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2 weeks ago | 
waikatotimes.co.nz | Grant Shimmin
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2 weeks ago | 
thepost.co.nz | Grant Shimmin
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Aug 7, 2024 | 
poetrycatalog.com | Grant Shimmin
Dawn is a felt-board tableau A climbing black line of silhouetted hillside on a board of deep blue with a crescent of waning Moon pasted above a dark rise Scattered starry pinpricks higher up like distant relations of the light points that pepper the silhouetted ridge and a blue gum climbing black against the blue But there are frequent telltale signs that this board may be an upgrade on those of 20th century childhoods The Moon eases slowly down the blue backdrop and the sky is lighter below...
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Jul 22, 2024 | 
pikerpress.com | Grant Shimmin
The history of sand
Easterly
Stiff, unrelenting
Straight in my right ear as I bend to the pebble’s polish
Not perfect; its oblong shape, its finish
Smoothed just enough to tell a rugged tale
How many times has the foam, borne like a sacrifice in the mouth of each wave hungrily seeking the sand
and then, left behind, whipped to rigid peaks by the easterly
come since that pebble’s prehistoric predecessor first rolled towards this spot
the resistance of rough edges overcome by the surge?
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Jun 27, 2024 | 
poetrycatalog.com | Grant Shimmin
The sound of joy is a chorusNot sung by a choir, sheet music in handconductor-controlled,slick entries, crisp exitstight harmoniesThough that does make joy risein the singing, the hearingMakes tears spring in eyes’ cornersand shivers scale spinesThe sound of joy is a chorusplayed by the gradually unveiling dawnFull-throated songs lifted by the arriving sunSolos, ensembles,instinctive.
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Jun 24, 2024 | 
pikerpress.com | Grant Shimmin
Hills alive (First draft, South Africa, 1985, rewritten in 2022) I’ve watched the distant hills all day Ice dawn from the open-topped latrines where once a brazen bee bayoneted a comrade’s bare backside To fire dusk, heating sausages from a tin in a billy boiling water over a breath-blown blaze Unmoved, yet so alive Chameleonic Orange early from the day’s new sun rising through the Highveld’s haze Lightening, and brightening as the orb ascended shaking loose the hanging dust of dawn Then the...
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May 27, 2024 | 
pikerpress.com | Grant Shimmin
Eulogy He was a wonderful father, I say Caring, loving, the gentlest man I’ve known Always there, always part of our lives I remember how we’d wait for him to get home So he could join us in the pool Or bowl to us on that grass strip alongside Or just throw a ball to me As I threw myself around on the lawn In my competitive element It’s special to know he was there The day all that catching practice came to fruition As the ball caught the edge, I flung myself to my left And it thudded into my...
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May 20, 2024 | 
theargylelitmag.com | David Estringel |Grant Shimmin
Why I rise early Dawn has not quite cracked when I rise to the sound of joy The sparkles of streetlights are noticeably shortened The curves and colours of trees and hillsides just discernible through the retreating gloom But the music, oh the sweet, sweet music of unfolding dawn swells through the valley Crisscrossing voices all speaking in tongues only their own can interpret A bellbird comes in above the chorus ringing in the sunrise with the purest of two-beat chimes Louder and more...
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May 15, 2024 | 
poetrycatalog.com | Grant Shimmin
Green, By: Grant Shimmin May 15, 2024 by Grant Shimmin There’s a green called Spring and there should be Halfway between cyan and just plain old green on the colour wheel says the web that contains the world But Spring’s not a shade on a swatch in a paint shop It’s a mood, a vibe, a sense of something returned, revived, renewed It’s shades, and it’s light that shines them into your eyes It’s rich scents in your nostrils blended with the bold stirring music of rebirth It’s life springing forth...
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Apr 29, 2024 | 
pikerpress.com | Grant Shimmin
The rose The floating fragrance met me several stairs from the top where it sat, regal, attracting stares drawing viewers into its perfumed embrace In truth, I was the only viewer then but its palpable pull convinced me all who took this path would too be helplessly entranced by its magnetic aroma The copulation of colours, two become one mingling, and birthing new shades had caught me on the bottom step The scent had sealed the deal, halfway up As I bent to draw it deep into my nostrils I...
