Jason J Page

Juan’s Anthem

“They” asked him to do
It
His homeland unsafe
Our haven here
He felt “impolite”

He was an import
But one of our best
And he had a gift

With me
He killed two birds
With one stone

All art is beautiful
All art is a gift
Art is the creation
Of what makes us tick

The words of a Nation

has all played a part in this

a long time coming
Let Me have My GIFT

COPYRIGHT 23rd June 2007

Bernard Kyle

A REQUIEM FOR A BOAT.

Lost Sunday 5th March 1995, America's Cup, San Diego.

[ with update 15th February 2003 ]

[C] Bernard V. Kyle , 2003.

"Well Bugger me," The Kiwi said,
The Ocker looked askance,
The Pom Sat up and stared ahead,
And the Yank, just did a Dance .

The Kiwi stroked a stubbled chin,
The Ocker didn't cry,
The Pom just had another can,
While the Yankee said, "Bye Bye."

Now this was not a pretty sight,
Upon the mighty Main,
A good ship going to her doom,
Where many Ships have lain.

For with broken back, alas alack,
That Aussie boat did go,
To see old Davy Jones & Co,
In his Locker, down below.

But the Crew all lived, to sail again,
For the Land, of the Young and Free,
By pulling digit, P D Q
And diving in the sea..!

Now Kiwis wept, and barely slept,
To see a sight so tragic,
But fate will have a trick in store,
For that Kiwi boat, "Black Magic."

Update America's Cup, Auckland N.Z.,
15th & 28th February, 2003.

Now Murphy's law, can sure apply,
To make one scowl, or even cry,
For you saw that Kiwi, with his bucket,
Oh 'Bloody Hell,' and 'Goddam stuff it .'
[there's a better rhyme !]

Now I've said before, in sport it's clear,
One day you'll win, and buy the beer,
Then comes the day, the mast gets busted,
Yep, the whole damn thing, just turns to custard !

So it's some day up, and some day down,
When that cheeky smile, becomes the frown,
But whate'er befalls, in that sporting quest,
You can't do more, than do your best.

And after all, you win, - you lose,
You're 'Cock A Hoop' - or got the blues,
But in days ahead, a few, not more,
You may hope to God, they forget the Score !

[Go, The Black Boat...]

Nicholas Alexander

Matriarch


Have we always got to do what we are told? she mutters
as this wind tugged our memory like a sheet in a tornado
and this is something we think we lose
but she left a story behind
that famous past is recorded

Our mothers were taken to safety
while blitz burnt life from the eyes of Europe
they found comfort in the kindness of strangers
as the bombs dropped, children were protected

Her world was burned but she was not
She learned with love in a world of hate
and from this we were all borne
children playing in the garden
watched over by a mother who knew

with our fragile selves exposed
we sense her pointing finger at
our shortcomings
summed in a gesture

Her love leads us to pathways
go down them with mischief in your eye

Nicholas Alexander

Lost Pearl

When she went, she left behind her family of six
Her blanket and bed she lay on for seven years

Old Bentley slept on the well worn spot
and her books lay open in the bright sunlight

but her pearl brooch was nowhere to be seen
Something strong she could take over the end

a grasped for thing that stayed with her
like her accent or that way of looking at you

Bernard Kyle

Ah, FRIDAY !

By

Bernard V Kyle
[C] 2005

This week's been somewhat unpleasant,
With great effort & little to gain,
Nothing's gone right in the workhouse,
So I'm hoping that I stay sane.
My Partner has gone & got stroppy,
And I'm likely to get sacked from my job,
The rates have come due & the insurance too,
So I could certainly use a few bob,
But the weekend is nearly upon us,
Then I'll switch off the phone & play deaf,
And I'll get me a brew & have one or two,
But today - it's T.G.I.F. !

Julie Walker

Pantry skulking


My eyes flare wide
No tomb robbers would dare
Unyet you gamble with my skin

I do not wish to be screwed
Or unscrewed -
I want to sit upon the pantry shelf
And swing my feet

I can see a lot from way up here
I see through you
my transparent friend

I lost my rose specs long ago
In a pile of tissues on the floor

©Julie Walker 2007

Bernard Kyle

CALLING ''TIME OUT''
By B V Kyle [c] 2006


Deeds are reflective and hence the invective,
With bad mouthing & plenty of smut,
The great innuendo needs diminuendo,
In response to the Nations ''TUTT TUTT !!'

For the Country is in need of attention,
And we don't need any one finger wave,
The whole of the mob should get on with the job,
And the Beehive should learn to Behave.

Jan Oskar Hansen

The Hidden Cove.

I sit in the cove, where
the sea-foam is yellow and hard,
and lazy ripples clean
golden pebbles,
and carve a pipe;

with it I’ll blow bubbles
in the air, see them
soar as they absorb the light
till they are transparent pearls
and burst as bubbles do;

I’ll think of nothing, but
how wonderful it is
to be alive a summer day and
own a pipe that makes dreams
come true.

(from Jan Oskar Hansen's Poetry Chamber)

Bernard V Kyle

POETIC PLEASURE.
By
Bernard V Kyle
[c] 2006

A verse may enthrall few people at all,
And receive, it would seem, the cold shoulder,
Yet that very verse, may achieve the reverse,
And enchant, some other beholder.

Now a haiku or two, may satisfy you,
While some, may yearn for the Quatrain,
A search for Lanturne, may then make one yearn,
To explore the lure of the Cinquain.

But with many a verse, in many a form,
There's a world of poetic pleasure,
To let one recite, all sweetness & light
The joy of some poetic treasure.

Letter from the Editor

Article

The Editor is calling for more poets from more diverse cultures posting their sounds to this site.

Newly Featured sections

Poetry Chambers including

Classical Poetry - check out Kim Randell's popular blog
Modernism - Chaos & Matter - try anything once
Post Modernism - Richard Taylor - sublime mastery

Article Links Preserved

At the end of any page, you can now navigate the articles we accept for publication. As this is a poetry site, articles are short lived on the site font page (one or two days maximum) but are listed following the poetry (for quite some time).

Archives!

By popular demand - the back catalogue is now open - for a limited time you can read poetry posted to this site over the past few years - or search for a whole load of poems by any one of our writers (or by subject matter for that matter).

Want to see more of this on this site ?

1. Bukowski - Armchair speak - WARNING - content may offend



2. Performance VIDEO - Tom Waits



3. Poetry Blog of the week

Read: Jack Ross's beautiful blog -

4. News

Shane Koyczan

Please comment on what you want to contribute / see more often on this site...

Introducing . . . S.Natarajan

So Powerful

My veins run like meanders
Arteries blossom up!
Crest fallen chief of
Circulatory system boomerangs
Nerve fibers clutch on their nuclei to show their fists
Muscle fibers arrange for a get
Together for a cup of blood
Pancreas and liver speed up
Their secretion for their part in the digestive system
Bones stiffened in joy
Enjoying with spinal chord
Skin abunds its
Production, sweat
Brain wraps red tape
To its worries
What these systems try to do
Oh! Each one wants to
Celebrate the occasion
The occasion of
Smile--Her smile



Copyright © 2007 S.NATARAJAN

Nicholas Alexander

Chocolate Coat

Long and hard he looks at the drain of cakes from the mould
the seeping dripping coat that annoints it so
the leaves and trees that form avenues for the soul
trips you at the door and beneath this
sense
there lies nothing more
than lost dreams
than lost pieces of dreams

awaken the voice
explore the possibilities of
structure lost at sea

pounding upon you like a heart
or a sorry scribe at breakfast
a dawn of silver possibility

unrestrained by sound

Modernism vs Classicism

Article

This is a response to Kim Randell's article

What Kim Randell is calling "Classical Poetry" is an art form.

So is painting. And so is abstract painting. Art is a moving target. It is not possible to proscribe to others how they may create. For me, "rhyme" has it's place and it is not always at the end of lines. I do not have time to construct a sonnet or do crosswords. I listen to music and write when the urge takes me. Obviously I would have not done well in Shakespeare's day - in fact I suspect it would be a burning at the stake for being this illogical. Art is a moving target. The world changes every day. And so does AucklandPoetry.com.

The new agenda is to post more good poetry. Contributors are free to post comments. Guests can post comments but they are moderated.

There are no limits or restrictions on style. We want people to contribute, to express their voices and make themselves heard. We have been asking for new contributors and have welcomed two new voices. Now we want to hear from more.

More comments! If you do not like a poem, do not complain to me, write a constructive criticism and post it as a comment.

Don't get personal! Your comments should never be insulting or you are really not getting the point. If you break this rule, your comments will not be posted.

A WAKE-UP CALL.........

Article

This is a re-print of an article that I wrote in June last year. I would like to open discussion on poetry today, using our site as the forum, as I think we need to breathe some more life and a lot more passion into our child of the soul (AucklandPoetry.com).
What are YOUR views? Please add comments to this post or send your thoughts on this subject to our Editor

POETRY - A DECLINING ART?

One of the reasons for the decline in the popularity of poetry today may be the prevalence of writing in freer forms of the art.
No more rigid structure of line and verse, no rhyming couplets and quatrains.
Odes, sonnets and ballads no longer seem to have expected forms.
The very texture of the thoughts behind the words has apparently become the poems in some of these new evolutions and such forms of expressive language and thought totally lose the general public.

We have all been brought up and educated with “classical” metred and rhymed structures, from pre-school to University ( nursery rhymes to Shakespeare), from television “jingles” to popular music, and anything without the repeating and organised patterns that we’ve all learned to recognise as poetry, will tend to be dismissed as prose, albeit written and laid out in an unfamiliar non-prosaic manner.

Our bodies and lives run to many rhythms from heartbeat to circadian to celestial.
Our songs whether Bach, Handel, Abba or Puff Daddy are rhythmic and their lyrics rhyme, so to my mind it is not surprising that the modern and experimental poets are given short shrift by the general public if their work is not to expected shapes.
Shakespearian Iambic Pentametre, for example, is a copy of the rhythm of the human heartbeat. John Masefield’s use of rhythm and rhyme in poems such as “Cargoes” enhances the word pictures of the various vessels in the poem.
One could define classic poetry as a “song without music” which suggests the requirement of recurrent themes of sound and structure. Take these rhythms away and the free-flowing shape of modern poetic writing is rejected by the majority of our peers as directionless, shapeless and untenable (the Universe is full of finite and recognisable shapes and thus shall be our poetry).

Today’s poetry scene has become asymmetrically bi-polar.
On the one hand a small group of modern poets and supporters with their new definitions of poetry, and on the other hand a massive public which is still being fed and educated with rhyme and rhythm, and whose expectation is more of the same.
Modern poetry, if thought about at all, is being perceived by ordinary folk as an exclusive domain for the erudite few, a past-time for unkempt and bearded introverts, or in its worst form, absolute rubbish. We all know where the money is, and so professional promotion also supports the expectations of the greater public.

What is most ironic is that the classical poet is not always recognised now by his modern peers and thus is denied their encouragement and support, which, in turn, denies the paying public the poetry they expect.
Poetry to the man in the street has now become a dying and irrelevant art form restricted to dusty halls of learning and old libraries.

Renaissance for the art form rests, in my opinion, with the classical styles the greater public expects. A collection of contemporary classical poetry could contain a few introductory modern poems as a means of educating the public to the newer forms of poetry, and so everyone would benefit from this inclusive, non-partisan approach.

My oldest son, when he was just thirteen, told me that he was discouraged by his English teacher from writing in rhyme that year, as he and his peers had not developed sufficient language skills in her opinion. How will he and others develop those skills and disciplines without encouragement at an earlier age by their teachers?
Free form styles rule in school!

So, as very few people in educational institutions appear today to be promoting the necessary English language skills and dedicated craftsmanship needed for production of classical poetry styles, the situation for poetry in general is going to continue to deteriorate.
For those of you who say, “But look at the recent increase in the numbers of our poets,” I will say, “But look at the even greater increase in our general population!” The ironic twist mentioned above will continue screwing contemporary poetry as a whole into the ground whilst the craft and skills of classical poetry writing are being allowed to dissipate.

© Kim Randell 2006

Editors Note

Article

The recent articles posted on AucklandPoetry.com were appreciated, but contributors are reminded that they are most welcome to post poems on this site. If you want to publish an article on AucklandPoetry.com it must be submitted to the editor first. We try and keep articles few and poems many.

The aim of the website is to collect the works of Auckland Poets and allow them to independently publish a body of work into a communal blog site that will list their work on major search engines.

If you have a video camera reading a poem to camera and posting it on youtube makes it easy to post it and feature it on this site and it is a most welcome medium. Just a microphone? Poetry is all about your voice. Let's hear it. Link your myspace page here. Poets with a "Chair" (the right to post, there are very few of you currently) can feature their myspace page on this site.

The blogosphere includes a site search bar, and try entering the names of any of our poets and see what happens. You can be included in our collection, we will still be building it in ten years! And your work will still be locatable on the web.

To become part of this site, just send me three poems, or one particularly good one and suggest you be considered for a tenure, a "Chair". There are limited places.

If you knock my socks off, and it gets onto the site - and when you have published several in this way, you may get an invite to post yourself. This means you are responsible for posting to the site yourself. Now it is up to you.

Those who want to read classical poetry should publish it on paper. The net is good for something else, and this site intends to produce it with you.