Candy Floss

Like a man
spinning straw into gold
you stand

mutlicolour  sugar-sweet
and a hand
that stirs beneath the rim

under a sapping sun
umbrella overhead and
excited voices
next in line

Epiha Road

Black mussels spitting their juice
on corrugated iron
over the slow fire of time

Straight from the shell
plump pink
with tiny crabs entombed

Blackberries picked on the dusty road
rutted sand
rocking grey of the Morris laden down

Black sand of the wild beach
slow cooling and a Taranaki sky
bare reefs exposed to a quarter moon

Black armbands now
for memories of picnic bankets
rusty hooks and seaweed popping
slow to burn, slow to burn

The Rag-Picker's Daughter

I saw the rag-picker's daughter
in a dream
crossing the bridge near Mangere

it seemed
a graffitti gauntlet would envelop us
as the train sped onwards

carriages connected, shackled
a steel grey moon reflecting
the winter tracks ahead

Winter

in the season of hot oatmeal
the blackbirds outside
plough the bark for slugs

a grey fog lifts it clammy hand
and an inside dew clings to the
metal frame of windows

away in the valley the snort of horses
shivering with their canvas blankets
flaring nostrils
a huddle of equine locomotives

grey papa cliffs rise behind the weatherboard house
a smoking chimney greets the day

The Dry Season

The air was still and steamy
and my clothes were damp and dank
not a breath of wind was stirring
while the drains beside me stank

Just a plaintive throaty warbling
ahigh the pong pong tree
the dry season's come a'calling
for the bird as much for me

The fumy buses passing
by the shelter where I stand
I wave in desperation
with make shift fan in hand

The dry seasons come a'calling
to the Queenstown MRT
I stand upon the platform
just my plastic card
and me

Autumn Two Views

the white snow
of camelia petals
scattered after the storm

daylight dancing shadows
on a wet pavement reflecting
chilled to the bare bones that signal autumn

Roger Smith  April 2011

A Garden City Requiem

Ma, I got buried
beneath the bricks
in a foreign city
no more to hear the dialect
of my homeland

.. Please leave me a message

The smoke is overwhelming me
I hear no others where before
our lively chatter
filled this space
with hopes and dreams

.. Please leave me a message

Ma, I am dying
no more to see the sun and feel
the warm Nor'Wester
sweep across the dust yellow summer fields
of Canterbury

.. Please leave me a message

.. Leave me a message

Please

Related news articles

• SMS vital during dark hours of Christchurch earthquake (textually.org)
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River Dancing

On a summer night you can hear the snap
of a jack
ripples in the silver twilight
pursed lips towards the moon of mayflies dawning

in the still heat of evening making love
on the fatal attraction of
discarded waders
in a life so short and a dusk so long

and as blackness envelops
the memories cling like arms
passion sated
the whip of line laid low on water

stalking, still
the stream of consciousness unabated

A Whale Of A Tale

It's strange but true
that whale poo
according to the pundits
can clear the world of CO2
so lets have it
in abundance


Roger Smith  June 2010

Source: Sperm whale faeces 'helps oceans absorb CO2'

Queenstown

In the boiled bone
miasma of the morning
the ochre brown of a cockroach
its dead legs spread towards the sky
and the soil
a root claw holding back results of rain

The two glazed elephants
are standing guard
next to the purple of a bougainvillea
while nearby a man with sinewed legs
searches for life
in the dry canal

Roger Smith.  May 27, 2010

My Soul Is In Fort Canning

my soul is in Fort Canning
long before the march of progress
incendiary sounds and shouted orders

there are some places you never leave
still others where memories live
amongst the quiet and verdant green

you can feel me in the dank surrounds of battlements
the stillness before the tropical rains
a rhythm of droplets on spreading fronds

in truth I have never left you
the forbidden hill of legend
where empires lost were never reclaimed
and royalty wept at your feet

my soul is in Fort Canning
a quiet meditation still
of universal peace.


Roger Smith. 2011