Sunday poems, by Bill Manhire

2026-03-07 - 17:07

Getting There The man running the roadworks waves us through. We wave at him as we go, it’s easy enough to do, wave at the man who waves us through. And then we’re at the secret place: the road becomes the gravel road becomes the beach. There’s always a track down to the water. Even when the beach looks empty somebody’s on it. At the moment it’s us! People come round, someone pours a drink. There’s talk of earthquakes, battlefields. You can’t close the gate because it’s missing. Mongoose Jarryd said to me: Fuck off. That wasn’t very friendly. You fuck off too, I said. What’s that, he went, you be careful sonny. I said: I said, you fuck off, Jarryd, I was here first. He loomed up at me. You’re looking for trouble, are you little man. Look, just fuck off, I said, or you’re a dead fucking mongoose. He looked worried for a moment. He didn’t know what a fucking mongoose was. Then he hit me really hard. But then he fucked right off. My Final Poem Someone rides a bicycle through a cemetery, then in and out of my poem. Why would anyone do that? I was expecting a dark horseman, not a clown on a bicycle. Taken with kind permission from the funny, beautiful and wise new collection of poems Lyrical Ballads by Bill Manhire (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25), available in bookstores nationwide. It marks his first Te Herenga collection in six years.