A Couple of Poems for early December

Kaleidoscope of the Mind

This curious box of conceivable curiosities,

All flowers and dolls, laces and colourful pebbles,

Enclosed in glass, set against ancient tapestries,

So sacred, yet profane and other impossibles,

Forever mystifies wind, odour and breath,

Surrounded by unsightly eyes that see beyond death;

From whence the motivation, to whom the gift,

And whose the understanding outside of dreams?

Like crystal vessels on a stilly sea, without drift

Or shore, attached to horizons and invisible streams,

Sewn in silk, embroidered out of hopes

Dangling from the witless welkin’s unconscious mind

And patient longings, tied to ageless ropes,

Wherein we affix our hearts, methinks to find

The way to sleep in gardens of desire

Away from murderous visions of Hell’s alluring fire.

                                  *****

          White Island, 9 December 2019

We always watched it on the horizon from the beach at Ohope,

A little plume of smoke, a small bump on the horizon,

And sometimes there were stories of a fertilizer plant,

Nothing but a shell these days, and a few tracks

Where tourists walked: otherwise nothing to see

Except the lava white rocks, the dusty footprints

At the stone wharf, as desolate a place as one could

Imagine. But visitors from far away are gullible

And the commercial boats would land them for an hour

For the thrill; and to leave their footprints in the dust

And go away with memories to embellish,

As though they were defying death itself that lay

Beneath their feet and occasionally rumbled threats:

No one believed it would ever blow except in dreams.