Sorry, not a tuesday poem

THAT TUESDAY

Driving down Lichfield Street,

that banal, modern automaton achievement,

concentration supposedly on total road awareness, defensive driving

only, deep down, even cops would admit we’re

all over the place,

thinking about an apricot and chicken Panini

washed down with a

thought about the germination of a play

or was Roy (substitute any generic Euro/Pakeha name)

giving you the evil eye because you looked

at his missus just a little too long and lateral

or a million fuckin’ other insignificances

When Mother Nature got one shit-kicking

surprise for you, Jack (or Roy if you’d rather)

and She gonna whip your ass with some p-wave

or s-wave or whatever-wave

and suddenly I thought I’d blown a back tyre,

but She was having none of it,

raining down masonry like it was a lolly scramble

of Death.

And I, a transplant in this city, a pseud

Southern Man,

weep to see it go down, to go down

on Kai Tahu, Pakeha, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese

and so on, not the Whitebread city it used to be,

not Skinhead Central,

going down, twisting in agony over Bridle Path,

writhing in pain through London Street

and the Square, not hip, Daddy-O,

but the heart of old, white squattocracy

torn out, that heart and

trampled underfoot.

We lost, we gained,

we waxed, we waned,

we came into the heart of what it means

to be human

and we were spat out by Papatuanuku

like seeds from a watermelon.

© Andrew M. Bell