Foundation Myths

Having a few,

and then a few more;

elbow working, bottoms

up, down the hatch:

he stews on his own brews,

and steeps them

in conspiracy's deeps.

Hump it or lump it,

stump up or come off it;

full as a bull, bellowing and randy,

looking for a share of hashmagandy.

Holy left-over finger-bones

from an Irish cannibal feast

during the Potato Famine,

brought out as family heirlooms

to add to the cauldron of bubbling gravy.

Seven famines,

seven plagues,

seven crosses,

seven blades —

under the seven rains,

green colleens hang heads full of sorrow.

Skimpy, skipped, leafed histories:

harmonics of colonials uneasy in native spaces.

I shuffle the chance events

that led me here

on the card table of my mind,

like so many pendants

on a charm bracelet: the padlock,

the heart, the key, the ballet slipper.

The old ones are dying,

and the young ones are struggling to emerge

from a chrysalis of vape fug,

working the room till they find the door

and exit,

exotic to themselves and others,

amid seeds, chaff, straw, a smatter of hail,

out in the fresh air.

The fly's lazy drone

fills the silence,

as the dust-covered box

fills the gap under the roof.

Thickly sprinkled, gritty,

white and grey and black —

ashes of us all,

flung skywards,

make eyes smart, teary.

Ashes in the mouth

taste like vines

burnt at the stake,

in vino veritas:

that charcoal flavour of bottom of bin liner,

bagged and standing out in the rain

at the back of a closed-down restaurant.

Quartet USA

1.

Heavy Metal

On a wall in downtown Absurdistan,

Jim Dandy doodles Yankee Out Now.

2.

Motherwell

Sweet San Francisco nights

ladle out their foghorn soup.

In that miasma,

I grope for the black ink

of the Motherwell,

where all is lost,

and found in blots and blotches.

3.

Capitol Hill

And you now how it goes:

they are shanghaied,

they are catapulted;

yo, they are marching in;

they are making the Devil's din;

they are the offspring of Rumpelstiltskin.

4.

Ember

Sunset's last ember:

film of slant rain,

lights up September,

with smudged visions,

fingertip clearance,

and red brilliance.

The Squillionaire

To see an infinity pool

in the palm of your hand

and global investment

within an hour...

A pseudo-library is being built for you,

fake book bindings await your pleasure:

they all hold expensive liquor.

Bring on luxury brands to excite me,

tote bags to bite me;

my shoes locked in fetters of silver.

I have gold-clad over-reach,

I have, of course, a private beach.

I have a master's degree

in applied authenticity,

and at the final climate summit,

I promise you full authority

to apply a compulsory purchase order.

David Eggleton lives in Dunedin. His most recent book is The Wilder Years: Selected Poems, published by Otago University Press in May 2021. He was Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate from August 2019 to August 2022.