Night of Warehouses 1

Night of Warehouses 1 Stephen Oliver grew up in Brooklyn-west, and was educated at Marist Brothers, Newtown, and St Patricks College, Cambridge Terrace, Wellington. He subsequently completed a one year diploma course in magazine journalism at Wellington Polytechnic. He has lived in Paris, Vienna, London and San Francisco, and in Greece and Israel, where he signed on with The Voice of Peace radio ship broadcasting from the Mediterranean out of Jaffa. He has worked throughout New Zealand and Australia as a freelance production voice, newsreader, broadcaster, journalist, copy and features writer. Night of Warehouses: Poems 1978 - 2000 is his sixth volume of poetry and spans two decades. Stephen Oliver is a transtasman poet based in Sydney. B Y S T E P H E N O L I V E R Henwise [poem cycle]2 & Interviews2 Autumn Songs [poem cycle]2 Letter to James K. Baxter [poem]2 Earthbound Mirrors2 Guardians, Not Angels2 Islands of Wilderness A Romance2 Unmanned2 Election Year Blues [poem]2 Night of Warehouses: Poems 1978 - 20002 S T E P H E N O L I V E R Night 3 of Warehouses Poems 1978 - 2000 HEADWORX WELLINGTON © Stephen Oliver, 2001 First published 2001 4 ISBN 0-473-07388-9 Published by2 HeadworX Publishers 26 Grant Rd, Thorndon Wellington Aotearoa / New Zealand http://headworx.eyesis.co.nz Printed by2 Publishing Press HeadworX® is a registered trademark of HeadworX Publishers Typeset by HeadworX i n Garamond 11pt This book is copyright.2 Apart from any fair dealing for2 the purpose of review, private research2 and study, as permitted under the Copyright2 Act, no part may be reproduced without2 written permission from2 the author.2 C O N T E N T S from & I N T E R V I E W S [1978] 10. The wait. 15 /still life2 16. The window falls down to earth that is certain 17 17. You cant hear the clouds 18 19. Macrocarpa 19 5 /answers2 21. there are of course, numerous combinations 202 30. Spring out of October into the next month 212 /incident2 34. Birds knew (the wait then the second shock) 232 /incident2 36. 10 oclock 242 /sketches2 45. Before the winds 252 48. & anyhow, I would write you a sonnet 26 50. I 27 epilogue 28 from Autumn Songs 32 1/ The Gathering 3/ The Flight 5/ The Departure 7/ The Encounter 10/ The Direction 12/ The Orchardist from E A R T H B O U N D M I R R O R S [1984] Something in the Air 40 7. 5 on the Richter scale 45 Flotilla 46 A Meeting 50 Mosaic 51 Whistle Them Up 52 Ascension 53 Perspective 54 The Find 55 from Earthbound Mirrors 562 i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, xi, xii. Black Concentrations 642 Song of Gravity 652 Sang the Sailsurfer 662 from G U A R D I A N S, N O T A N G E L S [1993] 6 Waltzing The Gods 69 Ace 71 A Far Noise from Near Things 72 Halleys Comet 76 Manned Mission to the Green Planet 78 As The Painter Moves Toward His Canvas 80 Hallo Moon, Hallo Moon 81 Queen Street Riot 82 Guardians, Not Angels 83 Nicholas Charles Bochsa 1791-1856 84 Irina Ratushinskaya, Freed 85 And All the Goodtime Charlies 86 John Keats Came On Too Strong 87 The Decadeers 88 from I S L A N D S O F W I L D E R N E S S - A R o m a n c e [1996]2 15. Love is a way back 912 22. As you wait to come 92 29. Then the rats up and 932 32. DEAR LADY, regard my heart 942 35. All the tough kids got 952 44. In the ancient city of Jaffa 962 45. Yeah, there were props of 972 51. Spirit and flesh 982 55. The tubular wind 992 58. On her sad 1002 61. The Orient (lighted beads 1012 67. Night of Warehouses. 102 76. Sparrows pack in a family 1032 78. On the dark side of a 1042 86. Rain solid as riot gear 1052 87. Look pal, men do it 1062 91. Tank tracks down the 1072 92. True ham of the 1082 93. You promised youd 1092 94. Disappointment hung 1102 7 98. Sails whiter than an 1112 100. Pitiless is a word 112 101. The millennial turtle 1132 103. What history, that of 1142 from U N M A N N E D [1999]2 Cultural Misappropriation 1172 from Word Maps 1182 1. Down By The River2 3. False Idols2 8. Continental Shelf Co.2 12. Hills Of Home2 Generation of 68 1202 Pat Boone & Tonto 1212 To Talk of Flags 12 Words to Lure a Ghost 1232 Sheet Music 1242 Myth & Mariolatry 1252 Unmanned 1262 Braidwood 1302 Brilliant Losers 1312 Wardrobe Drinkers 1332 Aunty Eve 1342 Conrad & Wells & Co 1362 Bob Orr 1372 You Dont Remember Dying 1382 Graham Clifford 1392 Bruno Lawrence 1402 Stork 1412 from The Still Watches 142 III / VI / VIII / IX / X / XII N E W P O E M S [1998 - 2000] Of Roofs 153 Taffy the Turtle 15 5 8 Treasure Island 157 Littoral 158 Oldest Pine 159 This Way 161 Ergo Poem 163 Summer Cup 165 Emblem for Dead Youth 167 Tundra Flight 168 Salle dattente 169 Copestone for A Nation 170 The Mangawekas 172 The Good Old Days 173 Transmission 174 Observatory Hill 176 Directors Cut 177 The Woolshed 178 Flagon Days 179 Portraits 180 1. Old Groover 2. The Lonely Men2 3. Lawman2 4. Tour Guide2 Bradys Grave 1842 Wolfhound Century 1852 Index of Titles or First Lines 1892 A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S Many of the poems included here originally appeared in a slightly different form. I wish to thank the publishers of my previous books, Horizontal Press, Hazard Press, Penguin Books (Australia) and HeadworX Publishers, for letting me include them. Acknowledgements are made to the editors of the following magazines where a number of the New Poems originally appeared: The Weekend2 Australian Review, JAAM (N.Z.), Landfall (N.Z.), The Perfect Diary (Australia), 9 SideWaLK (Australia), Southerly (Australia), Staple / New Writing (U.K.) and Thylazine (Australia). Several of the poems in this volume were read by the author as guest poet in Brisbane at Subverse 2000: Queensland Poetry Festival and in Launceston at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival 2001.2 The poems Cultural Misappropriation, Generation of 68 and Bruno Lawrence, were first read and recorded by the author and broadcast on Bookmarks (National Radio) and Plains 2FM 296.9 (Christchurch), New Zealand. Poems without main titles, as in the collection Islands of Wilderness 2 A 2Romance, are tabled by their first lines and numbered as originally published. The selections from Autumn Songs were first published in 1978 as an accompanying booklet to & Interviews. The poems taken from this publication are properly included here as part of that collection. A 35mm film short, based on the poem Something in the Air from Earthbound Mirrors, was narrated by the author to an original music score by Bob Jackson, jazz musician, and directed by Allan MacGillivray. The film screened at the Auckland International Film Festival, 1986, and at the Roma2 Theatre, Sydney, dist. CEL, 1987. A selection from Earthbound Mirrors was also recorded by the author at Mandrill Studios and released on cassette through the Ode Records label, Auckland, in 1984. This 2was the first 2undertaking 2by a 2recording 2company in2 New Zealand to put out a poet on cassette.2 /incident 34 from & Interviews appeared in the anthology, A Cage of Words,2 edited by Harvey McQueen (Longman Paul, Auckland, New Zealand, 1980). The Woolshed and Emblem for Dead Youth appear in the anthologies, Jewels in the Water and Doors, both edited by Terry Locke (Leaders Press, School of Education, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, 2000). 5/ The Departure from Autumn Songs and /answers 21 from & Interviews appear in the forthcoming Real Fire, a counter anthology of New Zealand poems/ poets from the 60s/70s, edited by Bernard Gadd (Square One Press, Dunedin, 2001). My gratitude to Laurence Aberhart, the New Zealand photographer, for 10 generously supplying the front cover photograph, Dunedin [warehouse facade] 1975. The display lettering O F C A stands for Otago Farmers Co-operative Association. My special thanks to Peter Ireland, friend of some 30 years standing, who from the very outset gave generously of his time and knowledge in honest support and encouragement of my early literary endeavours. For those interested in learning more about my early days as a writer in Wellington, New Zealand, an autobiographical essay Chalk, Talk and Asphalt Days appears in JAAM magazine, Issue No. 15 (May 2001). The article puts in context my early development and literary influences as an emerging poet. John Pule and Denys Trussell have written on my poetics in JAAM, Issue No. 13 (March 2000). See also a listing in the recent Oxford Companion2 to New Zealand Literature in English (OUP, 1998). I thank Pina Ricciu for her tireless support, Warren Dibble, playwright and poet, for his strong belief in my work over the years, and Professor Emeritus James Tulip, of the University of Sydney, for his early generosity . My particular thanks go to Mark Pirie for his strong commitment in seeing through to publication Unmanned, as well as this representative selection of work spanning two decades. 11 Night of tWarehouses 12 from2 13 & I N T E R V I E W S 1 9 7 8 14 from & I N T E R V I E W S 10.

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