A S C E N S I O N

 
Rangitoto does not possess light.

 
Rangitoto (sparkles as a tube of crystal water) inside.

 
Rangitoto absorbs itself.

 
                                 **

 
The baked charcoal island weighted on the bluestone harbour
brittle as the fluorescent tube

 
as the gull lifts over to it that something in the air.

 
Rangitoto of The Dead Ones / the seventh seal of the barren uteri
you would expect to explode colour like a Japanese graphic.

 
                      ‘A great mountain, all in flame.’

 
[from Night of Warehouses, Poems: 1978-2000, HeadworX Publishers, 2001]

© 2001 Trout &
Stephen Oliver