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Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers April 2023
Stormy Weather, poems by Jack Ross
Stormy Weather
Do I have your permission to dress you?
After you lose the weight?
I suppose it comes down to the choice
between Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway
those were the stakes in Edinburgh
some thirty years ago
when I went to the Filmhouse daily
On the one hand Jarman’s Tempest
I wanted to hear them sing Stormy Weather
that’s why I made the film
On the other Prospero’s Books
a torrent of images books being drowned
in the sea legions of nude extras
playing chess with their bodies
On one side The Last of England
an old ripped t-shirt
and a boy choking down raw cabbage
on the other The Draughtman’s Contract
inexplicable alphabets of symbolism
a mind-numbing tour-de-force
it’s what got me here
(wherever here is)
I’m very excited about the brooches
I like to see you in that peacock shirt
Bus lanes
are fucking brilliant
slipping you past
all the stalled traffic
out in Otherworld
likewise that looming
skyline hypodermic
poised to vaccinate
a queasy sky
is it wrong
this ease of access
V.I.P. entry?
better than
the half-hour in the café
yesterday
knowing we’d ordered lunch
not knowing they’d forgotten
the kitchen printer had run dry
Emotionally labile
that was the phrase they used
for my father
after his stroke
he’d tear up
at the slightest mention
of wartime sacrifice
or heroic deeds
it improved him
said my mother
he’d been too buttoned up
stiff upper lip
as he counselled patients
in their darkest hour
but now it’s me
I just have to hear
Churchill’s gravelly voice
or a burst
of patriotic music
and I’m awash
embarrassing yes
but if you can’t cry sometimes
what good are you?
© Jack Ross
Jack Ross is the author of four novels, four books of short fiction, and six poetry collections, most recently The Oceanic Feeling (2021). He was the managing editor of Poetry New Zealand from 2014-2020, and has edited numerous other books, anthologies, and literary journals. He recently retired from his job teaching Creative Writing at Massey University. He lives with his wife, crafter and art-writer Bronwyn Lloyd, in Mairangi Bay, on Auckland’s North Shore, and blogs at https://mairangibay.blogspot.com/