blackmail press 33
Nicola Easthope
New Zealand

Tui Taonga 1-5 Penny Howard
index
Nicola Easthope's ancestral roots lie in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, England and Wales. She was born in London, grew up in Wellington and lives with her partner and young daughter on the Kāpiti Coast.  Since high school, Nicola has been active in environmental, social justice and peace movements. She worked for Greenpeace Aotearoa for a number of years, was a teacher, and is currently the Kāpiti Enviroschools facilitator. leaving my arms free to fly around you, Nicola's first collection of poetry, was published by Steele Roberts in 2011.

Links:

http://www.steeleroberts.co.nz/books/isbn/978-1-877577-57-4

and

http://www.creativecoast.co.nz/nicola-easthope-poet
Full

Shall I spend this evening
with a NASA climatologist 
(with) out running is time
(with) out running is time
with a Bestseller
and chocolate
chink some Likes
on my Facebook
two squares
for my Inbox
dance 5Rhythms
in the lounge
or watch YouTube
on coal seam gas

fracking sweet sweet
fracking sweet
water veins?
Squares honey,
not rows.
Two,
not four.

I’ll do hip rotations
& belly eights,
pelvic shimmies
& deep womb chants,
stretch cobras
poke a lion face,
shed darkness
from my preciousness.

In the white scorpion night,
I’ll breathe in peppermint
at the back door,
slip down down
the garden track,
close the leaves
over new cauli heads.
Hey, can you hear?
Winter’s wing-beats
just eleven days away.
side our on is time
side our on is time
Here, pull up a chair.
Wedge this wrapper
beneath the short leg.
Snap off
some cocoa solid.
Bitter sweet sweet
bittersweet.



* Dr James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and climate physicist, New York City





Roll call

Line up.

Shot “Baker”  present
Ivy Mikepresent
Trinity    present
Little Boy         "
Fat Man  "
Frigate Bird    "
Tsar Bomba    "
Romeo    "
Yankee   "
Bravo      "
Totem     "
Mosaic    "
First Lightning        "
Aldébaran       "
Agathe    "
Gerboise bleue        "
Lop Nur "
596"
Chagai-I "
Chagai-II         "
Operation Plowshare     "
Operation Kittens  "
Operation Rats        "
Operation Vixen     "
Operation Smiling Buddha     "

you’re not all here

where’s

Hiroshima &
Nagasaki

late    to class again

check your nails     check
  your hemlines      check
  the hairs on the back of your neck

check your nauseacheck
  your breast milk check
  the pit that once led to your mother

check yournecrosa         check
  your         blood countcheck
  each fibril of your sorry body

stop your    prattling
stop your    twitching
take that cotton wool out of your ears

keep your            head down
keep your            hair on
shield the              eyes in the back of your head

my down-            winders
my terrible         beauties
all skin and         silent bone.