Everything … and a Purple Lipstick Dress
I want you
I want you to go up there and be, be that tree, take
off your shoes and dance off your roots, loosen your
hat, lose your head, sprout, burst, flourish
I want you
I want you to fly up there, with your wings, and be
be that bird, your days - to fly and your nights to rest
your songs to sing, your own chicks - to nest
I want you
I want you to roll out there and become a dice
all square and cubic, all round and doted, and
let people play - with you, let numbers define you
I want you
I want you to step out, out there and be a street sign
tall and lonely, at the side of the road, deaf and mute
a warning, a pointer, an advisor and a savior
I want you
I want you to pace in there and come to be - a chapel
a prayer place without a preacher, deity or a symbol
a chapel of ease, the holly place I can be devoted to
I want you
I want you to buy a lipstick, red? no! purple lipstick,
put it all over my lips, and let me entwine, make me
lace kisses on your skin, into an ultimate purple dress
I want you
I want you to drift, into the sea, like a stone washed away
by a big wave, taken to the depths, met starfish, sharks
and shells, splash, crash, and returned like sand, with a tide
I want ...
I want to draw you into a cartoon character, with no limit of what you can become, morph, reshape in to, so … that you can stay perfect, as you are … in your purple lipstick dress
I want you …
in the same harbour
they say
there can be two words
for the same feeling?
like two ports
in the same harbour
and I hear yours,
my brother in words.
and I grasp the
intensity of the wind,
the roar
in your sails
the feeling
hits
my boat,
the breeze
fills
my sails.
and I feel the same
intensity
steers
my boat
towards the other
port
in the same harbour
The Unusual Event - NZ Herald October 2011
What is the easiest way to get to know a town?
Let your senses find out
how the people in it live, work and have fun. In our little big city
all three are usually done along the same lines,
with the same pragmatic, casual air.
The seasons barely change, and nothing else.
All that tells YOU that spring's coming is
that rain gets warmer and sails unfurl out on the harbour. During summer the pohutakawas
paint the blues and greens red. Autumn and winter strip the town back to grey.
The truth is that the town is bored,
and we devote ourselves to cultivating our sections.
Our citizens work solely with the objective of getting bigger and getting smaller
(bigger house, smaller laptop - bigger car and smaller waistline).And then The Unusual Event occurred.
What it is that makes us so settled one day
and then overnight
changes those shades of grey to full and joyful black?
Who am I to tell what actually happened?
Who am I to surmise?
They came and they play!
Around the Southern Cross it seems the stars are shooting,
the Pointers are partying with us in the Cloud.
We are so lucky to be here, painted faces,
hosting the world.
Now - conjure up a picture of a town with seagulls ...
and ferns flying, pumas and wallabies prowling the beaches,
where you hear the beat of dragons' wings and the rustle of maple leaves,
a thoroughly positive place for many Octobers to come.
