Our response to the impending crisis

     in which it gets
     too hot to think

in which it snows in summer in Northland
and someone's predicted it on Facebook
and grows famous. In my own defence
   I retire to the shed and write.

You begin to recycle.  He walks to work
on Fridays in the spring
and it does him good.
 Later, he drinks until the rising cost
of drinking no longer bothers him.

Making wine takes a lot of water
which pours out of taps onto lawns
  and the crime rate rises
to sketch a satisfying graph
which clearly shows. We clearly know

now what's coming
and so we do nothing
because it's too big to imagine.

I go to the shed and try my best
to imagine it without getting so upset
that I can't still write about it

     it's not enough

Bloom

The heat of the day enrages
those without air-conditioned rooms
or the learning to drink water
   to continue to breathe
   to attempt compassion

I watch my back
             which is really impossible. 
I don’t know what I’ll do
if I have to fight
the neighbours for water
  or our beliefs.

        Check out
    our elaborate systems
   of rubbish collection,
our worship of infrastructure
          - such spiritual beasts…

Somewhere far away, bodies
move across bodies
 of land in search of water.
I wash my car with water.
     It hasn’t rained in weeks.

Let out your hair.
Let up your guard.
Let on your secrets.
Let off your weapons.

In a norwesterly
                        guns kill people
   extending the malicious gesture
all the way down Columbus St.
The roses are also going off.
They’re exploding, showering
 petals over the skin of my eyes.

This is the age of certificates.
      Medals are too heavy –
they remind us of our extraordinary
capacity for suffering, for struggle.

That short-cut we take
     when no-one looks
short-circuits the work.
We’re straight; we are distant.
We grow increasingly
       hell-bent.  It is evil
           it is ludicrous
what we come to accept.

      (the emergency
     the emergency isn’t
     here yet, hold me…)

      There doesn’t need
to be a conspiracy
for us all to be in terrible danger.
  Certain elements of how
living things come to prosper
         are enough to explain
this rapidly expanding
mess.

When hospitality

becomes an industry
and industry stops being
a quality, like virtue

when the concept of virtue
doesn’t make much sense
 when sense is marketed
to us for money

when money becomes
a goal in its own right
when some have rights
 and the rest something else

you are something else.
   Your hospitality
is more important than
  your spelling.

Overaching

T- d rails                      the rushing scent
Sound of gull wheels           fin    e
Gers in water                          th.  Oughtful

 Lady ailments                 her bod is décor
A shun scars               and wheeling away
Holds out two wrists           wit

H  bloud    bomb       how light peels
From shade   oh         boxed   c.  off
In a day time night     mare      mixed

 To be gin      to ne water    no tes ring
Release          sump shone on  castling
        brook.   strings on a apple violin

Deepwalker

the day is a drum that connects
these vocal loops  
with grey traffic circles
bridge after bridge

as u know    we look for u
in the park           the terse
wood under trippers light
are spawning     sharp thighs
shafts and cunts melting
in the firs' limbs
      gossip surrounds you

wish to start our conversation off
and start another           wish you'd
come back and clean up this town
the wind rises

smoking holds feelings down
drinking retards this movement
in the chest         i cry in bed
walk steep tracks in the dry spells
there is no         why

they can articulate
that is more than running water
        care for me
the living hold each other
and philosophy falls
out of all our mouths

while by the lakeside
trees fuck in the storm
almost nobody else sees

An Argument

Crazy.  We’re all insane
individually, in groups
inside our languages
as a species.  It’s inbuilt.
We’re in up to the hilt
and this makes us prejudiced.
   
Besides, it’s so complex
and these mental models
we exchange each time we speak
   are approximations
we use to justify or to guess
all predicated on the inherent
   value of our own

survival.  Beyond that
you may teach yourself to see
   but the feelings
the feelings will always be
irrational and come from the body
you in your precious carbon form
and conscious magically.

   Physical reality exists
certainly, we’re part of it
and we have our systems
of thought we put so much work
into them and their implications
and they’re vital and stunning
and enlightened and pragmatic

and insane.  Keep fighting,
keep trying, keep improving
    but first, accept this.

Closing the System

the pakeha tikanga
                                                                                              with pins
 and lightest nets
                                                                        trawling computers
  for your information   
                                                                     genus, order
          family name -       
                                                       The new century's
                    fascism is  
                                                      mild  - wisely
                    you're a better human
                                                Resource
                           when you will
                                           willingly wear
                                  numbers
                                   and this fashion of
                                      static   wings

b.order/line

this is the event of fire.
sleeping in
town and the roof is phat with birds.
it is a very dogged
lust that wolves us

lying beside u
feels in motion
like the photo of a fall
the language body seethes
    u make me nerve  us

      u
come a bit close
                          r
desire's a pleasure
           that erases
evidence of its own fullness
danger sharpens the attention
i love  because u r
               mined

this is a stroke of the heart. 
your context is coming loose
        i am an object
             with feelings
increase yourself to my needs