Revolting Green

Fence posts

road markers

a concrete bridge buttress

mounds of shingle

flash by the car window

as we race toward Lewis Pass

and all those straight-backed

beech trees

hemming us in

- at rest now, but waiting –

row upon row upon green row

- at ease now, but waiting -

silent ranks of a vast standing army

- waiting till it’s time -

poised to take back the battered earth

from the clumsy humans

who’ve mismanaged it long enough

One dark and stormy night

the tempest will give his signal

the forward line will drop to their bellies

blocking these forest roads

and this army will move out

crashing down hillsides

rolling across the plains

rising up in every village and city

blocking all exits

There will be no holding back

their creaking, rustling advance

but they won’t make their move

till the oil crisis has paralysed us

and chainsaws no longer have

any power to intervene

This will be a bloodless revolution

because by then the humans will know

that we have no right to resist.

Beautiful Loser

You're a beautiful loser

in that red surfer t-shirt

and blue panel van

even the paint smears on your labourer forearms

and your possum-in-the-headlights stare

add wairua to your duckling grace

You cut off those dreadlocks

which you’d cultivated for years

and the other night you told me

as we stood in the club bar melee

maybe you’d been too hasty

I liked the image they gave you

kind of piratical, wild-man, free-man

but you’re still a beautiful loser

though you’ll need to wear a hat now

when the ozone hole stretches

Like the hole in your pocket

the cell phone bill makes

when your wife phones too often

just to talk about nothing

or, “What’ll we have for dinner?”

because she gets a bit lonely

only talking to your babies

and she’s really in love

with her beautiful loser

So you’re a small-town production

short hair, short expectations, short patience

with politics, religion, social engineers

you suspect the reds and the greens

much like your father in his time

he was a beautiful loser, too

and you don’t want to be like him

but seem to be anyway

with your construction job prospects

loan repayments and family ties

You say you’re overweight

try to resist bar-snack temptation

to me you look plump with good health

but you are how you feel

and we all bear a secret image

of disappointment close to our hearts

and I can say what I like

but you have to believe

that you’re a beautiful loser.

A Morning Walk

The sky is dark, grey and wet,

and the roads are the same,

as we set off into town;

Don, to the job he isn’t longing for,

Mary (she goes on her Honda 50)

to the job she is used to,

and me, to the house I didn’t stay at last night

(I slept the night on their sofa,

after clearing away biscuit crumbs,

and fragments of a glass thrown in that direction

which no-one had bothered to clean up).

We get onto the main road,

quite a few cars around already,

and Don just misses his bus.

“Bastard!

He saw me!

Christ, if I had a clod

I’d throw it through his window!

Bastard!”

So we walk into town,

up Constitution Hill’s winding

asphalt pathways

(“Beaten paths are for beaten men”

somebody once said.

There are lots of people on the streets now,

most of them look well thrashed).

The street lights blink out

and the sky is suddenly

much more important.

We’re in Queen Street now;

in a couple of hours this long, dark canyon

will yawn into a peculiar

artificial life of its own,

and the winter sun (not yet visible)

may even shed some light there.

Don catches his bus at last

and I carry on alone,

still thinking about all those beaten men.

It starts to drizzle

so I pull up the hood of my parka

and look for a break in the cloud

(there always is one –

if you’re willing to look hard enough,

and wait long enough).

Sure enough

by the time I reach

the Hopetoun Street overpass

the golden-orange sun has found its way

through a moth-hole

in the grey curtain

and is smiling palely

at whosoever cares to notice.

I have to stop for a minute

to lean on the railing

and look at it.

The traffic speeds on

over the humped bridge

just the same as it always does.

Now I’m in Ponsonby;

more people, more noise,

more movement than ever.

But it all seems a little easier now,

as the sun grows whiter,

and the sky becomes bluer by the minute,

and I slosh through ankle-deep puddles

on the pitted pavement,

watching the diminishing clouds

floating before me

on the wet mirror surface,

and listening to the ‘CROSS NOW’ buzzers

and the morning choruses of the birds.

And I think about beaten men,

and having breakfast,

and writing this down.

(1975)

Lilies And Sparrows

Consider the lilies

Far more beautiful

Than royal robes

God makes them

Every day

But they often

Pass unnoticed

By people

Who are too busy

Looking for kingdoms.

Consider the sparrows

They only go hungry

When man plays god

With the lilies.

Consider the love

That takes care

Of lilies and sparrows

That counts stars

And grains of sand

And the hairs

On your head.

Consider a kingdom

Where lilies and sparrows

And people and stars

Take care of each other

Where love wears royal robes

And God is noticed

Every day.