This was published in the Listener in 2005. I’m re-posting it on Anzac Day, 2023 as I missed our local Anzac Parade at home with a lurgy. I always like to remember my Dad on this day.
The Ides of March
Standard(After Cavafy - stolen really)
Of glory be you fearful, O my Chris
Unable to defeat your ambitions
(the way Mr Muller finally did)
It would be wise to hesitantly pursue
them – alas you love renown it seems
And yet the further you proceed, we
see that hubris runs amok and this
this moment, your apogee, might
contain a letter from Artemidorus
(in disguise as Janet, Heather and
Matthew who once anointed you)
‘Read this right away’… or at least try to read the room
Don’t abandon poor Nicola (unpopular
at school, too tall, she said) and now
imagine her decline – all those matching
pj pictures – alas will not feed those
hungry school kids – don’t feed her
to the starving masses, all those
hungry kids of underpaid police
It’s something important that concerns you
Don’t fail to stop, don’t fail to put it off
all talk and business, don’t fail – don’t brush it off
but do brush off all those who fawn
and salute you, fame is fleeting
(just ask Jacinda)
If you are among the truly elect,
Watch how you achieve your predominance
Read this right away – or at least try to read the room
It’s something of importance that concerns you
The children are listening Mr Luxon and the
children’s parents, and the landlords are laughing
Laughing all the way to the bank.
Hello old age
StandardAt the bay
Hello old age
Nice to meet you
well you are unexpected
to some extent
but I can’t ignore you
even though I’ve tried
I’ve been keeping you
at bay, or so I thought
with my fitness class
look here, this morning
I lifted 5 kilo in a bicep curl
surprised my broken wrist
the radius and ulna (I know
It was two years ago) but anyway
following instructions using
my core to absorb the weight
Who’d have thought that eh?
next time I’m lifting the titanium
(non-stick_ very expensive fry pan)
I’ll recall my core, tighten my
bum and see if it helps
Alas, when down on the mat
giving the old triceps a burnout
It is very disconcerting to say
the least, when I see that soft
hollow, the underside of my elbow
joint…. a kind of crepey paper
No worries, the elasticity of
the skin on the back of my hand
provides endless fascination for
my two-year-old grandson
he pinches it in his fingers amazed
at its pliability like plasticine
and heigh-ho those once were
dusting of freckles, quite sweet
now brown mud pools in the
ravines between light blue veins
like South Island braided rivers
almost on the surface now
none of it matters when I’m swimming
wearing my proper togs for serious
old girls, minus underwire and pretty
padding to evoke a sort of cleavage
just practical, quick drying, flattening
and who cares if I have hairy thighs
there’s no need for disguise.
or deceit, nobody looks any longer
if only I’d known about this
years ago
One toke over the line
Standard(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNKL9onYB_8)
We’ve had two mango Frujus
because ice-cream is a no go
due to a lactose intolerance
I’ve cooked fresh fish with
steamed rice and seaweed
plus an egg because well
my granddaughter is staying
we’ve swum half the day
and eaten up the rest of it
she’s in bed glued to a small screen
fighting sleep on granddad’s
side of the bed - he’s away
she sleeps sideways and even
in a Super King, I am on the edge
covered in love and kicks
A man on Insta is telling me
alcohol will ruin my complexion
I refuse to believe him
I’m two wines in listening to
‘One Toke Over the Line’ a hit
from the early seventies
I know all the words and
I’m transported, in my twenties
instead of my seventies
marvelling that I’m a Nana
hoping that last egg and
extra bit of fish does the trick
Or will she be bolt upright
eyes glazed fixed to the cartoons
and waiting for me refusing sleep
I’m two wines over the line
and my complexion is no longer
something I care a hoot about
She’s two Frujus and four pineapple
lumps in, plus I forgot to mention
those mini strawberry macarons
I’m in two places, singing with those
chaps, I know that shirt, I've kissed
that moustache, several different ones
pouring wine two pours over the line
Childbirth
Standard(I need a disclaimer with this poem... a young reviewer of 'Formica' in an otherwise affirming review, hinted that two of my poems were sort of ... smug...oh dear
(Second disclaimer: A fellow poet posted a summary of her mammoth efforts in 2023, poems written, accepted, rejected, etc, and so I felt inspired and inclined to try and measure up...)
(Third disclaimer: Right now, nothing any poet dares to write will measure up when we allow ourselves to think of the children in Gaza)
Twitter is full of people
bemoaning their fate
usually of which they
appear to be the author
A pregnant journalist
tweeted surprise her hands
ambushed by carpal tunnel
Oh I was instantly empathetic
Sweet memories of my first
pregnancy, making do with
Time Magazine rolled tightly
tied like splints to both wrists
plus the unsalted peanuts
In a drawer at work where
I scrambled feverishly to
avert nausea, face clients
Endless night trips to the toilet
plus a free stylish UTA airline bag
ruined when my urine sample
lost its lid and leaked full tide
Not to mention filling six or
maybe seven sick bags on
TWA New York to London
I’ll whisper this – first class
An upgrade, we hadn’t paid
the hostess was appalled
I’d eaten so much breakfast
Quite sniffy she was about it
But my best kept secret
Hush, don’t tell anyone
I’ve tried, no-one believes me
I loved giving birth
So there ,,, Time Magazine
for makeshift splints
but when the big cramps came
I sang deep and out of tune
Like a surfer, I sang through
every contraction, so focused
knowing a baby was arriving
and it was up to me to push
I made the mistake once of
telling a newly traumatised
mum that I loved childbirth
I’ve learned my lesson
Granny did the haka
StandardIt’s the sixties, and Grandma is a Pakeha
she has brown Irish smiling eyes and
a dowager hump, although she’s no rich
widow
She lives in a State House on George Street
purchased from the State with a State Advances
Loan which is being paid off by her youngest
daughter
Grandma had eight babies and then scooped
up another when her eldest girl fell pregnant
somehow Grandma fell pregnant too, two
boys
When Granddad got dementia, it was easy
enough back then. People just sent old Jack
home again when he got lost, it was a small
town
Thank God for the neighbour we all said
for years after, when he distracted granddad
with the axe raised behind Grandma
Phew
Michael Joseph Savage was a Saint along
with all the other official Catholic ones
on the Columban Calendar in her
washhouse
It’s only now that I’m a grandmother that
I wonder why an old lady with Irish roots
and sparkling brown eyes, even knew
How to do a haka
What if I could go back and talk
to Grandma, over the ox-cube soup
she made for me one school day for
lunch
All I recall is saying (under my breath)
I must go now, Grandma, I must go
now Grandma, I must go…. And then
I did go
What I’d give to go back and ask her
about that haka…
Bluesky
StandardI left Twitter for Bluesky You might ask why? Some of us were hoping to dodge the bots maybe read about hand-knitted socks and then a man called Bill our poet for hire https://bsky.app/profile/pacificraft.bsky.social/post/3kcff6hmqyk23 wrote about lorries full of water and one full of coffins and for a moment a cloud crossed Bluesky We'd imagined food, medicine, food, medicine possibly bandages even under Bluesky the bright light can fade no-one has ever imagined that coffins could be aid
Sexy in the Sixties
StandardVirtuous and Sexy in the 60’s (After a lecture entitled ‘Virtuous and Sexy: Making National Subjects in 1960s North Korea, Lecturer David Shuster, Seoul, July 2018). It seems it wasn’t enough to be a revolutionary woman Confucian style in North Korea nose picking, spitting girls no longer fitted the narrative a journalist seeing Marilyn’s photo, a nude torso, the tip of her nipple exposed recognised the raw moral force of such beauty she became a heroine foreshadowing the metoo# North Koreans despised her objectification, while adoring her physicality how to harness this Yukch-emi and yet suppress the libidinal urges it might evoke – a new etiquette of virtue arose from the tip of Marilyn’s nipple carry a gun why not and work in the field, but stop when you can to strengthen your 7 separate parts, for the Ideal proportions of virtue A State-run magazine was offering tips for augmenting breasts and buttocks, exercises to become virtuous and sexy while remaining chaste that Marilyn was both revered and pitied … she would not have wanted their pity … but I imagine she might have loved the by-line of strength and raw moral force to know she inspired a new kind of cinema, the circus where the female form could be admired from a lustful chaste position Hollywood tricked Marilyn they said and instead the trick was rearranged deftly for all to agree about the inner and the outer chastity beauty was strength and strength was sexy if you eliminated lust which of course you must to get the perfect harmony It was odd, to be listening to this, in Seoul, this idea that women should be beautiful, as if a novel Communist conspiracy I see the surgery altered faces of the South, girls on trains their crotches in the face of seated suits unmoved, reading phones has libido been removed by stealth across the border, are these women perfecting something for themselves entirely Marilyn’s bare nipple, her nude shoulder, her wet skin, kneeling figure, a strange and almost ancient haunting
Consent
StandardWe were so excited, weren’t we… Fifa and the Women’s World Cup Here in Aotearoa and big matches free to air stadiums full to overflow We cheered, of course we did, and we didn’t even really care which team well, we did, but not enough to stop watching and cheering the winners Spain, Spain… they had almost a whole team defect, because, because we were not sure why, but we soon found out, we found out When Spain won the world cup and Luis Rubiales, the Fifa President held Hermoso in both hands to kiss we watched replays on television We discussed it, her arm, where it was his intention, his position, not where he stood at that moment but in the power structure, and the moment, the moment I explained to hubby, years ago, before before we had babies, in a small apartment a good friend came to dinner, and me I’d cooked a lovely dinner, I love to cook The good friend, in our very small kitchen stood beside me and my now husband the smallest of spaces, and greeted me by shoving his tongue down my throat I’m telling hubby perhaps 45 years later and he says why didn’t you say something and I say that I was so shocked that I didn’t know what to do and after all, I say You, were standing right there, didn’t you notice? And I’d cooked dinner I’d cooked dinner I hadn’t planned to be the appetiser ...
Every time I iron
Standard(for Jan)
We were motherless mothers You and I, with our newborns New to it all You taught me how to iron business shirts, you, knowing all about shoulders and seams I’d iron creases in, instead of out You showed me how to fold and flatten you knew about fabrics I can see the pale green caterpillar cake you made for her birthday, the bright eyes, the coconut, coloured napkins your new deck and recently renovated stylish bathroom from Park and Clarke planned by that man we saw on the telly An elegant claw bath and retro, floral wallpaper with Rimu of course for fittings after all this was the 80’s. We used to say ‘life’s too short to stuff a mushroom’ but you did for one dinner party stuff mushrooms Oh we were glorious in the suburbs in our cul-de-sac overlooking the sea You and me, you and me It wasn’t a flash suburb and the sea was far off but we could see it all the same And the sun sank earlier than we wanted Life is too short to stuff mushrooms We found that out when you left us leaving your girl not even a teenager breaking all our hearts Sometimes I want to surprise him, iron a whole batch of freshly washed shirts, flattening those shoulder seam just like you