the red dress
There is a girl outside my office in a red dress
Sitting alone on the wooden bench near the harbour
The dress is sleeveless
She is looking at some papers
Crossing her legs then looking out to sea
I ran yesterday morning in the early light along the same sea
Where she has just been looking with different eye
As I was running a single cloud was changing to red
It looked like a person dressed in red sitting on a chair
The red was the same as her dress
The morning cloud foretold
I have looked up from my desk and she has gone
Not stood up and walked away but simply gone
When I finished my run the sun had changed in the sky
The red had drained from the cloud and looked dull
Like the bench beside the sea
Redemption Run
Yesterday was one of those April in Dunedin specials
Some incredible god shone his torch
Filled the day with clear blue light
It only really happens down here
In the south
So I went off and ran in it
Along the main street
Past the church that has a concrete block wall
Where people have collapsed looking for redemption
All the redemption they needed was waiting outside
In the April afternoon light
Past the groups of girls
Monday girls
Hangovers and Hotcross buns
Costumes stored in their burrows
For another year
Or perhaps just a week
A cross to bear on their facebook wall
Up signal hill
Past all the houses we might have bought
In Opoho and North East Valley
Stopped outside a friends house and talked to her children
About how fast they can run
The possibilities of the future
And about Italy
And children and concrete driveways
And chocolate indulgence of suburban New Zealand
Then over this track
It runs between signal hill and mt Cargill road
Not many people know it
And it wont mean much to you
It kills anything else in sight
But no crosses to bear up here
Judas letting out his secret views
Across the harbour
Out to Taiaroa
Albatross Crosses in the sky
Floating spirits
Then up the organ pipes track to Mt Cargill
Birds sing easter hymns
My soundtrack
And then a race down the familiar well trodden route to the gully
Passing stunned tourists
Never expecting that this sort of place would even exist
Missing the trunks of the trees in the late autumn
Like the three crosses stood against the blue sky
All darkness and light
Shadow and redemption
All my redeeming is done now
As I slow along north road
Heading back into town
The same faces in the valley
Trundle up from the New world
Because its been closed for a day
I wonder just for a moment what they missed
Whether they caught a glimpse of the light on the school windows
Whether they saw the slither of cloud inching over swampy
Or the girl with the skinny black trousers dancing as she explained how emo easter was for her
How the black pavement beneath her was warm to touch
How the single white stone was moved slightly
And how behind it nothing was there
Except the light
Labels: dunedin, easter, running
my overdue book
My overdue book
Those hot summer afternoons
I used to sit there outside school
And dream of riding away
Hot tar and mountains on some distant day
Or in winter when the mist came
And did terrible things with my hair
I would escape to the library
Words would just sit and stare
One book felt like it was mine
I kept going back to it time after time
After those school days had passed I went back and searched for its spine
Like some miracle my overdue book was returned
It had one of those looks
Loved but slightly shabby and torn
I remember like yesterday the time I felt its touch
Like I feel now when I release the clutch
I still have my overdue book so full of words
Waiting wanting to be heard
My hand touches its cover and it is warm
My eyes touch its words and my love swarms
Labels: books library poetry south island motorbikes love
close to snow
Close to snow
In the forest alone
In a place between work and spiritual nirvana
Like teen spirit
Shocked by a shard of the hawkdun range
Dressed in evening wear
Found a new track and rode hard
Concentrating so hard on nothing
So I couldn’t think any more
Just a perfect physical machine
Complete in every moment
That precise moment
So close to snow
Light weird
Sun wearing a heavy mask
Gone but still there
Then the swimming dam
Empty like an institution from the fifty’s
Wind getting up around it
Trees battling against it
Like Janet may have done
In a long wide hallway in the Maniototo
Then she came
And the moments were lost
Like lovers lose their way too often
So I jumped into the car
Drove quietly away
Trying not to disturb the riot
Labels: snow children come mental she central otago mountain biking
Ettrick
Ettrick
Fourty
No perhaps fifty
Opaque boxes
Uplit by country street bulbs
And the moon
Dimming in the mist
Waiting for the apples to come
But they didn’t this year
Not even when they were ready to fall
Not enough people to pick them
As the peace song said
Just down the road
Light dim on the speights sign
Jacks still waiting at the pub
Local cop waiting for him on the corner
Of coal creek road
He doesn’t care what happens to him or the ute
Hes waiting
For his mates
Who were not ready to fall
Lying in the weight of fourty
No perhaps fifty
thousand opaque boxes
In flanders fields
Labels: anzac day, central otago, poetry
Chasing Victory
i guess its just us
me and you
and one thousand black spirits
circling against the blue
black backed ghosts
rising to the sky
like the souls of
black torn bodies
wrecked by the sea
once chasing victory
Labels: otago peninsula dunedin dunedin city yellow eyed penguin new zealand
growing up with (fitzherbet) bridge
Growing up with (fitzherbet) bridge
We drive away in the blue valiant
West to east
Fresh taste of lemon on my tongue
Out the back seat window
The arches of the bridge
I pull the sticking blue door at the side of the house
Binoculars in hand
Anticipating everything
Cross the avenue at the end of the street
Pay at the gate
Sponsored by State
I cycle away
Uniform still on
Fresh taste of lemon on my tongue
Into the wind
Under a grey sky
Back to boys high
She is not there
I let myself in
Make toast drink tea
Ring a girlfriend to see
Place my hand on the wooden fence to leave the key
I pedal over the bridge
Wide and strong
Wondering what’s in the fridge
I am just having a four
Let yourself out the back door
Fresh taste of lemon on my tongue
Trumps on the table
Three times a week
East meets west
Apparently Canterbury is the best
I fix a washer to stop a leak
Fresh taste of lemon on my tongue
The bridge over the river
Bridge on the table
Cricket over the road
Joker in the hallway
A century an amazing century
Today
Labels: 100 year old, bridge, harcombe, palmerston north, poetry
chasing victory
Chasing Victory
i guess its just us
me and you
and one thousand black spirits
circling against the blue
black backed ghosts
rising to the sky
like the souls of
black torn bodies
wrecked by the sea
once chasing victory
