Pohutukawa

Po hu tu ka wa
Always looking out to sea
Roots that reach out and tower
I will clutch, I will plead, I only lean for thee

The log train

There it snakes along the coastline
Disburdened of its usual load
(Stacks of newly felled pine)
The procession announces itself
Like steady beats on a cardiograph
Or a marching song staccato'd

My Weekend Was Filled With...

Sharing a bus packed with young Americans, hurtling through the beautiful agricultural landscape.

Kayaking from sand bar to sand bar, in search of pipis (shellfish).

Pohutukawa honey-flavoured Kapiti ice cream.

A midnight soak in a very obscure natural hot spring, under a magnificent sky, spying shooting stars. Sharing a large, shallow, hot pond with strangers in pitch darkness - how romantic.

Pancakes for breakfast.

Coming Soon...

Lightweight at rm103

Group show where each artwork will weigh 50 grams or less, propppped up on cardboard shelves. My contribution will be a magnetic surprise.

Giantspotting

I forgot, two of my giants were spotted last month... John Berger writes for this quarter's Drawbridge and I spied a Nazim Hikmet poster in a scene from The Edge Of Heaven (good film, by the way) - plastered on the bedroom door of a young female 'terrorist'.

Wanderlust

Compass
by Janet Frame

Once I was overtaken by
geometry: a golden compass lying
in a silver box that had cutting edges
and sliced through my finger -- if
you had to choose would you be
the centre or the foot of the compass?

-- the short foot harnessed to a dainty pencil
with nothing to do all day but describe
describe the perfect circle and
meet your origins foot to foot on a highway
narrow enough to contain you only
or would you rather pierce what you touch
putting out who knows what eyes of light
sharp deep stay-at-home as balance, reference for
the wandering -- no, rather the successfully striding -- foot?

But if you are a compass have you really a choice?
Are you not wholly -- stay-at-home and traveller -- It?
I think I'd rather be the wide-open measured mouth of
the radius tasting every drop of distance.

This is modern art

Over Friday drinks at the office, I found myself in the unwelcome position of explaining what modern art is. One person was telling the others about the Martin Creed exhibition I brought her to years ago. She had thought it was weird and has not forgiven me since.

"A roomful of pink balloons," K described to the rest. "The noise was deafening because the balloons kept popping!"

Everyone looked at me and J complained, "Where's the art in that?"

"Well," I began. "For a start, the balloons were filled with half the volume of the gallery space itself."

This 'punchline' only drew blank faces.

"Don't you remember being a kid playing in those playpens filled with multi-coloured balls, and how fun that was?" I asked everyone at the table.

Crickets again.

J, who is a harried mother, responded, "The only thing I've thought of when I see those things is how unhygienic they are and I want my kids to stay away from them."

"Mm-okay."

Related post: http://thesoundsinsidemyhead.blogspot.com/2006/10/affinity.html