HUMAN SERVICES
Children cold and beaten
Hungry, wanting, needing
Too common to be front page news
Grown men sleeping on park benches
Brown bags nestled in their arms
Or on the ground next to them
More pressing issues consume our collective consciousness
Stories of who is doing what to whom in Hollywood
Politicians line their pockets and talk about the “big issues”
Lip service, more studies, how many are affected
Isn’t one too many?
Apparently not
NEWSDAY
Graphic photos, new violence at home and abroad
Turn off the tube
Music sounding aggression and hostility, voices of the alienated
Turn off the radio
Sirens crowd the street, racing to the latest victims
Close the windows and the blinds
Locked behind your own eyes,
Do you feel better?
AD-HOC
Dearest Jaron
Please excuse the interruption to your day. I am writing to offer you
A once in a lifetime deal, the financial opportunity you’ve been waiting for
The milk on your cereal and the honey in your tea
You are one of a handful of people selected to receive
A follow-up phone call; you’ll hear from me today
And tomorrow and the day after that
For just a small investment (contribution to my retirement fund)
I might stop
FOR DAVE
Are you home?
Home was never here
Or anywhere
Home was not where the heart was
It was not where you hung your hat
It was not where you made your bed or
Underneath the stairs (or stars)
What form of transportation did you take?
Not the bus or the plane or whatever
Is available to the rest of us
Were the wings that bore you more proficient
Than the A-train?
Are you home?
RITUALS
Horns clash in ancient practice
Battling, to the death
For a partner
Plumage fans majestically
Luring, nature’s billboard
For romance
Playful pink underbellies
Leaping, swimming acrobats
For a mate
Red neon signposts
Pointing, baiting signals
For flesh
BITSTREAM PIECES
Humming warmth of electric synapses
A mechanical heartbeat, a tool or more
Always listening, never complaining
(except for the occasional crash)
Awaiting your every command
Inhaling keystrokes, exhaling whatever
Data you expected. Or not.
Tempting
Networking takes on new meaning in your vocabulary
Cocktail parties pale in comparison to on-line chat
Your local bookseller misses you
IN DEFENCE
It’s easy to get burnt
When you’re standing in front of the fire
Backs pressed against the flames
Instead of each other
Swords pointed outward, but only in defence of yourself.
Not feeling the heat of the sun
Stepping away only to jab at the sky
And curse the winter
Instead of ignorance
Shields up, protecting only your own.
Wrapping in words and platitudes
Covering in blankets and sheets
Instead of arms and kisses
No one needs to be hurt.
SPECIALIZATION
There's a weta on my window,
Crawling from left to right
Purposeful, stopping now and then
To rub its legs together,
A traveller on a path, end to end, pane to pane,
Descendant of the dinosaur, it goes on.
Gulls blow their way down the beach,
Diving sporadically for a meal
Pausing for a rest on the sand
Distant relatives of the roc, they move purposely
More than surviving, they thrive
Soaring scavengers, winged rats.
Even ants, especially ants, little armies,
Communities, building, gathering, storing,
A tiny Patton leads them ever forward,
One carries his injured buddy until he dies,
Minute soldiers hurrying on not to war,
But home to the hill.
Endless strings of people, busy as bees or ants,
Never stopping, never pausing, in pursuit
Not of happiness, nor of knowledge,
Not of hope or love or truth
The dollar trudges on, pushing man to unknown
Depths of greed.
LITTLE BOXES
Locked in a small box
In a dingy apartment
In a rat infested building
In a drug infested city
In a crime infested country,
On a planet whose inhabitants seemed bent on destroying each other,
A dream
In a slightly larger box
In that same apartment
In that same building, city and country,
On that same self-destructive planet,
A hope
The largest box, shaped and distorted by time
Sits open, its contents long ago distributed
Grief, pain, hunger,
Where once ideas laughed and danced,
Now empty.
Christine Valverde
New Zealand
