essa may ranapiri

 

visiting Wehi Wehi marae on google maps

 

                        the small building                made small
                          by the screen                 dust stuck in fingerprint sweat
                   i see you on the screen                 arms and legs stretched to shelter
but the head                   head                            head screens
                      i can’t move where i         stand              a digitised yellow speck with
                   delusion                                  i can see the grass phase in          out
existence     try my best          to get past the fence       it barely
       reaches my knees                easier than anything to step over
           can’t get off the           tarmac sticky with determination
cars half-copied smudge across       clipped from movement       stained in time
                                                               as i stain
i think of my                                                 my body smashed over the countryside
from car half-smudged across my clipped blooded                  blood
paused infinite before impact                     there is something inside me that feels
                     something when
i look at this building                                   the red is a blood
                                     red my blood your                        blood and the white
is the light                  stretched     the light distance                     the light between
                          but still the screen                  the            screen           still            us

Our Earth’s Circuitry

 

just    gather and                     hold the body             fold
over flesh              wet patterns    eels throwing up     a
phone hits the                      ground    over               over
over!!             until th sim card turns             fragmented
contact list                           of soil              u never talk 2
leave me on read                              i lie down in th field
look how the gifs                              curl in     the breeze
this touch is birthed                   out of silicon statues

what atua waits inside         digital          oblivion fr her
lost bytes               all         my language climbing out of
an online dictionary                            where kupu reside
01101011     01110101        01110000      01110101
sick spiral       fractal living               inside a million fern
fronds      dripping math        we       self similar of land
of our         buffering threads               pūrakau  w/    cgi

can smell                      a machine programming th  wild
as i sing 2 it                                           dead in my throat
as we sink into the whenua        held inside their chests

echidna & narcissus

for jayy dodd

 

“” run through the forest

in tane’s forest none of the trees cat call they all
come silently for new life in the leaves
them all alone as they run through the dusk
everyone has an understanding here the panopticon
is made of kindness the way eyes move across
skin and weigh each pigment in a scale
but a ghost to be left screaming in the sun
narcissus is chasing a dark reflection through the trees
in the depths they hold hands as they skip in
tane’s forest can feel a million daughters rushing with them

“” in an apartment building

do i look like a question mark / to u they ask sitting with a clock
between their legs / echidna thinks what a thing to be
the punctuation that throws / everything into wonder

“” and the water

they’re staring at the surface eyes looking past themselves
echidna is reaching out to make a ripple
narcissus: i didn’t think you were gonna be that bold
to rip the rivers face
echidna responds with: it is only my face disturbed
narcissus just laughs trying to figure out who they are in the current
this is what i call transitioning can you see it
echidna can
i think u love the river so because all ur ancestors souls move through it
narcissus makes themself into a straight line
i can see their black bodies fly through the darkness of the rip
i can see them without shame
without the tattered roles of gender in their moving
echidna feels tears well up
the river making its way out of her face
in here i can be whoever the fuck i am

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

essa may ranapiri (Ngāti Raukawa) is a poet from Kirikiriroa / they have a book called ransack out now from VUP.