Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2025
7 Counters to Depression, poems by Lincoln Jaques.
7 Counters to Depression
1.
Now is not the time for depression.
We tell ourselves this, every day.
But even this morning the rain falls
and bounces from the asphalt
like the time we walked
along the waterfront
a pod of dolphins
bursting the harbour’s crust,
surprising us.
2.
Now is not the time for depression.
It’s a mantra, a false economy.
This morning we walked all the way
to the shopping centre. The rain held
off. I saw a bearded man sitting at the curb
spooning beans onto white bread.
His only meal of the day.
3.
Now is not the time for depression.
This morning we argued over the hoover
trying to fit the new bags into place.
We immediately blamed each other.
I couldn’t stand the thought of going
all the way back to the shop.
Then like a State of Grace we clicked:
we were fitting them from the wrong end.
4.
Now is not the time for depression.
You come into my room each afternoon
with a watering can. Pour the contents
into the cyclamen sitting in a green pot
on the windowsill. You leave, without
saying a word.
5.
Now is not the time for depression.
My neighbour’s ceiling fell in. My wife
baked her burek and it took to her
in a glass dish, the burek still warm.
My neighbour’s Albanian-Italian.
We are a small village, at the end
of the world.
6.
Now is not the time for depression.
Yesterday we drove past a festival
for Eid. The colourful families spilled
onto the road, full of thanks to their God.
I drove on through the afternoon’s thin light
glancing often in the rear-view mirror
watching the last of them fade out of sight.
7.
Now is not the time for depression.
We tell ourselves this, every day.
And every day we give ourselves
excuses. If I had only you, and the times
we walked hand-in-hand, seeing those
dolphins and the water dancing
one could reach up into elation.
How Not to Write a Poem
in a Crowded Café Early Morning
(A tribute to Len Lye’s How to Write a Poem)
Len preferred a brioche
but I would rather a raisin scroll
for its wheel-of-life feel.
I order one along with a mocha
sit near the window facing out
to dying bromelias and racing traffic.
The 5-inch pencil recommended by Len
for me is a Staedtler 0.9 lead
mechanical adjustable spring-loaded.
Staedtler positioned in line
with Moleskin notebook
opened at empty page
aligned with Surface tablet
blank page open cursor blinking.
I may write about the girl
in the Black Lives Matter t-shirt
her tattoos that rewrite history.
I may write about the couple arguing
in the corner like Hemingway characters.
I may even describe the woman sitting alone
in a silk headscarf, brand-new Jimmy Choo’s
staring out in wonder at the dwindling bromelias.
Like Len I’ll write something though
as soon as the coffee and scroll arrives.
That may still be 10 minutes away.
Jolene Changed the Course Of My Life
What was I? A kid when I first heard
“Jolene”.
1973.
The year before we left the bruised Britannia waves
and fled like scared cattle to the end of the world.
My father had not yet started on the sherry—
that would come later, in a flood of pent up
anger. Like Dolly towards Jolene.
He loved Dolly. Not necessarily for her songs.
He played the 45-rpm on the National 20
record player shipped over from the Motherland.
He played the single endlessly. As if to forget
his ego.
Jolene stole Dolly’s man; but it wasn’t all about that.
The real Jolene stood in the audience, a tiny flower
among snakeroots. Jolene wanted an autograph.
Dolly sang to her: Jolene, Jolene, Jolene…JOLENE!!!
You are the prettiest thing!
My father scraped that 45-rpm raw.
All through summer the turntable on repeat
as my mother became slowly invisible.
I said the sherry came later but the rants came earlier,
they led to the sherry drinking and him singing Jolene
at the slurred top of his voice
before collapsing on the 70s rug carpet,
the turntable ticking over
the vinyl of the 45-rpm wearing thin.
But it doesn’t quite stop there. Jolene was real.
Jolene was a bank teller. Jolene took too much interest
in Carl. Dolly shut that down. That’s Dolly for ya!
Years later I found Jolene, her cover torn, the A side
scratched and unplayable. I remembered it being still
on the turntable as they wheeled my father
to the awaiting ambulance.
© Lincoln Jaques
Lincoln Jaques is a Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland based writer. His poetry, fiction, travel essays and book reviews have appeared in collections in Aotearoa and internationally, including Landfall, Live Encounters, The Spinoff Friday Poem, Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, Mayhem, Anti-Heroin Chic, Burrow, Book of Matches and Takahē. He was shortlisted for the 2023 inaugural I Te Kokoru At The Bay hybrid manuscript awards, and has been selected for the 2025 Best Small Fictions (BSF) anthology from Alternating Current Press.