in this dry season: 40 degrees in the shade
in this dry season
the sun prowls on you
like gary cooper
&
all guns blazing,
curdles your sweat into
puny dry dots
the same size as
those frizzled spots
fighting the fronts of your eyes.
the exsiccated phlegm
in your throat
turns traitor,
tastes like
rank alien soup,
as you
burn into
some sham of a man,
trying to quickdraw
a retort to
this blatant, measured, heated,
menace.
the sole choice remaining
is a serous
s u r r e n d e r
&
your final blink
as you sink
knee first –
the red-hot sun cuffs s n a p p i n g across your capitulate wrists -
is its quick, bright, furnace,
sneer.
he wahine riri
[ko he wahine kua whakahāwea, ko he tirohanga makoako]
‘I’ll give you
kamate kamate’
she s p a t
as she whacked
my back
with her outspoken palms;
her nails VAST gorillas
screeching my skin
into bloodied strata;
clefts
left
unfurrowed
before
this fiery ire;
this splurge of utu.
kāore ka ora ka ora
kei konei
tēnei ra,
nē rā!
ko he wahine riri anake.
[ko he wahine kua whakahāwea, ko he tirohanga makoako – a woman [who has] been scorned is a dangerous sight.
ka mate ka mate – death, death.
kāore ka ora ka ora, kei konei tēnei ra, nē rā! – not life, life here today, isn’t it so!
ko he wahine riri anake – ‘only’ an angry woman.]
battling inflation
[House of Parliament, Wellington, 2014]
a flotilla of egos
with nowhere to float,
except off course,
for their own jugulars.
it has to be feverous inside those
cavernous
hall-of-mirror psyches;
those tight-arse
death-mask grins.
for all their feigning hyper-coolness
on front-of-foyer frescade,
this piss-parade of
impotent
potentates
is w e l l on the way to ayeing
ebullition.
as they strive to stretch
in tuxedo toupee
just a millimeter more
on head-trip heels,
their gnawed fingernails
practise
underhand
knife-thrust angles
behind their
peer-stabbed backs;
&
mealy-mouthed
spittle
spatters
saccharine
into their phony phones.
seascape gouache
‘consider it done’
she said.
consider the indolent wind
seen
minding its own business
on this
cool calm day,
where
even the seabirds
squalled
themselves
to sleep.
‘consider it d o n e, then’ -
the sisyphean sand
lies
dry-retching
adrift
the bated sea,
while
her harping
plectrum
hassles
even the
driftwood
to disengage:
.
‘consider it o v e r.’
as
this beach and me
drown scumbled
i
n
our own saltspray.
de facto
she came once,
twice, three times
& he loved the dance.
the clock was a cuckoo.
later, the memory
was still warm,
when the metastasis
set in;
stole him.
the bird stayed
inside.
this isn’t verse
fuck this shit poetry
like some glib spit
drying out back
of desert parched,
full of no human input
whatsoever,
only smart words bereft of soul
&
full on arrant prattle
scoured deep in dictionaries
by listless thugs
who stare in violent mirrors
24/7
spying for
swift demise of élan,
and much more
heinous, -
for the next dopey phrase
to raze rampant
any stuttering
semblance
of sense.
