Carpe Diem – C. K. Stead

Carpe Diem – C. K. Stead

Since Juliet’s on ice, and Joan
Staked her chips on a high throne –

Sing a waste of dreams that are
Caressing, moist, familiar:

A thousand maidens offering
Their heads to have a poet sing;

Hard-drinking beaches laced with sun,
The torn wave where torn ships run

To wine and whitewashed bungalows.
This summer sing what winter knows:

Love keeps a cuckoo in its clock,
And death’s hammer makes the stroke.




O'Sullivan, V. (Ed.). (1979). An anthology of twentieth century New Zealand poetry. Wellington: Oxford University Press.