FURTHER LEGENDS OF THE PĀKEHĀ

1/

The governors declare

we are going back to paganism,

the better to blend in.

Aoraki-Olympus, Tangaroa borrows

Neptune’s toga, and Dunedin as Edinburgh

of the South is Athens South Squared.

My mother’s birth-Cromwell an Atlantis.

Oamaru, la Citta Ideale,

of the hokey pokey ice-cream temples.

Seneca declaims from Tyne street.

Cato complains on Harbour. On Hull

Caesar Forrester Augustus beams

as farmers in togas drive hecatombs

up to Patrick’s dome or Columba’s portico,

singing: Give me that old time religion.

Classic.

When we die

we crash on the snows of Erebus.

2/

The governors declare

we are going back to paganism,

the better to blend in.

The World Serpent coils around

Valhalla-Wellington, Mordor-Rotorua, Avalon,

Dannevirk, Camelot-Canterbury,

Asgård-Aoraki, Rohan, Norsewood–

all the way to the shores of Bohemia

(their existence vouched by Shakespeare).

Boats travel to the islands;

Tūmatauenga nods to Thor, and Woden to Tāne –

rule of weregild and utu.

Jörmungandr’s tail

lies in its mouth, in Bluff,

near the smelter,

where woad-stained sons of Weyland

cast off a fallen brother, covering him in paua shells

in a burning longboat. Sing hey nonny

and swear on Mjolnir –

I’m as blue as a new tattoo.

Yggdrasil is a mighty Kauri.

Nodens and Cernunnos awoken,

Hollywood lan nama, Jackson and Tolkien.

Don’t let me die in Middle Earth.