After the Disaster

I’ve been watching Parliament’s Question Time on TV. Nick Smith is the minister under attack at present – he has responsibility for both ACC funding cuts and the Emissions Bill. Both controversial and dependent upon cross-party support. Ann Tolley was also in the firing line over her adult education withdrawal of funds.

Rachel McAlpine rang up yesterday. She was going to a poetry reading, poems from Mark Pirie and Tim Jones’s science fiction anthology, Voyagers. (The book has recently had a favourable and well-deserved review in the NZ Listener). She’d been asked to read one of mine in that collection (attached below) and was seeking a couple of points on clarification. We both agree it is very much a visual poem, the spelling aims to get across the notion of a different species and therefore a different language. Likewise I had tried in the second stanza to get across the idea of aeons of time passing between civilisations. It was a poem I enjoyed writing, disembodied ideas.

I had let Mark know quite a long time ago I was unavailable for the reading. Damn! My fragility cuts me off from enjoying some of the fruits of my labours.

AFTER THE DISASTER

After the disaster cats mutated
became the largest mammal left alive
and survived.

Cirques had cut deeper
into the Matterhorn
(decimals weren't reinvented)
when their archaeologists stumbled
upon human skeletons
ochre-brown with age.

On display in an art cavern
strung together
with common titanium wire
they create a commotion.

The elevated chief wizard deliberates her theosophers -
issues a viewpoint
Carbane dating establishes grate antiquity
Credence to archeforms of gyants
These things - an evolutionary cul-de-sack
additional proof of Nurture's Distinguished Wisdom
Greatly too gygantic
Irrelevant clavicles
Tayl (obviously grystle) long stretch from brayn
Competition most likely cause of destruction.

She announces
Dividend -
For exceptional tripled production -
Day off for druid and artisan multitude
To contemplate the exhibition
& participate
in being humble.