one more night

howling whistling water falls
shake leaf-houses shake the snakes of island bay
in an old cinema a coffee maker sings love songs for swiss melanie

no nostalgia Mighty River Green

lime waters
reflect
brown ducks

and

a silver moon
o'er an old
wooden train bridge
as

we walk!

trains over cliffs on friday the 13th

Tearing the mist on Island Bay is a song from Aandhi and another from
Jism after a hearty dinner of alu mutter (pea and potato) made exactly
the way mom made them. Mom is fine. I took the train to Wellington on
Friday the 13th after Lemona's mom dropped me. I finally left my
karmic connection with Hamilton. No drama, no sensitive staring at the
green moon river, no nothing. Cambridge was a respite but then the
marriage party started coming and I had booked the train journey that
started 10 minutes late with a one-woman army who was the ticket
person, the coolie, the station master and turned into our tour guide.
The train though small was on the posh side with a panaromic window
that showed the brown rail-tracks over bridges and fir trees and
national parks but then Friday the 13th showed its true colours after
I got the sandwich on a discount in the train cafetaria. The lady was
nice to me. On our tracks a train had derailed and thus both the
trains on either side were stuck. One from Wellington to Auckland and
another from Auckland to Wellington and thus the passengers were
exchanged through an in-between bus journey and Wellington train went
backwards literally. So I had my back to the engine like the rest of
the gang. Not very comfortable but besides the usual horses, sheep and
cows and I was bored and had missed my bus to Napier and thus would be
stranded in Wellington in a backpacker but luckily my ticket was valid
to Wellington and I finally found my flatmates number and texted her
and after texting the other flatmate organised that I could keep my
luggage there over texting since I was supposed to arrive in
Wellington on 24 but they were good…the flatmates I had never seen.
My luggage posed additional problems as it was too much and I could
not move my stuff to the taxi stand nor bus stand. Luckily, the hot
train staff gave me a ligt to island bay and my flatmates picked me up
on a warm night in winter outside a Malaysian Satay restaurant. The
house is on a hill and has the most stunning views and Fi gave me
blankets, a hug, lots of smiles and thus I got to stay in the sleepout
like Karin and Campbell go away for two months on 24th.
On the first day in the most golden sunshine, I walked to the shops
and walked to my Arts School. It is the most breathtaking place on the
planet. Imagine Xavier college in the Amazon jungle. The entrance has
a thick foliage and then you see an old building that looks like a
church and is probably haunted and has the nation's best designers,
carvers, clay model, painters and illustrators teaching there. I sat
there for two hours and then walked back on the pedastrian pathway on
the edge of the mountain with white railings and across the second
hill is my house. When we stand on clear days you can see the whole
Island bay and all the houses on the slope that leads up and today it
was misty and planes did not fly and we went to shop in Pak N Sav and
initially the mist felt cold and it lifted and became sunny again. I
went to the library and after a month of not working and travelling
and resting in colourful cambridge; am bored and ready to start any
job.
By the way they are going to read my poem on radio.
It is 10 pm and I am thinking of the best part of the train journey
over the straight right angle cliffs over white river rafting river.
That was the best part of the journey…otherwise a headache induced
by salted peanuts and backward movement

Cold Walk

Having rested and rested for nearly ten days now and a successful
detox, on a rather sunny morning I decided to explore Cambridge. Not
the town side but the mountain side. The yellow red orange fruit tree
that crows eat outside the house is called Persimmon and once you get
used to the taste is really grows on you; the taste not the tree.
It got got cloudy in no time but not the dark cloudy but the silver
cloudy in Russian movies where the trees look barren and I was
disappointed with a dull brown maple tree but I was wrong. This was
not maple it was a look-alike and had seven-sided leaves.
I passed scenic horse stables with huge brown and black horses flowing
on the meadows and i picked up a frozen butterfly dead and looked at
with poetic and artistic interest and a delicate eye and did not know
what to do with it so threw it. Rob once said that Cambridge was a
beautiful part of the country and I walked waving to the occasional
black car and electrical and plumber on wheels and a farm mobile and
the horses ran alongside me as I decided to jump the fields.
When we were young and our foot fitted between two thorns of barb
wires I used to jump the fields all over borivali that had huge fields
then.
A billy goat came and wanted to speak to me as I stood and spoke some
gibberish to the goat. It was a huge goat not the small ones we eat in
India but a mountain goat. No one eats Billy goats here. In fact male
goats are too hard anyway.
I met a female jockey who asked me if I liked the horse and i said the
combination was beautiful. I saw black and white sheep that ran away
from me and then the maple trees. red, Beige, Khakhi, Cream, Purple
Lavender, and Yellow leaves. but the real yellow leaves came on my way
home as I walked 8 odd kms through bare trees and imitated bird sounds
and kept them interested and walked through Kings Land which has a
cluster of lovely houses, not like the country villas with huge
windows back on St Kilda Rd. But the leaves that had a distinctive
shape were really bright happy sunshine smiley yellow. The cows were
grazing and I saw a field with black and white cows whose milk as not
as good as the brown cows that are typical to India and anyway these
cows are injected with everything to keep them milky.

old man

sea raging lighthouse wild blizzard
icy lions sweating on heels
turning lights as gay seagulls
swinging bats as smoke catches the electric eel
tattered holding fort bleeding one word at a time

–

small mild cup of coffee

an old wooden russian bucket is home
grey dog dogs days
city winds black
grey cook strait
leaf jumps. dies.
waikaremoana bleeds
waikato leaves
waitakere croes
a star falls
& another
& another

horses fly let them eat the violin

who cares

black red lipstick swan floats
every grave had it's own poetry

fat one high window has sea
other collects dust
a bumblebee's gliding glee

Taupo Song continued — Yellow Red Maple Leaf Winter

Second Half

5
The clown I love more than yellow and blue kiwi buses where danger
meets speeding boats & tumbling rocks
and flowers. No one needs to die tonight
Let me sleep besides the ducks who
gives a fuck at best it rhymes with Alexia's
helicopter black wings black cars
on bright days smile like Sesa. If
I had to love one, just one for the rest
of my new world life. One that I could
pack and save in the warehouse of my heart.
It would still be Emma or May. No one else'd do

I fly to queenstown christchurch and a french colony
with a Maori name and fail the 5000th assignment
cause humans have a million problems no grass
to lie on or smiling Samoans

6
A fish knows my name like a small juhu lane light
where Savitaben Shah died
the gospel has a camoflage smile
recycled for flying ducks. The fat racist cunt Natalie
calls us foreign friends. Oh Peter don't suck up to Pakehas
and find yourself a foreigner in your own land

Mangoo does not give a fuck for red double-decker buses
just cousins. No fish and chips shark song kiss as mom
and daughter laugh at racist slurs. Lie a little
No one has to die tonight. Wellington calls, trees grateful
no wasps here. Do we need a scanner, Mr Allen. Or just pee on grass
I promise M I will sing ghazals from Q st to Albert Unity, a learning licence
scootie is brilliant idea better than ghosts sleeping by your side

52nd flower 2008th root

wright from reception
dark turmoil steps from black rooms
you smile like gentle yeats
a laughter fills the murky abbey

Life’s a theatre. you say I can always take
that paper next year. (Yeah, wright!)

you are solace in dead silence
understanding and so strong at that stage

Strictly on relative choice
it’d be me. mom unwell depression tablets

not working. Familiar plot?
your wooden desk is still alive
as you walk on 13th century portraits

kate knows you are home
i know you aint alone

oh men and their hidden chambers
david you were our pride.
a goliath of a legacy.

farewell my friend

frankton train

it rains and pours and cries and bleeds and million specks of nothingness hold your love melanie
i take the train and pack and throw and hold and laugh and leave and cry
on a lonely station at 9.30 on a dark morn of friday the 13th
I will wait as light turns green through the tunnel over a green river for the last time melanie
and brown ducks that chase you to waikato
will be gone as you take your plane to your icy winds and neutral place and a dad that flies a plane
i paint and run and hide and freeze in wellington in an ancient art school by an old fire and a cat
and think of you melanie

falling

I met Melanie in Wellington in a backpackers near cuba where pigeons jumped into the fountain and paddington coat factory looked stunning and the museum had a hanging red plane and oil paintings and dark caves.
In a backpacker I met you

I was falling fallen dark angel holding twigs on puhinui road fallen revel falling morrie lang fallen dubai’s dark mistress mount roskill wakena’s clendon, roskill, clendon waterview, bp, falling roskill
onehunga, eden roskill bombay revel, rewa, bombay, city, hunter’s corner city, aut, henderson rescued by justin’s car bombay, ace’s cold warm lab city aut’s light buried in a storm kingsland, may rd, warehouse
weedhouse, harekrsna ymca papakura, henderson bogenville psycho’s screaming madness city raglan, city akora, christchurch, queensland auckland, hamilton, wellington glenview, university, may road
mcnicol, adhyatma, frankton, wellington homing into your heart fallen falling in love with you Melanie
cambridge university napier wellington

No dark angel

clouding screens of Wellington
your swiss heart melted my soul

Winter plunge

a dark wind over silver beet
and yellow orange look alike that sparrows magnet to
awaiting a twisty path over mountain pathways
northland closes its misty gates to ravines downstairs

Library yellow flowers

smile’s a geometric window
yellow flowers beside iron lamp post
near the fountain and curry place
words float float float
your specks are a crab gone pretty
smile is for all and the blind soothsayer
looks into her scythe shaped yellow banana in sky
and a blue bright crystal ball
he’s unstoppable the dark lord that has cat fluff
on his new sniper jacket
It’s a moon in cancer pronouncing love
as your lips part bite smile…

Cause Cambridge sun is rising low

your curly garden kid
under a million stars
and smoke
and rain
and sun
and light

i await
the dark side train
to napier past wellington
i respite
breathing
the breathless love
of the brilliant night
with zillion stars

as i sleep on your large bed
and find home and
whanau
and friendship
and truth,
justice
intelligence
under the lemon tree

silver beet foliage
and a road
that shows
the world its love.

Cambridge

curly kid runs
amok with
sensitive eye
and homeless cartoon network

cause mold is gone
and garden gleams
in a glory of a bygone era
a smoke that
comes out of your chimney
as vodafone is kept in business

perfection is the pillow
that sleeps

heavy
and away

from fatigue
runs to sanddunes
in dreams and nights

a vigilant dad
awaits you home
that is millions of field miles
under a zillion stars
on a clear night

it is nature.
It is cows
horses
and
meadow green
and
love
for human beings.
as kids are warm
and granddad reads
and mauvi is lost
in his private paradise

the words are clear…
the lung needs air…
the air
that Cambridge bestowed
is unfortunately not there

as tongan marriage party
coming near
and cousins
and brothers
and tongan beauties
and all night
you need to sing and dance

save a lung you need it
while you still have a chance.

cave paintings