AOTEAROA
Into the World of Light
I was born beneath the colonial shadow of Maungakiekie’s solitary pine within cooee of a sacred Rongo stone in a military hospital built for casualties of America’s bloody Pacific Campaign was immediately hoisted by the ankles and smacked to incite …
Falling
(i) Sometimes I feel as though I am living half a life A jigsaw puzzle I can’t work out: I am here, I am there, I am only half here. I am half myself, I am more than myself, I …
Bronte to Bondi
Fur coat with long purple boots black leggings and a peek of snake skin flesh hair coiffed like a wig a face that the wind had swept with sanded glass stepped onto the bus in Bondi Bondi rounded the corner …
Long Light
(i) Long Light A grey autumn full of splash, spiders abseiling from gutters, fresh raindrops polka-dotting backyard green duvets in the shortening light. The animals are here: birdfeeder tantalizing the cat, puppy whining at the hedgehog, ants massing at their …
Dancing the Siva Samoa
Tijler’s song I want to own myself in your eyes feel the ruin culminate in this belonging – to pretend it’s a song that roughens at the knees / music ashy on falsetto there’s something hot about breathing you in …
When We Went to Brisbane
When we went to Brisbane I looked for you in the streets and shops I looked for you on the buses and trains I looked for you by the river and beach I looked for you But I couldn’t find …
BREAK ALL MY BONES / a water lily growing in my lung
after Mia Doi Todd Tender all my love Thrill to die again Seep through my dreams Wake to see the dawn Drain all my hopes Fly above abuse Hoodwink passers-by Passing is all we do Shuffle the deck and cheat …
Mountains
mountains once roamed this land, they fought over women exploded breathed fire ran off into the ocean and shook the earth now battle scarred wearied and older they wear the cloak of Hine Hukatere in winter and the skies finery …
Spidermoon
The spidermoon burns reddish-yellow yolky, sleepwalking through nightfields, a spinner’s tranced orb. Trapezes drift on silk bolas. Strands carry them a long way to spokes, sticky spirals, guyed trapdoors. Wakefulness in shadows at dawn; soft, quivering snuffle of a muzzle …
