Lee Jane Taylor’s writing explores the experience of illness and wellness, domesticity and nature, imagination and memory, with a view of the sky.
Check out new poem “Time-Lapse Portrait” in the coming 2025 edition of “Aotearoa Poetry Yearbook”. Anthology book to be released and in bookshops from August!
Find Lee’s poems “Personal Pronoun in Greyscale” and “She is Being Not Enough” in “Tarot Poetry”, online journal, June Edition out now!
Lee is keeping busy working towards a Masters in Creative Writing.
(First published by Tarot Poetry, Dec 2024 Edition)
1 Light Streaking
In plastic envelopes floating kicking joy
sun in eyes barbecuing skin already pink
taste of chlorine and the white noise roar
of fun I am a star fish smiling unabridged
for the woman behind a mechanical eye
with my cousin posing giggling in
heart shaped glasses Marilyn and
Madonna in mind later still in white linen
dress and court shoes leaning hands tilt
with precision meaningful position of chin
eyes watch the lens seeing the eyes
first trip to Europe first digital snaps
together relaxed, fixed in place by great
monuments of history, memory, births, war
pregnancies and victories all store faithful
in boxed wires until electric mayhem poof
outsourced digital mind melt metal smote
smell of plasticated smoke memento lost.
2 Visual Trailing
Now platforms gathered momentum
amass populations of memory investment
smart phones become sensory organs of
the internet, pictures of me store in a
strange cloud more fungal than cumulus
roots grown in eccentric locations New
Mexico deserts, factory basements hosts
of hard drives pictures seed in digits one
mouse click, spores electric race into outer
space refract back to Earth’s gravity
pictures of me channel through fibrous
roots underground into a study where
a face appears on a screen – me
awkward at a dinner ocean view selfies
see the camera see it reflect in sunglasses
always see it look back even in sleep see
filters and zoom angles in mechanised
dreams pictures of me disappear in sheer
volume reduce to visual trail I am mere
molecules in a single cell of memory within
a vast shrooming digital hive of mind.
3 Illusory or Hallucinatory
After pictures of me in hospital databanks
maps geographic of moles, my ulcerated
mouth, that rash, the lining of my gut
each bump and fold each shade of red one
hundred images imbed splices of spine
its awkward bend my brain in black and white
slides rendered all waiting to be read, each
temple layer casually perused by curious
file surf glance through my insides all of my
secret places once sacred soon dated
scored and recorded.
4 After-imagery
Pictures of me, too many to count
they float in envelopes, posed fixed
by monuments some lost, some stored
random images collect on platforms
dispersal in electronic fungal blooms
finally, pictures of me, my interior bodily
treasons kept locked by government agency,
an account of self saved for perpetuity.
Inspired by reclusion, a year’s headlines, and the song by David Bowie.
We are the Sad Ones, silent we hold
to stones of privilege in each hand by
the cold of unreclaimable duties, we stand
human, our heroes all dead, arms too full
guts too frail to man controls.
–
The sad ones see unfolding power
ripe everywhere in everyone but not
in us, in us just articles of anger
lodge in throats, tired voices wait
for only Hope is worth negotiation.
–
We the seeing unseen, by sun unkissed
when we go to them our heroes will all
look back at us cool from the coal abyss
say inequities lisp our hubris, us Sated
Ones spill godless prayers as we fall,
–
our respects unsaid, We are the Dead.
*
Original poem by Lee Jane Taylor
Photo credit; Reign-Abarintos for Unsplash
Lee has two new poems published in this month’s edition of “Tarot Poetry”, Aotearoa NZ’s beautiful and free to access poetry journal.
“Body Falls” and “Self-Palinopsia”
Read here:
Take care everyone x
The sculpted shape my life makes, its carved impression into what surrounds, is small
while the details divide and multiply on close inspection, more
complication, more busy function
–
my shape fits snug into the around, much as a ring on my finger, the worm or lion in their notch
of food chain, a stubborn outcrop of rock
holds against an unseeing whole
–
of ocean, watch – it licks us away slow, each mundane gesture of survival here is an overcoming
forebeared, the ocean tastes us with all the time of a world
everything swallowed returns, our forms
–
forged in connection, rejection, bleating its strangely affecting feline chords the sea
returns our forms to the wordless, from where
we, scraped and molded, emerge.
Original poem and image by Lee Jane Taylor
(Photo by Duskfall Crew on Unsplash)
Underground tunnelled land new home, notes of asphalt and smoke, weary eyes light votives to unknown gods; Rūamoko smiles sees she
steps in the habit of boats human destinies float in her shoes respire through her skin, thin amphibian inhalations of sleep excretes salty wishes creeks
run with tadpoles dream the shock of legs muscular long but her will is not so strong as her cup, soon succumbs to whim;
Swimming thoughts become devilled eggs blanche her in watery depths moves cold doesn’t see herself coming doesn’t know herself as she goes.
Rise must make surface gasps with eyes closed stows each heartbeat now a stranger, tamps in her chest suggests a chill new blowing in
gulp the thrill savour the gusting pong it is fathomless autumn, and everything everyone is kneeling to the mustard flow already she allows its
golden mouth upon her soul dragging licks along her sagging throat it will swallow us whole, moths clocks the orbs of dynasties all swoon in
its amber wake, we fall and the fallen only breathe to leave strands of protein wipe the future from the corner of her eye sign her name
where only patterns remain beyond the shrill rush of waterways the still of ponds this god won’t play any game of muses is always mute caprice is
ruthless beauty laughing in the face of moons and suns, she takes six seeds she tastes the rite of queens on her tongue, she eats them one by one.
Rūamoko meanwhile he smiles youngest son husband of death chief executive of quakes and volcanic change, replenishes her plate, with kūmara
petals purple and white proud blooms of stress the earth well washed from her roots mind rinsed in gloom, we sit together in knowledge of seasons
her meal is freedom her food is doom in colours of fire and riches is replete, this harvest is inevitable tides of dominance, tender and complete.
Yesterday an echo of Persephone walks our coasts, victim complicit alone Demeter’s name never breaching these shores parental grief too vast
for ocean passage, she returns below summer done gleaming patapata in hand gleaned from koru frond Papa’s tears Rūamoko nods in kinship
their origins so far wide their stars collide and settle in the underbelly of life, both knowing the strife a child lives in void of a mother’s forgotten natural power.
“Papa” or “Papatūānuku” in NZ Māori tikanga is the spiritual mother and embodiment of the land. “Demeter” in Greek myth, when her daughter is bonded to the underworld, her grief causes the first winter.
If you need some poetic chill time now we are back into busy work school havoc, you may want to check out Tarot Poetry’s December edition! It is a beautiful issue and features two of Lee’s poems – “An Invalid’s Catalogue of Old Beginnings, Index 1 and 2” as well as “Fall Out of Key”. Read online here:
home
I love the family rituals and togetherness of the holidays. However, it can also be a time when we feel absence most keenly. Sometimes the hardest time is once others return to work and school and we struggle with finding a “new normal”. If you are living with grief right now, I wish you peace and comfort. I wrote this poem for a family member, and myself, during a period of loss.
Tribute (For Poppa)
I don’t know what you believe about lives and the long
long after, when our moment is done we join the ones
we lost perhaps in some next place or become part
of the “everything-in-one”.
Wherever minds go – somewhere, nowhere –
we leave behind bones and neurones, and the sadness
of cellular silence. No more busy replicating the pattern
in them unique to her, slowly unravelling.
A sacred code repeated in the gesture of a sister’s hand
in the twinkling of a brother’s eye a pattern memorised
safely held in your heart as you go on. I don’t know
if there is memory in a soul but the atomic travels of us
we can imagine. Parts of her rejoin the earth a joyous
homecoming to quench the thirst of trees that feed
the Tui, the Chamois and the Tahr.
Where is she now? Particles of her rise to fill clouds
elements of her penetrate the gates of atmospheres
populate other worlds, warm under other suns,
older and newer to be spun through black holes
matter collapsing and exploding again, again
as radiant supernovas burning bright in the night
skies of a thousand galaxies.
Perhaps the quarks of her small enough slip
through weaves in fabrics of time and parts
of her play in past, present, future all at once
and she is already in the buds, the sepals and hips
of generous perfumed blooms of summer and their
fountains of colour she is in the velvet garden faces
of the cool months in their yellow violet petals five
she is alive as the Sunny Boy and the Moon Moth
Where is she now my lost love? we ask, the tensions
of bodily form come undone, parts of her in the leaves
and the snow, echoes in the deeds of those who hold
her close as she joins with her own elders, ancestors,
molecules unpinned from boundaries of time – she is
in every moment all at once.
Hold your hand open to the air
feel the aliveness, she dances there
she is the trees she is the rain she is the stars
she is
and she is safe –
in the repeating patterns, of our saddened hearts.
Feeling blue? Aches and pains got the better of you? Pick up a pen or chapbook – poetry has your back!
It’s been a stormy time up at the Sky House. Once again, poetry has saved my life (the love and care of family and a strained but persevering public health system were also essential ingredients)! I’ve been thinking about all the ways writing and consuming poetry can support wellness. Here is my top 10 list…
WARNING Any effective treatment has side effects. Treating a busy lifestyle with poetry may result in an overuse syndrome. Symptoms may include: Compulsive consumption i.e. it is difficult to stop reading /writing, blurry vision, thinking in a “poetic voice”, rhyming your grocery list, paper cuts. If you are experiencing these, Sky House recommends a nice cup of tea and a nap. Consult a librarian if symptoms persist.
Take care everyone,
Lee x
Sky House is overdue for a “Staircase” (self-care) post. However, Lee is on an unscheduled “wellness hiatus”. In the meantime, here is some poetry prettiness from the sick bed…
Your exotic horticultural brush sweeps
full my palm with feel of cats paw in
retracted claw or, sleeping arctic shrew
your petal needles like haberdashery wound tight
threads unspool to bloom, already sunseed ended
before you fire a rocket in still life you are
true scarlet make roses weep at your pebbled feet
you brighter than blood brighter than tulips
on dark leaf you can embezzle Christmas
you are ecstasy indulgence colour effulgence
of gnarly old tree, arrive to me in
young hands greedy for, generous with beauty
your botanical incarnations of buddhist
lama’s bodies of joy, undulating tassels
celebrate abundance, the one amongst
many, all your neat little bundles in rows
progeny tucked in ruby oriental hair bows
food for inspiration whisper poems: paint
compositions in each cough of wind breath
embroidered flower fluffs branches
all for nourishment and pleasure of our bell
spoken, silver watching ones velvet tongues
hungry in cooler months for foreign feasts
all to free your tiny yellow seeds
to voyage possibilities, live circularities
Pohutukawa, Rata and the only Aussie I
ever truely loved is Banksia, honeysuckle
christmas blooms as red bottle-brush.
Thank you to the beautiful Anouk for administrating this post.
Meri Kirihimete, happy holidays, and a soulful solstice to all.
Photo by Don Ricardo on Unsplash
Sky House Poetry 