Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers March 2026
Firebug, poems by Jeremy Roberts.
Firebug
Have you ever set fire to spider silk?
We were under my friend’s house with stolen matches,
eight years old,
watching silver webs ignite,
spiders curl into little legless balls of carbon.
Look at them go!
Perhaps, we were scorching anxieties not yet known.
No doubt, we were excited by tales of Napalm
in Vietnam,
where my friend’s uncle was fighting.
We didn’t like spiders.
Next – the backyard bush.
Early one autumn morning, we draped newspapers
over branches and lit them up.
“To keep the dog warm” – we told each other.
After the flames died, time for brekkie!
An adult spotted smoking embers just before
the whole damn bush was lost.
“I’ve had to bring your son home in disgrace,” my friend’s
mother declared.
But I wasn’t done with fire.
Not long after, Dad left home.
In an erased memory later recounted by Mum,
I took everything my father had given me to the garden
incinerator and burned the lot.
The magic of suddenness
In a world of triggers,
that which is trapped deep inside,
may come out into the world,
crying and screaming like a baby –
stopping you in yr tracks.
That was never my bag.
I was good at locking things down,
happy enough without paroxysms
of purgation,
content with small agitations.
Rain on the final day of summer
touched my face – put me in my place.
(Where was that, exactly? – I wondered.)
Burning firewood on the first day of autumn
bewitched me – and something stirred.
(What were we talking – ignition or transition?)
How wonderful to grasp at things
barely understood,
knowing that suddenly it all
changes.
Bags of data on two legs
‘They’ll be finding bits of him for days’ – cop said,
Nov’ 18, 1982, outside Whanganui Computer Centre.
Remnants of his chest – with tattooed ‘This Punk won’t see 23’,
found in debris. The only victim.
Why?
First comprehensive list of New Zealand citizens’ info’:
cars, guns, criminal convictions …
Data surveillance of a nation.
‘We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity’*–
he’d spray-painted on a toilet wall nearby.
Already told his girlfriend he was going to die …
making a political statement.
Big Brother monitoring?
Bugger that.
Final steps, final breath …
2 kg of gelignite …
“He wouldn’t hurt a fly” – a friend reminisced.
Today –
We are all bags of government data on two legs.
Bags of data for ‘big tech’, too.
Should we have cared as much as Neil Roberts?
* Neil Roberts borrowed this statement from the
Revolutionary Proclamation of the Junta Tuitiva, La Paz,
South America, July 16, 1809.
© Jeremy Roberts
Jeremy Roberts is a resident of Napier, New Zealand-Aotearoa, where he lives with his wife and daughter. He MC’s at Napier Live Poets, interviews poets on Radio Hawke’s Bay, and is poetry editor for the VINES journal. His work has been published widely – including NZ Listener, Landfall, Takahē, JAAM, Poetry NZ, and Phantom Billstickers. Jeremy has performed and recorded poems with musicians in Aotearoa, Austin, Saigon, and Jakarta. He regularly makes poem videos and these can be viewed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jnrpoet Jeremy’s first poetry collection was ‘Idiot Dawn’ (poems 1981-87). ‘Cards on the Table’ was published in 2015 and ‘The Dark Cracks of Kemang: The Bajaj Boys In Indonesia’ was published in 2022, by IP Australia. He was awarded the Earl of Seacliff poetry prize in 2019. For further links, visit: https://www.read-nz.org/writer/roberts-jeremy/