rato

poet and photographer living in australia

[ratotahi]

Soft solitude

Will not bring me into being

Chronic quiet

Communing with beasts

And the mind's agonising

Contortions continue

Like shadows on the wall

Life did not happen

In isolation

There is a spark

Within flames

Within the burning of the sun

Let yourself

Not shy away from the light

[ratotahi]

The river does not meet her end

As she flows into the sea

She turns her face towards the sun

And begins again

[ratotahi]

Sometimes

The days are as small

As my place in the world

Others they are full

Of sunlight on my bedroom wall

My plant's new leaf, uncurled

The breeze that plays my windchimes

And I remember, above all things,

That I am grateful to be alive

[ratotahi]

Your indifference

Lives in stains on my skin

I have peeled off

The many layers of me

To find one that you might love

Perhaps

It has been this way forever

When a mother's womb

Is naught but silence

And babies grow

With love as a ghost

I, too, choose

An invisible life

If it means I cannot see

How your apathy

Hangs heavy on me

[ratotahi]

My body aches

And i long for meaning

Is that all there is?

Woes and joys

And the immensity of all the world

Too big and too great

Distilled into a single lifetime

What am I worth

When I weigh myself against the other

The words of poets and saints

Against the word of my own

Who am I to question God

And yet still I do

This is all I have

Please

Let me

Keep it

[ratotahi]

The world is full of goodbyes

And we believed ourselves tall

To think that the ends

Were ever on our terms

[ratotahi]

New years

New goals

But nothing of rest

New times

New wars

But nothing of hope

More days

New ways

But nothing of silence

I am tired

Of new

I want what was

Always in my bones

In my blood

Ways of old

Ways of truth

Paths long forgot

The joy my heart remembers

When all else is still

[ratotahi]

The doubt clings

To me like water

Inside and out

I grew with thirst

And drank from that well

Now all I know is fear

[ratotahi]

First, they will come for the children

And it will look like mercy

Open palms that offer

The promise of salvation

But the thief takes

More than he gives

And the liar's tongue

Weaves falsehoods into

Fool's gold truths

And we will surrender it all

And forget what it means

To know truth from lies

As the enemy weaves

Faster than any can unweave

So further the cloth

Becomes stained at the thread

And we will dress in their clothes

And wear their silks

And sleep in their cotton

Woven from their invisible strings

Until the knot wears tight around our throats

And harsh upon our tongues

These are the threads from which we'll hang

Without voices like blades

To cut ourselves loose

There we shall stay

The fate of the braive new world

[ratotahi]

My mouth is full of glass

When I speak in tongues

Of rage and righteousness

But the language of

Perfection

Is all you'll let of me

I am not

I am not

Your crystal clarity

Your vision of

Divine submission

My ancestors danced

So that mountains trembled

Forests shook

And the gods themselves

Saw in reverence what it meant

To live your truth

So speak at once

Or not at all

And let us dance

So the heavens may hear our cries

There is no such a thing

As perfection

Only devotion

Only love

[ratotahi]

I saw him as wholeness

And me as the absence of

His path holy

As though purity of thought

Existed only in the space

Between his heart and mind

And every time I knelt in prayer

And begged God for his words

To shape me like clay

I met with death

Again and again

And slowly realised

I was killing myself

Too often I walk this world untethered

Allowing hands that are not my own

To force my form into unnatural contortions

It is easy for men

To lay upon that which does not fight back

And easier still to villify that which does

But every creature that walks this Earth

Does not self-abandon, and nor will I

These hands are now my own

And the only altar I will kneel before

Is gloriously

Furiously

Mine

[ratotahi]

Adrift at sea, her and I

A merry sail did not fly

Waves to make the ocean cry

Falling from my sea salt eye

The boat was swaying to and fro

I hoped the other would let go

Return me to the tides I know

Shallow pools with waters low

The ocean's rage did shake the mast

Torrential winds from ages past

A harrowed cry that seemed to last

Still she fought and held on fast

A sailor knows when not to fear

And through the storm, she knew to steer

Heading for the waters clear

The stormy swell still in my ear

I thought it freedom that I'd sought

A hard-won battle that's often fought

Upon those seas I'd near forgot

I was adrift and she was not

[ratotahi]

Same heart, foreign beds

Same hurt, foreign rooms

Same hands, foreign lands

I could walk the Earth endless

And still carry it all with me

It matters not

Which mirror I see

Reflecting back my pain to me

Same eyes, same face

Tears from the same place

Turn your back

Run and hide

Drive and drive

And drive and drive

Look ahead, never arrive

[ratotahi]

Some people will see your pain

And still ask you to perform amidst your tears

Some people will see your suffering

And try to disarm your anger in pursuit of justice

Some people will see your anguish

And say you need to sit at the table

With all of those who did you violence

Lest you be labelled as bad as them

Some people will see your hurt

And call themselves reasonable

To walk also with those who harm

[ratotahi]

My love, I fear

Is leaking

In places where it should not

Red-rimmed

And sorrowful

And breaking like the coming of dawn

Not at all, and all at once

You must find peace

There is no other way

[ratotahi]

There was no fanfare

No long parade

No rolling storms

To break upon the season

And herald change

Like a melted frost

In the midst of summer

We were glacial

Slow-moving

Across the landscape

Of our own discontent

Until all we could do

Was fall apart at the end

There was no warning

Nor signs on the walk to finality

Just a slow, quiet disembrace

And by the time we noticed

Our paths had diverged

It was already too late

To look back

[ratotahi]

Round colours, loud shapes

Lines that never meet

The world is my projection

Universes birthed and died

In an instant in my mind

The past and present and future

Co exist, and simultaneously I feel

The pain of it all

My body was a house for things

I could not let go

And so I burned it to the ground

I sleep in the shed

My whole life fits in a room

My whole world sits in my flesh

I take it where I go

And never ask for more

I'm okay now

I always was