Take The Rope From My Throat That I May Sing My Song Children Of Mokomoko
I’m a Pakeha! I’m a Pakeha! I’m a Pakeha!
To you!
To me.
I’m a kiwi.
Jump up and down! Jump up and down! Jump up and down!
Knock heads off stone statues!
Spray paint emblems of Britannic Queen.
Banter! Banter! Banter! Racist Slogans!
Frog march in gardens!
Decapitate under trees.
Shit on land you claim as yours!
I can tell you really respect it!
Best land management policy!
Pakeha and extinct Moa!
Make all nation’s children everyone
learn Maori at school.
Learn!
Anything?
You never did.
Show some real Maori mana!
Traditional Full-Face Tattoo!
Wear it with leather-jacket boots tribal patch.
Go on. Kick my head in!
I know you want to!
Idyllic days.
Before Pakeha
came and spoilt everything.
Maori all mates together.
Left.
And then?
There’s no white one.
For you to eat.
Left each other.
Just the way it used to be.
Cook’em in a hungi in the ground with hot smouldering stones.
Perfect. Yum Yum. Pork. Pakeha (meaning white pig) .
Those Nineteenth Century Pakeha.
They were too tough.
And these twentieth century ones.
Too fat and lazy.
They don’t do anything.
They can’t
have
no Maori rights.
See.
We are.
One people.
New Zealanders. (Not by Law Couzie Bro. You got de extra rights!)
On your racist census forms.
Where it says
Pakeha (meaning white pig) / European.
I know.
It doesn’t. Represent!
Mean me!
I’m
Not Pakeha.
I’m
Not European.
I write other!
Born here! Birthright?
But them very bad white land appropriators don’t belong here!
Any more. (Ignore Pakeha blood in your own veins!)
This land is ours. Is ours. Is ours.
Non-Maori second-class leeches on our land.
Without freedom. (Exorcism Pakeha blood out of Maori veins!)
Of speech. (Make peace with yourself. Own warring internal blood lines!)
Word Pakeha gives me a belly-ache.
I haven’t got a belly-full
of beer on doll-dollars!
My belly.
Is full.
Of Coffee.
Pounding Ulcer Points.
Stick it down your own throat.
I want to sing my song.
Copyright © Terence George Craddock
This poem references specifically one of many 1990’s Maori Land Protests.
Quote from Urban Dictionary. “Generally translated as referring to a white or pale appearance, pakeha has been variously described as meaning white pig, white maggot, or even white ghost, which may be in reference to the pakepakeha, a pale-skinned forest-dwelling people of pre-European Maori mythology.”
Quote from Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia. “Pakeha, pronounced 'Land-stealing-honky-bastards', is a common New Zealand Maori food. It is an introduced species, that arrived on sailing ships, around 1770, and began taking over the land. It has been deemed a pest, and while sometimes lovable and cuddly, some of the species are arrogant and aggressive. Pakeha is a food best served with Puha, a form a thistle, and kumara, a sweet potato.”
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Storm In A Tea Cup
That Art’s Council tea-room in there.
It has got sandwiches for ten dollars!
And fancy cups of foreign coffee for five!
Dressing up cheap common food to put on airs!
Dats lots a Pakeha swilling din dere.
Da got ta play tat mana man sittin ere.
Ant no brows faces in dat sea-oh-white.
Maori no spill de money cept pay night.
Nor are my mates crowding among rich clowns.
We sup service where frugality wears a crown.
Money paid where sobriety is precisely value set.
Value guaranteed in balance procured service let.
Dat bad man. Dat bad man. Dat bad man.
E took dat. E took dat. E took dat.
For de fire water. For de musket. For de glass bead.
For de blanket. Eee sold it. Eee sold it. Eee sold it.
So what were the injustices of the real Land Wars?
Scots cast off land their ancestors bleed crops grew.
Houses flattened homeless refugees no pity given knew?
English Lords were never fair or kind? Too dispossessed you?
Cast out like sheep. Fatherless families. London’s gutters flock.
So new pastures new lords. Filled with sheep in swarming stock.
Scots men. British armies greedily recruited. Grabbed their lot.
Irish up front in genocide queue. A potato failure famine!
Not a lack of food! English ate all else as rated rent!
Eight million Irish and only one million starvation spent?
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Misty Songs Of Yearning
This unseasonal cold
and misty Christchurch rain;
blows biting weeping yet stirs,
the tempo suiting,
separating Pakeha souls.
For we are lost lifelong friends
treading solo our last bittersweet
summer wine; drunk separately,
together, in long twilight, Aotearoa.
Weep summer skies weep
tears forecasting foretelling frozen
turmoil thundering departure.
Rain born of Aorangi
Ao cloud and Rangi sky
rain born of cloud in the sky.
Rain born of Aorangi Maori;
Pakeha Mount Cook.
The highest mountain
in this supposedly
integrated bicultural country.
Sky-piercer bear weight
of cloud upon my shoulder.
In her hazel flecked green eyes
bites nut-bearing dust speckled separation;
bites greenstone anchor jaw bone
hook of Moriori ancestry;
bites womb woven waiata aroha;
bites dominant children love of mother;
bites submissive traditional duty bound
love; of unrequited honoured totara husband.
Moriori full blood extinction, gone like Hamata,
Moriori claim mythical race descended from Gods.
Hamata, ghost lawgivers keepers of knowledge.
Bites dramatic soliloquy face saving card
speaking of “so many emotions bubbling
at the surface of... [her stewed volcanic geyser] soul! ”
Telling the tale
she has “no answers.”
Telling the tale she knows
“you love... her completely...”
Telling tragic returning tale
that she loves you too.
Telling traditional mother love for children
telling that she is “responsible for them”
telling that she is “getting in [too] deep”;
among weeping West Coast river’s; heavy greenstone boulders.
Once she told of
“Your face, your smell, your voice,
your touch & making love with
you, never enough! ”
Once she told of
“Your poetry where... [she] found
your unique & special soul.”
Many times she told
in many varied ways her parting lines.
“I will always love you, but
cannot be with you.”
Aotearoa (pronounced [aoˌ teaˈ roa]) is the most widely known and accepted Mā ori name for New Zealand.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Small legendery joke
Maori fella walks into a dairy and asks for a tin of cat food. Indian dairy owner says 'Oh no - I am hearing about you Maori fellows and how you put cat food into pastry and call it meat pie. Please bring cat into shop for me to see and you can have cat food'. Maori fella says 'oh man, I don't even know where the cat is right now - probably chasing birds.' Indian dairy owner says 'No cat, no cat food'.
Maori fella sulks away from shop. Same guy comes in a week later and asks for a tin of dog food for his dog. Indian dairy owner gives him the same run down, 'No dog - no doggy food'. Maori fella is really upset and storms off. He comes back a couple of days later with a big plastic bag and slams it on the counter. The dairy owner says 'Oh what is this being please' and opens the bag and is overcome by the foul stench which from the now open bag. Maori fellah says, 'It's a bag of sh*t man, I want some toilet rolls! '
poem by Racina Rodriguez
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Craving A Taste Of Kiwi
last night I lonesome had
irresistible urge to eat kiwi
craving a taste of kai kiwi
the earth is giver of all life
from the soil comes food
native foods New Zealand
that same food is cooked
in oven beneath the earth
but expatriate here will find
no hangi traditional feast
nor any food of home forest
stream sea or gardens kiwi
years since eaten white bait
fresh silver jewels of Buller
River in my far home town
kumara tasty potato sweet
no traditional delicacies
grace my table no hangi
cooked meat vegetables
placed on bed hot stones
in bottom of dug hangi
hole no birds fish kiwi
wild herbs roots mixed
no food cloth covered
before mound of earth
traps heat around food
Maori tourism visitors
eat as guests hangi food
no taewa tutaekuri pass
lips deep purple potato
no rewena pararoa pass
lips potato Maori bread
my father puha gathered
a leafy vegetable green
to be found growing wild
after heavy Buller rains
kowhitiwhiti watercress
also smiling he harvested
greenlip mussels off rocks
at seashore neap low tides
greenlip mussels I ate
as kuku patties paua
from mother of pearl
shells in far away land
poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Maori Pig Market
In distant New Zealand, whose tresses of gold
The billows are ceaselessly combing,
Away in a village all tranquil and old
I came on a market where porkers were sold --
A market for pigs in the gloaming.
And Maoris in plenty in picturesque rig
The lands of their forefathers roaming,
Were weighing their swine, whether little or big,
For purchasers paid by the weight of the pig --
The weight of the pig in the gloaming.
And one mighty chieftain, I grieve to relate,
The while that his porker was foaming
And squealing like fifty -- that Maori sedate,
He leant on the pig just to add to its weight --
He leant on the pig in the gloaming.
Alas! for the buyer, an Irishman stout --
O'Grady, I think, his cognomen --
Perceived all his doings, and, giving a shout,
With the butt of his whip laid him carefully out
By the side of his pig in the gloaming.
A terrible scrimmage did straightway begin,
And I thought it was time to be homing,
For Maoris and Irish were fighting like sin
'Midst war-cries of "Pakeha!" "Batherashin!"
As I fled from the spot in the gloaming
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Avalanche-the White Death
The land is white
The name of the land brings you
to the land of nothing
The name is white
The white is dead
Sun shines pale, the land shades full of pain
Avalea doesn't bloom and fall in this drain
I'm going back alive again
But no one's crying for the dead
The land is still white
Ice and snow are still the same as yesterday
But the wind is stronger in the sorrow
The land is white
The white is dead
They weep wherever they blow
Forever love, cursed land
Forever goodbye, my lovely land
No more tears falling in this land
Even the sand doesn't know
why he doesn't round to anywhere
The land has frozen like stone
The air is blowed dead
The land is white
The name is white
The land called white is dead
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Land Grievances
Get in line. Young Maori. Get in line.
Death Death March legally signed
before young Maori intensely pined.
Killed was ancient ancestral spirit
cleaving Celtic Isle mist lost lands.
Butchered guttered tie affixed lost
birthright mystic Celtic legendary lands.
Blood washed uprooted cast out are clans
purged from beloved Celtic ancestral lands.
Umbilical cord was cut brutally severed
with stealing steal tongue beastly fire.
For more sheep landlord pasture profit
Scottish smashed in are cottages homes.
Flocks free bleating beasts tended roam
rule ruined outcast vacated ghost villages.
Starvation claims sickening women children
destitute dying in London’s stinking slums.
Scottish men die dye red ranging regiments
across stolen globe with British firing guns.
Scottish bag-pipes screaming brave Scotsmen heard
wounds silhouette bleeding sunset blood-red suns.
In Ireland peasants dye starvation stained
with green mouths on bitter famine food.
Eating grass inland coastal eating seaweed
bounty stock free for rash starved Irish peasants.
British blight plague infests deflowered land
bloated corpses manure pastures Irish rued.
Providential not pestilent genocide inflicting Ireland;
English lords taxing life breath to death never sued.
Sweeping rubble rabble forth dark memories purge
upon ship passage exiles permanently migration move.
Homeland is lost family plot burial land
countless wakes memories survivors ban.
Get in line. Young Maori. Get in line.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Care for the land, Care for the people, Go forward.
Whose Country Is This?
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of snakes;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of many waters;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of thieves! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of oil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of earthquakes!
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of lovers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of volcanoes!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful flowers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hansome men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of roses;
Whose country is this?
it is a land ruled only by men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land without rainfall;
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by a woman;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of corruption!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pirates! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by law;
Whose country is this?
It is a land controlled by rebels!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ice;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of singers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of troubles;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of war! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land with the biggest cemetery in the wolrd!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of desert;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of trees;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant teenagers!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of timber;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hatred;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of love;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of care;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of peace;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of smokers!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of businesses;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of harlots;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of wise people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of idiots!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of gold;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of cocoa;
Whose country is this?
It is a alnd full of crabs;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of evil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of rainfalls;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ants;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of horses;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pigs;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of statues;
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of birds;
And so on, and so forth!
Because nature had made them so as we see them around us,
But the wise and fool live together on this earth.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Maoriland
MAORILAND, my mother!
Holds the earth so fair another?
O, my land of the moa and Maori ,
Garlanded grand with your forests of kauri ,
Lone you stand, only beauty your dowry ,
Maoriland, my mother!
Older poets sing their frozen
England in her mists enshrouded;
Newer lands my Muse has chosen,
'Neath a Southern sky unclouded;
Set, a solitary gem,
In Pacific's diadem.
Land of rugged white-clad ranges,
Standing proud, impassive, lonely;
Ice and snow, where never change is,
Save the mighty motion only
Where through valleys seared and deep
Slow the serpent glaciers creep.
Land of silent lakes that nestle
Deep as night, girt round with forest;
Water never cut by vessel,
In whose mirror evermore rest
Green-wrapt mountain-side and peak,
Reddened by the sunset's streak.
Land of forests richly sweeping,
By the rata's red fire spangled;
Where at noonday night is sleeping,
Where, beneath the creepers tangled,
Come the tui's liquid calls
And the plash of waterfalls.
Land where fire from Earth's deep centre
Fights for breath in anguish furied,
Till she from the weight that pent her
Flings her flames out fiercely lurid;
Where the geysers hiss and seethe,
And the rocks groan far beneath.
Land of tussocked plain extending
In the distant blue to mingle,
Where wide rivers sigh unending
Over weary wastes of shingle;
Cold as moonlight is their flow
From the glacier-ice and snow.
Land where torrents pause to dally
'Neath the toi's floating feather,
Where the flax-blades in the valley
Whisper stealthily together,
And within the cabbage-trees
Hides the dying evening breeze.
Land where all winds whisper one word,
“Death!”—though skies are fair above her.
Newer nations white press onward:
Her brown warriors' fight is over—
One by one they yield their place,
Peace-slain chieftains of her race.
Land where faces find no furrow,
With the flush of life elated;
Where no grief is, save the sorrow
Of a pleasure that is sated;
Land of children lithe and slim,
Fresh of face and long of limb.
Land of fair enwreathëd cities,
Wide towns that the green bush merge in;
Land whose history unwrit is—
Memory hath no chaster virgin!
Land that is a starting place
For a newer, nobler race.
Maoriland, my mother!
Holds the Earth so fair another?
O, my land of the moa and Maori ,
Garlanded grand with your rata and kauri ,
Lone you stand, only beauty your dowry ,
Maoriland, my mother!
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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To The Land
To the land of bribes,
To the land of telephones,
To the land of corruptions,
To the land of trains,
To the land of shops,
To the land of thieves,
To the land of connections,
To the land of drugs,
To the land of trucks,
To the land of cats,
To the land of Banks,
To the land of dogs, To the land of footballers,
To the land of dragons,
To the land of hope,
To the land of ice-cream,
To the land of potatoes,
To the land of chocolates,
To the land of tomatoes,
To the land of apples,
To the land of coffee,
To the land of lights,
To the land of ships,
To the land of birds,
To the land of tigers,
To the land of carpets,
To the land of pillows,
To the land of lions,
TO the land of toys,
To the land of horses,
To the land of beds,
To the land of roses,
To the land of love,
To the land of passion,
To the land of romance;
I never new women do snore until i married one.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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A woman in the house is like a kaka in the forest.
Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.
Many make the descent to eternal darkness but few ascend to heaven.
When a net is worn out, it is thrown away on the shore.
Though my present be small, my love goes with it.