Sunday Morning – Janet Frame

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.