Four poems from Mike Beveridge’s book Poems for Remembering

 

All poems copyright Mike Beveridge

 

Once A Catholic

Who would have guessed one day we’d all awake

Beneath an unseen cloud whence we can take

Uploadings of pornography, giga-

Mega, all free, all unforbidden too,

Full detailed fantasies of me and you,

Acted out with non-stop, noisy vigour?

 

And who’d have picked good parents might invite

Their youngsters’ friends to fornicate the night

Away, then chat through breakfast? Or that Jo

And Kev from two doors down, both freshly waged,

Should grab this chance to get engaged? Engaged?!!?

Twelve years on bennies, and five kids in tow!

 

I like all this. I like these bold attempts

In bright new days to function with some sense

That morals ought fit people – this is brave!

Forgivingness. Transparency. Such times:

No manic need to punish lovers’ crimes,

Nor call unsanctioned covenants depraved.

 

I do approve. I do. But for myself,

I got addicted young to thinking stealth

Was part of passion: just let me transgress,

And up my pleasure quotient went. Which leaves

Me stranded. It’s as if I don’t believe

In sin, yet still need something to confess.

 

In The Air

Even in the big smoke you get such days.

Could be just that I’ve an assignation

For tonight, but beneath a hot high haze

Warm winds flick flesh in sweet swift flirtation,

Bees buzz in my back yard, quick small birds mate

When they’re not tearing at fat figs that fall,

Splish! at my feet. Just human noises grate:

The city’s unrelenting caterwaul.

 

Come, night! When I’ll go sliding down the dark

And peaceful now back streets of Ponsonby,

My mind full only of my tryst, my date,

While night-fired jasmine from an en route park

Floats its rich, heavy, sexy smell past me,

Imploring willing moths to propagate.

 

Front Door

I stepped out my front door today.

Some times, you know, that’s all it takes

To let life guide you back the way

That keeps you from those old mistakes

Of putting self above the rest,

Of drowning in self-interest.

 

So, on my neighbour’s damp front lawn

A flowering cherry tree exults;

From nests where they tend chicks new-born

Sparrows and blackbirds trade insults;

And nothing here could care to say

Why my hair now is flecked with grey.

 

Around the bole my neighbour’s boy,

Not yet turned four, romps with his pup -

Two rolling, raucous balls of joy

Lost in their moment, so caught up;

No notion of mortality -

Ah, there’s the perfect way to be.

 

Down by my feet a fine cycad,

Which might live half a thousand years,

Becomes a monarch’s landing pad -

So fragile! - my eyes prick with tears.

Short life, long life – though well or ill,

My stars I thank to be here still.

 

Water

Why, it’s our medium, our element.

We swim and surf, we sail, we jet or cruise;

We fish, we float, we dive, we oft times lose

Our land-based selves in grateful wonderment.

 

And few among us, when we pause to rank

Our purest pleasures, could fail to recall

One perfect wave, a thudding waterfall,

Love found and made on beach or riverbank.

 

Water! How it defines us. Two great seas

Daily remind us that neighbours none nor

Enemies have we: what we are, therefore,

We’ve mostly self-engendered, by degrees.

 

Our famous coastline – you could give your days

To knowing it: coves, bays, remote sandspits,

Great cliffs, ports, headlands, long perilous bits,

Then fjords, sounds, and rias to amaze

(Ria: a river swallowed by the sea,

Most commonly dendritic (Google it!):

Two of our largest northern harbours fit,

Likewise the Marlborough Sounds – misnamed, all three).

 

Offshore islands float fair within our views

And beckon us, revealing to the bold

Their hidden breakers, secret grottoes, cold

Depths rich with life through sliding greens and blues.

 

Turn inwards: near four thousand lakes, and scores

Of pulsing rivers dot and thread the land:

Shared riches, of which one or more may brand

Its self and story deep within your core.

 

Instance old Waikato – its girth and length

Born high in Ruapehu’s frozen stuff,

Then further fed by Taupo; power enough

That many claim their mana from its strength.

 

Or take our Southern Lakes. That scenery,

Once seen, those shapes, those colours, will stay true,

And reappear through life whenever you

Hear words like beauty and tranquillity.

 

Last: dust to dust in dusty lands -  maybe.

Most here, of water formed, consign to fire

Their vacant shells, and what is left require

Returned, with thanks, to river, lake or sea.

Mike and his boys some time last century