Returned

Sri Lankan girl

Returned!

hope denied

fear confirmed

Returned!

sixteen

resisting

screaming anguish

Returned!

sedated

restrained

Returned!

without hope

to where?

to sexual abuse?

to the streets in six months?

to anything?

Cruelty!

act of cruelty

by the state

where rules are rules

in breach of the treaty

for the protection of children

Returned!

Shame!

shame New Zealand

I'm ashamed of my country

Compassion!

Turn about

Turn about New Zealand

Return her!

with compassion

with apology

with a future

If she will come.

© Noel Fuller, February 14, 2004

The Untouchables-

South Asian Artists in New Zealand

19 February, 2004

Immigration authorities have backed down from sending a sexually abused Sri Lankan girl home until aspects of her case are reassessed.

 Smithereens

Gold from straw my man?

What's your secret name?

Are you a poet, a magician?

Yes, I am the same

I shuttle straw from thin air

That all my ponies eat

Playfulness from despair -

Wine grapes with my feet

Weave songs from rivulets

That come from solid rock

Bread the growing winter wheat

By spring heat sun struck

If you learn my true name

You will know that much

And you will also saddle tame

The swift unbridled goose

The unbridled swift goose

That Rumplestilskin rides

Saddle back, reins loose

And all the world wide

One leg in the underworld

The other by the hand

Tore himself in smithereens

But he was whole again

Lost Love

Guardians were with me as I slept last night

The Blessed Virgin of Kazan, God's mother

And her Son, immortal, at her side

They have no need of rest - they are at rest

And yet they move all ways, without delay

For she and He are always in their proper places

             Everywhere

Nocturnal snow came down by touching ground

And one I loved two hundred miles away

             Was with me in their rest

And by their grace and love the loving ones

            Watched over both of us

Until the two skies, earth and heaven, touched

And where they touch lost love is found

Smart Crab

Eroding sediments pliestocene

Spread below shell banks in slick brown gleams,

Sucking quick steps, quaking plastercines

They're pitted with holes, hides of crabs unseen

Speckled red on brown with mud they blend

While in search of food the shores they wend

Till frighted as shadows cut the sky

Down nearby holes claws scuttle and dive

From some mud caves small bodies eject

Full up! too bad! crabs their hides protect

The high tide line fruits of mangrove bead

From there suddenly a dash of green

A small crab carries a mangrove seed

To its hole, a door, small crab unseen

Some people I've known always agree

Hiding small minds in conformity

So wise and thoughtful we try to seem

The unknown the bird of prey we fear

Oh! smart crab hiding under the green

You'll grow too big to remain unseen

The strategy by which you survive

Will no longer help you stay alive!

© Noel Fuller, February 14, 2004

Remind Me…

Remind me to regret you

As if you were the only dear one I have ever had,

Remind me to fall on my knees and cry

As if the cold ground was a well sipping your soul away,

Make the wind howl

Through the ruins of this dying memory,

Let justice revolt and throw its stones

Towards this hidden grave,

Remind me …

Write the poem of infinity

With the shadow of my body,

Taste the essence of the sweetest scents

         In heaven,

Run your fingers through the blessed dew of wax

That will be gently dancing on your face

The moment you remind me

That I should forget you…

Sorana Soleima

The Week with Marc Sherland

Misfired

Cupid your arrow stings and spears my heart;

I did not demand you to fire it,

Nor ask in festered wound your venom spit,

When hit bullseye by your love's wayward dart.

Now look along my sight, your aim is false,

This cannot be the truth that you would have,

Me on my knees, to knave, slave, wealth to halve,

On idle occasion to take to waltz.

This course is set to ruin my whim's ease,

For how can mortal flesh the godly reach,

Each day and night in glory of your tease,

Must I now bask in his unwelcome teach.

So know your folly I adore to please,

But register fail by your stupid sneeze.

February 2004

Life Jewellery

Diamonds are black soot crushed under pressure,

The same substance that makes pencil graphite,

Or is the heart of coal fire's delight,

Still on a neck line dangles in pleasure.

And carbon when it combines with atoms,

Is the base of all life elemental,

All things that slide, glide, growl or are gentle,

Even trees, plastic flotsam and jetsam.

Now there is a process that can reduce,

All flesh to crematorium ash and grit,

Taking that dust it will in time produce,

Diamonds from a life of hard toil and spit.

Yet every gem so made from a life's juice,

Is nitrogen yellow, `machina ex deus'.

Marc Sherland

February 2004
 

I dream of empty streets in the early morning

Of dawn's halo behind the walk ups on Jerome Avenue

The B-20 bus running down Kingsbridge Hill

In the last bleached shadows of night lingering

In the cup of Bailey Avenue, the frogs

Of Tibbets Brook by the railroad tracks

Where Barney Haviland touched the third

Rail one morning and never worked again.
 

I dream of the sound of trains, dull roar

And rake squeal a mile or so away on Marble Hill

Waking to the music of milk bottles chiming in the hallways

Of my own building and Mrs. Smith cleaning,

Cleaning, cleaning, everything in sight;

The rocks and weeds of empty lots, cotton clothed

Kids playing ball and tag and war in the ruins

Of houses begun but never finished,

Sticks for guns, clods of dirt for hand grenades.

I Dream of Empty Streets

I dream of the freight yards across the street

Filled with mystery behind steel doors

Inbound to the city, outbound to the world;

Our own Urbi et Orbi messages to unlock,

Tanks and guns to crawl over attacking Japs

Germans and Commies, watermelons stolen

In the summer from the cars, huge ovals of red

Lusciousness, and running from the railroad dicks.

I dream of the Harlem River at any tide,

Any season, filthy beyond imagining and

The great spa of Flat Rock, a sewer's top and

Urchin's resting place after a brisk swim

Through sewage and bits of humans flushed

Away the night before, or just that morning;

The mile wide Hudson menacing and inviting

Both at once, the ancient stream spanned

By the dream of Washington's Bridge an hour away

On bold feet and fearless in the long days of summer,

The granite Palisades attacked on rafts disintegrating

In midstream and rescue by a smiling cop.

I dream of the riches of my first home

The great wilds of stone and brick and strangers

By the thousands just within reach so far

Away that you will never meet them though

You brush their shoulders as you pass them by;

Languages and faces like my own, and yours, too,

The unchanging stone faces of buildings

And people long dead now or demolished

Who live and move and have their being in me.

I dream at last of empty streets, quiet skies

Deep in every seasons' blue, rocks and fields,

Rivers whispering in the morning stars,

A single robin singing in some tree,

The thump of the newspapers thrown from trucks

And the smell of breakfast on the cool breeze .

 

 

I am on the platform of the IRT

As the sun rises and the world begins

Again, and again in, Oh! so deep love.

Peter Gallaher

2/16/04

 Atop the Hill of Slane

 

If I remember it correctly

The first day of February

Was New Year's Day, Beltane.

In another place far from here

The day once had that name.

It had something to do with kings

And hills of course, and flame.

 

I was in that country not long ago

At year's other end from Beltane

Near Tara's Hill, atop the Hill of Slane.

A tree was there, a ruin, a pasture

Spread with grass, wet manure

And old tumbled stones, crushed ruins' bones.

 

This is what I saw

And this is what I saw.

The sky above, the earth below

And waiting all around

The light of day against the night.

The light of Christ in Patrick's hand,

Tara and the king far off, so,

Beltane a memory, wish and shadow,

The four points, once far, so near,

The light of Christ with Patrick dear.

 

Peter Gallagher

2-12-04

 

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t' twa corbies tak tea

    
Celtic Heritage Corner