Thirteen Waves: ii

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment

Toetoe growing in Kaikoura. Photo by Allan Harris, CC BY-ND 2.0

ii.

Let wood spread
along a beach.
Under the moon-cloud
toetoe will be glowing.

Poem and recording by rachel mcalpine CC BY 4.0.
Toetoe growing in Kaikoura: photo Allan Harris, CC BY-ND 2.0

Thirteen Waves: i.

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment

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i

Sunlight throbbing among the yachts;
moonlight oozing.
Waltz of a green-lipped wizard,
hunch of a black-backed gull.
Sun makes punctual explosions
inside the meat of the heart.

Poem and reading by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0, photo of pingao grass by Tomas Sobek CC BY 2.0.

This is the first poem in a sequence, Thirteen Waves, written when I was living in a flimsy little holiday bach (a simple holiday cottage) right beside the harbour of New Plymouth… almost in the harbour, or so it seemed. Day and night had a wholeness, a continuity, and clocks were irrelevant. The poems comprise one big love poem to the land, sea, and coastline of Taranaki. The glorious photographs accompanying them on this blog are by various photographers who have made their work available through Creative Commons licensing — thank you all!

Thirteen Waves was published by Homeprint in 1986 in a limited edition of 100. Handprinted and handbound by John and Allison Brebner, with linocuts by Michael Smither. 

13waves

 

Waiting for meaning

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment

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Someday the meaning
the punch line, the shape.
And during the meanwhile
the anecdotes, the japes.

Pending the golden mean,
the picaresque, the picturesque
the bitsy bits
that make no sense.

Interim a simile
knowing more than you.
Interim the comical,
someday the true.

Meantime is time being
out of the prime,
tackling the particular
and tickling the sublime.

This poem, believe it or not, is about writing a poem, the process, half conscious, half plodding, half mysterious (I know, maths is not my strong suit). Photo shows one stage of writing the poem “Gone“. Pic and poem by rachel mcalpine cc by 2.0.

Recording: Waiting for meaning: read by Rachel

Miss Cashier 1955

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ Leave a comment
Young woman working a pneumatic tube cash carrier at Marshalls department store, date unknown, public domain
Young woman working a pneumatic tube cash carrier

I had a holiday job
upstairs in a cubby hole
fielding metal capsules
reading every message
putting change
into cylinders
like vitamins

whacking that top lip
open,
feeding that hollow brass snake
with change
to be pooped
on a customer
two floors down.

I loved this job.
I was trusted with money
catching live grenades
counting pills
feeding the needy
and playing those tubes
like an organ.

 

Poem by Rachel McAlpine CC BY 2.0. Photo public domain.

World: just the words

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 2 Comments

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For the first time, I’ve just recorded a poem for this blog, Poems in the Wild. But it’s not a poem, it’s a song, spoken, so it sounds kind of strange. This is one of the songs in Shaky Places, which will be performed on Saturday 12 November in Auckland by the Auckland Youth Choir. (Yay, by the way!) I can’t rightly record any of the other lyrics in Shaky Places, which is a suite of New Zealand poems set to music by Felicia Edgecombe — they’re wonderful, but not mine own. Luckily, World is what it’s all about.

Now, how do I do this…?

Recording of World, written and read by Rachel McAlpine

Oh, I did it. My iPhone SE, Griffin’s iTalk app, iTunes, and WordPress made that so easy, I may do it again some day. Better, I hope.

 

 

 

Gone

~ Rachel McAlpine ~ 3 Comments

coming home after absence
home from away
feels like nothing
in the nicest way

I’m ambushed by spaces
a room full of sky
exotica squats
on the path outside

tick tick tick
I do this, I do that
unpick, unpack
and all the while

a cloak of mauve aloneness
slithers closer
you’re here you’re here
you never left