Belching flame

(To James K. Baxter)

By Sano Malifa

Now that you are dead man, the flat rock upon which you sat is mossed and weeds push the floorboards up inside the shed-house—did you have to die?

What idiot star will the fractured-bodied world of the doomed-young follow up the winding gorge-edged path— upriver splintered flesh and brain, sensing no fear in the great depth below walking arm in arm to where no bone of man is buried?

I had wanted to meet you in a small park surrounded by marigold sun-dried hills where it’s quiet: Or in a dim-lit pub in the afternoon — you talking, belching flame — a nd I listening sip slowly from the glass that reflects the withered face of a man yelling to be heard.

That day they lowered your boxed-body into the centre of the Maori heart up north, it was fine in Wellington.

The wind blew the smell of dug-up earth through the window slits into this room—l nailed the newspaper clippings on the paining-fiesh wall.

And now, my head has cleared itself: Hangover of the blind lost in his own darkness—your word has made me brave.

Clean bones awashed in memory, glitter from the river-bed grave.

The Jerusalem you built will crumble: The ones who saw in you a spark of Lenin weeping will disperse to wherever they stumble from leading the short-cut into the abyss: Pity the hand that snatched—or tried to — the hot embers from where they burned the good sense inside the doldrum furnace, bolstering the flame that never ceased to burn, gripping the pain unflinching, so the parky-limbed and the timid bony fellas could stretch out shakeless in belly-sagged comfort awhile.

That same cry from the depth of troubledom: That switch blade flicks again: That howling of wind over tombs of stone: That cold fist driven solid into the lower abdomen, harder than shoe heel, and that shady wood is stripped naked.

Branch that once gave shelter is empty now—to live is to endure the cold thrust of rain, to watch the dry wood bleed on porous ground.

Death is the only rest-place where each man fails . . . (Continued over)

though now, your word has carved itself on granite rock Aeon Entity: Good image polished clean in each century rain—that was your natal wish. If your other voice has lost its polemic pitch— distortion of tractor and sleek festive scream — it is inevitable. They sleep soundly now.

Eyeballs that refuse to focus on the binding web of fate—metal strand net that twists the breath from those entangled in it.

I walk the normal distance to the void: Depth where all things spring from to hecu• the guttural lion roar rumble from the grave: ‘Do not think the poor loves begging loves piss-hot poverty, or the shattered home kid prefers the hard floorboard to a family-warmed bed.

I have spent my life a bloody substitute and your funky eyes are still shut-tight.’

Well man, you fought a good fight.

In this world of money and glory, it is madness fighting to win.

You said yourself no one can fight the world. If out of the barren waves another of your kind emerge to launch letter bombs at the slinky screwballs, they would still remain politely unmoved.

It takes a fire between the legs to budge them—fire that burns a hole in steel.

Just last night they smashed a man’s skull and kneecaps at Civic Square, then took off on bikies —wrath on wheels.

Do we blame them? Mongrel, Black Power, Hell’s Devil?—while their fathers get stoned on booze, these kids get stoned on speed.

I have walked from where the tongue is silent to speak these words.

Simple enough to say the night is a dark angel. The quiet room yields a certain gratitude.

Outside maybe a ghost prowls there: This place of skulls and bones where no mind is free of fear.

The rich straddling fat-cushioned beds, cuddling ecstasy from woman breast and sensuous thighs lovely, dreaming—wealth soaring madly, japs the sky ribcage bugs the mind.

It’s cold now. I switch the heater on.

Warmth for a body shivering somewhere.

My father will hit the wall of heaven twice before he could understand: In this great city dark tunnel somewhere, shrivelled-up legs knee the groin, flesh shrunk and head hunched-in between shoulder stumps, someone is performing the cold yoga terrible act. Act of the saints whose teeth clank like steel, whose fists are knots of iron unprised open, whose eyes watch the river of life flowing away slowly into the dark.

Cursing at no one in narticular — moans of the lost child needing open hands to home in.

Not difficult at all to imagine being born to love and to hate— pub and pulpit are where men congregate: To see the hovering dove through clear or beer glazed eyes, is not difficult at all to imagine. It is when the eyes refuse to see that the mind loses all contact.

Man, your teaching is too humane, but I believe you. How you fought your war with fleas —too much.

The little devils have populated the bed, coming from inside the warm fur coat of Spooky the Siamese cat.

And each morning Gini sprays the bed with flea powder from the drug store.

A futile attempt really because the hopping creatures are miles away before she could spread the sheets out.

Good thing is that they don’t touch me— dark skin smell must irritate them.

Ah well, it’s good now to feel the quiet night around me. I cannot see through the curtains if other houses are lighted.

I cannot see the thought running through Ginfs head that gullies her brow now, lying by the fire asleep as the cat snuggles up cosily in the crotch of her thighs.

I cannot tell where my own mind will take me—life is a mystery, I accept that. A great enigma . . . who can split the shell open and walk through without stumbling?

Outside now the grass is wet with rain no doubt and the silent morepork up the hill respects the dead. I think of water bursting from a crack in the mountain , meandering down the plain slowly, not knowing when the sun will suck it dry before reaching the stone-deaf sea.