1. |
Wild Iron
04:33
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WILD IRON
(Poem by Allen Curnow)
Sea go dark, dark with wind,
Feet go heavy, heavy with sand,
Thoughts go wild, wild with the sound
Of iron on the old shed swinging, clanging:
Go dark, go heavy, go wild, go round,
Dark with the wind,
Heavy with the sand,
Wild with the iron that tears at the nail
And the foundering shriek of the gale.
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2. |
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MAINTRUNK COUNTRY ROADSONG
(Poem by Sam Hunt)
Driving south and travelling
not much over fifty.
I hit a possum . . . ‘Little
man,’ I muttered chopping
down to second gear,
‘I never meant you any harm.’
My friend with me, he himself
a man who loves such nights,
bright headlight nights, said
‘Possums? just a bloody pest,
they’re better dead!’
He’s right of course.
So settling back, foot down hard,
Ohakune, Tangiwai -
as often blinded by
the single headlight of
a passing goods train as by
any passing car -
Let the Midnight Special shine
it’s ever-loving light on me:
they run a prison farm
somewhere round these parts;
men always on the run.
These men know such searchlight nights:
Those wide shining
eyes of that young possum
full-beam back on mine,
watching me run over him . . .
‘Little man,
I never meant you any harm.’
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3. |
Love Trek
04:38
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LOVE TREK
(Poem by Vincent O'Sullivan)
Give me a hand, as the wind says
even your palm, outwards, is enough
to talk to.
Give us, every wave knowns,
the merest dabble, the full cadaver,
the laciest etch, the furious assault,
the agitation is constant, weather
takes it or leaves it.
Weather, which is
the gist of our saying, of our silence,
happens whatever happens, which is you
as well.
There is a man with frosted
jaws against the Antarctic slam,
there is an oiled woman with the sun
so high, so romantic, the consoling rider.
'Cover me like a prairie,' the ice-logged
slogger likes to fancy her saying,
while ah, the return in the tiny tinkle
of her chilled daquiri, such polar hints
consoling such distant zones.
All this with a hand rising
its frigid thermos,
all this with the glass
tapped from a warmer hand. The white
walking curtain at the lifting window,
Captain Scott, come in!
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4. |
Before You Go
04:43
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BEFORE YOU GO
(Poem by Vincent O'Sullivan)
If you give me an apple that would do.
An apple you've picked yourself.
Or one of those apricots that feels
warm as a hand when you take
it up from the table on the veranda.
It says 'afternoon' any time of night
or day. If you gave me one of those
I wouldn't mind. Because it is February
and a week of your walking around
the house, your feet naked on the boards,
seems a fair slice of life. An apple
will do. Or an apricot. Before you go.
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5. |
Lonesome
04:06
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LONESOME
(Poem by Bill Manhire)
I was so lonesome
and as usual
I could cry.
I went out of the house.
No single star
was itself -
just mountain and sky
making the old
horizon high...
and behind me
he tiptoed in
through the door.
Was he really so desperate?
So poor? Years later
I imagined him
pointing the remote
at the screen he's grown tired of
and recalling
his one lucky moment:
a man walking
away, and the suddenly
shining interior: the irrelevant
dirty floor - and the key
lifting its clumsy
light to the lock
and lodging there
deep in the cylinder.
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6. |
Elegy: again
06:39
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ELEGY: AGAIN
(Poem by Vincent O’Sullivan)
You are on a railway platform
in the driest country we had ever seen.
We stand in the heat by a row of shagged
pot plants and I think how green
was always the colour as you came to mind,
a green coat once by a corner in Florence
when you didn’t see me, leaning towards a match.
You are ten yards away and ah, the distance,
even then; or our lying side by side,
your hair that I joked was like a fire
stalking a step behind you, a smoky
brilliance even now, when words like ‘desire’
are husks, shells, dead tongues,
as once we reached them down from the living
tree, the green sky, and our hands
brushing like something scorched, loving
without the palaver of having to say.
And the utter ashes of it now, the same
as if I’d read about someone else, un-
moved. And you, caged in freedoms beyond flame.
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7. |
Aubade
02:57
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AUBADE
(Poem by Bill Manhire)
His heart still bled.
So he woke within a ballad.
‘Come soon, if that is what you meant.
I am lonely,
I am rough and insufficient.’
Oh he was certainly pale
and later he was pallid.
And oh his poor heart bled.
Verse or refrain?
There was a single willow
and then the wind from Spain.
Yet what came first
and what was after?
All he remembered was he left her
by a stream or tree, or underneath a star,
he left her beside her laughter.
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8. |
Charlotte O'Neil's Song
03:31
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CHARLOTTE O'NEIL'S SONG
(Poem by Fiona Farrell)
You rang your bell and I answered.
I polished your parquet floor.
I scraped out your grate
and I washed your plate
and I scrubbed till my hands were raw.
You lay on a silken pillow.
I lay on an attic cot.
That’s the way it should be, you said.
That’s the poor girl’s lot.
You dined at eight
and slept till late.
I emptied your chamber pot.
The rich man earns his castle, you said.
The poor deserve the gate.
But I’ll never say ‘sir’
or ‘thank you ma’am’
and I’ll never curtsy more.
You can bake your bread
and make your bed
and answer your own front door.
I’ve cleaned your plate
and I’ve cleaned your house
and I’ve cleaned the clothes you wore.
But now you’re on your own, my dear.
I won’t be there any more.
And I’ll eat when I please
and I’ll sleep where I please
and you can open your own front door.
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9. |
Signals
06:03
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SIGNALS
(Poem by Charles Brasch)
No two bodies taste alike or smell alike.
Your cat will tell you so sooner than I can,
But not more certainly.
You are not what you were before we knew each other;
I cannot explain the difference, but
All my antennae report it.
Nor can I put my finger on the difference in myself
Now we have learned to answer signals
We did not receive once.
Your skin tastes and smells of tropics where I walked
Barefoot, nostrils wide and fingers
Winged over waves,
Where shadows drew me in through their like leafiness
That is yours now, leafy, woodier to taste
And salt with the salt we share insatiably,
Yours, mine, still distinguishable though mingled
As limbs are, as breathing is,
As tongues that taste each other.
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10. |
Children
04:31
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CHILDREN
(Poem by Bill Manhire)
The likelihood is
the children will die
without you to help them do it.
It will be spring,
the light on the water,
or not.
And though at present
they live together
they will not die together.
They will die one by one
and not think to call you:
they will be old
and you will be gone.
It will be spring,
or not. They may be crossing
the road,
not looking left,
not looking right,
or may simply be afloat at evening
like clouds unable
to make repairs. That
one talks too much, that one
hardly at all: and they both enjoy
the light on the water
much as we enjoy
the sense
of indefinite postponement. Yes
it’s a tall story but don’t you think
full of promise, and he’s just a kid
but watch him grow.
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11. |
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WHY OUR WASHING MACHINE BROKE
(Poem by Jo Randerson)
On the first day of school I missed my mother. I
had home-made beef-roast sandwiches but I missed
her. There she was at home-time and it was all okay,
all of it.
On the second day of school, I missed my mother.
I had home-made beef-roast sandwiches but I still
missed her. At home-time she was five minutes late
but it was all still okay, it was all pretty much okay.
On the third day of school it was making me cry.
There was no beef-roast today and the school
lunches tasted yucky. My mother came at home-
time but the luncheon taste was in my mouth, pinky
smelly luncheon and it tasted yuck.
On the fourth day of school they gave me poison. I
am sure of it. I was sick all day and sick when I got
home. My teacher said it was nothing. My mother
said it would pass. The poison said eat me, eat me
all up.
The next day of school I got very confused. When
I tried to draw a seagull it just looked like a straight
line and I didn’t understand how that big wooden
box could be called a horse. When I looked around
everyone was bigger and taller than me, and I felt a
little dribble of something come out of my ear. I
felt sick and I couldn’t eat my meatloaf. I got told
off. I had to eat all the leftovers.
That night while I was sleeping my brains leaked all
over the sheets. My mother was angry that she had
to wash them but she said it wasn’t my fault. It is no
one’s fault. Some of us are just dumber than others.
Some of our needs are very special indeed.
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12. |
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I’M OLDER THAN YOU, PLEASE LISTEN
(Poem by ARD Fairburn)
To the young man I would say:
Get out! Look sharp, my boy,
before the roots are down,
before the equations are struck,
before a face or a landscape
has power to shape or destroy.
This land is a lump without leaven,
a body that has no nerves.
Don’t be content to live in
a sort of second-grade heaven
with first-grade butter, fresh air,
and paper in every toilet;
becoming a butt for the malice
of those who have stayed and soured,
staying in turn to sour,
to smile, and savage the young.
If you’re enterprising and able,
smuggle your talents away,
hawk them in livelier markets
where people are willing to pay.
If you have no stomach for roughage,
if patience isn’t your religion,
if you must have sherry with your bitters,
if money and fame are your pigeon,
if you feel that you need success
and long for a good address,
don’t anchor here in the desert –
the fishing isn’t so good:
take a ticket for Megalopolis,
don’t stay in this neighbourhood!
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13. |
The Ring
05:43
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THE RING
(Poem by Katherine Mansfield)
But a tiny ring of gold
Just a link
Wear it, and your heart is sold
…Strange to think!
Till it glitters on your hand
You are free
Shall I cast it on the sand
In the sea?
Which was Judas’ greatest sin
Kiss or gold?
Love must end where sales begin
I am told.
We will have no ring, no kiss
To deceive.
When you hear the serpent hiss
Think of Eve.
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14. |
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A YOUNG WOMAN FORSAKEN BY HER LOVER
(Poem by Anonymous)
Look where the mist
Hangs over Pukehina.
There is the path
By which went my love.
Turn back again hither
That may be poured out
Tears from my eyes.
It was not I who first spoke of love.
You it was who made advances to me
When I was but a little thing.
Therefore was my heart made wild,
This is my farewell of love to thee.
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Lorenzo Buhne Wellington, New Zealand
Lorenzo made a name for himself in the U.S. and Europe playing with legendary punk bands FEAR and The Dickies. After moving
to New Zealand in 2003, he released two aadventurous Italian albums, 2005’s Sotto Sopra and 2008’s Buon Giorno.
Lorenzo then turned his attention to New Zealand poetry, and began a journey which has culminated in Wild Iron, his most ambitious and beautiful work to-date.
... more
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