Piet Nieuwland


In pohutukawa

Arte Povera: ‘The vertigo of igloos and fruits, the flight of stones on 
the blue horizon, the melting of ice and crazy colour’ Germano Celant 1985

In the garden of sky / stars broadcast their flirtations with luminous colour shifts
An incense of ocean curls off / the dark horizontal stretched at both ends
From here to there / this place to that, and those, and many more beyond
Flotillas of flowering cleavages / as invisible mermoids and mermaids ride
Pairs of bejewelled silver prows / hearts reflecting in the shimmering breeze
Summer freshness springs again / living / with so much living
In and around the coastal current vectors / at Awarua Rock
Springs again / from dripping peaches and capsicum globes / the crunch
Of bright verdure, scarlet and succulent oranges / dribbled sticky sweet / rock melon
And long slow curves of soft sand / recline a seduction in pohutukawa
Shade and surround sound surf
Surrenders to temperature
 


Hokianga singularities

The body a sensory field / laid out in the morning dew
upon the eyes and chest / tiny mandala of petals and leaves
fingers bound by coloured ribbons of time
a voice escaping in a cadence of verbs
across spilling orange textures of Kahakaharoa sand
across singularities / tidal current vectors
The living breath, the west wind accumulating cumulus
translations of restless imaginations / sparked by flits of swallows
or a phrase from a book whose pages / open today with as much to say
about this as we want them too, or not / like ‘the seething almost Indian heat’
not of temperature but chilli powder
with the chain that passes through my back / pulling taut
upwards against the gravity of this transient body / whose bones now feel
more prominent
tight-rope walking on a line of thought / zone of experience 
cloud of perception / fluid array / like swallowing
a glass of fresh cool water
And you return / ripe as a kiss 

Piet Nieuwland lives near Whangarei, Aotearoa/New Zealand. His poems and flash fiction appear in numerous print and online journals and his latest book As light into water was published by Cyberwit. He is co-editor of Fast Fibres Poetry and occasionally writes book reviews. He trained as a forester and worked as a conservation strategist for Te Papa Atawhai.
piet nieuwland poet

 
 

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