Sunset

tonight
the sunset is breathtaking
sleepless all night
tumbling through time
the night cry of a morepork

lit by a sickle moon
the sunset fades
hopes and wishes
turning into the stars
step by step
the night turns long
and life's dreams multiply

ANZAC Weekend

At ANZAC weekend
and a southerly blowing
the last of the summer crickets sought sanctuary
in the trenches by the concrete wall

Children played with plastic drink bottle grenades
never knowing the impact
a fact lost in distant memory and shades of khaki
brasso polished medals and parade ground manouvres

A memory of battles never uttered by fathers
returned from Crete
their memories now turned to dust
under a shrouded moon

Shooting Stars

monarchs struggling in the south-wester
the mating dance of the damned
amongst white manuka flowers
the chant of late cicadas singing
these are the shooting stars of summer
entering my atmosphere and burning up
shortly after entry

Roger Smith
2017

Summer Haiku

Jimmy Thunder

Whatever happened to Jimmy Thunder
who crawled back
from down under
a rock and a hard place
well off the pace?

His fastest knockout
was not a cop out
and his medal was made of gold
all told a life
that should have brought success

But boxing brains don't weather pain nor loss
triumph tossed into a Vegas jail cell
a life of destitution and hell.

Roger Smith
July 2016

For a former NZ boxing star - Jimmy Peau (a.k.a. Jimmy Thunder)

Jimmy Thunder

Whatever happened to Jimmy Thunder
who crawled back
from down under
a rock and a hard place
well off the pace?

His fastest knockout
was not a cop out
and his medal was made of gold
all told a life
that should have brought success

But boxing brains don't weather pain nor loss
triumph tossed into a Vegas jail cell
a life of destitution and hell.

Roger Smith
July 2016

For a former NZ boxing star - Jimmy Peau (a.k.a. Jimmy Thunder)

Dreams Of A Better Land

‘til the dreams of a better land
where the verdant Kauaeranga rolls down
a river
a bed
for meditation on summer tanned rocks

further north
northeast to Kennedy’s Bay
the call of the morepork echoing through the dusk
and the bush rat that woke me from my whare slumber
scampering heavy across the sleeping bag
in search of food

carefree tramping through head high manuka
past stilled mining mills and kauri dams abandoned
no gold here except in friendship and laughter shared

we dived for crays you and I
off Coromandel’s rugged shore
in a kelp forest that seemed to wave goodbye
and perhaps it was

still dreaming of a better land

Sandflies

Waitara River Mouth Drawing
Roger Smith, 2013

the sandflies on Waitara beach
have grown bigger since I was a boy
tip-toeing across the scorching sands

carcasses of trees still litter
bleached sentinels in perfect alignment
at the high tide mark

to the north the wave stained blocs
the dragon teethed river entrance
more angular than I remember

rusting boilers of ships that hit the bar remain
explored by eager children
at low spring tides

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