before these barbiturates take me down
again
I must tell you that this morning I came
close
the wind picked me up ever so gently over
sand
as light as a dandelion, I floated over the play-ground
my arms were out-stretched, my eyes glazed in
joy
there was a goal of a white light, and I went
for it
deliriously I accepted a balloon offered from below
me
and once I bit it I came down as the air went
out
for the duration an instrumental track was back-
round
it ended when I touched the ground, a perfect music
video
© Clinton Gorst
The daffodils are dying
on my coffee table
Their petals crushed
like used tissue
They didn't come to me
in a cloud
As I stumbled, hung over,
up kicked hills
But instead, in a red plastic
bucket at the dairy
down the road.
I went there for crumpets, and
stared longingly at the
chocolate-coated liquorice,
But there were no crumpets, so
I bought daffodils instead,
a thin rubber band cutting into
their stalks like lambs' tails.
their veins already as prominent
as those on a drunk's nose.
So there they blare yellow
in front of the muted television
and remind me of when they
would pop out of our green lawn
as unexpectedly as a psycho
in a thriller.
There they blare yellow
in front of ab-flexer infomercials
and warm me
on a cold winter's day.
© Sarah Laing
When my Aunty Ngaire
sneaked into her grandmother's room
to steal a pair of pearl clip on earings
to wear to Meg's 8th birthday party
She found her hanging in the wardrobe,
those very ones clipped on her ears.
Her mother said she hadn't seen anything
of the sort, but she had, she had
She could see how the flesh swelled
around pearl clusters;
how her hands wrinkled like
the pond top on a windy day.
She could see her crossed toes,
for once without the pinch of shoe
and how her petticoat tongue
poked out below the lip of skirt.
Her mother said she hadn't seen a thing,
but there she hung, like a favourite dress
on a wire coat hanger
And when she unclipped the pearl earings,
her lobes were still warm.
© Sarah Laing
While you were out buying cigarettes I went through your bag it's inexcusable, I know but you're becoming a stranger and I had to get intimate somehow.
So, here you are, a pile of smelly clothes a biography of Andy Warhol a small wall plaque of the Virgin Mary some hair gel a tape of Puccini and a small tin urn containing your mother.
So this is the baggage you are carrying around.
© Helen Lehndorf
So here we sit, caught in
the bum crack of a
brown velvet lazy boy
A picture of your sister
framed in mahogany
on the opposite wall
The pockets of the
pool table hang slack
like bras on a washing line
Your sister smiles down at us
her chipped tooth
coloured in
You can only talk
to your father when you both
have a pool cue in your hands
And after he's sunk the
yellow and the blue
into the net
He reminds you that
your sister's favourite colour
was red.
Funny, you can only
see her in a crumpled pink
night gown
Her skin bruised by a needle
that when pulled out
dripped like rain on her thin hand.
The light skewers your eye
on a venetian sliver,
and the chalk dust dances.
When you aim for the red,
you miss
and sink the black instead..
© Sarah Laing