Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers March 2026
An affirmation, poems by Piet Nieuwland.
An affirmation
To the raven black haired pale cheeked romantic
woman who knew the softness of men and the sadness of rain:
When the clefs and notes jumped from their strings as Nijinsky into the air
and pianists flourished their keys in cascades
to the applause of cumulus bouncing from the dark polished lids
To the joy in her eyes in the motionless abundance of afternoon
with the garden soil dark like her clotted blood nourishing
plots of beans, sweet orange and fig
To a diffuse memory of possibilities
a sleeping manifesto of bodies under a light emitting diode
with the silken water weaving and weaving
the language of fire, scorched syllables, roasted vowels
mutations of white mist
To the nickel sea beaten level, by its generosity
flattened blue, glistening, before the next tipping point
that strafes across the bruised landscapes and black mountains
strewn with hollow knots of grief
their rivers of a thousand eyes
and ridgelines of arms, raised
Down the long slow curve
With the grace of a heron landing
the women swim in invisible rivers
shrouded by a silent laughter of mist
and cavalcades of eyes
At the white limit of night, a wild flood of lilies
and colorless flowers of soft air play
with the crystals of enigmatic candelabra
On thighs of a summery epicenter and hypothesis of belly
incandescent lips and phosphorescent breasts
the immaculate symmetry of your you
slips into a downpour of gush
like euphoria’s of muezzin
Umbilicus of sand
Under a sky wrapped in feverish clouds
the air is wet with the weight of dreams
as a woman with a red violin
Vivaldi’s the black swans of summer
a cataract of leaves fills the nocturnal estuaries
and a train loaded with burden of the world shuttles through
© Piet Nieuwland
Piet Nieuwland lives in Whangarei, Aotearoa New Zealand. 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 and his next one Anticipation is due out this year. He is managing editor of Fast Fibres Poetry, an annual anthology of from Te Tai Tokerau Northland. He participates in visual art exhibitions, live poetry performances, writes book reviews and occasionally judges poetry competitions. He once worked as a conservation strategist for Te Papa Atawhai. https://www.pietnieuwland.com/