Post-protest/ant
1 Make me care
insectate
tripartheid
blue jokes cracked like heads
Lust stutters in the blood
in this moon phase, even while
we all decide life's pointless.
There's no way out
but through, or the attempt
to annihilate awareness.
You move my heart,
you're such a glut of
typical human details.
roses, crosses
stolen goodnesses
first break. then down
I want to do
things to you.
Not for you.
2 Cancer sticks
You impress yourself
upon me. You get better every
day, yet things stay the same
like the spin of a drill's spiral.
There's bad blood on the grounds
and on the hillside, gorse stretched
over ample ridges, all bulges and bones
and in the gold light, faded, soft
set against a light blue sea.
If you were inside me
I'd see much more than I can stand
for. Our mouths are changing
shape to fit.
I cut my throat.
You blow your brains out.
I bleed dry, completely
from my fingertips.
You shake in the gutter.
I step into moving cars.
You stop your heart with heroin.
rationality is less glamorous
3 Can you feel it?
All the anger
that's abated
in White girls' arms
destroying even the form
of games in which
challenge and danger and strength
could be tried out
What's a gesture without structure?
We get left with punk rock
with bitch fights
with hissed and vicious
attacks on fashion and character
I stand in the way
use my shoulder to push things over
as passive as a hillside
White people don't teach kids how
to be together.
We get taught manners
how to allot resources
and negotiate
from our separate houses
and you don't like to be called White
cos it reminds you
how we're erased
by money and the power we got
by hiding our cultures.
I'm not blaming anyone.
It's my analysis.
4 Myths hold
They hold us down
where people belong.
We eat shit.
The gods don't watch
our imperfections
gross them out.
I try to be antique.
I hold all the
riches of empire
in my speech.
This glut of idioms
is cousins with
the pain that sticks in you
from all that desire
as it cakes, as it stales,
crashed hopes littering
the lawn. I can read
the tyre tracks back
from your jewellery
through teenage
fashion attacks
an identity in spasms.
5 I'm getting missed messages
I scare the kids
the sign in the park
saying no drunks
I'm a pure metal sound in your mouth
but so what
Excitement bulges under these clothes.
the muscle is clean
the hammers, the pliers
the manners, the dress
Things take the things to things.
I dabble in your physique.
Our English is as thick as foam
on water. All compliments slide
smack onto the floor, stain rugs.
I spill your
well wishes down my shirt.
the sky turned
clockwise in little jumps
back and turns again.
6 Terror nobilis
Can I be direct?
or does the brain fever
obscure central points
The plain mouth
again missing its point
the giant unpredictable sky
grown more unstable
The hills fall
taking his money
making the gale rise
the chaos, the secret
all the cruel designs
on winking dashboards of BMWs
all the putdowns
we inject inside the kids.
My fragility
your fragility
the tiny round of habits
on which my sense of myself rides
the privileges
I don't notice
on which my life depends.
7 The Cops
need something to hate
sooner or later it's likely
to be you.
Our infringements delight us
We're past the tipping point now.
There's a high probability
of dangerous weather
droughts and police states
floods and neo-fascism
banditas kickin it in the high wind
mana motuhake in the kitchen
money shouting its guts out
poverty rising up around our throats
the mid class eaten back like a cliff
and searching our brains for
what nobody taught us
skills, ideas, how to get on.
The time is watching itself feel
on screen. If we get up
if we wake up
stand up. It's a fabulous day
to start to practise.
