Leslie Mckay 2014
She questions her mountain
at yielding dusk
Vast silence is the indigo reply
she combs on the track
through wild and tender
summer grass
as fantails go hunting
and foxgloves glow as aliens will
At the beech forest gate
she glides to her tree house
scented with honey dew
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
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
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 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.