Kimono papers

Lesley Mckay  2014

Wearing the kimono

her grandmother chose

for her in Japan

she stood on street corners

on Friday nights

selling communist papers

When people spat or argued

her eyes rose to the cross

on the cathedral steeple

See the world

you wont change it

her grandmother said

And as she fingered

the flawless kimono

she felt only silk

The House of Art

Leslie Mckay 2013

In the house of art
she was carried
far from the blindness
of duress
by works of skill and grace

When the dark angel sang
and her song drew applause
she transcended her sentence
as hardships apprentice

On a winter’s night
on the southern earth
there was nothing between
her and the alchemy

The long ancient road
searching dreaming
straight through illusion
truth came riding

The Magnolia Chronicles

Leslie Mckay 2013

She finds Bishopdale
with her eyes closed
surrenders to the magnolias
perfumed licence
under a nor west arch
defiant chin out
for passion’s bumpy ride
the Spanish ancestor
revving her blood
up beyond reason
Changing the world
will only take a minute

When she exits the garden
for the subversive lens
she embraces the template
fired just off kitchen tables
and on guitars
Cleans shoes in factories
rather than design them
Harangues white male
control freaks
until they are red of face
fortified by Greer, comrades
and Monty Python

At parties she smokes Sobranies
and drinks Black Russians
in romance and gravitys
scintillating light
In the slow burning afterglow
the magnolias hear her breathe

Leslie Mckay

Leslie Mckay is a poet, story and song writer. She has read her work at Canterbury Public Library, the Wunderbar, the Bird Hall at Canterbury Museum and at the Pallet Pavilion. She runs poetry workshops for community groups and is collaborating  with Lisa Tui on songs for an EP about pre and post quake Christchurch. She lives in the Maruia Valley.