Poem 322

This was written for White Cloud where it was interpolated with and segued into Tim’s powerful song Rainstorm … I wanted to address the anger and intolerance running inside pakeha culture like a deep stream and inevitably was drawn to the ’81 tour as the historical moment when that became most shockingly visible and crystallised everything that most of us had known since primary school … the fact that it was forty years ago and now largely forgotten doesn’t mean that it should be forgotten, the split that it brought to light is still with us and still festering … if I had little interest in rugby before the civil war of ’81 led to fighting in the streets then that was immediately adjusted to less than zero which is still and will forever remain the case …

… the first set of italics is the Red Squad chant they would use to psych themselves up before battering old ladies, the second the massive crowd in Hamilton howling for the blood of the protesters on the field, the last italics are Banquo’s and his murderer’s lines from the Scottish play …

… the natty referee who booted the ball was in fact a protester, the royal wedding was televised on the evening of the Molesworth Street baton charge so it was flickering in the window of LV Martin on Lambton Quay as protesters sat in the gutter dazed and bleeding …

( wrong white crowd is of course more of a bumper sticker than an original poetic line but I liked the way it summed up the attack of this most angry section of White Cloud … in the show at the end of this section guitarist Brett Adams would lift off into the most amazing aggressive in your face solo that grew and grew, exhilarating and cathartic … )

Days Of Rage

clattering of batons on plexiglass shields
we didn't know ourselves

Red Squad in a huddle
                                                 eat more
                                                                     root more 
                                                                     drink more piss!

in the mud and barbed wire of Gisborne
the little airport in Rotorua
a hail of everything hard and holy in Auckland
island of interlinked arms
in the island of Rugby Park
sea booming on the reef
                                                      Kill Kill Kill

bells are ringing
clouds of white flour
on comes the ref
                                   natty in all his gear
and boots the ball away!

clouds black pouring over the sky
wind whipping down Rintoul Street
one crowd approaches another
the wrong white crowd
beating the drums
beating the shields

there's the wedding
                                        Princess Di
Kiri Te Kanawa sings
proud day
proud day for New Zealand

I live with you
                            I don't know you
where did you come from?
I've 
       always been here
in the next bed
                               through the wall
down the hall
in our father's house


                                             it will rain tonight

                                              let it come down