The Purple Lady Poem by Terence George Craddock (Spectral Images and Images Of Light)

A welcome Christmas break.
Half a week off the turps.

Time for wine, whiskey, gin,
vodka, sambuca, ouzo and peach schnapps.
Or peach schnapps vodka ouzo combinations.


But what is the exact formula
for Helen’s secret recipe?
A really well mixed purple lady?

Sixty percent meths
to forty percent
straight orange juice.

Or meths seventy thirty
to get really spacy
before getting drunk.


Helen said getting back
on the meths

is like
‘holding hands
with a long lost lover’.


Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Turps and Meths – both are colloquial New Zealand kiwi
terms for methylated spirits.