SERIE BARFORD
The flying fox and the Che Guevara
I cared for my children like a flying fox
kept them safe under my wings
when they were small and hesitant
tipped paracetamol and antibiotics
down persistently inflamed throats
during endless nights of earache
gassed them with ventolin cocktails
when asthma stole their breath
had broken bones reset and a tongue bitten off
from a faulty landing on a trampoline
reattached in a theatre without movies
then regretted it
when that fiapoko mouth
started up again
we've laughed at dinosaurs and cartoons
at nana crooning Buffalo Soldier
at pa's jokes and the bills that kept arriving
for the ever-declining cashflow card
there were the retreads that outlived cars
and the unexpected appearance of food
in our sprayed and wiped-out cupboards
there's so much to think about
as I sit barefoot in church
behind the vividly turbaned mamas
paying their respects to Éloi Machoro
a South Pacific Che Guevara
a dead son of this island
that siege
and the photo of Machoro
smashing a ballot box with an axe
immortalised him beyond the bullets
that felled a man into a crimson pool
my sons are still learning the difference
between people's needs and wants
and how to match actions with words
but I remember
they wore their Che Guevara t-shirts
until they fell off their backs
Note: fiapoko: a derogatory term/admonishment used when a person is cheeky or conducts themselves in a way that does not befit them (Samoan).
LISTEN to ‘The flying fox and the Che Guevara’ by Serie Barford
Serie (Cherie) Barford was born in Aotearoa-New Zealand to a migrant German-Samoan mother and a Palagi father. She lives in West Auckland and has published three collections of poetry as well as Entangled Islands (Anahera Press, 2015), a collection which combines poetry with prose. Serie’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently in Essential New Zealand Poems, Whispers and Vanities, Cordite Poetry Review, Jacket 2 and in the Phantom Billstickers poetry project. Serie performs poetry at public events and was awarded the Seresin Landfall Residency in 2011.
Barford comments: ‘I have visited Kanaky (New Caledonia) several times and encountered enthusiastic welcomes when I walked into some villages wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. I had seen portraits of Guevara and Éloi Machoro painted on bus stops and learned that Machoro, a Kanak political activist, is known as “the South Pacific Che Guevara”. He is revered by those who regard him as a freedom fighter and reviled by others who consider him a terrorist.
‘There is a famous photo of Machoro smashing a ballot box with an axe when the FLNKS (pro-Kanak independence party) boycotted the November 1984 election. Machoro went on to capture the mining town of Thio, which was held under siege for three weeks, before being shot dead by French paramilitary sharpshooters in a farmhouse near La Foa. I spent some time in Kanaky and visited places associated with Machoro’s life and death.’
Links
New Zealand Book Council writer file
Anahera Press
Entangled Islands on Amazon