Wellington Writers Walk

topped-up trembling horizon beyond

Pencarrow Head would begin to look like

a seaport in someone's lost paradise.

in The Love School

(Victoria University Press, 2008)

Stands like an altar drawn

Whereon hushed hands shall lay

The shining pyx of dawn.

With penitence and stir,

And drowsy flurry by,

The wind, a shamefaced serving-boy

Comes running up the sky.

in Selected Poems: Eileen Duggan,

ed. Peter Whiteford

(Victoria University Press, 1994)

Flat iron tugs dash smoothing toward

Any shirt of a ship, any pillowslip

Of a freighter they decree Must be ironed flat as washing from the sea.

in Come High Water

(Dunmore Press, 1977)

exquisite anticipation for the pecking of mullet,

the sucking of trevally, or - best of all - the sudden

pull of kahawai or kingfish.

(Penguin Books, 1999)

A formal structure of handpicked squares and bricks

Apprehensible as a child’s construction

Signifying community.

in Fires and Patterns

(The Jacaranda Press, 1975)

1979

I feel at times like an old

violin played on by a master

hand. You, dear city, are

the maestro drawing the bow

over the sensibilities of my

mind, echoing the music

of my days.

(Whitcombe & Tombs, 1959)

you have to do and be, not simply watch

or even describe. This is the city of action,

the world headquarters of the verb –

in Scenes from a Small City

(Daphne Brasell Associates Press, 1994)

It’s time, she says, it’s time surely

for us to change lanes, change tongues, they speak so differently down here.

in Seeing You Asked

(Victoria University Press, 1998)

Wellington burst like a bomb.

It opened like a flower, was

lit up like a room, explained

itself exactly, became the

capital.

(Faber and Faber, 1992)

wind that blasts through it. I love

the life and pulse and activity, and the

warm decrepitude ... there’s always an edge

here that one must walk which is sharp

and precarious, requiring vigilance.

(Penguin Books, 1992)

freedom...I want to discuss ideas... I want books...

(Oxford University Press, 1992)

of the universe,

like everybody else.

in Milky Way Bar

(Victoria University Press, 1991)

Wellington afloat on the harbour haze ...

You think of how most men spend their days

In offices as cramped as elevators –

in Collected Poems 1963 - 1980

(Penguin Books, 1980)

but all, give themselves

to the essence of our cult

– the ritual assembly of an

interested coterie in a space

where magic can be made

and miracles occur.

unpublished ms, Bruce Mason papers,

JC Beaglehole Room,

Victoria University of Wellington

https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2901499,174.7808488,3a,74.7y,243.82h,86.03t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s8J9u6MB_SmkgNuLmaCk5vQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Our world a cube of sunlight –

but to the south

the violet admonition

of thunder.

in The Dark Lord of Savaiki: Collected Poems

(Hazard Press, 2003)

Ere we came by the rustling jest of the paper kings,

I who am overbold will be steadily bold,

In the counted tale of things.

in Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde,

ed. Michele Leggott

(Auckland University Press, 2003)

walking on Wellington Harbour.

He wore blue dungarees.

His beard and hair were long.

His breath smelt of mussels and paraoa.

When he smiled it looked like the dawn.

in Collected Poems of James K Baxter,

ed. J E Weir

(Oxford University Press, 2003)

legs just touching, they

stride like one eager

person through the town,

down the asphalt zigzag

where the fennel grows

wild ... the wind is so

strong that they have

to fight their way

through it, rocking like

two old drunkards.

in Bliss and Other Stories

(Penguin Books, 2001)

https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.289475,174.7830662,3a,15.3y,4.59h,83.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1swNW92B2EHJc_Y5HLwAtDLw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 (Image)

and shakes its skirts over the harbour

in a wild fandango that attracts

the pale moths of yachts in droves

in Writing from the Heart

(Storylines, 2010)

comfort station. When I get tired of walking

around it, I can always lean against it.

(Random House, 2010)

https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2905919,174.7839315,3a,16.9y,58.69h,72.06t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNIgJtDkQm_lkuShXQMfkSg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 (Image - look closely)

bay opened up beneath us, like a shell splashed

with beads of light.

(Hutchinson, 1963)

across the creases

of an imaginary map

a touch of parchment surrealism here

no wonder the lights

are wavering

all over the place

tonight

not a straight town at all

in Writing Wellington,

ed. Roger Robinson

(Victoria University Press, 1999)

good. The tugging wind

trapped and cornered by

buildings, steep short

cuts bordered by Garden

Escapes, precipitous gullies

where throttling green

creepers blanketed the

trees beneath.

in I Think We Should Go into the Jungle

(Victoria University Press, 1989)

https://www.google.com/maps/@-41.2882879,174.799433,3a,15y,163.75h,89.91t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0u-42KPG1sflx37yBp5QNQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3D0u-42KPG1sflx37yBp5QNQ%26cb_client%3Dsearch.revgeo_and_fetch.gps%26w%3D96%26h%3D64%26yaw%3D233.577%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192 (Image)