Wellington Weather

Wellington's mum is the wind

She's sinuous and cool

A beautiful hacksaw

The paint is coming off the handle

You thought that her teeth were blunt

But you still revel in how easily they cut to the bone

So strong, but so caring

Relentlessly caressing the land

Dad's back with the milk

Tripped over Matiu, the kitchen island

Spilled milk all over the sky

I heard him blame mum from the next room

Now they're fighting

His clouds are boiling

She's turning them purple and blue

With her forceful gusts

He shouts back with a ceiling of rain

That she throws into the wall

The windows are rattling

I swear the tūi winked at me

From the kowhaī tree in the window

He's telling me to wait and see

Flitting through perfect petals of sunshine

Dad has run out of rain

And mum's gusts have slowed into breezes

They've cleaned up the milk together

And the kitchen floor of the harbour is

Lovely and blue once again

You can't beat Wellington on a good day

MIDNIGHT GUITAR (and case!)

This is my Midnight Guitar! I love it, but it took a long time to get it finished. The pickups can be changed in less than a minute and the case has a built-in amplifier. I want to share my process and how it all happened.

Tante's Leaf Bass

Tante wanted a cool bass to learn some fun rock and funk basslines on, so we went halves on this 3/4 size bass from Artist Guitars for her birthday. The size suited her hands well, the price was good and the build quality was surprisingly nice. Very playable little bass.

Pianos resting

God bless all the old pianos resting
Creaking bones begun to splinter
Silent wood and tensioned strings
That high e flat that doesn't work

School halls and living rooms
Church annex at morning tea
Children's scribbles and pens lost in the lid
played diligently, musically, beautifully

Scary chords and counterpoints
Teacup stains and conversations
Lovers rapt in song together
accompanied with humble harmony

A hundred years, a million notes
Chords long out of fashion
Songs from old forgotten throats
Melodies of skill and passion

God bless all the old pianos resting
for only angels play them now

Knights Templar

Magpies are Knights Templar

Resplendent, gloriously

Clothed in their heraldry

Of the white they aspire to

And the dark means at their disposal

Steel beaks like paddock judgement

Menacing in twos and threes

Clear and cunning glassy eyes

That know where every shiny thing lies

The magpies are not from here

They're from some distant land

On a mission, or a slaughter

Colours flapping in the wind of battle

Paused their princely pilgrimages

To tarry in the fields

Police the country paddocks

And go hunting for their meals

The tūī and the kērērū

Have been chatting, and agree

The magpies are quite welcome to go home

At any time they please

empathy outside my window

The wind speaks so loudly up the valley

To anyone that will listen, it is yelling

The trees are full up with understanding

Despite their unfortunate deafness

So with their many piney branches

They talk a quiet, broad sign language

Enfolding, embracing the gales and gusts

They calm the desperate soul of the wind

a moment in prayer

I felt lost and a bit overwhelmed and disconnected

I said in my head

that I felt like I was on a hill looking over Galilee

Or down on the water

On a boat

And wondering what would happen if I fell

Frisson divine rippled over my body

And I was not alone

I was not alone.

"All is not lost, child."

In the voice that isn't a voice

But a calm, voice shaped hole

In the silence around it.

My middle is softly warmed, almost

Imperceptibly

Antithetically

By a million tiny cool pinpricks

On my outside

For He knows every hair on my head

And every follicle on my body

And loves me

And loves me anyway

my soul is an electromagnetic whale

My soul is an electromagnetic whale 

Swimming in spiritual space 

Coils energised, twisting 

diving into the world

radiating at certain frequencies

From the edges of my fins as I turn

I need to come up for air

That breach, that upward yearning

Pirouette in open space

Are you there, Lord?

At apogee

Far from where I'd normally be

Dancing through the Van Allen belts

Of the invisible Spirit, the aura of God

My ferrite bones, my coils thrumming

One link in a chain of spirit, 

electromagnetically charged by the next

Refilled once more by the breath of love

Gracefully,

Now full of grace

Falling back into the cold ocean

To radiate anew

Technician's curse

Technician's curse

Everything in my life

Almost works perfectly

soul lens

She is a lens of a telescope
focusing heavenly light
which she cannot herself perceive

She gathers the light
swims with it, collimating
coruscating
she cannot hold onto it,
she feels only dark
and confusion

But the light found her, chose her
when it passes through, it grows
only sweeter
and no other lens will do

No other light is better
or more lovely
or more true
than the light that shines
through the lens
of her soul.

She used to look at the stars
with her dad, and his
Telescope

And now sometimes
just sometimes
his light comes down the reflector tube
just to shine with her again

__________________________________

For my Becca,

from Morgan

The end of an unnecessarily long Reddit comment

Written as the Ritalin
Wore off completely
Half an hour before midday Monday morning
As the neglected guilty workload 

of the week was dawning

new guitar pedal day

Cutting blazing lines of fuzz
across the edge of thought
chords dripping with oblivion
neon sonic battle wrought

P̶̲̺̹̾̋̿̕L̴͔̰̫̃̐̓Ŭ̷̥̲͈̑͌ͅC̴̼̍̀̄̅K̴̗͉͇͑̀͝͝ ̸͓͙͓̍̐O̸̙͚̫̒̒͝U̶̧͔̚T̴͎͖̬̲̪͠ ̵̰͖̲̦̼̈́̈́̈́͘M̵̟̏͜Y̵̡̠̗̲̘̓́̊̐ ̶͔̀Ë̸̞̤̟̗́̂͊̅̽Y̷͕̰̮̊̎E̸͖̬̱̒Ş̵̥̣̠͔̇̈́̕

Pluck out my eyes
Want to be blind

Stumble no more

Need to be blind
To seek the truth

And stumble no more

My immodest soul
Father make whole

See only flesh
Behind closed lids

Stumble no more

Overwhelmed and terrified
Will my soul forever die

everyone relentlessly
awfully beautiful

Don't want the male gaze
Only need to see His face

P L U C K     O U T     M Y      E Y E S

Radio Monitoring System

Mount Rochfort Deva

sad electronic songbird

mating calls by email

A 'Deva' is a device that monitors several radio stations and then sends you an email if one of them is abnormal or off-air. Sometimes the Deva power supply dies slowly, and the Deva starts sending erroneous emails when the stations are actually fine. Nobody has any pressing need to be in Westport to fix it however....

Yes I took my Ritalin this morning

Stuck behind
A taxi
And a bus
A four by four
with a fear of water
And a snorkel

Stopped uncertainly
By the divine right of the sceptred hand
At the lollipop man
Citizen cones in single file
Esteemed gentlemen
From the order of the stripes
Of orange and white

Held back by
Thoughts that won't start
Mentally hovering
behind the brake lights of the bus
One LED is flickering

I am late for work
There isn't much on today
It's weird that nobody minds
I forgot what I need to do
And I haven't even started

I wish I was a bus
Or a taxi
Or a traffic cone
Honourably observing the royal procession

I wish that it felt rewarding
When the route comes back to the start
That I felt joy when the thing begins again
The holy royal twirl when the stop becomes go

I am sat at the lights
Waiting to feel fulfilled
Ready to start, ready to start being
Air-conditioned into feeling nearly okay
Nearly awake
But not quite

Yes I took my Ritalin this morning

Warning on a toaster's power cable

WARNING!
the bread may burn
red hot
like ten thousand stars
lost in a nebula or
nichrome whirlwind
The toaster should be attended when in use

Te Raikaehoe, Princess Bay

White horse heads
Roll and rumble
Caressing the shore
Neighing over the rocks

Stopping to circle
and graze on the seaweed
In the little meadows
Of the rockpools

When they're full
The herd twists and pulls
Pale manes rippling
Back out to mysterious depths

Whisked out swiftly
On gentle hooves in steely blue

Popcorn

Growing up was like walking into the end
Of a movie
Called the twentieth century

Nothing left but the PFAS
From the empty lukewarm popcorn

Maiden put out the Final Frontier
Like all music had now finished
Songs soaring into final black abyss

I asked about noisy guitars
Slow chords like shimmering bricks
In monolithic walls of noise,

We did that in the eighties!
They laughed
Said I had to be there

All the maps had been drawn
All the continents found
All the poles scraped
Lunar litter already left

The careers counselor
Had me fill out a survey
There aren't any jobs
we can match you with

Every path had been trodden
Every road needs refinishing
The council never upgraded the pipes
In the heyday of prosperity
We were conceived during.

Now we ride the rollercoaster
Of blown out dopamine
Microplastic surprises
Cost of living crisis

And unwanted advice
From a century we were never invited to.
We can't afford the popcorn now
And we don't have time for movies

Mouseybro

Mouseybro
sleeps
in the oven at night
pops out for a peek
when no movement of light

disturbs his little world
his warm steel home
his toes on the burner
fan by his nose

I know he's in there
though I've never seen him
he leaves little gifts
like seeds of his presence

Fracture