Pork Chop Hill, by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
– for Paula Harris, 1973-2023
found you too late
dead on a beach
no use now to say
how the fuck did we miss your voice
when you were full on here and breathing
when you knew stuff and said the stuff
that we all knew forgot to call out
there was a place in Palmy
Pork Chop Hill
we went to in ’65 to see
those Mark One Zephyrs rock in the dark
two tone whip aerials white wall tyres
and dangerous
they dragged her into one
outside a dance hall
down to the river
four of them
then left her there
it was a famous case
the defence held up
her panties she was
crying on the stand
they got jail time
she got life
paula harris told the truth
*
Licinius, by CK Stead
(remembering Kevin Ireland, 1933-2023)
Licinius, clubable as I was not,
Liked to play at forms but was indifferent
To Sappho’s syllabic count – preferring wine
And the company
Of those boozy Good Old Boys he met for lunch.
So when he died before me there were protests
To the Gods who had taken him too early
And left the sober
Catullus it seemed untouched. But in his will
He left to his clever friend a self-portrait,
Himself in a yellow hat, asking only
That when my time came
I would bring him, wherever fate determined
Our ghosts might come to rest, my finest bottle
Of that Te Mata red favoured by his mates,
And my newest verse.
So good friend Licinius you call to me
Feelingly across the dark river of death
To say it was art you loved, and poetry
But not without wine.
Maggie Rainey-Smith and Steve Braunias wrote tributes to Paula Harris last week, and Janet Wilson wrote a portrait of her husband Kevin Ireland in November.
