"hotere", by Hone Tuwhare

Hotere

When you offer only three
vertical lines precisely drawn
and set into a dark pool of lacquer
it is a visual kind of starvation:

and even though my eyeballs
roll up and over to peer inside
myself, when I reach the beginning
of your eternity I say instead: hell
let’s have another feed of mussels

Like, I have to think about it, man.

When you stack horizontal lines
into vertical columns which appear
to advance, recede, shimmer and wave
like exploding packs of cards
I merely grunt and say: well, if it
is not a famine, it’s a feast

I have to roll another smoke, man

But when you score a superb orange
circle on a purple thought-base
I shake my head and say: hell, what
is this thing called aroha

Like, I’m euchred, man. I’m eclipsed?

-- Hone Tuwhare

Thought I'd post something not mine, since you'll get sick of my stuff in short order. I just LOVE this poem, & you should too. Hone Tuwhare is one of my country's greatest poets. Ralph Hotere is a famously abstract New Zealand painter.

(no subject)

ethrosdemon is hosting Sunday meta to encourage people who don't write meta much but want to, as a way to create a safe place for, um, first time meta-ers, I guess. I read more meta than I let on and I often sort of want to comment and splurge, and this was going to be for that, but it actually doesn't fit as the kind of pan-fannish experience thing they've got going over there, so, uh... it's not. Anyway, that's where this came from, it's totally a brainfart about me and my favourite fandom and why I am the way I am about it. caveat lector.

( fannish archetypes: the lone wolf & me )

In a week or so I think I might write something about Nita/Kit, Tom/Carl, Nita/Ronan, Nita/LP and Dairine/Roshaun and Why They Get Written - especially the Tom/Carl phenomenon which I really think is interesting. I may actually post that one to myriadwords and use that to get another round of YW meta started up - I remember we did one about canonical het pairings and one about ratings (er, why fic in this fandom tends towards the lower ratings, not the whole oral-rates-r-penetration-is-NC-17 insanity) and they were both kind of fun. Um. Okay. Goodnight now.