I’m Eclipsed

(This is a tribute poem to Hone Tuwhare and  is a combination of Hone’s Hotere poem and what he says in a documentary 2005 made by Gaylene Preston.)

Hone Tuwhare when you smile and say

Give us a smile son give us your best morning one

And then later laugh and say on TV

This Bloody Maori is putting germs in our words

Now with the bloody listener not accepting any dam poems

(Don’t they know) … it’s a prestigious thing it’s the heart of man

Karl Marx armed with a cigarette not a pen

Wandering Pricks everywhere

When you are hard working executive

You deserve a bit on the side a sweetner

Poetry right from the beginning of humanity

Earliest people … basic poetry.

Sometimes its quite boisterous and loud mouthed

And other times peaceful … murmuring

Sometimes it shakes the house and I say

Hey come on back off …

Hone Tuwhare when you smile and say

There’s no fear of dying that’s inevitable for everybody

To advance, recede, shimmer and wave like exploding packs of cards

I shake my head and say: hell, what is this thing called aroha

Spent 20 years in Dunedin you cant forget a city after 20 years

Usually he never got up until about lunch-time did you

He said he had no salt for his eggs so I posted some rock salt

And he told me it’s bad I don’t have an egg either

Ian said yesterday my eyes looked like oysters

I don’t feel so good today I just swallowed my oysters

Ralph Hotere over there in the corner … his anti rugby sentiments

There he is our most political artist

I will have four jars. I’ll get one of my sons to come down

And pick up these jars and a thousand dollars … my son might think oh yeah and Chuck a bit around Kaka point, a bit around Dunedin, Wellington where he was born Chuck a bit in there and chuck a bit in Hokianga and that’s it

I don’t need a tombstone.

I have to roll another smoke man.  I’m eclipsed.

Tracey Tawhiao