Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Three November-December 2024
Aotearoa Poets and Writers Special Edition
Shadow banned, poems by David Merritt.
Shadow banned
I tab from site to site,
looking, reading, watching this,
downloading that, taking screenshots,
doing giant inter-web searches
inside of encrypted browser windows.
My various feeds are non-linear,
they are abstract and varied and
none of them are mainstream in any way;
all offer me information, data, news,
analysis, perspectives, boots on the ground viewpoints,
opinions, theories and facts.
I watch as tiny homesteaders in Arkansas dig big gardens and
I follow a woman stalking a bear in Alaska,
I read about a Nun talking about death in London and
in Pakistan, the diesel mechanics just roll up their sleeves, everyday.
I track currencies.
I track commodities.
I track atrocities.
I track test cricket scores.
I follow the unknown and marginalised.
I keep an eye on the censored and
I seek out those that have been shadow banned.
The bus
I had to catch that bus at 7.15am or I was sunk,
destined for detention, late for school.
I was 13 years old with a big brain,
facing 3 long hours a day on a bus,
five days a week. The year is 1972.
I was already nerdy, already geeky,
verging on left wing, flirting with hippy and
I liked libraries, Sherlock Holmes,
Arthur Ransom, Biggles, Tolkien.
Chairman Mao, the Little Red School Book,
the Pentagon Papers, the end of Nixon.
I was Shadbolt, Kirk and the Labour Party.
Anyway. That bus ground its way up and down
the Great South Road through 34 sets
of traffic lights, often all of them red.
The Auckland suburbs of Otara, Otahuhu
Penrose, Green Lane, Epsom, Newmarket and
Khyber Pass rolled on past the fogged up windows,
often in the rain.
I reckon there were also 42 bus stops all told,
most of them requiring another stop and
a start to pick up or drop off a passenger.
Up past the freezing works, the industrial zones of
various descriptions, the 5 volcanic cones,
the office and factory workers, other kids destined
for all the other schools along the way – Otahuhu,
Kings, Penrose, Dilworth, St Peters.
That bus journey was tortuous and lasted forever
in all directions so aged 12, I started to visit libraries
in town and Epsom and Mangere and Onehunga and Otara.
A year or two later, by now aged 16, I’m reading books about UFO’s,
the assassination of the Kennedy brothers, MLK,
the illegalness of Vietnam and the bombing of Laos and Cambodia,
Whole Earth Catalogs, Mushroom magazine, the newsletters of HART and CAFCINZ.
I protested against injustice and I protested against secrecy and misinformation
and propaganda.
I raged against US cultural imperialism, against home racism and apartheid.
I raged against the rich and powerful figures who ruled our landscapes
in every possible direction.
Flash forward 50 years to the here and now, this spring morning and
I don’t need to tell you that the names might have changed yet
some things, strangely, have remained the same.
Worry
I worry about my future now, so much has changed and
I suspect that its the tip of the iceberg yet.
I worry about extended supply chains, logistics, food scarcity.
I worry about the Ukraine and Palestine and Taiwan.
I worry about the agendas of the governments worldwide.
I know a lot more about the AI singularity that is now upon us.
I’ve watched and read a zillion words and images
trying to make sense of a world gone mad, orchestrated globally.
Blackrock and Vanguard own everything.
“It’s a free country” is a sham in most democracies and
these are the most interesting times we were warned about.
WW3 is being fought out in the cognitive
space between our ears, through screens and devices.
And don’t get me started about the
Internet of Bodies because the
Internet of Things is bad enough.
I miss 2018 a lot.
© David Merritt
Poet David Merritt has a broad, strong back, well suited for gardening, driving old Landrovers and reinventing the economics of poetry. He makes bespoke publications of poems from recycled Readers Digest Condensed book covers and banana box cardboards, often in public places on a footpath bench seat or at a market from the back of his car. Using a stamp pad alphabet set, a stapler, some glue sticks, a photocopier and a copyleft intellectual property model, Landroverfarm Press has now published over 110 distinct titles from unique single page A3 publications to collections, boxsets, #poetryracks, #poetrybricks and anthologies. During this time he has also taken the David Merritt Poetry Experience to all parts far north and south of New Zealand.