End of the road

I walk to the end of the road

taking more time than time before

when a rough bearded pōhutukawa

stops me as if to share a tale.

Emotions migrate like birds

in a confusion of seasons,

but the cracked concrete path takes me

for what I have become

and accepts my present,

so I go along with it.

I won’t pass this way again

so take it in with a wary eye

but at the steep end

a stiff turnstile

yields into a wide yellowing

paddock bounded by rock walls

with a spreading evergreen

at its centre, and the end of the road

may have been a gift.

Royal Oak Roundabout

I have not seen this girl before

but already I love her,

poised, upright, purposeful,

with long hair curling from her helmet

and limbs so slim and breakable

as she asserts her right

to ride with the morning traffic

through the two-lane five-point roundabout.

Belted and air-bagged I drive just behind,

mindful of old scars, praying for her.

a phenomenology of migraine

look there’s a blind spot

not really blind

not a spot like an ink blot

but I can’t make out

what’s really there

like a drop of water

on my glasses

it’s only small

like forgetting to buy an avocado

or a touch of arrogance

that no one else would notice

but it’s bloody well there

right at the core of things

and expanding slowly

like a melanoma

or dementia

there’s a ziggy flickering starting

along the C edge

I retract the melanoma

replace it with a cornfield burn-off

flames licking outwards

you will have to excuse me

pause your problems

frayed my focus is shot

too many metaphors

no similes

what the hell

lightning all around

even through closed lids

go away I’m bunkered

a rumbling grumbling thundering

from a woofer pulsing in the dome

full vision like new grass

re-covers the blackened land

and the mindself

finds its way back

while I sleep rough