cut shorter by the pellets I ‘scatter freely’,
quick acting, eccentric to exorbitant flourishes
of shells, pencillings, drab or sunlit things
dead as you please, or as the other poet says,
Our life is a false nature ’tis not in
the harmony of things. There we go again, worrying
the concentric, the one and identical, to the bone
that’s none of ours, eccentric to each other.
Millions die miserably never before their time.
The news comes late. Compassion sings to itself.
I read the excreta of all species, I write
a world as good as its word, active ingredient
30 g/kg (3%) Metaldehyde, in the form of a pellet.
(1979)
John Clarke (as Fred Dagg), ‘The Gumboot Song’
Righto, kick it in the guts, Trev …
Gumboots, they are wonderful, gumboots, they are swell
’Coz they keep out the water and they keep in the smell.
And when you’re sittin’ round at home, you can always tell
When one of the Trevs has taken off his gumboots.
Chorus:
If it weren’t for your gumboots, where would you be?
You’d be in the hospital or infirmary
’Coz you would have a dose of the ’flu, or even pleurisy
If you didn’t have your feet in yer gumboots.
Now there’s rugby boots and racing boots and boots for drinkin’ rum.
But the only boots I’m never without are the ones that start with ‘gum’.
I’ve got short ones and long ones and some that reach my belt.
I’m never dressed ’till I’ve got on me gumboots.
Chorus:
If it weren’t for your gumboots, where would you be?
You’d be in the hospital or infirmary
’Coz you would have a dose of the ’flu, or even pleurisy
If you didn’t have your feet in yer gumboots.
Now Rob Muldoon and Rowling, they haven’t made a hit.
They’re ruining the country more than just a bit.
If they keep on the way they’re going, we’ll all be interred.
So you’d better get yer feet up your gumboots.
Chorus (x 2):
If it weren’t for your gumboots, where would you be?
You’d be in the hospital or infirmary
’Coz you would have a dose of the ’flu, or even pleurisy
If you didn’t have your feet in yer gumboots.
(1976)
The Maori Renaissance, I
Witi Ihimaera, ‘A Game of Cards’
The train pulled into the station. For a moment there was confusion: a voice blaring over the loudspeaker system, people getting off the train, the bustling and shoving of the crowd on the platform.
And there was Dad, waiting for me. We hugged each other. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. Then we kissed. But I could tell something was wrong.
—Your Nanny Miro, he said. She’s very sick.
Nanny Miro … among all my nannies, she was the one I loved most. Everybody used to say I was her favourite mokopuna, and that she loved me more than her own children who’d grown up and had kids of their own.
She lived down the road from us, right next to the meeting house in the big old homestead which everybody in the village called ‘The Museum’ because it housed the prized possessions of the whanau, the village family. Because she was rich and had a lot of land, we all used to wonder why Nanny Miro didn’t buy a newer, more modern house. But Nanny didn’t want to move. She liked her own house just as it was.
—Anyway, she used to say, what with all my haddit kids and their haddit kids and all this haddit whanau being broke all the time and coming to ask me for some money, how can I afford to buy a new house?
Nanny didn’t really care about money though. Who needs it? she used to say. What you think I had all these kids for, ay? To look after me, I’m not dumb!
Then she would cackle to herself. But it wasn’t true really, because her family would send all their kids to her place when they were broke and she looked after them! She liked her mokopunas, but not for too long. She’d ring up their parents and say:
—Hey! When you coming to pick up your hoha kids! They’re wrecking the place!
Yet, always, when they left, she would have a little weep, and give them some money ….
I used to like going to Nanny’s place. For me it was a big treasure house, glistening with sports trophies and photographs, pieces of carvings and greenstone, and feather cloaks hanging from the walls.
Most times, a lot of women would be there playing cards with Nanny. Nanny loved all card games—five hundred, poker, canasta, pontoon, whist, euchre—you name it, she could play it.
The sitting room would be crowded with the kuias, all puffing clouds of smoke, dressed in their old clothes, laughing and cackling and gossiping about who was pregnant—and relishing all the juicy bits too!
I liked sitting and watching them. Mrs Heta would always be there, and when it came to cards she was both Nanny’s best friend and worst enemy. And the two of them were the biggest cheats I ever saw.
Mrs Heta would cough and reach for a hanky while slyly slipping a card from beneath her dress. And she was always reneging in five hundred! But her greatest asset was her eyes, which were big and googly. One eye would look straight ahead, while the other swivelled around, having a look at the cards in the hands of the women sitting next to her.
—Eeee! You cheat! Nanny would say. You just keep your eyes to yourself, Maka tiko bum!
Mrs Heta would look at Nanny as if she were offended. Then she would sniff and say:
—You the cheat yourself, Miro Mananui. I saw you sneaking that ace from the bottom of the pack.
—How do you know I got an ace Maka? Nanny would say. I know you! You dealt this hand, and you stuck that ace down there for yourself, you cheat! Well, ana! I got it now! So take that!
And she would slap down her hand.
—Sweet, ay? she would laugh. Good? Kapai lalelale? And she would sometimes wiggle her hips, making her victory sweeter.
—Eeee! Miro! Mrs Heta would say. Well, I got a good hand too! And she would slap her hand down and bellow with laughter.
—Take that!
And always, they would squabble. I often wondered how they ever remained friends. The names they called each other!
Sometimes, I would go and see Nanny and she would be all alone, playing patience. If there was nobody to play with her, she’d always play patience. And still she cheated! I’d see her hands fumbling across the cards, turning up a jack or queen she needed, and then she’d laugh and say:
—I’m too good for this game!
She used to try to teach me some of the games, but I wasn’t very interested, and I didn’t yell and shout at her like the women did. She liked the bickering.
—Aue … she would sigh. Then she’d look at me and begin dealing out the cards in the only game I ever knew how to play.
And we would yell snap! all the afternoon ….
Now, Nanny was sick.
I went to see her that afternoon after I’d dropped my suitcases at home. Nanny Tama, her husband, opened the door. We embraced and he began to weep on my shoulder.
—Your Nanny Miro, he whispered. She’s … she’s ….
He couldn’t say the words. He motioned me to her bedroom.
Nanny Miro was lying in bed. And she was so old looking. Her face was very grey, and she looked like a tiny wrinkled doll in that big bed. She was so thin now, and seemed all bones.
I walked into the room. She was asleep. I sat down on the bed beside her, and looked at her lovingly.
Even when I was a child, she must have been old. But I’d never realised it. She must have been over seventy now. Why do people you love grow old so suddenly?
The room had a strange, antiseptic s
mell. Underneath the bed was a big chamber pot, yellow with urine …. And the pillow was flecked with small spots of blood where she had been coughing. I shook her gently.
—Nanny … Nanny, wake up.
She moaned. A long, hoarse sigh grew on her lips. Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked at me with blank eyes … and then tears began to roll down her cheeks.
—Don’t cry, Nanny, I said. Don’t cry. I’m here.
But she wouldn’t stop.
So I sat beside her on the bed and she lifted her hands to me.
—Haere mai, mokopuna. Haere mai. Mmm. Mmm.
And I bent within her arms and we pressed noses.
After a while, she calmed down. She seemed to be her own self.
—What a haddit mokopuna you are, she wept. It’s only when I’m just about in my grave that you come to see me.
—I couldn’t see you last time I was home, I explained. I was too busy.
—Yes, I know you fullas, she grumbled. It’s only when I’m almost dead that you come for some money.
—I don’t want your money, Nanny.
—What’s wrong with my money! she said. Nothing’s wrong with it! Don’t you want any?
—Of course I do, I laughed. But I know you! I bet you lost it all on poker! She giggled. Then she was my Nanny again. The Nanny I knew.
We talked for a long time. I told her about what I was doing in Wellington and all the neat girls who were after me.
—You teka! she giggled. Who’d want to have you!
And she showed me all her injection needles and pills and told me how she’d wanted to come home from the hospital, so they’d let her.
—You know why I wanted to come home? she asked. I didn’t like all those strange nurses looking at my bum when they gave me those injections. I was so sick, mokopuna, I couldn’t even go to the lav, and I’d rather wet my own bed not their neat bed. That’s why I come home.
Afterwards, I played the piano for Nanny. She used to like Me He Manurere so I played it for her, and I could hear her quavering voice singing in her room.
Me he manurere aue ….
When I finally left Nanny I told her I would come back in the morning.
But that night, Nanny Tama rang up.
—Your Nanny Miro, she’s dying.
We all rushed to Nanny’s house. It was already crowded. All the old women were there. Nanny was lying very still. Then she looked up and whispered to Mrs Heta:
—Maka … Maka tiko bum … I want a game of cards ….
A pack of cards was found. The old ladies sat around the bed, playing. Everybody else decided to play cards too, to keep Nanny company. The men played poker in the kitchen and sitting room. The kids played snap in the other bedrooms. The house overflowed with card players, even onto the lawn outside Nanny’s window, where she could see ….
The women laid the cards out on the bed. They dealt the first hand. They cackled and joked with Nanny, trying not to cry. And Mrs Heta kept saying to Nanny:
—Eee! You cheat Miro. You cheat! And she made her googly eye reach far over to see Nanny’s cards.
—You think you can see, ay, Maka tiko bum? Nanny coughed. You think you’re going to win this hand, ay? Well, take that!
She slammed down a full house.
The other women goggled at the cards. Mrs Heta looked at her own cards. Then she smiled through her tears and yelled:
—Eee! You cheat Miro! I got two aces in my hand already! Only four in the pack. So how come you got three aces in your hand?
Everybody laughed. Nanny and Mrs Heta started squabbling as they always did, pointing at each other and saying: You the cheat, not me! And Nanny Miro said: I saw you, Maka tiko bum, I saw you sneaking that card from under the blanket.
She began to laugh. Quietly. Her eyes streaming with tears. And while she was laughing, she died.
Everybody was silent. Then Mrs Heta took the cards from Nanny’s hands and kissed her.
—You the cheat, Miro, she whispered. You the cheat yourself ….
We buried Nanny on the hill with the rest of her family. During her tangi, Mrs Heta played patience with Nanny, spreading the cards across the casket.
Later in the year, Mrs Heta, she died too. She was buried right next to Nanny, so that they could keep on playing cards …. And I bet you they’re still squabbling up there ….
—Eee! You cheat Miro ….
—You the cheat, Maka tiko bum. You, you the cheat ….
(1972)
Hone Tuwhare, ‘To a Maori Figure Cast in Bronze Outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland’
I hate being stuck up here, glaciated, hard all over
and with my guts removed: my old lady is not going
to like it
I’ve seen more efficient scarecrows in seedbed
nurseries. Hell, I can’t even shoo the pigeons off
Me: all hollow inside with longing for the marae on
the cliff at Kohimarama, where you can watch the ships
come in curling their white moustaches
Why didn’t they stick me next to Mickey Savage?
‘Now then,’ he was a good bloke
Maybe it was a Tory City Council that put me here
They never consulted me about naming the square
It’s a wonder they never called it: Hori-in-the-gorge-at-
bottom-of-hill. Because it is like that: a gorge,
with the sun blocked out, the wind whistling around
your balls (your balls mate) And at night, how I
feel for the beatle-girls with their long-haired
boyfriends licking their frozen finger-chippy lips
hopefully. And me again beetling
my tent eyebrows forever, like a brass monkey with
real worries: I mean, how the hell can you welcome
the Overseas Dollar, if you can’t open your mouth
to poke your tongue out, eh?
If I could only move from this bloody pedestal I’d
show the long-hairs how to knock out a tune on the
souped-up guitar, my mere quivering, my taiaha held
at the high port. And I’d fix the ripe kotiro too
with their mini-piupiu-ed bums twinkling: yeah!
Somebody give me a drink: I can’t stand it
(1972)
Hone Tuwhare, ‘The New Zealand Land March on Wellington, Hepetema 14–Oketopa 17, 1975’
What will I wear? What can I afford to wear? And will my
landlord keep my flat for me in Dunedin? This long
walk: what a hell of a thing.
I need a haversack. Who will lend me one? I might have to
carry my gear in a sugarbag with flax tied to the bottom
corners: no sweat. But I need a raincoat. Who will
trust me with one in the immense time of Spring
when showers bless the earth? Eh? I am old. Already wrinkles
spread inexorably: inching, inching. They’re not all of
them laughter-lines. Agh, what a hell of a thing. But it
won’t be a lonely walk. People all around and mostly
young: from blue-brown with bits more added right on
up to off-white? Jesus, how self-conscious can you get.
Like man, I only want to last the distance, right?
Yeah: and all the different people worrying differently and
separately about the decision and the action of commitment
they each have taken to grab the burning but elusive
star together. And together not knowing what lies at the end
of the star’s reach. Together, not knowing whether they will
get a punch in the face at the end of the
road, or, with much pain learn that it is just the beginning …
My feet are beginning to ache already. The cracks on my
Maori feet are beginning
to widen, my blood turned on. Do not laugh.
Laugh only when the blisters
fade with the jaded polititans
and their cunning.
Laugh only when the small spies soft-pies pie-eyed freckled ladies
and their mafia-men with dark glasses are dug out like
bed-bugs from among us. Be watchful, watchful …
I need a haversack. Who will lend me one? I need a raincoat.
Who will trust me in a time of Spring when flowers clamour
for the yellow and the blue, the
red the green of the life-giving earth? What a good time to
take a walk.
(1975)
Patricia Grace, ‘Parade’
Yesterday I went with Hoani, Lena, and the little ones up along the creek where the bush begins, to cut fern and flax. Back there at the quiet edge of the bush with the hills rolling skyward and the sound of the sea behind me, I was glad I had come home in response to Auntie’s letter. It was easy there, to put aside the heaviness of spirit which had come upon me during the week of carnival. It was soothing to follow with my eyes the spreading circles of fern patterning the hillsides, and good to feel the coolness of flax and to realise again the quiet strength of each speared leaf. It was good to look into the open-throated flax blooms with their lit-coal colours, and to put a hand over the swollen black splitting pods with the seed heavy in them.
And I thought of how each pod would soon cast aside its heaviness and become a mere shell, warped and empty, while that which had been its own heaviness would become new life. New growth and strength.
As we carried the bundles of fern and flax that we had collected and put them into the creek to keep fresh for the morning, I was able to feel that tomorrow, the final day of the carnival, would be different from the ones recently passed when realisation had come to me, resting in me like stone.
‘Please come for the carnival,’ Auntie’s letter had said. And the letter from my little cousin Ruby: ‘Please come, Matewai. We haven’t seen you for two years.’ I had felt excitement in me at the thought of returning, being back with them. And I came for the carnival as they had asked.
It was easy this morning to feel a lightness of spirit, waking to a morning so warm and fullscented, with odours rising to the nostrils as though every morning comes from inside the earth. Rich damp smells drenched every grass blade, every seeded stalk, and every cluster of ragwort, thistle and blackberry. Steaming up through the warming rosettes of cow dung. Stealing up the stems of lupin and along the lupin arms, out on to the little spread hands of lupin leaves.
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 96