Four Poems
by Grant Shimmin
Why I rise early
Dawn has not quite cracked
when I rise to the sound of joy
The sparkles of streetlights
are noticeably shortened
The curves and colours
of trees and hillsides just
discernible through the retreating gloom
But the music, oh the sweet,
sweet music of unfolding dawn
swells through the valley
Crisscrossing voices all
speaking in tongues
only their own can interpret
A bellbird comes in above the chorus
ringing in the sunrise
with the purest of two-beat chimes
Louder and more regular
than the erratic rooster nearby
This sliver of time…
before the highway intrudes
and the bad news blares
This awakening of day
set to the music of joy
is where I want to live
Morning’s drag
Where parallel lines of house upon house
meet perpendicular pavement
He stands, shabby bar slicked-down hair
Stomaching the morning through threadbare fleece
and the cigarette he guides seductively to his lips
holds tenderly, reverse-cupped, like he’s cushioning a one-handed catch
It’s rush hour, but he has nowhere to rush to
Watching the rat race, whirling claws skittering on tarmac, long teeth bared
Is this all the seduction his day holds?
Is the smoke the afterglow or is it the act?
Silken magic
The moon is the white curve of a fingernail
as I ponder why it’s pinned to space blue
halfway through a sunny summer afternoon
It starts to spin, dance, whirl
a fingernail’s white curve of parachute silk
launched from the hill beyond
soaring higher than any I remember.
A striped straggler glides in shallower,
lands on a field scorched by the sun
and Icarus reborn is moved to a slow,
zig-zagged descent, momentarily one
with the clouds, soon safe on scorched Earth
The silk that makes a myth less mythical
My arse for a mould
If I die on the way home, he thought darkly, my body should be donated to the nearest bike factory. They could turn me upside-down and use my arse for a seat mould. Face grimly set, he pedalled on into the headwind that had been his hostile companion all journey, slowing his leg-drive, pushing him down into a saddle that jarred his numbed nether regions with every small undulation. Whenever he had to stop for a light, easing to a standing position was a delicately achieved relief. But respite was rare. Then he saw the colours, myriad combinations stretched around the relentless easterly that filled them, riders on tethered boards tearing across the estuary the cycle lane skirted. Occasionally one lifted off as the wind gusted stronger. The sight was uplifting too. If only bikes came with such surplus buoyancy. To soar or to be sore, he chuckled ironically through clenched teeth. He was definitely the lame butt of that joke.
BIO: Grant Shimmin is a South African-born poet and writer, resident in New Zealand since 2001, who is passionate about the intersection between humanity and the natural world. He has work that published/forthcoming at Roi Faineant Press, Does it Have Pockets?, The Hooghly Review, underscore_magazine, Bull, Epistemic Literature, Querencia Press and elsewhere. He can be found on Twitter (@shimmo23) and Instagram (shimmonz).