Poem 320

In the 1980s it became more common to see package tour groups of retired Americans around Wellington who had been stationed here during WWII … there was a lot suppressed in the 1940s that remains that way, more than one uninvestigated death, including the one I refer to here … I was interested in the idea of forty years later the perpetrator including the site of his crime in photos of his remembered haunts …

( I like the fact that the place is no longer there, so he’s photographing a memory and simultaneously feeling safe that all trace has been expunged … )

Yanks In Town

They come back
of course
what was a war
now a paunchy tourist trade
some still as loud
as when they were cowboys
off the ships in '42
all the gum stockings
and brawls
you could wish for

wartime measures means
the lid still on
the battle of Manners Street
and other lapses

a thick finger presses 
the shutter release
for a shot of a building
no longer there
where an old guy 
                                  died
pushed down 
the stairs