This week I’m editor at the Tuesday Poem Hub – Check out “just a point man in the ocean” by Vaughan Gunson and other poems in the sidebar links.

Grey-hair-and-tweed pulls bits off his burger
throws them out for feathered thieves.

I drip dressing on my skirt as I shoo.

Man in Suit crams a coffee cup in the bin
marked Glass and plastic only. He smiles.

We all do. Bonus sun just when we’d blown
dust off our office heaters, stray hairs from our coats.

Grass imprints disorder on our bare hands.

Inside, the barista is percussionist

crash-cymbal saucers, glockenspiel laid out

or perhaps conductor – back to the crowd
orchestrating lunch.  Rendering sound,

pace through gentle gesture or furious demand.
Pressure of bow, force of breath

 – imbue, extract – intensity of stare.

This is a cafe poem! I’m a bit slow off the mark, but you can probably still buy a book of cafe poems here.

For progress on my next book, check out my Tearwater Tea page. For more Tuesday Poems, visit the hub and the links in the sidebar.

Slow flow thickening when upright
transparent enough at first glance
but a harder stare only stares back
I remember sand
I remember heat, enough to run
my surface blurs, haunted
by every touch
idle or otherwise.

 

 

More Tuesday Poems here.

Peach Farm, by Dean Young –

in June edition of Poetry Magazine

 

 

 

and more Tuesday Poems here

Before I found the matchbox
filled with exes and ohs
which fluttered to the floor
like blown love when open
to be caught one by one
or picked from the fluff deliberate
as your intent and accurate
as your aim, I was kept awake by palpitations
the expectant glow of porch light
tricky as the squeak
of a wind-pushed gate.

 

more Tuesday Poems here

Will-o-the-wisp a weeping willow
swift mischief off a twisted silk road.

The lure of Lucifer’s coal convolutes
flickers with foolish expectation.

A beguiling blaze, delusive delight
wayfarers wander beyond the well-trod

seduced like sailors sung into wrecks.

 

more Tuesday Poems here

soft terns  swifts  swallows
plovers ascending
rails  crakes  grebes to earth
harsh bitterns, thrashers and thrushes
surviving as tyrant flycatcher, fisher
of kings, catcher of oysters
woodpecker or spoonbill
behind gentle hummingbird mocking-
bird  bunting  gallinules
foolish ibis  cuckoos and boobies
egged on by coots  gannets
the mysterious skua
delicate seedeaters  lapwings
osprey  melodious new world warblers
sandpipers  percussive kites
a militant accompaniment
cardinals  troupials  martins
a frigatebird  cormorant
suspicious guineafowl
weather turning shearwaters
to storm-petrels  gulls
indecipherable anis  jaegers
tanagers and vireos
at last, nightjars
avocets and stilts
bananaquit after caracaras
doves into silence
typical owls  barn owls
heron-still.

more Tuesday Poems here

for John Key

I have always believed
we should enhance
the literary skills of our young people

and while our literary heroes
may never challenge the glory
and respect given to our

All Blacks,
we still need role models
to inspire us.

From The Listener

More Tuesday Poems here

And more Political Poetastics here

Back on Earth we gauged the pressure, decided it was not strong enough to turn carbon into diamond rain but enough to incite change. We took on new tasks, approached old jobs with renewed determination. After all, we’d made it around the sun again: a revolution to spark a revolution. When we heard all the known matter in the universe could fit into a grain of sand, we took it in our stride; strode across sandy shores anyway, trying not to do the maths. We had been to Titan – a smog-covered moon – we knew what we were getting ourselves into. We laughed too loudly and cried out: If the distance from the sun to Pluto is a ten cent piece then the Milky Way is France!