Nick's back in town
with a bottle of duty free vodka
his skin hanging off his face
like belt-less, baggy trousers.
Nick's back in town, and
he still talks too much
Before this bottle of vodka
is finished, I'll be stuffed with
junk mail words, I'll have to
unhook serifs from my sleeve.
Nick's back in town, and I don't
hate him so much anymore.
It helps that I can't hear
what he's saying.
It helps that I no longer care.
© Sarah Laing
When the mist finally lifted
the grided hills had moved forward
and stood as an obstacle
outside my bedroom window;
I pushed them to the corner
of my eye
they are simply too big to fit in my purse
*
A shred of soap
all clean and weak
got sucked down the plughole
it was Monday morning
Monday's washing day
Tuesday's baking day
and the rest of the week
we sleep
*
I dried my hands on Thursday's clean towel
after you left your white trail
your saintly snail track
and because I aways clean
I know you will come again
and because it is all clean
you can feel original again
*
I like to be tired
I am tired from sleep
I like to have read from my bed
what I already knew
I have taken this stance
with my arms pinned wide
I am waiting to forgive
© Thérèse Lloyd
It's raining
eggs of water
run down sagging
power lines and
kamikaze
onto the asphalt
egg whites
stream down
a kinetic pavement
The chip packets float
like paper boats
jostling each other
to the main road
On the rugby field
the seagulls pick
worms from wells
formed by
sport shoe studs
inverted church spires
of a Saturday faith
And I rise from my
mossy sheets
your flesh wet
sticking plastered
to mine
and on this window
I write our names
in the condensation.
© Sarah Laing
love receiving
used to giving
all the time giving giving
slowed down process
this correspondence
lack of speech
be forgiving
as age rockets on
and shows it.
to hear news
is to remember slices
flashes and "Trash"
the sound of that scene
in the capital.
And on.
Further away
in the back-bar
of the brain.
shall slap wrists
occasionally
and the occasional call
when money is not
so tight
and people aren't clinging
all enquiring
- will be some sort of substitute
from a quieter letter writer.
But fear not!
You and everyone else
are still in here
still thought-of
and talked about.
More golden glows
than what is imagined
on the belly of the scale
(dried up links)
there's a stack of envelopes
bulimic envelopes
all waiting to be filled
then to be spilled
into the most grateful
of hands
in your greener cities
fruit bearing
sonic ears on.
© Clinton Gorst
We are harmless surely
as we leave trails of jasmine
not just the scent
but the soft weak flower
broken like dozens of tiny umbrellas.
I catch your gaze
wide and stunned by inch of bone or round of flesh
like that time at the shower window,
mirrored as though you could do no harm
but live beyond your body
We are as absurd as we can be;
To feel each bump or scrape
in this house built of packing crates
I know that in due course
you will take ownership of my voice and breath,
Now brittle like teeth worn weak
through pleasurable excess;
It is difficult to imagine a life without sin,
the drink is the problem
and Every Good Girl Deserves Wine.
All these brown paper bags conceal evidence
of musical scores
written under the influence
of blood red walls that stand with arms folded
like sound barriers that deny more than they protect.
But you and I can be like new gosts
naïve in our surroundings;
We will pass through walls
and slip into the night, loose limbed and lipped
and allow the wind to steal our whispers.
© Thérèse Lloyd
Gritty lipped
I sit on the
suburban train
in a green vinyl embrace
You sit beside me,
your jean seam
creasing my thigh
You don't love me, but
you feed me toast and honey
and kiss my collar bone
and slide your secrets into my
open body but not the one
about your girlfriend.
The concrete seeps through
loose seemed steel
and we rattle along the tracks
like a tray of dirty dishes
Across the aisle a man
picks his nose and wipes it
on the horoscope
then the windows of the train
go lacquer black and
we float in them.
And I dream that this is a
James Bond affair
on a heart shaped bed
in ostrich trimmed negligee
But I know that it's a damp mattress
layed on newspaper
and socks that stay on
surrounded by post-it notes
and Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday shirts
waiting
for your girlfriend to wash them
Dead fridges sit in an asphalt yard
and the next time the windows turn
I dive in.
© Sarah Laing