Subritzky's ferry

Daughter of scow and barge

while fizz-boats, launches, sailboard riders

fly past in showers of spray,

you plod from Half Moon bay

along the Channel estuary

past Bucklands Beach and Musick Point

past Motukorea

steadily towards

Waiheke's point

flattening even vicious chop.

back to top

Tom (an old identity)

Where does he come from?
Where does he go?
Pushing his bicycle day after day,
shoulders bent and spare of frame.
craggy brow and piercing eyes.
his snowy head is bare.

Whatever the weather
the time or the season,
Tom passes by with a smile and a nod,
his sketchbook and pencil
or odd bits of board,
He's happy with either,
to draw is his passion.

On a wet winter's day
he'll come in with a sigh
to the library's welcoming warmth,
his old duffle coat
his only concession,
flick pages or quietly read in a corner,

back to top

Mist Over The Waitemata

At the waterfront,
nothing, a blanket,
a blank, nothing.

hooters converse
through white,
whiteout.

shapes loom,
grey drift,
ferry creeps out,
diesel rumble deadened,
in quiet,

water slips by the keel,
smooth, quiet,
curling away.

hooters converse,
across the harbour
 

back to top