POETRY
A selection from the poetry in this issue:
The Empress Cixi
among the Lotuses
on delicate stems
the moon-coloured petals
unfold to the sun
the same sun which
burnishes the bronze
backs of my eunuchs
they hate me
they stand waist-deep in hate
slashing with their machetes
their hate burns like the sun
which burns their backs
and opens these flowers
they cannot see how
(sun-shaded under my parasol)
I love their hate
how the swing the heft of it
the faint whistle in their breath of it
caged like an oriole
opens me like a flower
JAMES NORCLIFFE has published five collections of poetry, the second of which Letters to Dr Dee was short-listed for the NZ Book Awards in 1994. He has twice won the NZ Poetry Society's International Prize. His latest collection, Along Blueskin Road, was published by Canterbury University Press in 2005.
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