Two poems
Waitati diss track
I have to get out of the swamp
with its converted churches and artichoke smell
washing barrel roasters and cottage gardens
depruned roses freaking in the wind
community hot tub orgies and whisper newsletters
geodesic veggie domes and homogeneously vegan potlucks
a swamp is surrounded by mountains
sea lions and water rats alike born every night at the estuary
to lounge amongst the encroaching tussock
everything is reclaimed in the swamp land
fire marsh waiting beneath the piles
pushing up the floor of every quaking weatherboard cracked from too thin
licks of paint
watching tiny houses overflow the old paddocks
feeling superior for knowing water always returns
crouched in the asbestos-clad commune huffing chop bongs like a lifeline
spiders webbing between the deck posts like a dreamcatcher
stopped eating now I have no idea how big an egg is
zipping up a snowsuit inside come winter
perched burning distance above the broken convection heater
rotating like a gas station hot dog
I can’t drive so I stay home a lot
noticing how all the water birds have long and spindly legs
how the molluscs gasp when the bay dries out
there’s ddt in the glasshouse busted with fennel over head height
I wash dishes to replace them with mouse shit
every tide the estuary beckons
stretching her hands to the garden
begging
Endless optimisation machine
That screen from The Matrix with green lines of numbers running themselves dry
an open mouth funneling air like a vacuum
ouroboros but it’s an arm stuffed to the hilt down the throat, choking
eating a roast chicken from the inside out shrunk down tiny, needing to escape
an endless trail of data winding through a forest, alternating between floodwaters and breadcrumbs
over thirteen years of weekly clinical psychotherapy would do a number on anyone
make you learn to chase the problem through the trees, dogged in pursuit
sure ascension always lies around the next corner
that your grades will be high enough
the audience will clap
it’s worse with all the ads, of course
swamp of thin bodies gasping at your legs like mud
tough to sucker hard air getting information whiplash
overstimulated in the supermarket where they keep moving aisles around like a literal nightmare
every mirror is a kaleidoscope or a funhouse
to say nothing of the news or the internet
what’s a goose to do?
Unhook from the breadcrumb vending machine?
Eliana Gray is a writer living in Ōtepoti. You can find their poetry littered about the internet, and in print, in places such as The Spinoff, Landfall, Cordite, and Overland. They think you should read their essay ‘Filling an Empty Room’ on The Pantograph Punch. They saw two orcas in the harbour a month ago and refuse to stop thinking about it.