I've got all the poets that I love, telling their poems.
This is my Bob Dylan.
That's Bob Dylan.
That's all Bob Dylan.
Here's Auden.
Dylan Thomas, Dylan Thomas, all the rest of them.
And my son, Tom, who is now a young man.
Not young, he's 39.
And I sit here, and I do a lot of my-- I
sit on the stool, which I've got here, which I normally
have over here.
And I sit here.
And I like to work away, sitting off
on-- either sitting over there at the table or sitting here
and looking out on the Salt River.
And it makes a lot of sense to me.
Well look, there are a couple of poems
here which I don't have quite in my memory yet.
They're pretty new.
They're coming out - in fact, they'll
be in the new book, Salt River Songs.
And here's one I mentioned somewhere, I think,
during our interview.
I'll talk about my father.
This one's called My Father's Waistcoats.
If you want to see the score, it looks like that.
It's written in two-line verses.
English lesson over.
Ha ha.
Get on with the poem.
My father's waistcoats never had pockets.
It was years later, someone explained,
a good lawyer in court didn't need notes.
I never went with the law like my father would have liked.
But I got to swing juries like he said, swinging the lead.
I never rode into town like I'd like to have done.
But I carry a gun in my head.
These two piles to the left, classical,
not being sort of cocking my little finger.
But I love music.
I went to a lot of-- my father used
to take me to the town hall.
His chambers were just up the road from the open town hall
- Percy, Percy Hunt.
And we'd go to the concerts at the town hall.
And I'd hear people like Yehudi Menuhin and Pablo Casals.
Just wonderful.
And this is full of people like Neil Young.
A lot of Lucinda Williams.
Got a lot of hers.
Love her.
Live at the Fillmore.
That incredible song about her brother, committed suicide.
What's it called?
Sweet Side, f**k that's a song.
Salt River Songs: One.
Never the sparkling waters or the beautiful daughters
as sparkling as they be.
It's a muddy creek for me, twisting and turning
on Kaipara time.
Floating downstream, on the next tide returning to, The landing,
built roughly where early settlers landed.
Months at sea behind them.
More months uncertainty.
They ended up in a land they never had in mind.
I'll be leaving by the landing on Kaipara time.
Three.
A fisherman from Pahi got a mermaid is his net.
Good as a man can get when he falls
in love at sea on Kaipara time.
The net's well set, that and immaculate timing of tides.
On Kaipara time, a patriarch lay dying,
tears for what he had done, the cheating and lying.
Family gathered around him.
He said, "I know I'm dying.
There's only one problem.
I can't, but God, I'm trying."
Five, on Kaipara time, he died.
And the family joined hands like the five salt rivers
of the Kaipara, each of them knowing
it would soon be for them.
The tidal clocks chime on Kaipara time.
I see you up in town.
We meet on the street.
Good to see you, I say.
You say it's good to see me.
You're moving east, you tell me.
I wish you a clear sea.
Meantime, Kaipara time, it's a muddy creek for me.
So there are a couple of new poems for you.
Hope you enjoyed them.