POST SCRIPT OF SCRIPT TO SCREEN
Tena koe
Or tena koutou
Hello one and all
I am of a tribe you do not know
One now remembered by housing projects and shopping malls
profit mountains and legal avenues and oil slick seas
And fictionally accurate movies
Defined urban
By what is not available
Under jurisdiction
Under the table
To the Underprivileged
To the lost generations
For our children are lost
Between two stories
They are lost
They are stumbling over the kerb with their eyes fixed on a digital screen
They are milling around Queen St
They are falling out of bars laughing and crying
They are huffing on bags and tagged high on corner dairies
They are lying under bus shelters for white people to write about
They are under hooded sweatshirts on the news on TV
They are waving guilt like a gun demanding your money
Give me your money
Your fucking cash
You got a dollar, mate?
All I’ve got is a blanket.
Well I walked out the door
On that speech
Went looking instead for poetry.
STORM IN A TEACUP
I tried to catch
what fell -
your
hand
on
my
shoulder,
slipped
-in words
this verse being
what was left
broken
no truth in it
READING
History
pinned
to cream scene
subject
to sterile slip
of digital time:
Newton to Putin
sold out like so many
school galas
BBQ meat,
afterthought to
after hours audience.
Murmurs rise
in clouds of tar
of arsenic
Clouds pattern
in the shape of speech
Conversations
held captive
in cylinders
twist
off into the
breath of opinion
inhaling it.
You stand awkwardly
We pull applause from our sleeves.
Choop!
In the plosive
choop
-before-karatoom
poppa said
silence!
no more
he-said-she-said
no more
it’s-not-fair;
forced calm of
a putting green-
soft breeze
held breath;
choop!
the rough navigated
forgotten secrets
photographs
disappear,
those lice races
that cross country escape
soiled silk underwear
relegated
flag placed
where one may not tread
lost on my tongue
borscht
peroshki
sweet sherry
ashes
Great Aunts in Auschwitz
dialysis
-choop!
our silent heritage
(never really knew what it meant)
Different Ways
In the block
hand to hand
status spins
into nothing
aching step back
off pressure
Set free
Notes swim out
oblivious
severed strokes tapped
out
in
muted beat
Waves sway
with time
turn away
Hooked
she returns
Measured steps
strung out on a stave
commands float
at her hemline
salt water whispers
stinging melody
