Poetry
More of my poetry is available at All Poetry
Fringe Bar, Wellington, 4 August 2022.
cover letter
To Whom It May Concern:
A slug
crossed with a Word document
crossed with a 2000s slacker
crossed with a beer can
crossed with a burnt match
crossed with a vague answer machine message
crossed with a half-completed crossword from the Dominion Post
crossed with a man who looks and sounds like a proper person but isn't actually a proper person
please give me a job
Yours sincerely,
David Coyle
chance of showers
I look up and see
a storm of a thousand falling lights;
swirling droplets of white ember,
silver beads.
Evening air flickers with rain,
cast under the ink,
passing through the black
naked branches of a tree;
pearl outlines the leaves,
deeper green than the shaded seas
an inlet a mile deep.
The madman without shoes;
rocks upon his folded knees,
sat in the ashes of the cigarettes
he collects and smokes,
mutters
“The madman without direction;
rocks about the dampened streets,
mind the puddles.”
Television skies,
roaming channel greys
felt on cheeks like pins;
ice dabbing not the ears,
the eyes.
Breath-like smoke,
huddled girls looking for a jacket.
Left Bank to Opera House Lane
then home;
rows of punked-up concrete,
metal grails,
brickwork bracing downcast waters
to wash us all away.
My toes are wet.
the day it snowed
It shouldn't snow this time of year.
It shouldn't snow in this city.
I remember the last time it snowed:
August 2011.
I was living in a flat by the Botanic Gardens
with an ex-girlfriend.
We looked out the window:
gentle soft white rain
falling against the black wood
of the dark green pines
rising in the pale distance
Or do I just remember this
from the photograph I took?
Is my memory the picture?
What would I recall now
if I had taken no picture?
Ten years later
all I can say is that
she seems to being doing well
and it shouldn't be snowing this time of year
and it shouldn't be snowing in this city.
sandfly
*
This sandfly I crush
in my palms,
applauding the exact moment of its death.
clap!
Unless, of course, *
I missed it.
I always do.
Until... of course... I don’t–
clap!
*
–damn!
God stoned
a human thought.
The world is therefore His–
*
clap!
–you little fucker!
*
Cuba Street
A bar called Highwater
Is where the sea once fell ashore
In unseen, endless bends of foam.
The Ivy: a queer reminder of
How green flora vanished into moss.
A homeless man is kicked out of it;
The bar, that is.
Tossed again into gutters of beer and smoke,
Muttering "Fuck the Council"
And kicking a can himself.
A well-dressed man shakes his head,
The silk tie hanging around his neck
In choking disapproval.
But he will say the same
Three words at his three o'clock appointment.
A busker plays a song for coins;
The silent beggar plays far sweeter
Music in his mind.
His debt is eternal.
A ripped poster for a gig
(at which the couple holding hands will break
each others' hearts)
Is torn up further in the wind.
"A Ghost In Spite of Himself"
Opens at eleven – tickets cost the world.
A black Saturn overhead tonight,
One star alone is shining:
Its name is WISE-1049;
It's six light years away,
So don't forget to see it burning.
A young man enters Hotel Bristol.
He's old enough to buy and beer and gamble
Just the sort of man he'll be
In six more flaming candles.
Continuous manmade sleep is sought
And on this avenue believed.
Cuba Street and Other Poems
$5.00 chapbook (NZD) - contact me for a limited print
Self-published in 2019.
A collection of poems written during my time living on the coolest street in New Zealand.
