Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One Nov-Dec 2026.
Traffic Accident, poems by Lincoln Jaques.
Traffic Accident
Years later, you told me that you only
remembered the sunset. Dropping behind
Little Shoal Bay, flashing off the ketches
falling over the wave crests.
Someone had broken down on the outer lane.
On your 125cc Honda you never had a chance.
The petrol tank ripped off your leg, caught
between the rear bumper of the stationary
Morris. The helmet visor sliced you in half.
But they pieced you back together. They screwed
your bones into place. They found a new nose
for you. Those long months of recovery.
Checking off breakfast and lunch menus. Us
sneaking in extra food for your voracious appetite.
Eleven surgeries in all. They worried about the
anaesthetic, more than the leg, the face.
After a year they let you home for the weekend.
My brother had saved up and bought you a
silver Casio watch with an LED screen. You stared
at it all afternoon. On the way back to the ward
you sobbed in the car. You were too far away
from home. Too much water separated us.
I never did see that Honda again. I imagine it
rusting away in a wrecker’s yard, bits of it
gradually being pulled from it, like they did
with you, until there was nothing left except
a few bolts and screws and metal rods.
Lost Psalm
i.
these pages
are filled
with silence
ii.
this
is
where
you
hooked
me
back
from
the
silence
iii.
every day
I give some small object
away, until there’s nothing
left, only an empty
room that once held
my first
memory
Qatar
When we were in Doha
we had an apartment
within walking distance
of the Museum of Islamic Arts.
And I’d walk there each day
through the multitude of empty lots
and the souks and the gold-sellers
to see the wonder that I M Pei
designed at 92 years of age.
Standing on its own peninsula
like a cultural hyphen.
Later in the evening,
We’d stroll the curve
of the Corniche, eat ice cream.
We’d look across to the lights
of the big hotels, wonder at the people
eating there under the soft glow.
We’d listen to the dhows creaking
in discomfort in the harbour.
Behind me the thrashing city.
Before me the steady seas.
Around me all the unspoken.
Everyone afraid of the sun.
Everyone afraid of connections.
I learnt not to stand in one place too long
otherwise you’ll never adjust to the motion.
© Lincoln Jaques
Lincoln Jaques is an Auckland based writer. His poetry, fiction, travel essays and book reviews have appeared in collections inter-nationally, including Landfall, Live Encounters, The Spinoff Friday Poem, Tough Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Book of Matches, Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook and Mayhem. He was shortlisted for the 2023 inaugural I Te Kokoru At The Bay hybrid manuscript awards, longlisted for the 2024 and 2026 Micro Madness Flash Frontiers (NFFD). He has been selected for the international 2025 Best Small Fictions anthology from Alternating Current Press (USA).