Icarus, if you had not collided head-on
with that love, would you still have
plummeted sticky fingered to the sea

You liked to think  you were a God
******* on some feathered beast
could redirect its flight at will

so she was blind to the swooping monster
Too late to do much else but clutch
a handful of burning feathers

Admit the same mistake over and over again.
You would argue different universe perhaps
still, unbuttoned is still undone

Toyed with that one heart once too many times


You would argue different universe perhaps
To die having flown unwavering towards the sun
and swerved and singed and laughed

To die having loved that one heart just once
She full sighted to the swooping beast
Grasped your hand, plucked and set astride

To die having sat with her and watched the water pools
recede leaving lines of salt around the rocks,
prehistoric etchings to run your salty fingers through

To die having  watched translucent darts
in those very same water pools, her eyes
as you bent low, shielded her from the sun

Too late
You toyed just one too many times
Unbuttoned is still undone

We stood in the dark and mud of that Taupo forest
couldn’t see the sky
even if that was where I wanted to look
and it wasn’t, was it … Juliet

With a wind that moved so slowly the leaves turned one by one
a wind you couldn’t feel, only hear
and I bent down to your whisper
your sweet warm breath in my ear

Perhaps I never really listened all that well
I’m not sure what, in the end, I missed
Your lips so close to me, your hand on my arm as if for balance
stretching, on your toes
You were right I heard no words …

Just Juliet and her code of silence

If there is blossom
and we are so disordered
seasons seized, made invisible
What then does it herald?
Lost time?  Vaulted night ... a pointless end?

What possible fruit?  What possible season?
What noise from these leafless boughs
wakes us from sleep
here in the ashes of Eden

THE END OF SUMMER            

The wind is turning cold,
Summer vague and foolish
Failing beam brings
deceitful warmth
to those who stay on deck.      

The current strains at
squatting anchors
strands of ****
hang bile like
      from heaving ropes

Fishermen on the stone seawall,
thin nylon lines
               tugged taught
by the swinging tide.

Guided by the ghosts
of reckless sailors
hoping for the comforting rocks
the boats point out to sea.

The crew at last
panicked awake
cast off this daylight
Still numbed by the poisonous night.

Another journey
Oil and brine in their lungs....
No happy thing
this waiting


UNDER THE MOUNTAIN'S HEAD

I have nothing to say.

From this deck the world is flat
Behind us the mountains
a city lost in ash,
skeletons curled in sleep.

In the market place foreigners barter
Behind the tents and stalls
dressed in new colours
young lovers once caressed

Listen now.

Life is round,
a disc, no
a spinning burnished marble

Our only force is fear.

The sea is oil calm at last
the foaming hish
on our bow
disturbs and rocks the passing islands

Night drops,
and we are forever
longing
for the shore’s healing power

Hush.

The deadened thud
of blackened engines
Curling smoke in the dawn,
a sweating form
   in the engine room

UP ON DECK

The Captain watches his TV

Up on deck we listen
to the excited clap
the sing along.

The lads turn and watch
the disappearing lights,
remembering the visit
to the church;
the choir's low hum ,
the bag of grapes,
the cigarette shared
on marble steps

Careful study of distorted map
careless arm draped across a shoulder
The hum and sway of hammocked sleep

Dreaming of Puck’s promise

Wondrous navigation
a slowing earth,
then finally release