Take Flight 4 out now
Click on image to download PDF of Take Flight 4 featuring poems by Michelle Elvy, Piet Nieuwland, Aaron Robertson, Arthur Fairley, Jac Jenkins, Martin Porter and Vaughan Gunson.
Prelude
by Aaron Robertson
I
The koru unfurls,
loosening a careful hold
and the sequence starts anew:
bumblebees clamber on stamen,
pistil; branch split by shoot
as red leaf breaks from
green, unconscious of days
fog-filled at noon.
II
Out past the pillars,
we must name the waves
and patterns that bind them;
helmsman to surf is
gannet-led, longship
by light when maps cannot doubt
a knowing ear to wind,
prow pulled to sun.
Two worth another read…
Watch How the Slip Tips
watch how the slip tips itself over and flies headlong into a dive that wings into an arrow riding on the force of the throw and the magnetism that large objects emit, following the curve of vectors and wind resistance, the shaft vibrating through hillsides of toetoe torched with lightning, the satin plumes splinting the blue horizon with fire stippled bursts and shards, trapezoidal crystals and zags.
in my mind is a wave, a surging crest of intelligence breaking upon an open sandy beach on the western coast, it rolls up into the shallows and foams into a long line of surf, tearing open the pent up energy of a large ocean crossing, pulling a net through the deepest passage of currents and tidal floors, enveloping the wisdom of fish and seabirds that plunge through masquerades of reflections, the wave it bursts and throws out incandescent showers of sparks and glowing particles in an effervescent mirage under a dome of mirrors repeating themselves thru infinity by factors of prime numbers and combinations of polygons and floating orbs that drift slowly like bubbles, and coalesce
-Piet Nieuwland
-appeared in 52|250‘s fourth and final quarterly among the best submissions for Week #49.
Note and post by Michelle Elvy
* * *
Ulysses Reconsidered
Just like Farnese’s birds, whose voices became caught
on an unchanging view of palaces in ruin,
you fell into a dream: one of rivers that ran
with sentimental ease before your family seat.
But left to choose, you changed the eternal for light,
where gifted canon’s robes allowed your mind to turn
from thoughts of chimney smoke and gardens seldom seen,
the limestone of your end betraying words of slate.
The Fleece still hangs unclaimed, yet slowly I’m pulled back
to forest-covered hills and hard volcanic rock,
unsure of how the tide has brought me to this shore.
Your counsel holds no truth for sailors who have come
to crave the open sea, when mesmorized by fame
you never knew the life you claimed to hold so dear.
-Aaron Robertson
-appeared in 52|250‘s fourth and final quarterly among the best submissions for Week #50.
Note and post by Michelle Elvy
Still Lives
by Aaron Robertson
Paul had apples in Aix,
taking one each time the mountain
called as God-created
evidence of the volumes he sought.
Here, grapefruit rest
with yellowed limes, both
ready to assist in serving
liquid absolution.
We meet beyond the bowl,
on tablecloths composed in ample
folds and the angles they force
to stretch towards the frame.
From like disorder an ordering
is found, our compulsions fulfilled
for a light change by coloured
planes that modulate and fall.
Eclogue for a Global Market
by Aaron Robertson
We rise, hydraulically assisted,
in trees still wet with evening’s last
embrace. Dutifully caged, this slow
mechanical ballet begins
to reap its due, an autumn front
premised on independent wheels.
Such rituals repeat from smoko
to smoko, the protracted drone
of four-stroke music soiling time,
while blades unseen amongst the leaves
furnish perhaps the only blood
to propitiate these falling fruit.
Is Rongo in his newest mantle
driven before our blind advance,
exhorting those who lag behind,
or is this symptom of a modern
mystery shorn of every sense
of place and weary of its veil?
In labyrinths of rising ground
days disappear, hidden from view
by makeshift altars ranked on trailer
beds, as these offerings at once
bestowed are hastily dismissed
to feed the lesser gods that wait.
Language and Place on the Edge: Six Poems
Aaron Robertson
Vers au Vert
From centre to circumference
we drift, crossing this great expanse
to speak in tongues considered pure
by uninitiated ears.
Old words, once tentatively used
then fashioned thin as life imposed,
become an enigmatic code
charged with the trace of others’ deeds.
Deprived by empire of a waiting
embrace, language devolves, begetting
forms like those strange conventions now
spoken in parliaments of two.
Vaughan Gunson
Big Love Song #17
the golden night has locked down
the unreal day gone, thank you, for now.
the persistent thud of a million feet
stamping the ancient cobblestones.
I laughed, the outrageous image of you
seated next to a fat satyr from Hellene,
your thigh raised to the sky
tapering to a desirable end.
the threatening cataclysm
is more than a grim tattoo.
the responsible hordes hold in their hands,
for the first time, the battering-ram.
Martin Porter
The Tree at the Edge of the World
Clawing onto the cliff
Face into a salty purge
Tenacious
Stunted
It has given up flowering
Starved
On exhausted soil
Rooted in the underworld
Grasping at the air
Where the dead
Leave the living.
This is the tree
That clings to the edge
Of the Earth.
Piet Nieuwland
the altar of wind
my country is an idea born on the altar of wind
earths deep blues carried on galloping horses
lizards names etched into knotted stone archways
we drink cups of obsidian Columbian coffee laughing
in blood drenched gardens candles melt tanekaha perfumes
nikau palms dance cities of moonlight frenzies
WairoaRiverveins nourished by children throwing petals
a thousand tui chant dawn prayers
from puriri groves kneeling on aging hills
the skies cloud mask pours nipples of rain
voices of birds name the deserts language of maps
flocks of black coated women expand covering all distances
matuku moana call from blue fired clay minarets
on your breasts whole kukupa sheens breathe in
what you breathe out
you are venus bathing like an orchid
in loves memory of the moment
kahawai inhabiting a river mouth
hear pebbles hiss in your depths
your hands move in cascades of feathered leaves
mottled oyster skin a pale silk of ice trembling
your name is a gift of lavender in luxuries of passion
my heart a burial ground in the mutilated colour of dunes
as drops in the tide we evaporate into manuka fires
flying on humid rituals under tents of mirrors
Michelle Elvy
The Other Side of Better
Running up a hill
tripping upwards
falling downwards
making deals with the devil
or God — whichever works better
Radio’s on
Bush is burning
I turn it up and feel me yearning
for your devil grin and thunder heart
or God — whichever is better
As I listen and wait
I soon find myself
in a song
it’s you and me…
in tune
It’s you and me who won’t be unhappy…
in love and singing
– this is better
Bernard Heise
Cause–Effect–Cause
Sleep. I can’t.
Why?
Alcohol – much too much.
Drinking began yesterday.
Crashed car and burned house.
You left.
I destroyed
everything. Everything
destroyed. I
left you.
House burned and car crashed
yesterday. Began drinking
much too much alcohol.
Why
can’t I sleep?
NOTE: The Other Side of Better by Michelle Elvy and Cause–Effect–Cause by Bernard Heise were originally written for 52|250: A Year of Flash.
Strange Kingdom
by Aaron Robertson
Newly-spent cicada skins
race to some uncertain end,
microscopically speeding ahead
heedless of their basic loss.
Metamorphosis past, these
nymphal instars have long since
ejected into winged existence, cast
amongst a maze of supple leaves.
Summer has come, coalesced,
and must suddenly go for those
whose evanescence seems unfit
to remake a species so persistant.
Desperate noise now envelops this
canopy, sibilant with the syncopated
buckling of abdominal membranes meant
for a thousand sympathetic sides.
Salvator Rosa’s Philosophy
by Aaron Robertson
Ah, Signor, what a curious facade
your palette paints, in sombre tones exhumed
from deep within Vesuvius’ shade.
Your chiaroscuro brow, although esteemed
by melancholy eyes, sits ill at ease
with dictums as austere as you have framed.
Such words should be a maxim for our days,
not hidden behind glass while others tell
us everything, yet nothing that is wise.
Forget the flattery of marble halls
that keep you safe for their proper delight,
but fear to put your charms on open trial.
To fill the void, I’d promise you the street
in which to give your principles full reign;
your cherished silence made a perfect state.
Kotare
Hooded watchman mocking my late arrival,
Statuesque, you play the apparent mute, sat
Fast on pagan stoas of post and wire frame
Wrapped in the half-light.
Tell me, how has history left you less than
Sacred, Grecian pedigree overlooked for
Crueller lines, your plumage unfit to join the
Caucus of chief’s cloaks?
Do the favoured, sensing the zeitgeist, choose a
Hand through which to parley, or is the muse’s
Song an echo, haunting a young Narcissus
Flush with his own voice?
That your mortal beauty is witnessed by this
Cynic’s eye is likely no consolation
For seductive fantasies fixed like pylons
Flaunting a king’s might.
-Aaron Robertson
Rotondel de la Villette
Soon, these disputed quays will go
From under foot to form the past;
This metered Sandwalk turned to dust
By callow seas still far from view.
For swans that never question how
Closure could come to winter’s tryst,
Soon, these disputed quays will go
From under foot to form the past.
When pseudo-cinephiles allow
Others, for faith, to be undressed
And fishers of the self are lost
In neighbourhoods described in two,
Soon, these disputed quays will go.
-Aaron Robertson
Ulysses Reconsidered
Just like Farnese’s birds, whose voices became caught
On an unchanging view of palaces in ruin,
You fell into a dream: one of rivers that ran
With sentimental ease before your family seat.
But left to choose, you changed the eternal for light,
Where gifted canon’s robes allowed your mind to turn
From thoughts of chimney smoke and gardens seldom seen,
The limestone of your end betraying words of slate.
The Fleece still hangs unclaimed, yet slowly I’m pulled back
To forest-covered hills and hard volcanic rock,
Unsure of how the tide has brought me to this shore.
Your counsel holds no truth for sailors who have come
To crave the open sea, when mesmorized by fame,
You never knew the life you claimed to hold so dear.
-Aaron Robertson
Take Flight 