Selina Tusitala Marsh

Stand in Black 05
(Lion’s Tour 2005)

 
A sihouetted Maui some 15 metres high
astride Te Papa’s pillars
what kind of death are you defying this morning?
comic-strip contemporary...you impressed me Wellington
the trickster tittered

then that silhouette again
blacking out Queen Street’s tangle of neon
in shop fronts, bannered some15 metres high
webbing metropolis sky
stand in black
a stand for black?
Progressive - maui and maori and myth honoured

there again
this morning’s Herald
Maui defiant, lastmanstanding
strident on Brown’s Island
even Hauraki Gulf claimed for him
who was this artist?
This cutting edge group?
These poetic messengers of taonga?

But the shop-front
a front
framed by aididas.com/lastmanstanding
buy t-shirts, caps, flags, and scarves
Brown’s island, a billboard
the death-defying silhouetted challenge
for a piece of pigskin
standing tall
for ball
ignorant islander head in poetry...
look up and smell the money!