trout
David Howard
Tangohia mai te taura i taku kaki kia waiata au i taku waiata. [‘Take the rope from my throat that I may sing my song.’]
– Mokomoko, 17 May 1866
Contents
1. Over the garden
2. The portrait gallery
3. Censor
4. The last word
5. Conceit
6. The carrion flower
7. A darker purpose
8. The fellow traveller
9. Fascicle
10. Credo
11. Morning
12. The sunday painter
13. An anzac breviary
14. An extempore tragedy
15. After Wairau
16. The voices that get up
17. Design fault
18. A man I know wrote a book about a man he knew
19. On the line
20. For Fernando Pessoa
21. Snapshot
22. The lovers
23. Boxed in
24. Provisions
25. Moonshine
26. In the mean time
27. Dropping
28. The reader
29. Aotearoa: a romance
30. Charm
31. Discharge
32. Christchurch 1959
33. Only
34. Off
35. The theology of beetles
36. Subtitles
37. Relict
38. Given
39. Stick figures in a circle
40. Nostalgia for the mud
41. Or not
42. For John Mulgan
43. Revisiting Church Square
44. An account
45. Genesis
46. Pointing the bone
47. The art of separation
48. Rue Grehan, Akaroa
49. White boy meets Te Whiro
50. You say it’s your birthday well it’s my birthday too
51. Hear say
52. Not knowing
53. Decorating the present
54. Abstract
55. Concert
56. How it goes
57. The escaped prisoners
58. Notional
59. Complete with instructions
60. Heartwood
61. Dove
62. Palimpsest
63. On the eighth day
64. Talking sideways
65. Home
66. The perpetual bird
67. For Witi Ihimaera
68. Out
69. To Cavafy
70. Arc
71. Cherry
72. His pagan body
73. A photograph of the poet
74. Portofino
75. After all
76. End-game
77. Shebang