Article 7

Tony BeyerOminous signs  big wind smears the sky  elongates clouds from their edges  grey over white intermittent blue  a sea bird stranded in the suburbs  pads about on webbed claws  we talk about weather  because there’s so much of it  imperiling livestock turning streets  into kayak lanes or baking  the brown earth crisp as pie    Last quarter  so far into spring the port-wine magnolia  in the old hospital garden where pukeko breed  is covered with pale green leaves with only a few blossoms  still perched among them like exotic birds  this year face masks add to the usual detritus  batted about the place by seasonal winds  the sea surface downhill broken into pieces  busy but uninhabited imitates the sky’s  occasional cloud occasional radiance  or a storm-troubled lake over which anything might arrive  a triangular plastic sandwich container a life-changing opportunity  or just a change in life it all seems so normal    Plain tales  the hardware outlet  no longer sells moon tigers  nor do the assistants know what they are those grey-green  citronella coils that smoke methodically when lit to dissuade mosquitoes  a summer requisite of empire on all continents  (with the exception perhaps of Antarctica)  indispensable  as gutta-percha antimacassars and the flag    Stained hands  in my youth like many of my generation I too was a butcher’s labourer financing my way through  tertiary education and early marriage on the slippery ground  of the slaughterhouse  opportunities then mindless but remunerative we took with no thought of despoiling the planet  not that any of us exercised starker choices running guns through Ethiopia deranged in all his senses  our needs were  the needs of the moment  paramount and without a future  fresh lambs’ hearts boiled in a knife steriliser seasoned with coarse salt from the hide floor    Modern life  I wish I could tell you  what there is to see  in Rothko’s paintings where one colour  hangs upon another both absorbing and  resisting infiltration but you must see it  the vertical receding into depth past seeing  the movement still- ness has always had    The Daughters of the Late Colonel  good name I thought for a rock band  seeing their spoken-word album cover  in an English resource room  back in the ’70s  permed but androgynous  Josephine on drums Constantia on guitar  Katherine M doing lyrics and vocals     Tony Beyer lives and writes in New Zealand. He has published widely there and elsewhere.     previous page&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp contents&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp next page