Dick thinks he is cool
Dick smashes glass
Dick makes Dunners a tip
Don’t be a Dick
—poster at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Dunners is a tip. That’s why I
Such a glorious mess!
Fading posters,
lichened walls,
trees holding on to impossible slopes,
undead rockers walking in black from head to
Five-way intersections, three-way forks,
an Octagon
A Chinese garden
A statue of the Bard (not that one)1
So it’s my first National Poetry Day in Ōtepoti
and I’m asked for a poem on looking back, looking forward
Those are things I try not to
any more than
—happiness being in the present, and—
But walking around Dunedin I have to look forward
to see the broken glass on the
pavement? footpath?—anyway
it’s where I want to put
my feet—on the ground of Ōtepoti,
for instance, Pitt Street, which falls
between the house I
and the
and where I often find
that halfway down,
some self-appointed
warrior of the phallus
has cummed razors and spikes
all over my
Perhaps I should carry a tool:
long-handled brush and
No, that isn’t my job,
cleaning up after
I step carefully around,
looking forward
in case there’s
Then down on the flat of George Street2
going along under the
I have to look forward again
When it’s busy there are warriors of
Sauntering in chatty rows that take
the whole width of the
And not looking forward at all
I refuse to alter my
Instead I slow and if necessary come to a
Let them be the ones who have to move
aside at the last
Then going back up Pitt
some days I’m just breathing, stepping,
looking forward exactly enough
to avoid the broken
Enjoying the challenge of the climb
But some days
I look forward too far,
see the long slope ahead,
and breath isn’t
At the corner
of Queen I stop, turn, stand, looking back
at Knox Church, the hospital, the not-so-distant hills,
people striding and
And Frederick Street, and the tree
where at sunset all those sparrows
in a glorious twittering cloud
I view
A break
from looking forward
at all the breaths,
all the breaths still to
to reach the door that opens for my
Closes, locks, lets me unzip and be
socksoft and hardly believe
my luck
22 August 2025
Jackson 