Poems by Anonymous

God Zone Gone

So ! This is what paradise looks like

But! Where are the celebrants?

Shouldn't there be smiling faces - eyes aglow- embracement?

What's missing in the Land of Plenty?

I look into curtained eyes, cautious words

and find myself walking - carefully!

The atmosphere holds a clue - sticky with pastoral excess!

No sweet smell here of nature at here best - not in the well - ordered 

wasteland.

A lark hangs soundless in an empty sky,

drowned out by the voiceless anguish of strangled spirit.

Oh! Hikoi! Impossible eagle! You had to step aside for this!

Irreverence! You live on borrowed time!

Know you not a tsunami of redress is building?

At least the churches are empty - well almost!

And everyone turns out for a burial  - all but a few!

That old guy with hook knows how to pull them in!

Tricky ground here!

No! Not the funeral!

That which has approached unseen!

That which may not be called attention to - held at bay

on the margins of the culture

Still! Where there's life there's hope as they say!

We can only hope there is life!

Karamea 2003

Moment  

A tui shatters the day

As unmoving shadows watch

The crystal air embraces the afternoon

as a benign sun drifts over languid leaf,

joy manifest, and, unsighted,

a perfect river is faintly heard,

spreading kisses as it passes

July 2024 Karamea

Portent

On a day like this - I might die

Spring faint in the dampness

kowhai gleaming dull in the afternoon,

muted shadows moving in the street below

.Small need for talk -less to show

but let there be water sounding - sparrows in dispute,

no fancy fanfare when I go

There'll be a sweet scent with no name found

fading from view,

as a dream dies at dawning,

as the late light melts on the ground.

And I'll follow where roses bloom

in that recondite garden of mine.

While the day goes on dying behind me

and this fantail flies out of my room !

Nelson 1996