Machinery

by WES LEE

 

 

Wearing the night like a lifesaving dummy.

kneeling before your open mouth. an abandoned

mall. copper pipe. hidden architecture: wires

hanging from the ceiling like stalactites. this new

world where things close and never open again.

the architecture of your email. a sharpened

shell. like an omission. like your steady gaze.

a fragile core. a pyramid scheme. your hand

never reached for the first rung; you never wanted to climb

the crazy Seussian tower of topple. doors designed

to be visible only to those who are trained to see.

and the rest, we hammer and wonder and cry. wearing

the night like the grim northern gums of your ancestors.

cancer sticks set out on trays at half time. the matinee

of eyes. in the room where hearts are discussed

swims the ghost of your mother's death. a plastic

model of a life-size heart. the new world has come quickly:

automatic, cash free, desolate. like the captured

eye of the swift, unfocused on our reality. and I

remembered how you said you were happy that the nurses

liked your mother for her sense of humour. and we would

be two humans in a room where anything could

happen. and the nurse said can you relax

your legs, just allow them to flop. wearing the night

like money to keep us safe from pain, feeding it

in our clothes, slotted over our hearts. 'we can

still leave the building,' I told you: the wide balustrade

opening out to a glass door, to the hospital carpark where

we could drive. like lush machinery. like 3am:

the miraculous moment when the fibrillation

stopped; the heart quietened. one moment then

another changed moment. tensed on the bed, driven

crazy by maracas out of sync. the clean miracle

his body made. wearing the night like indelible words.

hitting the truth hard. like deciding you are

the galleon and you could co-exist in the tank

with the fish. sink quietly to the bottom. two

did not make it out of childhood, one dead at birth;

quietly as he came from them, almost slipped in.

and I thought about a few of the nurses, later, in the day's

drift, in the dream I needed. and I kept whispering

each time the animal struggled in my chest: stay in the

dream, the living waking dream. dropping each arising

thought that did not fit with the dream, that did not talk

to the dream.

 

 

 

Published in the Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024

 

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My Baby

by WES LEE

 

 

My baby

I would have tied

to the bed with stockings like

Sharon Stone in Casino

then gone out and got wasted, legless,

staggering home

and forgetting.

 

My baby

I would have locked

in the wardrobe like Truman

Capote’s red-headed mother

then gone out and got wasted, legless,

staggering home

and forgetting.

 

My baby 

I would have put in a cot

and locked the door

like Baby P’s mother

then gone out and got wasted, legless,

staggering home

and forgetting

 

who could not tell if her baby was

just thin or dirty

or silent because

it was happy.

 

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Published in Fresh Ink: A Collection of Voices in Aotearoa, August 2017

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The Terrific Beating of My Heart

by WES LEE

 

 

And I realised

I had come to the emergency room

for company.

To avoid the metal clang of home.

The paramedic said: 'That'll do it,

that kind of trauma,'

with a fantastic Irish lilt,

and arranged for a tray of breakfast.

His quick hands like doves

over my forearms.

 

 

 

 

Published in Best New Zealand Poems, 2021

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Ointment 

by WES LEE

 

 

You always thought crazy

was a defection of the will,

you’d been in that place holding on

for months, and you managed

(to stay on this side),

so you made up your mind

that people choose crazy,

but that was just one time

in your life

you thought was the worst,

didn’t know

the worst comes like waves

and you are

Mickey Mouse

the brimming bucket

the mop

the stone floor

the castle with its interior

arches, and the wizard.

And your sore arms

get sore

then relax 

(by your sides)

and sore

then relax

and sore

then relax.

And sore

you are rubbed with wintergreen

with eyes

with understanding

until

you aren’t.

 

 

 

 

Published in Poethead, February 2020. First published in Westerly 60:1, University of Western Australia

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One Summer: Orcas in the Bay 

by WES LEE

 

 

We began excitedly moving out of the sea —

not in a furious tumble the way 

we would at the sight of a shark.

 

Lines of cars stopped on the road, 

people climbing out to raise their hands 

above their eyes.

 

A swirling fracas as they thrashed under the waves. 

The huge male surfacing in front of us barely

ten feet away.

 

‘Probably hunting something. Most likely stingrays,’

someone said.

 

And after, it felt as if we’d been pumped with helium.

As if earth’s gravity had loosened its grip 

and all the parts of us were trying to lift off. 

 

Telling the story again.

Wanting to hear it from each other’s lips; 

provoking each other to embellish it.

 

Polishing each aspect.

Then we set it down.

 

 

 

Awarded 2nd prize in the Takahē Monica Taylor Poetry Prize judged by Elizabeth Smither. Published in The Beach Hut, January 2020

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The Girl in the Basement / The Boy in the Basement

By WES LEE

 

 

And I wanted to be the girl / in True Detective / Catatonic / 

Cared for / in the perfect institution / the place where 

horror is mediated / The girl / 

rescued / and loved forever / The girl swept up in the arms 

of the detectives / who have never witnessed such horror / 

I wanted to be taken up by the protectors / 

passed from hand to hand / to be that girl forever / And I 

wanted someone to listen / I wanted 

to be turned around like a / precious / piece of glass ... of something / 

I wanted to be handled / with care / 

And I suppose I wanted people to look at me / the way they do 

on TV / with a rare quality / as if I was rare / and what I’d been 

through was so rare as to render me / priceless /

The wan girl / in the oversize cardigan / 

the rescued girl / The girl who is found years after / The girl

who escapes / and comes home and her family / have kept 

her bedroom untouched / and they treat her / 

as if each day is Christmas /

And I wanted to be the boy who lies / who returns home disguised 

as the boy who vanished / and even when they find out / they 

still keep calling him by the name / The name of the boy 

who vanished.

 

 

Selected as a finalist in The Geometry/Open Book National Poetry Competition 2018 by Anna Livesey and Sophie van Waardenberg, and first published in Turbine /Kapohau 2018 (The Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University, Wellington)

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Lifesaving

By WES LEE

 

 

They don’t do it anymore, 

breathe into the mouth to save.

 

We had learnt it reluctantly, 

lined up beside a recumbent dummy,

 

waiting to take our turn to kneel at that mouth.

The simplest things disturb – 

 

at night when the fluoros shut off and the cover is pulled,

the tiles swabbed – there it lies open,

 

not even a ventriloquist’s dummy 

is so exposed.

 

 

 

 

2nd place winner in The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2015 – judged by Tristram Fane-Saunders and Holly Howitt-Dring