 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
Iain Britton
Heads
Once twice I saw
lined up in a small museum
that had ground to a halt
by the Tasman Sea
a number of heads
with fixed smiles
shrunken gums
a class of 4
mostly scarred
all parts of a preserved whole
yellowed and shiny like resin
designer made
like wearable art.
Once twice in the Square
Palmerston North
a head fell from a wooden pole
hit the ground and rolled
mouth open
ears tucked in
into a garden and grew over the summer
into a bush of red-headed roses.
I climbed to the summit
of Wharite twice
stamped cold feet on its head
clutched at Pleiades
and brought the whole sky down
because I wanted to
and once I looked upon my father
with his head
dead asleep
nobody was out the back
digging in the old potatoes
gone soft in his eyes.
On my bedroom wall
a photograph of me - Aged 10
flourishes like a plant
(all head and shoulders)
despite its limitations.
In 937 languages
The daughter of a follower
of Martin Luther King
sees a woman with wings or
is it a man?
large wings like branches
flapping over lovers in cars
parked above the Manawatu
pot smokers lying in the grass
signalling to one another
through holes in rings.
He had a dream she says...
and tells me
of this androgynous form
hovering in light
stirring the air
informing believers that paranormal
insurgency is on the rise
that thunder will clap out God’s word
in 937 languages.
It’s a word deeply rooted in a dream
that to be incarnated again through his mouth
puked up like slops of white and yellow tripe
is not the big experience it’s meant to be.
I have a dream today too
of walking along a road which
begins with me
of plastering myself in landscapes
treed and grassed and lush and
playing dead.
Copyright © Iain Britton