True love

There could be bad water
(says Elsie).
She might get drowned and fall asleep
like Sleeping Beauty,
like this.

And he might fall in love
with her but not yet,
only when he drags the water
out of her mouth.

The boy has to make the tonic
and put it in the girl's mouth
because she fell asleep.

He says I love you,
when I sleep
I always dream of your love of me.

Jam fingers
in the dark depths
of the spear.
You're already got to married.

The truth of my life

My monkeys have cutting plates
(says Elsie).

They must not cut me
or the truth of my life.

I don't like you

I don't like you.
I read your book
and I still don't
like you even more
than I didn't like you

before, before you died
before I read your book.
Still I'm glad
you're glad
you wrote your book.

When I get tired of being a ballerina

When I get tired of being a ballerina
(says Elsie)
I will have a baby
called Hannah
and she will be my friend.

But I can't have two friends
called Hannah
so I will have to give
my baby Hannah
to my other friend
Layla.

Actually I won't get tired
of being a ballerina.

I love laughing (says Elsie)

I love laughing
(says Elsie).

It makes me feel
nice and firm.

Can you hear that wind?
It's breathing.

Happy hipday

(for Jan)

The hip op was tip-top.
Soon you will hip-hop
and high kick and flip flop,
not just in your brain.


Last week you sat
like a marionette.
Now you are back,
a person again.

Gone is the duck walk,
the bald, worn out bone.
Posies and pirouettes!
Gone is the pain.

Hip hip hooray
for the hip of the day!

Writing a book

I am writing a book.
It will take time.
The book has a title: Flatlantis.
And another: Tropical Ice.

The poems will grow like pack-ice.
They will flow like sweat.
They will be easy to read.
They will be hard to write.

When the book is published
I will be a grown-up.
Curious.
How will that feel?

Sick in a towel

Sick in a towel
Child is sick in towel.
Mother folds towel.
Repeat ad nauseam.

Paper folded 50 times
would reach the sun.
Towel folded four times
is towel overflowing.

Colours straight from the tube.
No returns.
More pills. More
lavender on the pillow.

Not Shackleton

Which is sadder,
which more gallant?

A son left on a rock
with reef pigs?

A mother leaving
on a barge?

Moon lagoon

Lagoon glazed
with the only road
to the moon.

June
soon.
Rebecca’s tune.

Sunwich

Sun slips up like an angel fish.
Belief.

The day goes by.
No grief.

Sun wrecked in papaya sky.
Relief.

Happy feet

Ropati is two with solemn,
strategic eyes.
We feed him like a pet
fried fish, cucumber, Weetbix, water.
That’s his plan.
And when he struts
feet splayed, chest out
he’s a man.

Location

Auspicious for Tai Chi.
East to sunrise.
North to rain.
West to clouds.
South to houses.

Thick air mends the mouth.
Sand teaches feet.
Documentary orientation
stay on my face,
stay on my feet.

Not nothing

Antarctica is not nothing.
It’s concave, exporting white.

An atoll is not nothing.
It’s convex, deflecting light.

Tsunami warning for Tokelau

Shaky shaky
the house on a coral crust.

Shaky shaky
the coral crust.

Shaky shaky
the messages missed.

Shaky shaky
the rescue planks.

Shaky shaky
the love-links.

Shaky shaky
self without strings.

Shaky shaky
all things.

Tsunami

Tsunami on The Ice:
milk sprinkled
on a mile-high shelf.

Tsunami on the atoll:
what atoll?

Sketching

An outline is easy:
The Ice is a hermit crab,
Fakaofo is a kite.

But sketching one’s lack of limits
the other’s lock of limits
is not likely.

Crunched inside
a prosthetic shell.
Grounded on a short string.

Light on The Ice

Lord, lord, the light on The Ice.
Light to suck on, light that will not
spit you out.
Pixillated blocks that shift
and split and never fit.

And the white knit
over your head,
white you can feel,
cashmere atoms
divine malign,
white that walks you nowhere blind
in a lit night, with God
ground into motes
and no horizon.

In the old days we were heroes

The old days were a place of ice.
These days are a tropical island.
Just so you know. It's time to know.

In the old days we brought our own flour.
We said our own prayers.
We ate our own ponies.

These days a barge delivers
pallets of Pepsi.
Every household has a dinghy.

Six people have laptops.
There’s a church and a pastor
and a dentist in Nukunonu.

Celebrity granny

Granny Rachel is the third person
much discussed
celebrity granny
famous for being very young,
very pretty, very nice.
A granny in a billion
because she came to Tokelau.

Like

The light is like a photograph.
‘Like’ is a good word
carrying sanity.
Take a photo of Fakaofo
coconut palms at sunrise
looping over lagoon.
It’s a prototype
tropical island.
The fisheye horizon
proves the earth is round,
proves it every day.

Flatlantis 2

A land lightly sketched
in pencil.
A drawing never shaded.
Lines to let the light through,
that’s all.

A dotted line.
A pattern never finished,
never used, never made.
To be erased
by the sea.

Flatlantis 1

A lifebelt of shells
a lei line of land
around a sea
within a sea.

Defined like Antarctica
by what it’s not
and hasn’t got (but hot).
No ribbons, no planes,
no travel lines, no whines.

Won't be bombed
won't be bought
won't be seized
won't be roused
will be drowned
tomorrow.

MV Tokelau

Lie in one place
your innards slosh.
Lie in one place
there is only one place.

Lie in one place
for 30 hours.
Lie in one place
arising expels banana.

Lie in one place
and it’s all right,
truly, except
the stars are trampolining.

Instructions for buying boat ticket

Go to TALO, Tokelau Apia Liaison Office.
That's in Apia.
Ask for a ticket to Fakaofo.

A woman called Tasha will say,
not without a letter from Hemona.
Say sorry, Hemona says it's fine.

Hemona doesn't do letters.
Tasha will frown and say
you can only stay 24 hours.

Say thank you and sorry
for the trouble I caused.
Say, I will only stay 24 hours.

Get on boat.
Get off at Fakaofo.
Stay three weeks. Or two.
Or anyway, till the boat comes back.

Jandals on the line

Going to Tokelau
you practise
wearing jandals.

Mine sport diamonds
(not) and a stiff
white sole.

Trip over mats.
Thump like a herd of piglets
on the stairs.

Geoff's patient stole
one yellow one
by mistake.