Category Archives: Poems

Shredded words

A flower gifted is like a poem written on a paper scrap, recited, then torn to tiny shreds, cast to the wind and the worlds beyond where it will live forever for someone else to, some day, call it forth.

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One Love

When you came into that room moving with … … heart-stopping … … bewitching grace, a walk to please the gods high held head, exquisite neck the sway of skirt. You picked from the pile a magazine … or was … Continue reading

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The Blue Mountains

I flew across the mountain blue today ten thousand feet above the land, exhaling morning breath all sitting mist in fissures drawn by some old Dreaming stick in days when there were only dreams, when Totem gods played in the … Continue reading

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In Grief, the Blues

On a quiet street corner Down from the cafes A blind, grey-bearded bluesman Cups hands to face Sucks and blows a slow lament. Pure notes, meaning little by themselves Strung together create meaning and the blues Notes, man, islands … … Continue reading

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Reading

I read to slow down, to stop and sink into the cadence of words. It is not about speed reading to the end. The end is not the goal. It is about being mindful for the messages and meanings of … Continue reading

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Intentions

I do not have plans; I have intentions. I intended to grow the basil to seed, to spread from there for the next year. But a flock of goldfinches Had other ideas, and landed, all dazzling red and gold, to … Continue reading

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Meditation’s Edge

It’s silent here. But not. There is this hum, and if you listen very still there is this buzz as well, this long high tone of energy connecting. I don’t know if it’s in my head or out beyond. Stark … Continue reading

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Wanderings of HD Thoreau II

From ‘House Warming’, Walden But I was interested in the preservation of the venison and the vert more than the hunters or wood-choppers, and as much as though I had been the Lord Warden himself; and if any part was … Continue reading

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Wanderings of Henry David Thoreau I

  Henry David Thoreau, Extract from ‘Baker Farm’, Walden Sometimes I rambled to pine groves, standing like temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, and rippling with light, so soft and green and shady that the Druids … Continue reading

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A Message to the Neo-Liberals

You are destroying the sacred. You have lost sense Of what it is to be human, To be a people, A culture, To be of and in a place. You are destroying meaning And purpose And have replaced it With … Continue reading

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That’s My Hat!

She looks good in a Stetson, all cowgirl in her chaps. The coolest Snood reflects her mood, but she wasn’t happy with that. She tried the Lady Panama with the larger brim. The Flouncy Bonnet With the bow on it … Continue reading

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The Hot Bohemian Chic Chick

She’s in love with Radical Chic The style Comtessa d’amour With a touch of wild untamed abandon, Speaking without words Difference and Grace and This Is My World To Make As I Want Without Your Oppressive Conventions Stifling Expression. So … Continue reading

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Swan Lake

I saw you dance tonight Through the first floor window Your arms upraised in ballet stance First the one and then the other I knew it was you by your hair tie piece of lace you use to hold your keys. … Continue reading

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Full Moon on the Lamb’s Ear

The eternity that only a child can know, an interminable drive through that wild and stormy night, on the Desert Road. . The window’s whistling – never quite closed – incessant whispering thoughts, bright flashes in the dark – and … Continue reading

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Things I’ve never seen

I believe in things I’ve never seen I believe in Africa I believe in Atoms I believe in the Rings of Saturn Call me irrational Unscientific Unprofessional I believe in transcendence and beauty and love I believe in the power … Continue reading

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Trapped in the Louvre

You can get bored with beauty. This extraordinary road from Greymouth to Westport. Coastal cliff top roads are iconic, think Big Sur. Add green-topped coveys of rocks, mum, dad and the chicks sandstone and limestone cliffs in evening light and … Continue reading

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Ohoka Market

In Ohoka the market stalls sell sense experience. You need not buy, just drift, From place to place and soak it in. The taste of honeyed nuts, the sound Of laughs and strummed guitar, The smell of bacon frying, the … Continue reading

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Sitting

Sitting with my second coffee Reading Mexico City Blues in the low, pale sun Shining golden vagina notes of wish and will in this mind Cast deep in some gut, visceral, wrenching want or Desire to understand this feeling that … Continue reading

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On the Cook Strait Ferry in the Marlborough Sounds

This land is like a cluster of hands, Fingers extending Tips dipping into The blue bath of the channel, Knuckles crooked. What is the collective noun for hands? A fiddle? A drum? Why not a Sound of hands. The tourists … Continue reading

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The Forest Glade Megamall

‘Sylvia Park’. Welcome to the archetypal Auckland megamall where to-the-door valet parking makes shopping more complete. There is no better function than conspicuous consumption. Spot my Tiffany bag? Did you remark upon my Raybans? You cannot sell a Te Kaha … Continue reading

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Coromandel Town

The Bohemians walk the streets in Coromandel Town. At measured pace, wearing a trilby hat (with feather), a manuka tramp staff over his shoulder with a Country Road bag tied to the end. Love the irony. Gucci shoes? The rain … Continue reading

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A Piece of Wild Land

I be getting me a piece of wild land with an angry creek, a drunk duck and a paranoid chook with a gully of kawakawa and a knob of oak sprawled out all bent and dripping lichen with kunekune pigs … Continue reading

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On Discovering a Passage

Sometimes things drift past your laid back musing mind with its unbaited fishing rod, and wake you from thoughts of coffee and the beauty of cricket by throwing themselves, wet and writhing, onto your lap. Chris Perley 2013

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