JENNY BORNHOLDT

 

Being a Poet

 

Yesterday I bought
a blender – blue – from
Briscoes, just like
Marion’s. Today
we’re dealing with the big
issues, like: How the World
Began    and
Can We Have Fruit Loops
For Breakfast?
Friends ask
what I’m reading.
By the bed is Go, dog. Go.
We looked at it this morning
just before our fight
over the nature of
Weetbix. But it’s soggy
every morning, I hear myself say
that’s just what Weetbix does
that’s just its way.

 

Pastoral

 

There are cows
in the paddock
lying down and
standing up.
Deer    he says.
Not dear as in
beloved, which is what
people mistakenly and
affectionately think, but rather
the rougher kind
with antlers and hooves.     Yes
like deer but not.    He is
insistent    deer, deer
and there
it goes
his first word
tripping silently off
into the dark forest.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenny Bornholdt has written six books of poetry, most recently These Days (VUP, 2000). She has also edited two anthologies of New Zealand poems and has a good idea for another one.

 

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