in a long time!

Nothing happening

Nothing happening on here at the moment, because I've stopped selling books for the time being. Just got too busy doing other things, and decided to give it a rest. To be quite honest I make more money more regularly out of doing paid posts on the Net than I do out of Trade Me, even though the latter has its moments. I'll get back to it maybe in the summer when the days are longer (!)