Otara - have a Banana
previously published in Livin' ina Aucklan'(ESAW, 1987) and
Toku Tinihanga: Selected Poems 1982-2002 (HeadworX, 2003)
coming back from the Papatoetoe pub
towards Otara in a Japanese car made for two
I am lolling like a sea-lion in the back
the little car turns the corner too quickly and as
I put my hand out instinctively to stop the roll, it moves into outer-space as the window shatters on the road
laughing from shock as we cross the motorway overbridge
I see the clouds and sky more clearly with no window
and the fresh breeze quickens my slight hysteria
we pull into the large asphalt covered carpark
which on weekends transforms into a busy market place
but now is only populated by tin ghosts on wheels
leaving my friends I head towards the town-centre
where people shop and smile and talk, listen to music
and the aiitu of you is around every corner
sitting in a cafe I order coffee and a roll
in a gravel-syrup voice, thinking Tom Waits for no-one
as another mother joins the endless Post Office queue
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Revolution Song (for Litia F. Alaelua)
previously published in Livin' ina Aucklan'(ESAW, 1987) and
Toku Tinihanga: Selected Poems 1982-2002 (HeadworX, 2003)
my love is sad because...
when she looks out at her little garden
all she can see is a fence confining her flowers
bordering her year, defining her existence
her beauty and love hidden away, hey!
in the dark, deepening suburbs of South Auckland
she waits for her children to return from school
and the reggae beat pulses through her dreams
she wishes for trees, for vines, for plants of every colour
her mind becomes a freedom fighter
patrolling her jungle town of the third world
her thoughts move stealthily, carefully they tread
past unexploded bombs and booby traps
wearing jungle-green she moves through memories of
oppression
like a victorious rebel she remembers back
to the time before she grasped liberation
to the time when she knew boundaries and visions of
freedom
and the bully-beatings for stepping beyond U.S.A. or
husband
knowing what she has won by her revolution
knowing she will fight to keep it
my love sits on her afternoon doorstep
with reggae beat pulsing in her ears
and looking out at her little garden
my love is sad because...
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Heading South
previously published in Livin' ina Aucklan'(ESAW, 1987) and
Toku Tinihanga: Selected Poems 1982-2002 (HeadworX, 2003)
Onehunga, more factories now in this suburb
Than I can or care to remember
It was one of those places
Where I used to sit in the back of our van
Playing 'eye-spy' with my sisters and brother
While our father drank himself into companionship
Every half-hour or so he would emerge from the pub
Saying, "I've just me so-and-so, I'll only be a minute."
Onehunga, by-passed by time and a new expressway,
Lies just beyond my vision, down the harbour
As I am looking from the train window towards
Mangere Bridge between a redundant Southdown
Freezing works and long-ago re-aligned Otahuhu
Railway Station at sundown, see the beauty
The natural cliffs of the harbour heads, reflected
In the stillness of Manukau Harbour, as shades
Of purple enhance the land and water the train
Pulls slowly out of Westfield towards dusk
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