Tony Beyer
from Leachate
1
someone from
out of town
told me the town water
tastes of eels
& why wouldn’t it
sieved from the
mountain’s veins
where the heavy females
bask & soak
over eighty years
before they change shape
& cast off downstream
into the vortex
or destiny of salt
& the next generation
leaving behind
waterweedy reminders
of their tenure
4
at dusk
the mountain is Japanese
a fan opened downwards
blue cone
attached invisibly
to sky also blue
if haze & fine
lit points of
floating stuff
can be said
to have a colour
Black Painting
               (Ralph Hotere ’68)
at an angle
the third
dimension emerges
grainy and
nearly visible
a secret the artist
left behind
in this world for us
Capital
the latest secondhand bookshop
in Dixon St has the right attitude
               more lit
               less bullshit
so the usual suspects
are lined up along the shelves
Calvino beside Camus and Colette
Maugham beside Maupassant
everyone from Kathy Acker
to Yevgeny Zamyatin
there are gaps but they’ll be filled
by students leaving town to start their lives
or downsizers tapering theirs
who drift in tentatively
with a carton of fuzzy Penguins
containing all the treasure of the world
Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, NZ. He has recent or forthcoming work in broadsheet, Landfall, Poetry NZ and Takahe.
previous page     contents     next page
from Leachate
1
someone from
out of town
told me the town water
tastes of eels
& why wouldn’t it
sieved from the
mountain’s veins
where the heavy females
bask & soak
over eighty years
before they change shape
& cast off downstream
into the vortex
or destiny of salt
& the next generation
leaving behind
waterweedy reminders
of their tenure
4
at dusk
the mountain is Japanese
a fan opened downwards
blue cone
attached invisibly
to sky also blue
if haze & fine
lit points of
floating stuff
can be said
to have a colour
Black Painting
               (Ralph Hotere ’68)
at an angle
the third
dimension emerges
grainy and
nearly visible
a secret the artist
left behind
in this world for us
Capital
the latest secondhand bookshop
in Dixon St has the right attitude
               more lit
               less bullshit
so the usual suspects
are lined up along the shelves
Calvino beside Camus and Colette
Maugham beside Maupassant
everyone from Kathy Acker
to Yevgeny Zamyatin
there are gaps but they’ll be filled
by students leaving town to start their lives
or downsizers tapering theirs
who drift in tentatively
with a carton of fuzzy Penguins
containing all the treasure of the world
Tony Beyer writes in Taranaki, NZ. He has recent or forthcoming work in broadsheet, Landfall, Poetry NZ and Takahe.