new zealand electronic poetry centre

 

Alan Brunton


recollections

  

Stone Pine Lavender

for Alan Brunton

Journey to discover the unknown self

– Nissan tyre cover


Part way through your personal
labyrinth            she was on

a different level
said the Maori
          hitchhiker            pause
to turn upriver 

last night at the party
my stricken darling
             cooed
the crew-cut girl
          who drove you
to the station   

walk round Hiruharama
hum of bees            bell-bird
a van with muffled mirrors
          till you’re struck by
what? 

not peace           no          not exactly
something more like waste
desuetude
          following what?
your nose   

straight ahead             up through
the bush
supplies a skidding
kid            you’ve come some way
          to see this
music raps nearby 

At the Grave of James K. Baxter
s such a cliché
standing at the spot
          where so much
bullshit stopped   

a trifle unkind perhaps?
no doubt            but nothing
seems to happen either
            wherever he is
taint here   

in books?
their readers?

words of a dead man
         
modified
in the guts of the living
? 

Stone Pine Lavender
a sign said miles ago

Stone
                        a nun
         gathers up clothes
you fail to wave 

 

Jack Ross

  


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Last updated 06 December, 2002