you were named afteran English summer late at night as I lay the cardsdown their clear ivory clatteris interrupted by the rustleof a cotton print dresspaisley hearts and spadesa splash of cheap colour there was the sharpnessof cutty grass on a hillsidewhere I crouched amongrusty cans and brown bottlestrying to make somekind of kingdom of it all it was a different cityyou had a different voicealready rough and a laughof corrugated cardboard in another city I would takecodeine and water into thedark room of your
migraine why do you keep comingslipping yourself betweena black king and a red queen? my memories really are so fewand so particular but you arrivewith a rustle and a nicotinevoice and the night becomesvaricose with you dyingin the month of your namedeep in a southern midwinter Taken with kind permission from the recently published collection A Day Like No Other: Selected poems by James Norcliffe (Otago University Press, $25). Christchurch writer Erik Kennedy said in his launch speech, “The poems are relevant, psychologically compelling, quietly
and loudly political, concerned with history and our place on the planet and in the cosmos. A Day Like No Other brings into focus just how frequently he shoots for and hits the difficult, high-value targets.”
James Norcliffe, June poem, A Day Like No Other, Otago University Press, Erik Kennedy, Christchurch, selected poems