change

TREASURERS, WE

There we were
for a moment
awash with candy’d rainbows that shed
spun-sugar silk
to dress this call for change

It’s a pity
this entree tasted like a sundae of fever and fable

Treasurers, we, to nought, now
but wingless poetry;
of letters, silent
and honest
we’d declined to share

TE WAIRUA FREE (‘The Free Spirit’)

my spirit needs mending
but I have no coloured thread
to darn these fraying burdens

the eye of this needle lay gaping and empty
and I am standing on its edge ready to fall through

a knot to my ankle, and my fast surrender,
and I’ll fly deeply in to weave new dreams

a fresher self with perfect stitching
– an un-perished disaster –
still surviving in spite of her erupted soul

KALEIDOSCOPE

With you
I spent my years like money
and what is left now are the shells
of every decision afforded –
the skeleton of time
the only backbone we could manage
not to crumble. Our own had weakened.

For many years
tears would leak like suicide
and I became an expert swimmer,
my exclamation mark of strength
the board on which I’d surf;
later, the oar with which my raft would be paddled.
I cried an ocean
but still could not willingly drown.

Of late
I ceased believing that I lacked worth
and stopped just existing to pay the karmic debt
my reasoning concluded I must owe.
I unshackled and chose to live outside the cage.
Giving up on failure gave me purpose.

Without you
the tangible clutter we gathered gets dusty
and I can’t decide if I should blow it clean
or leave these fingerprints to remind myself why.
In shedding the weight of commitment
I am no lighter, but my kaleidoscope now dazzles like a jewel.

WEED, THE PEOPLE

Led by foreign madness, we
– to long expected sleepless graves –
will swim to sink and drown in numbers
weighted down beneath the waves
with nothing left inside but shadows;
no–one left of worth to save

In one end and out the other
warring with psychotic pride, then
born again and made to suffer
– karmic purpose ill–forgotten –
each new chance at life, a buffer:
“Next time: change…” we chant inside

Cycles written, history leaking,
sorely weeping through the pores
of growing wombs and offspring born
– another child of soulless form –
to breastfeed lies, imprisoned, shrieking
time again: disease repeating

Sin ingested (soup for poor)
– the bile of shame and burden lost –
as people starve and lives are sold
and terrors planned to mind control…
and all the while our sickened bodies
hover, rotting, rank with worry

Toll the bells – it’s time to breathe
and weed this horror from our conscience,
steer ourselves towards a pardon,
pave the way, resume our garden
seeding spirit, heart, and mind
with growth to bloom for one last time
or we, the people, incarnating,
won’t survive beyond our mating