Live Encounters Poetry & Writing July 2025
On the luxurious morning, poems by Piet Nieuwland.
On the luxurious morning
At the bay of languages sashaying and swaggering
flexing in the dark pandemonium of corporate hunger
a syntax of nightmares of shudders and perforations
of leaking hernias, a spectacle of bitter grimaces
reading the symbols of birds / on the wrinkles of the marshland
wet sheets of the monsoon / like a night on a dune
swollen rivers and whirlwinds of pain / years of wind
I see the shape
I see the shorelines
I see the white caps /
I see the cliffs / the cliffs
of the endlessly returning storm
Ideas break like fragments towards the portal
renewing myself before all the things in the world
flowers growing where they fell and rotted
the vernal green of memory / memory the medium of experience
over the endless hours of bloodstream / there are no more stories
The blinks of a billion eyes watch the horizon of planetary limits
a solar system of flower-heads
the smell of warm rain, the last shower
slivers of time joined shared woven together
peaches eaten with small caterpillars and toast with jam
a flock of violins in Tchaikovsky concerto
a kotare pair warming in the sun
Just this
In this inlet
swept by tides of cloud and wind
we celebrate the taste of rain
a jeweled cascade of sutra
like lightning at dusk
Hibiscus flowers fall in the night wind
orchids light the dawn
with no need for words
just this, just this
Lily of a weightless shadow
Pearl indigo
Cloak of gathering
An exponential sequence of everything in transition
the soil making of us / what it can / in the dark throat of sunset
with questions of place / hanging over / like an elegant interval
as the rain begins / thudding
on the rippled surface of memory / calling in the shadows
like the sound of sunlight falling / as cicada
as aircraft landing / as fog clearing
as molecular excitement / a lyric of flame
an ultra-violet mirage / a blustering staggering neon dazzle
a syrup of colloquial translations / the scent of sea salt while swimming
a neighbor sharing tomatoes and tamure
distant purple mountains, lime green lakes and apricot skies
the g-side of another ten hundred thousand ten hundred ten
jungle edge tipping over / an iceberg decomposing
Pukenui Forest melting / in the sweaty river of clouds
then evening sits over the city / like a jumble of syllables
collisions / howls / skids / spins / sirens / screams of no no no / no consent
and you wander / through the marshes of night
amongst families of taraire and kohekohe
a gathering of friends and colleagues, lovers and acquaintances
a subtle mist of shower / humid / soaking like breath / hovers
© Piet Nieuwland
Piet Nieuwland lives in Whangarei. His poems and flash fiction appear in print and online journals in Australia, USA, India, Aotearoa, Antarctica and elsewhere. His latest books, As light into water, and We enter the, are published by Cyberwit. He publishes Fast Fibres Poetry, an annual anthology of Te Tai Tokerau poetry and participates in collaborative visual art exhibitions. As co-ordinator of Intangential, a short poetry flash fiction music dance show for the local fringe festival, he also performs live poetry and is a book reviewer. He trained as a forester and once worked as a conservation strategist for Te Papa Atawhai. www.pietnieuwland.com
Lovely collection of awesome work by Piet.
Enjoyed them all xx
Piet,
I love Just This!
Kaaren