Deadly Pollen

WORD RIOT PRESS (c) Stephen Oliver, 2003 Books by Stephen Oliver Henwise (1975) & Interviews (1978) Autumn Songs (1978) Letter To James K. Baxter (1980) Earthbound Mirrors (1984) Guardians, Not Angels (1993) Islands of Wilderness - A Romance (1996) Unmanned (1999) Election Year Blues (1999) Night of Warehouses: Poems 1978 - 2000 (2001) Deadly Pollen (2003) Ballads, Satire & Salt (2003) Recordings Earthbound Mirrors, a selection, Stephen Oliver, Ode Records Label, Auckland, (cassette) 1984 For more information on Stephen Oliver visit: http://people.smartchat.net.au/~sao/ Cover design: Pina Ricciu. Cover image: The Lithuanian Bison, engraving from J. von Brincken, 1828. Acknowledgements: Antipodes (USA), Biff’s Quarterly (USA), Brief (NZ), Catalyzer Journal (USA), Comet Magazine (San Francisco), JAAM (NZ), Poetry NZ/26 featured poet, San Francisco Salvo, Spreadhead (USA), Thylazine (Aust). An Actual Encounter With the Sun On / My Balcony At France Street: a parody on Frank O’Hara’s ‘A True Account Of Talking / To The Sun At Fire Island’ who in turn based his account on Mayakovsky’s more robust poem, ‘A Most Extraordinary Adventure’. POETS’ PALACE: a name given by the author to an old Kauri, weatherboard guest house in France Street (the upper story of which he occupied in the early ’80s) near the prostitute’s strip off K’rd, Auckland. Various ‘emerging’ poets & artists lived downstairs at intervals during this period. As the last of its kind in Newton Gully this 100 year old wooden building was finally demolished at the close of the decade. Deadly Pollen is published by Word Riot Press PO Box 414 Middletown, NJ 07748 USA http://www.wordriot.org/press ISBN 0-9728200-2-7 Typeset by Word Riot Press in Bembo
ZIONISM: to carry forward the cultural gene - O bright-lit destiny of the chosen! The child’s bouncing ball lands in mud on the other side of the wire; footsteps are paradoxical in a minefield. His heart ticks fast as a metal detector, slowly, the yellow ball rolls to a stop. Proposition: to advance onto ancestral territory, or return into gentle, familial lands, a footfall journey backward. His eye shrinks the land to desert.