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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                    #7/thyla7k-so AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 7 The Poetry of Stephen Oliver Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Stephen Oliver by Pina Ricciu, 2002. I MURUROA TRUFFLES I POHUTUKAWA OF LA CORUŅA I AN ACTUAL ENCOUNTER WITH THE SUN ON MY BALCONY AT FRANCE STREET I DROOGS I MURUROA TRUFFLES       (Apres moi le deluge) O France's Gaullist government     Of President Chirac Has made it clear to us down here     Nuclear testing's back - 'Don't doubt I plan to detonate     There's nothing you can do, When deep beneath Mururoa     I set a bright flambeau. 'In the sea depths of the basalt     Under the coral cone, I'll boil bombe ā la fricassee     Within a pot of stone. 'Elite commandos in dinghies     Do ceaselessly patrol Round the 12 mile exclusion zone,     Round that petit-atoll. 'We bombed the Rainbow Warrior     Our frogmen played the prank In Auckland harbour blew her hull,     And so it was she sank. 'We are a force upon the earth     And Greenpeace contests it. France I say is here to stay in     Case you hadn't guessed it. 'O France's pride is paramount     Therefore I do no wrong, Don't doubt I plan to detonate     Vive la bombe! Vive la bombe!' France fell before the Boche's boot     Which made of her 'a whore', Chirac's the New Napoleon     He's on the march once more. *Recent surveys show crumbling and fractures at the base of these coral sites posing the threat of 'plutonium hot-spots' Published in Deep South (NZ). POHUTUKAWA OF LA CORUŅA Wellington: A pohutukawa tree in Spain has stirred debate on whether the Spanish were the first Europeans to reach New Zealand ...              Sydney Morning Herald, September 22-23, 2001 Bark bearded, large as a mastodon, it stands within its neat stone ring; the pohutukawa at La Coruņa, north western Spain, capital of Galicia province, (an early Celtic colony); memories growth five hundred years back, holds secrets of cartographers ornately in its curves; guessed at trade routes branching Pacific latitudes, El Dorado seen along the East coast of Aotearoa - smoke moving behind olive foliage off morning fires, smudged cove, inlet; crowded pohutukawa bloom, glowing with the first heat of iron that bleeds heart-red, out into the rising daylight. Published in Deep South (NZ) and Illuminations (USA). AN ACTUAL ENCOUNTER WITH THE SUN ON          MY BALCONY AT FRANCE STREET             (for Gloria Schwartz) When the moon slipped its knot and left a ring for the night to drop through, and a baggage of stars thudded on the loading bay at the other side of the world,                                                           I heard, "Ho! get up you slack-arse poet, I want to have a word with you."                               It was the sun. "This is a surprise," I yawned. "Shouldn't be - you're the one who's been whingeing about his own personal light."                               "I must admit," I conceded, "I was worried there for a bit."                               "Right," answered the sun. He spat at the window turning it molten. "You must know by now Stephen, I visit with a poet every thirty years or so. Last time it was Frank O'Hara,                                                            and before that, Mayakovsky. Can't say it's your turn but I'll stop by anyway. You're not a poet for all time but for your own time. Don't worry about it. And forget those supposed poets the M=E=Z=Z=A=N=I=N=E=S as you call them caught between the floors: they ain't going nowhere.               So get up and make a cup of tea!"                             "Sure, care to join me?" "Only for a minute," he said, "I've got more important things to do today, like glinting off the Hauraki Gulf and the iron-clad poppy of Sydney Tower.                               Oh, that reminds me, then I'm off to San Francisco to wake up that ex-girlfriend of yours you keep pissing off with late night calls and false promises."                                             By now I could see the sun was pretty worked up. "C'mon, forget that crap. You write some good stuff but you've got to hang in there, and like me it'll come to light."                             "Thanks sun." "And knock off the guilt trips and stop getting pissed (in your Sydney dreams, pal!) you'll burn yourself out - I recognise the signs."                             "Yeah, seems I have been a little preoccupied."                             The sun jumped onto my balcony outside the window. "You don't see much of me down here at POETS' PALACE - do you? Move over, this is the only time I get a look in."                             I propped myself up on one elbow.                             "Remember, you're not writing bus-timetables and calling it 'performance poetry' like a few I could name. Stick with the atmospherics, the true essence of people. That's your angle, as mine is now to brow beat you. And don't get into this doomsday kick either, leave such things to the (small minded).                             Honestly, it's straight forward focus."                             By now my hangover had evaporated.                             "Hold on sun, I've a few questions." "Sorry," called the sun, receding. "We've had our little talk. Give my regards to Greece again, if you ever get there."                             And he was gone                                                         and I got up to another beginning, and a day. *A parody on Frank O'Hara's 'A True Account Of Talking / To The Sun At Fire Island' who in turn based his account on Mayakovsky's more robust poem, 'A Most Extraordinary Adventure'. POETS' PALACE A name given by the author to an old Kauri guest house in France Street (the upper story of which he occupied in the early '80s) near the prostitute's strip off K'rd, Auckland. Various 'emerging' poets & artists lived downstairs at intervals during this period. As the last of its kind in Newton Gully this 100 year old wooden building was finally demolished at the close of the decade. Published in Antipodes (USA). DROOGS Sub-divisions ghostly as an architect's sketch. 'Thugs, street punks, require small spaces for violence, a too expansive space gives                              them nothing to hit against - small-time suburbs and small boredoms, off ramps leading nowhere but back onto the highway the other way (rap is crap, you got dat?) They stare at you hard, these losers, as though somehow trying to get you in the rear-vision mirror. KILL A WHITE sprayed on the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive in - fuck that, FRY A BLACK is what I say. They run at you out of mean state house kennels, rabid dogs that bark abuse, a bunch of bandy legged mongrels in striped trackies - asphalt niggers. I cruise by this place once in a while hunting sluts,                              sisters of these deadshits. Droogs from the dungeons of middle-earth. Don't have much luck which is probably good luck - sometimes I make it with some gross slag if she's strayed off her patch - like the public phone is busted up and she has to walk a block,                              'Yo - hey girl' (whatever) and then I gun off down the off ramp back into the safety of speed and oily darkness -                              I yell out the window, 'Go fuck ya mother, bro. Scum breeds scum - man, how I hate these spooks, all that tribal bullshit dumped                              either side the highway.' Night thickens, stars blow about like used wrappers. About the Poet Stephen Oliver Stephen Oliver was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He completed a one year diploma course in Magazine Journalism, Wellington Polytechnic. Radio NZ Broadcasting School. Casual Radio Actor. He has lived in Paris, Vienna, London, San Francisco, Greece and Israel. Signed on with the radio ship, The Voice of Peace broadcasting in the Mediterranean out of Jaffa. Stephen free lanced as production voice, newsreader, announcer, journalist, copy and features writer. Poems widely represented in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, USA, UK, South Africa, Canada, etc. His published titles include ten books of poetry. In addition, Stephen Oliver's work can be found in a number of online literary magazines. His recent prose work is published in: Deep South www.otago.ac.nz/deepsouth [Contempt: A Survey]. Thylazine [One Day In The Life of Vicki Viidikas, and, The Poet As Fraud: A Composite], SoMa Literary Review [One Day In The Life of Richard Ramos]. Stephen is a transtasman poet who is currently based in Sydney, Australia.    [Above] Photo of Stephen Oliver by Pina Ricciu, 2002. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.7 (March, 2003)