Deadly Pollen

by Stephen Oliver

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

Contents

[1. ‘ZIONISM:’]
[2. ‘You return to the stupa, yearly,’]
[3. ‘The stones collected. Ground’]
[4. ‘ “With digital, there is no past,” ’]
[5. ‘How is it the floating island’]
[6. ‘Mediocre raiders lie in wait.’]
[7. ‘Time passes - that pressure in’]
[8. ‘Hugely, our indifference squats -’]
[9. ‘Circuit; right hand wise,’]
[10. ‘If streets had cobblestones’]
[11. ‘A Public Works draughtsman’]
[12. ‘Pyrrha, your dewy hair,’]
[13. ‘The flames above the wall,’]
[14. ‘Once cradle of civilization -’]
[15. ‘Forty thousand tons. Space’]
[16. ‘A giallo antico moon framed’]
[17. ‘‘The Breaking of Nations’ ’]
[18. ‘‘A line is taking a full-stop’]
[19. ‘Buildings off the crustal shelf,’]
[20. ‘Generalization of Old World’]
[21. ‘CEOs in castles cascade’]
[22. ‘Footprints for satellites?’]
[23. ‘Is recollection seeing anew,’]
[24. ‘So. Earth’s most dramatic’]
[25. ‘I wanted to reach my hand into’]
[26. ‘ ‘Your breasts in the mirror,’ ’]
[27. ‘Alcatraz not Minoan ruins.’]
[28. ‘Do words bring to mind flat’]
[29. ‘Serpent-backed bridge profiled:’]
[30. ‘One quadrant of sky turns,’]
[31. ‘Barrel of the sun, gun-wad,’]
[32. ‘Rubbed off sky exposes an’]
[33. ‘The day combustible as a’]
[34. ‘Compression of bees,’]
[35. ‘Scent makes the air visible,’]
[An Actual Encounter With The Sun On
My Balcony At France Street]

Deadly Pollen

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.

*