don't get the idea
there was only one side
or only a dozen sides to him
bright but uneducated men
of his age had hesitations
we haven't much improved on
one time he phoned
to read out to me a poem
he'd found printed in the newspaper
hone tuwhare's wind song and rain
which I still hear in his voice when I read it
not in hone's
a e housman on the
paekakariki train
paul celan in a hostel
on the north shore
in the middle of cyclone bola
rimbaud anywhere
keats rather pretentiously
by candle light
appropriately brief
dryden's virgil
to guarantee abrupt
undreaming sleep
Jerusalem sonnets
immobile on a veranda
the first time
in that first
typewriter-face edition
unrepeatable
but repeated often
or just get on
any bus downtown
open any page
and wait
for the passenger next to you
to start a conversation
lying awake listening to rain
in papatoetoe my earliest memory
at puhinui and otahuhu
then in newmarket whakatane
remuera and mt eden
briefly vancouver and snoqualmie
before thorndon khandallah waikanae
epsom parnell and mt eden again
names that have become the sounds
and songs of myself and rain
obviously he had a secret night life
like a westminster MP
george our cat
in white tie and tail
found felled by a vehicle
up on the main road
a small sorrow but no
less deeply felt for being so
buried like a comrade in a western
shallow because of the terrain
with rocks on top of him
to discourage scavengers