you to rest your lips upon
my stories, what I see with my
eyes and without them, what I hear
with my skin and taste with my
nostrils, wish you to

know me to my dermis and beyond, to
live my experience as your
own, because I am
not enough, there is
not enough of me for all
this

In every cell, I contain
a universe, I am
in and of it, I am
it all and I am nothing, I am
the grain of sand that contains the
ocean, I wish to

feed you all of me,
grain by grain, I wish to
drink the rivers you
overflow with, I wish us to
meet at the estuary and
there where we mix I wish to
flow out into you because I

am
too much,
because I
cannot
be
contained.

Written 19 November 2010 – ER

I know a lot about
kings and queens,
about magic and fire,
about the feel of the winter wind
as it sears sharply through outspread feathers,
about the view of the earth from space,
about the composition of stars and
what it’s like to live on the moon.

I don’t know anything about
changing nappies or
paying bills or
smoko break at the office or
sitting next to the guy on the bus who stinks
or the last two steps to the door at my house or
the way the light in my mother’s eyes is fading.

I know a lot about
the soft swish of the mane on Prince Charming’s white horse,
about castles and warcries and
the pages of books
I know a lot about how it feels to
fly on the summer breeze,
about how to build a nest in a safe tree,
about how to captain the Starship Enterprise.

I don’t know anything
about everyday things -

but oh, all the things I know
and could tell you about
how to be free!

Written 4 April 2010 – ER

[NB: for anyone who actually knows me - I would like to remind you that the Truth of poetry resides in the sense it conveys, not in exact facts - that is the beauty of it - and that poetry can be fiction and still convey truth.  And the light in my actual mother's eyes is not fading! ]

Written 4 April 2010 – ER

a common first choice
of last resort, it seems,
for so many quiet women then -
tired of life under lord,
unlauded,
numb.

In this day and age,
we find other ways
- with names like Paroxetine,
Weight Watchers,
career -
and don’t even know we’re trying to fill
the lack of simple
laud-
          -a-
              -num.

Written 2 May 2010 – ER

* * *

Moulin noir
you are held by tea and mismatched socks
on this couch
come what may
you are still the sea
I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind…

* * *

This is the alivest you’ll ever be
here in this freezing foxton ocean
you are the sea that burns you, chills you,
fills your every pore and
the spaces between electrons
you are the sea that crashes into
your body like a wall
that consumes you.
Your body is defined only
by the absence of sea
you are the space where the
sea is not, and yet
you are this freezing ocean
as it slams into the lack of you,
all of you
you are the wind that lifts you
upon the wave that
is you
you are freezing, shivering, awake
you have never been so alive
you have always been this alive
you are the sea.

* * *

I hope you don’t mind
fresh warm water sheds
salt from skin but
face upturned
you are still the sea

come what may…

Written 23 January 2010 – ER

Written 07 March 2010 – ER

Your fingers pull a pattern out of wood and steel,
and I , the stones, the trees,
I am it all as it bends to you,
I am nothing but the sighing wind that
fills your lungs
in the lead up to the bridge.

I explode forth
as the pieces of your poetry and I
fade away in your silence ‘til you
sing again. Great poet: I am your melody.

Written 25 Nov 08 – ER

That maybe there comes a time
when all the cells of your body have
changed and renewed – not just once but many times,
and you are no longer the pink, writhing thing
that emerged screaming into the world, and you are no longer
the quiet, sullen thing with pigtails and a bookbag and her
head down at the back of the classroom, and you are no longer the
skinny, awkward thing in various uniforms, with a vague sense of self and
an indulgent misery, and you are no longer a string of misdeeds and mistakes and
low self-esteem – But now you find,
in new cells, new life – in organs born of old ones
new self, a changing definition.

And that this self, this singular entity, belonging
entirely to this moment, can be drawn back
to old definitions by the people who wrote them, can
find it easier in the company of old faces to be
the face they used to see, rather than the one that
whispers now for expression.

That in the company of strangers the heart feels hollow, unknown – but
in the company of family the heart feels too known,
choked by knowing, hemmed in by the old knowing,
restricted to old boundaries, memories
long past their use-by date.

That somehow from the fire of old things the new is
testing wings, that
in the cutting of apron strings the
new soul flails about in search of
somewhere new to moor itself, before realising it is
steady alone, needing no propping post to hold it afloat, but
balanced of its own accord. And that the unknown sea ahead is
at least one’s own unknown, waiting
for a self that is self-defined, and
redefined each moment, rather
than the shelter of a bay in which the self is held
by all the other times it has sheltered there in
cold weather and in wondering.

Maybe to be truly known
we must be known to be transient, fluctuating – Give me the one who will
hold a space for me in his heart which
fits whatever shape I decide to be today, not one
who will accept my square days and not my circles. Give me the one
who floats on the wind as I do,
that maybe some days our winds will coincide and we can fly together and
maybe some days our winds will part and we will
fly alone. Give me the one
who will love the potential space I fill, and not expect me to be
in one corner when I feel like being in the middle, who will love me on my
half days and my three-quarter days and the days when I expand beyond it. Give me the one
who explores fully his own spaces and asks not of me to
define which part of it he should dwell in.

Let us dwell in whatever part of life has place for us in each moment, not asking
that today define tomorrow, or demanding that we
be later what we are now, or be now what we were in photographs or
times on distant shores. Let us define ourselves in
this moment’s grammar, though it
be a foreign language to the moment before.

Let us be all the people we are, not holding out
for the ones we should have been or were. Let our edges
be ill-defined, like gas floating through a world demanding solids, being
today oxygen and tomorrow helium and never giving in to the
staid safety of steel.

Written 12 Nov 08 – ER

I?!

I am here vulnerable
only to your folly -
only a few steps more without
needing my approval
and you could have toyed forevermore
with my existance,
had me – helpless female -
at your pleasure.

Maybe one day here in darkness
Hades will ask me what I miss from the world of
light

- I will think of you,
sunlight dancing off your hair as you
turn back towards me
and answer truthfully -

nothing.

Written 20 Jan 09 – ER

Orpheus and Euridice by George Frederick Watts RA (1817-1904). Oil on canvas: 22 x 30 inches; 56 x 76 cm.

[This poem will make a whole lot more sense if you know the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a story rarely told from Eurydice's perspective.  You can read the myth like a love story.  Or you can start to ask questions.  Who says Eurydice even wanted to go back with Orpheus?!  Typical male, he just assumes that she does.  At least, this is the feminist perspective from which the poem is written - whether I agree with it or not.  I was influenced in writing this poem by poems such as Eurydice by HD and the fabulous fabulous work of Margaret Atwood ("You could not believe I was more than your echo" - perfect), among other fabulous female poets who dare to put a new slant on old stories.]

Seaspray, madness:
Warm freedom.

Crawl back now in
New life’s momentpause
Calmed by storms-eye healing
Gale force whispers recall
Once-dreams, forgotten,
Songs on stony hills –
Life-drowned.

This city remembers you
To yourself
Your song-core, hidden
In tears of years and
Theory, hardened;
Calls out from you your
Word-self, rhythm –
Your one-time driver.

Cool zephyrs ever-present
Relentless, coolbreeze-asking:
Where you went
Deep parts of you
Betrayed by facts-experiment
Could here in gentle rebirth take,
In salty windswept arms, you in
Sweet murmurs ask for choice
Remember: self-songs
Please – come home.

Written 9 July 08 – ER

Photo from Wellington waterfront by ER