James Norcliffe

Poetry

James Norcliffe is a NZ poet, editor and writer of novels for young people (mainly fantasy) including the award-winning The Loblolly Boy. He has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Villon in Millerton in 2007, Packing My Bag for Mars and Shadow Play both in 2012. In 2010 he took part in the XX International Poetry Festival in Medellin, Colombia and in 2011 the Trois Rivieres International Poetry Festival in Quebec. This year sees Essential New Zealand Poems: Facing the Empty Page a major new anthology of NZ poetry co-edited with Siobhan Harvey and Harry Ricketts.

Blue

I should have had my suspicions
when I accidentally discovered that
she worked at the National Poisons Centre.
Perhaps, too, I should have been warned

by the scent of almonds, the scent
emanating, I presumed, from her clouds
of golden hair which, like Porphyria’s, fell
about her lovely shoulders
in such sweet chords and shrouds.

Above all I should have recognised her eyes,
so blue, so deep and blue, like fluted phials.
But I did not. How could I be so disposed
when her lips were half opened
and her eyes half closed?

'Blue' is a jeu d’esprit prompted by a brass plaque on an undistinguished and somewhat squat brick building I passed by on a walk through back streets in Dunedin, New Zealand. National Poison Centre. The poem came rather quickly as I walked on. The poem references Browning’s sinister poem Porphyria’s Lover who you might recall strangled Porphyria with her own long hair. I have repositioned the roles in 'Blue.'