Powhiri - Jacq Carter

Powhiri - Jacq Carter

My sadness is
I have never known
a kuia fold me
in her arms

My sadness is
that what I know
was not told me
by my kaumatua

My sadness is
that I don't have the reo
that what I feel
can't be fully told

but I hear the call of my tupuna
the strongest karanga I know

I bow my head
with respect for them
and from them I draw strength
they walk with me
as I take my first steps
towards all that is theirs

ka tangi te titi
ka tangi te kaka
ka tangi hoki ahau
Tihei mauri ora!

ki nga mate kua haere ki te po
ka tangihia e ahau i tenei wa

haere, haere, haere atu ra




(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

In Transit - Kapka Kassabova

In Transit - Kapka Kassabova

There is a field of frozen mud
and in the middle - a border.
On this side of the border
a pear tree that doesn't bear fruit.
Under the tree an old man
in a borrowed jacket
with a plastic bag,
sitting or kneeling
against the trunk.
The mud has embraced his movements.
The others have gone on with their children.

The border is ten steps away.



(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Pact for Mother and Teen-ager - Fiona Kidman

Pact for Mother and Teen-ager - Fiona Kidman

Girl, we've quarrelled
in a motel in a strange town.
It's 2am and tomorrow
I'm due to drive north all day
on the holiday we've planned
this six months past.
If you were a lover,
I'd have thrown you out;
if you were your father,
I might have had a bitter-sweet
reconciliation. But as you are
my child, I watch you sleep
tangled in bedsheets and tearstains,
and try to plan the shortest way
out of town.





(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Word of Te Whiti - Barry Mitcalfe

Word of Te Whiti - Barry Mitcalfe

'He whenua te waiu whakatupu nga tamariki'
Land is the sustenance of the children.

All flesh is grass
And the price of this land is blood
But the land has not the value of one person

Guns and powder are no protection
For with guns and powder the pakeha
Would make us pay the price

There was a time for action
But this day is the day of the spirit
The spirit will live and the action die

If anyone thinks of horse and gun
By horse and gun will he perish
And those who flee will fall

The canoe which will save us all
Is forbearance. No matter to us what happens
Now is the glory and peace upon the land

Let us abide by the land
Let the booted feet come
The land shall stay firm forever.




(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

To a boy climbing the cenotaph the day after ANZAC day - Kathleen Henderson

We will remember them.


To a boy climbing the cenotaph the day after ANZAC day - Kathleen Henderson

You are used to war. Oh child
You see it daily on your TV screen
The Bullet hits
A spurt of technicolor blood
A body reels and falls before your eyes
You do not feel the pain
Or see the paper poppies draining red
After the heavy rain
You do not see that woman
Bending low to touch that card of memory
On a wreath of white and yellow flowers
And understand she thinks of son
Or lover
You do not know or care
Or if you do
It's like the passing flicker of the picture show
Where tears are cheap
And danger is not death
A gun to you is something that you point at friends
And shout
Bang! Bang! You're dead
While you play hide and seek
Behind the weathered warriors of stone
You do not see a woman with her tears
Or see the paper poppies draining red
After the heavy rain





(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Ru-au-moko - Hone Tuwhare

Ru-au-moko - Hone Tuwhare

Traveller
if you go by way of
Wai-o-hau
do not linger where
the dark gorge broods

Move on
Do not eat or drink there
nor stop to fish the turbulence
of the snarled river-bed for eels;
potato plants, swirling.

Pause
by the broke ngaio tree
and in your own hard fashion
three times curse him

Within the shattered bluff
with rocks on cubed rocks piling
Ru-au-moko* sleeps

Swear hard at him traveller
for your good luck:
his lullaby and appeasement




*Ru-au-moko - Maori god of Earthquakes



(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Time of Day - Barry Crump

Time of Day - Barry Crump

At that time of day
when the world turns away form the sun
and the last traces of sunlight
are gone from the ridgetops,
I lead my old horse down a wild river valley
with two trout in the split sack
behind the saddle.

Around the bend I see great wires
strung swooping from pylon to pylon
across the sky.

And I wonder how come
it makes that moment of sadness
waft through my thoughts,
and puts that mournful note
in the cry of the putangitangi*



*Putangitangi - Paradise Duck



(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Broad Bay - Kim Eggleston

Broad Bay - Kim Eggleston

Sometimes when the light is slow down
the hill from the castle and the sea
is hammering at the heads

I walk across the hill
to where the albatross lives
and watch the sea bite the land

Sometimes when the light is slow
and the sea is flat
floundering in the mud

We wonder should we leave
or stay on the verandah and smoke
another cigarette

The fine net falls either way
as it does when you're arguing
about a jersey and you've

already got your coat on.



(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Waitangi Day, Porirua - Vivenne Plumb

Waitangi Day, Porirua - Vivenne Plumb

The best place to be on Waitangi
Day is Porirua, and I gaze
up, and the clouds right above me have
elongated themselves, so they resemble
ribs, and I look out as if I am
inside the body. Tahi, rua,
two moons in one small month and they are
calling them blue. Paua fritters three
dollars, big yellow blow-up bouncy
castle, flax bangles, sausage on a
stick, watermelon, eight guys in a
waka on the still lagoon. Bhuja.
An Indian woman sells me bhuja.
Porirua reggae is the best.
It is Bob Marley's birthday, stir it
up little darlin. The men wearing
lava lava beat the drums, the kids
jump in the fountain, hangi be quick
only four dollars for a good feed.




(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Under Mangere Mountain - David Eggleton

Under Mangere Mountain - David Eggleton

The Indian greengrocer smiles,
a Bombay movie star
amongst his deep-red watermelons
orange blistered tangelos
rain-washed sun-kissed mangos.
Peaches cling together.
Steam rises from the concrete curves of airport
motels,
From shower-soaked market gardens.
Cars nose like fish

through the humid air.
The ocean-blue sky unfurls creamy reefs of
cloud.
Gentle breezes off the fresh salt spray
sweep across the isthmus.
Leaves are emerald geckos doing acrobatics.
The jelly-green hill quivers.


(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Auckland - Mua Stickson-Pua

Auckland - Mua Stickson-Pua

Auckland
your streets
are cold.
Auckland
multicultural
multiracial
city of the world.
Beneath
your respectability
a price has been paid.
There
is no housing crisis
unemployment
is not working
and black is not white.

Auckland
hungry people
eat out of rubbish bins
openly.
Auckland
supposed sedated
mental health clients
roam your streets
lost and unloved.

Auckland
a generation
of street people
are no longer
invisible.
Auckland
elderly beggars
leave their stench
of poverty and injustice.
A price has been paid
Auckland
your streets are cold.


(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

The Fale - Apirana Taylor

The Fale - Apirana Taylor

(To my friend Iosefa)

The fale I think
is a beautiful house
because it's cool
you can sit there
and talk
and let the wind
wash over you
and cool you
you can see the stars
and night sky

I like that
because in my world
the wind talks
the river talks
the tribes of rock and stones talk
because they are people
and the stars sing karakia

In the fale
I can breathe and communicate
because it's a house
without walls
and I sit here
drinking Vailima
learning about Samoa
and listening
to my mate Iosefa



(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

Spirit of the land - Makiutii Tongia

Spirit of the land - Makiutii Tongia (Cook Islands)

This land is my home
where the naked mountains caress
the sky
and the veins of hills run to the sea.

This land is my home
where I'll live alone until
my hair grows white
and my bones grow old
then I'll hang my spirit on tree tops
to provide a cushion of coolness
for children who gather round
evening fires.



(2007). D. O'Meara (Ed.), Voices of the Pacific: A poetry resource Auckland: Pearson Education.

A sick-bay bow-wow – Sam Hunt

A sick-bay bow-wow – Sam Hunt

The dog’s back leg ripped open,
Some weekender’s possum trap:

Ignoring rage, I bind up
Minstrel’s leg the best I can…

Then this most moving scene:
All the dogs of Bottle Creek

Come visiting. They know he’s sick;
Bring him bones though times are lean.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

A Mangaweka Road song – Sam Hunt

A Mangaweka Road song – Sam Hunt

No place more I’d like to bring you than
this one-pub town
approached in low gear down
the gorges through the hills.

Now they’ve built the by-pass
the drinkers left are locals
& odd commercial travellers.
Quiet afternoons like this you hear the falls

On the Post Office corner
a blue flag floats. I bought
a hot meat pie at the store
a new harmonica.

A public bar drinker
tells me what I want to hear.
I play for him later
songs on my harmonica.

We know each other now
I buy my round of beers,
I catch up on the news
in small town public bars.

They ask me why I travel
& never settle down
I lost two games of pool
& hitchhike out of town.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The sun speaks at Perihelion – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame

The sun speaks at Perihelion – Janet Frame

On the twelve Christmas days
I thought my gift and your treasure
would be shining closest to earth.
Why did spires gouge out my eyes?
Why did the television crucifix
mingle my blood
with dancing girls, the Truth Game,
and the crisscross Quiz of Christ?



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Resolution – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!

Resolution – Janet Frame

I’ll not make a string of words
like cheap poppet-beads
to form my sentence of death
the circle that stops my breath.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Once – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!

Once – Janet Frame

Once the warm draught of people
flowing under the locked door that held me from them
changed my flame, played
influence on my shadow,
burned and re-burned me where I made
my tablets of wax in the dark.

Then beyond the door all was still.
Thief blackbird stopped up the keyhole
where birdbeaks of light, comforting, had pecked crumbs through.
A winter I could never know
sealed the cracks with an evil they called snow.
It was so pure, falling
from nowhere, its flakes blinding.

Beyond the door all was still.
Cleaned in my lonely ritual.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Sparrows climb the stair – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!
Who would have guessed I had so many Frame poems!

Sparrows climb the stair – Janet Frame

Sparrows climb the stair
smoke makes an archway,
the holiday children steer
gocarts in the street of yellow hedges;
and the little ring-eyes never fly alone.

Paths of snow on the hills
higher than we remember of know
above the town of slowest growth
where mayor and councillors cry
for industry
and feasting on suet and honey
the little ring-eyes never fly alone.


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The Peach – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame

The Peach – Janet Frame

What has taken the peach in hand
to make it ripe so fur so
cover it with gold mildew
like new decay spelling birth?

What time began it, what day
rolled it backward from sour stone
gathering thick moss of sun
on pathways thickest with worm?




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Comment – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame

Comment – Janet Frame

Smell of sweat I the armpits dismays more
than the distant smell of the dead in a jungle war.
Possible and important are the blind date and alley but not
the blind man and his plight.

Heaven is curls in place
guipure over fine embroidered lace, leather
simulated, not mind membrane, human
skin woven together on an unknown face.

A clanger dropped at afternoon tea
is more shocking than a plane-load of bombs on Hanoi.
The cancelling of a rugby match through rain
is more lamented than the cancelling of a thousand me.

So let us cheer for our strange worldly wisdom in knowing
how to pack into our life’s thrilling journey
such little happinesses that keep us determinedly going
to hell and back!



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Wet Morning – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!

Wet Morning – Janet Frame

Though earthworms are so cunningly contrived
without an opposing north and south wind
to blow the bones of Yes apart from the flesh of No,
yet in speech they are dumbly overturning,
in morning flood they are always drowned.

This morning they are trapped under the apple tree
by rain as wt as washing-day is wet and dry.
An abject way for the resilient anchorage of trees,
The official précis of woman and man,
The mobile pillarbox of history, to die!




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!

Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran – Janet Frame

This phosphorescent plate
with rugged edges
that are rocks not entwined roses

might heaving turn to serve up
a tongue twister from a drowned man’s mouth
- a ragged rascal.

I remember him running and running along the beach
the cuts on his feet bleeding, his eyes staring wild.
And then he was floating in the sea, dead.
A ragged rascal, the people said.
They made us say it too, slowly and quickly to improve our speech

Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran

I wonder did he know or care
that his suffering on that lonely South Island beach
might improve our speech?
Or did he understand and deplore
the too many trivial uses of adversity?




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Dunedin Morning – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


Dunedin Morning – Janet Frame

The Leith is always a loud grumbler
after a feed of high-country rain
and cannot keep its wide apron clean.

Smoke is early, earliest.
Birds wake, test gear, rest,
make a more subdued start upmorning.

On the city’s doorstep, light,
diluted with last night’s rain,
is taken in, opened, and seen.


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Sunday Morning – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame

Sunday Morning – Janet Frame

Salt water is poetry.
I did not decide this
or prepare a statement
to astonish; it is always

my pleasure on Sundays
looking out of my window
at the petal-white Dunedin light
to trace the green stalk

to its roots in the sea,
then say as the tentacles
take hold and I drown,
the oxygen of silence withheld –

salt water is poetry
not mine but the providers
whom I thank by reading
and wish never again to breathe the silent air.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The New Building – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame! Sorry it's a bit late today folks!


The New Building – Janet Frame

In the new building the voices knock
like stones against the walls.
The partitions are thin.
The new building has a deilicate inner skin
plastered with bookshelves to keep the sound in,
sound or wound. Trees planted in a hurry
droop in the courtyard among level pools
piped with clear water. Beds of grass are beginning
to get the architect’s idea.
Swampy comes and goes
with fist of fog, storm, metallic light gonging
behind those whale-grey heavy clouds
whose blubber’s in the heads of those
who can’t think where the silence, like the money goes,
once it’s out of the soul and into the purse.

Yet I suppose things could be worse.
The hanging stairway in the library may well see
some interesting executions. The inner courtyard
is a surprise worth meeting; even under the leer
of Swampy’s looming face te grass is trying,
the trees may recover,
the windows and the people may grow used to te glare
of the sun’s rude stare;
and by and by
even I may mellow
into a busily writing Burns Fellow!




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Big Bill – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


Big Bill – Janet Frame

Big Bill, Big Bill, High School Boy, Accountant,
Cricket star, hero of Plunket Shield Play,
thirteen years ago I went to your wedding
at St. Kilda on a cold dark winter’s day.

What happened between then and now, Big Bill,
to bring madness, murder, suicide your way,
riding with us in a triple nightmare to your funeral
at St. Kilda on this dark winter’s day?

“It was all over so soon in the neat suburban street
with the faded flowers in the garden.
The time of firing, the number of shots, the angle of the bullets
are not relevant for long,
but love and dread are: love and dread stay.

Others may have the pleasure and curse of them now; not I.
No one will want to own me or buy me. Much wrangling,
cross-questioning, witnessing, will wear the time away
as I go in a triple nightmare to my funeral
at St. Kilda on this cold dark winter’s day.”




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

I must go down to the seas again – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


I must go down to the seas again – Janet Frame

I must go down to the seas again
to find where I
buried the hatchet with Yesterday.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

A resolution – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


A resolution – Janet Frame

People, heated to the brittle stage,
when dropped in cold water, crack.
I’ll smile no more.
Milk, laundry, dust bin.
Sweet people, sweet smiling.
There’s no time for this leisurely meal of late afternoon.
Milk, laundry, dustbin.
Yes, yes thank you, I’ll smile no more.
I came here to write stories and poems,
not to cook peanut candy.
Darkness comes, with the sun gone down
over milk, laundry, dustbin.

I’ll smile no more.
I came here to write.
Grim, absorbed, sane
I’ll stir the syllables
in the provided saucepan;

I’ll sleep on the innerspring mattress,
I’ll turn the key,
pay the rent,
spread protective newspaper,
sweep with the carpet sweeper,
but smiling no more I’ll frown, frown,
(milk, laundry, dust bin)
as I write my stories down down
to their seabed in caves of stone.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The family doom – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



The family doom – Janet Frame

This gene is bred, cradled like my own son,
Heredity said when I demanded to know how
the family doom stays unchanging in its dugout
safe and snug while storms of sporting winds blow.

My time is too old, Heredity said,
to care for the half-million other traits
like happiness, that drift like thistledown in every sporting wind
while Doom, faithful homebody stays.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

A visit to the retired English professor – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


A visit to the retired English professor – Janet Frame

There in the grovertangle where the sun-coltering stilth
galed down, splurned, merged into riper than cleamhold
warmermaze when its skin streakles pomperwelling in summer,
we flindered, melled, wimwalling, hintered.
Olene in his rale after so calid a time had milled its fee
durant, he burndered, cleamed in the day’s coltering zone.

Then we sat under the plum tree
on the wet grass-covered stone
while he talked of Hamlet.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The sun shines all day vulgarly – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


The sun shines all day vulgarly – Janet Frame

The shun shines all day vulgarly
hurling gold nuggets at you and me,
burning our skin’s privacy
our last poor wall and boundary.
If you love the common sun, they said,
your guilt will strike you dead.

But love the cherry tree in bloom
that holds no breath of greed or crime
that is purified light in a white room
and you will never come to harm.
They spoke as if eternity
Had touched the cherry tree.

None told me that the sun would stay,
the cherry blossom wither and die,
and when its bloom was shed, the tree
cast off its guise of purity,
embrace light in its common mood
- wear a dark dress of blood.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

O lung flowering like a tree – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


O lung flowering like a tree – Janet Frame

O lung flowering like a tree
a shadowy bird bothers thee
a strange bird that will not fly away
or sing at break of day and evening.

I will take my knife
I will cut the branch of the tree
he clings to and will not let go
then the wide sky can look in
and light lay gloss
on the leaves of blood beating with life.

Of yes, tomorrow I will take my knife
And the light and I will look in
O plagues lung flowering like a tree,
said the surgeon.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Return - Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



Return – Janet Frame

Who spoke of war?
Homecoming is as dangerous as ever.

I’ll arm myself.
I’ll sit by this pine tree remembering
the purple ice plant, the creeper
(its juice cures the warts of children).

Still the shamrock stems grow to be bitten and sucked
the periwinkle flower yields honey




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The dead – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


The dead – Janet Frame

I have nothing to say to the dead
unless they approach me first.
It is their right to come to me
with a soft step, singing
or moaning as they please.

The dead cry all night under the tree.
I never tire of listening to them.
Sometimes I want to invite them in
to warm their hands by the fire
but nobody wants the dead inside,
especially not the living. Lock the door,
keep them out, they say,
or the next thing you know
they will overcome you with death,
they will feed from you, rob you,
tap your blood and you preserved memory.
The dead have no memory. A torn scarf
flows in and out of their head, controlled
by the wind of forgetfulness, not by the dead,

and where the end or the beginning may be
the dead do not know
who have no memory, no memory.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Driver - Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!

Driver - Janet Frame

An L-Driver through poetry,
swerved to avoid a homily
and struck a metaphor; nothing
could save it; he drove on in shame
leaving no address and a false name.

And now his obsession is
the miraculous escape; he asks, what if
I swerve again, but having no murdered metaphor
to support me I plunge to my death over the cliff?



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Rain – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!
This seemed appropriate on this wet morning!



Rain – Janet Frame

The rain runs down the windowpane.
Like.

There’s the Great Cliché crying again!



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Beginnings – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!!




Beginnings – Janet Frame

Up the crocuses
and they are struck down;
up the crocuses again
one-gold, and they dare not to open.

I’ll not see them this year,
their first year in a new bed,
tangled in the cold sheets of the earth
enforced guests of the sleeping sun

that refuses to wake into light and prepare breakfast.
O struck down
broken at the stem
their magnificent heads wound in a golden scarf.

Up the crocuses
to try a third time
one morning to feed
their innocent faces with light?



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Born in a gentle country – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



Born in a gentle country – Janet Frame

Born in a gentle country
mothered by peace and mercy
I’ve never learned to stay in the forbidding House of Judgement
where guests are warned to speak one sentence only,
‘Humanity is no excuse for Humanity.”

I’ve discovered it’s not mercy
nor peace nor being born in a gentle country
that deters me: the rent is too high
decision on decision paid out to a total
terrifying lifelong responsibility.

Besides, who is to know whether the true owner, Love,
who first toiled and planted the walled garden, may wander now,
himself an insane prisoner in the House of Judgement?




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

At Evans Street – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



At Evans Street – Janet Frame

I came one day upon a cream-painted wooden house
with a white bargeboard, a red roof, to gates,
two kinds of japonica bushes, one gooseberry bush,
one apple tree lately in blossom; and thus I counted
my fortune in gates and flowers, even in the white
bargeboard and the fallen roof beam crying religiously to the carpenter,
Raise me high! and in this part of the city that would be
High indeed for here my head is level with hills and sky.
It is not unusual to want somewhere to live but the impulse
bears thinking about seriously and it is wise
never to forget the permanent impermanence of the grave,
its clay floor, the molten centre of the earth, its untiled
roof, the rain and sunbeams arrowing through slit
windows and doors too narrow to escape through,
locked by the remote control of death-bed convulsions
in a warm room in a cream-painted wooden house
with a red roof, a white bargeboard, fallen roof beam…
no, it is not unusual
to nest at my time of year and life only it is wisest
to keep the spare room always for that unexpected guest, mortality
whose tall stories, growing taller, tell
of the sea-gull dwelling on bare cliffs, of eagles high
where the bailiff mountain wind removes all furniture (had
eagles known the need
for chairs by the fireside – what fire but sun?) and strips the hangings
from the trees; and the men, also, camouflaged as trees, who
climb the rock
face and of the skylark
from whose frenzied point of harvest is hurricane
and when
except in the world of men
did hurricanes provide shelter and food?

In my house I eat bread and wish the guest would go.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Autumn – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



Autumn – Janet Frame

The gate to the wood is closed, said Summer.
Take the path over the pond,
kill the daffodils.
The old men sat wrapped in greaseproof paper.
We are not afraid, they said.
Be shrewd, be whistling.
We are tired of picking locks and seasons.
All thing yellow stream beyond our eyes


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The footballer in the small room – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


The footballer in the small room – Janet Frame

Now he roars through an unlit stadium of silence.
A curve of pain in his head
corresponds to this teamless loneliest game
where his blood has less worth than orange juice,
but the spectator walls do not know his name.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Summer – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame



Summer – Janet Frame

At midday then the sweltering mother
bedded in wheat and wharves rose
to give food
gold sea and salt bread to the city.

Deep from her blue apron pocket
she drew a ripe orange to slice
and squirt light
- your mouth was stained with sun.

Some will be for burning – Janet Frame

Some will be for burning, not all.
In the deep sky trees may lean, and men,
to take their hot gold coin, and some,
not all, will be for burning.

In autumn many trees have ashes for leaves;
the willow and the silver poplar
have paid the penalty of fire
no creek or soft rain will smother.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Impard a willow-cell in sordue – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


Impard a willow-cell in sordue – Janet Frame

Impard a willow-cell in sordue
chance or chead in fascendure
the sweetable lightly photation
frambling in the quintolution.

Chance or chead in vilitance
a musion briskly appleful
harmworthily impelled
in pulse and mind deeprent
with bountiful irrosement.

Chimney Fire – Janet Frame

The shaking sou’west breath that will make
the telegraph wires moan and tell all their consuming
burden of messages in snow-clean confessional,
has panicked fire out of this heart and house, has raged
a passage of blood through soot
that may have choked or helped, like the black dust
that settles or battles with each coal of thought.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Matthew – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame


Matthew – Janet Frame

It is Matthew dressed in a sea wave, scarcely walking
for weeds about his ankles, his life willingly
set in the stocks of ocean, pelted with light,
with ripe leaves from inland trees,
grievance of sharp deserted shells.
Open to door to him and the Dog Night.

He will stand there pleading the innocence of salt and cockle tooth
though his life has savored many tears from the biting tide.
Over his thin unwashed body, congealed sunlight,
The black and white defiances of grave and shell
Minstrel his passionate reason to be: it is, interpret
All shapes of wave, shell, and gull in flight.

Clairvoyant for what lives and is not human
the black Dog Night at his heels he walks night and day
by this dead sea where, Arabs of summer, children
holidaymaking bring new ancient scrolls to light.

O bandit gull, nomad wave,
from babbling cave of dungeon to articulate man,
man weeping,
man walking upright




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Graduate – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame

Graduate – Janet Frame

She lives in letters. She knows
the quote, the plot that suits,
the words that fir the moment
as fox gloves fit the fleeing fox
with golden brush and speckled poison
described by him and him and her. Squalid borrower
who dreams another’s life, who lives
not under the sun but flat between
another’s pages as the useful bookmark, the fringed self-centre.

Still she wait for the surprising pool
where nothing grows, no fish have swum before,
no reed or weed has stirred – a hopeless dream
for already
- “the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing.”




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Sunday – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


Sunday – Janet Frame

Sunday’s thermos is filled,
Sunday’s hedge clipped, car cleaned, scales played.
The plastic prayer, though it melts in the fire
is contrived in the correct shape
in a lovely contemporary colour.

Go fishing in the muddy stream
borrow an inch of beach, rent a sand fly and jellyfish
lie in bed burned bitten and stung
by the lovely contemporary wish
being granted – oh breathless –
on a flesh-colored plastic dish



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!



As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

As I walked along the street I heard
a transistor radio singing like a bird,
an advertisement for 4ZB
singing in the cherry tree.

I said, So high, so far away
you sing in the push-button sky.
Have you a message of faith and hope?
It said – Use Lily-Clean Soap.

And I was angry then and tried
to forget the transistor bird
but its voice came loud in the world so green
- With Hexachlorophene.

Then I smote the bird and I smote the tree
and the push-button sky fell down on me,
and dying I lay alone without hope
or faith or Lily-Clean Soap.


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The Poet – Janet Frame

I am starting to believe that "Janet Frame" is unlucky. Janet Frame Month in December didn't work because of a death in the family. Janet Frame Month in January didn't work because the computer died... Maybe Janet Frame Month in February will work...


The Poet – Janet Frame

Though the wheat is so beautifully puffed
the rice is ballooned and stuffed
and the world seems so much bigger
from a few to a marvelous crowd
of supers, the pushing and proud
with more push and pride and the prig growing prigger.
The poet still breathes with one lung
climbs a ladder of only one rung
shoots stars with his hand off the trigger.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Chimney Fire – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month



Chimney Fire – Janet Frame

The shaking sou’west breath that will make
the telegraph wires moan and tell all their consuming
burden of messages in snow-clean confessional,
has panicked fire out of this heart and house, has raged
a passage of blood through soot
that may have choked or helped, like the black dust
that settles or battles with each coal of thought.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Matthew – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month

Matthew – Janet Frame

It is Matthew dressed in a sea wave, scarcely walking
for weeds about his ankles, his life willingly
set in the stocks of ocean, pelted with light,
with ripe leaves from inland trees,
grievance of sharp deserted shells.
Open to door to him and the Dog Night.

He will stand there pleading the innocence of salt and cockle tooth
though his life has savored many tears from the biting tide.
Over his thin unwashed body, congealed sunlight,
The black and white defiances of grave and shell
Minstrel his passionate reason to be: it is, interpret
All shapes of wave, shell, and gull in flight.

Clairvoyant for what lives and is not human
the black Dog Night at his heels he walks night and day
by this dead sea where, Arabs of summer, children
holidaymaking bring new ancient scrolls to light.

O bandit gull, nomad wave,
from babbling cave of dungeon to articulate man,
man weeping,
man walking upright




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Graduate – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month

Graduate – Janet Frame

She lives in letters. She knows
the quote, the plot that suits,
the words that fir the moment
as fox gloves fit the fleeing fox
with golden brush and speckled poison
described by him and him and her. Squalid borrower
who dreams another’s life, who lives
not under the sun but flat between
another’s pages as the useful bookmark, the fringed self-centre.

Still she wait for the surprising pool
where nothing grows, no fish have swum before,
no reed or weed has stirred – a hopeless dream
for already
- “the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing.”




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Sunday – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month

Sunday – Janet Frame

Sunday’s thermos is filled,
Sunday’s hedge clipped, car cleaned, scales played.
The plastic prayer, though it melts in the fire
is contrived in the correct shape
in a lovely contemporary colour.

Go fishing in the muddy stream
borrow an inch of beach, rent a sand fly and jellyfish
lie in bed burned bitten and stung
by the lovely contemporary wish
being granted – oh breathless –
on a flesh-colored plastic dish



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month


As I walked along the street – Janet Frame

As I walked along the street I heard
a transistor radio singing like a bird,
an advertisement for 4ZB
singing in the cherry tree.

I said, So high, so far away
you sing in the push-button sky.
Have you a message of faith and hope?
It said – Use Lily-Clean Soap.

And I was angry then and tried
to forget the transistor bird
but its voice came loud in the world so green
- With Hexachlorophene.

Then I smote the bird and I smote the tree
and the push-button sky fell down on me,
and dying I lay alone without hope
or faith or Lily-Clean Soap.


I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

The Poet – Janet Frame

January is now Janet Frame Month


The Poet – Janet Frame

Though the wheat is so beautifully puffed
the rice is ballooned and stuffed
and the world seems so much bigger
from a few to a marvelous crowd
of supers, the pushing and proud
with more push and pride and the prig growing prigger.
The poet still breathes with one lung
climbs a ladder of only one rung
shoots stars with his hand off the trigger.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Mr Universe – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month


Mr Universe – Janet Frame

The speak-and-run murderer is at large
as his own victim.
In the newspapers and the comic strips
the panic balloons are rising like flares form his lips
in deadly simple navigation to express
his need, his pain and cold:
Help, Ouch, Br-r-r.

He is Mr Universe of the gonging biceps.
His brute head when the swarm of thought is over wears
the whistling helmet of an empty hive.
And soon, they say, his body as the whipped steed
of cylinders will ride to neigh at the moon
his need his pain and cold
- Help, Ouch, Br-r-r -
in secret hope of an answer.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.

Unemployment – Janet Fame

December was Janet Frame Month, but I missed it due to going back to my parents house for a month (leg op, plus g'mother died, plus xmas and new years), so January is now Janet Frame Month :D

Unemployment – Janet Fame

Each Tuesday at ten o’clock I go to the Employment Exchange,
fill in the form they give me, tell what I have earned
for chopping down the neighbour’s tree, feeding his horse,
rescuing a silly sheep from the swamp. Sometimes, with odd jobs,
I make as much as a pound a week, but no one
offers anything permanent. The official (whom I knew at school,
a bear in the back sear) gapes at me: I’m sorry we cannot place you.
And therefore I am not placed, not in this or that. I have
a fine box of tools that I keep well-oiled. I have experience
and knowledge tied in a waiting bundle in the corner of my mind
nearest the door but no one knocks and the door is never opened.

I collect my weekly allowance. I go home,
I cuddle my wife, feed the cat,
and, for no purpose in no place, grow fat.



I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.