Piet Nieuwland


When the dive falls

When the dive falls through itself, when cumulo billow like sailing ships hauling across horizons, exploded cauldera of obsidian and lava, needle stacks fuming off headlands, and distances and shades of purple shiver sheen across to flecks of bright clean sand in bays, at Tahanga the basalt columnar and jigsawed, of the washing line of translucent warm surf, the passage of orcas, fine keeling, dissecting the end of the day, close to the bouldering bubble and rush, the hiss, the dragging back of foam, the crest rising and curling, fall into explosions and mixing, on a hot day of grassy hillsides overlooking the pa at Opito Bay, in the red zig zag of silk ripped, the flagrant burst of canna lilies throwing the place at us, another permutation in that tropical mist form of floating in a haze of warm tickling zodiacs on kite wings, arrows, feathered spears plunging through the rippling aorta with girls on swings, yellow jerseys and smiles,

call to you in the secret light of the narrow cave, the overhanging arches dripping stalactitic, to the cone opening a gate into the other side of the world, the visceral paradise of lungs and pump of muscles, meet there, cross over bend the flex and turn upwards, climb into the rhododendron hydrangea chrysanthemum and call to you, step up, revolve, spin, top, whirring, levitating on choreography and finely printed details, in valleys that teem in showers, touch the cycles of resonance, open spaces of syncopation and synergy that pour as rivers mercurial and flashing down the sides of andesitic volcanoes exploded and eroding, and pause, call to you, call to you, pause and call to you, call to you, pause and call to you, in the way that those tangles meet and mix, down the filaments, and up,



Sing here

now i might sing to the migratory birds, the hearts of silver angels that cross the street, now i might sing to the quilted tapestry of harbours, the flashing gleam in your eyes that arrived from distant andromedas when the night sky watched you walk among the gardens of pollenating flowers, their petals closed in the moonlight of ruru, now i might sing to the emergent fronds of punga and mamaku, the texture of your skin your limbs that fold out and open in shades of Rauparahas copper over fields of grasses stirring and flexing in breezes, now i might sing to the open lung of jungle and subtropics at Waipoua, the sounds that you hear echoing through the muffle and reflection of rooms and the whispers that find their way out of the territories of intimacy, now i might sing to the rivers meander that floats inside a valley scented with ripe karaka and the soft kiss of kereru pregnant and full, the taste of your lips, the apricot peach nectarine dripping down your throat twisting stroke of tongue and swallow that piece, and tonight wherever you are i will kiss you into the dream that wakes us on a day that has no end and i will sing to the pale scent of jasmine, the way your hands hold the fruit, touch its soft flesh, the bright glow of orange, the insistent tomato red splitting open and the deep avocado green firm with meat and huge seed shaping itself into a blossom of shade, and i will sing to the kowhai, the vision of light behind your eyes, the melodic cadence of your voice, your movement as you walk, the way you turn, the laugh that frees itself from your throat, your lips .

Piet Nieuwland lives near Whangarei, New Zealand. His poems and flash fiction have been published internationally in numerous print and online journals. As managing editor he has just launched Fast Fibres Poetry 6, the annual anthology of Northland poetry. He performs poetry regularly and occasionally writes poetry book reviews.

https://pietnieuwland.simplesite.com/
 
 
previous page     contents     next page