A Force unstoppable bold: Poems by Dave Renton

Published by Hegemon Press, 2003. £3. ISBN 0-9538098-7-0. Email hegemonpress@hotmail.com for postage rates.

A force unstoppable bold

To make things better collectively
A green hat with red and orange stars
Author, organiser, lover
Friend. I see you equally
Firm against tear gas in Genoa
The smell of lemons on your scarf
And drunk in Hackney. Strip, you urged
The cold so fierce that my gloved hands burned
Strip, you said - winter - we'll strip and swim.

Dunedin

Here I sit, border country. Cows behind,
Sheep tracks to the left. The rocks tumbled
It must have been a house once, or a fort,
Green lichen now in patches, dry.
From the sea. Sail east, you couldn't
Find land in months. The sky in sediment
Of blue layers. Where it ends or the water
Begins, I can't tell. Salt. Iron. Frost.
A ring, wood on metal. Nine peals.
The Maori fought here, in slow,
Drawn-out withdrawing wars.
Then we came. Thinking, to begin.
The cliff, volcanic, going back millennia,
Th trees, like giraffe, emu or
Some exotic alien, climb tall and
Green only at the top. Autumn.
The cold seeps of night, birds chatter.
Tomorrow, they gossip, who comes?