(With thanks to David Howard, who helped me out of the cheesecake - A) ________________ inamorata look out from Rabbit Island see the scallop basket slipping water like a half-filled groyne see beyond the sandhills the mast of a beached scow unnaturally still in the half-light if you drop your fan its shell-like clatter will spill out and split like a spoilt secret so listen to the cowrie put its porcelain labia to your ear and there is its intimate whisper slip the white flesh into your mouth the orange cowl, too close your mouth; swallow glance up at the clouds you might say the sky is your slippery oyster you might say love is about to unfasten its mother-of-pearl buttons you could say there is a dark front coming in from the south and it will probably rain you should then draw your cape about you to tell the world you are a pilgrim with your heart on your sleeve a scallop shell at your breast _______________________________________________ les haricots ne sont pas sales [the origin of Zydeco] he claimed he had played in a wild zydeco band back in high school in Monticello Texas but nobody believed him: he had no rhythm he was all clean beans & fastidious tendrils & no mean machine either with thighs to slap but elongated & stringy with a fiddler's neck & nor was he creole but he did have the clipped drawl that knew it all & the superior smile that was aware that the Great Khan had conquered the west because his cohorts could ride no hands & there he would stand on the grass his ear cocked for hooves drumming across the frozen steppes & he'd be riding too pumping his wild accordion oblivious to all the arrows black in the sky like rain _______________________________________________ Tchaikovsky enters a new and darker period of his life In his dream there is a long avenue of yew trees. They spike the late summer evening like a succession of sharp black grace notes. An orange sun setting behind him stretches his jagged shadow on the rack of the pathway and causes the pink pastilles to glow with waxy promises. Such pretty poison can scarcely be borne. Crow fruit, raven fruit: not to be thought about were it not for the shadow and shudder of wings. At the end of the pathway Darkness sighs and carefully buttons his black greatcoat, stubs out his last corona and reaches for his hat. 'I'm going now,' he whispers. 'Close the door behind me.' ___________________________________________ shakers at Nova perched on wrought iron somewhere between the past & the future four shot glasses on the table green with Ireland or cream with Brazil just for the moment the Lord of the Dance is presiding elsewhere not north where the waters are rising but south where there is music still & here we are wrought caught somewhere between that north and south toasting life gravely & finitude & infinitude & all that is between outside in the darkness rain is shining like a foil curtain & the door opens & closes with people coming & going after wine or caffeine theatregoers swirl about fanning themselves with programmes while Seamus the waiter the mischief maker appears and disappears when we look elsewhere this way the other way Seamus fills the shaker with Ireland with Brazil with brown flood water & derry green guitars Seamus the trickster rogueish & brogueish shines like a coffee spoon dissolves like a sugar cube shoots like a shot glass sparkling with stars so we drink to the stillness we drink to the movement we drink to eternity & to the moment we drink to hemispheres yet to explore as the suggestion of music ticks like a metronome slippery faraway Seamus an eel in the river laughs at our lying & fills the shaker once more ______________________________________________ how to talk to a peacock he will not want to know about the harsh whistle of oxygen the gasp beneath the plastic face mask he cannot anticipate things beyond the immediate strut flounce and flourish so if you don't mind keep it light shining keep it iridescent don't mention the blood the wail of distant ambulances is an unnecessary distraction he would prefer the deep silence of black waters studded with lilies their mute admiration but if you must mention stethoscopes (or calipers or scalpels) just speak of them as bright shiny objects of things perhaps with their own beauty although not the beauty of the fabulous eye in his fan tail (at which you must gasp) of perfect feathers ________________________________________ fish salad at Latinos it was a careful balancing act: the empty wine glass a fulcrum for the fork the knife and the lateral spoon the piazza had been full first of hatred salsa-sharp and pungent and then of cheers for the Praetorian Guard you smile and with your finger you set the fork rocking on its fragile axis and it tilts between hate and bombast it seems for the moment that we do have a choice so I take it reach forward to still the movement but still the memory crawls on bleeding knees through hacked hair and cobblestones and the laughter at the next table can do nothing to conceal the pendulous breasts sagging in the dust and mortification the shredded shirt and spittle until the waiter brings the bowl of fish blanched by lemon juice then as he pours the soothing wine you smile as if at something almost forgotten before replacing the fork and knife retrieving your spoon and dipping it deep into the clarity of your soup _________________________________________ the seahorses at Portobello you can see that the octopus has had very bad tidings it is a fevered anenome in a jetstream of petals folding and unfolding in a gulping rhythm of grey and worried pink with more equanimity the seahorses hold up their translucent chests their mouths puckered in a grandmother's kiss bloodlessly proud and quaintly vertical they rock against the odds they are the nodding uncles of rectitude with their wobbly gait and monitory shake and their fern-frond tails roll and unroll with slow deliberation their world is a cylinder of golden sand and starfish of yellow weed swaying in a stream of platitudes in a never-ending bubble after bubble of good advice _______________________________________ love in the jam-maker's mansion all in all it seemed love was the best option in a time of drought with the people praying for rain and the lakes shrinking to scabs though the glossy leaves of citrus shone through gusts of dust and grapefruit glowed with the promise of marmalade in the dry wind in the sound of flax clapping in a tinkle of glass bells it seemed best to open the window to let the floral curtain billow and blossom let the large bed be our orchard dangling with flesh and drooping with juice drupes fat with summer and lemon-light all fructose and pectin-ready to set slowly in polished bottles with elegant labels the sort you find in the saffron-scented shops of the purveyers of fine comestibles conserved preserved for rainy seasons jellied golden and sealed with red wax later in a new morning we will walk hand in hand down the creaking stairs past the wide-eyed girls in white pinafores the men in grey waistcoats to the green portico and the stillness of a deserted lawn a broken fountain and parched distant hills ______________________________________________ Bio Note: James Norcliffe, b Greymouth 1946, lives in Christchurch but has spent extended periods in China and Brunei Darussalam. He has published novels for children, a collection of short stories The Chinese Interpreter and three collections of poetry the most recent being Letters to Dr Dee (Hazard Press) and A Kind of Kingdom (Victoria University Press). A new collection Rat Tickling is forthcoming from Sudden Valley Press. He was the 2000 Robert Burns Fellow at the University of Otago. His work has appeared in journals worldwide, including Australia where he has been published in among others, Poetry Australia, Southerly, Siglo, Island, Overland, Linq, Imago , Verandah and Ulitarra. He is represented in a number of New Zealand anthologies including the Oxford Book of NZ Poetry in English, the Oxford Book of NZ Love Poems, and Essential NZ Poems. Forthcoming work will appear in Porcupine, Pearl, Verse, and the New Delta Review (all USA). He is currently short fiction editor for Takahe Magazine. -- Alison Croggon Home page http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ Masthead Online http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/