Thinking about Change, Haast and What's to Come
(considering words by James Baxter)
Suppose one day you and I were awoken by drums
enough to wake the dead or suppose the door
was never closed and that there are enough among
us ready to stand or kneel.
Drink the rough wine skin of the matador
hungrily devour his song; become pregnant with his gifts
grow rage like ruamoko, like spring's pure icy blaze
forge new talents, action, humility.
So we'll dig up the heroes their bones will become
the revolutions drums and our husky breath
will make their bones sing, our nostrils filled
with aching mortality, we'll reforest the street
and spend a whole wet Sunday dancing naked amongst the flames.
© Niki Jones
Sailor
The sand sucks my toes,
seaweed toupees
dance in disco waves
The sand tickles my instep,
the scallops quiver
in their shells
And you, coarse skinned,
cracked lipped
white wedge of chest
jamming open
checked shirt
You, with quiver
tongue
behind shell-white
teeth
Say we should go
sailing on this
chipped china sea.
Splinter oars
in rough palms
we row to where
the water has
smeared the red sun
into the sky
And you, with
quiver tongue
wet my cracked lips
And with my white fingers
I work your
chest wedge down
until it splits your check shirt
in two.
© Sarah Laing
Domesticity
I learnt over the washing machine
the kitchen sink,
the coffee maker,
that a dead moth crumbles quickly
in the heat of a closed palm.
In quiter moments
words stand alone like gravestones;
they are hard edged under the sun
with long thin shadows to jump over.
There is no one to talk to now
and soon my washing will be done.
In a life of domestic bliss
one must bow down
and pay homage to each appliance.
© Thérèse Lloyd
New York snakes
In New York, they wear
reptiles round their necks
instead of scarves
A boa, slung casually
over a shoulder
not clasped with a gold clip
But a tail tip
slipped
into a back pocket.
In New York, they
keep their dildos
in their snake skin handbags
Which are upturned onto
steaming pavements
in search of their keys
Snakes coil in dog baskets,
plaid blankets clashing
with diamond backs
They slither across
the tv set and change channels
with their tongues
When they are placed
in glass boxes to sleep
they tap the glass and mouth
"I am not a fish!"
Their owners email their therapists
and order in pizza.
Their snakes shiver like leaves.
Their snakes rattle like
rain on a tin roof.
© Sarah Laing
Tena koutou
Venus sits over the hills
over water
stoic ancestral
alluring
early from bed in the west
The gold sequinned motorway
trims the edges
it floats
a waft and smirk
drifting upon the harbour
The almost full moon peeks
pregnant over Mount Vic
curious
beside the church it speaks
more of Easter than of the cross
She climbs overhead
she is an advert above the city
she sells rhythm and resurrection
tonight amongst the noise
she is a 30 second broadcast
Venus sits over the hills
last light desperate
throw itself up to touch her
you sitting in the East
are already heavy with the thoughts of morning
© Niki Jones
England before me
his figurative English mind-set
wets chops, all saliva inside ah!
mixed secretions make an England
a stumbled path worth travelling for
to let it inside yourself
is to get within, at least with him
a tasty recall
remembering the sticky side of Wardour...
but right now London is in this cup
in this pint and in the figure in front.
© Clinton Gorst
Exile
Arm in arm
we walk to the tube station
and I'm telling you that this could be the last time we see one another
for a year or even two
but you refuse to indulge me
grin fixedly
talk about the dinner party that we will have when I eventually follow you home
nothing will have changed
you say
everything will be the same
you say
it will be like you'd never left
it is these ideas more than anything else
that make me cry as we part
my self-induced exile
to no avail
when I come back
I want my difference to sting
my otherness to cause yearning
when I return
I don't want to discover myself
fossilised, intact.
© Helen Lehndorf
