Out of a blue and orange twilight
a phalanx of putative poets
arrows in to The Poetry Class.
Building 114, Lecture Room 10,
Auckland University ContEd.,
Olsons’ “queer, isolated and gated place.”

The green roller board is covered
in economics formulae,
the lifeblood of the world.
Maybe Shaw was right,
and it would be a good idea
to lay them all out end to end.

Why are we here, in this
small, pale and worn box
with its high windows.
Do we want to bend light,
change the order of the planets,
prove Einstein was a liar?

Perhaps we band of brothers
are here to resurrect the
stiff carcase of our language.
To have it soar into crackling song,
and so we listen, talk, read
Collins, Sharp, Plumb.

Have never met this cohort
of poetic alumni, polished by
publication, but damned by
The remaindering bookshops.
How many cardboard boxes
do they hide under old towels

in their spare bedrooms in the
distracted and blighted suburbs.
And in the shadows, the vanity
publishers await the phone
call from the new disciples,
the graduates of The Poetry Class.