Poems

my life with ceramics - by Margi Mitcalfe

my life with ceramics

by Margi Mitcalfe

 

in the shrine of the kiln,

glazes of weka feather

rangitikei river bed

peppermint licorice

houhere flower

desert road kanuka twig streaked with snow

dad’s lumpy porridge

Ohakune midnight

taupata berry orange

blackbird’s back

spinifex-inscribed dune

and the crackled beads of redcurrant and tamarillo

are blasted so richly I shiver

 

it’s the fire in pottery that most scares me

but there is fire in bread

 

and when my lover spins my wheel, stirs my pot

she feeds the flame in me

 

my mother’s is the body that turned me

hers the vessel, the vase I became from

 

what this potter makes with earth and water, fire and air

pigments and care

breaks into sharp hard shards

will shatter when dropped

chip because someone knocked it

 

sun spots splattering my skin

as lichens quilt bark

time will choose me

 

and this body that held me centrifugally

glazed with clothes with raiments

will fold into the earth

fall into the fire

 

*

 

breathing holes

 

the earth is much bigger than this bowl

whose luminous surface is smaller than the midnight sky

 

yet as your eyes walk the rim of the bowl this potter’s hands have made

you see every ocean you’ve loved, every mountain you’ve admired

 

as your gaze dives and slides over shiny sided slopes

you breathe the space within the bowl, the air the bowl holds

 

before then, dwelling within the particles that are making the bowl

your mind finds spaces, the nothing in everything

the ashes of dying stars cooling, the bowl the air holds, cooling

 

where the outer upper edge of the bowl meets its horizon, its shore,

your held breath can be released again or all breathing stops --

exhaltation of the nothing in everything, the everything we share

 

whose inscriptions are random or designed

as spinifex, driftwood, gull prints on winter sand

as rain-dance, snow-streak, mist-haze on mountain range

 

*

 

shallow bowls’ grace

 

so shallow

they lie as ears to the ground

listening

 

the colour of thrushes’ chests

 

open-palmed they hold enough

for easter for matariki for christmas

for every special birthday

 

for everyone for everyone for everyone

Number 26 - by Oprah Oyugi

Number 26

by Oprah Oyugi

 

Why are you just standing there?

Stop it!  Why are you staring at me

Why?

Why do you glare at me

with that big black eye?

Do something or get out of

here

that is my school money you're looking at

lying broken in dust

those are Sunday's empanadas

now swamped in flies

I don't want your water

I don't want sad eyes

Give me coins for sheep

or go away and let me and my family die

 

This poem was written by Oprah as part of 'Poets under Pressure' in response to National Geographic's '50 Greatest Photographs', and was the winning entry.  Poets were given ten minutes to create poetry about a photograph chosen from a member of the audience.

What the taxi did - by Joy Green

What the taxi did

Joy Green

His father herded sheep

sheared them while sun blistered his neck.

One sister carded and another spun

miles of thread from each fleece.

 

The mother dyed it with herbs

grown in a garden kept alive

by dirty bathwater,

knitted a sweater and hat

and pulled them tenderly onto his skinny body.

 

He grows, like weeds do,

in spite of drought

but next winter

as cold wraps him

there will be no wool for him to wear.

 

This poem was written by Joy as part of 'Poets under Pressure' in response to National Geographic's '50 Greatest Photographs' and the scene in Number 26 of a young boy whose flock of sheep were killed.  Poets were given ten minutes to create poetry about a photograph chosen from a member of the audience.

Explosion - by Mary-Jane Duffy

Explosion

by Mary-Jane Duffy

 

Camel-coust, you said as

we passed the photo. 

Camel-coust indeed.  Helen

has been running writing workshops here and

there have been tears.

 

People are prone to tears in Palmerston North I ask. 

Well she said, if you're someone who ignores things

being confronted with a seagull whose stomach

is full of plastic,

or camels caught in the Iraq war

it's moving

 

Yes I'm moved by camels silhouetted against the flames

by burning oil wells. 

But I can't help think of the camel

in the Wellington Zoo, manky now

after years of mooching about it's paddock

The moment anyone goes near him

he makes a sky sized belch

his tongue bubbling

ballooning out in an explosion.

 

This poem was written by Mary-Jane as part of 'Poets under Pressure' in response to National Geographic's '50 Greatest Photographs' and the scene overlooking Moscow, with five pears adorning the window sill.  Poets were given ten minutes to create poetry about a photograph chosen from a member of the audience.

Pears - by Joy Green

Pears

by Joy Green

 

On the sun-warmed shelf they loll, lazy -

seven golden opportunities

for frangipane, spiced softness,

for juice running down a greedy chin,

to be caught on his fingertip and conveyed

back to a mouth opened by laughter.

 

Later as that sun sinks and

paints roofs with rouge

we will wander through streets

listen to guitar melodies

floating from bars and

almost

kiss.

 

But we will wait

for the moment when

the moon, reflected in a puddle, lights us;

wait for the memory that will

haunt and hang out with us forever -

the friendliest of ghosts.

 

This poem was written by Joy as part of 'Poets under Pressure' in response to National Geographic's '50 Greatest Photographs' and the scene overlooking Moscow, with five pears adorning the window sill.  Poets were given ten minutes to create poetry about a photograph chosen from a member of the audience.

Waiting for Napoleon - by Kristelle Plimmer

Waiting for Napoleon

by Kristelle Plimmer

 

Windows painted by a brown loving Malevich

millions and millions of layers of Moscow dust and dirt flaking and peeling

Pears golden yellow as the evening

Yellow as the building across the street

Windows in Moscow are deep

deep, the original double glazing

tiny reflections glowing on the inside

staring out at the Kremlin as

Tolstoy did, looking down the street for the French

wondering if it was too late to leave before Napoleon ....

 

This poem was written by Kristelle as part of 'Poets under Pressure' in response to National Geographic's '50 Greatest Photographs' and the scene overlooking Moscow, with five pears adorning the window sill.  Poets were given ten minutes to create poetry about a photograph chosen from a member of the audience.

Alahu Akbar - by Oprah Oyugi

Alahu Akbar

Oprah K Oyugi

 

Blessed is the warm glow

behind my head

Blessed is the hot soil

beneath my feet

Blessed is this breath today

that I dedicate to thee

Alahu Akbar Alahu Akbar Alahu Akbar

 

Blessed is my husband at work

who toils for feed

Blessed is my son in school

who taking in knowledge for ye Allah

Blessed is my home, my food,

the place of sleep

Alahu Akbar Alahu Akbar Alahu Akbar

 

Blessed is this little girl

who dances at my feet

Blessed is her youth, and

colour and soul that is free

Blessed is she, who'll one day

be fully veiled for thee

Alahu Akbar Alahu Akbar Alahu Akbar

 

This poem is in response to Photograph Number 48 in National Geographic's '50 Greatest Photographs' written by Oprah as part of 'Poets Under Pressure', in which participants were given ten minutes to write about a photograph chosen by a member of the event audience.

 

Song for Zara, aged two - by Christopher Tuffley

Song for Zara, aged two

by Christopher Tuffley

My niece Zara-baby's here
It makes me happy when she's near
I twirl her round, we ride the sky
In a laundry basket that can fly

She leads me through some foreign land
My finger clasped in her small hand
We fly home in a tiny plane
Each time we land she asks "Again?"

She lives so far away from me
That I don't often get to see
Her bright blue eyes and rosy cheeks
Her gorgeous smile that leaves me weak

"What you doing?" comes her cry
Next thing I know she'll ask me why
I smell her milk at her request
But why she asks I just can't guess

Puddle stomping's the best fun
But puddles dry up in the sun
She looks and looks but none is there
Don't worry, they'll come back my dear

And when she goes it'll be too long
Till I next hear her voice in song
Her call of Chris, her gurgling laugh
While splashing water in the bath

Tangimoana - by Deborah Thompson

Tangimoana

by Deborah Thompson

This is the place where life comes to leave.
No place for sunbathers. Unless they be

the washed up remains of trees, twice dead
bones of the earth, parched and stark
in dreadful sunlight, as if they belonged to night.

Unless they be the shags watching the fresh river
rush out to the breakers – new threads in the
blanket of water drawing itself onto the sand toes
of the beach – their wings wide open in youthful
apathy as the breeze, breath of the sea, dances

through their damp feathers the way it rustles
the Toetoe, angel hair, whale teeth, filtering
whispered stories from the ocean.

Was it my great grandmother?
Who one morning felt the tide
of her life coming in to go out,
and took a walk to the shore,
stepping softly into sea-foam and salt

death, her stiffening body wrapped
in a watery pall, then left, arns splayed,
to dry off in the sun.
A swift cure for old age.

Poetry Beyond Words