Live Encounters Aotearoa New Zealand Poets & Writers March 2026
On Going, poems by Richard von Sturmer.
On Going
1.
What face will you wear
when they come for you?
I’ll wear the face
I wore on stage
when my heart was ablaze
with the energy
of being exactly
at the right place.
Yes, that’s the face
I’ll wear
when they come for me.
2.
Infinita tristeza
infinite sadness
is a bridge I cross
to the ruined cities.
Infinita tristeza
humbled with
my head lowered
humbled and
painfully human.
Infinita tristeza
is a bridge I cross.
3.
Somebody made the handbasin.
Somebody made the window.
Somebody made the doorhandle.
Somebody made the bathtub
the taps and the bathplug.
It’s amazing how people make things.
Somebody made the armchair.
Somebody made the carpet
and the floorboards underneath
and the pipes that run
through the house
invisible until they rattle.
It’s amazing how people make things.
Not to mention the electric wiring
and the power pole outside
the water meter embedded in the lawn
and the stormwater drain
that overflows in a deluge.
It’s amazing how people make things
and how they can be unmade.
4.
I sit on a bench
and watch people passing by.
It’s almost certain
that I will never see
a single one of them again.
I can observe only a fraction
of the population of this city
let alone this country
or the world.
And with their arms swinging
and legs moving
through the afternoon light
each person is simply
a ghost of time
just as I am
a ghost of time.
© Richard von Sturmer
Richard von Sturmer is a New Zealand writer. He was born on Auckland’s North Shore in 1957. His recent works are the acclaimed memoir, This Explains Everything (Atuanui Press, 2016), Postcard Stories (Titus Books, 2019), and Resonating Distances (Titus Books, 2022).
In 2020 he was the University of Waikato’s writer-in-residence. His book Walking with Rocks, Dreaming with Rivers: My Year in the Waikato (Titus Books, 2023) was written during his residency.
In 2025 his new collection of poetry, Slender Volumes (Spoor Books, 2024), was shortlisted for the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2025 Ockham Book Awards.