it’s 2019 and things like this are still happening

pull the rock wall down in large chunks
the calendar didn’t make
that which hangs over the whenua
just disappear did it?
this nation state of
white-is-right
of slash-and-burn of
divide-and-conquer

New fucking Zealand
in all its truest colours

five years of struggle
or is it two-hundred-and-fifty-five years
without end without end without
a single word from the mouth of power
that can be trusted

(Jacinda I hope you didn’t think you could escape the poem unscathed)

fighting against a company that keeps a name of an honest job
to mask the fact they’re colonisers chasing a profit motive
scaffolding a claim out of iwi-consultation
gone gold-panning for the first race traitor they can find

on this land?!

where the sky has come down to hide our whereabouts
in the fog
Ranginui weeps at the sight
we have always belonged
in the āke ake ake! that pushes solidarity through the mist
we are connected to so much more than a margin

the pigs have some nerve to suggest
we’re trespassing here

and the drums

and the drums
are going and they’re standing crisp in blue uniform
all ordered to be here
just doing their jobs
what is the labour value of guarding a paddock
what is the bonus you get from terrifying our tamariki?

and the drums are going
and we’re singing
mana motuhake
we’re standing arms locked together
in the spirit of Parihaka
the pole of a flag to hold onto
our independence
in the disappointment it’s still happening here
on the land
we are kaitiaki
and we will not let you exchange Her mauri for a paycheque
in 2019 and every year after that
until you fucking stop
until you understand
where we stand is where we will always
stand
on the whenua that we are
and are one with

essa may ranapiri

essa may ranapiri is a river full of run-off and a mountain that is money-gated, tangata takatāpui trapped in a colonised world. Their first book ransack is out from VUP now., please buy it they’re so poor. They write these poems to honour their tūpuna, they will write until they’re dead.