Vanessa Crofskey
There’s Real Manuka Honey In Heaven
In the year 3000,
lizards will be the last survivors of the remaining world order
but it doesn’t matter ’cause we’re all going to die!
in twenty-two years i’ll be hitting my mid-life crises
as the Amazon finally collapses from heartburn
a wizened crone releasing the IV drip
from glazed root veins
a global conference of bees will be livestreamed strapping on
army helmets khaki stripes and matching jet packs
then flying off into the stratosphere in tiny astronautical booties
the bonnets left behind had their URGENT: agenda emails
marked as spam but who cares about spam
when we’ll live underwater and eat raw salmon every day
and if we’re poisoned then we’ll relocate
leaving the planet, it’s one small step for man
as all the mammals left on Earth’s Ark of the Covenant
study Home & Garden magazines as textual predecessors
that foreshadowed our ecological demise
under the watchful eyes of agricultural industries
while the tuatara sings a eulogy to the end of the anthropocene
five hundred fortune cookies crumbled to ash
as the cockroaches wait for spring
Remuera
we knew it was over when we saw the borders of our fingers blur rapid against creased thighs when our faces ran out of boundaries borders marred by endless meetings artifice and orifice double death eaters sucking the light out of each other forgetting to draw healthy curtains once the switch became a friction licking ear wax from erogenous caverns we let you enter us in public space are broken to stronghold you love us with gentler arms brown doors and wet fingers sex is a skin graft but a whimpered finality becomes a repeat ending split ends as common as archived inconsequence in the arched back of morning we breaks we line dash we promise we get better we will stop fingering our absences we will not fail our learners we will get a fucking car like an adult and sunset our issues to implosion enough to put our woes straight on DVD release we want you to fuck us separate instead of whole again we sit miles apart and make civil conversation meet in a cafe and play out fights like filmic mosquito bites we exchange the names of lovers like worn business cards our snakes for hands inch up a ladder of common sense we are a dog in competition a bitch in heat and in order to necromance fidelity we say the obvious thing like please give us back our inability we are an island of scrutiny a swing bridge of colonies and no thanks i’ll pay for my own coffee
on beauty
beauty was a stone in your pocket, an advantage, a summer heat thrown downriver, your unrequited crush, mosquitoes in unrelenting torrents, fake tan on slim ankles, the circumference of a pearl, a rage that rang inside your ears and sharpened thoughts to splinters
beauty was a stone ######## advantage a ##### heat thrown downriver a ########### ### mosquito net ############# tan ####### the circumference of #### a rage that rang inside your ears and made you want to shatter
#### was a stone ###### thrown heat; a rush to reassemble hairpins ### ## the crease of your voice ################ when he told you about his online searches ############ ############### stalking; iron on cellulite ####### ####### ######### something to dismiss and then ritualise ######## ######## ######## a circumstantial laughter
Vanessa Crofskey is an artist who works with text, installation and performance. She is Auckland’s 2017 Regional Slam Champion and has been published in Hainamana, Eastlit, Scum, Turbine|Kapohau and Dear Journal, and has had two video-poems installed in Auckland Museum. Most recently she has performed at Auckland Writer's Festival Best of the Best Showcase.