Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Three November-December 2024
Aotearoa Poets and Writers Special Edition
Burning Man, poems by David Eggleton.
Burning Man
He’s driving a moon module to Burning Man,
he’s a hybrid mystic with a Five Year Plan.
No words, only lip-synching to silence,
and why doesn’t anyone mention his violence?
His eyelids flicker, like he heard that snicker.
If he’s loving his life, then how about you?
Life’s good, just saying, and we all got guns.
He’s doing more navel-gazing these days.
She’s taking the algebra notes from her bra.
Who has the audacity to claim they are woke,
when everyone else confesses they’re broke?
You’re just another fabulous nobody, admit it,
until you get your name engraved on a bullet,
so give me another spontaneous high-five,
if only to make sure that I’m still alive.
There’s a big white cross shining on my lawn.
There are twelve shades of bronze to my medal.
Can you tell me what is it about whataboutery?
Then can you stick a fork in me, because I’m done.
We are what we are, where we are, as you do you,
from designated driver to burnt-out survivor,
at just random dudes venting in a pious way,
though advisory has given me my final warning.
Who brought pretzel-logic, who brought bagels,
who brought the weed and the loaf of Vogels?
You better go back to writing with a twig,
a twig dipped in mud stained with blood.
A Place to Stand
I stand with the day-dreamer, with the vagabond,
with the boulevardier, with the underachiever,
with the poor student, with the impractical inventor,
with the underworld denizen, with the beggar,
with the unpublished poet, with the café philosopher.
I stand with the wandering muso, with the charlatan,
with the fairground chancer, with the resting actor,
with the unsuccessful business-person, with the misfit,
with the try-hard die-hard, with the circus performer,
with those stranded in the world of analogue.
I stand with the ruminator, with the star-gazer,
I stand with everyone gone to the mute button,
I stand with the sooth-sayer, with the wraiths in hoodies,
I stand with those bound for Vallambrosa,
I stand with those who build driftwood altars.
I stand with the dissident, with the at-a-loss peace-keeper,
I stand with the techno-Buddhists across the road,
who blip their sound-system to chanted mantras all night long,
I stand with the outer circle, I stand with the old-school o-g,
I stand with those loyal to the bitter end.
Tipping Point
Here, at the tipping point, you tip over in a flash.
There’s much trial and error, but no more cash.
It’s all on plastic, gone belly-up in the ocean.
Wind’s time and motion asks who owns the brand?
There’s so much exhaustion in breathing exhaust,
as the netherworld’s vapour begins to ripsnort.
Each rainbow’s oily in the drizzle of more rain,
and bubbles are swirled up the food-chain.
They sound the retreat where three rivers meet,
but to no avail, as if on the list expected to fail.
They bring all the fire that’s fit to sink in a gyre.
Someone’s upselling smoke of utility vehicles.
The divine entablature’s written in digital smog.
In heaven skulks God; nought’s right with the world.
© David Eggleton
David Eggleton was the New Zealand Poet Laureate 2019 – 2022. He is former Editor of Landfall as well as the Phantom Billstickers Café Reader. His The Conch Trumpet won the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. In 2016 he also received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Poetry.
Love your work David