Flatterer. How are things,Terri. Need any advice on PPI's?? Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "alderoak" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2003 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: New Sub:Ship Makkit at Patutiva
> I remember this - though it seems richer on re-reading. For an old bald
man
> with no mistress, you have a sensuous turn of phrase, your Majesty.
>
> Terri )O(
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The Pennine Poetry Works [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
> Behalf Of arthur seeley
> Sent: 19 February 2003 09:37
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: New Sub:Ship Makkit at Patutiva
>
>
> Colin's 'Market' has encouraged me to blow the dust off an old poem.
>
> Ship Makkit at Patutiva
>
> Tilleys hiss in moth-drummed globes of light,
> kumaras glow like rubies, couched in grass,
> drinking nuts piled, brown and plump as Polynesian breasts,
> tapioca, starlight-white, snows on glossy leaves,
> fists of bananas bunch on blushing mangoes;
> char-grilled pink-cheeked job fish, rich seams of meat,
> arrayed for viewing in the hot and yammering market,
> close to the jetty and the sleek lagoon.
>
> Black hands, swift as spiders, fiddle and arrange,
> leaf-waft intrusive flies away from translucent melon
> and oozing plush-fleshed paw-paws ranged over
> treasured calico, chequered and chintzed and willow-pattern blue.
> Eyes, bright with betel, dart and compare,
> secret whispers fix prices, gossip, story and snigger
> behind the black fans of hand and leaf
> and always the anxious harking for a distant greeting
> down the long warm slumbers of the night.
>
> The swaying sentinel, palm-perched at perilous height,
> tears the night with his shrill cry," Uminao! Hem cam noa ia!"
> and a sigh settles on the market, like a lover on his bride.
> The hush explodes with shouts and squeals of laughter
> from the hip-wriggling pikininis' bare-arsed jig,
> the wafting leaves increase in speed as the night bulges
> with the whale-wide, low-watt-light-swung, rust-scabbed,
> tyre-swagged, hulk of the Islands' ferry,
> as it sidles and nudges, with lumbering grace,
> into the web of a dripping puzzle of ropes to mate with the jetty.
>
> Deep pound of diesel mutes to a murmur and the sides clank down.
> Light and people spill into the mill of the market,
> silhouettes till lamps define them and then they melt into the crowd.
> Diesel, sweat, paraffin, trodden earth
> and slapping sea thicken the air.
> I sit with friends on long logs beside the stalls
> apart from this press of strangers.
> We chat and smoke the black tabac in resinous clouds;
> spit betel-blood to roll in the dust,
> watch the women at their toilsome tasks of trade,
> play-act the constant hunt for change, parcel fish in banana leaf,
> bundle the kasava and nali nuts, sift and twist the powdered shell.
>
> The bull-blare of horn informs
> and the Uminoa departs.
>
>
> We watch her leave, thinning down the moon -path, fading, gone,
> then fold the fragments, shake and close the cloths with loving care,
> scold heedless, past-it pikininis with sharp words and long sticks.
> Lamps disperse, float up the hill and will-o-the wisp along the shore;
> canoes down-doppler in fast farewells;
> cash is counted, tucked and put to hoard.
> All over the village lights burn a while, then dowse,
> one last raucous peal of laughter, a dog responds with indignation,
> then, slowly, silence and the moon folds Patutiva into sleep.
>
>
> Arthur W Seeley
>
> Notes. Patutiva is a stopping place for the inter -island ferry of the
> Solomon Islands.
> Ship makkit is a weekly market held to catch the passing trade of the
Ferry
> which always arrives at night.
> Uminao is the name of the old ship that is the ferry.The name might
> translate as 'All of us'
> 'Uminao hem cam nao ia ' is Pidjin for 'The Uminao is here!'
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