Ko Te Atiawa o Poneke te iwi, engari ko Te Araroa te kainga. Also have a home in Pampanga, Philippines, where my wife is from.. Published extensively worldwide and a new poetry collection - Home, Away, Elsewhere - is due early 2011. Author of several poetry teaching resources in places like Hong Kong, Aotearoa and Brunei Darussalam, with a new bilingual poetry resource due in Aotearoa shortly also. Ph.D in Existential Literary Criticism and poetry editor of MAI Review Journal. Longlisted Proverse Prize in Literature, 2009.
God Defend New Zealand: English version only
It had to have been
the time -
no other rationale
jerks to mind.
marching like a clockwork boy
down Queen Street
in rain spurts,
spouting b ro ke n
decibels
against
another war
gifted us by avuncular fatboys
from Texas and supersize surrounds.
had to have been
my own complacency
snapping
via rigged ballot
of CMT,
when you ran ‘round frigid fields
feigning hatred for asian men
20 times
more bankrupt
than ourselves.
another iwi boy
stultified by
bloviate
bastards
in beehive
shitting us about democracy
which we never actually had;
kaore he kawanatanga tika ki taku whenua
kei nga tangata titoi anake
these bloated suits
still wanking
i
n
t
o
plastic jars
bought for free
at bellamys,
as
our cogent rage,
fulminated,
s e m p i t e r n a l.
Aotearoa
as
autoclave
abnegating
its indigenes,
obviating
their
seed,
sterilizing
history
into
bland
glumps
of
school scrawl
&
more
future
dopey
chants
to
God.
Tin Yan blues
o u t h e r e in T I n Y a n
floor
21st
the
on
up
if blessed
you
might
just
spy
the
ghost
that is
Shenzhen
skulking
somewhere
o v e r t h e r e.
she douses
noodles
in Tabasco,
layering
like
a bridal cake,
spooning rice
scatters
into
bogus
bowls
in dry
doses
under dead fans,
tells me about her husband
who shrugged off
to
that same
spectral
city -
only
glimpsed
when
the sky
tilts
&
she is
not so
busy scouring
gweilo
floors
free
of spilled
soy
slurped
by
sleazebag
spouses -
‘left me with the kids’
‘seven years ago’ -
I grasp her
hybrid
calque
above
the quiet moans
&
suppurating
groans
from d
o
w
n the wizened
hall;
her cached
eyes
another
social welfare
cipher,
each
second
a trove
for fatal
fall/
charcoal pall…
one more
synapse
in
the
drear
pulse
drumming
this maven
of
sorrow.
Got the Tin Yan blues, baby
got me so bad I can’t call
got the Tin Yan blues, baby
miracle I stay alive at all
