Under volcanic tufts of hills,
local identity charges the account
South City
a moral thrust remains
a park and school with a leader's name
a commercial corner of prime real estate,
here history's weather vane spins free
all passes of malcontents, sidesteps and feints,
all places mapped as better place to be.
Here in South City
a life the old life left for
the text of progress,
profit and loss at trade hall
how to define what was changing,
distress and joy, money talking each to each.
2.
Fast cloud over hill's manuka edge
cry like a lover
don't leave me
give away wants
quick jolts of grief
I perversely enjoy the hour,
the hour of your departure,
the hour of grief.
I loved you under
the pressure
of imagination, words' say so,
islands of delight
islands of making do
islands held to.
3.
My son wakes weeping,
don't leave he says
words easily come by
turning
silence
in the gaps of a gale
The tree house
will fall.
Don't let love fall
stories retold and love recast.
If I could say straight not crooked
when the bough breaks
Or claim the fault
rebuild the house.
4.
Salt ocean, wavering consumption
before and after
on the edge of fact.
Blow holes
spout extinction in the arms of gods
how far to go off the map.
Her pouting lure,
her famous folds
her eyes of pounamu
the smell of her.
A drift into biography,
fractures in the glass
Duchamp's hopeless bachelors
like pale yellow poppies grow in craggy outcrop.