God weeps - Shirley Erena Murray

God weeps
at love withheld,
at strength misused,
at children's innocence abused,
and till we change the way we love,
God weeps.

Travel Song - Austral

‘Come, before the summer passes
Let us seek the mountain land:’
So they called me, happy playmates,
And we left the dawn-lit strand:
Riding on till later sunbeams slanted
On dark hills and downward-plunging streams,
And the solemn forest softly chanted
Old, old dreams.

Wild Dogs Under My Skirt - Tusiata Avia

I want to tattoo my legs.
Not blue or green
but black.

Today I do not want to be a doctor - Glenn Colquhoun

Today I do not want to be a doctor.
Nobody is getting any better.
Those who were well are sick again
and those who were sick are sicker.

A Song of Winter - Alexander Bathgate

Bird on the leafless bough. 

Summer has fled;

Bird on the leafless bough, 

Flowers are dead.

A Christmas hymn - Alfred Domett

It was the calm and silent night!

Seven hundred years and fifty-three 

Had Rome been growing up to might,

And now was Queen of land and sea. 

The bubble in the wind - Christina S.

The bubble in the wind

flies gently by.

Over the trees

and into the sky.

Saturday night - Mary Caroline Colborne-Veel

Saturday night in the crowded town; 

Pleasure and pain going up and down, 

Murmuring low on the ear their beat, 

Echoes unceasing of voice and feet. 

Withered age with its load of care 

Come in this tumult of life to share, 

Childhood glad in its radiance brief, 

Happiest-hearted or bowed with grief, 

Meet alike, as the stars look down, 

Week by week on the crowded town. 

In Position - Lauris Dorothy Edmond

I want to tell you about time, how strangely

it behaves when you haven't got much of it left:

after 60 say, or 70, when you'd think it would

The Desolate Star - Robin Hyde

Little winds of dawn come gently to them,

All the living stars, the other stars.

The Happy Islands - Isabel Maud Peacocke

O far away, and far away,

The Happy Islands lie;

In bluer seas of calm than these,

Beneath a bluer sky.

The sun is happy that a sparrow loves its life - John Puhiatau Pule

The sun is happy that a sparrow loves its life.

Branches calm the air down to a smooth solitude.

Energy from my psyche drives the stars

that imitate water when its eyes are wished for.

 

There was a child once - Boris Petrovsky

There was a child once.

He came to play in my garden;

He was quite pale and silent.

God of freedom, God of justice - Shirley Erena Murray

God of freedom, God of justice,

you whose love is strong as death,

you who saw the dark of prison,

you who knew the price of faith —

       touch our world of sad oppression

       with your Spirit's healing breath.

October in New Zealand - Jessie Mackay

O June has her diamonds, her diamonds of sheen,

Meet for a queen’s neck, if Death had e’er a queen!

Regrets only - Bill Nelson

You’ll take your grandfather roller skating,

watch from the edge of the rink.

Duet - Trish Harris

I became an old woman

age eleven

Beautiful Ferns - Catherine Richardson

Beautiful, delicate, fairy-like things!

Ye bend where the forest its deep shadow flings—

Where the long dank weeds weep their dews all day,

And there falls not a sunbeam to chase them away.

In their own language - Ken Arkind

the butterfly farts

the fart changes the butterfly's flight pattern

the cat on the window sill sees the butterfly

the cat jumps at the butterfly

the cat misses the butterfly

the cat falls in the fountain

I Scarce Believed - Marjory Nicholls

I wondered once, when life, so it did seem,

Was holding to me hands where gifts were laid,