A Summer Cloud
My suitcase is empty
I'd like to fill it up
with words
The wind
is shaving
off
yellow leaves
Rubbing the sea
the wrong way
reverse ripples
sucked backward
into
the centre
of the earth
Fierce storm now
the wind versus
the fir tree
her branches must
form ranks
or
she will lose
I would like
to stand in front
of the storm
embrace it
apologise
settle it
down
coax
caress
till it's
just
a summer cloud.
The Operation Of Being
I have performed my operation
of caring for you
I felt you before
rising in the elevator
I snuck down the stairs
because I didn’t want
to walk into those eyes
The grey stairs
twisted to the ceiling
as though into the sky
and I felt myself up there
with you
This language feels so heavy
I want to replace it
with the other
but the pieces and the slots
don’t match up
Then we end up gliding
through milky mists of meaning
which dry and turn to red rashes
if left too long
I am waiting for the absence of day
to bring out my clay
scrape out a mould
of the map
of my discoveries
draw a mouth
where lies the passion
of the night of the 28th
of December 2008
sketch an arrow
where the past is embedded
flavouring, seasoning
the bland pallor of
the present
circle the spot
lay a dot
where there builds the light
that hefts the day’s
beginning
The cocooned artist
secure in the view of
the external
defined by words
gifted to others
by the dampness
of the tongue
in the air
The air of the present
The air of the tomb
The air of the people
The air of the future/past
That nobody knows
where it begins or ends
or is
and the truth
if it be told
is that all I can think of
is your eyes
shaping every horizon
and your poems
daring the secrets
into the light.
Biography Tina Cartwright
Tina Cartwright grew up on the East Coast in the South of New Zealand. She is currently living and working in Melbourne. She was a featured writer in August issue of Blue Five Notebook Series (2014). Her children’s picture book, Kiwi and Scorpion, was published with Penguin NZ (a Puffin children's book) in 2008. She was editor, contributor and translator of Taking Latin America Home – a self-published anthology of writing influenced by Latin America, Los Lobos Productions, 2014 - funded by PledgeMe, New Zealand's crowd-funding plaform which raised funds for the Sweet Water Fund based in Nicaragua.
