Wow

Bill Manhire

Dedication

For my long-haul editors, Fergus Barrowman and Michael Schmidt

Contents

1. Title Page
2. Dedication
3. 1
4. Huia
5. Untitled
6. Also
7. The Armchair Traveller
8. South
9. Side Trips
10. Names
11. A Really Nice Trip
12. Letter from the New Place
13. Sorrow
14. Woodwork
15. Someone Was Burning the Forest
16. Warm Ocean
17. Falling Asleep
18. The Terrible Singers
19. 2
20. Noah
21. Angels
22. The Angry God
23. He Loved Her Lemonade Scones
24. Breakfast
25. The Mysterious Twin
26. The Kaffir Lime Is Having a Bad Day
27. Isolation Notes
28. Mean Neptune
29. To Be Concluded
30. Earthquake Practice
31. Conference Dinner
32. Lives of the Poets
33. Langholm
34. The Lazy Poet
35. The Deerculler’s Wife
36. What I’m picking up when I’m out and about
37. Weather
38. 3
39. Discontinued Product
40. After Lockdown
41. Incidental
42. Halls
43. Exhibition
44. The Sailor
45. Knots
46. Our Teacher
47. The Sky
48. Change Nothing
49. Like
50. The Smile
51. Wow
52. Polly
53. Reverse Ovid
54. After Surgery
55. Little Prayers
56. Copyright

they’ve cleared away
the clearings

1

Huia

I was the first of birds to sing

I sang to signal rain

the one I loved was singing

and singing once again

My wings were made of sunlight

my tail was made of frost

my song was now a warning

and now a song of love

I sang upon a postage stamp

I sang upon your coins

but money courted beauty

you could not see the joins

Where are you when you vanish?

Where are you when you’re found?

I’m made of greed and anguish

a feather on the ground

+

I lived among you once

and now I can’t be found

I’m made of things that vanish

a feather on the ground

14

Untitled

This book about extinct birds is heavier than any bird:

heavier than the dark bird eating my heart,

page after page of abandoned wings.

I lift it up and sit it on my lap

and listen to it purring.

15

Also

my mother cries all day

because soon it will be the world’s last day

imagine being a baby again!

I can’t do that but I must try

+

also: my dog’s bark

is the whole of the colour blue

it is ice rising out of the sea

and all because he is pleased to see me

16

The Armchair Traveller

Excuse me if I laugh.

The roads are dark and large books block our path.

The air we breathe is made of evening air.

The world is longer than the road that brings us here.

The necklace is a carving, not a kiss.

You run towards the one you can’t resist.

At first she edges backwards, then she stalls.

Now every sentence needs another clause.

The road goes off through willows, then it winds.

Is that the famous temple over there?

Why are the people round about so undefined?

Why must they kiss then disappear?

Time now to let the story take its course,

just settle back and let the driver drive.

Bliss is it late at night to be alive,

learning to yield, and not to strive.

17

South

There it goes again, the heart,