The Celestial Press

The Celestial Press We are a secular press in Aotearoa New Zealand. Submissions in English from anyone in the world are welcome.

The Celestial Press [established 2020] is devoted to the best. Moreover (and we shall be fully old-fashioned in this respect), we are devoted to the very notion of the best, where it is understood that “the best” is that extreme of good quality EVERY human ought to have available to them.

01/07/2025

LIANNE KARAITIANA

I implore those of us who are
Committed to this cause
To go to the movies and eat our popcorn.
Laugh, love
And dance
Till you're exhausted

Why?

Because this is the life
And the freedom
That we want
For all
Palestinians.
In fact
For the world.
Salted? Butter?

###.

Lianne Karaitiana 2025

[Editor's note. We would always publish a poem across a great readership such as India, first. This poem we may not. FB is nervous about the word, "Palestinians". We admire this poem, very much.]

01/07/2025

Satie

On the bed,
sighs.
Do you want
a walk?
You
not well?
That ear still
bothering you?
All three
things.
Da da da
dah.

Craig Hood 2025
[from WHERE IS MY LABRADOR?]

25/06/2025

CHRISTA WEIBEL

Yes, I Am

A trained scientist,
Held so dear by my beloved.
My parents, my siblings.
My village.
Oh, you died for me.
I will not lose the method
Or its means
Without fight and joy.
Both sustained them,
Even, in times of horror.
I know the evidence:
I breathe.
I think,
I fear.
I feel.
I yearn.
I am human.
Yes, I am.

Christa Weibel 2025

25/06/2025

C F HOOD

Aid

Could I smile without you,
ever again?
Will you,
if I am beneath the sheet?
I hope you can
watch someone again,
and eat.
Our dinner hour
became starvation,
when death became their food.
A loaf of bread.
The staff of life.
Care.
We cared.
Die.
We died.
Carry.
We carried
with writing on the shroud.

Craig Hood 2025
[from WHERE IS MY LABRADOR?]

16/06/2025

ENNIS WILLSON

humidity

when the story comes out,
says dad, was what you
used to say to him.
no story is immune
to self infection,
and sepsis can spread.
the lies have become unbearable
in this republic of ours.
he's ill now.
much depressed,
much sicker.
we went to the parade,
and saw the king
behind his proofed screen.
dad is like that.
tanks in the capital.
dad says washington
nearly fell in the civil war.
i didn't know that.
i know this -
we're going to canada
next week for a while.
maybe longer.
a lot longer.

Ennis Willson 2025

09/06/2025

CHRISTA WEIBEL

Sleep

I walked through the park
Yesterday. Lunchtime but empty.
You said you would meet me
At twelve fifteen. You wrote
Twelve fifteen not 12.15
And won my heart.
Now you are dead.

It's twelve fifteen now
And in the distance I see you.
I am asleep?
You are asleep?
We are alive,
In yearning,
And human.

Christa Weibel 2025

ALEXANDER SCIANNA "Apocalypse Project 2025" (8.6.25)36" X 36"Acrylic on canvas
07/06/2025

ALEXANDER SCIANNA
"Apocalypse Project 2025" (8.6.25)
36" X 36"
Acrylic on canvas

29/05/2025

C F HOOD

Oh Dear

Simple Simon,
the Cat in the Hat,
bibles of youth or earlier:
I don't care for them.
Not now. Never really did.
Whispered bushes,
of dark places in imagined selves
- how we once bled to become
remembered voices!
I am over them.
Why must life rescind reality
as our days wane?
I'm not waning,
I'm barking. Barking like a dog.
Let me in.
Let me in, nurse.

Craig Hood 2025
[from WHERE IS MY LABRADOR?]

20/05/2025

WENDY HOLLIER

Passage of the People

Take a drive off a cliff
And hold my hand if you want.
Your need for commendation
And your pine for look at me
Is as dull as the words you use
Keeping me in the passenger seat.
You live like a privileged parson,
Never asking,
Am I the problem?
Am I the reason to put a foot to the floor?
End this mirage of faux joy,
Faux love, faux acceptance.
Give me pills to take, please.
A needle if you will.
Live for the living not the dead,
You fool. There is no other.
When you go, you go.
What's so wrong
With the death of ego?
Die with grace,
Not superstition.
Children are murdered
Where your God walked
And you care about you.

Wendy Hollier 2025
[from FIRE IN THE TENT]

17/05/2025

C F HOOD

Honey

Like that blackbird who made a nest
in a stump on the Somme,
our bees share the barley straw with cat,
and wait for a shell to land.
We sit with our suitcases
waiting for the call.
Our children, dressed in green,
still amble or hasten home
according to their Friday wants:
school's done for the week.
For the week?

The tank and column of soldiers
that tumble their world
is here, perhaps, tonight.
Until then they rest,
swollen with need,
beyond the trees.

Craig Hood 2019
[from DUETS FOR THE MODERNS]

28/04/2025

MAYA MARKESH

Today there is a hearing,
a court of souls
that takes as its jurisdiction
the very humanity that the evidence
tells is destroyed.
I am a dead person
who seeks no life again.
My children, though,
my children?
World of humans,
look to your hearts.
Are they still beating?

Maya Markesh 2025

28/04/2025

CHRISTA WEIBEL

Not In My Name

Please, if you have a moment,
would you come in here?
Yes, my office; my room; my place
of worship. I’m sorry to trouble you.
It doesn’t matter what you call it.

All right, if you need to flatter me:
my conscience, where rage runs
rampant and the waters run
higher and higher.
Do you not see,
out my window,
the dam; its cracked concrete?

Metaphor. You think I use a metaphor.
Am I saying something is like something,
the better for you to understand me
or read me? No, I’m not that kind of
poet today.

I’m sad. Oh, I’m sad.
My people did to your people,
not so long ago,
the banal indignity
of mass murder.
And, well, it’s all been said,
hasn’t it?

Has it?
I watched a child
fry in flames, yesterday.
I’ve asked you here
today, not to show you the footage.

No.
I have a thirst, that’s all.
I need you to help me
quench my thirst.
I’ve run out of tears,
but I want to make you cry.

Look. Oh look. For god’s sake,
look, and feel. They have murdered his child.
His child.
Now, please, don’t tell anyone
you saw me like this.
Please don’t.
Please don’t.

Christa Weibel 2024

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