NaPoMo NZ Day 11 - food is life

[just mercedes]

 
 
Rules: Write a poem for national poetry month on the topic or form described. Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. The goal is to, at the end of the month have written 30 poems for National Poetry Month. 


Topic 11: Choose a common household item from NZ, food, drink, etc. and write a poetic creation myth about it.


 
http://www.corrections.govt.nz/working_w.../food.html
 
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=2847047
 
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11923626
 
https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com...aori-food/
 
https://teara.govt.nz/en/maori-foods-kai-maori
 
Form : any
Line requirements: 8 lines or more
 

---

Ka mate! Ka Mate!


Hidden
in a kumara pit
while death and life disputed
Te Rauparaha looked up
to the woman who 
squatted above him
disguising his hiding place
and knew her vulva as 
the life-giving sun -
Ka ora! Ka ora!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ka_Mate

[just mercedes]

My mother broke her hip in hospital.
She lived beyond the words that speak of pain
and busy nurses, overworked, all stalled
at helping her. Not able to complain
 
with speech, she wouldn’t get out of her bed,
kept rubbing at her side until they thought
her belly hurt. The doctor checked, and said
‘colonic enema.’ The head nurse brought
 
equipment and administered the dose
then left her helpless in a seat-less chair
inside a shower, all the doors tight closed
‘to not upset the others’. In despair
 
I hugged and hosed and dried her, fed ice-cream
and sued the fucking doctor, with his team.
 

[Todd]

It Started and Ended With Hokey Pokey

The sun was a spark
and the sky a young lover
pressed close to the ground.
Trees hobbled about like old men
bent below their full height, 
as what would be
sprang up from what was.
The tui would walk with the bees
in those days, both unable
to spread their wings.
Every flower was also flat
on the ground like a painting
you would step across.

Now, the bees would gather nectar
to make their honey, but
there was no place in the world
taller than a man hunched
beneath a heavy load.
So, what the bees gathered
the tui eat. So, work was futility.

This was the age of the stomach.
Ages came and ages passed,
spring blossomed and died,
and the world chilled.

The sky looked for other lovers.
The trees could now stand
taller than a man. The first
mountains raised their white heads.

Finally, the bees unfolded their wings
and arched toward the sun,
but their joy darkened like a storm
as the tui also took flight.

For days the tui pursued
from water to forest
to finally the frozen mountains.
The bees dove into a drift,
and packed their nectar
beneath the snow for the people
of the land to find.

[just mercedes]

This is awesome! 'the age of the stomach'

[Keith]

The far north settlements

The tide offered up a piece
of dark wet beech hand-carved
it rolled compass like, to my feet.
Once touched I feared its power.

I could only hold it for a few moments
knowing it was deciding if should pass
me its mana or release me to sickness.
It's tapu had been imbued by Tangaroa.

Compressed at the bottom of every ocean
the carving had swallowed sunless lifetimes
taken from dead sailors dragged by the currents,
I kept it in a bedside drawer.

The night Tommy became ill I woke
seconds before his scream,
the fever had set his head on fire
flames spat embers from his eyes,
he looked through me into another world.

He was leaving, I asked Tane not to take
my son but he only crackled of insanity.
I asked, begged Tangaroa to help me.
The bed side table splintered into pieces,
releasing my figurine.

I held it to Tommy's brow and for the moment
it takes an eye to blink I heard the sound
of nesting gulls, just before the wave broke
across his bedroom, washing away his fire.

[just mercedes]

Keith - powerful, feels authentic and other-wordly. I come from the far north settlements.

[CRNDLSM]

My first job delivering
was in Dunedin, candy.
I heard persistent rattling
behind me and pulled over
at the top of Baldwin st.
25000 Jaffa
spilled out into the ocean.
Each year now the company
reenacts my accident
for thousands of cheering fans,
so why did I lose my job?

Littering

[kolemath]

They don't give us enough

food in here.
my bones have shown
for lack of kai.
When I told my mother,
she brought roasted fish
from a hangi earth oven.
She was turned away
for lack of "written permission
of the prison manager."

Who gives us permission to survive?

Half the people here speak
Te Reo in whispered prayers and tears,
when a seventh of the land
remains to say wewete.

[just mercedes]

You hit at a silent problem, here in NZ. Well done.

[Todd]

I like that one, Kole.

[kolemath]

Thanks, folks!  I started volunteering in a jail as a music teacher, so the site JM posted hit home.

Check out the music we've been recording in jail: soundcloud.com/humanitiesbehindbars

[Anna]

Phew-hah

When you take a foodie, a crazy vegan one at that,toss in Maori veggies, pūhā for instance, where do I get it in the middle of the western suburbs of one of the biggest foodie places in the world? You have tender bamboo shoots preserved in brine for pikopiko, spinach juice for pūhā juice, and shitake mushrooms boiled in eight year old soy sauce for the meat, and there is the fork and the spoon and the Indian in me who insists the best way to eat is with chopsticks, well you have not heard it all yet, the side dish is oven fresh sour dough pizza base tossed in cashew cream seasoned with schezwan peppers, fresh kafir lime rind and juice, and a cup of tatoes in mixed vegetable sambar

oh for desert, I had a kiwi, some prefer mandarin oranges...

[just mercedes]

I'm drooling ...