Keith Nunes


Get out Joe-Joe


Taunt
Taunt
Taunt
He’s taunting them,
He loves the word taunt, it has a macho yet poetic tone,
He’s in the middle of the room encircled by people in chairs, on couches,
An invited iconoclastic icon in his waning days
Pogo-stick jumping
Howling, yelling at the glut of gifted,
They’re shocked, jolted from their smugness, their ignorance
Of what life is as reality, not twitchy TV reality but end-game reality,
He’s getting louder,
‘You’re all part of the GREAT FAIL!’ taunt-taunt-taunt
By the beat, boom-boom-boom
‘You’re all going to FUCKING DIE!’ 

One of the young men stands and pushes Joe-Joe Futt off his beat,
Down on the lush carpet looking up at the group looking down at him,
A circle of jerks, he thinks, they’re chanting,
‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’
He pushes through their legs, scurrying on all fours toward the front door,
They’re chanting
‘Rat! Rat! Rat!’
He’s at the door, stands like a proud bi-ped, grey beard lit by a flood of  
chandelier light,
‘Don’t try! You’re gonna die!’ 
Message sent
He slams the door on them, 
                                                      shuts down something, shuts it out,
Whatever it is, whatever it’s been 
                                                                   he’s closed it off, closed it down,

He bangs on each expensive car setting off alarms as he runs for the gates
down a tree-lined driveway, 
Toward the infinitely jesting sea 



Fanfare 


Straight backed seat under
                                                   Tree on a lean,
A park in the dark
                                  A path to an end,
A sign that says                                          what a sign must say,

A bag and a bin in the likely event,

Grass-and-a-half awaits
                                             trimmer                 with the strimmer,

Dog and a ball 
A race for the space,

                                        Walkers         talkers         joggers        in a trance,

A shoe in the bush                                                                             a can in the hand,

        A chorus of leaves         
orchestrating 
a fanfare for the most
uncommon of autumns



Fake ‘n’ Take


Be-bop 
                 brutal in the 
                                             banged-up bedroom

Weight 
                        from height                 dumped 
                                                                                 on concaving                  chest


In the course of the 
                                      flow of the river 
                                                                     to the road 
                                                                                              to the bittersweet end

Teeth-gnash vow
                                         to fake ‘n’ take
                                                                          whatever it takes 
                                                                          to be weightless 
                                                                          again


Tracking a line of thought


He lost his sense of alignment somewhere between
The using and the abusing,
                                                  On train tracks in old grey boots
                                                  He goes looking for the 
                                                  Freak he longs to be,

Long lines of intense thought
A line running up the coast and over sharply divided mountains,
Dividing                his                 life                 into              segments
He’s forced to face the pear shape of it,
A fruit cocktail of leery reasoning and outright randomness,

And then he finds his boots 
                                                   are not made for this sort of walking,
Barefoot under a simmering summer sun
He takes steps to keep                                   ahead of the troubling thoughts,
One sleeper after another,
Focussed                                                           on a speeding train entering the tunnel

Keith Nunes is currently house-sitting in Manly, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand.

 
 

previous page     contents     next page