Dada’s Working Life
by Whaitiri Tua-Warbrick
after George Steiner
The world broke some time last century which is why all things are post-
themselves. There are the post-structuralists, the post-modernists, the post-ironists, the
post-post ironists. It took the fun out of tending to
the botanical gardens out in Oxford with their dictionary crucible and an
elongated satisfaction. No more would the stolen gold fired by the words of the uncivilized
protect them from their own literary rape. There is no good nowadays to gilding the lily
dead; pinnacal upon pinnacal upon one another forms a field of gilt tedium from which
nothing grows nor dies,
only something to admire in the early morning light before it blinds you – as crawling things
try to push through its slickness to turn earth, to meet with Mother.
Whaitiri Tua-Warbrick (Rangitane / Ngati Raukawa) is a poet based in Palmerston North. His passion lies with knowing the interplay between his knowing and other knowings, and walks the river often. His work can be found in Landfall, Starling, a fine line, and Nine Lives Poetry. His poem, ‘babybludgeonpoem’, can be found in Issue 1 of Bloodbath Journal.