Bio
Middle-aged and mildly neurotic, Laurice has been re-arranging words since 1994, after attending art school in a misguided and unsuccessful attempt to ward off a mid-life crisis. She's earned money from at least six poems and several competitions, and has managed her emotional life without illegal self-medication, despite a brief stint as a life model. Early retirement enabled her to rise from committee member of the New Zealand Poetry Society to National Coordinator in charge of everything. Election to President occurred when no-one else wanted the job. Four adult children are proud of her achievements, her husband merely bemused.
Laurice Gilbert
Abseiling At the Ellice St Quarry
Turning my back on the light year
separating me from the city,
I let my feet find the wall
- walking as a spider walks -
suspended by ropes I can only hope
are stronger than gravity.
Things with wings rocket from bushes
that have no right to grow
so far from the security
of a horizontal plane.
A century flashes by
and I'm back in Wellington,
sustained once more by her skyline,
smiling the width of a galaxy.