Thane Zander is a retired Navy man and a Bipolar Sufferer. He has used poetry as a means to monitor his illness and life. Part of the recovery was to join online Poetry Forums, one of which has seen him become Director of Challenges and Workshop forums at Blueline. He also runs a New Zealand Poets only website, workshops his poems at Salty Dreams, and fills the pages at Babilu Forums. Thane has had poetry published in Here and Now, Loch Raven Review, Windjammer Press, Blackmail Press (volumes 10, 15, 18, 22) and an anthology called A Bouquet of Poetry. He has recently completed studies at University for Creative Writing (where The Free Spirit scored an A-) and The Music of Pink Floyd. 2009 will find him studying five English papers, working towards a degree in English as well as continuing online poetry. He has a ¾ finished novel (Tuwhenga) on the table.
Fall 2009
Table of Contents - Vol. V, No. 3
Thane Zander
A silver cap, a flint,
the mechanism
for flame to dance,
your orange the pits of hell,
your yellow
the voice of longing.
You are but a simple thing,
a shape friendly to touch
a smooth fit for the palm
that desires none other
than to set you free.
With flicks and sparks
you aim for stardom,
the cigarette coughs into being
your life, suddenly extinguished
as your breath settles
into a gaseous blue canister.
Into a netherworld
of pressed cotton, lint
the warmth shared,
you await the next deciding moment
when kindling is sought,
the smell of your passing,
your after affects,
as lungs claw for breath,
a hand deftly turning you---
over and over.
© Thane Zander
