Honey Moon
When you moved through the cold
a fierce essential flame
I warmed myself at your altar.
Night
ate the afterbirth of day.
Birdsong wrestled with silence.
You covered me in stolen light –
this new and secret skin.
“Honey Moon” was originally published in the New Zealand Listener on 18 March 2006, and is one of the poems I plan to include in my forthcoming collection Men Briefly Explained.
See the Tuesday Poem blog for lots more Tuesday Poems!
Tuesdays
On Tuesdays
when we should be making love
we sneak off to the movies instead.
You hold my hand.
I eat an ice-cream
that I don’t need and do not deserve.
It isn’t art: Van Helsing.
Hellboy. Harry Potter 3.
But it’s what you like
and I tag along, looking
for the joins in the CGI
and enjoying this escape
from the sunlit outer world.
Where we blink. We kiss.
Adult again, we go our separate ways.
I couldn’t really pass up an opportunity to go all meta for my second contribution to the excellent Tuesday Poem initiative started by Mary McCallum (check out her blog for the details, including other bloggers taking part – the current list is also at the bottom of this post).
I didn’t write Tuesdays specifically to be a Tuesday Poem – it was first published in the New Zealand Listener on 30 April 2005 and is included in my most recent poetry collection, All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens (see below).
Tuesdays is cheap movies day in Wellington.
If you’d like a copy of All Blacks’ Kitchen Gardens, the easiest way is to order one directly from me, via an email to senjmito (at) gmail.com. Within New Zealand, that will cost you $15 including postage & packing. If you’re from overseas, please get in touch and I’ll let you know the total cost.
Till next Tuesday …
Cover image of All Blacks Kitchen Gardens composed and photographed by John Girdlestone.
The Tuesday Poets lineup
NZ poets
claire beynon
harvey molloy
tim jones
helen heath
helen rickerby
ilikesweating
fifi colston
paradoxical cat
kay mckenzie cooke
penelope todd
cilla mcqueen – nz poet laureate – who posts monday, wednesday, friday
Overseas Poets
Well, you got one of the best, anyway. The New Zealand Listener has included Voyagers: Science Fiction Poetry from New Zealand in its list of the 100 Best Books of 2009.
This is good news not only because it is welcome recognition of science fiction poetry in general and this anthology’s contributors in particular, but also because it should increase the public profile and the sales of the book. Plus, after five years’ effort to get Voyagers published, this is a very welcome vindication!
You can buy Voyagers…
In New Zealand
Worldwide
USA only
UPDATE
Now the Herald has got in on the act! That’s great, but still no endorsement from New Zealand Plumber magazine .,..