Cover

CLUNG

Title Page

Dedication

For Vic,
Jerry, Ella, India & Angelo

Acknowledgements

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Some of these poems have appeared in Sport, Landfall, NZ Listener, Best NZ Poems 2002, Trout, ‘Wellington – a city in Literature’, Mercury Lane 2 - Episode 1, and on National Radio.

The Violet Durn in Amnesia, Lake Detox & the Great Spoilt walked straight out of the totally cool book feed by M. T. Anderson.

All hobby roads lead to hobby city is a radio by-line used to advertise the shop Hobby City.

I am enormously grateful to Gary Waldrom whose painting has been detailed for the cover of this book.

And most especially thank you to the presenters and news presenters from National Radio whose names appear in these poems.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

1

Clung

1YA

how to fix a radio

denniston according to gary on the radio

midday report

gameshow in kandahar

Love is no Bus

radiohead

shot

wires

plateau honey

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

anchor me

2

Glory To The Trees

and-yellow

angelo victor ~ nicola wright

believing your liver is rich

Bob

woke

virtual beach

explorers

clint eastwood - Poot!

happy birthday shark!

Nurnberg

New York

spanishing

in Tallboy

teeth – 2002

3

beresford street

grahams beach, bach

float

pink roe

a tank of snow

the sun in relation to the left & right eyes.

aorta

nineteen dollar trap – mitre 10

western springs zoo

is it good to hum, river?

the sopranos

yeah

Amnesia, Lake Detox & the Great Spoilt

weaner

Copyright

1

The story of drowning
for flounder came to my radio every hour

Clung

It was a balloon day.

& at sea clung the girl

to the looseness of water.

*

From the rescue helicopter

the ocean was a drop.

*

The story of drowning

for flounder came to my radio

every hour.

1YA

you get the radio on

& hear the bird of the day

which sounds like any other

whistle being fed into the 9

o’clock beeps with news

*

you know wellington is there somewhere

forming some sort of front.

*

there is a red light on the transistor

you got from the dick smith store

*

you are connected

by a tuner

*

from the volume you will come to know

all those people going about

their steps up up

into their warm lives

to stay put from the wind

which is for sure a hurtler.

*

you will come to believe

that wellington lies inside a radio

& bleak is on a m

*

there will be much talk about

who the weather is heading for

& how wellington is forgot

of the sun.

*

& you will remember vic’s uncle pat

of petone

& the smell of his hands

in the wet flatette

& how his loose phlegm cough

broke free of itself

on the carpet by your feet

*

you can turn wellington

off with your thumb.

*

how to fix a radio

your radio is your talking

world & your baby is your

world crawling into walls.

holding your radio

your baby heads for

the surface hardest to

fall

the pasifika wall

who has only one coat.

there are marks to prove