Poem 10

Rua Kenana’s hikoi across the country gathering followers to meet the King’s ship coming with many gifts including the return of their land … he stood on the wharf at Gisborne for three days before … well, you can look it up for yourself …
… written in 1984 while I was doing Original Composition with Bill Manhire … one of the few poems I’ve written with an epigraph – I can’t remember how I found the quote in those pre-internet days but it fitted perfectly …

( nicely expressive image of a ship appearing on the horizon as grinding up the hump of ocean – and I like the cumulative visual effect of the five lines of description of the colonial figurehead at the end … the refrigerated hold is inevitably as empty as a promise, bringing nothing beyond the pleasant equivalent of a royal walkabout, but you can be sure it will be packed with the fat of the land on its return journey to Britain … )




“The Maoris converse with us quite sincerely about the Royal visit that is to be. A show of hands of those who believed in his coming was called for by an old Maori, and every hand was raised. None of the Natives will listen to reason; they are even making wagers with Europeans about King Edward’s impending arrival.”
Gisborne, 1906.

Cult

There was no smoke
no cotton wad on the horizon
to say that the King
in his twin-funnelled ship
was grinding slowly up the hump of ocean
holds packed with love
and merchandise
(& thinking we can grasp 'the system'
we all laugh
when the good King
the cargo of good things
fails to eventuate)

but
modern diplomacy its awareness
of third-world matters
might not make for so empty
a story
             I myself might advocate
the dragging in of Odysseus
gaffed in to the boat
blank and white
wheeled
up to the tide mark
in the oily barrow of a wave
or caught demobbing
picked out of the crowd on the gangplank
he'll always be ready
for one last voyage
has the touch of royalty
that makes for good ambassadors
besides
he'd rather see new lands/different races
than stoop in some cramped wreck
unravelling hand-feeding
fish

in my story
the threads of smoke come
then the gun-grey ship
pulling up like a taxi
at the wharf
and everyone goes down the ladder
out of a hot blowy day
into silent ice
the empty refrigerated hold
where covered in crystal
and with an icicle beard
vaguely kind
and infinitely distant
the drowned white king
holds court