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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775587712 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| File size: | 18 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Young Country
By Kerry Hines, William Williams
Auckland University Press
Copyright © 2014 Kerry HinesAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-77558-771-2
CHAPTER 1
The Old Shebang
THREE BEDS, CANDLE EXTINGUISHED
Did he say it today?
Twice.
What's this?
T. H. Wyatt, Taranaki : Wanted Known ...
... that I was saved from death
by Fitzgerald's eucalyptus balsam. Three days,
and I rose to work anew ...
He's got a long memory.
Fitzgerald has re-posted it.
Doesn't he know you live in Wellington now?
There's always one. With us, it's
contractors with Railways jokes –
one's train of thought, et cetera.
What? Not Where there's a Will ...?
Good night!
And no talking in your sleep tonight.
Eh?
Hood, lens,
my mind's eye ...
Tom awake
Sleep is a tonic for Alex,
he wakes up sweet. Will
goes deep and must be
dragged awake, his eyelids
reluctant, his hair
bemused. Darkness
is my keeper; I don't escape
all night.
* * *
Rain stings the window,
rattles the wall. Alex
breathes evenly. I want to
kick his bed, but can't
in case I need to later.
* * *
I try, but the ill-mannered sheep
have forgotten how to be sociable
except with rocks and bushes.
Too much moon, too much
star hotel.
* * *
Such predicaments remind me of the time
I paused to speak with the colonel's lady
and her mutt formed an attachment to my leg.
I like to tell the story for the secret
I don't share : across the street, the woman
from The Star and Garter, laughing like the dog.
That night, I sought her out. What happened?
— a gentleman never tells. The dog?
Likewise.
* * *
Custom and superstition.
Boots that make your feet swell.
* * *
I don't like hands touching
my face. I don't like questions
about the scar. Ask me
and I'll lie. My mother dropped me,
it was a spear, I gashed it saving
a suicide. It happened
when my ship went down.
Don't ask, you can trust me.
I'll leave your scars alone.
* * *
The wind in three voices.
A man in two acts.
A fire by a tombstone – grey
enveloping grey.
Ghosts of trees.
It rained so hard the sheep stopped eating.
I will not get up
and hide the pipe.
I will not throw myself
on the mercy of the floor.
I will hang
in this sling of a bed,
a bone badly set.
Iuniores ad labores
It was his birthday, and it wasn't raining.
He stood on the step, admiring next door's cabbages.
The life in the soil, he thought, proud of it.
THE CLERK
The office sighs and scratches
sums and memoranda, peanut oil
and sleepers – a preserve of order and
despatch. He adds to the sound
of bodies over paper, pausing only to
worry at an ink-stained finger.
The chief tours periodically, an overseer
guarding against oversight. He's reassured
by work like Will's, but can't let anyone relax.
He treads the room. The clock keeps time,
two minutes fast and favouring
his right foot slightly.
WELLINGTON
Young men in bowler hats
spring up like weeds – civil
servants, clerks, paper collars.
A waste of shame, the self-made
businessman harrumphs. He
blames the government.
Tom shrugs, nods his dissent.
In his mouth, frugal
is a rich word.
CUBA ST, HOMEWARD
Tom decides on jaunty, sets his hat.
Is it? he demands. Alex is busy with
the problem of the path. Will frowns,
caught up in his watch. Brandy,
goes the chorus. Like when Alex
hauled an eel in by mistake and
we all stood round not knowing
what to do, so we dragged it back to camp ...
but it got off on the way, and Alex didn't notice
in the dark ... Alex looks up. He is feeling
for his pipe. Tom throws his
arm around him; no one's hat falls off.
ALEX
The pipe went everywhere.
The pipe had been lost
in rucksacks, under tents,
on rocks, and inside kettles.
The pipe was damned
to everyone but Alex, who
searched with equanimity,
much as he smoked.
For the others' sake,
he tried to keep it safe
between his teeth.
TOM AT BOARD
Dinner, same again.
The Old Identity,
served up with
muttonotous regularity.
God, though, it's
good to eat
as though the day were
just beginning,
mates around you
chewing over the
sinewy problems :
the improbability of the eye
evolving, assassination
as a tactic, cricket,
what we'll need next trip,
what we can carry.
What we'll eat.
* * *
he sings the old songs,
enjoys a couple of good notes
HE DREAMS BRIEFLY
Tom in his tent
with a tent-pole.
That boy from the valley,
cool as you like – his
apple kisses. Tom's skin
so white against
his nakedness.
That bruise
on his throat he wants
to keep fresh –
a flourish, tender,
fated, given.
OUR FRIEND BEST
He willed eels
into his trap,
smuggled pigs
and swam.
Men loved him.
Ladies spooked him.
He spoke his mind,
showed his hand.
One sister, then
the next, died. He
had to hurt himself
to get a wife.
* * *
He said, they said,
he wanted to be a bush scout
then a tohunga.
They said, he said,
he'd make a good one.
* * *
His manners were always
fine, except when he forgot
to ask before he climbed or
lit up where he shouldn't.
He loved the bush
he felled. Sometimes he was
still wrong. Sometimes
he was forgiven
as a man alone
may be.
THE BEACH
No rain yet, and not yet cold.
But enough anticipation
to freshen a Saturday night.
The breast-stroking sea
turns at the wall. Hello
inarticulate ships.
* * *
A conversation without a question.
The mist sniffing over the ridgeline,
the unlit sea. Fresh air, salty,
savoured. The rush of a raised hat.
Almost unseen from below, she has
opened her window, hoisted her
bosom onto the sill – a private box
on the Beach. Mixed flocks,
Thorndon and Te Aro, muddle
through the street – well-to-do, well-
I-never, plebs and privileged, confused
and unconfused. Rain is on the way,
but no one hurries. It's a young country;
people are an occasion.
* * *
Oysters; billiards; ladies in frames –
the photographers can't help it,
they have to stop and study
the window mirroring the town.
Tom looks both ways, in
and back. He cracks a knuckle, feels
the woman with the loafy breasts
eye him from her window.
He reflects on a youth in a familiar hat,
hair the colour of lioness.
who loves me
does no wrong
* * *
afterwards he waited as
she sewed his buttons back on
UNDER TOM'S DREAMS
once, on the farm, he
saw the work of Zeus
the bastard bull forced
into the mare's enclosure
the foal miscarried, the mare
destroyed
Tom recognised at least
he was no animal
* * *
he had to leave before
it got too personal
wanted to hurt
the beast
wanted him to know
the damage he had wrought
(as if a god might be taught
against his will)
* * *
his father cursed, hurled
threats, feigned injury
thundered
Tom would not be missed
* * *
engineer, constable, bushman
he knew the signs
flesh, the weapon
and the shield
avoided trouble
would not submit
every pleasure freely given
was his victory
ETIQUETTE
He had been winding up for weeks.
Discourtesy drove him mad.
Damn their ignorance, the shovers,
spitters, bores and ear-pickers.
Men in the bush behave better.
So when a man beside him coughed
without covering his mouth, Tom
did it for him.
Always give the lady the wall,
said his friend. Punch with turtle,
Tom responded.
TOM DISAPPEARS FROM VIEW
The Diagnosis
Blind. Going. Blink
hard. Temporary,
Tom realised, is all
I am.
Late reports
Blinding. Hard. Call
for another. Knock back
another. The hoot
of sin ... Make them
laugh, they'll never
forget you.
CHAPTER 2
Never far from water
BRITISH EDEN
It has no snakes.
It stands within view of hell,
but maintains its holiness.
It is temperate, founded
on fairness,
a meritocracy. What,
not who, you know.
It enjoys the benefits of modernity
without its depredations.
It reminds me of England
in my grandfather's time.
Its rivers are the soul of natural man,
its lakes an opening into spirit.
Its peaks bring us closer to God.
You are never far from water.
You are never far from land
that you might make your own.
There's work to be done,
enough for all.
A hungry man may fish himself a feed,
or live on windfall sheep
and apples.
SHELLYCOAT
[Shellycoat emigrates
He wanted a new life, new lives,
a warmer climate to ease the lift
of his chest. He wanted to refine
his tattooing technique, test
his art on different flesh.
He was tired of Presbyterians.
He wanted untamed rivers.
His first attempt at settlement
foundered, through a disobliging
taniwha. Wheesht, plenty of room
for all. He drifted to a stretch of coast
beside a river mouth whose teeth
chattered companionably.
The voices of the dead whispered
from his coat. He bent his head
and listened, nodding
to the wind, sharpened a scallop
and waited.
Shellycoat in his element
Some give themselves to water
like a lover. Some step like cats.
Some sing, and others
sermonise. Some are seduced
by shells, some by
moonlight, many by what's just
out of reach.
Shellycoat loves them all
differently. His wild embrace
makes bunting of a gentleman, poker-
work of a little girl; his tenderness
can make an angel out of anyone.
Shellycoat coasts
Gold filtered through,
enough for a tooth.
Such is civilisation,
a gold tooth in an empty mouth.
He likes to rake
his hands through sand.
Handfuls of warm, dry sand
are a constant pleasure.
Hand to hand to hand,
an endless pleasure.
Down-river
In the dark, Shellycoat
empties his pockets.
He is sharp at the mouth.
The boy pushed in
as a joke by his friends
is water all over and
through. Shellycoat sits
by the body. A shell
like an empty locket
rests in his hand
and will not shut.
THE NATIONALITIES
She speaks against the silence, roughening the grain.
Oats, perhaps, he thinks, stooking methodically.
Melodic, she thinks, listening to the cadences.
Cicadas, he thinks, looking over one shoulder.
* * *
The Scandinavians look askance at
scandal; their definition is different
from ours. They're easy to
misunderstand. Even in this heat,
I've never seen one languid.
There's less of them than you might
expect; what's there is muscle,
even in their clergy.
* * *
He liked the quiet ones.
Dog, woman, landscape –
no seducer, no seduced.
This was truly freedom :
not choice but the chance
to follow your clean instinct.
* * *
the biped man and his straw
of a daughter
the man who couldn't walk
with his arms
the scraped canvas of the sky
the sky dropped and put back before
anyone could notice
the man who laughed without consonants
the man who laughed in hiccups
the women planning the seating,
debating the seating
* * *
The language of this land
is awkward in the mouth.
Sheep stamp once for no, twice
for no. The rain defies belief.
Tight houses, consanguinity.
Birds fall out of consciousness.
There is too much
of little us.
* * *
The sunflowers won't reach,
and the pelargoniums aren't runners.
Her mother wants me to call her
mum, or maybe ma'am.
They don't understand his northern
speech; he doesn't get their smiles.
Is it a fucking story you want,
or a fucking argument?
Peaches, wild peaches.
Year after year.
RIVER HUTT
They took accidents to the butcher's wife.
She could darn a man's hand, slap
something raw on a black eye,
oil a burn. What, then how,
added to her list. A kick, a cut,
a ricocheting saw,
a spill, a fall, an axe. She also
laid out corpses, talking to them
as she never did
to the merely wounded,
touching them
as if they hurt.
THE PICNIC
'A butcher's daughter
from the Hutt!' Yet
unlike her, I knew
how to wear a hat.
AFTER THE FLOOD
Over our heads, debris in the trees.
The Hutt, people said.
Run for your lives.
That was how Wellington got started.
Geometry gave way to geography.
The settlement found its own course.
I didn't want to work in town, but
that was where work was.
The streets of Wellington are paved with
Hutt shingle; I walked home
every day.
* * *
When Father was charged with arson,
he was described as respectable, a gentleman,
and forty-five. He was never so proud.
A day of witnesses against him
and no evidence. Our old house,
empty, over-insured – that was all they had.
A day of people we didn't know, kerosene
and assessors, a man who looked like him
in the street, that kind of hat.
The case was thrown out; he aged ten years.
Fourteen witnesses. No hard feelings.
The banks of his life undercut.
* * *
He was scrupulously fair. We thought this
merely natural. After he died, I suffered
martinets and mercenaries, unequal stewards
weaker than limestone tea – men who knew
best for me, men who knew better.
I suffered them for him.
We got on with everyone.
CRUSH
on his doorstep every morning
ribboned flowers from her garden
wildflowers, fresh vegetables
in a paper boat
like a sister, she said
she had no brothers
came from a family of women
sometimes a quote, a line
pencilled gestures, herself
at one remove
he visited thanks on Sundays
obliged
she liked a man to wind the clocks
WALKING HER HOME
Curtains twitch – the electric impulse
of the muscle of the street.
Later, a conference will determine
whether she wore teal or turquoise,
if his suit was best or second-best,
how much separated them.
1
After marriage, questions.
Not doubts. Little questions.
Will he always rise first? Will the firewood take? Will our garden always be a source of such pleasure?
Poking the coal range, rearranging the kindling.
2
Increased self-sufficiency.
Tending our own garden.
Needing no one else's company
3
and yet, curious about other couples.
carrots leeks figs potatoes sunflowers lilies
peas
gooseberries
baby fruit trees
CIVICS
In a democracy, you get
to throw cabbage leaves and eggs
at the window of your candidate
on election night. In a
fledging democracy, he gets
to break out of another window
and make good
his escape.
If you are premier, it's wisest
not to shout insults
at the electorate : you may find
your statue is decapitated,
a you-know-what balanced
on your stump.
THE USUAL ALTERNATIVE
Drunk, drunk, drunk
in charge of a horse,
tethering a horse in the street,
letting a horse wander.
Knocking over telegraph poles
while moving a building.
Drunk, letting a child
wander, riding a horse
in front of a train, in view
of a train. Jumping onto
a train in motion, travelling
without a ticket or a pass.
Disorderly conduct. Lying
in front of a train,
drunk. Drunk, found, fine or
the usual alternative.
THE MAN WHO TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF WITH AN AXE
[First blow
Indians he hadn't met
threatened him. He
pushed one back.
This is how it goes,
he thought, pursued
through streets he didn't know.
A spike through the heart,
the woman promised, though
he'd rather a shot
to the head.
He picked up the axe as they
clustered around him, angry
sparrows harrying a hawk.
Second blow
He'd been two weeks drinking in the Wairarapa.
He had always been afraid of pain.
Third blow
Death never comes singly.
Think of all the little deaths
you'll feed.
Fourth blow
His problem was impatience.
It's the wrong physiology – the doctor
demonstrated – inefficient from
a muscular-skeletal point of view.
The jury was not unsympathetic.
If he'd taken off a limb,
he would have bled ...
It's all right, the doctor says,
touching his wife's arm.
It's a happy ending.
The man in the dock wept, promised
he'd learned his lesson, ran
his palms along his thighs.
* * *
Three in the morning. Tui,
morepork. No, but. No, but.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Young Country by Kerry Hines, William Williams. Copyright © 2014 Kerry Hines. Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
i. The Old Shebang,ii. Never far from water,
iii. Settlement,
iv. Whakaki,
Notes to poems,
Note on the photographs,
Acknowledgements,
Selected bibliography,