Pukapuka Poem #25 Livin' ina Aucklan' - Michael O'Leary

Livin' ina Aucklan'

 all too soon it is over

stepping down on to the platform

(an almost perfect concrete curve of old-world technology)

and watching the train move away towards the west

like a memory of love

a railway is the most melancholy of transport modes

and when you are aboard

the motion is one of subtle love-making

– as the train pulls out

from the station you stepped down at . . .

it is your lover leaving, rolling down the track

all this on a two minute trip to Avondale

but I defend the suburban services

saying romance is not confined to the Orient Express

and Mount Albert is as important as Montmartré

if you live there

once new and unknown

love is like a railway ticket held in my hand

but it has been clipped

as I stand alone on wind-swept Avondale platform

watching the train pull out of the station, I . . . 

Pukapuka Poem #24 - 'After the Flood' Michael O'Leary

After the Flood

(Paekakariki, October, 2003)

You expect more protection in the ‘Month of Our Lady’

As the rains hit hard driving along Centennial Highway

The waters washed across the road, up to the car’s door

Threatening to sweep us out to sea through the gap

            In the sea wall

The car radio tells of our township under threat

And a plane is down further up the coast

‘Our Lady’ must be feeling terribly neglected

For the flood waters are rising further now

            As the cars crawl 

Darkness covers the drowned town

When we finally arrive around midnight

Taking in some stranded roadway refugees

My brother wades through waste-high water

Bringing back wine from the semi-submerged pub

The morning, no, the week after

Reveals the extent of the disaster

Out of the Phoenix of Flood

Rising from the filth and mud

The bird of Aroha and community

Gives us the feeling of unity

The people rally to help each other

Paekakariki becomes sister and brother

Pukapuka Poem #23 - Michael O'Leary

While Your Guitar Violently Wails -

(to George Harrison)

Despite the high-walls fortress

Of your many-roomed mansion

It seems that living in a convent retreat

Could not keep the madness out

The Beatle-Witch which you

Had become in the mind of a fellow

Liddypoolian was to be extinguished

As an aspect of evil in the material world

Like John, you had become a single fantasy

Of someone’s over-rich, heat oppressed mind

Which sought to find the sense of utu

For your success and failure

George, the quiet one, almost eternally silenced

By an eighteen centimetre blade

Beware of sadness and the written word

Which comes back to haunt those who

Scoop it from the cauldron - who sew

The chords of discord in a song

Pukapuka Poem #22 - 'The Mind of My Lai Revisits Da Kapital' Michael O'Leary

The Mind of ‘My Lai’ Revisits Da Kapital

(for David Mitchell)

So this is what happens to our poets, neat

Soft-shoe shuffling along Oriental Parade

The internal massacre is about complete

As a handshake equals a kind of charade

“E hoa” I say, and then repeat my own name

Over and over in an attempt to get through

But your semi-toothless grin and the insane

Grimace, you are not here at all, but it is you

Like a sad combination reminiscent of Groucho

And Harpo in one, without the humour, your spirit

Seems to have deserted you. But, ouch, I know

Donna Awatere, becomes yr Remuera Hsfrau, is it?

Achtung, Baby, Babi Yr an’ all aside

p.s. the ships look beautiful as they glide . . .

Pukapuka Poem #21 'Nuclear Family' - Michael O'Leary

Nuclear Family – A fragment

In dreams I walked

            Through crowded, confused streets

            Where people, scurrying like rats

                                                on a sinking ship

            Ran in all directions towards survival

In dreams I moved

            Through a human fog

            It was my single purpose

            That kept me going, and

            Kept me from going insane,

            To find you and the child whom I love

When I saw you in the hall of mirrors

            Like all the other victims

                                                you radiated decay

            Your hair had shrivelled and gone grey overnight

            I held my arms out-stretched

            Hoping you and your child would embrace me

            But you turned away

                                                 and she ran to you, as if I were

                                                                                             a stranger

I picked up my gun

            And went outside where things weren’t quite

                                                                        so grim

(I mean this war has killed love

                        so what’s a pile of rotting bodies)

In my uniform, I watched the beauty of

                                                            another atomic flash

            A tank drove by

                        I jumped aboard

                        And we headed toward

            The war which can never be won!

Pukapuka Poem #20 - Michael O'Leary

Lambton Interchange

Lambton Interchange, where train and bus

Together with the tar-seal of the road maker

Intertwine to disperse the earth-quaker

Overhead wire, underwheel rail transport us

Away from Beehive drones, Cathedral bricks

The fear we live with in this city is thus, at least

We wait, as a sacrificial feast to the hungry beast

We will be swallowed by the monster’s tricks

Lo, the taniwha o kai whenua will then eat

The stadium, to serve as afters, and immerse

The downtown centre of trade and commerce

Into flooded old financial Featherston Street

Finally, the lights and shops of Lambton Quay

Will be digested, discarded and sent out to sea

Pukapuka Poem #19 - Michael O'Leary

Kia Aroha

Listening to a poet reading poetry
Was the small flicker of flame
Which lit this poem in my heart

When he, with another woman in mind,
Mentioned a furcoat-wrapped woman
Your image leapt at me, is now here to stay

I have carried you all day with me
Through the hard-nosed life of a labouring man
Your beauty is so strong that I weep inward

Yet, like your Master’s kingdom,
Our love cannot be of this world
You exist for me as He does for you

And your husband and your children
Stand between us like trees against the horizon
At the point of sundown and the rising darkness

                                                             I see you