Trevor Landers
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Trevor Landers is an Advisor for the Tertiary Education Commission, having formerly been a lecturer at tertiary insitutions in New Zealand, Romania and Finland. His poetry has been published in New Zealand, but the majority of it has been published overseas. A noted departure from this publishing trajectory can be seen in BMP6. Trevor is also the Managing Editor of The Zealot Press, and is presently editing a collection of 'Taranaki poems' for publication in December 2003.
Gossiping at the lady from next door's funeral
The funeral was straightfoward
but afterward
I heard that
sometimes, she drank
too many dry
martinis at
cocktail parties and would dance
the cha-cha-cha
like a senorita and unbutton
to halfway
her blouse.
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The Other Manaia
I wandered down Tauranga-a-Ika last night
the pale moon gleaming
down on
the sleepwalkers of history
snuggled safe in their blankets
the old waiata pouriri whistling in the wind
rattling the corrugated irons of the past
they are missing landmarks, these Pakeha fellas
their crimped eyes slit
in this other town, right here.
--------
Lucy, mildly hung over
Lucy,
picture of truth unaffected
lies languidly
strewn across a sofa
she, mildly hung over
limbs lethargically loose in clothes
eyes doused, but morning embers there
burn brightly, glow
the t.v, a square of grey clouds
hisses
a shutter clunks, negatives a roll of film
harsh truth of the camera's eye
there, telling tall tales again.
--------
A House at 2747 Carrington Road
An unpainted house sits,
up, on a mountain, sleeping
inside, a gallery in a kitchen: Picasso, Lautrec
domestic ornaments, and the drying laundry.
the stars blinking
amethyst-chain horizons
stretched before lighthouses, are fingers of light
a gleaming oil derrick guides us: once constellations would
here though, eyes shut: man is small.
there is little birdsong
to charm the rough-hewn rimu walls
it is a return, a reminder
the marching song of the mountain.
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Beachcomber, Tongaporutu
your shoes, talking imprints in the sand
walk out outside
stride for stride
across the spume, in the waves
pebbles underfoot, black sand beneath
and the black ,building sky
crowning your hair,
alone on the beach,
this is where we will be,
photographing beauty.
--------
the art of writing at the beach: Ohawe
unrolling long looks
and pausing with blank
papyrus
for personal partition
as she listens and lingers
on the sound of brush-stroking
book marked
page
by book marked page...
opening up in her name, then
pressed tight to shut,
a vault, the art of writing of the beach:
(no sand between the pages, just love).
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Ronald Hugh Morrieson's writing room
the walls whisper the tales of small town intrigue
the paper falling away from the perpendicular
like sheafs in a new story
disclosing dypsomanic secrets & unwritten literature
on the verandah
the tang of malevolence and whiskey
wafts down Regent Street
