Experiment 13Experiment 13[electronic resource]Helen McGrathAllan MarettCreation of machine-readable versionKeyboarded by Planman TechnologiesCreation of digital imagesPlanman TechnologiesConversion to TEI-conformant markupPlanman Technologiesca. 72.9 kilobytesWellington, New ZealandModern English, Experiment_13
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2012Experiment 13Helen McGrathAllan MarettVictoria University College Literary SocietyWellingtonSource copy consulted: Victoria University of Wellington Library,JC Beaglehole Room, PR9623 A1 E13Experiment13KowloonA I H PatersonLa PlageA I H PatersonLearning to SwimA I H PatersonSketches of a ChildhoodRowley HabibHusband and WifeRowley HabibGriefJohn CordingAngelaJohn CordingUnfathomed DepthJohn CordingSmoked GlassRussell HaleyGreen on GreenRussell HaleyKinneret (Lake Tiberias)F M AuburnThe Hollow HeartFrederick ParmeeA Woman Taking Home Rose Bushes on a Corporation BusFrederick ParmeeRosy CrotchetDavid MitchellThe LeaderKatherine O'BrienPoem at MorningRhys PasleyBluesMax WinnieAnd the Greatest of TheseMark RichardsFutureMark RichardsHeronMark RichardsShe TideMark RichardsUnicornJack FrancesUntitled Poem [by Jack Frances]Jack FrancesThe Weather ClockRuth DallasApocalypse: NgaurangaA W PetersonLast LaughA W PetersonThe Birthday PartyPeter IrelandLetter at the Close of WinterPeter IrelandLandscapeJules RidingMy Name is StaedlerJim HorganDhow WomanJim HorganOwnIan MathesonTimely WarningRobert ThompsonHigh RoomRobert ThompsonShould I PresumeRobert ThompsonAnother Modern Medical MiracleDennis ListSweet GegenscheinDennis ListPartingTrevor ReevesWholedayTrevor ReevesWild HoneyAlan BruntonStop Inside the SunAlan BruntonPoint and CounterpointWillow MackyNot with a BangGordon BurtPan in KaroriRuth Gilbert
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Editors:Helen McGrathAllan Marett
A I H PatersonKowloon2La Plage3Learning to Swim4Rowley HabibSketches of a Childhood4Husband and Wife6John CordingGrief6Angela7Unfathomed Depth7Russell HaleySmoked Glass8Green on Green9F M AuburnKinneret (Lake Tiberias)10Frederick ParmeeThe Hollow Heart10A Woman Taking Home Rose Bushes on aCorporation Bus11Helen McGrathDrawing13David MitchellRosy Crotchet14Katherine O'BrienThe Leader15Rhys PasleyPoem at Morning16Max WinnieBlues17Mark RichardsAnd the Greatest of These18Future19Heron20She Tide21Jack FrancesUnicorn21Untitled Poem22Ruth DallasThe Weather Clock22Rosie LittleDrawing23A W PetersonApocalypse: Ngauranga24Last Laugh24Peter IrelandThe Birthday Party25Letter at the Close of Winter26Jules RidingLandscape27Jenny MurrayLandscape Drawing27Jim HorganMy Name is Staedler28Dhow Woman29Ian MathesonOwn29Jenny MurrayDrawing30Robert ThompsonTimely Warning31High Room31Should I Presume32Dennis ListAnother Modern Medical Miracle32Sweet Gegenschein33Trevor ReevesParting33Wholeday34Rosie LittleDrawing34Alan BruntonWild Honey35Stop Inside the Sun36Willow MackyPoint and Counterpoint37Gordon BurtNot with a Bang38Ruth GilbertPan in Karori39
KowloonI am counting cities in the rain:the time of walking Customhousewith Campbell — another down-and-out —both half-crazed, coats aflap,muttering lines from Eliot's plays;that time I caught a tram in Christchurchunder the cathedral's dripping gong;or alone in Auckland believed I'd foundhow the Yeatsian weather went.You weren't with me then, nor areyou now in this rain-bespattered townthe lights embrace — though I see your faceand hear your plaintive mermaid song.Cities have their voices, soundswhich murmur softly as the surging foamand, presumably, are places mencall home, eventually becomelocations people learn to like.It rains they say, in Washingtonand storms have blown on Waikiki;but little anyone knows who walksthe night-reflecting streets alone:a pair of shoes, a facilityto count, a measure of grief and pain,what the wind has blown beyondthe rain-swept night towards Kowloon.
Hong Kong,
3rd September, 1968.
A I H Paterson.
La PlageWhen the wind's flourish suddenly shakesthe saw-tooth edges of the dunesinto a flurry and torment of sand,and the day is late and the sun has gone;when birds wheel from star-falland brown-skinned girls from the water shoutto the wall-eyed breakers and the sea,waves leap and salt blowsbitterly up to the darkening trees;when up from the water, tired childrenbring buckets, shells, spades,the restless shadows of fretful dreams,and the beach seems empty, as cold and strangeas the hands of the drowned, slowly,shoes filled with sand, comethe sad-eyed watchers — those who have beenwith Pharoah's daughter and the infant Moses.They have seen a country as black as the cloudswhich cover the moon when night closesblind eyes to the hunting owl —they walk in sorrow at what they have found.
Auckland,
1967.
A I H Paterson.
Learning To SwimToday I sailed a boat that ranged the reaches of the wind,but the waves were bewildered and the delicate cloudsknew of your absence, the fact that I have triedto shape a life without you and have failed.Carolyn, birds still fly, fish swim,trees move their branches against the wind,but never again your round eyeswill answer mine, the sun's excitementengender love when daylight dims.I have seen how women glidegently over marble floors,and bathe from beaches where the tideheaps sand upon a golden shore ...Let some latter-day Ulyssescome and teach them how to swim —their hands and hair were never yours,I have no loving left to give.Today I sailed a boat that ranged the reaches of the wind.
Singapore,
18th August, 1968.
A I H Paterson.
Sketches Of A Childhood
Once a fortnight the district nurse came around and all the children at school had to have their hair combed with a kutu comb. This was a very strong close-set long-toothed comb that hurt when it was pulled through the hair at first, (the kids heads jerking violently with the force of the comb as it caught in the tangles, and the tears coming involuntarily into their eyes because it hurt so much), until it broke all the knots and ran through smoothly. Then it was quite pleasant with their heads hanging over the basin and one of the senior boys or girls combing furiously, yet tenderly, almost lulling them to sleep. But at the same time they would be watching the basin and listening to hear if a kutu fell into it. If one did it made a small metallic pinging sound. The Josephs were always shocked and surprised and even a little hurt if one was found on them. They couldn't believe it, for they were a clean family. Their mother was a clean woman and kept them clean and their house was a lways spotlessly clean. But they knew that the rest of the children would know that it came from the Eru kids, especially Molly who was lousy with them, for they lived down their way and they often played together on the way home from school. You couldn't help getting them sometimes mixing with all the other kids around. Everyone knew that. Or they hoped they did. Why even the pakeha kids were found to have some in their hair at times. And what a shock that was.
If a kutu was found in the hair they had to have their heads washed in disenfectant along with the other unfortunates. This was a very embarrassing moment, for all the other kids would stare at them as if they had something wrong with them. Yet going around with the smell of disinfectant in their hair for the rest of the day wasn't so bad really. In fact it was quite pleasant.
Some of the pakeha parents resented their children having to be put through this inspection. They complained to the teachers. Some gave their children notes saying they were not to be inspected. And others even kept their children home those days, if they knew before hand what time the district nurse would be coming around, because the inspection was compulsory and everyone came into it. And there were some pakehas who said, "why should our children be treated like Maoris? It's only the Maoris who get it. That's where it comes from. It's a Maori thing. Why..." The Josephs' heard some of the pakeha kids repeating this. So there would be a great silent rejoicing amongst the Maori kids whenever a kutu was found in one of the pakeha kid's hair. They thought it amusing and one back on the pakehas.
About every three months the district nurse with the aid of the teachers looked all over the childrens bodies to see if they had hakihaki (scabies). The children would have to pull their clothes away up to their necks and the boys had to drop their trousers down around their ankles while the nurse and teachers inspected them. If they were senior children they would be allowed to go out into the porch to be inspected. Nick Joseph was always embarrassed whenever it came his turn to be inspected, even when he was a primer boy. But the nurse was very quick and unless she found spots on you it was over in no time, before you had time to really think about it. And it was always a great relief when you got through without them having found any spots on you. For you could never be really sure whether you had them or not, especially if they were only starting. But if a telltale sign was found you would have to stand there for some while, sometimes with your trousers down while the nurse and the teachers gathered around to inspect you closer. Turning you around, touching you, and peering closely at you to see that it was hakihaki. Again you couldn't help catching them sometimes, no matter how clean your mother kept you for the Eru kids were covered in them most of the time. And sometimes when Colonel Eru came up behind you and put his arm around you, while you were walking home from school, you would feel the squashy wetness of a sore rubbing against your leg and you couldn't very well tell him to go away because you didn't want to hurt his feelings.
If they only had a spot the nurse would put that thick dark smelly ointment that she kept in a container the size of a four gallon petrol tin and that looked like grease, on them. So that all day long they would have the smell of it in their nostrils and would be very uncomfortable for they would feel it sticking to their clothes. And it left a stain on the boys trousers on the inside and on Nick's pyjamas and the sheets of his bed. The children all hated it and Nick felt sorry for some of the kids for they had to go around, sometimes for several days, with this horrible smelling ointment smeared practically all over their bodies because they were covered all over with sores. And the smell would be all over the classroom and nearly make the children sick, it was so strong.
Rowley Habib.
Husband And WifeAnd you dangle your 'old flames' before my eyes,Like the apple before the donkies nose,And tell me how much more men they were than me.And all I can say in defence is that you knew them firstAnd why didn't you marry them instead?God knows, you say, they asked you enough times.And you say you were confused. Which brings me to the point.I'll tell you why you married me and not one of your 'old flames.'Because they put you on a pedestal and kissed your feet.When all you wanted was to be treated like a woman.And I treated you like that woman.Brought you down off that pedestal, where you were lonely.But then you found there were stones down off that pedestal,And not only ankle-deep grass to carpet your feet.And I dragged you over some of those stonesBecause I felt you'd been on that pedestal too long.So now you wish to be back on that pedestal again.
Rowley Habib.
GriefSome songs sing only for the dancer.Why? Some questions will not sleep with an answer.Tomorrow, when they all stop askingWhat the crying is about, I will fastenMyself to something strong, somewhere,And not wait to catch it unaware.Recounting days when the cup overranI duly record, it is dry once again.
John Cording.
AngelaChalk is the image that comes to mind:bloodless white, brittle, easily worn down.Sitting in the close cafē,watching her rest an arm on a chairand numbly hold a cigarette,I would allow myself to imagineher fine lines not so much a sketchas a medium come to life.No one has seen her lately.She has left her umbrella at Toby's,the rent due,and a curiously scattered set of slatesthat no refinement of felt or spongecan restore to a precisely original shade.
John Cording.
Unfathomed DepthI have a cavity in a tooth,It pains me today.A spot of ink adornsThe end of my nose;My pen has attacked me again.My lips are flecked with wordsLike old men's grey spittle.My errands are legionAnd my boots idle,My ideas like feversAnd my will in a dream.I look out on the morning,Paint over my window,And conclude unfathomably,As my stomach concurs avidly,That today the only matter of gravityIs my cavity.
John Cording.
Smoked GlassTension of fittingthese new fragmentsto this frame.I am heavy with glassleaden lightformal divisions.I am looking outlook inthrough these arabesquessmoked diamondsmulticoloured panes.I see my fatherold bulb blowertoiling to throwhis warm grainsin her hot retortsilicon childbrittleamorphousfrozen too soonbecause he did not knowthe warm breath of his teacher.For youTheodoreI prepare to submit to the hot flameyour glass-house was never a prisonin it you learnt to dancevisiblythe sound of your voice shivers my opaque walls.May Ilike youbecome fluid with translucent structures.
Russell Haley.
Green On GreenEmerald eye ofDead-Dog pondSunday morningwe walk the fallen polished treeswatching for frogs.Fat bells pealchimneys ofthe Organ Housepuff notes ofsmoke.Sudden remembered dream —intricate passagestennis netsdrifting rafts...I catch a shrew in the dry grassand holdfor a momentwithout knowing itsummer...dissolvinglike the image of a dream coinin the palmon the sound of an airgun.Walking the logs once moreI see the green surfacebroken bygreen bodiesof frogs.The shadow of a cloud moves over the pond.
Russell Haley.
Kinneret (Lake Tiberias)A still small seaEngulfed in wrecked events,Its pellucid watersUnplumbed by transient buoys.At ten and two a paper boatCaresses its surface—Capernaum and TabghaAre reapportioned to the thousands.
F M Auburn.
The Hollow HeartThe sun swingsin the global sky yellowyellow as the dawnyellow as the dawnmy hollow heart escapesfrom the wild gardenof your light-flushed skinand beats against a traffic worldsystolicdiastolicsystolicdiastoliccrying double the double crytill there is nothing left of youThe sun swingsin the burning desert of streetswhere flaming imagesburst upfrom walls and pavementsbut still my hollow heart escapesfrom youfleeing by ragged roadsto the hills that bribe meto forget your yellow bodywhich sears my fleshwith the brand of he who runsThe sun swingspitilesslyin a global sky yellowyellow as your hairand the sunmetal of your loinsthat touched the sun — and me.
Frederick Parmee.
A Woman Taking Home Rose Bushes On A Corporation BusWeighed down with carryingchildren and rose bushesslack-mouthed and tiredshe sits down in the busa solitary rose bloombobbing beneath her chinFor her no perfumed gardenof the lute and trystwhere men are brokenfor truth or a kissNor rose red cityhalf as old as timeNo seventh son to markby a cadency of roseto be chrismed by bishop saintand sally forth to burnmud huts and unruly peasantswith the same casual brandHer seventh diedwhen the old man came homeone Friday night from the puband kicked her in the gutsSub rosaunder the rose to bedand Harpocrates bribed to silencewhen Venus lifts the latchBut her venial indiscretionson picnics and carseatshave paled long agoAlone she sees over detergent bubblesbursting like H-bombs, white rosesblooming against a clapboard fencefor reality is always present in her dreamsTo those who grow judical rosesfor our time, the purposes are sharpto poetsand women carrying rose bushesthe thorns and gouged eyes.
Frederick Parmee.
Rosy Crochet
(from 'Pipe Dreams in Ponsonby')
Walking one high bright clear midnight through the clear streets I met Anna of the 5 towns & put my hand on her shoulder. we walked a slow quiet mile or 2 / under trees & streetlamps. talking quietly all the while of life & death & love especially love. not putting it on her by any means O no! just finding out about old friends & good times long ago. yes.
& holding hands up jervois road to where we could see the harbour lights & then a long silent time down college hill to where beneath the beautiful gasworks we were joined by her great sisters & brothers dressed like the very poor but filled with quiet joy & the sensual peace of angels! walking quietly through the deep streets into the heart of night/ & under the gentle hands of time remembering all the good lives/ long ago.
David Mitchell.
The LeaderWinds foil and stars bewilder,Food dwindles, time wears;His ship's company will not be harmonised,Wrangle, confound his earsWith dissident voices;But the lookout utters no cry:Moonstruck floundering waterHeaves greenly by.While one faction badgers the devilAnd others browbeat the lord,He has scope to be Superman, startleThe snarling rabble he has aboardWith sudden boon of mountains;But the lookout utters no cry:Ironic horizonUnderlines a blank sky.
Katherine O'Brien.
Poem At MorningAfter youlet there be no oneI saidAfter youthe dark rainwill be mineand the oceanswill attack meafter youAfter youno peaceafter youno reconstructionAfter youmemories will plague meyour breasts lingeryour kiss insultyour coming prowl the airAfter youit has been much like thisWe Shall Always Be TogetherAlways Have Each Otheryou saidBut afterand after youlet there beWindows
Rhys Pasley.
Blues
I was recently told by the executive of a local recording company that any Record Album with the word "Blues" in the title was almost sure to sell. This rather remarkable statement is indicative of the current fantastic, although often superficial, world wide interest in the blues.
The Blues exists today in a variety of social and musical contexts, in the rural south of the USA, and in the Negro ghettos of that country, it can be heard performed by both the singers of the folk song revival and the idols of the pop scene. The latter two categories are the ones through which the blues gets it's main public exposure, and this often gives a distorted picture of blues as a whole.
It will be the purpose of this talk to give a brief historical background and description of this potent musical form.
The blues can be best described as the musical vernacular of the American Negro. This peculiarly Afro-American Art form demonstrates the prime difference between African and European musical concepts in that African music is primarily rhythmic in character while European music has always been essentially melodic and harmonic. The first slaves taken to the USA learnt many of their masters' melodies but gave them a distinctly African quality. What gave Negro folk music in general and the blues in parlicular its uniqueness was the way in which the slaves made use of Rhythmic Melody.
It is beyond the scope of this talk (and the scope of my musical knowledge) to delve very deeply into the formal musical characteristics of the blues. It can be said though, that the blues generally tends towards a 12 bar form composed of 3 four bar lines. However a study of only a few authentic blues performers will reveal blues stanzas of 11, 13, 14, 15, or 17 bars. We can say then briefly (although rather ponderously) that the blues song is distinguished by both its structure and content and that it has certain standard although always variable musical characteristics.
Social scientists tell us that an increasing number of people feel alienated by the depersonalised society in which they live. This could provide a clue to the amazing popularity of what is basically the music of disenfranchised underpriviliged ethnic group ie "The American Negro." As a form of expression, blues are usually a statement of personal misery. At the very heart of the blues is a transmuted expression of criticism or complaint the very creation or singing of which serves as a balm or antidote, and as a way for singer and audience to share mutual social and emotional experiences. It should be mentioned here that we generally think of the blues as a musical form, because this form seems so self-evident, and because the music is so often very moving. We tend to overlook the fact that in it's natural setting the blues is not primarily conceived as music but as a verbalisation of deeply and commonly felt personal meanings.
It is convention that this verbalisation be sung. Even the word "Sing" often has a different connotation to country people. When for instance a preacher exhorts his congregation to "sing it." He is thinking of verbalisation, of an emphatic emotive statement, rather than what we think of as music. In most country music, and in the blues, music is a vehicle for the statement but is seldom the statement itself. Harold Coulander an authority on American Negro music believes that our passion for constant change has infected our view of folk cultures, and that the widely held view that the blues evolved from earlier religious and secular folk musics is not necessarily correct. He says:
"The persistance of Archaic Blues songs in cultural backwashes of the South together with other Negro songs both religious and secular that clearly antedate the civil war, suggests that the blues form may be far older than is generally recognised and that it may have existed for a long time with parallel forms out of which it supposedly developed.
Although the exact origins of the blues are unknown it seems reasonably certain that they jelled into their present form sometime in the 19th century if not earlier. There is in fact good reason to believe that something closely akin to the blues was performed in the towns and on the plantations of the Rural South in the antebellum period. The transition that has occurred from the rural and traditional blues styles to the contemporary urban and usually electrically amplified blues could alone be the subject of a book, and a brief outline must suffice here.
As we have already shown a rural folk culture such as the blues is not likely to evolve into more sophisticated or advanced forms while existing in its natural environment. When this environment is broken up, exposed to mass media, or evacuated, the music must either become extinct or adapt. During the first Negro migrations from the rural south to the industrial northern cities the country blues provided a link with home and a familiar way of life in alien, and often hostile cities of Chicago, New York and Detroit. Hence the colossal (for the time) sales of country blues records to the "race" market in the cities. A chronological listening to blues recording from 1923 to the present will show more clearly than any amount of writing how the blues adapted to the new environment just as it's exponants and audience did.
The blues today is a tough driving often heavily amplified music, it is music of the city. It is often cynical and angry. Although it has lost much of the direct earthiness of the old country blues, there are still the essential qualities and traditional strengths which make it an increasingly meaningful mode of expression to thousands of people the world over.
Max Winnie.
And The Greatest Of These —
In those extremesWhich we do not have here —Itch of sweat, suns weight,Rain through iron to the brain —She's busy — calm, fair.Old infants who don't cry,Thin children with still eyesWho neither laugh nor playWhich we do not have here —In schools where hunger claimsAnd droops a hungry head,In fields where custom squatsAnd rules old lines of wasteShe's busy — calm, fair —No grace, no gratitude,Grudge against a life set onAt births blind orderingWhich we do not have here —Wounds from any rage(Attack, defence draw blood)Beyond a cause, a blameShe's busy — calm, fairWith heart and hands for painWhich we do not have here.
Mark Richards.
FutureNow look up less oftenAt the drop of a leafTo see her at the door —No more empty sighingPlay back life less frequently —The voice of the sea is not only hers.But silent words still flowFor a coda — a signTo live to sigh to love — ?And hung on questioningHooked on the thread of truthBreathe and move to the fret of the barb.All for nothing for all —One jigsaw pieceOf seascape whose shorelineIs over the horizon —Reach to the patterns edgeAnd die a foetus curled in a query.
Mark Richards.
HeronHalf-tide hunterOn new-swept shallows,Lord of the ripple fringe —Scourge of small crabs,Flounders' nemesisSpear plunging from the light —Gothic warrior,Stone-carved with your ladyIn the cathedral bay —Byzanthine kingIn hieratic pose,Keep ritual with death —Steadily homeWith an even beatAnd the last of the tide.
Mark Richards.
She TideFull and softlyMake the bay on cockle mudCrab-pitted channel banksOlive weed, rusty papa shelf —Breathe gentlyMurmur on a shingle pillowMove quietly out towardsAnother urgent bays fulfilling —Heres no will:Rhythm, bloodbeat, moondrag —Stay — stay beside my houseThe bays wide arms a haven —In this placeI talk, do, make myselfIn mirrors — stay — your returnIs changing certainty, is loss.
Mark Richards.
Unicorngreen grows greyer tomy eyes; no gilded tulipsnor blue roses please me—my eyes are weary waitingfor a mortal maid to comei've been tossing leavesso long, one part of me is treescenting the sapin the ferns soft cup dreamingof the only maidens lap—
Jack Frances.
dreaming, she nearlyblew her fine nose on a flower;she looked so lovely—i had to hold her handbagmyself small creased half-alive
Jack Frances.
The Weather ClockWhen Joan came swinging out the sun would shine;But boot-and-mackintoshed Darby prophesied rain.Sun buttering a patch on the kitchen floorTold Joan it was right she had left her narrow door;Rain in cataracts descending fastConfirmed old Darby's gloomy forecast.Sun plus rain? The most mixed-up weatherThe ill-matched couple were never seen out together.At most they would stand aloof, each at a door,Like neighbours who were not speaking any more.But when the household children lay asleep,Did they still their polar distance keep?I tell you this! says Joan. I tell you that!Says Darby. Perhaps they fought like dog and cat?Or with all differences reconciledSat together by their fire, and smiledTo think how little other people knewOf what went on when they were out of view.Soon the house would wake; the frost flowers fade;And the children rise and inspect their strict parade.
Ruth Dallas.
Apocalypse — NgaurangaCows with shopping bags filled the unit,bulls roared in the pubs, I sawsheep meandering in offices, listenedto pigs grunting on Billygoat Hill.I went to work; outside the killing sheda new stink climbed up my nostrils.The chain had started, from eachjigging hook a hanging carcase slid,dead men and women dripping bloodscrunched up in spreaders, noddingtheir inverted heads. Recognisingin their bloody frames the facesof my family and friends,I stoned my knife and went to work,hacking their heads and splittingbreastbones, a nameless sorrowburied in my being while my bodyworked in its habitual rhythm.I did not wake in terror tillI heard loud laughter from the hillabove.
A W Peterson.
The Last LaughOnce was grass,and moist, shadows,where watchful treesformed living shelterfrom driving salt,prowling sea fingerscaressed storm windswhen hopes grew.Toys of timemarched out acrossthe springing lifein savage contentmentproud weapons ready.Once was blood;spear, musket, rocket,in common graves;footstep and greenforgotten, time headsback to zero.Once was thought,and slowly sand ...and slowly sand ...and slowly, sand.
A W Peterson.
The Birthday Party
(for James K Baxter)
The details may be lost amongthe lessons we have since learned,but that day is incised onthis untempered memorylike a stone grating on a sword,when we wandered downto the city via every coffee housein George Street, when youasked of how growing kumaraswould stay a hardening of the blood.And rumbling out beyond St Clairthe sea has spoken to us.There is nothing spectacularin this; it is the kind of thingyou accept, bending your shouldersa little as though timewere sizing you up for its coffin —the grave beckons, we will all dieold barbarians. But then, thenwe raided nothing but argumentsand the jars on the mantlepiece,to celebrate in ourdifferent ways a coming of age.
P F Ireland.
Letter At The Close Of Winter
(for Alan Ivory)
You speak of autumn; and suddenlyI have heard it all before.Yes, heard it until every wordis as dead as the leaves I tramplewalking across the cricket groundto post my mail. And the fearthat your nervous tension willone day ceased to force out poemshaunts us all. What will becomeof us? We are all damned to speculate.Am I sure of what you are lookingfor? I don't know; I have my ownproblems. My life is likea crucifix come unstuck from a wallout of negligence. Who's to blame?God knows. My grasp of most thingsis feeble enough, but this I doknow; we see things like conquerors,as an old photographer sortingthrough a box of negativesbelieving as real what are only hopes.
P F Ireland.
Landscapeconsideringthe emptiness of imagesthe unworthinessof being someonewho is like all men:the transparent bi-productof nothingness,absolutelyforbidden wordssignifying the situationabsolutely,and thenwhena borrowed imaginary occasionariseson a black moorof sympathy —for the continuanceof movementa silence reigns
Jules Riding.
My name is Staedler.
StaedlerStaedlerTirquareauNo,Nor TenzingNor TaylorMy name is Staedler.Nor GallantNor GoldNorPicketStrollNor Soldier,My name is Staedler.
My mask is Staedler.
When I tryAt lastTo shiftThe maskOfStaedlerI fail.You ask meWho is Staedler.I am Staedler.
Jim Horgan.
Dhow WomanWhere twice the blue brakeTouched her fireShe turned her eyesTowards the sea;She turned her sightFrom the sun-white dhowAnd said no loveCould pay her dream;Where the sea shone twiceShe gazed on timeAnd time was paleAquamarine.
Jim Horgan.
OwnIf only Messiaen knewThat a plastic bagSwinging from the clotheslineCatching the sun,Brought more colours of the celestial cityTo meThan his musicEver did.
Ian Matheson.
Timely WarningWe all lie down to small deaths nightly,disturbed by dreams, nightmares of despair,seldom waking to full wonder of each other.Of late, I note, your heart has becometoo attuned to dull weather, sluggard Time,but grant some evidence yet of residual life.To kiss and withdraw seems the all of love,a making which might ruck immaculate sheets.So soon to grow weary of passion and desire,coldly escaping into easy attitudes of death?Tomorrow, or next week, your spectral voicecould perambulate the lonely, moon-wet lawnwhere twin footprints exit together — you,dispossessed of lover, the neighbour of wife.
Robert Thompson.
High RoomHis love will come, eager up the stairs,where the poet sleeps over words unsaid,kissing him awake in the high rented room,bringing him warmth, and a sense of doom.With wine or gin, they will talk poetry,while he stokes the fire with broken chairs.Too remote from life in his private mortuary,now loving reverses his inward looking sight,and joyously he rides the intervening night.Many are the poems written silently in bed.
Robert Thompson.
Should I Presume
First love is still within, the last to come.
Recall those Sundays all kissed awayin the hot fern, among cooling dunes,with no ground gained, small recompense;(nerves rubbed raw, senses alerted)until first time willing — O soft handguiding yours to rituals of initiation.Such a touch should have been savoured,but only kindled flash fires soon to ash.First love is still within, the last to come.Should I presume to touch you there,to trigger that quick response? Or mustwe conform to conventional rules, playfarcical roles with that serious intentof near-passe temptress, fast-aging boy?Since honesty remains (frequently lostalong with virginity) lean down to life —beds are for two, graves for single sleepers.First love is still within, the last illusory?
Robert Thompson.
Another Modern Medical MiracleOne's bones, since inaccessibleare therefore much neglected.By operation, mine have been removedand plastic ones inserted in their place.My reassembled skeletonsits in my favourite chair.I converse with it late in the night.Each of us pretends to be the other.Should I have my skin removed and stuffed?
Dennis List.
Sweet GegenscheinThe moon where it felllay bleeding in the mountainsThat beast lay waitingat the perihelionits metal hands baited with cheeseThe planetary clockwork brokedown — we are eclipsedThe chain that tethers the moon isloose and flailing in the skyI found she who I thought had diedbut sprang happily to meet me inthat motel cum old folks' homewhere I was buying grapefruitjuice that morningThe blue eyed beast is up the treeand the bird is on its cage.
Dennis List.
PartingWhen you shone one pointed world to anotherthe liquid light inviolate shatteredfarther than it launched usscrambling from shell to gutter edgescudding precious levitation over the gilded darkthe birch stuffed root through your man-made wallroses bursting from the tumbled earthoff each blade the grass shaved and burnedwe have the patch and our partingholy place in timewe are the scent makersthe petal being sweeter crushed
Trevor Reeves.
Wholedaythe great lake takes its stone load offitching shinglesrolling on among bedcovering clovera flexiglass man in a hamburger hatstuffs into a bagshoots offtransistor canister cackling gutteral washwe warmeach otherin the candle hazemetaphysic flares searingthe marvelled unsold world tunedto shadowlisteneven the flowerfire rata is disturbed to a whisper
Trevor Reeves.
Wild HoneyIn the ocean of the East Istalk Shellback's winter & purchase,grass my solitary thoughtsabout his fallow ache.dhows turnturvy in the eye's tide& my fingers on the sun's lute,calloused by the ash that froma white sky falls in the dead.dust our thoughts to niggerhunt dry sex& pimps prodding their fish for sailwhere the town's ruttish sisterhoodwhisper themselves in the dead.come on down if you're randy...there's frolic enough withinShellback banged his ragged worm there& hugely craked his hardy seed —bellbacked, hatchetfaced wreck,was my own snatch. I screwedher only to howl in her paunchwhere trod the final Unhatchedgrieving werewolf of the womb.delivered act & deedfor his summer's turn in the deadbefore the sunstroked shethe whalebone god still she waitsshelltracked to rage five moonshigh & couple herself completehis horn through the ironcst staysto her loves in the dead;its goatlegs clapped overthis last hellshacked grotesque of Now,her quick self swansung of Ledathe bearded vulture beats hiswings desperate at the scar
Alan Brunton.
Stop Inside The SunO Mary, Mary compromisedhow does your godling grow?There is forever makes a wink in danceas rubric to the waiting snakelady'swordide face that ramrods the soldier's breast.The Footloose Kid, eponym.Firts germ spilled in the ear bysingular conjunctions ofcormorants, for her hole hadshrunk to a mouse's lip —by the antlered eaterof forest gods then,eventual deliverance, aTuscan madonna's umbilicusyoked suburban the neckof the unholy detritusfat in her gut: birth of bloodwhere the sun had strangled the sea.So sired of essence and tauscratchof the Old God of the Flies, a sense of sulphurpatched in the child's longlegged locust eyes plaguednew Egypts of the native brain.The Footloose Kid's threebloked nightmareand instinct of self cried to be off withthe croak of Uranus, urgent elf with his bullockFather gunned down at high noon of belief.Acharge the moon's conventual cyclehis women circumgo night betimedthe prickle with which episcopaliandesertchrist femaled his queer sex.To confirm auction of the memberhis tear's mad heat was monthly staunchedby a thineared stag of the cult...for this worm in the grass, unlikea lizard's rag was not germinant.The soothsaid godling teats a blacksow in the Sea of Dreams.A raven fixed to a stone there iswith three screws and the mind's forbidden bonethat every cue of the sun's milleniumgathers enough leaves to incineratein the earth itself completely.
Alan Brunton.
Point And CounterpointBy "saved" and "lost"The heart is crossed;By Hell and HeavenThe soul is riven —The whole divided,The One deridedBy cloven footAnd double tongueAnd the split TreeWhere Christ hung.Good and evil,God and Devil,Black and white,Left and right —With light and shadeAll form is made;By the pullOf pole to poleThe atoms danceAnd the worlds roll.For from the heightAll views are seen as blendedAnd foe by seeming foeTo be befriendedAs in the OneAll things are comprehended.
Willow Macky.
Not With A Bang
There has been a lot of talk about "culture" recently. First the National Development Conference's Social and Cultural Committee; now the National Arts Federation (NZ). The general idea seems to be to bring "culture" to the public at large so that "people can be made aware of the greater possibilities for living latent within them." (NDC Social and Cultural Committee Para 55) — an ideal which seems to me entirely laudable, though rather loosely defined by those who have been doing most of the talking. The NDC had some sensible things to say about the general nature of "culture" (especially paras 42-55) provided the wheat can be sorted: a greater pity, then, that such thoughts are so sadly belated — they must have been abundantly apparent to many for a long time. Furthermore I am sure that such ideals are behind the NAF's thinking although so far no one has been able to confirm or deny this. But I wonder whether either the NDC or the NAF realises the full implications of its position, at least insofar as it can be deduced from the present state of creative "art": further, if either of them does so, whether it seriously intends to proceed from the limb on which it may appear to have placed itself, to the even further-out regions of the "cultural" world.
From this point it seems pertinent to enquire of both NDC and NAF just how many creative artists have figured in their deliberations. By "creative" artists I mean men and women who are daily actively involved in the realisation (not the reproduction or performance, nor the administration) of new works of art. How many of these people a, are on the NDC Committee, b, made submissions to that body, c, were invited to the NAF's foundation meeting, d, are on the NAF's steering committee? I am open to correction, but I think a tiny minority only.
Yet para 46 of the NDC's committee report says "Once the community has demonstrated what it wants ..." — as if the community can know what it wants when it doesn't know what is going: the present "cultural" system has relentlessly seen to that.
My conviction of the truth of this last point is thus borne out by the fact that so little account has been taken of the creative artist in the present machinations. Yet surely these people are those most able to pass on ideas which are currently shaping their crafts? Or perhaps the talkers aren't especially interested in these ideas? Their activities to date seem to confirm this.
I really wonder if the NDC and the NAF actually have anything approaching a philosophy or ideal of art, and moreover of its community function, if there in fact be such a thing.
The greatest fear must be that it is the ambition of those presently interested in promoting the arts merely to graft present "cultural" activity onto a larger section of the community on the assumption that the status quo (albeit a little enlarged) is the magical answer to today's sagging public interest. In light of the current failure to involve, the status quo is however, manifestly not what very many people want otherwise they would be heading for halls and galleries in large numbers. There is much justification for saying that despite its protestations to the contrary, the NDC's incipient "status quo-ism" is expressed in, say, para 49, in the reference to "... the number of exhibitions performances, and works of art ..."
Again, the statement of NAF's progenitor Mr Arthur Hilton earlier this year to the NZ Federation of Chamber Music Societies to the effect that "you and I certainly don't want our tastes altered" seems to confirm my greatest apprehensions that at least some arts spokesmen have a fixed and unalterable notion of art ("taste") which is also depressingly narrow in scope. Mr Hilton's scheme for "under twenty five's" concerts sounds simply like a souped up version of what happens at his over twenty five's concerts (though hopefully without the fur-coast and snoring — still, one never knows).
If the plan then, for more of the same (with, in deference to the NDC a bit more "local content") but now government-blessed in small (non returnable) bottles — some may prefer the tubes — labelled "Culture" and available at all good stores? A better plan would be to stop flogging the dead (or at least dying) horse and get on with the business of placing before people the cultural experience which might make them "aware of the greater possibilities for living latent within them."
The time is not yet here when I can believe that even a few official representatives of the "arts" have a general grasp of the notion that "culture" is not a thing that can be imposed, or given out on a plate or in literal or figurative bottles to a society or to the man in the street; "culture" for the average person is something which happens to him when circumstances are in favourable phase. His "Culture" is not measured by the number of times he goes to the Town Hall or the gallery, or the theatre, but rather he senses it in terms of a state of awareness of many things' his understanding of himself, of his fellows, and of his place (not his "role") in humanity (not just in society) and in his sensary appreciation of his physical surroundings, visible, aural, and tactile. Until enough people can make enough noise to bring this to the notice of the pundits, their efforts to fertilise us should be strenuously resisted. They will not be pleased: if they chance to listen, NDC (S and C) and NAF will have become redundant.
Gordon Burt
Pan In KaroriSo pure, so clear the sudden notes —It seemed the music heard(Too bird-like for a human voice,Too complex for a bird)Woke, delicate and perfect,In my suburban ear;I searched the sky, the houses,Then turned enchanted whereWith mouth to his recorder,And dawdling school-boy feet,Pan wandered piping, dreamingUp Donald Street.
Ruth Gilbert.
argot
the September issue of Argot— the official literary magazine of the victoria university students' association — is on sale now at 20 cents per copy. subscriptions to Argot are available at $1.00 for five issues or $2.00 for twelve issues, six issues of Argot will be published in 1970. contributions — short stories, poems, drawings (both for inclusion in the magazine and for use as cover designs) and articles on literature, music and other art forms — are required now for next year's issues.