Summer

Close grey ice sky
bare wood branches
fissure network
from frosted earth
The expanse separating the water above from the water below

Bright new green leaves leak blue light through gaps
from overlap
by crepe paper shapes that scrape and separate;
A thousand dazzling lights
pierce the thick black sky

Stay-home OE

He's like the guy I worked with at Mico Plumbing Supplies who returned to Thailand to visit every year or two. But this guy comes out here to New Zealand twice a year he told me today, every summer and winter. Why in winter? He’s from Japan, which is far enough away from New Zealand to be the opposite season, isn’t it? I see him in town occasionally from a distance, his distinctive gait and spindly frame, cargo shorts and ageless face, unkempt hair and glasses, a real loner. God knows what sort of cracks he’s fallen through in Japan. He’d stay at the backpackers where I lived and worked 13 years ago. Maybe he still stays there - we didn’t discuss that today. He’d come here and watch TV endlessly in a shitty room off the kitchen at Conor’s Topfloor Hostel. The wide open spaces.

He’s an accountant, and he’d done his math because Conor’s was the cheapest room in town at only $16 or $22, depending on whether you wanted to share a room with others, or just hear them through the walls. A British relationship breakdown; the operatic sounds of a Latino woman being pleasured. Little surprise that I should bump into him at the language school where I now work, our orbits colliding on the fourth floor - he sitting serenely in the window waiting for a free English class to start, me in the corridor fast lane, head turned deciphering his side profile. He couldn't get his head around that I now work as a teacher, a far cry from my days cleaning toilets five floors up, yet still traveling through Auckland.

The Importance Of Not Being Ernest

It’s believed that Ernest Hemingway once wrote a six-word novel: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." This guy really knew how to trim the fat, which is partly what made me want to write like him. His deceptively simple writing style had a childlike quality, and my attempts to emulate him read more like creepy children’s stories, so I went with that and wrote kid’s stories instead. I didn’t send them to a publisher because I didn’t need reminding that I was a failed Hemingway who couldn’t even write something decent about worms.

But then I had to put aside my insights on life as a worm and write a best man speech for my brother’s wedding. And that’s when I started writing some crisp one-liner jokes. That was way back in the year 2000, when the future started. I first set foot on the comedy stage in March 2001, and since then I have looked back. I have looked back trying to understand how I went from serious ad school student to market research telephone interviewer and worm author, to standup comedian. Maybe as a telephone interviewer I was practising talking into a tiny microphone to a stranger laughing at me, and perhaps as a worm author I learned to lighten up and become a kid again. This is partly the theme of my new standup comedy show: https://www.comedyfestival.co.nz/find-a-show/my-way-or-the-hemingway/

Waiheke for a day

Yesterday on Waiheke island I rode my scooter down to tranquil Rocky Bay. I spied a good parking space, but was aware of a guy sitting nearby at a picnic table smoking a cigarette and gazing at the bay. I parked there anyway, and as I turned off the ignition he said, “good to have a scooter to look around the island.” I replied, "yeah, you can have your tranquility back now." He didn’t seem too fussed. I sat down at the table and started devouring my supermarket pizza, and as we talked he pointed to schools of baitfish close to shore. His kayak with fishing rod inserted lay at the water’s edge less than 10 metres from where we sat, and he said that at high tide he can pop open the sunroof and catch a snapper from his car, which I thought was a bit dismissive of the beautiful surroundings. “Drive-thru fishing”, I joked.
I asked him if he knew Sam McLean, an old Scottish guy who lived in Rocky Bay and owned a 50-foot yacht that I crewed aboard to Fiji in 1993. He didn’t know. That was a long time ago now.
“What do you do on the mainland?”, he asked me. “All sorts of things”, I replied, “cheese gives me really weird dreams.” At first I thought he was joking when he told me his job, but as he went on I knew he was for real. For a sea captain I thought his glasses looked too trendy, and he looked too young and homeless, but maybe that’s just the dress code in Rocky Bay. He explained that oil companies pay $500,000 a day for offshore seismic surveying, and that, with its eight-mile-long lines trailing from the stern of the ship, pilot boat out front and rear-guard boat, his get-up is the largest moving object on earth. “Oil companies think nothing of the cost - for every dollar spent they get 20 dollars back”, he added, relighting his exotic cigarette. He pointed to his recreational craft, a 23-foot yacht moored out in the bay, which he’d bought for $1800 in the Bay of Islands and taken a week to sail home due to a lack of wind. He'd had to motor the whole way. I had more island to see, so with a full tank of vegetarian pizza I hopped on my scooter and buzzed off.

Morning delight (1983)

One morning I went down to my mini deserted, very mini bush. I checked the hut in case any wreckers had come. There is a little stream that treakles down. It glistened in the sun,... everything glistened. It was morning delight. Even the thrushes thought that. Every thing glistened in that sun.

Moons

Suburban beach

Standing on the beach where the
strong wind blew in the full moon
at one end, and the high rise ship
on brim tide at the other

The wind blows diagonally across my face
and the silver dollar moon beckons the lover in me.
I can’t tell if the ship is coming or going


Morning Moon

Low slung full moon
Soft orange, cloud shroud
Easy on the eye
Unlike his sun brother

Tower Bakers

Tower Bakers proves that limited space is no obstacle to creating a distinct, original feel. Interesting curiosities and books - including a few withdrawn library books - start drawing you in the second you step off the footpath outside this quiet, suburban row of shops, through the door of possibly the smallest baker shop you’ve been in. Upon entering you immediately find yourself standing, ready to pay (and even tip some stray coins into the piggy bank), at the business end of the counter. The wise man standing behind says hi and gives you space to peruse the simple yet original cabinet selection of toasted sandwiches and slices for sale, and keepsakes that are not. With the clock struck 12 o’clock-National-Radio-news playing softly on the wireless behind the counter, I order a rissole & gherkin toasted sandwich, and a Coffee Supreme coffee. Plopping down in a cute, blue wooden seat at the end of the sole communal table (through the large front window I also spy a small outdoor table and stools on the pavement), I reach for a library book. A cheerful British woman standing at the counter has struck up conversation with my wife about our baby boy’s toothy smile, and, with our lunch up, assumes the role of popup waitress, passing a plate the few feet from counter to customer: “who’s having the rissole sandwich?”, she asks. “We both are”, I answer rye-ly. Just because there is no room on the small plate for anything other than the sandwich (space is at a premium), doesn’t mean that presentation can’t still be everything - pressed into the top of the sandwich, like your nana’s pressed flowers, is the ornamental garnish from the counter. As you’d expect, the bread is good - they’ve been perfecting it here for 20 years, and the rissole, cheese, gherkin and tomato makes for a balanced meal all round. The wise man, sensing our wish to just sit and read our book & newspaper for a few moments before chowing down, had previously been out back brewing us a fine cup of jo.