Poem about a Japanese woman visitng New Zealand

IN THE LAND OF BIG BROCCOLI is a poem about a Japanese woman visiting New Zealand. Vocabulary note: manuka is a shrub which is very common in New Zealand, often growing to the size of a tree. It is not uncommonly used for firewood. Some manuka honey has medicinal properties, and can be bought, for a price, not only in New Zealand but also in Japan, one of the countries to which it is exported.

This IN THE LAND OF BIG BROCCOLI poem is part of the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online.

The collection includes school poems, city poems, nature poems, war poems, cancer poems, death poems, and, additionally, other poems, assorted poems on various topics and themes, this being one of those other poems.

Webmaster for this site is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness.

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IN THE LAND OF BIG BROCCOLI

This may end in divorce:
Death, no lawyers required.
But, as yet,
My computer still acknowledges my password.
And she, my name.

In the land of big broccoli, a question:
Are there cockroaches in this country?
Her naive surmise is no
But yes there are.
The live-in-the-wild indigenous
Which will not dwell in the house
And the world-sourced indoor-sharers,
With intent for which we bought traps.

The land of big broccoli,
It is a world both familiar and strange,
The broccoli heaved huge by summer,
Luxuriant kiwi broccoli
Forgotten by the ice-locked winter of Japan.
In the land of big broccoli
Cooking oil is cooking oil,
But brine, non-obvious, requires a theory.

In the land of big broccoli
The very ugly sweets are ugly,
Structured blabs of crudest color
Garish with optimism,
Unrepentant,
Slabbed between tire-tread black,
Construction blocks
Masquerading as confectionery:
Liquorice allsorts,
An alien unknown.

In the land of big broccoli
Manuka honey is manuka honey,
The known and loved elite.
The ugliness of the ugly sweets
Can be endured,
Perhaps even forgiven.
The fish
Are sourced from the same ocean,
The planetary ocean
Sharing the common shores.

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