Poems

Two books of my poems have been published by Hegemon Press:

1) Write: Poems by Dave Renton

Published by Hegemon Press, 2002. £3. ISBN 0-953098-4-6. Email hegemonpress@hotmail.com for postage rates.

Write

If I don't write
Then I am a poet without words
Something wrong
A man walking home broken
Even less than a prophet
Without country.

But if I do write,
And in my own words,
Then what am I?

Islanders

I was asked if we had Islanders
Old men who plucked and stored
Single flakes of warm white snow
Tall women backs unladen
Red-faced tall free and proud.
Did we eat and drink like Tsars?
And sleep too as warm?
Were we free and kind?
Did we see fair Justice done?

I said that I knew Islanders
Now cold
But in their hopes and hearts
Those very seas and darting fires
Love without concrete
Hopes undulled
And legends for the poets still.

2) A Force Unstoppable Bold

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,
The 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?