‘Fine Feathered Friend II’
‘Fly away Peter, fly away Paul – or don’t – just sit there, on the seawall…’
Fine Feathered Friend II
Tag: Poem
Cascading Down
‘Cascading Down’
falling water
cascades down
catches sunlight
glistens
Leadlight (Faded Memories)
“Leadlight (Faded Memories)”
…………………………….
frame it up with blackened lead
fill it in with frosted glass
forget the things that went before
faded memories
cannot last
Down At The Dockside At Dawn
‘Down At The Dockside At Dawn’
Down at the dockside
at dawn
a ship
set to wander
contiguous seas
in isolating days
Steps Down To The Sea
‘Steps Down To The Sea’
steps down to the sea
rusted out old bastards
purpose all served
tread then with care
descend, descend
alight the last
and carelessly
walk on water
without weight
or thought for depths
cross ocean’s sheen
and twisting tides
transfigured
The Magpie
‘The Magpie’
“…and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies say.”
– New Zealand poet Denis Glover, ‘The Magpies’ (1964)
Through The Trees
‘Through The Trees’ Hanmer Springs, NZ. July 2013
wooden shafts
shafts of light and air
run parallel
then merge
in memories
Laugh Again
” Stop your snivelling creek bed;
come rain hail & flood-water
laugh again “
– Hone Tuwhare ,‘ Haiku (1)’
This great New Zealand poem, inscribed on a carved wooden gateway in Auckland’s Aotea Square, is an inspiration to Ebb Then Flood (for hopefully obvious reasons!)
Drained
drained
drained
the important things
are receded now
and you need them
more than ever now
to show you how
to be
Dive
Dive
Dive down
dive then deeper
seeker of pearls
and hidden treasure
maybe found
or remained drowned
Dive anyway
in shimmering
translucence
Discovered then
your soul
ascends
-Andy L
When The Jacaranda Is In Bloom
When the jacaranda is in bloom
when lilac royally adorns
the fading year
with a soft crown
of new possibilities
This World, Not Simply Visited
I took a few shots of a street mural down the way from my home in Auckland a couple of days ago, and now present a portion of it detailing a world globe.
Very cool… I love maps and globes of all sorts and will give the artist some leeway in the geographical accuracy stakes!
Anyway, I post this as I am off to the other side of the world, Europe, on Sunday, for the first time in thirty years. Just a tad excited, and like all tourists, I have been busy plotting and planning the places I most want to visit in the pretty limited amount of time I have.
Which brings this visitor-in-waiting to the below words from a favourite poet,which certainly give food for thought:
” When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
– Mary Oliver, excerpt from “When Death Comes”
The New Flow
Walked down to the river shore this afternoon to calm my head.
An ebb tide, about as far out as can be.
Mudflats, shell banks, strewn rocks exposed.
And layered and eroded sandstone, captured in this photo and then subjected to some post-production flight of fancy.
Something bright, molten and fluid resulted.
It brought to mind, and to life, a poem I wrote a while back ( I don’t write many) and posted here: Bond / Flow
This is for those who have ever lost hope.
Peace,Andy L.
Ripple The Heavens
ripple the heavens
cast doubt on the earth
burn the blue
for all that you’re worth
Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
– William Blake, ‘The Tyger’
Surrender Feathers
Something wild, and wise:
“Be crumbled.
So wild flowers will come up where you are.
You have been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.”
– Rumi
Fighting life continuously can leave one a little bashed up.
Or even totally.
At that point maybe it is time for a different approach…
Joy Of Moving Water
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
– Rumi, excerpt from ‘Moving Water’
The Widening Gyre
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold…”
– W.B.Yeats ,excerpt from ‘The Second Coming’
These often quoted lines of poetry are mesmerising and terrifying to me , and the whole work is said to be prophetical and allegorical.
I’ll leave the latter for the scholars of literature to debate.
But the words have spoken to me deeply and personally of a time when my centre could no longer hold.
Things fell apart.
I was a lost falcon without direction.
Forces were beyond my control.
Mesmerising.
Terrifying.
As shockingly vivid as the hues and shapes of this picture, but thankfully in the past.
All I can say, if you’re in the eye of a chaotic hurricane , is that ” this too, shall pass.”
The Monolith Looms
in onehunga
the monolith looms
on the hill
we all see
what is missing
as keenly
as what
is left behind
the slopes of cornwall park
rolling gentle and green
a central city country estate
shared by joggers and dog walkers
scaring sheep
avoiding bulls
– excerpt from ‘Octopus Auckland: 8 Suburbs’, poem by Karlo Mila
With these words my poet friend Karlo describes the pictured hill ,Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill as it is also known) and the surrounding Cornwall Park near the suburb of Onehunga ,Auckland. Photos are from my regular visits there.Seven other suburbs also get the treatment in her analogy of my hometown as a ‘feke'(Tongan for octopus).
Footnote ,and to clarify some of the stanza: The large pine tree that once graced the summit is gone, mortally wounded in a chainsaw attack of protest almost twenty years ago by a Maori activist. What remains is the striking obelisk in the centre frame. It was conceived in times gone by as a “memorial” to the indigenous Maori people, whom many European settlers then thought would gradually die out.
However,they, like the obelisk, are still here…
Ebb Then Flood 