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Authors: Fred Simpson

Lucky Me

BOOK: Lucky Me
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L
UCKY
M
E
!
Fred Simpson

© 2011 Fred Simpson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems—without the prior written permission of the author.

ISBNs:

Parent - 978-1-908477-39-2

ePub - 978-1-908477-40-8

Mobi - 978-1-908477-41-5

Published by Original Writing Ltd., Dublin, 2011.

The book is dedicated with love and gratitude, to John.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Linaria, Birch Seed, Earthquake, Smoke in Winter, Crack---Crack
and
Mother and Child
have been, or are due for publication, in
POETRY New Zealand.

Girl Skin, Alienation, The Core, Lion, Interface
and
My Brother's Ducks in Vietnam
have been published in
THE MOZZIE,
Queensland, Australia.

Meeting, Breaking News, Since Then!, Funfear, “Leap, Frog!”, Umzingwane, River Remembered, Cow, Fuchsia, Suburbia
and
Sublimation
have been published in
VALLEY MICROPRESS,
Wellington, New Zealand.

Fish
has been published in
NEW CONTRAST,
Cape Town, South Africa.

Mummy
has been accepted for publication by
a fine line,
the magazine of The New Zealand Poetry Society.

B
IOGRAPHY

F
RED
S
IMPSON
was born in 1949 in South Africa but was raised and educated in Zimbabwe. He briefly taught English in Bulawayo in the early ‘70s, and then studied medicine in Cape Town.

The focus of his medical career has always been in rural General Practice, first in South Africa, and then in New Zealand, which he and his family moved to in 1987.

He continues to work as a doctor, but his ‘secret love' of writing, (producing the occasional poem), is no longer a secret! In the past few years he has written a short novel and a two act play (both unpublished), as well as a number of poems, several of which have been published in literary magazines in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.

He lives in Cambridge, New Zealand, with his wife and his dog. His two children live abroad.

Lucky Me!
includes a selection of forty nine poems written over the past few years. The poems have been arranged into 7 sets of 7, and they reflect Simpson's range in theme and style. Most aligned themselves, but some were ‘difficult' and uncertain of their place. The composite expresses the poetic imperatives of someone who is both troubled and content.

C
ONTENTS

O
NE
Seventh

C
UT
F
LOWERS

N
EAR
D
EATH

P
IWAKAWAKA

T
HIEF

T
WENTY
F
IFTH
W
EDDING
A
NNIVERSARY

S
UBLIMATION

S
PRING

T
WO
Sevenths

A P
OEM
F
OR
M
Y
S
ON

F
ISH

M
Y
B
ROTHER'S
D
UCKS
I
N
V
IETNAM

S
MOKE
I
N
W
INTER

E
UREKA
!

E
ARTHQUAKE

S
INCE
T
HEN
!

T
HREE
Sevenths

B
IRCH
S
EED

G
UY
F
AWKES

M
OTHER
A
ND
C
HILD

T
HE
T
OSS

A
CT
T
WO

T
HE
C
ORE

S
UBURBIA

F
OUR
Sevenths

A
LIENATION

W
ISHING

L
INARIA

L
UCKY
M
E
!

M
EETING

R
AT

S
WIMMING
B
ACK

F
IVE
Sevenths

G
IRL
S
KIN

M
OTHER'S
D
AY

H
APPY
E
ASTER

U
MZINGWANE
, R
IVER
R
EMEMBERED

F
UN
F
EAR

F
UCHSIA

F
ROM
T
HE
O
LD
S
CHOOL

S
IX
Sevenths

C
OW

C
RACK
~~~~~~~ C
RACK

B
LAKE'S
W
ORM

I
NTERFACE

C
ARRION
E
AGLE

“L
EAP
, F
ROG
!”

E
CLIPSE
2011

S
EVEN
Sevenths

H
ER
B
ATH

B
REAKING
N
EWS

G
ULL
L
EGS

O
N
T
HE
D
EATH
O
F
A Y
OUNG
P
ATIENT

L
ION

M
UMMY

R
ETINA

O
NE
Seventh
C
UT
F
LOWERS

A flower grew

with the morning sun,

an iris, blue,

with a protruding tongue.

It offered lyrics

for an empty song

for the two we grew,

and then were gone.

N
EAR
D
EATH

Since it was Easter

she expected the full

moon to illuminate

her tunnel home, but

rain slapped the wind

screen with fury.

Then, as luck would

have it, she spotted

red eyes, and was

doggedly able to

follow the tail

of a drunk truck.

P
IWAKAWAKA

Unfathomable light links

my dream and consciousness. Phloem

(growing old) arches and

resettles as I shift.

No dawn song. Lorry

tyres on the tar.

With half eyes I

scan the drawn curtain

for the dormitory moon, for

the placid wound that

offered bile instead of kiss;

and turn my rugby neck.

Soft photons etch her maiden

nose and silver pillows her

hair. Lips sip cold, and

her left ear is deaf

to the clock. Sally snorts

and I leave the bed for a piss.

My molten ache is poem

past. There is no one else to miss.

I giggle at the bowl and

conjure up the moon caught

naked in a breaker's curl, our

stolen rose, and the
1
piwakawaka's jig.

1
A small bird native to New Zealand. Also called a fantail.

T
HIEF

I will steal a rose

for you again, even

at risk time, even

when a half-moon

only half conceals;

  I will steal a rose.

I will sway it in

your sleeping breath

again, again will;

regardless of the

spiralling moon-pull,

  I will steal a rose.

T
WENTY
F
IFTH
W
EDDING
A
NNIVERSARY

Silver? No. No, ours is better still

My Lovely; ours is grey, favourite grey,

tucked feather grey ---
‘coor- coor, coor- coor'---

calling him, calling him. Ours is spent

flame and calm metal water,

earth turning ash in the east.

Silver is too fine, a mere slit

in the spectrum. Ours is pencil shade

My Love, brush with soft bristle,
Zorba

dancing, dancing on moon chalk, black

pearl, birch skin bluff-dead above snow,

and steel fish drifting in shallows.

S
UBLIMATION

Like a ray

he swam, and she,

each through the eye

of the other,

  their slow light

lighting up jelly, membrane, electric

nerve tissue,

forming a conduit

of dangling bulbs,

burning anew old

touches that jolted

the quivering tips

of each amygdala fold.

S
PRING

We are tilted and tree-young,

Rinsed new with the rising

Sap, corpse-dyed, mesmerized

By tufts of inchoative

Green, hooded and poised

Like clitoris and tongue.

We, once-wilted, are stung,

Jolted by current to run,

Run, chased by electrons from

Root to root-bound lung,

                      new-sprung.

T
WO
Sevenths
A P
OEM
F
OR
M
Y
S
ON

Among washed rocks

she runs, making heaven

with her father

on the promised sand.

Disappointment is effectively

dispensed with by a crab

held high, in triumph.

He approaches for his daughter

to hold, to marvel as the creature

moves asquint, views asquint

their primitive connection,

            making heaven

as I did, with dog hair on hessian.

Her papa is imprinted,

embedded and petrified like myth,

nurtured in sequence with

splinter-hurt, ant smell, and mother-made rain.

F
ISH

The sun had not yet breached the line

of hills hemmed in, (gentian, jagged

hills), and the inlet at the turn was

smooth as paint.

Novice father, novice son sat down where they were

bid, as everyone but they had settled in the stern

and everyone but they was busy

with his hook.

The vessel shuddered as diesel turned

the screw, then puttered to the entrance

of the harbour where the current strained

to claim more sea.

Each was silent as the skipper crossed the

bar, then up each jumped to stab at bait

with kukri primed on oil stone. They

could not wait,

they had no time to catch the streak

of orange red nor spot the sweeping gull

miss fish, but seconds had them holding taut

their rods with leather grip.

At last the boat approached the reef and idled

as the anchor chain was dropped below her bow.

The motor cut, and hesitation held until a nod allowed

BOOK: Lucky Me
6.93Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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