Poetry NZ is New Zealand's leading poetry magazine edited by Alistair Paterson. The magazine showcases new writing from New Zealand and overseas poets.

Website www.geocities.com/poetrynz

The Letter Writer
and Vermeer

I dip the quill
in the ink well.

Dear Mr Leeuwenhoek

You came
to work
in my father’s counting house.

I was pleased to receive
your good wishes

You kissed my hand,
your skin firm and smooth,
your form pleasing,
your eyes shining with youth.

On my betrothment
to Mijnheer Van Ruijens,
my father’s business partner.

You smiled shyly.
My delight in you grows.
I ache to be held
to know your kisses.

He owns the Tulip Gardens
in Langendijck Street.

I visit there
each Tuesday morning.
Meet me there
my dearest love.

Laurel Lamperd
Published in Poetry New Zealand 2006

Skulls

The Word is Out is a twice yearly magazine published by WA Poets Inc. WA Poets Inc organize the annual WA Spring Poetry Festival and support various other things to do with poetry in Western Australia as well as working to bring poets and poetry to the public. If you are interested, WA Poets Inc. can be contacted - lucasliz@iprimus.com.au

I had two poems published in The Word is Out Issue 2 Madres of Plaza De Mayo and Skulls.

SKULLS

Skulls adorning a landscape of hills
teetering beside chasms
cut brown into green softness.
In the foreground, a folding of green
like my green crumpled dress
which I wore
when I went out with Robbie
who doesn't want me anymore.

I thought of the skulls
and how one day I'd be one.

Why wait fifty years?

They are flying above me
against the skyline
like balloons of methane gas.
I want to be up there with them
looking down on my desolate world.

For the Women of All the Dead Heroes

The poem - For the Women of All Dead Heroes
has been published in the anthology
Hidden Desires.
Hidden Desires brings together
the voices of contemporary Australian women
of several generations.
The stories and poems traverse themes
such as memory, desire, thwarted love and regret
in a moving and often witty range of pieces.

Hidden Desires is published by
Ginninderra Press
www.ginninderra press.com.au

FOR THE WOMEN OF ALL THE DEAD HEROES

HMAS Sydney, lost in battle
with the German raider, Kormoran,
off the West Australian coast
near Carnarvon,
November 19th, 1941.

Is that me
that iron woman
forever waving off her hero?

Can you hear
from that place of garlanded mermaids
and siren songs?

Your loins are hard and moist, my love.
I feel your corded muscles against my softness.
My milky breasts leak upon your chest.
Our daughter laughs and gurgles
while we make our son.

Your lips are mine.
My body fires to your caress.
I cry my desire
and awake
to touch a vacant place.

The hope that blazed has faded
to this wizened old woman
who now is me.

And you.
A tiny seagull spreading its wings
on a dome of glass.


Short story - Excerpt from Waiting for the Train, which has been published in Hidden Desires

"Minna," her mother called from the verandah. "Can you see the train?’
Minna climbed the peppercorn tree and stared southwards across the flat treeless plain in the direction from where the train came. "No, Mumma.’
Minna's mother closed the gates at the rail crossing when the train came. It was her father's job, but he was usually out rabbit trapping, or kangaroo shooting, or doing a bit of fencing for a pastoralist. Minna and her mother closed the gates even when he was home.
The train arrived every two weeks at the little railway siding. There weren't many goods to unload. "We only buy the basics," said one of the pastoralist’s wives, who came in with her husband to pick up the station supplies.
The country was in drought. There was the big flood and afterwards scarcely any rain.
The train was usually late. At the time of the big floods, it didn't come for two months. Minna’s family ran out of food except for a half bag of flour and the roo meat her father killed. Minna had really looked for the train then.
Her father had growled. "It will take weeks for the floods to go down." He had drunk his last bottle of beer, smoked his last cigarette and been bad-tempered ever since.
Minna kept out of his way. She didn't want a thump like
he had given her mother.