Best Christchurch Poems

The King was drinking in Malwood Hall,
There came in a monk before them all:
He thrust by squire, he thrust by knight,
...

''Twill take some getting.' 'Sir, I think 'twill so.'
The old man stared up at the mistletoe
That hung too high in the poplar's crest for plunder
Of any climber, though not for kissing under:
...

(Karl Popper (1902-1994) .

Indeed it was you, Karl, who left Vienna
not a moment too soon, as it turned out,
...

HERE, where the surges of a world of sea
Break on our bastioned walls with league-long sweep,
Four fair young queens their lonely splendour keep,
Each in a city throned. The first is she
...

Some scientists had located a missing geological piece. Therefore,
They found a puzzle of plate tectonics in the Southwest Pacific Ocean.
East and West Antarctica had spread twenty-six million years before.
The rift between them opened one hundred miles due to this motion.
...

earth mobile surface divided into tectonic plates
Alpine fault cross hair connects two subduction margins
New Zealand continent sits on plate boundaries
...

An earthquake struck New Zealand's city of Christchurch on Tuesday
Burying vehicles under debris and collapsing buildings into the streets.
Police announced a curfew and the city was shut down on Wednesday,
Rescuers scrambled to reach beneath the rubble the residents.
...

Christ church Cathedral Strawberry Festival
the Cathedral is red
on the cake
...

no sleep
as many

so many
...

many miracles
near misses
80% of city
has no water
...

many hotels
damaged
shocked guests
evacuated?
...

I too feel
and suffer

for Christchurch
...

At Teacher’s College in Christchurch New Zealand years ago.
The tutor gave us teacher trainee students a moral lesson.
She said ‘If a student asks you a teacher this moral question.’
‘Is it wrong to steal? ’ You must answer the student thus.
...

...

May God remember
Christchurch, New Zealand—
Who’ve suffered ruin
In their land.
...

...

Returned
to Christchurch in 83

a toy town
...

Terry.

Male. Short. Knowing. Aging.
Sibling of Sharon and Annette.
...

It’s a small town.
It’s only a suburb.
But it’s a nice suburb.
...

we have damage
might be worse?
with strong after
shocks my street?
...

This unseasonal cold
and misty Christchurch rain;
blows biting weeping yet stirs,
the tempo suiting,
...

I reached 71 years old this morning
And my wife gave me a new dressing gown
While the boys gave me a book about cats
With the latter all being survivors
...

the statement is solid valid
English immigrant settlers
back in early colonial days
...

How do we know? John Key promotes
TPP sly Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement
with hard sell dictatorship show on the road?
...

who would have thought
in Westport New Zealand
a poet would be born
...

who would have thought
in Westport New Zealand
a poet would be born
...

the long night of an aged lonely life
must end eventually who can endure endless
night sorrow night after night alone
...

both my teenage daughters
are still lost under the covers

hibernating deep in slumber sleep
...

an unprecedented unexpected earthquake
struck Christchurch New Zealand in
a region of no previous fault line activity
...

what can you expect
when your country elects
an egg for a leader?
The biggest agenda item
...

The last day you see
the sun is not an illusion,
It's your last day.
...

I never may walk in the old fields again
And hear the birds sing in the wind and the rain
When in late April in field by Finnow where the rank rushes grow
The wild born cock pheasant does cuck and crow
...

You may travel to Tokyo or Kathmandu
But wherever you go to your past follows you
You may live in Paris or London or New York or Rome
Your past it will follow you to your new home
...

Far too big a World in a lifetime to see
With the saying of a small World after all many would not agree
Though many places i have lived in and i have seen quite a few
I like many do yearn to see places to me new
...

Though his wife and children are Aussies Joe is quite proud
To tell you he is from the Land Of The Long White Cloud
When New Zealand in rugby or soccer or cricket does play
A win for the Kiwis helps to make his day
...

Come in me boy and I'll make you tea and I'll put on the electric kettle
That's how they make you feel at home back home in Ballinspittle
And take a chair and rest your feet this life's too short for hurry
The happy man lives on for years because he never worry.
...

We all have a town or a city or a place to call home
To some it is Paris or London or Rome
Or Moscow or Sydney, Dublin, Montreal or L A
To them remain home though from there they live far away
...

The children of Duhallow where might they be today
You will find some in Britain, Canada and the U.S.A.
And in distant Australia Homeland of the Kangaroo
And in cities of New Zealand Christchurch, Auckland, Rotorua.
...

You may live in London, New York, Paris or Rome
But always for you there's a place they call home
The place where you first looked on the light of day
Though from where you now live this might be far away
...

Nature can be so unpredictable look at what happened in Christchurch today
A Tuesday and business as usual and everything did seem okay
But suddenly the ground started shaking and great buildings like dominos did fall
And among the panic and commotion trapped people for help heard to call
...

Some of them are not now with the living and some of them live distant from me
But them i will always remember the people i will never more see
Some of them i did not get on with we did look at life differently
But like my friends them i remember and like my friends they remain in my memory,
...

His years he is physically showing he walks with the aid of a walking cane
But otherwise he's very lucid and there's nothing wrong with his brain
He is up to date with the news headlines and he is well versed on current affairs
And he is one to count his blessings he says than me others have far more cares.
...

His wallet stolen from him in Christchurch containing 600 dollars and I.D.
I am bruk said Scottish Charlie bruk as any one can be
Whoever stole my cash and wallet whether they be he or she
Are sowing the seeds for their bad karma their price for dishonesty.
...

The beautiful flower of Kilmeedy in Kilmeedy she did not stay
In the green valley on view of Clara where she first looked on the lamp of day
It is said she is living in Christchurch New Zealand from her first home in distance far away
Married with young children to a New Zealander this is what those in the know of her does say
...

Even bad things does happen in a beautiful City in a beautiful Land
What has happened on March the fifteenth in Christchurch New Zealand seems so hard to understand
When some fifty people were murdered and many more badly injured in their houses of prayer
Sadly such massacres of innocent people are nowadays no longer rare
...

New Zealand's great woman Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
From her other World political leaders have so much to learn
At the massacre at the Christchurch Mosques where fity people died
Her compassion and empathy for the families of the victims a sense of comfort and to the people of New Zealand a sense of pride
...

Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand,
Let us think of how best to build back 'Christchurch';
For the heavy earthquake came and destroyed everything!
...

Oh 'Christchurch' of New Zealand! !
Nature's strong hands tolled on you and the whole land was destroyed;
And it now looks like a scene after the war,
But who can control nature's strong hands?
...

Murder! ! ! Terror! ! Murder she wrote; in Christchurch (New Zealand) !
Unable to understand the state of the mind of the attacker;
Children being killed as well! ! Victims! ! ! Including Mucad!
Attacker! Terrorist! ! Able to kill people praying at two Mosques on Friday;
...

Jim, cela ne vous fera rien, n'est-ce pas,
si je ne viens pas a votre fete?
une mort c'est assez, je ne vous tuerai
encore une fois, en rituel,
...

A day filled with mourning,
a day when life was so short and dear,
a day that will never be forgotten,
the day sorrow taught us to fear.
...

United they stood on their Memorial Day,
Christchurch will rise up their Motto they say,
Our city shook beneath the Earths crust,
Bricks and Mortar have crumbled to dust,
...

The ground shock and trembled on 22 February 2011,
Lives were lost, people were buried and some were never found,
...

Started out a good day,
Prayer, quietness, serenity,
Within a moment the silence had gone,
You surely knew something Terrible was wrong.
...

My wife is in Malta.
Egypt has erupted
In a bloodless coup.
Quake in Christchurch
...

I live in a green china bowl
A place where the sun don’t shine
Where dreams run wild, looking for an exit, but there is none
Where spider webs are spun and hung
...

When the soldiers and civilians draw down
On each other at noon
In the cold crisp air of the city they loom
Will you stand by as a passive spectator
...

There are some that long for a limpid lake by a blue Italian shore,
Or a palm-grove out where the rollers break and the coral beaches roar;
There are some for the land of the Japanee, and the tea-girls' twinkling feet;
And some for the isles of the summer sea, afloat in the dancing heat;
...

A smiling child on a clattering tram
looking out at the traffic lights
She wore a big daft hat at an angle
and her nose against the glass
...

Christchurch, you woke us up!

It's time when daffodils are blooming,
Colourful tulip buds start bursting,
...

God led me by the cobble-stones byways,
I could see you down destiny’s pathway-.
Then Wisdom told me to kindly bow…
Knowing, sadly, “I’d not time to explain...”
...

Beneath city cubicles of Christchurch there are many wares
People passing with hardly a glance, to show ones they care
Come hither sign-posts lavished, for gifts, to lure or try
All- for one gypsy centre, that seduce the envious to sigh
...

It started with a dream and ended in a scheme
My interest in design, fabric, and style, so keen
My love for fabric, and design, to shine and to display
Loving colour, style, nothing too wild, with lace and trim; ole
...

July paints masterpieces
kissing my canvas with lively breezy strokes
July paints what she sees
adding intrigue to yellow folks
...

PowerOfLove and I are about at our wits-end
Her heart gave out a few times in the night again
Our great Physician miraculously revived
We'd be gone if it weren't for Him keeping us alive
...

(The Butterfly to The Captain)

Aboard this ship I have avoided the dancing
Not because I do not like to dance.
...

There are some that long for a limpid lake by a blue Italian shore,
Or a palm-grove out where the rollers break and the coral beaches roar;
...

We walk secure, grounded, heavy, oblivious,
safe from perplexing weightlessness,
unlike Life Savers candies on Atlantis spinning theatrically
as glittering Las Vegas floats beneath,
...

The sun rises with a roar:
The bowl shatters, and each shard singing.
Faster than eye can follow
Light gathers pasture and cowshed and windbreak
...

Spring, like a wave, catches one unawares, spray-shocks.
Fluorescent-lit offices have no seasons. Townsfolk do not mark the tides.
They keep their time, still. Buried in bedrock the ring laser registers
The gentle tug and easing deep in the roots of the hills.
...

The Christchurch Earthquake,
Made the whole country shake.
People were dyin',
People were cryin'.
...

(Written vicariously from the North Island (with some inspiration from CC Moore and AJ Patterson))

'Twas two days before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a thing was stirring, not even a mouse
...

I feel translucent
a man of marble skin
as if dreaming my motions
every step a tread in water
...

(a)



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(b)



BRIDGE SEES TWO SIDES

REACHING FROM WHAT IS
INTO DARK EXPECTATION
DREAMS ARE ITS MATTER
GOLD POT ENTRANCES IT
EIGHT ROMANCERS
*FOUR EYETUNED
*FOUR BY WORD

YOKING GIFTS
EGGED ON BY
A RELISH OF
RAW RITUAL
*NERVOUSLY
OFFERING A
FESTIVITY
*JOYOUSLY
TRANSCEND
HABITS OF
EXCUSING
*PRIVACY
AND WITH
RADICAL
TACTICS
INSPIRE
SOME WHO
TRAIL BY
*TO DARE

*A MIX OF

MERCURIAL
IMAGES IN

SIGHT AND
SOUNDWAVES
INITIATING
ON THE WAY
NEW MARVELS

*WELL MAYBE
STEPPING OUT
TOWARDS FRESH
AND GRATIFYING
TRANSFORMATIONS
ESSENCE OF ANY BRIDGE
MOVES LIFE BEYOND THE
EASY PLACE TO BE INTO
NOWHERE SENSED BEFORE
TO CROSS IS TO CREATE
...

Christchurch standing on a hill

around it ageless houses standing in the still
...

First, the irretrievable arrow of the military road
Drawing a line across all that has gone before
Its language a handful of brutal monosyllables.

By the side of the road the buildings eased up;
The sturdy syntax of castle and barracks,
The rococo flourish of a stately home:

The formal perfection and grace
Of the temples of neoclassical government
The avenues describing an elegant period. Then,

The red-brick constructions of a common coin
To be minted in local stone, and beyond them
The fluent sprawl of the demotic suburbs

Tanged with the ice of its bitter nights
Where I dreamt in the shambles of imperial iambs,
Like rows of shattered Georgian houses.

I hear our history on my tongue,
The music of what has happened!
The shanties that huddled around the manor

The kips that cursed under Christchurch Cathedral
Rising like a madrigal into the Dublin sky
- But tonight, for the first time,

I heard the sound
Of the snow falling through moonlight
Onto the empty fields.
...