Poetry
Page 19
Calm Evenings
by Ruth Dallas
9p.m. and the sun still shining
The city deserted.
The construction cranes
Make no more gestures in the blue sky.
The builders are far away
In their holiday houses.
The old year nods its head
The new year not yet come.
Sparrows, who have no calendar,
Chatter in the linden trees.
My shadow grown tall as a telegraph pole
Slants across the quiet streets.
Tonight I should like to go on walking
Forever.
Ruth Dallas and Michele Leggottwon Blind Achiever's awards in 1999 - Ruth for literature and Michele for her academic work.
festival junction
by Michele Leggott
the builders arrive
at 8am wanting to plug in
their leads and get started
for I have located it
our house of dreams
and getting the refit done
in time and getting it there
for the rendezvous
TuTu
this will be une grande jette
un coup de foudre
all those dicey things we adore
up there on the ridge of love
a pink terracotta casa
looking east over the ocean
snuffing the seabreezes and
listening to the sugar palms
sweet heart the rooms are empty
(bar one bursting shoe closet
and a chiffonier full of
exquisite silk scraps)
but the budget is bottomless
think of the things I can do
in a week
and all the others
we'll have to do together -
I think we should call it
Paresseuse
this house of apricots
and gunpowder
aloes and dancing dresses
up there on the ridge
of love
waiting to be made again
Michele Leggott has an author page on the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (nzepc). The site is designed to be user-friendly to partially sighted viewers.
www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/authors/leggott