GEOFF COCHRANE

Equinoctial

A hand’s turn or two.
A hand’s turn or two
and my work is done for the day.

~

Behold my suit of meats
and fat tarantulas. Check out my cloak of knives
and pinkest heliums.

~

Our lilies are broken by the wind.
Broken by the wind, and then they rust.
Broken by the wind, and then they rot.

~

A habit I seem to have formed (and can’t afford):
each morning at eleven, a latte at the same place,
at the same table, my own inviolable spot
downwind of the non-smokers.

Coffee. What a racket. I must be nuts.
But I’m making an attempt to live, you see;
I’m conducting an experiment in living.

Geoff Cochrane lives in Wellington. In 2014 he received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award. Wonky Optics, his fifteenth collection of poems, was published in February.

Poem source details >

 

Links

New Zealand Book Council writer file
Victoria University Press author page