Poetry

The smell of fresh baking
Has woken the fairies
From the kingdom of cardamom
To dance upon my tongue.
In saffron clad, they waltz in perfect time,
Their rhythm playing upon my mind,
Until at last I go inside
And ask mother for another slice.

It was as if an angel held me yesterday.
When you touched my shoulder,
You turned my frown into lines in the sand
That would ask the sea to come and say
What they really mean.
When you walked with me a while
It was the Earth circling the Sun;
The Moon, the Earth;
And my heart, yours.
Yesterday when you smiled at me
We became all that was right with the world.

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This morning I woke up
For the first time.
I saw your eyes putting
Your hand in mine.
Your smile reached further than the moon,
Further than Mars,
And further than the farthest star.
It reached into the darkness of my heart.
It was the first smile
That made me want to give
Everything I had to you.

Our hearts still remember
The day the riots came,
When those who were meant to protect us
Beat out our brains.
We remember being pulled off
England’s breast;
The favourite child who became
Far less than second best.
We remember France’s bombs:-
Bombs for atolls,
Bombs that refused to give peace a chance,
A bomb to teach us a lesson
And destroy our faith
In fraternity.
It was the season we stood alone,
The season we became New Zealand.

Photo by John Mellor [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Please, don’t walk behind me.
You might step on my soul.
And then I’d have to rely on yours.

Photo by rawpixel.com at Pexels

The blue parrot is trying to peck
A way out of its cage
At the back of the living room.
It sees me and flaps its wings
Squawking my name.
I wonder if it might tear its wings off,
But I have become deaf
To its pain.
Its claws are trying to pull the cage away.
Pick, pick, pick.
Peck, peck, peck.
Who’s a pretty boy? it strains.
My insecurities and rage
Have made me too ugly to answer,
Except to throw a sheet over its cage.

Photo by Lukas from Pexels