That girl, by Heidi North-Bailey

She rides side-saddle
into her own clich�
her heart is pumping smoke
boots heavy with things unsaid
sunset flecked with mud

she�s breathing fire
flames curl from her lips
slow-dancing lovers
with cigarette smiles

slink and hips
turn on the clock

and still

after all this time
after so many battered
leather jackets
crumpled sleeps
on strangers� couches

cups of tea
from chipped mugs

Papatoetoe Poems by Tony Beyer

1 Early Days

the billy that rang empty
on its hook against the gate post
last thing at night
was full of the colour of starlight at dawn


2 Originals

them kumaras is really gallopin now
Mr Kilgour in braces and hobnail boots
he'd stamp and click on the path
like a horse modestly skittish in its stall

when he came over to use our phone
party line 796D
he shouted as if he believed
a hollow and

planchette by James Norcliffe

at night the rats
are bigger than rats

they race back and forth
like typewriters
across the lath and plaster

like good little rats
they have taken their poison
and now grow large with thirst

where are their pretty girlfriends
or love, the magician?

cannot one of these
offer them solace or slake?

oh qwerty they clatter
oh qwerty qwerty

as the night grows hard round them
desperate in their

Resilience by Keith Westwater

Mathematicians have worked out

how
to calculate the bounciness of a ball:



(the
coefficient of this x the cosine of that)

+ the differential of today's weather all � by

a
piece of string (and the speed of
the train)

= the same as dropping different balls together

and
seeing which ball has the