I
a monument
is a warning
an admonition
to be mindful
and not just
a memorial
the child climbing
the cenotaph’s lions
in that canyon
of shadow
on Bowen Street
wondered
who went inside
those glass doors
who comes out again
from our own
reflections
the same thing
at the Savage Memorial
in Auckland
yew-shaded
and Jugendstiled
whoever enters
death’s civil court
and sunken pond
goes inside
from the sky’s
blue fire
for a growing room
is best
gwell yw ystafell
a dyf
between death’s
black wall
and the white
wall of light
make sure you choose
where you really live
II
we ourselves
are a few centuries old
by now
maybe think ourselves
aeons
have less need
for institutions
to stand
in our stead
and may reckon time
in other ways
but still
there is founding
even so
between fire
and water
lies the river’s
mid-chamber
sound earth
and a roomy land
between the circling hills
Waikato -
the town co-founded
on either bank
by the twin brothers
of redoubts
from the cliffs
we somehow
got down
to the river
and got back
up again
by bridlepath
so that people
no longer
walked off the land
the bridges
coming after
meanwhile
a punt wherried
and a landing waited
and stairs were dug
into the bank
that became Grantham Street
while the zip-line
whirred
bush to bush
although we were
not present
at the promise
we should
make the promise
and build
a Treaty House
here as well
or else Hamilton
will keep
turning its back
on the river
its city centre
get up
and walk away again
III
we long imagined
in Britain
time could be bound
to a hill
to some king
or a dragon dreaming
climb a hill
from which
the skies flee
and you will see
the past
and future
in flight
from you
and each other
as you sit
surpassed
and exceeded
on the tor
the policy city
and its police
are now
the polity
we are
the catechon
that holds back
God and Chaos
alike
the end
of the world
has already
happened before
to others elsewhere
countless times
we must be
the preserved remnant
the foul flowering
of the tree
of life
set up
as Leviathan
on the mount
IV
a republic
is formed precisely
when people
who could fight
one another
decide not to
and decide
to risk a nation
instead
my republic
was proclaimed
14 Fructidor
Year VI
of the French Republic
One and Indivisible
at Castlebar
County Mayo
by General Jean-Joseph Amable Humbert
John Moore
President
and was resumed
and promptly stifled
at Vinegar Hill
in the former
New South Wales
revived
and strangled
several times since
two weeks
in Connaught
and three days
in the Sydney suburbs
are enough
to inaugurate
any utopia
V
the best sculpture
in Wellington
is the Island Bay
Butchers
a hygienic
concrete block
concealing
and cooling
its slaughter
with “1917”
marked on
the facade
portentous year
and grim month
when the kowhai
bloomed
and nobody spoke
then everybody did
our Passchendaele
and Red October
what did
your great-grandfather do
which apparition
of Lenin
is yours
in what horizon
are the eyes
of anger set
Massey’s Cossacks
thunder slowly
across the bullock bridge
having depastured
the ghostwood aisles
the perfect city
is the jest
of goodness
philosopher kings
simply gamble
their ideal states away
whether
at house parties
on the Piraeus
casinos
at Venice
or on backwaters
in Bruges
New Zealand
is where
intelligent machines
hit their beachhead
in the sky
without any help
from Pisthetaerus
and the bird chorus
leaving us
a wry
and Spartan people
grounded in the future
the first to propose
a founding myth
for Artificial Intelligence
and sing
of our Divine War
with it
realising
it was not enough
for Utopia
to be machine-like
but that Erewhon
needed some constitution
for ourselves
and the machines
to get on
another people
heedful
and observant
of the stars
once crossed
the void
and tickled
the belly
of Kirikiriroa
with bare feet
do we dwell
long here
or do we
die
Blackwells
Oxford
19 April 2016
This poem was addressed to the New Zealand Labour Party in their centennial year. I am referring to the ” The War against the Machines” section of Samuel Butler’s ” Erewhon” (1872) in this poem.
The Welsh quotation is from the great 14th Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym and his poem “Y Deildy”. The reference to Kirikiriroa at Hamilton that concludes the poem, is from King Tawhiao. The Irish Republic of 1798 was indeed revived by transportees from the Rebellion in New South Wales, March 1804.
The first section is set in Wellington and Auckland, the second section in Hamilton, the third section in Britain, the fourth section refers to Ireland, while the fifth section refers to Utopia/Erewhon and concludes back at Hamilton.
Michael Joseph Savage was the first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand (1935-40). He died in office.
Bill Massey was the Prime Minister of New Zealand (1912-1925) who swore in Waikato farmers as special constables for strike-breaking purposes in 1913. He too died in office. Pisthetaerus is the lead character in Aristophanes’ play ” The Birds”.
This poem was ever so slightly edited on 16 December 2017.