Australian Poetry
Collaboration

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from Meuse Press –

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AUSTRALIAN

POETRY COLLABORATION

#1

 

FEATURING

Heather Brigstocke, Alison Coshott, Jean Frances,

Eileen Jones, Paula McKay, Sheryl Persson

 

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Heather Brigstocke

 

 

Light the way

 

Watery space
open arms beckoning

Light grows
the water reveals glory
offers an unwrinkled hand
challenges
dares

Through the window
clouds
shroud the light in doubt
cast a shadow on picture frames
Memories shattered by tempered light
shining for her

And in looking at the source
finds she controls its brightness
by the tightness of her grip
on the extended hand.

 

 

Blue races



They say that on a clear day
you can see the Blue for miles
nothing else acceptable

It’s the winning post!
rump slapped with a blue ribbon
for a race, well done

Can you see the Blue?
For a while she thought she could
certainly at the beginning
yeh, down the middle too

But she fell on the home stretch,
tried to find her breath
inhaled the pack
crippling dirt from many hooves

So she threw off the jockey
there for the grace of himself?
Never! only in the name of the Blue

took off for a track of her own colour
though blue had always been her favourite colour

Yes, she left the Blue deification
to those that quite like
blue ribbons in the saddle
and one hoof in the knackery.

 

¯

Alison Coshott

 

Orange

 

 

A dry red sunball

floats down through

dust from mine dumps;

hangs in the air

with coal smoke

from cooking fires

 

Cars stream home

from offices

to the bosom

of wire garnished walls

 

The traffic lights stop us

red in our tracks.

A picannin starts

his procession

along the row of glittering fringe benefits.

We have been warned:

These boys are used by men,

they run in packs to

distract and steal

through smashed windows

I look at him, this victim

smooth, brown,

big-eyed he begs

Madam - give me money

for bread

 

I turn away, steely eyed

from my reflection

in his brown and yellow disks.

There are so many beggars

 

Wait. I say. No please

from me to him.

I pick an orange from the foot well

poke it through the gap

to him outside

Here - I smile a bit

 

He stares at the orange

I turn away

so not to see him

throw away my selfishness.

I have my pride.

 

But at last I look

(He will have gone by now)

 

And he is eating the orange - ripping its flesh with his teeth

sucking thirstily to save the drops

and hunching over so they do not drip

on his dusty bare feet

 

He could be my own.

I pull away

and driving home,

I despair:

                There are so many beggars

 

 

 

 

granule

 

at midnight mostly

in vengeful dark

i scream in silence

see the stark

ungainly cracks

in my unpolished

faces

of the day

 

¯

 

Jean Frances

 

 

Scold's Bridle

 

I held back secrets

long fermenting in my belly

desperate for your approval

I must not tear out

the roots of our promises

 

Stop up your ears

so I am not forced

to choke back venom

Let me lift this child-mask

from my face

spit out the mustard

painted on my tongue

excrete the toxin

trapped beneath my skin

 

And let me speak as a woman

before the fastening

is hammered home again

 

 

 

Waiting at the Lights

 

I had never seen

a dead person before

lying on the footpath in the rain

 

An anxious doctor knelt

pounding his chest

and giving him mouth-to-mouth

 

The man   his eyes open

skin faintly blue    appeared serene

as if embarking on a trip

he'd been planning

for a long time

 

 

 

¯

 

Eileen Jones

 

EMPTINESS

 

I am distraught as I sit in this barrister’s sedate office;

memory is absent when most needed.

I recall the pain,

the quality of its sharpness as it shot through my hand.

But what is its trigger?

I am being questioned about hobbies, tapestry,

the use of my hand, my solicitor sits quietly;

pain’s memory forces itself on my attention

only half of me responds.

 

I want to say – yes, tapestry was one of my hobbies

as were knitting, crochet, embroidery,

dressmaking, tailoring, all kinds of needlework.

Yet I remain mute, frustrated by my incapacity.

The moment passes, conversation shifts.

I mention my inability to respond spontaneously,

my need to go apart to think, but they find it hard to believe.

I’m brain damaged I’d like to shout to them.

With a calmness I cannot feel,

I suggest the neuropsychological report

only to find  they have all my medical reports

from the Brisbane lawyers.  I have no privacy, no secrets.

I feel denuded, stripped, spilled out,

everything is public property –

but the emptiness is mine.

 

 

 

The Thrill Seekers

 

 

On the verandah rail, inquisitive Willie Wagtails,

dressed ready for a black tie dinner,

dance, twist, flit in a flash to perch teasingly

on a magpie’s back, saucy tale upright.

Do they hope perhaps, for a free flight?

With a sudden song—burst they dash through water spray,

wing span maximised to ride the wind, surf air waves,

ski the skies, in flight so free assistance is superfluous.

 

As they skim, waft, dare – devil dart

my enthralled spirit soars but I sit, frustrated,

trapped in a body which lurches drunkenly

because my water – logged head has lost its authority.

Like an astronaut re adjusting to gravity

I struggle clumsily to move rubbery legs on unwilling feet;

clutch my pen to capture the thrill seekers’ rapture

but contrary hands with a will of their own

thwart my intention, leaving me

with an indecipherable scrawl.

My fascination cannot be denied.

Forced to this electronic servant

I record a fleeting experience

of grace, freedom, nature’s beauty. 

With the thrill of the dance a distant memory

vivid awareness of physical limitation heightens frustration,

becomes desperation.

 

¯

 

Paula McKay

Let Me Not Die an Old Girl's Death

                                               (After Roger McGough)

   

 

let me not die an old girl's death  not in a rocking chair ‘doesn't she look peaceful  like that’ death  not a curtains drawn  with the sun going down in black armbands death  nor laid out cold in the front room with background organ music and me  stiff as the pipes  no father o'leary giving me the last rites death (when I didn't ever have any rights in the first place) and not a between the starched sheets in a smells of pee nursing home calling softly I'm coming to join you fred death (& him thin as a rake by then anyway)   no blessing in the end death  or propped up  with pillows so's I could look out over the yard  and see  the two pigs rummaging  through the rubbish death  no mrs swift from next door  & all the other neighbours downstairs making tea and drinking whisky  while I'm up there gasping my last breath

 

                and I don't want a holier than thou and free from sin surrounded by candles and wilting flowers death either with kind  last minute words to people I never liked anyway  none of their noisy children coming  to say a last goodbye to me when I  couldn't stand the sight of them while I was alive death

 

               let me go out when I'm a hundred and four gnashing my gums and conducting loud beautiful music (beethoven  would be good )  flashing my painted fingernails & overthetop dyed hair smoking cigarettes that are bad for my health while drinking  french cognac &  me singing and kicking and showing everybody my bright red knickers

 

 

 

Enola Gay

 

The pilot of the plane that dropped the

the first atomic bomb - over Hiroshima - 

in 1945 named the aircraft after his mother

 

After it was all over

what happened then?

Did you hide behind the curtains

when the doorbell rang

or write your memoirs  

mother to a famous man?

 

And when they held a barbeque

honouring your sudden fame

dressed in floral prints and Sunday hat

did you smile

through all the sizzle and the flame

hold your plate above the smoke

and dripping fat

while the rare steaks charred amid the heat

accept a well-cooked sausage

with the skin quite split

and compliment the chef

for having hit the spot?

 

¯

Sheryl Persson

 

 

JELLYFISH

 

Silent

passive poisoner

you trail festive streamers

wearing cap with rippling fringe

as frenzied fish

flash vivid violet.

Slooshing sideways

not guilty of malice

quietly determined

you extend your welcome

languidly wrapping visitors

in an acrid embrace.

 

 

 

 

DON'T TURN THE LIGHTS OUT

 

Don't turn the lights out.

In the darkness

I can hear again

the shuffling traitor

in the hall

stalking

closer.

 

I feel the syrup breath

ice on my neck.

The nausea rises

paralysis sets in.

 

Don't turn the lights out.

In the darkness

I can hear quicksilver words

wheedling

pleading secrecy.

 

In the dark

the shutter falls on senses.

I cease to be

vacate time and space

for some other victim

until I hear again

the door whispering shut

footsteps retreating.

 

I return to guilt

unable to trade in trust

trapped in torment

facing dark days.

Robbed of hope and joy

impossible to escape

the cruellest betrayal of all

while the predator

roams free.

 

Don't turn the lights out.

The world is already too dark.

 

 

¯

 

AUSTRALIAN

POETRY COLLABORATION

#2

NORTHERN STORIES

 

 

This issue contains poetry collected from local writers following an October 2000  POETS ON WHEELS tour of northern New South Wales (an Australian state)… from the surfing/alternative centre Byron Bay, south to the state’s 2nd largest city, Newcastle. This is  a small cross section of the range of energetic writing communities thriving in the regions.

More

 

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NAKED IN SEPIA
 
Sorting through her things
I glimpsed it for a moment --
my sepia mother
naked
under the waterfall.
 
She, who straight-laced
tutored me in modesty,
was rising --
Botticelli's Venus
from a scalloped rock:
soft pearl-shell skin
in rainbow light,
the sight ethereal --
her body luminescent
with a nuptial glow,
arms arced aloft,
head tossed and tresses flowing
over nubile breasts,
embarrassment abandoned
in her gift for him.
 
I glimpsed her joy
in sensual discovery
and felt an envy of her daring
in defiance of her time.
 
I glimpsed her joy
and wondered why
oh why
she tried so hard
to stifle mine.
 
Quendrith Young
(previously published "Poetrix", Issue 14, May 2000)
¯
 
cocktails
 
all mouths tits defining flanks and restless tails
this cocktail crowd enfolding the joneses     they
bounce from 'hello' off  'hi' to 'how are yooo'     he
senses the random molecular motion which dumps them
spinning their social wheels alone on the fringe     she
frets until they remesh and pinball through to a side wall
 
from there it's clear the herd's a fractal pattern
of seething sub-circles all properly self-similar
each ring of tails proscribing otherness     he
notes internal heat triggers convection currents which drive
some to the edge to cool before they drop back in     she
has an eye for particulars     is restless and fidgets
 
newcomers swell the herd and all is dense flux
critical closeness of members       sweat
evaporates from hides to cloud against the ceiling     his
nose differentiates boiled cabbage from testosterone
and other strange attractors     she
leaves his side to cleave into the chaos
on a passage far from random     he
jiggles their keys in his pocket
watches her present herself
 

John Bird

¯

 

AWAKENING

 

You woke me with a smile

torn from pages of a bygone era

I turned on the axis of the universe

for a closer look.

 

Margeaux Marshall

 

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OLD CLARRIE
 
The twilight began to capture the view.

 

Old Clarrie sat on his porch and watched
several Landrovers disturb the dust.
Another usual day,
cattle and the garden. 
Late afternoons staring out
over the paddocks to the coast,
pondering. 
Not much
money in cattle anymore
enough though
with the pension and bananas.
 
Old Clarrie
not all there
never married
womanly comforts
bought in brothels
during Show times. 
Now the loins are never warm.
No needs
other than the daily routine
and the view of the coast
from the lighthouse to Brunswick Heads.

 

Expansive view. 
A training of the eyesight.  
Always magnificent, sometimes magical. 
Old Clarrie lived in a postcard,
the television told him so,
but it was always everyday,
sometimes ordinary.

 

Seasonal rains
left their clouds
distant dark.
Old Clarrie 
leaned forward.
Saw a snake
near the shed in which were
stored feed, paints, parts
and poisons.

 

The twilight focused the lights in the landscape.
 
A lot more lights these days,
used be a time when there'd be the lighthouse,
meatworks and a couple of bright lights
at Mullum and at Brunswick.
That's all you'd see.
 
Cough,
pain in the left lung. 
A rub with a knuckle
and a deep breath.
Better start dinner soon,
or I'll miss 'Sale of the Century'.
Another stab held his breath, 
like the writing he had seen,
earlier by the road.
 
Half-way to the highway. 
That rear tyre must be flat! 
Get out the spare and the jack. 
That's where he saw
spray painted on road,
'I had a joint with Jesus on the way to Uncle Tom's'.

 

What did it mean? 
You can get used to hippies,
but not to disrespect. 
Jesus looks after you.  
City types! 
Hippies!
The flat tyre replaced,
no longer felt like going to Brunswick. 
Get back up the hill now.
 
The twilight was about to introduce the stars.
 
Stupid words.
Shouldn't be said or read.
Stupid thoughts.
Swirled inside his head.
The lung hurt ferociously. 
Cough.
Spasm of the chest. 
Left arm clawed and cramped. 
Hidden pressure stopping breath.
 
The moon is getting high in the afterglow. 
So many lights now,
between the lighthouse and Brunswick Heads.

 

Then there was one less.

 


George Antonakos

 

¯
 
Touch Wood
 
Can I relax now?
Trust the fortune
of gold
sun beams,
sky, a depthless blue?
Dare I revel
in the luck
of being born
exactly me,
almost half century ago,
as peace raged
in the land of plenty?
Am I allowed to forget
incinerated human bones,
ash of my ancestors,
who made a religion
out of suffering?
May I lay down the burden
of guilt
for the luxury of love?
Dare to praise
all that is good,  strong and true,
to sing out my gratitude,
sift through dross
and find gleaming wonders?
Have I the right
to joy?
Or is it my duty
to keen and wail,
to remind those in paradise
that somewhere near
anguish reigns?
What do I owe
for the feast,
for the sumptuous
anointing, for the blessings
of a compassionate God?
Or was my debt
paid in full
before I was born?
And this radiant sky,
my personal boon,
not the prelude
to a drought at all.
 
 

Laura Jan Shore

¯

 

 

Blue  Seal
 
Her  thick  blue  pelt
swallowed  the  moonlight
into  it’s  cavernous  folds.
Greasy  sperm  smeared  up  her  belly.
Her  tail  flattened  and  sated
floated  on  the  lapping  tide.
She  drifted;
refusing  her  instincts
for  deep  water  and  fish
denying  the  cry  of  her  herd
even  the  lonely  yelps  of  her  pups.
She  knew  only  that  man;  and  those  hands
every  roving  finger  an  undreamed  thrill
running  thru  her  fur
feeling  deep  into  her  creases
underneath  her  risen  tail.
His  smooth  belly  bouncing
against  her  tough  hide.
His  limbs  suckered  to  her
as  the  waves  pommelled.
His  meagre  penis;
no  match  for  the  muscled  bulls
she  had  surrendered  to;
did  not  leave  her  bleeding
licking  her  salt-burnt  wounds;
but  filled  her  in  such  a  way
she  would  be  forever  empty  without  him.
Only  his  throaty  whispers
hovered  around  her  in  the  wind.
So  faintly  familiar  they  ruffled  her;
a  ghostly  picture  prickled  her
and twisted  her  head
toward  his  mad  form  in  firelight
brewing  her  yielded juice  with  his.
Rushing,  rushing  desperately
to  beat  the  moon,  the  waning  tide
her  drowsy  mind.
But  the  past  rose  vivid
viciously  clawing  at  her
dragging  her  thru  the  waves.
The  silky   sunk  wretchedly  under   sobs
watching  her  demented  lover  crumble
spilling  his  last  attempt  at  sanity
on  the  sand.
Still  the  man-fearing  beast
drowned  her  sorrow  in  layers  of  fat
and  barnacled  hide
and  sped  it's  whiskered  snout
away  from  the  gruesome  fate
it  had  twice  endured;
hung  lifeless, dehydrated  on  a  rusty  hook
and  three  times  would  mean  forever.
The  blue  seal  swam  that  temptation  cruelly;
blindly  into  blackened  water
pressed  it  against  violent  currents
mercilessly  stripping  every  sensate  memory
until  only  survival  mattered.
 
And  on  her  rock in  the  warm  sun
she  rolled  over
one  eye  closed; exhausted
the  other  glazed;
scanning  the  glassy  deep
waiting. . . .
 

 

Gina Lakosta

¯

 

Subtropical

 

the frangipani leaves plop…plop……plop,

a slight, uncertain drum beat for a

glancing Autumn

half the garden thinks it’s Spring again

my joints know it’s not

 

Brenda Shero

 
 
¯
 
 
Bad Timing
 
He lives roughly under
the same patchy clouds
as everyone else's paycheck
 
where, impatiently sixteen,
choices refuse to rain on him.
Manhood is a closed shop.
 
Though witness grandad's sepia
memory, coaltrimmer on the docks
for two years by his age, and dad
 
in a union lurk, apprenticed
three years to the boilermakers
before Vietnam beckoned.
 
Mum said even grandma sweated
dresses at thirteen, as if he ought
to be shocked, not impressed.
 
School says nothing to his hands.
The girls in Blundstones wink
'*no ticket, no start*'
 
with every precious flutter
of their long eyelashes.
How safe the world has become
 
for his testosterone.  The big engines,
loud noise, sparks and smoke, always
on the wrong side of the cyclone fence.
 
Even shovels and hammers
are out of reach.  It's a lockout,
that's what it is.  That's what
 
he spray-painted on a picket fence
last night.  No job, no pay, might
as well make work for *somebody*.
 

Rob Riel

 

POETRY COLLABORATION

#3

BROKEN HILL

 

 

¯

 
 

Reclaim the night.

 

Reclaim me

Claim me at all

Who are you to

ride this beast?

 

I am night.

Silken fabric

bat wings

dark fins and claw.

 

Uncaring sending

dreams and demons

Mightily I shadow

your hearts terrain.

 

I am night. Sign

of women, travellers,

corroboree, astronomy

 

Even the sun that I rebirth

claims me not

There is no authority

upon me

 

beyond the moon

the stars, the velvet

cloak of clouds

The storm in all its joy

 

I am night

Lay no imposition on me

I am never claimed

You must look to yourselves.

Marvis Sofield

 

¯

 

Playground

 

Ladder of ages

four little ones run

No. 5 wheeled by Mother

strung out dog leg line

 

Grit stings our eyes

we are grasshoppers on the move

and wander on

doing cartwheels in the air

 

Past the smelly abattoirs

saltbush saturates

our favourite place

this wondrous hideaway

 

Rolling in red vibrant sands

our inner sanctum stirs

blue tongue overlooks the scene

as eagle wings flap the air

 

Magnets draw us

to pluck the red and black carpet

sixpence a bunch we offer

tied with worn out string

 

Would STURT awaken

as we seal the fate

of his desert pea

rest assured rebirth exists

 

Deadly arachnid

hitches a ride on the stroller step

warrior mother intervenes

and our little nipper lives

 

Weary, battle scarred

home from dust and heat

Sandy bend conquered us

but our secret is well kept

 

Grasshoppers have grown now

and we return to claim the sands

of our wondrous playground

Sadly, progress quarried it

 

Pamella Mackinnon

 

¯

Onlooker

 

Push the turnstile, music fills the ears

of brainwashed impulse buyers

sharing aisles with stacks of boxes

playing leap-frog might be fun

 

Dodging wayward wheels with laden baskets

and babies cradled at the top

squishy tomatoes with prices that don't match

sticky juice spurting from a split bottle

 

Like a gathering of the clan

groups of four hold up the parade

watch the child hop, bobbing about

while mum's waiting, dad's cursing and dinner's late

 

A race to the checkout, almost colliding

bell rings Price check is the call

grab a magazine and catch up on some news

while shuffling throbbing feet

 

Entertainment to the observer

watching from a bench

while he sits he pens his paper

missing not this chance to tell

Pamella Mackinnon

¯

 

Autumn

 

Rebellion a springtime lodger

defiance paid the bills

summer boiled and dallied

with convention

 

desire I knew well

 

The chill looms in distant shivers

soon the shackles will tighten

but, winter can wait in the company

of frustration

 

My autumn will be falling leaves

serenely quiet, but stirred by breeze

 

Barbara De Franceschi

 

¯

 

Torture

 

The acid taste of fear drips caustic saliva

to still the tongue

into paralysed silence

 

Odour rank with dread oozes from

body braced for cruelty

upon a reclining wrack

 

Terror gathers in beads like droplets

from a crown of thorns

eyes stare into blinding light

 

I implore with a silent prayer let me be brave

so I will not disgrace the name

of my family

 

In a voice strangely devoid of menace

my tormentor speaks

tools of infliction poised

 

Open wide please, only one filling today.

 

 

Barbara De Franceschi

¯

 

Witness

 

From my chair I see

a weathered seat of timber planks

people lounge, couples rub

not for me to join

grey ocean lunges and rolls with force

to gnaw the sandy beach and grind

 

Detail I gather in segregation

 

Castles left forgotten in ebbs

canvas deck chairs sit lopsided

scattered towels amidst lost shoes

salty droplets splashed

as old men trot and children paddle

in tidal pools with seaweed laced

 

The essence of dreams I yearn

 

To be part of all I see would lift my spirits high

at my nursing home window, I just sit and sigh

 

Barbara De Franceschi

¯

 

They say my love is dead.

 

They say my love is dead and yet

in that place where dreams are tumbled,

all the boundaries of the real erased

I see him corporeal and glowing

welcomed as he climbs into my bed.

 

They say my love is dead and yes

his is no fleshly frame, but shrivelled grey

bloodied bone, festooned with tissue strings decayed.

The object of my need and lust.

 

They say my love is dead and yet

in those dark fetid hours I rise to him in wonder

like the Calophoridae, Sarcophigidae, viviperous

flesh eaters before me, I feast upon his carcass.

 

They say my love is dead and so he is.

for I have stroked the cooling belly of all that I desire.

I have stood above his grave and thrown

another red, red rose upon the growing pile

of desiccated dead remembrance.

 

They say my love is dead but he is not.

From his grave he weaves all spells

He fills me. The very living breath

of my devout necrophilia.

Marvis Sofield

¯

The vivisector.

 

I bought my HQ

for a hundred dollars

after I left

my husband

my house

a Volvo

in the drive.

 

It was a beaten up old Holden

padding torn out

Stripped

Honed down

A dull metal shell.

 

Dashboard

so bone bleak sharp

It could slice noses

lips, from any living thing

pressed up against  it.

 

The old HQ shared my ambition

to return to origins

To gut

castrate

clean out

amputate the past

and then drive on.

 

Marvis Sofield

 

¯

 

Many a good tune

 

Lighthouse beacon,

her corner

lepidopterous admirers gaggle.

Goddess festooned.

 

Irradiated innocence disarms.

Deceived as sulphur tongue licks

Fawning shoulder rubbers

 

I witness from an opposite place

Simmer in complacent envy

My seductress wife

 

Click!

 

The hermetic door seals

Tatters of a private life

Against the fishbowl

 

Click!

 

The remote control

Daytime TV

Cough, scratch, fart, all alone

 

Alone with me

Eyes reflecting yesterday

Ignore me.

 

My Stradivarius

She can soothe the savage breast

Or beckon banshees

 

Pinched waist

Neck trying too hard

Highly strung

 

And very much older than she looks.

Geoff Sanders

¯

 

Clouds

 

Straggler sunbeams

evening cloud sponges

 

crescent centrepiece

raindrops wink in ocean of pitch

 

scarlet screams, clear sere sun

day has begun ad infinitum

Geoff Sanders

¯

 

How to write.

 

I simply start writing

and words come out nicely

and I draw my ideas

and paint them precisely

 

Shit I’m saying and

now I’m starting, inging

I’ll have to redraft

from the very beginging

 

Now I’m just going silly

I’m a slave to the form

I’m forcing the rhyming

In a way that’s not norm

 

I’ll get back on the track

and explain how to write

and I’ll use lots of ands,

and clichés, so trite

 

‘Cause this is my poem

and though it might rhyme

It deserves an existence,

Its own space and time

 

It’ll never be published

‘Cause it’s not clever, clever

Just a simple expression

As old as forever

 

I like that I write,

mostly just to please me

and my thoughts fill the void

of this A4, ex-tree

 

and if you want to write

and you think you’re so hot

just bloody well do it

and get published.........Not!

Geoff Sanders

 

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NSW Ministry for the Arts

Broken Hill City Council

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AUSTRALIAN

POETRY COLLABORATION

#4

TASMANIA

 

 

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LIZ WINFIELD, LYN REEVES, KAREN KNIGHT, DARYL McCARTHY, JENNIFER BARNARD & LOUISE OXLEY

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LIZ WINFIELD

 

Venus' Reply

 

As the Derwent embraces

the sea

an old man cries in his sleep

 

as the fishing boat enters

D'Entrecasteaux Channel

a man wakes with

a question

 

as the nurse drives over

the Tasman bridge

the night lifts

answers

 

as the child sits

on the bus

he can still see Venus

over the Queen's Domain

 

and an old man cries

as a man questions

the night's answers

and Venus' reply

 

that it is nothing

but salt and water

and the reflection of

star-dusted dreams.

 

¯

 

How to reach her

 

Think of her when you're dreaming

kiss her eyelids when she sleep-murmurs

make a cup of your body

 

gather and weave her a braid of flowers

see her likeness in every bird

bring her the depths of a sky in storm

 

make the sun shine

when she is cold

hold out your hand

 

and offer her

your palm

in which to write her lines.

 

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LYN REEVES

 

S e c r e t s

 

 

if you want to come with me if you want me to show you this secret place you must slip like a shadow along the walls don't make a noise   there's no one here now only me the others have shrunk into corners scuttled into mouse holes under the skirting boards blown away like smoke from the turreted chimney  I take this place stake my claim on forbidden rooms out of bounds where the muttering adults kept secrets from me and from themselves  I stamp my feet on Elsie's polished linoleum and crap behind the kitchen door where Captain Cook did a poop wring out the cloth drenched with blood in the enamel dish serve my father tea and scones in the comfortable chair pulled up beside Gran's cooking range  I slap my cousin's face play ragtime loudly on the pianola open the mirrored doors of all the chiselled wardrobes in all the mysterious bedrooms pull the stoppers out of all the jars on the powder-dusted dressing tables empty every drawer run down the hall singing and shouting at the top of my lungs invite all the children in the street to eat birthday cake with coloured icing blow out the candles with one breath let all the secrets out

 

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Mirage

I'm hitching a ride on your dream

but when we set out I believed

we were headed the same way.

 

You're in the driver's seat and won't

share the wheel, won't even let me

navigate, since I read maps downside-up

and, anyway, you've been this route before,

know it like the back of your cereal packet.

You've costed the trip down to the last

benefit payment and will only eat at the old

familiar roadhouses where you can get

a decent cup of tea.

All night the moon

leans on my shoulder breathing its big

bright secrets into my ear and at midday

the shimmering V on the horizon

aches with possibilities.

 

A mirage, you say, an accident of light.

 

Other drivers overtake. We clamber on,

stopping now and then to cool

the hissing radiator. Just ahead

there's a bend where the road forks.

 

Thanks for the lift. I'll walk from here.

 

 

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KAREN KNIGHT

 

Xmas Day with the Troops

 

He saw a hill of dead horses

brushed snow from his beard

adjusted his crimson-dyed suit

did a last minute check

on a notebook of requests

and he walked through the campsite

shaking hands with the men.

 

He imagined a large table

with a red cloth

where he could leave

boxes of horehound candy

pipes filled with tobacco

and pages ripped from his Bible.

 

He handed out five cent coins

to the men, who held them

as if they were the finishing touch

to a brandy-soaked pudding.
¯

A Day in the Life

 

Visited a gymnasium to observe, not exercise.

 

Took my usual stroll down to the Battery.

 

Stopped at a pistol gallery.

 

Amused myself by riding back and forth on the ferry.

 

Dropped into the museum.

 

Yawned through a literary luncheon.

 

Had my palm read by a gypsy girl.

 

Met a young man who shook me violently by the hand

and expressed in heated language the affection he felt for me.

 

Attended a temperance meeting.

 

Was greatly stirred by the arrest of fifty prostitutes

ordered by a police court magistrate.

 

Dined with the Queen of Bohemia on her return

from Paris with an illegitimate son.

 

Whistled through a graveyard.

 

Wrote to my sister, Hannah the fairest and most delicate of human

blossoms.

 

Gave thanks to this roaring city.

 

 

 

 

Both poems from All Under the One Granite Roof - a collection of poems about Walt Whitman during the American Civil War period to be published by Pardalote Press in late 2003

 

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DARYL McCARTHY
MOONLIGHT
 
The clock in the heavens "strikes" for the tide, the navigator 
                               and this time for me.
Visited my pillow it was 10 pm.
The shining moon stirs the thoughts of men.
 
Earth's child with not a breath
At low perigee passing my window
What does your visit signify?  Death!
 
A message from the barren world on your face
Take stock of life and supply it with goodness
He will fill your soul with grace.
 
The sun puts out the moon as it puts out a fire
I lie beside the morning,
gathering prudence.  I'll exercise its desire.
 
Marked beside the metronome of moon and time
The ebb of life forgotten.
Tomorrow a new journey.
I bid my guest adieu.
¯

JENNIFER BARNARD

Wisdom has no Purpose but to Speak

 

 

The politician speaks.

Words arrive in gouts.

Red with meaning.

Stamping years ring

In the soothsayer's ear.

Wise words come, undiluted.

My friends,

Should you contemplate

Such n' such.

Ears and hands go electric.

Then,

Silence empty as a widow's womb.

Nobody claims to understand history

Or believe in it.

A man on a desert road

To somewhere was struck

By lightning.

The Hapsberg jaw chomps on

Regurgitated memory.

Gutz and Gaul is all we need-

Ask the Caesars!

 

Change?

More blood

than Rome could hide.

The audience clambers to the podium.

Claps wildly.

All is not well!

Rain drops

From Hapsberg eyes.

Lips retract.

I will finish!

But a sneak thief Doomsdayist

Comes

With dagger and foul breath.

The wise man trips on the curtain

And wisdom's done to death.

¯

 

THE MAN I MET YESTERDAY

 

Had wild grey hair

Blue lake eyes

Staggered speech.

In his bay blue eyes

I saw a small boy

reaching for his father's hand

But the man mistook his son's voice

for the whine of the wind.

Saw eyes that beggared need

the soft lips

a crushed rose.

He patted his son's head

pulling his hat down hard

he crossed the street.

 

The lad reached in his pocket

and took out the packet

of sweets his father slipped him

that morning.

He ripped the cellophane off

tossed the sweets in the air.

Then he crossed the road

and followed his dad.

Stopped to watch him step

into the strange woman's arms

Saw a  ginger cat gladwrap her legs.

 

¯

LOUISE OXLEY
AT NETTLEY BAY
 
We wake to long surf, a slow sunrise
masked by eastward hills
 
and the arrival of fishermen
who climb to a ledge and fling
 
whirring lines, small parabolas of patience
cast not too far ahead.
 
Understoreys of bull-kelp have lost their footing
and flounder at the surface;
 
stones of all the kinds
have been left on the beach like fears
 
we must step around.
I choose one - yellow-greenish,
 
sugared with quartz.
Sea-days wear at our edges until
 
we are reconciled to this stranding
and smooth enough to be held in the hand.
 

¯

 

ENTERING APOLLO'S BREAST

 
[After Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Archaic Torso of Apollo’]
 
 
From my bed you watch me undress,
then offer your arms, their tender undersides,
your defenceless belly. This is a welcome so weightless
I cannot name or understand it. I slide in beside you,
irretrievable as sent mail. You fall so easily asleep,
your just-asthmatic breath intimate as whalesong,
a rough cheekbone pressing on my ear,
the soft-shelled bivalves of your hands
closing on my smaller flesh. You hold me
against our separate pasts and this short present.
 
Night opens to the moon. The estuary lies still
as a road, as if there were no undercurrent;
she-oaks trail untroubled at its edge.
There is no place that does not see us;
our secret selves have vanished
like the words they were confessed upon.
You fall so easily asleep. Or, perhaps, are rising.
The light-filled canopy is hung with mist and visions.
Everything is altering. You have opened your arms.
They will be large enough to carry me.

¯

 

AUSTRALIAN

POETRY COLLABORATION

#5

HURSTVILLE

 

FEATURING: Felicity Daphne Baldry, Peter Bowden, Jean Frances, Pam Heard,

 Paula Mckay, Rene L Manning, marny owen & Pat Pillai 

 

 

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Home of the Bidjigal people, Hurstville became a timber felling area for the
newly established town of Sydney in the early 1800's. The township rapidly
grew into a farming community and once the railway arrived in 1884, its
urban development took off.
 
Hurstville is now one of eight regional centres within metropolitan Sydney.
We are located 15 kilometers to the south west of the CBD. Our city is close
to two airports, two major sea ports and traversed by main highways.
Covering an area of 2,460 hectares, the community of over 70,000 residents
has a rich cultural dive arersity with major non-English speaking groups
including Chinese, Macedonian and Greek.

¯

Felicity Daphne Baldry
Somewhere it happens
 
 
it's only ever in the here and now 
what it is has to reveal itself 
rumbling and roaring 
like a nightmare 
 
what it has to say 
becomes clearer with 
every sleepless sleep 
 
somewhere somehow it happens 
 
and the answers are 
in clouds   baby's spittle 
one derelict's lifeless eyes 
 
looking in that mirror 
becomes a journey 
Sunday's sermon rattles 
(now a headache) 
 
will it happen somewhere 
 
what makes sense 
will it 
dissect the woes   distrust   doubt 
throw them to the wind 
birds feather their nests 
 
allow for everything 
 
 
 
Finders Keepers
 
 
furtively the youngster looks around 
then leans right over the lip 
of the tall container 
her fair cropped hair and torso 
disappear 
 
still visible 
her left hand   holding on 
and left foot   on tippy-toes 
balancing 
right foot in the air   knee bent 
for extra leverage 
 
within seconds she is upright again 
as if she's done this before 
explores her finds 
brushes them off with small fingers 
 
at first   a tentative bite 
followed by 
more substantial ones 
and lengthy chewing 
 
she relishes each mouthful 
 
her plunder   some broken biscuits 
from the schoolyard rubbish bin 

¯

Peter Bowden

THE LIFE I LIVE; THE VERSE I WRITE

 

The life I live,

The verse I write

Come I hope, from a mould

which is forever the same for each

 

Simple, perhaps, not deep,

I write of a searching

The looking for a voice

of what we all can be

 

A belief? a hope? a wish?

Of lives as they can be

But also, I think, I hope,

of lives of love and laughter.

 

But refugees, and politicians, and war

are far from love and laughter

And they are the truth, not hidden,

of my world as it is today

 

So we laugh, and watch the screen

With Big Brother, the reality shows

Like bread and the circuses, and never think

of what the world could be.

 
 
 

Grandpa & the Rest

 

I don’t remember Grandpop

Except for his chamber pot

Out on the lawn by the path

There for weeks before it went.

 

I have an odd and distant memory

Of a shadowed  image in the house

But perhaps I recall the photo, the one

they give us all as kids.

 

The one of him and grandma.

A big man from the photo

Sergeant of police no less

Not a man who’d use a pot.

 

Was it perhaps the other grandpop

Mother’s pa, the one who had the pot?

But he is not even a shadow

I have no memory of him at all.

 

An Inspector of police the first one,

But Sergeant in Taree,

And in a dozen other towns

from the Queensland border down

 

Grandma I remember well

She’s not far from me now.

Musicians hands I had, she told me

A butcher’s was nearer the mark

 

They have gone now, both of them

to the big family grave by the river.

With sons and daughters.

Our aunts and uncles, now long gone

 

Born in those dozen country towns

Here the last to go was Edith, Pops we used to call her

All that now remains are us,

And we are going now too.

 

And when the last of us has gone

We can only hope  their names

are not to be forgotten - , George and Ernie,

Mabel and Toots, Wanda and the rest.

 

Twelve of them, over twenty there are of us

And again the ones who follow us. Then theirs again

- Max and Piper, Chris and Josh , Tom and Fleur -

so many – to remember the big man and us all.

 
¯

Jean Frances

 

After Listening to Jack and Jill on Play School

 

I can't help wondering why

they climbed the hill in the first place

Surely water flows to lower levels

or maybe in this case there was a well up there

 

However I am most interested

in the efficacy of brown paper and vinegar

as a dressing for Jack's wound

Perhaps it could work nowadays

instead of the all-purpose cortisone

 

Though I'm truly sorry for clumsy Jack

and can almost feel his headache

my real sympathy lies with Jill

having to lug a full bucket

down the slope by herself

 

Next time she ought to consider

inviting another boy to join her

 

Maybe Boy Blue with his horn

 

 

Back to the Trees

 

How quiet it must have been

as we swung through branches

or leapt from rock to rock

across a river speechless

with maybe a puff cough

a grunt of satisfaction

or the occasional piercing scream

to ward off predators

 

Now we overflow with sound

words for anger

pain fear and love

whatever that may mean

We talk aloud in our sleep

the haunting speech of dreams

 

You might like to return

take a ride in a time machine

but even with memory

erased by hypnosis

there may still remain

the image of a child

running down a road

with her skin on fire

or a giant bird slicing into a tower

the blinding flash behind your eyes

 

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Pam Heard

Evening Ritual

 

hot water carefully poured

pot-warmed fingers wrapped around

blended leaves infusing

green porcelain of Russian descent

placed delicately on the tray

a soft smile lingers

in anticipation of an evening reading

¯

Paula Mckay
Dinosaur
 
Somewhere between contentment and anxiety
my grin combines the settled condition
of a woman entirely suited to her lot
and the faded snarl of an exile. 
 
From the comfort of a sagging chair 
I play with words like a she-cat 
toying with her terrified prey 
in the expanding grey of my universe. 
 
Old-age it seems, is a hit-and-miss game 
between the heady laurels of a sage 
and the shuffling steps of the utterly bewildered. 
My reflection tells me 
all I need to know about a changing world. 
 
Home's a dusty place of pictures, books 
mostly out of print, African masks, 
statues of Adonis and heathen gods. 
A creaking ship listing at its mooring. 
 
For exercise I swim in a deep pool of inertia 
buoyed by the constant hope 
I can put off dying for another day. 
 
               
 
Allegory of a Supermarket
after Jorie Graham
 
Faces in the conflux look around, 
bodies push and pass among the crowd.
Those who stand in lines, in groups, alone 
letting the noise wash over them, 
absorbed by the fast, the different, the new. 
 
Those hanging about head-down          
holding onto some one thing. 
Food for worms, for fish or gods. 
Those where the movement is, 
the pulsing, the forward motion, 
letting themselves, like flocks of birds 
(flamingos) gather;  the leaving-behind-of-nests
they've come to feather. 
 
Those with nowhere else to go, 
dreading the walk in solitary streets. 
The lonely, unloved, unlovable. 
Those standing in the light, pointing, lifted, 
up-lifted, music bathing the ears, 
those heads under the water of its sound. 
Specials as tit-bits 
grabbed like worms to beaks. 
Those looking and reaching, squeezing the ripeness. 
Teased or mollified, 
eating the grapes. 
 
Those stopped by an ocean of green 
searching for the guarantees 
grabbing the red, the plastic sheen 
of bread and circus. 
 
Those following their wives, their instincts, 
their imagination, or followed by stalkers, 
store detectives, history, fluff stuck to the heel. 
Time moving over whoever's watching 
from this point-of-sale. 
 
This watching being walked from 
along the maze-like path;  at a glance 
seeing mouths open, lips move, speak. 
Words leaping over their own saying. 
A clutch of words for chicken, egg 
hatching out and up and over into the warm air.
 
This queuing, this paying, this pushing 
this moving-awayness. 
Bells ringing ever-after, ever-after, 
Charon at the check-out. 
                                                                       

¯

Rene L Manning

 

Lepidoptery

              

               Butterflies, familiar with the Way, in olden times

               could nurture philosophical pretensions –

               so Zhuangzi said, a sage not prone to lie.

               These days they’re smarter still:

               they flutter by, wings a-winking,

               then, puffed with power, stamp their feet, sparking

               apocalypse afar, chaos and catastrophes.

 

               But now, regard this lowly grub nearby,

               some ill-begotten spawn, born of unlovely moth –

               what prospects can be fostered for its future ?

               Will it miss out on laurel leaves, only to starve

               on bland rejection snips, at best tempered

               by some emollient turn of phrase ?

               Who knows, it may miraculously moult,

               its imago soaring to Parnassus,

               thence to unending days, not skewered to a board

               but for all time preserved, inside the covers of a book.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

¯

               

marny owen

 

Home Sweat Home
 
Woman
with the cast-iron complexion and
bakelite breath, life - a layer of enamels
beginning to chip, wit - a jelly-red compote
known to challenge men, constitution
formed by birthing the committee
reflects
on days made difficult by materials.
 
Rust-wreck, chore-torn
break-your-heart materials.
Pure-white linens, just asking for a stain
mocking every hand-stitch
straining relationship like those
massive pans and pots, shocking
always dirty, black and greasy.
Did your back in.
 
Life was ever kitchen-busy
kettle whistle, baby cry.
She'd counter grime
in a steam sweat
tackle adversities
revealed at her table
and dream with the dishes
to rise above them.
 
Why did she suffer like all the rest?
Fenced in by pride and the culture of inside.
Nothing really lasts like the laughter of a child.
She lives for family to come again, play the games
but knowing this is wishful, fills her world
with water pots for the birds
waits for grass to grow
and sinks in the past
with a worn-terrazzo look
and tired-metal edges.

 

¯

Pat Pillai 

Dragons vs. Tigers

 

he stood flat footed on the wing, waiting

and I am away with the barnstorming daredevils

standing on the wing, waiting for take off

 

Finch, sure footed, attempts a field goal

sure footed, not flat footed

sure that the pilot will slip us somehow through

that skin which contains the sky

 

ref halts play

we taxi on one  wheel

 

video ref will check for body contact

between body and contact there is out of body

 

flying goggles define the shape of the field

white lines are like cave drawings on your back

 

 

Coast Walk

 

a lizard slides backwards from the path

flicks a forked tongue

mirage shifts

the sun bites hard

 

I am walking on the cliffs

where sandstone cradles a curved ocean

banksias hunch

their blackened pods hurled down

birthed by fire and water

I want to lie down here and drink from rain pools

I want to lie down now

allow salt ghosts    

etch caverns

 

 

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AUSTRALIAN POETRY

COLLABORATION

#6

SYDNEY
 
 
FEATURING: Carolyne Bruyn, Michelle Carter, 
Helen Chambers, Dougie Herd, Esme Morrice, 
Michael Roberts, Mary Rose & Brenda Saunders

 

 

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Carolyne Bruyn

 

Mme. Weather

 

Moisture draws to its gathering point

and is pulled up and up into cloud mass

herded by a warm wind into identity.

Like a giant wheel she begins to turn

slowly   slowly    looking harmless

a low someone in an Institute alone

is monitoring closely.

 

The satellite picture is contained

on his small screen but he can hear

the siren’s song. Stormsurge builds.

Disturbs peaceful inlets and beachside cafes.

Cars float out to sea on torrential roads.

 

Desire stirs. He knows these waters well,

all the reefs are charted.

He cannot be held responsible for

this cloaked unknown

this invasion of lust.

She’s coming, single-minded,

straight for him.  Moaning

he rises to meet her

hands flat against the screen.

Helpless.

 

Mind bent double like palms

along the boulevard

he begs for her frenzy.

The limits of desire hypnotise

as one eyewall spinning clockwise

thrills him under the stiletto

of her psychotic progress.

 

When demand seems spent

he looks into the stillness

of her mean

where only his breath can be heard

or his heart

pounding like heavy metal

 

until, blasting out of the clear screen

of his fragile hope

the other eyewall slams in

counter clockwise

intent on what civilisation hoped

she would spare.

The screen goes black.

He sobs for her disdain as she puts down

turns back on herself

everything skewed on the first pass.

 

 

¯

Michelle Carter

Exile

 

to ride the curved fronds

of rain-splashed palms

with nothing but

exiled eyes

to cut through

mannacled vines

to moult

like the sunburnt skin

of a gum tree

wounds flayed exposing

an ivory gleam

to drown in the truth

of gardens

as rain glistens silver

on a ripple of green

to feel like a panther

in an auditorium

like a cripple

on a glass mountain

to enter my heart

the arc of a bird

landing

to fly from my pain

an entire flock

migrating

 

there’s a shiver

beyond sky 


stretched like a graft

the mottled clouds

cicadas hum

their generosity tireless

a whipbird hides

in coils of lantana

his serrated tongue

hyphenates each

gentle stanza of dusk

its verdant syllables

multi-lingual

metaphysical

its fragrant leaves

 

¯

Helen Chambers

 

Refugee Intake Quota 1994

 

I visit with Lily

to taste coffee,

sometimes rich cake eaten with teaspoons.

Tethered breasts drop at table level

as she reaches for another cigarette.

Her olive skin

has grown thick with mothering.

 

Lily talks of Algiers,

of the mother who died last year,

the house on the Adriatic Coast

before that war.

You don't know me she says

I've been like an animal.

 

                                   

¯

Dougie Herd

 

The first black man in Scotland

 

What boys we were

and innocents.  Too young

but not quite young enough

to hide from truth.

And so we sheltered

where we could

behind the sideboard

in the kitchen

of that ‘room and kitchen’

in the grey east end

of no mean city

where he lived and worked

and died, the day

the first black man

in Scotland came to call.

 

A man as black as ebony.

Young with tight, black hair.

Obsidian eyes in pools of white. 

And yellow palms.

His voice like velvet.

 

We watched in awe,

eavesdropped from our haven

as he told our father’s mother

how her husband fell,

redundant legs that buckled

as he clutched his chest,

and raised a hand forlornly

to clasp the outstretched arm

of the first black man

in Scotland, who caught him

as he tumbled down to God

while they waited in a queue

for a bus that never came.

 

And as my father thanked

the first black man in Scotland,

then showed him to the door,

my father’s widowed mother

crossed the floor

to hold her hiding grandsons

in her arms.  And weeping,

with all colour drained out

of an empty, ghost-like face,

she said, oh boys, your

granda’s never coming home.

 

And we were mystified

but now a lifetime less

than innocent and lost

for words enough to say

what mattered on that day

the first black man in Scotland

came to tell the story

of our father’s father’s end.

 

But only this truth struck us

as we held on tight: 

We said, that man was black.

And she said, yes, my boys.

- God bless him.

 

¯

 

Esme Morrice

I remember the winter land,

the snow was very deep

on the east coast of England,

the snow was blue/white asleep.

My scarf and coat were warm,

as were the blankets on my bed.

A bird is singing somewhere, it sounds forlorn,

it's Mother calls, it flies away, so it can be fed!

 

¯

 

Michael Roberts
Rain
 
Needles the road - frying.
Newborn bellyfull globules of silver cellulite
flop from rooftop gutters, slap
into the pavement below - bacon fat pops.
Drain-pipes cluck.
Crystal weaves nestle, tired hardened gutters.
 
Cars hiss.
The wind wheezes, lifts windowpanes to tantrum and,
the rippled road with neon bleed graze
plays host to two sets of front wheels tearing...
rain lightens.
Flecks of dandruff drift downward through the honey glazed air of streetlight.
At irregular regular intervals,
lollypop whistles rise and fall and,
whoop and whirl across the city.
 
Cool air dances at my shins.
¯
 

                           Mary Rose

          The Colours of Love

 

Love is like a pretty rainbow,

Or lovely flowers in the meadow,

For it comes in many colours,

Orange, violet, indigo,  

Blue, green, red and yellow.

 

 

Love is blue,

When I am not with you,

When I cause you pain,

And heartaches too.

 

Love is yellow,

When I shine and glow

For whatever I do or wherever I go,

Your love for me will surely follow.

 

Love is green,

In summer, fall, winter or spring,

For the smile you give me each morning,

Fills my day with joy till evening.

 

Love is red, deep and strong

It keeps no record of things that went wrong,

Can forgive, though the list of hurts is long,

Will even turn faults into a wonderful song.

 

Love is violet, indigo or orange,

Colours that may seem strange,

But one sure thing that will not change,

That’s the love I have for you, sincere,

    pure and true.

 
¯

Brenda Saunders

Knots

 

 

After the massage

I’m ironed out

ready for

           the week ahead

           and the

           ties that bind.

 

One woman’s hands

bound and slit

never open

to the pain

and the

new day.

 

Another screams

at the night

her short fuse

knotted

for the

heavenly needle.

 

A daughter

leaves a note

on the fridge.

Cuts ties.

           

And the face of

the mother

 

in the morning.

 

 

¯
#7
 
AUSTRALIAN 
POETRY COLLABORATION
 
WAGGA WAGGA 
&
BROKEN HILL
 
 
FEATURING: Joan Cahill, Catherine Edwards, Barbara De Franceschi, 
David Gilbey, Grace Hawes, Pauline Haynes, Jana Hlavica, 
Geoff Sanders & Marvis Sofield

 

 

 

¯¯¯

 

BROKEN HILL

¯

Barbara De Franceschi

 

Stretch of Dirt

 

The smell of boiled mutton    

tossed in stench-

outside lavatories,

rancid earthiness

steaming from fresh horse dung,

odorise a forgotten back lane

sculptured on canvas.

Clamorous brush strokes 

stir emotional surges,

flaky faces    dandruff images

unwind in freeze frames.

 

Sunshine prances hair

washed in carbolic soap

uncovers poverty

amongst weedy undergrowth.      

Rubbish tins spill their guts,

summer wind spreads its rumours-

brownish puffs

against a blood churned sky.

Children loiter in dobs of colour

like specks of dirt, tough and gritty.

 

Sticks and stones

couldn’t break their bones

but names unwrapped

meagre parcels of pride.

 

Sheds made from kerosene tins      

compress history.

Lysaght’s orb,

the blue stamp on corrugated iron

gives its approval to graffiti tallied sweethearts

fornicating body parts.

My tongue wants to skid across vibrant oils

lick quince jam from hot scones

whilst straining to hear jovial accusations

spread amongst clumsy drunks,   

fruit tree bandits with bulging shirt fronts.

 

A collage preserved in a thicket of bedlam    

so descendants of blue orbs and kero tins

… might float.  

¯

Grace Hawes

Billy

 

A stripling,

tall, thin, ungainly,

teetering on the edge of manhood

innocent, unaware, vulnerable.

 

He sings.

His voice is joyful.

The old ballads come to life,

we listen spellbound.

 

But that was yesterday.

The years pass, we go our ways

to work, love, learn,

caught in the intricate web of life.

 

Today I saw his death notice.

Loving husband-

beloved father,

caring grandfather.

 

All this is foreign to me.

I only remember

a gangly boy,

singing.

¯

Pauline Haynes

RELENTLESS SEA  SAT 17TH JULY 2004  3AM

 

 

Sky covered by clouds of dark grey

Hiding the sun away

Come with me

Down to the sea

 

The wind stirs the water high

Rolling in Rolling in

Churning the salt to foam

Frothing depositing on the sands

 

Bringing the ocean spoils

To deposit on the beach

Ocean trying hard to clean herself

Of seaweed by the tonne

 

Glistening bustamite mineral sands

A crab claw or two

All pretty and blue

Broken moorings

 

The wind blows stronger

The sea’s rough and choppy…now

Moving dark clouds

Ever forward

 

Time to run

Too late

She’s about to

Pelt down

¯

Jana Hlavica

CABIN FEVER DREAM
 
If I walk and walk
into the wedge 
between horizon and sky 
            will I be
                        crushed into the ground
                        drawn over the edge?
 
I stand but not very high
the pebble redness
            niggled
                        by half-dead saltbush
                        the flicker from a desert kite’s wing
            vastened
                        by hollow music
                        the crooked mulga hums.
 
Let there be 
            no edge
            no other side.
Let there be only one kind of time

the Now.

 

 

¯

Geoff Sanders

Roads Scholar

 

The flat grey ribbon

unwinds, uncaring

outruns always

to link, welcome, unite

 

then to mock

by measurement

cool drinks and sandwiches

full of kilometres

 

on the horizon

gooseflesh trees, tease

a long dry creek bed

count the kangaroos, kids.

 

The flat grey ribbon daunts

divides, separates

territorial visitation

validate or veto

 

vexation, vacation

what a nation

states, flaunt sovereignty

petrol rises nationally on public holidays.

¯

Marvis Sofield

Black diamond man.

 

I am under skies so violent

exposed by storm

bellied

beneath the light show

you bequeathed me

 

how confounding

to feel for you

over this much time

 

cold fire across horizons

your memory

is shiny hard

you so intransient

and I still bolted to this

earth by your leaving

 

you still take up place

inhabit me with an ability

to burn bright

sear tight

scar again.

clear boned crisp

incendiary 

you still

inscribe me

 

picture me at night

x rayed upon my bed

open to the

memory of

your coal black eyes.

 

¯

WAGGA WAGGA

 

 

Joan Cahill

DRIVING TO ADELAIDE

 

 

                                     ‘You’re a long time dead’

                                     my husband used to say.

                                    

                                     We travel west, my brother & I,

                                     talk about waterlogged, over used words

                                     ‘World peace’ has forsaken earth

                                     and ‘live and let live’

                                     the sound of an empty bomb.

 

                                     The concept is abandoned,

                                     the future no longer influenced.

                       

                                     His car is large and embracing

                                     temperature controlled

                                     The landscape is rich,

                                     I doze,

                                     awaken to a change in gear.

                                    

                                     This time the cliche grabs me

                                     with its original intention intact.

                                    

                                     The known but not expected,

                                     the expected but unknown

                                     slides into view.

                                     ‘What is that?’

                                     confronted by grey crusty wastelands.

                                    

                                      ‘Greening Australia’ slams into my psyche

                                     with the clang of truth.

 

                                     ‘That’s what salt does’ he says.

                                                                                    

¯

Catherine Edwards

 

ROADSERVICE

 

If you visit my room

and absentmindedly

lock your keys in your car

I shall have to drive you home

and with you there beside me

your knee another gearstick

I shall have to slide my hand

up your leg glance at your eyes

hear you stop breathing

lower my voice and

(no good Samaritan me)

I shall have to pull over

and have you there beside the road

tear your shirt back and bite

your nipple and as your breathing changes

push my fingers under your skirt

up into the sweet wetness

pull you over onto me

your cries as I push into you

wild----

 

I should have made you walk.

 

¯

David Gilbey

Syzygy

 

This transit of Venus is barely visible

and even those who get close to the telescope

at Sydney Observatory

have difficulty seeing these fallopian clots,

nutmeg spotting custard.

 

As if actually experiencing it in person

makes the universe more real, more connected,

like a newborn Billy Graham crusader

having freshly taken Jesus as his Saviour

scoping the world’s sorrows.

Christ! The arrogant illusion

of personalised authenticity.

 

Trepidation of the spheres, wrote Donne

though greater farre is innocent.

And yet some things were yoked

without violence together that night:

 

walking our dog in the dark streets,

a young man talking on his mobile phone

stopped as he recognised the old mutt –

our daughter’s voice from 500km away

trailing from the exposed earpiece.

 

¯

 

 

 

 

 

AUSTRALIAN POETRY

COLLABORATION

#8 Featuring
the poetry of 
Mark S. Leabeater
From his new collection
Flash White vs the Bag of Nails
(dadadata, 2005)
 

¯¯¯

"Leabeater's poems blind us with their luminescence. He uses every stroke on the keyboard to forge poems of great dexterity and inventiveness." Alan Jefferies

 

¯

.
Flash White vs the bag of Nails or Leabeater’s 1st volume Prismatic Navigation  can be ordered from Dadadata Press at 3/105 ebley st Bondi Junction NSW Australai 2022  for $13 (AUD) which includes postage.
There are 3 CD's available, each 70 mins plus, all up comprising the entire contents of the book Prismatic Navigation. "Lazily spoken psychotropical poetry overlaying soundscapes of unworldly ambiant, rock, jazz and sound effects from wildly ranging environments."
CD 1 = Book 1: Metal Night.  CD 2 = Books2,3: Phoenix Max, Freefall & Tapestry.
CD 3 = Book 4: Posthistory.
Each CD same as above price, or $30 with pris nav book inc. (or $35 posted in aust.)
Pris. Nav. - the book alone is same price as flash white.

 

¯

Alive again,

"Now this is living!"  i remember saying

of the wireless life/ unencompassed,

as i flew feet first over

the sleeping town, the many

houses i had lived in,

the people there i knew, their

particular addresses,

their most natural faces

 

alive again

in our college days

when the wireless life/ was all aspiration,

all good possibilities, none bad/

when any of every imaginably desirable path

spread out all ahead fully

amazing/ly unencompassed/ that is:

exponential potential...

 

before reality

got in front of it all (as it must do)

 

and here we come &/ there we go again,

opening & closing/ doors so long long time

no longer there/ go clapping by under

my nightflying feet

 

feeling the warm dark, a summer night

 

a diffusion of voices 

through my body like Beethoven

music, and out through the top of my head

the hours/ days/ the years flew

inside me/ shot right through me               

jet viscerally

through my years

faster

and faster

 

  until such ever acceleration

tore the sail of the dream,

and the un-dreamer sprang  up

in/to (the rattling room) split second before

the cyclone force 7

from heaven

exploded (((the window)))

 

and the glass between waking and dreaming

intricately fallen & windchimes to

so delicately/ this incidental view:

 

a sliver crescent/ moon slung below

the star of mysterium (or i think it's Mars)

out there beyond midnight, 

and touchable/ who knew.


¯

Artist in the round

world

roundabout turning

only

to turn this rim world's local & temporal 

structure into truth & beautiful

streaks of confluence

the It

the pretty amazing

 

Sitting in that old fashioned

X  legs

way

at the legless axis

of Eternity

until

 

don't

 

even say

 

a thing

until

 

yv got something to say, don't

 

put a fish in a tree or a

bird in the sea, that's

been done before

 

(reaches into the whirling mass of skies,

selects a silhouette twig, and

on mirror coloured waters, draws):

"an uneven heaven not even

thinly disguised"

 

and by, and by

all this haven endures under human                                                                         

picnic tracks,

so

if anyone should ask you what yr doing/

said

nothing (as the easy river & the breezes)

(as therefore also simply)

whatever i want to do

 

(and that's the why

the sitting here quietly

musing

this day & away,       

anyway)

 

 

 

 

 


¯

wanted: laboratory rat

 

wanted: "laboratory rat"...

may as well try for an interview

as any other of these

squares in the evening post

just make me feel sick

as a sheet fed machinist

or a butcher/ or a

plastic film extrusionist

or an

(arborist?) experienced person wanted to poison trees...

 

and i'm sure

all this planet needs

is another growth industry.

 

 

¯

THE HYDRA stared straight at me and

across the many ways,

and said:

a symbol/ knew just what it meant/ said  <<*>>

"Get right

inside the mythologies, Max,

feel like yr

going through

some changes?

you can

cut off my head

& i'll just grow another one,

cut off my head i've got

any many more;

head me off at the pass & i

know the other way, i'm

yr best inter

ests at heart, cruised in velvet

at the end of the bone bruising

day...

 

...you/ can

cut off yr nose/ to

spite yr face, you can

plead ignorance, you can

walkabout in grace/ & never

know it

yet

 

i'm yr many lives/ yr nexus wife &

the ganglion of yr passions"

 

said the Hydra on the path.

 

 

 

¯

Satellite

modern pyramid

high the pinnacle

of a gritty swarming gridded world

glinted spacious a spire

yon charged

imagination on

telescopical spindle of fire

 

reached at least above the stratosphere

and at best beyond expectation

 

in the simultaneous universe

 

a sensational aerial begins transmitting

snapshot

photo imprints of 'something':

seamless

light from unhuman event

so far away, this light has taken

all of time to cross

the crescent of timespace/ the simultaneity

> at the speed of light >

via all frontier/ out there...

(the techs gather around a monitor)

could that really be ?

could that really be ?

'the origin of the universe'...

 


¯

Max's psychedelic dream

 

i see a living human undead skeleton/ a vine,

mine own/ icon of im(and/or)mortality, entwined~

riding high

on a heavingly ginormous slug.  the slug is knowledge.

 

the skeleton's like of chrome,

or sometimes/ these wind chiming bones

are transluscent, a wine bright 

like of glass blown with a constant &

sweetly moving

warm internal light.

 

some other times

these bones are just/

are only a dirty

opaque decaying &

scar/red bundle not even white/ they're grey.

 

>>  there's a canvas face glued on/ the death's head

darker skeleton, 

and it's painted/ roughly

with the features of your own,

 

and always reaching, one boney arm/

one hand/ one palm

stretched high & wide/

which like the face is tattooed

with all archetypal images/ of a perfect life

imperfectly expressed/

reaches ungraciously

up & out, to outer space,

only as a significant banner

of the journey penetrating

into space,

or

the ponderously slow motionly                                                     

joining up of the invisible dots...

and the why? is completely invisible

too.

 

the landscape is the tangerine empty

seething void of potentialities,

landforms shiftingly implied,

and the snail trail across it

is self evidently... the silver thread... of what is actual

                                              ...is intersected/ threaded

with the trails of untold other riders/ "all together now"

creating the whole ...wide world of ...known forms ...as we go

 

...but we're also always/ leaving the known world behind us...

 

the slug, the slug is knowledge

- a wild & difficult beast to ride, in this dream -

with no saddle provided...

 

slimy & unstable, the slug

it knows no underlying structure but what it

leaves behind it...

therefore

the slug is perfect/ adaptation itself...

 

the godslug & i

only slither until:

to see what will happen, when

these bones finally, faithfully...

 

...these bones, it seems, (the evidence: trails ending/ desicated

end-of-line meltdowns/ of rider only, or worse; and trails restarted after the meltdowns are complete...) these bones mine own & their

 protean (eyeless, earless, why?less, origins unsaid) silent mount

 

are constructed of the same being

silver threads

as:

is the trail...


¯

Romance under nature.

~See saw & cycle clock

womb and fallow/ under night of new moon                    

the closed flowers of the day blooming tree...

                                                                                  

~See saw & cycle pendulum

pea/cock hanging for action

struts right up to the saxophone dawn blowing

frenzy/ the mind of a thief crowing:

"the day will be ours" in

the time being/ spring...                                         

 

~See saw & cycle starchart reasons spin the devices, see

the diversity of the seasons the same & slightly

different every year, the swing orbital

see saw & cycle

planet wound up to/ encircle Inferno,

at the dawngate again of the first day of spring

the feathered cloud human optic/ bursts into wing

soaring tropic: the stereoscopic

both eyes open

see by night &

see by day

the running empires over/ some lost amazonia

sunning like all becoming, the while

reverse swastika wheels within

sky of symbols within the sky revealing

the cunning subplots under/ galactic laughter gunning

the insensible rush of the comet

on its

long, ineluctable ellipse

O                                                 grazed                                            the blue/black sky,

                                                                                                                               blazed                  

                                     

the obliviously miraculous

romance under nature

 ...mirabile dictu...               

un and even

(under nature) the ancient romance

 

 

                                                                                                   

                      


¯

Star

 

flower,

 

 

*

 


¯

MYSTERY FLIGHT

 

Seated comfy in an aeroplane

cabin/ varnished woodgrain

cabinet, leather & silver/

an old world DC 3...

& there's me

sipping a martini/

dreaming reality~

 

~yep, that's me... apparently

traversing the Transvaal/ out there/ down there/

or then it's the Nullabor ("very dry,

with an olive"/ghost dry rivers. "Yes, wow, look at that,

and thank you, looks great, very much.")

& I look clean & ...definitely going somewhere... 

nonchalant/ly/ confident/ly... (Hawaiian flower

loose tourist shirt &...

 

um, yeah...)

...until i realise/ freeze-frame-sudden/ moment-across-the-world/ that i don't know where...

like/ i mean, like no idea,

like: i don't know where i'm going

to...

...like there is no/ it's a blank piece of paper/

there's no destination/ on my ticket/ um...

 

...looking out again/ looking out there... what's new? Looks like 

some sorta/ anyway it's like never before,

night & day simultaneously, and like

it's ever new, like it's a balloon

expansion of the world i used to knew,

like it's become the world at large/

galaxies are spinning catherine wheels out there

beyond the naked eye, and

down there... down there... sometimes great cities are uninhabited.

And the ants down there, i know they can't see

what i see from the air, i see

the old cities below the new.

 

Sometimes...  are you seeing this? down there

the Himalayas are

blooming/ light & shade/ flowers (pushing up/ like people)

down there...

 

every! time i look/

an entirely different landscape, down there/ looking up at me...

 

(dipper riding/ weaving via,           now

monsoon/ season of drifting

islands/     towering anvil     cloud islands)     

and i,

 

finally i notice, from this

window seat be/hind a wing ~

 

the wing/s are feathered ~

 

slow sweeping  ~~~~~~~~~  they're flapping!

This bird is dreaming

(swooping low now, over tangled green Ankor lost jungle/mpire)

anti-gravity feelings... and the displacement spells me

i am here /so very here/ this poem/ this fragile/ moment

before we wake/ following the cracks

branching out from the primary fractures,

surreal & jumble history/s emerging

in rapid transit

= these mysteries in flight  ~

 


¯

GREEN JESUS

 

Born from the bleeding wounded

green jesus

run between

the crossfire guns the shot ruins

the domino towers of material fortitude

under sphere of the magnitude X

ink bleeds

cold designs from undone tomes

where no footprint

tests the endurance of the savage steady rain

falling fingers

living running dying crawling

sprawling finger roots are prying

underneath the sullen black earth

the golden earth

digests 

heroic blood & dynasty history

so softly so softly

away & away &

...low thunder:

kyrie  eleison...

the incantation

of a rain spun bell.

 

 

 

 

¯

 
 
AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION
 
#9
SYDNEY
 
A selection from some of those attending  a workshop 
at the NSW Writers’ Centre in February 2005. 
 
NSW Writers' Centre
 
FEATURING: Larissa Davisson Farrell , Rosalie Fishman,
Pam Scoble & Julie Waugh
 

¯¯¯

¯

Larissa Davisson Farrell

 

COLD

 

 

I feel cold inside.

Cold and dead.

Cold as deep space, zero kelvin.

Dead like the dark side of the moon.

Something may have dwelt there once,

but long since fell

to utter silence

and desolation.

 

A void yawns where fire danced.

Frozen, stony,

warmth long extinguished,

I miss the spark in me that gave me light.

 

I walk with hooded eyes.

So very cold.

Mare Tranquillitatis.

Nobody notices,

no one can see me

and I can't come back.

¯

 

Rosalie Fishman

On Hold

 

Write, words

Images of aching faces

Death’s background

Frayed nerves

 

Some,      those most desperate             trying to connect in

Feeble pleading tones

How are you?

I rang to see how you are ….

Oh! tired!      yes well of-course

They profess in knowing tones that

       Hold the secret of their paining            not yours.

 

And then the other

Projecting her fear of loss         of you

The unnamed protector

Dependency an irksome, wearying bond

 

And still more

Holding forth in duty’s voice

 

 

Write, words

Images - an enema up the bun

Inserted by white snapped hospital gloves

 

And we laugh,

The ache in that not so great

So go home dear love

You irritate

I’m comfy clean in this

sterilized place

 

Tomorrow I may well want to run

But for now dear love

Go home           give me at least that peace of mind

 

 

Write, words

Images, hurried steps

Down nurse lined corridor floors

 

He’s gone                they just took him down

The officious palm raised chest high

Silencing the scream that never came

 

I was meant to kiss him goodbye

Sat in the car

Cried behind outwardly nonplussed eyes

Streets of jittering cars in peak hour’s race

Asking what now?

 

Oh yes another task to be done

 

 

I’ll be back

Sweet smiled

No one need ever know

The little deaths faced

 By the one who waits

¯

              

 Pam Scoble

Hours

Pacing dismal corridors

Heat packs againsts  an aching stomach

Cringing, contractions

Squatting gripping bed posts, coming up slowly

Warm water embraces, relaxing cramping pains

"Epidural"

Back on the birthing bed crouching in doggie fashion

30 hours gone

A baby's head emerges

Welcome Zachary.

 

 

¯

Julie Waugh 

 

 

 

buddha science

 

 

atoms nudged     drifting 

swirled and coelescing 

inevitable inductees into clouds 

shapeless to an ordinary eye 

but heavy with becoming 

   now a hand that clutches 

   now a blade of grass 

reborn again into suffering 

 

    wanted: personal trainer for nirvana 

    commitment essential 

    no attachment necessary 

 

this think-thing 

this unsouled virtuality 

illusionary     impermanent 

shadowed or enriched 

by death threats 

at least no longer grasping 

half a century in bad faith 

revolving in a connection 

with common couch and velvet buffalo 

 

the Dalai Lama smiles 

he is someone I could believe in 

could pray to 

but he would only shake his head 

and laughing 

remind me that he is just a farm boy 

who gets constipated when crossing time lines

 

 

¯

 

 

Les Wicks collated the work following workshops in 2005.

Thanks go to:

 

NSW Writers’ Centre.
 

 

¯

 

 

 

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

APC is an occasional anthology.

¯

AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION
 
#10
 
SOUTH COAST NSW
A vibrant necklace of communities
from Wollongong to Eden.
 
This is a selection from some of those attending  workshops 
in June/July 2005.
 
South Coast Writers' Centre
Lit link
Bega Valley Writers
 
FEATURING: Anna Buck, Jennifer Dickerson, John Egan, Allan Gibson, 
Susan McCreery, Sue Newhouse,  Monique Watt, Mary Whitby & Irene Wilkie
 

 

 

¯¯¯

Anna Buck

Jon’s place

 

A fox went through the vineyard at dusk

 its cry harsh, grating, a repeated taunt

that raised hackles on the cat’s back. 

 

Almonds shells scrunched underfoot

the crop had dropped, harvested only by

birds; beyond vines stretched,  parallel

rows curving up towards the low hills

 

over which a curved sliver of moon

hung,  a great purple streak 

separating it and the ground

as if a field of Patterson’s

Curse grew upside down.

 

The cry roused mourners listening to

Creedence Clearwater  looking out

 your back door beyond the lights’glow;

 

the black and white Tom crouched

by the dam fought being brought

to safety clawed at the head and arms

of your widow; later she cried

in the narrow kitchen, put tea tree oil

on the wounds that showed.

 

The cat would rather wait for you

in dry leaves under the moon,

eyes dilated at the fox’s approach

than be shut in the house, safe,

searching for your touch.

¯

Jennifer Dickerson

ITALIAN MORNING

 

Some people are up already.

 sun spreading stealthy fingers through

 my gentle night curtains.

 Noise, a garbage truck is munching its way into

 collected rubbish in the street.

 Repetitious the sparrow trapped on one note

 seeks anxiously a tone deaf mate.

 Grass confettied thick with dew

 glints like a carpet of marcasite.

 Bees foraging in clover heads

 uplifted looking to the light.

 The day's soft early Umbrian dawn

 awakes the earth from blue night dreams

 transforms rain on nasturtiam leaves

 makes every drop a zircon gleam

 Beyond the wall the reaching vines

 suck up sun for fulsome grapes,

 join arms in a one-legged Zorba dance

 across the fertile land

 Distant I hear the Sunday bells

 calling  children in to pray.

 time enough

 to open  my eyes and know the day.

 

¯
John Egan
Cello Concerto
 
               From the belly
               of the cello
               rings the great requiem
               for all those millions dead
 
               and Elgar's
               yearning theme
               for the years
               before 1914.
 
               A rolling adagio
               of hills and valleys
               for the green lands
               and the lost.
 
               The plaintiff sob,
               the pain
               for what the century
               could have been
               but never was.
 
               The song
               of Verdun, Passchendaele
               and the Somme,
 
               the raising up of flags
               and in cold trenches
               the cutting down of lives.
 

¯

Allan Gibson

28.7.05

THE HORSE FORGAVE ME.

 

Why is he so angry?

What have I done?

I feel surrounded.

I’ve seen it in the movies –

the horses.

 

 

 

 

hot day heavy work

the tiredness inside me

time for a Bex

and a lie down

What?

What have you done!

Is he going to punish me?

Don’t like being the centre of it all.

What did I do wrong?

I’ve seen it in the movies -

dancing horses with shorn manes.

 

Dad, normally quiet and calm –

so angry.

The horse and he

overwhelmingly filled the scene.

Me – bewildered.

Oh,  they don’t  shave the fringe,

it keeps flies out of their eyes.

Is he going to hit me?

No - its over,

we’re away.

 

That afternoon is still alive,

the horse standing quiet,

trusting me.

My sense of excitement, pride:

expecting approval.

 

 

Dad never mentioned it again

and the horse forgave me.

 


 

¯

Susan McCreery

Other Lovers
 
 
shine in their skin - linked
christmas lights at midnight.
 
 
Meet in the kitchen
like pots of tea, warm and bellyful.
 
 
But we sit in this barren space,
this counselling room,
parched as bones on a gibber plain
picked at by scorpion malice,
and wonder how we came to roles
in such a worn-out play.
 
 
Other lovers
have a one-way flow,
their smiles glint
in the broad morning light.
 
 
We wake to a sickly dawn
and fear for our children.
¯

 

Sue Newhouse

Pleasure Lea Park Estate

From the tablelands
we’ve followed down a trail
to a full blown blooming
in easy country

in a land’s end of honey

for a while we run old tracks

but the brain soon nods
though there’s a bird in every flower
on every latticed fence
and all night and all day the waves break

comfortably

there’s sometimes an unhealthy gleam

a pallor behind the brightness

there’s a need for wariness
and never too far
there’s the subsurface
unexpected

this is Pleasure Lea Park

where it’s compulsory to be happy

but sorrow lilies grow

and every so often
behind closed doors
a bolt gives

a young man hangs himself from a stairwell

the debt collector calls

we must keep busy
must keep busy

Monday, keep fit class
pick you up at ten
Tuesday, keep fit class

we can miss the cry for help

and the fine detail

that so much colour sits on tiny finches

that with the honey

come subtleties of grey

                         
¯

Monique Watt

Cabra flats ‘79

 

Up and down McBurney Road
short sharp arguments above/ below.
Plastic chopsticks clack on woks,
Garry plays Mull O’Kintyre (again)
and Tito’s chasing kids with a
dead mouse on a stick.
His sister’s Miroslava (round and quiet).
(Everybody knows their dad wears a toupee
and sleeps in Miroslava’s room).
 
Marica and Anica perform Dancing Queen
for Red S shoppers walking home
while Dutch twins play doctors with
Law ‘n Miroslava in the toilet ‘round the back.
Zelco (friend of Tito)’s spitting choc-
biscuit missiles from the front yard fence.

 

Eva’s doing handstands
(teasing those girls with hairy pits).
Lady up the road sends a kid to
The Rainbow for a pack of Winfield Blue
with change for a Sunny Boy.
 
Miroslava’s mum is at the kitchen window.
She’s stuffing boiled eggs, mince and black eyed olives
into the pliant shells of tonight’s empanadas.

 
¯

Mary Whitby

 

                                                             harsh ringing

                                                             news of a break-up

                                                             a marriage gone

                                                             into yesterday

                                                             just four months old

                                                             blame wanders about

                                                             landing on who

                                                             or what

                                                             sinks

                                                             finding no substance

                                                             but dark corners

                                                             of tears

                                                             daughter’s pain

                                                             twists mother’s face

                                                             as she struggles to understand

                                                             a new-found son’s betrayal

                                                             white tulle promises

                                                             just candy floss on paper flowers

                                                             with wafting gestures of love

                                                             all in pieces

                                                             as confetti on the wind

                                                             is blown into the past

                                                             leaving only the rain

¯

Irene Wilkie

galactic spiders
 
it's the threat that blisters the skin
the unwanted promises
certain or not
the maybes    the possibilities
eat the neurones
 
at first    people hide
at home    a comfortable den
a bolt hole    perhaps safe
but not impregnable
 
really it is only a cardboard box
lined with cotton wool
blocking off the outside wind
but no barrier
to television warnings every minute
to be vigilant
about bombs
abandoned bags
 
see how sniffer dogs run over them
unsuspecting
 
then there's the new  thing
about gelignite suicides
about body parts needing identification
and that old fright    nuclear war
is rising up again
which could engulf
the boxes    the towers    the nightclubs
the tubal trains    in a single atom split
 
we have seen the creations
of atomic blast
the faces stiff with charcoal
the glowing skeletons
we have seen them already
 
it's more than inconvenience
the flinching of the spine at fears
sterner than summer hail pitting the car
or fire melting the shed
or  the  clout of  waterspout sucking  yachts
it's more than these
 
 
 
the story's bleak and the people know its meaning
they scratch their skins with their sharp nails
until the pain is greater than the dread
 
then finally they don't care    saying the plot
is bigger than all of them
galactic spiders
out of control are spinning
always spinning
hot webs of designer steel
 
the clunking squeals    the  metallic jaws
are quite believable
there could be no escape
 
so they stop
people stop heeding  newspapers
radios     televisions
 
some walk unprotected on spiky dangerous tracks
some wear good luck amulets
some fly out to galaxies
anyway
 
though their knotted hearts protest
people hear
but they no longer listen

 

¯

 
AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION
#11
SYDNEY and
NOWRA
 
This is a selection from some of those attending workshops 
in August/September 2006.
 
FEATURING: Kate Bannatyne, Sue Castrique, Margaret Collett, Jennifer Dickerson,
Betty Johnston, Keturah Jones, Chere Le Page, Susan McCreery, 
Margaret Marks Wahlhaus, Irene Wilkie and Ron Wilkins
 

PREVIOUS ISSUES

 

¯¯¯

Kate Bannatyne

 

The Destination Board

 

 

You knew the poetry

of taking me to yellow fields

and telling me to hush

and listen

to the sweet corn grow.

 

You knew the majesty

of the Byzantine stars

floating gold in indigo

on the vast

above our eyes.

 

You knew the drama

of the midnight dash

to catch a tired express

that could take

a month of summers.

 

And you knew the stories

that would come

from the whistle and thrum

on the platform

of your life question:

 

Where shall we go today? 

¯

 

Sue Castrique

At the Reef

 

This business of preparing for dark

starts with the noddy terns

criss-crossing the air

like sharp black tailor's scissors

snipping away at silk.

They shriek along horizon's chalk

rip back and up

unpickers, a hundred of them                     

shredding the twilight til it hangs

in the new spic threads of

night's dark lapis suit.

¯

 

Margaret Collett

GUEST HOUSES, COUNTRY TOWNS

 

They have names like Bimbadene or

The Spires.

They are elderly,

the paint sometimes left to peel.

There are ‘spacious and elegant grounds.’

Professional couples go there to get away.

Cars crunch to towards reception

over a biscuit base driveway.

 

The furniture in the lounge is

Heavily impressive.

After doing the antique shops

One sits here.

 Lamps snap on, throwing a jaundiced glare.

The men expertly shuffle the pages of broadsheets.

The women doze with last year’s Booker prize on their laps.

A time of murmurs, and clearing of throats.

Some subtle eyeing of others over and around pages.

A fire has been lit, and flutters nervously

in the presence of auditors and school teachers.

A big man forgets himself,

And laughs aloud at something he has read.

In unison, like a herd of antelope,

Others raise their heads in mild disapproval.

 

At dinner, things glitter.

Amid the clink and scrape of conversation and cutlery

Someone drops a knife.

A restrained and tentative esprit de corps has developed.

The semaphore of white cloth napkins.

 

 The more reserved escape upstairs

to shower in huge white-tiled bathrooms

which, for a moment’s shudder

remind them of boarding school

before the warmth envelopes them.

 

Downstairs

in the draped and deep brown lounge,

a few risk conversation.

Snatches of this, of careful laughter

drift upstairs

to mingle with the steam.

 

The bedrooms are high-ceilinged

and cold.

Water pipes creak

with the sudden rush of couples

preparing to retire.

One can hear the tone,

even an occasional word from the next room.

The beds creak.

The globe in the reading lamp

has gone.

 

The long, narrow corridors are red-carpeted

And worn in places.

Many doors lead off them.

There is a bleary yellow light

Always at the other end.

 

Outside,

 the air is cool and clean

and sharp.

Stars crackle

against a deep dark blanket.

A dog barks.

Yobbos yell and chuck a bottle.

It breaks

and splinters the night.

¯

Jennifer Dickerson

SEVENTEEN

 

years, soon eighteen and supposed

to be studying for the VCE

his head full of accelerating

Lamborghinis and red Maseratis

with L plates.

Then came the Girl

with a tongue tasting of mint

lollies, failing year ten.

With those brown saucer eyes

she'll get whatever she wants

maybe some stuff she doesn't.

When she's twenty one

working in the beauty salon

will she remember him

as she plucks and tweezes facial hair.

Will she recall the nights

In her room (with the door open)

as he helped her with English assignments

because Mum and Dad come from Sicily

and have no idea.

 

He visits for Sunday night lasagna

with second helpings,

his hand below the table

 

under their daughter's skirt

fingering his own destination

while the Dad cheers for Real Madrid

the Mumma keeps saying he's a clever kid

smart enough to go to Uni

 

 

¯

Betty Johnston

On a Tuesday

 

I have been a good mother.

I know it. People say so.

To such an extent

it leaves a question. I shrug.

 

And a good wife? Well yes

that too.

 

A lot of work

but not hard. Clear.

 

At breakfast he says

I am having an affair.

 

It happens in TV soaps or in America.

Not in a brick house with a frangipani tree.

Not on a Tuesday.

 

It isn’t true I say.

He spreads marmalade on his toast

and I know it is.

 

I’m late for work

the car keys are lost.

 

It’s true he says.

 

The house is a mess

corners not pulled straight.

 

This is hard.

And not clear.

 

 

¯

Keturah Jones

 

Cambodia

 

She meets us

under the hot sun,

a grave face

melted with sadness.

She greets us with weary eyes,

apologizing for her not good English.

 

I tell you the story -

all doctors, lawyers, teachers, pop stars

killed.

The Khmer Rouge came at night;

raped women,

massacred children,

imprisoned men,

killed them all.

Babies thrown up high;

skewered by boy soldiers with bayonets.

Others beaten against trees

to save on bullets.

 

Her words catch in my throat,

my eyes burn.

I lift the lid from my water bottle,

sip small sips, look away.

 

We follow our guide

past coiled barbed wire

along high security fences.

We come to a wooden frame

like a swing-set,

an urn of water underneath.

 

The soldiers tied their ankles.

They lifted the prisoners

then dunked them

lifted them - dunked them

until they choked.           

 

We walk inside

and breathe in the stale odour

of an empty cell,

once a classroom where children smiled,

now a derelict death chamber.

 

On the wall a photograph

yellowed around the edges;

a contorted dead man

spent his last living hours

lying there

chained to a steel bed frame

with a scorpion box

and blood stains on the floor.

His clothes are in a Perspex case.

No grave.

All family is either

dead or lost.

 

Through to another room,

much like the last.

Beating our fans back and forth,

the movement is noticeably frantic

in a still, quiet and stuffy room.

Some of our group hangs back.

Jenna’s eyes fill with tears.

We stare at scared eyes

peering from a wall of sepia prints.

The same age as my daughter!

Only a boy.

How could this happen?

We, the visitors, walk on.

 

At the end of our tour

is a cramped shop

selling familiar handicrafts.

Our guide motions for us to buy

but none of us

feel like shopping.

It is an awkward departure and

I take nothing.

Only our guide’s grave face

will remain in my mind,

consumed by sadness.

 

 

¯

Chere Le Page

The Pirate’s Lemon

 

On Sunday we pack sandwiches

of fat tomato and cream cheese

fill a flask with tea

and head for the beach.

The air hums with heat,

clouds swirl in sapphire skies,

breezes play with pelicans.

 

I’m looking for shells, I say,

the ones like shimmering potato chips

I find two and stuff them slyly in my pocket.

A gull swaggers up, calls cheap insults,

a sand crab flips flat on its back, playing dead

we poke and make it dance, stalk-eyed

creating crazy circles in the sand.

Full of guilt, we let it scuttle away.

 

In the distance a strange yellow object

skulks like a small bomb in the sand.

We approach, shuffled by a hint of danger.

It’s a bright new lemon.

Washed in from a pirate ship? I wonder  

 

On Monday we pack orange cake and coffee

to find the sea in a different mood.

The wind is up, the sky inked with clouds

white water churns the sand, thumps and retreats.

No signs of crabs, birds or shells

we pull our hats and scarves tight.

Do dolphins and salmon feel the cold?

We see the pirate’s lemon on the water’s edge.

 

By Friday the storms have passed   

I have to see if that lemon is still there.

The sea is in high spirits,

the air spangles light,

we imagine a whale off shore,

two glistening shells are there for the taking.

Our crab appears, flips over again

thinking he has our measure,

we smile and let him be.

 

Then we see it, dull now,

our lemon, still there.

Will it be there tomorrow?

If it is, I’ll swear Neptune’s playing games.

Once we found hundreds of fresh red chillies

in skeins of seaweed all along the shore

we wondered for days  where they’d come from.

Perhaps that’s what beaches are,

places to dream and imagine.

¯
Susan McCreery
On the porch
 
High in the bush
white flags of cockatoos
screech, as clouds 
like tankers 
shunt day out.
 
Through the doorway
the boys clatter 
on floorboards, unaware
I’m outside on my director’s chair
with a glass 
and a mossy cool 
on my arms, 
listening,
as cicadas drum up
the back-beat of evening,
 
and when they start to fight
and yell, I breathe
in the wine-light, watch
mosquitoes flick 
past distant lines of foam,
till smudges of air
trick my eyes
mauve the lawn
and a cricket
starts its tentative burr,
 
then I go inside, 
armed and ready
for six o¹clock.
¯
Margaret Marks Wahlhaus
CAIN AWAKE
 
 
I was wakened by everyone crying,
But they all used one thin voice.
It was still so dark.
I lay quiet and small, altering my breathing pattern
Hoping to find it was rather
The breath in my nostrils, or blood drumming in my ears,
But I knew what it was.
 
A cat cried it, mewling with rigoured jaws.
 
Perhaps it wasn’t my cat.
Anyway, he wouldn’t come if I called.
I’m not very good at stopping that sort of thing.
 
And outside, it is cold.
 
¯

Irene Wilkie

space

 

 

Pearl mist day

wet earth

rock face shine

are mine

and always have been

though unseen

until time

fills space

and I exist again.

 

 

 

Touching

shy pale grasses

I walk warm sand

smell the salt   the foam

hear the tidal rush

across the platform

slap the cliff.

I am back.

 

 

If I show

all these to you

will you hold

them in your hands

and see me?

¯

Ron Wilkins   

Shadowcat

 

Nothing more quiet

than a French village

in the poet’s hours before dawn.

I stand in the dark

at the third floor window

of the village house,

admiring the beauty

of flagstone-roofed apse,

the honey-coloured stone

of the flood-lit ancient church

against a jet-black sky,

when suddenly, a white cat

slips out of the shadows.

 

I tap the window pane.

Instantly he pinpoints

the source of the sound

and in mid-step stops,

one paw raised.

For several seconds our gazes lock,

then he continues his village prowl,

and I continue my lonely vigil

for the white cat of insight

to slip from the shadows

of my mind.

 

 

Saint Jean de la Blaquiere    May 2005

 

 

¯

 
AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION
#12
FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL de la POESIE
2006
TROIS-RIVIERES, QUEBEC
 
 

FEATURING: Bernard Ascal, Gaston Bellemare, Maxianne Berger, Eric Charlebois, Sylvestre Clancier,

David Fraser, Abigail Friedman, Paul Gilbert,  Philip Hammial, Jill Jones, Marcel Labine, Martin Langford,

Dyane Léger, Erik Lindner, Rufo Quintavalle, Daniel Samoilovich,  Paul Savoie, Lambert Schlechter,

Carolyn Marie Souaid, Jacques Tornay & Hyam Yared.

 

 
 

¯¯¯

 

Bernard Ascal

France

Pas savoir quoi faire 

La vache et moi 

Pas savoir quoi faire 

alors 

bouffons du gazon 

elle avec sa langue 

moi avec ma tondeuse 

parvenus au bout de nos prés 

je constate 

plus rien dans le mien 

mais dans son carré 

un pied de sauge 

une touffe de myosotis 

une brassée de digitales 

ça me déplaît ce négligé 

Meuh Meuh fait la vache 

Moi Mu Mu 

Mu par quelle pulsion 

je bouffe la vache 

 

Elle 

jamais ne me consomme 

 

Trop fière 

ou peur de s'empoisonner.

 

 

 

Not knowing what to do 

The Cow and I 

Not knowing what to do 

Well then 

Let's bolt the green 

She, with her tongue 

I, with my lawn-mower. 

Arrived at the end of our meadows 

I notice 

Nothing less in mine 

But, in her patch 

A head of sage 

A wisp of forget-me-not 

An armful of digitalis 

Such a lack of care doesn't please me 

Meuh, meuh, says the cow 

And I : Mu, Mu 

And moved by some pulsion 

I eat the cow 

  

She 

Never eats me 

  

Too proud 

Or Fear of being poisoned. 

 

 

Translated by Sir Francis  Valley

 

A painter, an author, a musician, Bernard Ascal creates artistic events within the frame of 20th century's poetry as well as contemporary poetry with emphasis to the surrealist poets - from Benjamin Peret to Joyce Mansour - as well as to the french speaking  poets from Africa and West

Indies - from Leon Gontran Damas to Leopold Sedar Senghor, from Aime Cesaire to Abdellatif  Laâbi. Bernard is also the artistic director of " Poètes &  Chansons ", a collection of sound recordings for EPM/France. Bernard's own poems were published in 2005 ( Le Temps des Cerises, publishing house), titled  Le Gréement des Os. His last CD recording is dedicated to  Le Poème de l'Angle Droit  by the famous architect Le Corbusier.

¯

 
Gaston Bellemare
Quebec, Canada
Toujours
main sur le cœur
nous tournons le dos à la nuit
 
Le soleil s’élève de ton corps de terre
Tes seins signent la montée de la lumière
et refont l’aurore du monde
 
je t’aime tant
Maryse
femme
de mon corps
de mon cœur
 
lentement
sourire se dépliant
sur tes lèvres ouvertes de soleil
par fragments
ton corps
ma toute amour absente
ces jours-ci
laisse s'échapper
dans mes veines
rond rare instant de grand Mozart
le rythme et la cambrure recommencés du monde.

 

Gaston Bellemare is a leading figure in Canadian literature. He runs the pre-eminent Ecrit des Forges which publishes poetry while founding and managing the Festival International de la Poesie

¯

 

Maxianne Berger

Quebec, Canada

Ode to a Round Tuit

A poem is never finished, it is only abandoned. Paul Valéry

 

Like a Philosopher’s Stone of resolve

informing a procrastinator’s dream,

you provide the exalted wherewithal

to start and complete whatever chores remain

undone. Couch-potatoing with panache,

dilly-dalliers seem taken aback

when accused of sloth. “Soon,” they swear,

“I’ll finish when I get

a round tuit” – you, pearl of their prayers,

panacea for the indolent.

 

Were you square or oval, Tuit, if

you graced my home – you, the means to every

end – then dust bunnies would vanish with

those bills littering the desk, my heavy

self would slender, the basket full of mending 

wouldn’t overflow, and I’d phone my friend in

Paris to catch up. But finding Lapis

Philosophorum,

Elixir or Grail is far easier a task

than mining for your Unobtanium.

 

As to this poem which is not yet polished,

had I the tool toolissimo, I’d be inspired

to rhyme my “polished” more cleverly than “foolish”

and I’d pentameter the rhythm as required.

Oh, Tuit, elusive as time and rarer

than assiduity, I’ve persevered

to keep you high up on my shopping list.

The job’s no matter: you’re primed to do it.

So I’ll revise this ode tomorrow – let’s

trust I’ll get around to it.

 

Maxianne Berger writes in form – from haiku through nonce to Oulipo. Compromis, the French version of her first book, How We Negotiate, was published by Écrits des forges in 2006. In 2003, with Angela Leuck, she co-edited the anthology Sun Through the Blinds: Montreal Haiku Today (Shoreline). www.poets.ca/linktext/direct/berger.htm

¯

 

Eric Charlebois

Ontario, Canada

Cerfs-volants magnétiques

 

 

Et si ça n’allait être qu’un amour estival,

ce serait le plus bel été de ma vie.

Et si ça allait être un amour à distance,

le doute deviendrait une autoroute.

Et si ça allait être un amour en absence,

tes mains seraient un cénotaphe.

Et si ça allait être un amour en mots,

je me blottirais dans ton inspiration.

Et si ça allait être un naufrage,

je ne veux plus jamais me doucher seul.

Et si ça allait être un amour d’adolescence,

j’espère que ma poitine sera à jamais glabre.

Et si ça allait être un amour espéré,

il faudrait désespérer en l’espoir seul.

Et si ça allait être un amour en silence,

je voudrais être encore plus sourd.

Et si ça allait être un amour sensuel,

je ne veux plus jamais imaginer ou me souvenir.

Et si ça allait être un amour nocturne,

je suturerais indélébilement mes paupières closes.

Et si ça alllait être un amour lubrique,

je voudrais que nous soyions perpétuellement

au bord de l’orgasme.

Et si ça allait être un amour de la beauté,

mes yeux seraient un musée sans miroir.

Et si ça allait être un amour de la profondeur de l’autre,

je lacérerais mon parachute

pour me fossiliser

dans tes ténèbres.

Et si allait être un amour de la complémentarité,

nous serions les deux dernières plaques de domino à résister à la chute.

Et si allait être un amour contre la mort,

je provoquerais immédiatement l’apocalypse.

Et si allait être un amour pour la vie,

nous irons pique-niquer dans tous les cimetières.

Et si ça allait être un amour en fuite,

tes lèvres béantes seraient le bout

de mon monde,

cerf-volant dans le ciel

centrifuge.

Et si ça allait être un amour pur,

je m’aimerais à travers toi

parce que je ferais en sorte que

tu t’aimes à travers moi.

Et si c’était un amour vrai,

je cesserais de l’écrire.

Et si nous ne tenions plus compte des pensées,

nous serions deux aimants.

Et si nous ne tenions plus compte des si

et des situations,

si notre fusion faisait fondre

les et,

c’est là l’amour, simplement.

Si on partait,

comme deux timbres postaux

en forme de cerfs-volants

sur l’enveloppe du ciel,

ce serait le mythe biographique intemporel

de l’infirmière et de l’enseignant

avec leur union comme

tiers-monde.

 

Éric Charlebois was born in 1976. His 4th book Cinérite (Editions David) was published in 2006.

¯

 

Sylvestre Clancier

France

Behind the poem’s bars

 

 

Serpentine moult of mirrors

Ghostly black panther

Augment the thirst of my dreams

My moody soul in the dark

The tiger’s circular path

Behind the poem’s bars

The welts of love’s river

Rilke’s spirit in his poem.

 

Moon of feathers and silk

Season of algae and the sea

Anemone of evening

Agate of my blood

Weave the tissue of my life

Of my nights and dreams

 

English translation by Rufo Quintavalle

Sylvestre Clancier is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, most notably : Profil du songe [Portrait of a Dream] (Encres Vives), L'Herbier en feu [The Flaming Herbarium] (Proverbe), Enfrance [A French Childhood] (Proverbe), Télégrammes du ciel [Heavenly Telegrams] (Céphéïdes), L’Animal animé [The Animate Animal] (Proverbe), Pierres de mémoire [Stones of Memory] (Ecrits des Forges / Proverbe), Poèmes de la baie [Poems from the Bay] (Les Cahiers bleus), L’Âme alchimiste [The Alchemical Soul]  (Proverbe), Ecritures premières [First Writings] (L’Improviste), Une Couleur dans la nuit [A Colour in the Night] (Phi et Ecrits des Forges).

¯

 

David Fraser

 British Columbia, Canada

The Wild Pacific Trail
For Bill Perry


From the tame world of pavement and cycle paths
we slip through a fold in time
tunneling a winding course in the cool dark
curve of salal, cynamocka,
roots twisting ‘round our feet,
downed giant cedar and sitka spruce
whose girth we crawl beneath
like children creeping through their secret place,
or one leg stretching then the other,
or hopping upon their backs
until light breaks and we emerge
onto a steeply descending carve of jagged basalt
leading to the sea, tide out gently
slapping surge channels where
high up a daisy in a niche blooms purple,
one tiny flower buffeted with wind.

Here in the blazing sun we sift
assortments of chipped worn shells and gravel
for the tiniest of treasures,
then we leap and creep the consistent
inconsistency of rock, tide pools
teeming with their hermit crabs
sculpins, sea anemones;
balancing on the blow log pile of last winter’s storms,
our gateway from the forest long hidden
in the swaying mass of salal meeting shore.
A headland with its rough surf;
we take up climbing root-twisted clefts
in rock, hand holds, a foot perch up and
back into the salal, the rainforest
snuggling up beside the foaming sea.

With each headland passed we
emerge into another cove
to meander the sandy beach curled
‘round a craggy miniature jut of rock,
a bull kelp trumpet, its one note
hailing an arrival, feathered boas
dusted of their sand curled round our necks,
then up again disappearing through
a hidden salal gate, wading through
salmon berries, thimble berries,
naming plants and noting shapes,
plucking leaves for reference later.

Forest deep,
sound of sea, hidden places,
secret hideaways, bear trails lined with berried scat,
the powdered dust lichen-covered cedar
scarred deep by six long
claws.

The hold in time disintegrates
as we emerge into a slash
the trail gone beneath the upturned
soil, jagged stumps and logs,
the jaws of a backhoe
carving up the forest for
some golf, tame trails
wood-chipped and highway wide.

 

David Fraser lives in Nanoose Bay, on Vancouver Island. He is the founder and editor of Ascent Aspirations Magazine, http:// www.ascentaspirations.ca, since 1997. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in over 40 journals including Three Candles, Regina Weese, Ardent, Quills and Ygdrasil. He has published a collection of his poetry, Going to the Well (2004), a collection of short fiction, The Dark Side of the Billboard (2006 ) and edited and published the print issues of Ascent Aspirations Magazine Anthology One (2005) , Anthology Two  Windfire (2006), and Anthology Three, AguaTerra (2007) http://www.ascentaspirations .ca/aapublishing.htm

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Abigail Friedman

Quebec, Canada & USA

FOUR HAIKU

dead of winter 

among flames and logs 

a hollow

 

first dream of the year 

carefully polishing 

these jade marbles 

 

swaggering downstream 

drunk on last year's ice 

-- April river 

 

where your car stood 

an empty space 

-- the cry of gulls

 

 

Abigail Friedman is an American haiku poet and diplomat.  She first began writing haiku in Japan, under the guidance of haiku master Momoko Kuroda.  While in Japan, she became a member of the numamomo-kai, an all-Japanese haiku group.  Her book, The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan (Stone Bridge Press, May 2006) recounts her experience in that haiku group and offers insights into haiku and its attractions.  The Haiku Apprentice is shortlisted for the 2007 Kiriyama Prize (www.kiriyamaprize.org) and was chosen as a Top Pick by Book Sense, the Association of Independent Bookstores of America.  www.stonelantern.blogspot.com

 

 

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Paul Gilbert

Ontario, Canada

Divine Encounters along the Downtown Eastside

 

-1-

 

I met the Angel of the Lord

sitting on a cardboard box

in front of the drugstore.

   His wings were well hidden beneath

the denim jacket and hoodie he wore

but the presence of grace was unmistakeable

  i gave him a loonie and I stood there

we talked

  we talked about nothing, of weather and his home

the place he shared while here on earth

  he looked and smiled as we shared some jokes

a laugh he gave and through the joy

   the Grace of God was given.

  I had to leave and so I bid him well

he gave me a 'bye' and I felt

   his blessing as I left his Presence

 

 

-2-

 

The Prophet stood between shade and sun

  half hidden in the shadows

 I nearly missed him as I walked past

  but he saw me and he spoke

he raised his arm, his pierced arm and his finger came up

to point at me

   I stopped and he spoke

at first gibberish but then he spoke in tongues

  a message from God

the divine Logos

the glorious wisdom from above

   He was not a bum, a rubby

but the Sidewalk Sage

  the Pavement Prophet

in proclamations he gave the Message of the Lord

  to these jaded ears.

He spoke with words no one heard

  but he spoke with thunder

not yelling or screaming

  but with the Presence

He eyes seared straight to the soul

  his finger pointed at the heart

and then

as sudden as the words started

  he stopped and dropped his arm

it was over

   the Message was given

 his silence the benediction

     that brought the encounter to an end.

 

-3-

 

The Handmaiden of the Lord

  stands on road beside the curve

She wears a leather mini, fishnet stockings and thigh high boots

her expression is blank

as she stands there with arm out and thumb up

   she knows all see her and know

what's she's doing

   but she must

She makes her silent prayer

   that no one but the right one comes along

 then a car honks its horn and a couple of kids

from the suburbs say something rude

  Their message 'skank', 'slut' is thrown at her face

She rolls her eyes and ignores them

  refusing to break the silent meditation that surrounds her soul

she mediates on

  the next john, the next fix, the next hit

 she prays for

   a soft pillow to lay her head, to take her tears

and eight hours of peace in this world of hate

  she prays

  the next guy won't be a creep, or a perv

and demand those things she hates to do.

   she prays he won't kill her and throw her body in the dumpster

 she prays

 the next john will be a nice guy

  perhaps take her to supper and give her some money

with no demands or strings

  just a hour of fun

     she prays and waits

for the will of the Lord

  to lead her way.

 

 

-4-

 

Each bucket contains

   the Water of Life

the ministration of Grace

  for the Communion of the Saints

to be splashed on each window

  of the willing supplicant

 Squeegee Girl walks between each car

and seeks to give these elements divine

  and offers to the glass and soul

the water and Sponge to clean and cleanse

  both article and occupant of the cars that idle

 

I sit on my bike and wait as well

  no glass calls for her presence

and I here her speak

  'these freaks aren't interested'

and her look is disappointment

 for she knows with each motion of sponge

  the blessing of God will come

she comes near and i dig out a loonie

  and hand it to her

  'nothing to wash' I say

'but give me your blessing, and I'll be on my way'

  she smiles and pockets my gift

and I leave

  filled with the knowledge

of her blessing.

 

Paul Gilbert was born, raised and educated in Windsor Ontario.  Since then he has lived in three provinces and a number of communities.  He currently lives and works in Essex Ontario. He edits the online journal Above Ground Testing.

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Philip Hammial

Australia

MAID

 

A maid what I need

for the rough road home. To serve

as a foil to a fool with a fear. Fear

of the vision rods & the conditional make

 

of a mouth cropped past

all tense. Unjustified

this complaint? It’s just

that just once I’d like to drive

 

my share of chariot, no wheeze, no shiver

for the true & private as I thunder

through a country in unsacred

 

congregation, telling death

to myself, a maid to pamper the leach

& lurch of a mortality funk.

 

Woodford

December 31, 2006

pms1206

 

Philip Hammial has had twenty collections of poetry published, two of which, Bread and In the Year of Our Lord Slaughter's Children, were short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize. He was the Australian guest for FIPTR in 2004 & edited “25 Poetes Australiens” (EDF).

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Jill Jones

Australia

What's coming next

 

 

 

We are coughing because the train is late. 

Someone still wears a volunteer's uniform. 

 

The tabloids have all had coupons torn from them. 

Maybe it's easier to focus on cloudy days. 

 

No use worrying, the results are in. 

Do dreams stand up in the slashing gravel? 

 

An expensive perfume arising out of damp air. 

There's the smell of a fire sale. 

 

An age is coming of slow intrinsic diseases. 

No matter how long he stares at the map, the carriage falters. 

 

What worked then and what's working now? 

Equivalence is in the magic. 

 

In the glass is another world. 

You can bare silence and find it neither golden nor clear. 

 

If today is streaky, tomorrow will be unreasonable. 

There's a long street where leaves are tipped red. 

 

The peace gets more anxious. 

'For sale' signs are out, stapled on plywood. 

 

Pages of legal clauses have upset the momentum of speech. 

Functionaries run towards the rain with buckets. 

 

There's something damp at the foot of the columns. 

Effort is required but less smoke, please. 

 

All bets are off. 

You have to go through it. 

 

Summer is a long one. 

I'm jazzed in loved lawn.

 

Previously published in Papertiger. Jill Jones' latest book is Broken/Open (Salt, 2005), which was  shortlisted for both The Age Poetry Book of the Year in 2005 and the  Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in 2006. She won the Kenneth Slessor Prize  in 2003 for her fourth full-length book, Screens Jets Heaven, and has  collaborated with photographer Annette Willis on a number of projects. She is the Australian guest at FIPTR for 2007. http://rubystreet.blogspot.com/

 

 

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Marcel Labine

Quebec, Canada

Poems from Le Pas Gagné  (Éditions Les Herbes Rouges, 2005)

 

Nous sommes en vie, simultanément, de tous nos organes à la fois,

partagés entre le hasard des bêtes, de la botanique et des pierres.

 

Nous sommes des croisements, des chocs improbables entre des lettres

désassorties et des lois inconnues, par-delà toute poésie.

 

La prose de nos vers est inimaginable, elle oscille et vibre comme nous,

Sans que nous ne sachions l’exacte nom de sa fréquence.

 

 

 

 

We are alive, simultaneously, with all our organs at the time, torn between

the hazard of animals, botany and stones.

 

We are some crossbreedings, unlikely shocks between unmatching

letters and unknown rules, beyond all poetry.

 

The prose of our verses is unimaginable, its oscillates and vibrates,

like us not knowing the exact name of its frequency.

 

 

                                                                                                                          (page 171)

 


 

 

Le monde entre dans le poème une syllabe à la fois et puis se perd sous

vos yeux dans les entrelacs d’une ballade ou d’un sonnet.

 

Les mots des livres verticaux devant vous, sur ces rayons qui vous

entourent, ne sont que la dernière métamorphose de la réalité.

 

Et vous êtes là, calme et tranquille, livré à la contemplation de la

démesure de la poésie, tissée à même les entrailles de la langue.

 

 

 

 

World is going in the poem one syllable at the time and then is getting lost

under your eyes in the interlacings of a ballad or sonnet.

 

Words of upright books in front of you, upon those shelves surrounding

you, are only the last metamorphosis of reality.

 

And you are there, calm and quiet, contemplating the immoderation

of poetry woven from the bowels of language.

 

 

                                                                                                                          (page 172)

 

Marcel Labine was born in Montreal in 1948. Since 1975 he has authored 14 books of poems and 1 essay on the American novel. In 1987, he won the Governor General’s Literay Award, category Poetry for his book Epidemia Papers (Papiers d’Épidémie). Last year,  he was the winner of the FIPTR Grand Prize for his book The Won Footstep  (Le Pas Gagné).

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Martin Langford

Australia

Greys

 

There should be a word for subtle

beyond the clumsiness of categories. I am thinking

of the silver-, black- and buff-inflected greys

of a nondescript country of bloodwoods and apples,

geebung and silver-top ash; so nondescript

what gulfs of arrogance—it is almost invisible.

Just a copse, and then a copse, and then another.

There is no central grey to which others relate.

There is only an angled abundance of juxtapositions.

But cloud warmth is in them. They are at home

in sun, glinting and settled in spectra. They’re at home

in monstrous sheet-blue and in light, shifting airs.

Coded for dull, they are intricate, various, endless,

dishevelled, complete. Ochre and pale-yellow laminates

glow underneath them. Brilliant black tesserae

scroll them with fire-scars: flame-welts of charcoal

down cork-stubborn, low-relief ziggurats. More than

defined by, they grow out of weather: rain-swell

and wind-tug, regular sun-pressure thickenings; seasons

that summon and glide with the tremulous shadows-

and-lace of their noons.

 

If we must have a flag, these are the greys

I would have there: subtleties, plenitudes,

at home in vast, even light;

none more important than others, with no grey more visible;

space all around them, and through them, and on either side—

a welcome, without exclusivities;

a scuffed, twiggy opening you enter with every next step.

 

Martin Langford is the author of five poetry books, the most recent being Sensual Horizon (Five Islands, 2001). In 2004, he edited Ngara with John Muk Muk Burke, a companion volume to the Australian Poetry Festival. His most recent publication is Microtexts (Island, 2005) a book of aphorism and observation about poetics. He was the Australian guest poet at FIPTR in 2005.

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Dyane Léger
New Brunswick, Canada

Recollections

 

I learned how to speak with dogs

soft and low

on a night like the night of death.

 

I learned to howl with André Schmitz's dogs

parked "at the Ocean's edge with its terrifying voices,

at the outermost boundaries of a land, unable to flee any further."

 

I learned how to bark without making a sound

marking time

going round in circles

like the poet

aware

that I was condemning myself to eternal damnation.

 

Along with the last of the dogs

I'll die spent, my weary wandering come to an end.

Even then...

God - if He still exists

still won't understand

why I crushed the poem's skull

and not a drop of blood spilled out.

 

translated by Rachelle Renaud

From Like a Boxer in a Cathedral. Born in Notre-Dame de Kent in 1954, poet and painter, Dyane Léger has written and published six collections of poems and her work has appeared in literary reviews in Canada, Europe and the United States. Graines de fées was awarded the France-Acadie (1980) and Comme un boxeur dans une cathédrale was a finalist for the Estuaire Literary Prize (1996), while her paintings have been exhibited in the Maritimes, France and Eastern Europe.

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Erik Lindner
Netherlands

In the coming storm

the road becomes unpassable

 

barriers close behind us

hazard lights dim in front

 

a small roof window left

at the height of the dyke

 

the figure that sits there

ticks the table with a thimble

 

the child turns in sleep

the television plays mute

 

the corner of the fire escape

from the rear window

 

she puts the newspaper in the basket

leans on the back of the chair

 

counts the tiles up to the mat

the cork strip against the doorjamb

 

sings under her breathe

her fall makes a hole in snow

 

translated by Megan Keating

Erik Lindner, born 1968, wrote three books of poetry in his native Dutch: Tramontane (1996), Tong en trede (Tongue and thread, 2000) and Tafel (Table, 2004). He compiled the first anthology of contemporary Dutch poetry published in France: Le verre est un liquide lent (Farrago, 2003). For the Dutch radio he makes live reports about poetry and the place it has in society in different places, like Marseille, Montreal, Taipei and Tirana.
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Rufo Quintavalle
UK, France
 

Theories of Justice

 

It was after glue had been poured on the town

then lifted off like a gummy negative

that the folk went naked through the naked streets

to test the persistence of law in a world

where daylight showed no tact or history,

their shoulder blades, haunches and genital scraps

advancing in silence past the sandstone walls.

 
Rufo Quintavalle was born in London in 1978 and now lives in Paris after a three year spell in the American Midwest.  His work has appeared in such journals as The Wolf, MiPOesais, nthposition and elimae.  He is a poetry editor for the Paris-based literary magazine, Upstairs at Duroc. This poem first published in Barrow Street (Winter 2006). 
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Daniel Samoilovich

Argentina

EL HUET-HUET

 

La memoria, pensada como lluvia,

y la lluvia como cristal de aumento

sobre la letra apretada del paisaje.

O si no, el rumor del verso, dicho

con voz áspera aunque no audible

tras la pantalla de la mano izquierda

alargando las sílabas tónicas —acentos

sobre el trébol ya mojado, sobre

las piedritas del camino.

Transparencia; pero también

convexidad en el borde de las gotas:

como si el mundo en sus extremos tendiera

a ponerse de perfil, el placer

en su límite a la agonía.

Y a través de esa lluvia sin rachas

inverosímil en su perfección

cruza el parque, sonámbulo, el huet-huet.

 

 

 

THE HUET-HUET

 

Memory thought of as rain

and rain like a magnifying glass

over the small print of the landscape.

Or the murmur of verse, maybe, spoken

in tones harsh though inaudible

behind the left hand’s screen

lengthening vowels—accents placed

on clover already wet, on

the road’s pebbles.

Transparency, but also

convexity at the edge of the drops:

as if the world offered its outer edge

in profile, or the outer edge of pleasure

bordered on agony.

And through the even rain

unbelievably perfect

crossing the park, a sleepwalker,

the huet-huet.

 

The  huet-huet (Pteroptochos tarnii) is a bird of about 22 centimetres in height, with a loud and clear voice, but difficult to spot. It lives in the Araucanian forest, in the southern Andes between Argentina and Chile.

Translated by Julian Cooper

 

Daniel Samoilovich was born in Buenos Aires in 1949. He has published ten books of poems, among them Superficies Iluminadas, Madrid, 1996; El Carrito de Eneas (Buenos Aires-Rosario, 2003), Las Encantadas (Barcelona, 2004)). Samoilovich has won the Julio Cortázar Award of the Argentine Book Chamber (1997), the Leonardo Award of the Argentine Arts Museum (1999) and, as a translator, the World Theatre Award of the Ricardo Rojas Cultural Center of the University of Buenos Aires (2002). He has been a judge in several international prizes including those of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Argentina), Casa de las Américas (Cuba) and Caupolicán Ovalles (Mérida, Venezuela). Since 1986 he has published the Buenos Aires quarterly magazine Diario de Poesía.

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Paul Savoie

Ontario, Canada

There is a climb 

she says 

a way to move your body 

so the cliff simply punctuates the horizon 

a way to reach the path 

The escarpment 

in each sighting 

cradles your skin 

with currents of scent and longing 

You wear the landscape 

the way dancers shed their skin 

in the variegated glare 

 

There is a shift 

she says 

a stripping of bark 

an aperture between walls of shadow 

embers of light in open palms 

an embrace as when wind curls around a fallen leaf 

 

There is the place 

she says 

you lean into the blue 

so far into the diaphanous glare 

you tilt the empty space 

in the direction of a single word 

parted lips in the act of unfolding 

Curtains flap outward 

gather muted voices 

into an utterance so distilled and pure 

the unsuspecting bird of prey 

passing along its edges 

gathers you into its breath 

 

its flight 

to the farthest reaches 

of your gaze 

 

From Fishing for Light (Black Moss Press). Paul Savoie was born on the Canadian Prairies. He has written close to 30 books in every

literary genre, both in French and in English. He also composes music for piano, is passionate about film and travel.

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Lambert Schlechter

Luxemburg

REGLEMENTATION DES DECIBELS

 

Te donne pas des airs, ne vocalise pas, ne fais pas dans la tonitruance ni dans la gesticulation, te prononcer, ça tu peux, émettre des sons qui se conglomèrent en paroles & en bouts de phrases, ça tu peux, on te garantit pas une audience mais comme tous les autres, et ils sont nombreux, archinombreux, il s’en rajoute chaque jour, t’as pas idée combien ils sont nombreux et ça ne cesse d’augmenter sans cesse de jour en jour, et néanmoins malgré ces circonstances, cela c’est maintenu : comme tous les autres tu peux t’exprimer, il ne revient à personne de t’en donner la permission, la charge du donneur de parole n’est pas prévue, il n’y a aucune réglementation parce qu’aucune réglementation ni quantitativement ni qualitativement n’est pensable ni même envisageable dans cette urgence où nous sommes tout le temps, tu existes et par le seul fait d’exister t’as le droit de t’exprimer, avec la seule notable restriction comme nous l’avons notifié de ne pas tonitruer, parce que cela n’est pas supportable, parce qu’il y a toujours le danger que par  une sorte de contagion tous se mettent à tonitruer et c’est cela qui est insupportable pour la simple raison que, bien avant même que le premier se mette à tonitruer, une tonitruance virulente et fracassante est déjà à l’œuvre, incongrûment et fatalement, un assourdissant amoncellement de décibels, alors qu’il nous faudrait pour le bien de tous et avec l’assentiment spontané & primordial de tous, il faudrait des plages de calme et d’apaisement, il nous faudrait même et avant tout et sans prétextes et arguties, sans réserves ni privilèges, il nous faudrait avant tout et à l’exclusion de tout le reste, il nous faudrait le silence.


LE REFUSEUR DE MOTS

 

Il venait de Côme, assis sur son mulet, devant lui chevauchaient les compagnons, deux sur cheval, deux sur mulet, ils se dirigeaient vers le sud. Un soir dans les plaines du Brandebourg il s’était arrêté de parler. Il avait dit aux compagnons : J’ai tout dit, – et il se tut. Et passaient les nuits et les jours, ils traversèrent des dizaines de comtés, duchés & royaumes, innombrables péages, sous soleil et pluie et grêle et neige. Quand un mulet mourait ils en achetaient un autre, les chevaux étaient plus endurants ; ils burent vins & bières dans les auberges, et personne jamais ne voulait connaître ni la raison ni le but de leur voyage. A Augsbourg ils firent étape pendant une semaine, du vendredi au vendredi, les deux chevaux étaient morts, assassinés, ils achetèrent deux nouveaux chevaux. Et celui qui avait dit : J’ai tout dit, continuait à se taire. La veille du jour où ils atteignirent Augsbourg, il avait failli s’écrier : Demain Augsbourg !, mais n’en fit rien. C’était un renoncement. Et les compagnons, pendant le périple, après Augsbourg, firent beaucoup de commentaires sur ce renoncement, ce renoncement-là et tous les autres renoncements, pendant qu’ils cheminaient vers Innsbruck. Voyage vers le sud, vers Côme, puis plus loin que Côme, le plus loin possible vers le sud, peut-être que les mots allaient revenir, mais ils n’en savaient rien, peut-être qu’il fallait aller au sud du sud, jusqu’à la fin de la terre, jusqu’à la mer du sud, ils ne savaient pas si les mots allaient revenir, il fallait continuer à cheminer, jour après jour, eux devant, lui derrière, muet sur son mulet.


LA DEDICACE DE THOMAS BERNHARD

 

Pas de hâte, pas de précipitation, non c’è fretta, ‘s hat keine Eile, nous avons le temps, rien ne presse, plus rien ne doit presser, ce sont des injonctions qui viennent, toutes seules, fermes, sans se presser, laissons faire laissons venir, le temps, pour le moment, ne compte pas. Je suis assis à côté de Thomas Bernhard devant une espèce de meuble-secrétaire qui est en même temps une sorte de hammerklavier, Thomas examine le texte d’un cahier posé comme une partition au-dessus des touches de faux ivoire ; il me montre un mot dans le texte (écrit en français) et me demande s’il est au féminin, il semble qu’il ait besoin de savoir cela, sans doute en vue d’une dédicace qu’il s’apprête à faire. Je suis tout chamboulé qu’il ait encore eu le temps et l’occasion de venir me voir, de passer cette après-midi chez moi, dans ma maison au bord de la rivière qui dehors devant la fenêtre coule coule. Thomas est de bonne humeur, détendu, souriant même, il est content d’être là, comment se fait-il que…si peu de temps avant de… avant de…, et j’hésite, fais des calculs, cherche dans le déroulement des jours, trouver le jour, trouver la brèche dans le temps, si peu de temps avant que…, avant que… Il est assis à ma gauche, porte son chandail gris-vert en laine, chic & chaud ; il examine le texte et me pose cette question à propos du féminin d’un mot écrit à la marge du manuscrit, et moi je suis chamboulé de bonheur qu’il soit venu, qu’il ait pu venir, qu’il soit là, calme, à l’abri, chez moi, bonheur précaire & menacé, puisque dans ma tête je cherche à situer ce jour, soudain plus rien ne compte que le temps…, comment avons-nous fait pour avoir, avant sa mort, encore le temps ?

 

REGULATION OF DECIBELS

 

Don't take on airs, don't vocalize, no more bellowing or gesticulation, express your opinion, that you can do, utter sounds that conglomerate into words & bits of phrases, that you can do, we can't guarantee you an audience but like everyone else, and they are numerous, extremely numerous, there are more every day, you can't imagine how numerous they are and increasingly increase from day to day, and yet despite these circumstances, this has kept up: like everybody else you can express yourself, it's nobody's role to give you permission, the job of granting permission to speak is not in the plans, there are no regulations, because no regulations, neither quantitatively nor qualitatively, would be thinkable or even conceivable in this omnipresent urgency, you exist and by that fact alone you have the right to express yourself, with the only notable restriction as we have notified earlier to not bellow, because that is intolerable, because there is always the danger that through some sort of contagion everyone will begin bellowing and that's what's unbearable, for the simple reason that, well before the first person begins to bellow, a virulent, ear-splitting bellowing is already at work, inappropriately and inevitably, a deafening accumulation of decibels, whereas we would need for the good of all and with the spontaneous & primordial agreement of all, we would need moments of calm and relief, we would even need above all and with no pretexts or quibbling, with no reserves or privileges, we would need above all and excluding everything else, we would need silence.

 

 

THE REFUSER OF WORDS

 

He came from Como, sitting on his mule, in front of him the companions were riding, two on horses, two on mules, they were heading south. One evening in the plains of Brandenburg, he had stopped talking. He had said to the companions: I've said it all, – and spoke no more. And nights and days passed by, they crossed dozens of earldoms, dukedoms & kingdoms, countless tollgates, under the sun and rain and hail and snow. When one mule died they bought another one, the horses were hardier; they drank wine & beer in the inns, and no one ever wanted to know the reasons for their journey, or its purpose. In Augsburg they stayed a week, from Friday to Friday, the two horses died, assassinated, they bought two new horses. And he who had said: I've said it all, was still silent. The day before they arrived in Augsburg, he almost cried out: Tomorrow Augsburg!, but he didn't. It was a renunciation. And the companions, during the journey, after Augsburg, talked a lot about this renunciation, this particular renunciation and all renunciations, while they rode on toward Innsbruck. A journey toward the south, toward Como, then beyond Como, as far as possible toward the south, perhaps the words were going to come back, but they didn't know, perhaps they should go on to the south of the south, continue on to the end of the earth, to the south sea, they didn't know if the words would come back, they had to continue to ride on, day after day, they leading the way, he following behind, silent on his mule.

 

 

THOMAS BERNHARD'S DEDICATION

 

No rush, no haste, non c'è fretta, 's hat keine Eile, we've got time, take it easy, nothing's urgent, these are the injunctions that come, of their own accord, all alone, firm, in no hurry, let them do as they please, let them come, time, for now, doesn't matter. I'm sitting next to Thomas Bernhard in front of some sort of wooden secretary that is also some kind of hammerklavier, Thomas examines the text in a notebook spread like a partition over the imitation ivory keys; he shows me a word in the text (written in French) and asks me if it is in the feminine, it seems he needs to know this, probably for a dedication he's getting ready to write. I'm deeply moved that he had the time and the occasion to come see me, to spend this afternoon with me, in my house near the river that in front of my window flows. Thomas is in a good mood, relaxed, even smiling, he's happy to be here, how is it that…such a short while ago before… before he…, and I hesitate, calculate, search in the passing of days, to find the day, find the breach in time, so short a time before…, before he… He's sitting to my left, with his gray-green sweater, stylish & warm; he examines the text and asks me this question about the feminine of a word written in the manuscript's margin, and me I'm so moved, so happy that he has come, that he could come, that he is here, calm, safe, in my house, precarious & endangered happiness, since in my head I'm trying to figure out the day, suddenly nothing matters but time… how did we manage, before his death, to still have time?

translation by Helen Rosfelder

 

 

¯
Carolyn Marie Souaid
Quebec, Canada
INUKSHUK
from "Snow Formations" (Signature Editions, 2002)
 
 
That brown speck on the tundra
that thing like lint
on a white dress,
that’s me.
Move a little closer.
 
Seems I’ve been here since the Vikings,
since way before you.
For years, I’ve watched the herds
come and go. The river.
 
I can certainly tell you a little something
about bearing up, stalwart. Resilient.
Unaffected by the rose moss
springing in a breeze,
 
the teardrop
clouds.
 
Let me tell you about the stone
will. How, even through the
poignant light of softer days
I go on, standing.
Visibly intact. Touch me,
and I fall apart.

 

Carolyn Marie Souaid is the author of four books of poetry, co-produced two major Montreal events : the Poetry-on-the-Buses Project (Poésie en mouvement)and Cirque des mots / Circus of Words, a multilingual cabaret of performance poetry. She received the David McKeen Award for SWIMMING INTO THE LIGHT in 1996. In 2006, NEIGES, a French translation of SNOW FORMATIONS, was published by Les Éditions Triptyque.

¯

 

Jacques Tornay

Switzerland

 

Nevertheless

 

We must surrender to words in a softly sung contentment,

               lips half-closed, without any abruptness,

be to ourselves like a cat sits under the apple tree to follow

the gliding of the moon and bothers about nothing else.

 

But serenity is an inaccessible continent,

a train that doesn’t come, a broken down messiah, and we remain

standing up at crossroads, encumbered wth imprecise questions

and improbable answers, at pains to choose.

We nevertheless have a vast ingenuousness to invest

with the same dash and go as in those times when we were small.

 

We are conglomerates of molecules sacred

by the hope of an opening,

dreamers of unwalled promises.

One of our hands say goodbye to the sun turning behind

the mountain’s shoulder while the other welcomes the night

like we would a sister. Each word serves as a sesame.

There’s no useless gesture. The least fragment of an existence

is worth being retaken

and registered under the form of a rare pearl.

 

We nevertheless discern those moments dipped into the Absolute

               that are given to us.

For a start, let’s not close anymore those circles we draw

on paper, on beaches, in the air or anywhere.

 

An author of 24 titles, Tornay has a keen interest in parallel, or marginal press.

¯

 

 Hyam Yared

Lebanon

 

38 

 

I couldn't cut through water

with my reflection. 

 

My wound in my reflection.

my reflection in my wound.

 

My wound is healed by water.  

Unrippable faces. 

 

 

39 

 

You cross the tunnel of my body,

a forest set ablaze by its own fire. There

do you find more embers than in my eyes,

more life than in a dead leaf? A journey

between sky and clay: too many worlds

between me and my body. An odyssey of hands

stretching further than water. 

 

 

49 

 

My finest hymen. Abandon. A way

To your other side

 

 

Translated by Richard Burns and Melanie Rein, from “Blessures de 'eau....The Wounds of Water”

 

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¯

Special thanks to the AUSTRALIA COUNCIL and ALLIANCE FRANCAISE SYDNEY 
for enabling my attendance and the translation of work for readings at the 2006 festival.

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

APC is an occasional anthology.

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AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION

#13

SYDNEY

 
The NSW Writers’ Centre has proven itself over decades to be a fertile nursery for new and developing writers. 
This is a selection from some of those attending a workshop in August 2007.
 
NSW Writers' Centre
 

FEATURING: Robyn Edwards, Tim Entwisle, Penelope Evans, Sonia Hunt,

Suzanne May and Marian Waller

 
 

PREVIOUS ISSUES

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Robyn Edwards

 

Bondi Dreaming

 

Big ladies, middle ladies, thin ladies

All bouncing over and under waves, all bounding, entering

Hurling bodies through water, skin peeling back ocean

Boundless ocean in body.

 

Large breasts, half breasts, skinny breasts

Bobbing on the sea, swinging, shifting, sitting, position is everything

Breasts waving, rubbing the soft ceiling of the sky

Ocean rhythm in body.

 

Old women, half-way women, young women

Ocean sprites run leaping through time,

Dusk falling, moon calling, water cooling

Ocean seasons in body.

 

Fine ladies, dreamy ladies, wicked ladies

Body surfing the cruising wave

Head down, arms fly, hands pull, legs muscle, body rockets

Ocean’s horizon, pirate’s heart.

 

Fresh girls, quiet girls, shy girls

Yelling, motioning, gesturing, waves fall like boomgates

The ocean listens to the footfall, the catcall, the young dance

Youthful again inside each new wave.

 

Black bodies, brown bodies, white bodies

Colour the sky, dive under oceans, through histories, 'round nations

Changing bodies, transforming oceans

The Dreaming is alive.

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Tim Entwisle

Eco-tourism


I ate a coconut crab once.
He was fifteen years old -
a fine specimen.

It is an endangered species
in many parts of the Pacific.

You can tell the gender of a crab
by the curvature of the under-shell
so I know he was a he.

He was presented to me in the afternoon
trussed with twists of grass,
caught by the local men
and brought to the proprietess of the resort
after I had placed an order.

Madame was of French descent,
had been born in New Caledonia,
and trained as a cordon bleu chef.

Her ingredients free-range,
her flying fox in red wine had been divine.

It was she who encouraged me;
she who sent out the hunters
to bring him back alive.

I am slightly sorry to say
there is no happy ending.

I ate him that evening.

But I do owe him something,
an epitaph:
He was most delicious!

¯

Penelope Evans

 

 

BOLERO FLAMENCO

 

 

Full house: slow rhythm

pumps seduction to the balcony.

 

 

Front stage, crushed velvet

billows gypsy flame.

 

 

Fans flutter ebony,

snap shut to tap Bolero accent

across pliant wrists.

 

 

Disciplined by net and scarlet petals

chignons glisten in the smouldering.

 

 

The Spaniard prowls,

bare torso ripples.Slick heels

gathering force, reverberate.

 

 

Spot-lit, Ravel unravels -  

sweat, kettle-drums, raw innuendo

saturate the air.

 

Maybe Antonio Gades is justified - 

culture has become a whore. 

 

  

Antonio Gades 1936-2004

A Spanish flamenco dancer & choreographer helped to popularise the art form on the international stage.

 

 

¯

Sonia Hunt

Footsteps


The agapantha sits purple
in the earthen vase
the peaches ripen
in the bowl
spilling the sides
with their perfume
Footsteps
from the bush
fade as the door shuts
the clock ticks
in the foot's step.

Through the window
white limbs shine
on the moonlight
I hold the coffee
in my cup
and the wind ripples
laughter floats
on the surface
of this completely still
and ordinary
ordinary night

 

¯

Suzanne May

THE GLAD EYE

 

 

 

 

 Sideways peek.

green eyes intent

rogueish interest

 gratified with an answering spark

perhaps a naughty wink

would a saucy alluring glance

bring a response

considered carefully

unwilling to give direct invitation

only flattering curiosity

langorous dropped gaze

 tilt of chin

slowly lifted brow

finally achieved the

sensuous

seductive

inviting

mischievous

look she sought

so

 

turned her back to the mirror

sauntered to the ballroom

ready

 

¯

 

Marian Waller

Stonemason’s Alley, Mahabalipuram

Wheezing, wincing at the dusty glare,
bony shoulders straining
with his load, the ageing cutter hauls
his lurching tray of rough hewn stone into the lane.
He’s on the home stretch now.

At least he’s almost there, until
his cargo teeters as he swerves
an instant for a passing cow.
Relieved at last to let the wooden cart arms drop,
he halts in time.

Nervously watching for the foreman’s curse,
he mops his grimy brow.
Stands and wavers, waits to catch his breath
by a stall piled with iridescent spices,
while a clamour of lean dogs spin,
pirouette and yelp, mad in the choking air
for scraps.

Hears now ahead, as everyday,
the fellowship of dusty ghosts creating song,
the steady chink chink chink of steel on stone,
as side by side, corralled in cluttered workshops
down this lane,
squatting on stools or mats in fields of dirt,
the powdery craftsmen
tease out crowds of gleaming
gods from soapstone.

Some see the old man standing
breathless by the lurid stall.
They turn back grimly to their art,
willing him not to fall.

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AUSTRALIAN POETRY

COLLABORATION

#14

SYDNEY
 
 

FEATURING: Susan Adams, Monica Dennison, rhonda w rice, Marion Tracy, Lyn Vellins

 

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Susan Adams

 

BLUE, BLUE

 

 

 

Where did it come from?

      you know

this day that bleeds your heart

the breath you don't exhale

where the day takes a gulp

      and forgets to swallow

      and wide-eyed

      looks at me.

 

It hangs, in its hanging,

                                                                                 its clarity

                                                              straightens me out

                                                              and I hang too.

 

                                                     The hallow-ed

                                                               halo-ed

                                                               hello-ed light

                                                    shaves my soul.

                                                    Exquisite pricks of light on nerves

                                          extend this pinch of time

                                                               to mine.

 

 

 

 

WAIL

An abandoned calf whale starves in Sydney Harbour

 

 

 

As the whale calf sucks

the yacht hull for surrogate nurture

I suck the air around me

and also starve.

 

We are both malnourished, our life extenuated

by our hopes for succour

but defied by the falsity

it takes to survive.

 

As the cuckoo in the currawongs nest

we are out of place

hunger drives us on our search

lives as bleak, our outcomes poor;

for life that’s starved cannot be brave

this truth is knocking on our graves

as weakness robs our strength to strive

both succumb to man’s decide.

 

Don’t huddle to the boat dear whale

Don’t graft to the shape of the mother you know

Don’t break my heart watching you, wanting it so.

¯

 

Monica Dennison

Rebel Ranger

 

 

Today I caught the bloody galah,

parrot-faced, white-capped, round head, cavalier

rider of the skies, below her tepid air.

 

And planing left there, how she

flapped her fat wings, shrieked

her right to be heard, to squawk her dismay

flap her outrage, display her plumage,

rule her domain, demand justice and place

in the avian race, and a part in

the celestial, cacaphonic, symphonic scheme of things.

 

My heart got a hiding,

stirred for this bird.

 

Galah, what a name, what a shame,

you who liven the skies and flash a pink breast,

who hop, dart, glide with the best.

You may flutter and scrounge, drop heaps of gunge,

but I love the jouissance, the cheeky come-uppance,

those chats on the power-poles, that noisy defiance

of all decorum and grace oft ascribed to your race,

I love your grey wings, rebel spirit.

 

Let me salute you dear bird

and make deep-down space

for a bird of such art.

 

You cheeky bloody bastard!

 

Bedouin Blues

 

 

He sat with camels in his eyes,

swarthy,

rusty beard,

thick hair a cap on head,

a heavy blanket of a wrap around his wiry body,

his gaze elsewhere.

 

He stared into the street,

an untouched cappuccino,

frothed and sprinkled, at his side.

 

I waited for three kebabs.

 

He sat unmoved.

Camels, sand, a far-off land

had him in thrall;

trim khaki pants and polished shoes

a concession to the foreign place

where space and time

had left him stranded,

tribe scattered, life disbanded.

A suburban street,

the snarl of cars

no place for one who used to own

an open sky, a desert reach,

a fragrant oasis the only breach

in a long day’s journey into space.

 

And still he gazed.

 

¯

 

rhonda w rice

skittling

  

I want to flit across the stars

dance on flecks of ocean foam

ride the rainbow’s endless arc

skip on wings of silver flame

 

want to taste the soulfulness

as lovers kiss their last goodbyes

hear the silent echoed sounds

of whispers carried on the breeze

 

so I stand and greet the storm

in slow embrace arms opened wide

let the raindrops kiss my face

draw the turbulence inside

 

then for this brief ecstatic time

I claim infinity as mine

 

stranger on a train

 

i saw her cry

her cheeks were etched by tears

i heard the heartache in her voice

wanted to hold her near

 

what hidden anguish

caused her trembling hand

i wondered what was hurting her

wanted to understand

 

her wounded soul

was somehow reaching out

i felt her pain

that lonely stranger

on a crowded train

¯

Marion Tracy

 

Alien Abductee

 

 

1.             marker memories         

 

 

SITUATION:  An abductee is strapped down in the space ship.

 

 

Alien 1.  Push that probe in deeper and we’ll down load its brain pictures.                           We could clone them for the next Toy Fair.

 

Alien 2. That’s a good idea or we could freeze dry them for Kiddies Carnival bonanza goodie bags. Here goes;

 

 

A stocky female in uniform, on TV, is holding one end of a lead attached to the neck of a comical bare body exposed on the floor.

An ethnic group is efficiently stored in the form of organised lines, on TV, of skulls in a cave.

A naked girl with an open mouth is running into the camera; her skin is falling off her body in an interesting shape.

Something is puncturing a tower so it bulges and flares red smoke, on TV, and tiny black dots fall from windows.

Ropes are pulling down an image; people shout as the statue comes apart.

A large machine, in a big square, is moving its nose about, on TV, following the steps of one man.

A vulture is considering its next meal; in the photo it seems to be bony girl on sand for starters.

A  cloud is rising, on TV, with a  vegetable shape.

A man’s face is blurred sideways seems another man is about to press a small object to open up the side of his head.

 

Alien 1. Looks like we can make some real money here.

 

2.            alienation

 

 

SITUATION:   An abductee is strapped down in the seclusion room.

 

You’ve sucked all the images out of my mind.

I can’t breathe.

Thousands of mouths are full up with my screams.

 

 

          LET ME OUT       No more plastic gloves and probes

 

     MIND PLAYS TRICKS

                                              BLANKET OF FOG.    

   Fragile                Crying inside                    INVISIBLE

          CRASH AND BURN YOU DICK HEAD

 

              Frozen open                                 NOISES AND HANDS

              I NOTICE THE WEATHER INTENSELY

                                        

Too quick to judge        YOU SILLY BASTARD

                               UP UP AND AWAY     My glass heart

THE LID HAS COME COMPLETELY     off

 

          TURN TO THE   FUCKING WALL

¯

Lyn Vellins

 

Airbound

 

all day I have heard

words feather the air

around me,

 

disconnected moments,

thin as a hair’s shadow.

 

In sleep they reached me as

nimbussed breath

 

waking me with a light rain-touch—

an old memory of you.

 

Perhaps their loss is

what is needed this hour—

 

as if orphaned syllables

had found a place to roost,

somewhere in

somewhere else.

 

Earthbound

for my father

 

At four, the spade was a treasured plaything -

bright and brilliant yellow –

like the lemons on your favourite tree.

 

Our foreheads bent together in the blue shell

We tunneled and dug

 

until we reached Africa

where we ran laughing with the wild dogs.

 

At the beach,

the spade ruptured the air

as it swam over the burning sand

 

eventually

finding the spring within -

bringing

much needed water

to the drip castles

filling the new wells and dams

and bringing life to the horses

 

In our garden of sweat and toil

the well-worn spade

turned the hessian blanket of earth

so we could plant the seeds

from which our life together

bloomed -

 

Today,

the sturdy grey spade

rained the first clod of earth

on the box in which you lay naked

 

and fell with a thud on my heart

 

I sank to my knees

the cold damp earth cheerless

 

lemons squeezed my eyes closed.

 

 

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AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION
#15
ADELAIDE & PERTH

 

FEATURING

from

PERTH

David Barnes, Andrew Burke, Martin Chambers, Liana Joy Christensen, Josephine Clarke, Suzanne Covich, Lynne DePeras,

Kevin Gillam, Helen Hagemann, Louise Helfgott, Patricia Johnson, Trisha Kotai-Ewers, Patricia Moffett, Anne Morgan,

Jeanette Nelson, Susan O’Brien, Virginia O'Keeffe, Glen Phillips, Marcella Polain, Flora Smith, Rose van Son,

Jayne Surry, Lyndal Vercoe & Julie Watts

 

 

from

ADELAIDE

Jude Aquilina, Christina Bell, Sharon Kernot, Kimberley Mann, Louise Nicholas, Amelia Walker & rob walker

 

 

 

¯¯¯

PERTH

 

 

David Barnes

in still places

………………st. john boys home

 

   it was on friday

i said i would be there

help, raid the storeroom

supplies.

 

   “i was caught creeping

                      in shadows.”

 

the cobwebs

of my mind– burn

the thud of discipline –

strikes.

 

i flew elsewhere

down indistinct fissures

away from consuming

claws;

 

   “in to the longed-for

              abyss–of– nonexistence.”

 

i was neither here

nor there

although my friends knew

where i was;

 

i did not see, feel, hear

rain beating against windows –

or the howling

wind.

 

infinite in

my childhood-mind

a phrase hammered within me. ---------

 

   “hey things

             are, as they are; it’s time.”

 

time to make your final run –

no more

walls.

 

after, there were

no more

Walls.

 

¯

Andrew Burke

Which artist painted that?

 

 

My pup scratches at the bottom drawer

of my desk, scratches and keeps

scratching, so much so

that I relent and pull the drawer

out. In it, rolled up tight,

is a sheet of butcher’s paper painted

in blues and greens, neo-realistic

if only we could read

the realism it is neo to. It is

our world, a detail thereof,

from the view and comprehension point

of a pre-school child, grandchild perhaps.

This is My View, it seems to say,

a clear view of where grass absorbs

sky, river meets ocean,

a disclosure one day for the ancients

in their dotage.

 

Chances are the artist attends school now

and learns more and more logic

and language skills each day. Still

ocean seeks grass, river reflects

sky. His poem about a truck

is illustrated and pinned on

the display board. In his poem

the truck carries things

and drives between shops, but

it has a disquietening element the author

will not change: his truck drives

north, it seeks North unerringly.

Teachers dismiss this as

a blemish, Father wants to know

how the truck will ever return to base,

and Mother tousles his hair, saying,

He’s just a boy, he’s just a boy.

Grandpa bends down to ask,

Do you want to be a truckdriver

when you grow up? No, he shakes

his head, a scientist, only

a scientist. Can’t they see that?

 

¯

Martin Chambers

Thousands protest global warming

 

I saw a picture, on the internet,

Thousands protest global warming.

Snowmen was all it was,

their carrot noses and downturned eyes

Accusingly,

Accusing ME!

‘Do something’ I yelled back.

‘You’re going to melt.’

But they had no ears.

What kind of fool made them,

that cannot hear the warning?

¯

Liana Joy Christensen

Imp Spinning

 

The thing is, you see, I’m no princess-to-be

you won’t catch menopausal me easily

with your devil’s deals

 

I’ll do what I must

trapped in this barn

dust motes glitter briefly

as each afternoon the door cranks open

just enough to admit the forklift carrying

forms, forms, forms

 

You expected donkeys?

This is the 21st century!

Still the central facts stay static

say, a woman in a barn labouring

against impossible odds to produce

the expected miracle

 

Alone in a barn

in despair

the air grows ever drier

the towers of silent paperwork attract

vultures that fastidiously eviscerate sleep

a sinewy thread of dream dangles

from the lammergeyer’s beak

 

while in the furthest reaches of nightmare

forms perform unspeakable acts

with white trash junkmail

spawning triplicates

 

Chaos

Entropy

               Death

 

who from birth defy their  Father Bureaucracy

 

I’ve been around a time or two

so it’s no surprise when

right on cue the imp appears

and with a flourish bows low

 

“Alzheimer’s at your service”

 

Now here’s a new twist

The imp shrugs theatrically

“Rumplestiltskin’s strictly for entry. 

Me I work with exits. 

The deal’s the same either way”

 

I sigh and sign

then together we make a wheel of words

and spin

and spin

and spin

the forms into gold.

¯

Josephine Clarke

Returning to Chudalup

 

karri trees

drip wet light

draw a veil over me

 

yellow leaves

lost pieces of stained glass

stud the path

 

leaf litter

musty sanctuary

calling past winters

 

the canopy thins 

granite waits   

beneath an overcast sky

 

I climb the time worn dome

breath rushes

 

I am back at that place

where young lovers

carve their initials

in rock

 

love and stone

against each other

on a timeless covenant of landscape

¯

Suzanne Covich

The Man in the Moon, God, Hansel & Gretel

 

1

Too much, too small to

see it all back then. Now,

I take time to look and listen,

see the pictures framed clearly

as birds beyond these walls

sing me into my smallness where I

find, yet again, the lost, the broken

bits and begin to fit them together.

 

2

I dream of the Man in the Moon, the

little girl growing big too soon, growing

wings to fly along silver beams, the Moon Man

said, again and again, would hold me—

guide me safely through stars far beyond any sky,

my small eyes could see back then.

 

3

Grown men darken the house, the school,

the baker’s van. They stand, make shadows in the

corner of her room. She fights, talks to fish, cows,

to a God she cannot see and does not believe, will

lead her safely through the night. She runs, no

longer cowering down to wild bulls, no

longer fearing the dark swirling river.

 

4

She forgets, she blanks out, she’s lost the I,

finds it hard to string sentences together. She

dreams of motorbikes and Australia, curls up

like a child yet to be born, she screams

a scream her sisters help her to remember.

 

5

Split, silenced, alone, her dreams of escape, take

her too soon into the arms of a lover—pillar to

post, pillar to post, her world spins too fast for her.

 

6

Strong and unafraid, it’s the fishing she loves,

the family eventually together, safe sleeping in beds

in a house near the water. She’s proud to be

her mother’s helper and longs for new wings to

to free her from swings, to fly high, to plunge

into the bay to find mermaids to play with forever.

 

7

She’s Gretel. Big Hansel and Gretel, they

sail the seas, they love one another, travel to

new countries. Gretel learns to cook, clean, sew and

get over her resistance to aprons and kitchens. She’s

the mother, the unquestioning, child mother, silent and

ashamed, so very unlike the Mary she played at Xmas in

schools where she once dressed in blue to sing Lullaby and

Goodnight with a heart open to boundless opportunities.

 

8

Patterns, attracted to opposites, we think, but

deep down, the sameness sinks in as too much

wine settles the desire to run into stories that

once comforted her. She’s alone, terribly alone, and

in the silence, dark, drunken silence, she reaches out

with words that connect to something other.

¯

Lynne DePeras

The England-Australia Thing

 

It isn’t possible to know what your country is like

Except for that first second’s glimpse

At the touching on tarmac

Over the wing

Of the plane returning you from the ancestral place

 

Scrub, the first second’s glimpse of it

Scrub growing out of grey sand

By the tarmac

Scrub low

As the hills look low, low as the new-built airport terminal

 

Sun beats on the wing of your plane still turning

On heated tarmac

And on faces waiting.

Beats out of you all love of sun

Sun dries the heart out, beats on skin

 

Beats on the silvered skin of the car you’re in

Speeding witlessly

Past architected buildings

 

In the car the cottoned bodies talk of beach-white sand

Your mind is here

But the feeling in you lags behind

In a distant rain deep land

¯

Kevin Gillam

a crooked eye

 

as I wash me in you

the clock fibs, night folds while

you hover, watch me in you

 

the light antique now,

lemoned at the edges

as I wash me in you

 

moths are drunken deckhands,

jigging, stopping only as

you hover, watch me in you

 

if you were to run fingers

but no, no maps, too soon

as I wash me in you

 

two notes from mopoke drip,

break the meniscus of thought

while you hover, watch me in you

 

and the moon casts a crooked eye

over the imagined

as I wash me in you,

as you hover, watch me in you

 

 

¯

Helen Hagemann

Salt-filled Memories

for Edith and John Sydenham

 

Grandfather got sick of hiring Bullions’ boats. From a photograph gone to rust, he says, ‘All summer, the crowd took them at dawn.’ I can picture him standing around bailing his own, that fine piece of hardwood he rowed and baited in, exploding estuary and bay with a waist logic of anchor and chain. My grandmother stashed Sunday leftovers on the best plank, away from the sun and mop of wave. I reflect on her life, knowing nothing of his, only they grew closer in ‘42, fishing for hours until the moon paled over Saratoga, or the whiting skittered to the lighthouse past Box Head. He died there in the boat as the light twirled silver, as the rip deepened, as the bream paced his line, as the briny sea opened its mouth. I remember the lawn hanky at my grandmother’s nose, wondering how she faced the agony of oars. In khaki shorts, Wellington boots dressed for bagging worms, the snapper run, the point’s salt-filled memory, she unravels the lines of her mouth. ‘I turned with the food, with a hot cup of tea, I saw him slumped, asleep.’ In the burning bay, slightly sweating hair, my grandmother placed a consideration of sunstroke in her hands, moistened his curling lip, as if he was not yet gone.

¯

Louise Helfgott

A Moment in Guangzhou

 

It’s five thirty

In Guangzhou,

Ten million people

Pour home

Into fengshui houses,

A typhoon of faces

Averted, as they flood

The underground stations

Where every moment

Trains hurtle to a thud.

 

Market alley ways

Conceal a roaring trade

In scorpions and snakes,

Covert police raid

Courtyards and delegations,

Dispersing congregations

Along with free thought,

In the distance

A thunderstorm breaks

Black rain clouds sight,

 

The silk road

Transformed to a bitumen freeway

Many years ago

The winds of history blew away

Dynasties of olympic proportions,

Gave way to industrial consortiums

That choke and smother,

While in mountainous enclaves

Villages split open by seismic forces

Tearing apart families, brother from brother,

 

At midnight

The lights turn off

A country shudders to a halt

In the hotel loft

The last departures and arrivals

Herald a new revival

Momentary hope,

At end of day

Peace descends, with the fog,

Ensuring a culture’s survival.

¯

                                                                                Patricia Johnson

you are walking

dim light drops from the doorway

Into the darkness of the passage.

dust motes hang in air

like flecks of colour that float in your eyes,

rain thrums on the roof

a soft coat of dampness settles on my skin

 reminding me of restless storms of long ago.

panes of glass rattle in their cages

and I am lonely and afraid

until I see

that you are walking toward me.

 

¯

Trisha Kotai-Ewers

On the veranda

(memories of Tom Collins House)

 

An island lapped by sound’s colours.

The red shriek of galahs, woven through

with a magpie’s clear yellow evening bell of song

punctuated by the maroon shot with brown

of barrackers’ yells as the Saturday game winds down

on the oval.

 

The faded wood of the veranda has morphed

into a tablecloth for today’s feast, as

Castello cheese, sundried tomatoes and chocolate

odour the air, to tempt me away from writing.

 

Once Mattie visited a group of poets

here on the veranda,

or so Allan assured us, all a-glitter with excitement.

 

I wonder if she stands here now, puzzled to see

a gaggle of writers, sitting on her veranda,

breathing in her creative space.

But after nearly sixty years, she must be

used to us by now.

¯

 

Patricia Moffett           

“A cold, hard, beautiful, cruel country,” he says.

 

He says

                She has a cold, hard, beautiful, cruel mind

He says

She is always cold to him

He says

He cannot understand, why?

He says

                She is hard, she never cries

                At sad films

He says

It is beautiful

Her mind that earns money

For him to spend

 

He says

She is cruel, unfeeling

He says

During a film scene

He says is pertinent to her

He says

No matter how hard he stares

To impress on her

The error of her ways

And to check that she has registered 

His reprimand

He says

                She never turns her head

He says

                She keeps her face impassive.

 

He does not know

                Inside, she is crying, crying, crying.

 

¯

Anne Morgan

BREAD UPON THE WATERS, LAKE JUALBUP

 

Tortoises crossing, the road signs caution;

An ancient shellback is hanging in the shallows,

bearing not the earth upon his shell

but a forest of algae.

Skinflaking.

                  Still.

                        Too still.

 

Black swans hold impossible asanas,

promenade in pairs,

or scroll the lake like Viking longboats.

A ragged stump of swan is dredging depths

where her floating mate is poled to shore.

 

We think botulism is killing them,

a council workman says, people feed them and they stay

instead of heading off to purer waters.

He buries five tortoises, puts crosses on their graves.

This man maintains the whale spume fountains,

tiles unruly edges, although the mortar

still preserves the graffiti,  fuck.

As if the wildlife needed a reminder.

In the shrubbing of that island,

swans brood away from human eyes.

Yet tortoises attack the cygnets.

Eat frail webbed legs.

 

Three girls hunker at the lake’s edge,

face-pierced adolescents, about your age,

chewing white bread rolls.

Eurasian coots skitter, red-eyed and mendicant,

leaving wakes of Pyrrhic victory.

Those girls have read the signs

but like you, have not yet learned

that charming waters can brew toxicity.

Summer’s glowering makes feathered bones.

It’s not just wildlife we can love to death.

 

¯

Jeanette Nelson

Gibb River Station

 

Dust moves like misty rain
A green frog
clings to the corrigated wall
then jumps
through humid air
and waits for rain

 

Pippa wets her paws

In the stainless steel bowl

after walking

on the Gibb River track

 

Wind stirs the warm moist air

School is in

Black eyes brighten as

rain drums on the roof

thunder shakes the clouds

“Deadly Miss”

 

The mob runs for cover

Dogs bark, cattle low

Rain catches the swirling dust

and turns it into mud.

¯

Susan O’Brien

The Send Off

 

 

Her garden flutters white,  

photographers stalk the stars,  

a rocket explodes midair.

 

stargazer now dancing with stars, 

death is a poet,

death is nearly always a poet.

 

Only the poem has to live first. 

¯

Virginia O'Keeffe

HIDING SIN IN FREMANTLE


   I
 
The wall curved a slight angle
patched and cemented,
convict hewn masonry
cutting  sky, blocking cloud
embracing the wires.
Only the guardbox incongruously perched
broke its breadth, 
snooped on the men beneath the wall.
 
Over Knutsford Street the wall's shadow throws itself
into the branches of scribbly gums
onto the veins of bull-nosed verandahs
fingers under floorboards of cottages
with limestone skirts, down lacy collars.
 
When workers lived in this street
did they lie awake and fear the men beyond the wall?
Perhaps they judged them harshly
or in the quiet rhythm of their lives
thought not of crims at all.
But when the death knell belled on the Freo breeze
Only then did they open their hearts and weep
for those behind the wall.
 
                      II
 
The bell of St Francis tinny on the breeze
chimes out four strokes on the hour.
Up Ord Street a musician
trombone bouncing, runs awkwardly
disappears through the wall.
Above the gaol no angels
just an avalanche of cloud
hanging.
 
Who does the musician blow his bones for?
Oom pa! Warders? Murderers ? Pa Pa Pa!
Who's the patron saint of prisoners
the lost and weak? Oom pa! Oom pa!
Certainly not St Francis
with his bell and braying sheep.
 
It seems Joshua has forsaken this wall.

¯

Glen Phillips

I SAW AN ECHIDNA

 

Once in wheatbelt bushland all alone

an echidna hid its head from me.

It crawled into a fallen hollow limb

from a whitegum on the woodland floor

 

and left its prickled back to face my

expected attack. Or whatever I’d do.

And you also? Did you have the thought

I might come crashing through your woods

 

when you’ve been busy day and night

working your heart out for your family?

Checked in my stride, I sense you seek

to hide your face from my reality.

 

I touch the sharp spines you raise

as you draw back. This whole landscape

makes you feel lonely perhaps. But I

am the intruder, foreigner in sacred place.

 

Should just think myself lucky, mate,

I was privileged to share your space

 

¯

Marcella Polain

The gate (or, consultation with a pain specialist)

 

 

All across this bayside suburb, jewels gleam from women like light.

Streets poach beneath banks of peppermint trees.

Carparks bloom against beds of roses.

I am whooshed to the appropriate floor in shining, scented machinery that speaks.

The receptionist bounces her cleavage between me and all the other contraptions.

 

You sat so close I could have touched you like you touched me, squeezed

my arms and legs, saying This muscle? And this? But there are rules.

 

Rule one:

You have soft, white inquisitor’s skin.

Your shirts are pale and fine as noon.

I watch your wide pink tongue behind

your long white teeth and

fumble through my own vocabulary.

When, finally, you ask why I became sick,

I feel your bite. Quick and

through to the smell of me.

The hot bewildered bone in my

speechless upturned hands.

 

Rule two:

I am at the gate.

My hands are useless at its mechanism.

On its other side, you – sentinel –

have narrowed your eyes like a sleepy horse I

once fed my lunchbox apple.

 

There should be tiny white spider orchids,

plump hands of purple-wanderer,

shy bobtails by the fence posts.

Paterson’s curse should be a striking knee-high purple sea.

You could snort your hot horse-breath into my hand.

I could stroke your neck, your long warm flank.

And you. You could mount me like the stallion you believe you are.

 

Rule three:

I watch your tongue, feel the holes in my face.

Search them for a password, a confession sweet enough for

you. To lick. And nibble. Lick and nibble, nip.

And open. Nip and open, unlock. Release.

Release me.

 

(First published in: Therapy like Fish: new and selected poems by Marcella Polain, 2008: John Leonard Press; Melbourne)

¯

Flora Smith

Where the birds were

 

 

They still ask what happened at the windmill.

As if someone drowned in a dam might resurface.

 

I do know the blades moved and he fell;

he fell at my feet. That was all.

 

Of the time before, I only remember the birds;

the windmill covered with them when we came

like a widow wrestling with a mourning bonnet.

 

They rose together, leaving me in the sun-

blind morning with a flash of black umbrella,

and him climbing the windmill.

 

When they found me, I kept asking about the birds.

I knew if I found the birds, that was where he would be.

¯

 

Rose van Son

Morning Sonata

 

he plays

harpsichord

sonata in D major

rolls notes with his eyes

prisms in his ears

pry music

 

in concert

trebles caress fingers

knit together

purl rows

 

takes her breath away

¯

Jayne Surry

A Valentine

 

I’m a designated carer,

$100 a fortnight

To care for my loved one.

We rarely talk of love –

But then we never did.

Love is in the action,

Doing for someone the things

He cannot do for himself.

It’s contrary to everything I believed once.

Last night I found half the contents of my freezer

On the kitchen floor abandoned there

When he went in search of ice.

Growth for me is not mentioning it,

Silently throwing the thawed contents away.

I used to say “Don’t you remember?”

But he doesn’t.

I repeat the same information

Sometimes three times in ten minutes.

I’m no saint

And sometimes it’s repeated through gritted teeth

Though he doesn’t seem to notice now.

I wonder how he feels.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

The journey must be terrifying.

My presence is necessary and non-negotiable.

Does he believe it’s love?

¯

Lyndal Vercoe

In the City of Glass

 

He listens to the compass of his soul

the needle-point inclines towards the East.

 

He listens to the patters of a pattern

beats which fall in circles

small repeats

untempered

like the mutter of a waterfall.

 

Like a wall of water falling

in continuum, incessant

 

water surging

sometimes ebbing

susurration

comfort to chambers of the heart.

 

Sounds like water spinning spiral columns.

These he calibrates until

his wall of water stands.

 

He sifts through sound

weighs it in the balance against Hesperus

strains out old excesses

shaking it in rhythm as the water falls

finds mute.

¯

Julie Watts

There's something wrong with the sky

 

though its a canvas unblemished and

blue

 

there's something wrong with the sky

though birds sail mildly

 

there's something wrong -

for the river

 

that smooth jade mirror

is broken

 

is khaki  

with black lapels on torn shoulder collars

 

there's something wrong with this oh so perfect sky

that peers calmly through the hand span of the oak

 

the river the river

jagged and splintering

 

under oblivious sky.

 

 

¯¯¯

ADELAIDE

Jude Aquilina

Bovidae capra

 

Goats will keep your blackberries

at bay, they said, just build

a little shed, for they feel the cold,

and let them graze your paddocks

clean.   They omitted to add

 

they're vertical creatures:

easy to see how they rose

to devil status, reaching up

on hind liegs to seize forbidden

leaves, fruits and laundry.

 

Yes, they'll eat your prickles

and weeds, but as cheese and greens

when they've cleaned out all the

gourmet feed, defoliated, deflowered

and devoured any trace of flora.

 

Fences are exercise hurdles;

gates, persistently nudged

till they budge and part to let

the herd into virgin pastures,

or the lolly shop of my pot plants.

 

They climb like Tom Sawyer

out along gnarled branches

to strip the ancient gum tree bare

all the while, they bleat and butt.

One by one we eat our mistakes.

¯

 

Christina Bell

Bodhisattva’s Reward

 

When your heart feels joy

it is enlivened, made beautiful.

 

Your growing peace births a formless, still mind

and loving kindness makes your soul brave.

 

Life sighs between endings and beginnings –

let go, let go, let go.

 

Priceless gems of wonder arise from this grace:

love in action, true forgiveness beyond understanding.

 

Such boldness embraces pain

turning fear into acceptance and doubt into certainty.

 

Each day brings chances to serve and be served –

lifetimes removed from your past limitation.

 

Softening daily, humming playfully

chortling at the deep happiness found within Nature’s love

 

your gifts shine brighter, your heat beats stronger

your will evolves into faith and light.

 

Whatever surrounds

love tempers might.

¯

Sharon Kernot

Mrs Brown

 

We like to have a few

me and my friend June

she comes over with her husband

she’s not young, like me she’s sixty-three

and we might have a bottle of Brown Brothers

just one

and then we’ll get carried away

and we’ll say –

Where’s Mrs Brown

Go and get us a Mrs Brown from the fridge –

and we’ll send the men out

while we talk and talk

and they roll their eyes

cos we might start laughing or crying

and the tears

oh God the tears

we cry and cry

but we’re happy

and we’ll drink every drop of Mrs Brown

that’s in the house

and then June and her husband’ll stay the night

you know cos they’ve drunk too much

to drive home

and the next day

oh God it’s terrible

we feel awful – really, really sick

but we love a drink we do

we love our Mrs Brown.

 

¯

Kimberley Mann

Shadow Lifters

 

Trees flex their muscles at dawn

Creak their backs in young winds

Trunks strain upwards to stretch

Stiff from the stillness of sleep

 

Warmed by slanting sunshine, as morning

Stretches long they begin the heavy work                                          

Of lifting all the black shadows slowly upwards  

 

Trees awesome silence stuns us

Watching their stillness we witness this sacred lifting skywards

They pull the shadows upwards until they are above their heads

Well muscled branches hold the shadows up, victorious

All weight & darkness held up for the count at noon 

 

For the decades of minutes this lasts, almost drowning in light

All trees lift themselves under invisible halos, are channels for energy

 

Following the brief chance to rest in even balance

A time of easy holding, the heaviness of the day weighs

Branches sigh with the heat and all this effort

Perfectly synchronized they begin their lowering act

Houdini, carefully, into a tunnel

Muscles fatigued, shaking but still in control

Afternoon is dangerous

 

All trees make this gradual semaphore 

For the landing of shadows, the grounding of shapes        

Trees alone have the ability to flatten

The world for sleep, for rest, simplicity

 

Very slowly, in full faith, each tree lets the shadows

Back down, belaying the woman, the man

Each of us, tidily to the ground, in increments

Lowering very gently with rope

Dark circles widening, tender hands to let them down

One by one – so as not to chip the crust of the earth

Or shock the animals & insects with the terrible thud

Of the impact

Of the absence

Of light. 

 

¯

 

Louise Nicholas

Isadora Duncan's breasts

 

Sometimes, one of them peeked above the parapet,

cocked a snook at the policeman in the wings

whose job it was to make sure they stayed on home detention.

 

At other times, aided and abetted by perishing elastic,

one of them would find itself, eye-to-astonished-eye,

with the audience.

 

And once or twice, awakened by murmurs

from the orchestra seats, and hoots of feigned disgust

from the gallery, the other breast joined it

 

and they swayed together, enjoying the rush of cool air

and feeling totally ‘at two’ with the music.

It never lasted long of course:

 

the policeman would return from a swig of bootleg,

and Isadora would gather up her twin Isadorables

and pop them back in the papoose of her Grecian tunic.

 

But there was one occasion, when an aging Isadora,

aggrieved by jeers of “fat old cow” and

“mutton dressed as lamb”,

 

ripped her tunic to the waist and invited her breasts,

blushing pink with pride, to take a deep and dangling bow.

“This,” she said, “this is beauty!”

 

¯

 

Amelia Walker

Tidal

 

Skin
against skin
against skin against
your skin, so smooth
and hot. I want nothing
but touching. You. Your skin, mine
stripped back. Skinless. Serpents. Dying. Being born.
Ripe. Raw. Sweaty. Sunset breaking, a blood egg
over reckless waters. Shadows of gold. Our tongues
laughing dolphins, surfing ripples of salt. Breaking
into fits of skinless. Breathing. Screaming
I want nothing but touching
you and your skin
against skin against
skin against
skin.

 

¯

rob walker

The Mouth

 

From the barrages we pad the dunes    crunch underfoot cockles on ancient middens

through teatree towards a distant roar. rollers dumping and foaming.                                     salt spray soft-focussing the scene so only the centre where you stand is sharp,           the edges shrouded.

A permapine line of pickets stakes a fort to keep the 4wds                           beyond the pale.

 

 

 

A world of white and shades of grey on this overcast day            Walk towards the River Murray Mouth and see no one else in three hours,    swallowed  as sandgrains in the vastness.

Beached sandcrabs, chalk bone of cuttlefish soaked in its own ink, kelp, oystershells worn to blackness and flat smooth palmsized stones for skimming         all in muted monochrome                          

 

 

Then the detritus of colour.

Shreds of polyrope in fluoro orange, blue, green. A manmade gaudiness of excess. Lids from shampoo bottles, a rubber ball, trash from passing ships. The disposable.

Always the                                        rumbling roar                                                           of wind and sea.

 

 

towards the Mouth, the wasteland. A string of orange pennants to mark soft edges. Expanse of sameness. A desert of bulldozed sand, homogenous, devoid of weed, pebbles, shells, ripples.                                                       Spinifex flashing curved needles of light in the wind The great black serpent of the dredge pipe                                          snaking over the dunes

 

 

The pipesnake shudders and heaves, throbs and pulses Press an ear to the peristalsis

and it whispers the word

silk

as black sludge passes through itself.

 

 

At the end the snake regurgitates black bilge and spews it swirling to the southern ocean, eroding away                                                                                                                               the last dune

The new Mouth of the mighty Murray             renamed 

Discharge Location A

 

 

(originally published in micromacro, Seaview Press, 2006)

 

 

 

¯

¯¯¯

 

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AUSTRALIAN POETRY
COLLABORATION

#16

ORANGE, COBAR, BROKEN HILL 
& MELBOURNE 
 

 

PREVIOUS ISSUES

 

NEED TO KNOW…

Sponsored by:

Countrylink, ArtsNSW, Broken Hill City Council, Broken Hill Regional Writers’ Centre, Cobar Shire Council,

Central West Libraries & Words Out West

 

 

 

 

FEATURING

from

OVERLOAD POETRY FESTIVAL MELBOURNE

Eddy Burger, Paulie Dada, Mekhala Dass, Helen Hagemann, Ahmed Hashim, jeltje, Sjaak de Jong, Michelle Leber, Debbie Lustig,

Kimberley Mann, Tasha Joy Miller, Graham Nunn, Lewis Scott, fee sievers & Jenny Toune

 

 

 

 

from

ORANGE, COBAR & BROKEN HILL

Diana Brooks, George Cole, Kim Core, Barbara De Franceschi, Kristene Smith, Marvis Sofield,

Jasmine Vidler & Ramon Ware

 

 

¯

¯¯¯

MELBOURNE

 

 

Eddy Burger

The people who yell from a long way away

 

 

 

single distant yeller:                                                                                                  Hello.

                                                  Hello.

                                                  I am a representative of the people who yell from a long way away.

                                                  [aside] Isn’t that right?

 

many distant yellers:        Yes.

 

single distant yeller:        And if you think I’m yelling now, listen to this:

                                                  [yelling louder] Now I’m really yelling, but I can’t yell this loud for very long because it takes too much energy.

                                                  [aside {normal yell}]      Isn’t that right?

 

many distant yellers:        Yes.

 

single distant yeller:        And now, the people who yell from a long way away would like to address you.

 

many distant yellers:        We, the people who yell from a long way away, are yelling from a long way away.

 

single distant yeller:        [aside] Thankyou.

                                                  And now, I’d like to introduce you to a representative of the people who whisper from very close by.

 

single close whisperer:    Hello.

                                                  Hello.

                                                  I am a representative of the people who whisper from very close by.

 

 

 

Previous publication: appeared as AV recording on Straight From The Tank DVD, by Red Lobster, Melbourne 2006.

¯

Paulie Dada

The Psychonaut.

He drinks of the chalice

To quench himself,

All that resides in the mind

Is in drought.

He imbibes to analyse

The actions of men.

As he empties his own libation

He plunges the depths

To fathom:

The essential questions.

Rumination and articulation

Help him to reveal

The true self.

The walls offer no riposte

And he has consumed

The only ear.

He swims in the epiphanies

That he owns.

He pontificates in the temple,

Discarding his consciousness

To the stream.

On the path to revelation

He is overloaded by wisdom.

Swallowed by the morass

He drowns in the solution.                                                         

¯

  Mekhala Dass

 

Helpless Witness

                      1

The moments even now pass by

Smiling sad farewells as they flitter downstream

And into the past

 

And though gently lamenting all the while

They mutely pull away from my naïve grasp

 

The clock plays on its relentless song

And the last languid cricket calls

 

Time has come wielding chains

And deaf to all shall not pause

For no soul can tame her

 

               11

 

I fail for one fathomless second to persuade

The dear moments to stay

 

I can only witness as they wane and fade

And hope the next to be as lenient

 

For the ways of Time are bitter and twisted

 

Intent

 

She carries her prisoners away

¯

Helen Hagemann

Fitzroy High School


The day after your arrival
is a high school reading.
We agree as poets it’s been a long time
between classes. Our eyes are pressed
in outward glances at closed doors,
the headmaster's office, a walk in the past.
Fear means we’ve survived school days,
a hijacked front seat, the less kind
at assembly, sports-day in F-team.
Yet here, school bags and lunch boxes
are full of tomorrow. It’s spring and everyone
is a new leaseholder in this estate. Waves
of purple-grey-cobalt assuage otherwise old red brick.
In the front office, a ceramic bowl, toilet paper

flowers, lighthearted verse; an assemblage
of nature prints as if this is an animal ready
to breakthrough from the past.

In the corridor there is friendly chatter,
boys swaying in sync, jovial song,
a guitar thrumming the air with every step.
Now we enter the sphere of year 8’s writing
prose, Year 10’s, pens on the Beats. Thank you −
Mr. Ginsberg − they hear your Howl.
Applause comes after our spill of words.
We wrestle the page in an attempt to hold them
in fierce syllables; gather enough faith
when James from Overload has them
in a rhythm of fountain pens. We uphill
shoulders, expiring breath from a ribcage
of doubt. ‘Is the struggle over to keep awake?’
‘Is poetry boring?’ Hands diminish in the count.
We pack up and go.
Unanswered questions remain.
At least, we concur, poetry has imprinted two hours
on young writers’ minds.

¯

Ahmed Hashim

Mouths

 

Homeless mouth

Asks for a volcano

to light his cigarette . 

 

Poet’s mouth

Said something at the stage

no one knows

where it’s gone .

 

Thief’s mouth

Said all

the truth …… upside down .

 

The truth’s mouth

Without

teeth . 

 

Killer’s mouth

I should have done that

a long time ago .

 

Victim’s mouth

You should have done that

a long time ago .

 

Girlfriend’s mouth

Honey

until

wedding

day .

 

 

Wife’s mouth
without it

the headache tablet factories

would shut down .

 

Boyfriend’s mouth

Promises beautiful lies

exactly

as life does .

 

Husband’s mouth

Concrete wall

after sex .

 

Baby’s mouth

Dad

Mum

what you have done .

 

Orphan’s mouth

Say nothing

the truth is clear

through his eyes

 

like a flood .

 

poor mouth

Thousands of idea in my pocket

to feed

world’s hungry .

 

War’s mouth

I am only an idea

came out of  a

leader’s head .

 

God’s mouth

Mankind waiting

…….

…….

…….

we can’t except
 all that silent .                                                  

¯

jeltje

She's going with the boys...

 

 

She's going with the boys, somewhere,

With the boys,

She's out there, somewhere, with the boys

Out there,

She's where the boys are: out there,

Somewhere, she's out there...

 

Picture me, with my sunglasses on:

Hi! How are you?

I'm somewhere, out there,

With my sunglasses on, the boys

Are always out there, somewhere,

Out there is somewhere,

 

I'm out there, somewhere at last!

 

We're altogether now, somewhere else,

Without a home to go to,

With the boys, with my sunglasses on,

Out here, with the boys,

We're really somewhere else!

 

Am I nowhere without the boys

At home, without her, somewhere

Out there without me, she's out there,

I'm here, she's there, she's out there,

Somewhere with the boys

Without a home to go to, I'm here,

I'm at home, here, without the boys,

In the home, without her.

¯

Sjaak de Jong

Samalanglied

Kalast mara  keeks rats
kella kella biram
Hakka stakka schiets beits
Stela zuips zwieram

Kalast mara  keeks rats
kella kella biram
Heida zeena liege meida
Kussa dansa gloram

Kalast mara  keeks rats
kella kella biram
Hiepa kada treela pada
zuipa hopsa gloram

Kalast mara  keeks rats
kella kella biram
zuipa  dansa zoona schranza
Russie carbonade

Kalast mara  keeks rats
kella kella biram
hopsa heiss gallop pada
oerang oerang oeta

Toesta flinka heeradama
Gama langa hiha
Steta glaza hiepa kada
hessa springa basta

Fratkas klaraskeeka rata
kola kola saram
Kieza knopta snorka dama
Lippa dronka oetang

Klassa riepa snorka dama
Kela hiepa kada
Hoora knoota siepa sepa
trouwa deeka basta !!!!

¯

Michelle Leber

LOVE−SLITHERS

You are alluvium; even the river desires you.                         

 

 How many ladders? The heart wants to know.                   

 

Love confession.  Fire alarm.  In that order.

 

The mistress.  A bird nest in her throat.                         

 

 Tenterhook dock. The way his voice ends a poem.

 

 

 

¯

Debbie Lustig

Work

 

No words only our breathing – two people

in a garage. Workbenched, love-bolted.

Quiet flits like wood dust. Rough surfaces

catch small sounds. My father and me,

constructing memories. He glues,

mixing resins with medical art. I carve

aluminium, butter-soft, young.

My vice holds a Chinese pictogram

with a promise of luck. I urge my fretsaw

carefully through the maze.

 

The tools are a language

he will teach me to speak:

screwdriver-hammer-longnosepliers

unused like spices, twinned

to the wall, shadowing themselves.

 

I coast on a lull, the air sawdust-spattered.

Soon, I will lose the Chinese pendant

and he will finish building a boat.

He will leave me with a brass fob-watch that

has stopped then

turn his attention to a project with no name.

¯

 

Kimberley Mann

Monday

 

I see

 

the butcher

switch on the flouro in his

red & silver room,

 

the baker

open the door for the smell

to be released

 

the fruit & veg man

push up his roller door

& stretch

 

On the bus

a woman wiggles off her wedding

ring & smiles

as she stares out of the window

¯

 

Tasha Joy Miller

Fernweh

 

He yearns to be free

He desires

To get out his boots

Tie the laces tight

 

Wrap wool scarf

Around thick neck

Step surely out the gate

And into the night

 

He knows not where he goes

Only that he must

Move through the extensive world

And travel

 

He aches in his chest

He feels, but he knows not what he feels

There is a word

He thinks

 

It hovers above him

Just out of reach

With the toe of his boot

He scuffs the dirt…

¯

Graham Nunn

Ocean Hearted

 

the house you live in
is built on tidal plain and farmer's field
flat as the world before civilisation

 

the land you walk is
below sea level, all oyster shell and mangrove root
patient fingers of wood holding their breath

 

you fix the horizon's shape
in your mind, its shimmering possibility
held between seagull and midday

 

the hot sting of sun on your neck
like a blade lifting skin
you're all blonde hair and blisters

 

you stop and clouds swim
like mullet into your pupil
for a moment you wonder why you are here

 

you left the house and walked towards the water
eyes shut, pulling away from shore
you heard the call

 

it sounded like ocean
you hear it now
swim harder, it says, swim harder

first published in Remark (USA)

¯

Lewis Scott

NOVEMBER 4, 2008 – THIS DAY IN HISTORY

 

I thought of family I had never met

I thought of family graves I had never knelt by or prayed over

I thought of family jumping into the Atlantic Ocean, sensing an even greater death at the end of the slave ship’s journey

I thought of “the door of no return” in the slave forts of Ghana

I thought of Little Rock Baptist Church, whose seed began under a pine tree and whose walls reverberate with the voices of call and response

I thought of Billie Holiday’s tree of Strange Fruit

I thought of Dr. King’s death in exchange for

“I have a dream”

I thought of the escaped slave Harriet Tubman: “you run with me or you die here”

I thought of cotton fields, with bent Black backs hauling sacks full of dreams

I thought of my father’s father and his father, who swallowed the word “boy” all their lives and saw the world through red eyes

I thought of my mother’s mother and her mother, whose washboard hands knew the dirt of humankind

I thought of the cutting knives in the word “nigger” when Black backs stood unbent

I thought of the hushed voices in the slave cabins: “you just keep on living, freedom goin’ come”

I thought of dead bones holding on to that belief

I thought of Black fingers quilting our stories

I thought of the Negro National Anthem,

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

I thought of Black music creating our sounds of piercing defiance

I thought of family who woke this day, dressed in the skin of Barack Hussein Obama

I heard this morning the slave song:

“you run until you find freedom”

¯

fee sievers

 

Audrey

 

She enters the room all frills

And cheap lace in a rush

Of excitement and flurry of hair

Air catching her skirt

 

Long before she arrives

The smell of mischief seeps

Through walls as he waits for 

Her to makes her appearance

 

The click of her heels on hard

Wood floors give her away

Every time but she feigns

Surprise at his surprise

 

To see her in the doorway

Every Friday night without fail

Same wine same smile

Same tick of the clock

 

Ah… Friday nights

The kids sleep at Grandmas

Audrey takes off all her hats

And finds herself again

¯

Jenny Toune

I think

 

about you with her              think

through nights tumbled over flesh

whipped by this persistent affliction

think with my guts 

churning some bizarre fantasy and

fantasise about not

thinking

think shallow pernicious

rumblings fed by misguided platitudes from friends

and lovers

 

how long will

/ are you still

/ it won't last

 

so I run with sex and anarchy - we're

looking for faith

but can only find disbelief

                                                             mounting fear

we try to cut in

but it's a cold party - fear

                                                             an icy lay

 

I watch anarchy and stoned love flirting

with consummation -  but they can't

                                                             keep it up

 

and nor could you - my love

 

my thinking is marred by my thoughts

I think

 

 

¯¯¯

BROKEN HILL

COBAR

ORANGE

¯

Diana Brooks

When love is like a fish

How difficult

the uneasy rub of egos.

I looked for her in the crowd, but

she vanished

like a fish

swimming along

the bottom of a pond.

 

Background of indigo and black.

The full moon in the car park;

powerlines

intersect and divide it,

connect and catch it.

 

My mind the moon,

caught in wires.

How difficult the uneasy

rub of moods and egos. 

It's easy not to flow: to push

at the wrong moment,

Mis-collide the spurs of meeting.

 

¯

George Cole

Thackaringa Breezes

As you meander through the ghostly Silver Town’s remains,

With its crumbling walls, pot holed roads and stunted trees.

Waterless bores, low grade ore, piled beside deserted claims,

With a lonely hotel door still open, with shingle swinging in the breeze.

Stately churches no longer preach and pray in holy hope.

As they play host to a master class from the Eastern suburbs,

Armed with brushes, pallets and oils, to create a kaleidoscope,

Of baker’s and butcher’s and shanty town pubs.

Beside the skeletal wall of German Charlie’s store,

There’s an ancient eerie gaol, with rusting broken locks,

Tumbledown sandstone blocks, and iron clad doors,

With rusted cuffs, and fractured wooden stocks.

A hempen rope with a grisly hangman’s knot,

Dangling from the stained and bloodied gibbet crop.

The gaping trapdoor the convict’s sorry lot,

Before the dreaded final six-foot drop.

A sagging stable roof, with doors ajar, on twisted hinge,

Iron horseshoes, curled and bent, with rusty nails still lay

Besides a blacksmith bellows, blackened, cracked and singed.

With ghostly remounts, saddled and cinched, ready for the fray.

If you listen to the lonely winds gently sighing,

Floating through the ghost gums with golden wattle weeping.

When you leave this ghostly town of broken buildings lying,

You’ll hear the whisper of the Thackaringa breezes softly begging.

“Please come back again.”

¯

Kim Core

Hate's Harvest's Habits

 
And he had the hide to say
we will
instead of
he will
 
decide
who will come into our
country
 
and we
the original boat people
kicked out and/or on the run
since time begun
 
and this world in this age
a motherless ship
with only the promise of talent in the
killing field
 
the curtain's drawn
O tear the veil in two
there's always a feast to feed
a few hungry few
 
and still the hunger
to see anything
 
to see a something
he never will
 
the only cross we cannot bear
is the one we cannot give up
 
we were made in His image
He made Himself in ours
 
teaching us how to belong
 
the first Master of Rhetoric
was the Serpent
in the Garden
 
he not only did it so well
he got away with it

 

¯

Barbara De Franceschi

Shadow Dancers

 

black on liquid white

movement in a sliding scale

sensuality/ obscure invitation

projections seen on the other side

entertain sleeping-pill feet

out for a good time

a climb

onto chairs

a slither

down a pole

safe from the gropers

the hot breaths

hormones hidden in a silhouette

gyrating into barroom poses

a working class wife

transvestite Chiquita

if tits are hard and bellies flat

they shoot the drifts

twist in suspenders

pleat inside themselves

to burn out their skint neighbourhoods

forget fat men picking their teeth

the moon that licks bare arse at midnight

and the stew

every day

for dinner

from “Strands” (Island, 2009)

 

¯

Kristene Smith

Life’s Struggle

 

I sit here alone

 and survey with disgust,

My life time’s work

now turned to dust.

 

It seems all evils

took their spite

on this weakened land,

leaving me in this plight.

 

Mice and locusts

ravaged the fields,

Then the rains failed to come

– my fate was sealed.

 

Temperatures rose, then  searing heat

saw bushfires next engulf the land.

All that stood within their paths

now lie black – a lifeless brand.

 

Once it seemed

that Mother Nature and I

could work as a team.

 The truth I see is far from that dream.

 

¯

Marvis Sofield

I am a sea creature

connections learned

under the weight of ocean

mirrored in the depth of sky

taught to swim

in salt water.

 

In my youth

the surfer boys

liked the black eyed

slink of me 

thick seaweed hair

drew them on.

 

In my fluid world

there was only

camouflage

and enticement

nothing languid

about the chase.

 

They thought me prey.

I let them.

 

 

I rise on dry land now

stamped by red dust

shake  ropes of air

that whip my gritty skin.

 

Under the weight of

other’s country

I pull myself to

my skull

a muddied widow’s cap

out here.

 

 

Again I stand

to swim. 

 

¯

 

Jasmine Vidler

A night out? No problem

 

Climb over eskies

feel for a bus seat

within a dark cabin polite introductions to all

we move into Highway traffic

pull in a friend’s head from an open window

 

singing begins

What do you do with a drunken sailor?”

no one, no one knows all the words

a token lap of the main

on the way to a performance

 

we find a long driveway to a farm, silence

lights glowing from distant city streets, luminous

sentinel trees grant us brief sanctuary, peace

 

one bloke pees, then another

 

finally arrive at the hall for country musical

eat, drink, laugh, sing, talk, gossip

the heckling begins;  a heave;  smell of vomit

others red with embarrassment

“Nah, there’s no problem officer”

 

“What do you do with a drunken sailor?”

take him home, the night is over

 

¯

Ramon Ware

 

Drive for Life

 

This is a true story. I have tried to write it as it was told to me by the man himself. Only the names have been changed.

 

At 60 something, Ben who had been on an invalid pension for a few years, was sitting in his favourite lounge chair enjoying the antics of two of his special little girls.  It was Sunday afternoon, time to relax and enjoy the grandchildren.

Ben stiffened as a searing pain ripped through his chest.­ Pain was no stranger to Ben but this was no ordinary pain.­ He called urgently to his daughter,

mother of the little girls and also a nurse,

"Jill, come with me,­ quickly!­ to the hospital."

"I'll just grab my shoes," Jill answered.  Hauling himself to his feet Ben shuffled through the door and out to the car.­ After crawling into the driver's seat he backed his car out onto the street.­ Jill was still in the house.­ Ben felt that his time was running out so  he took off without her.­ The hospital was 5 kms away and driving along he could feel the sides of the  road closing in.­ At the half way mark the two sides met and everything went black.­ The hospital was still two and a half kilometres away!

                                                                                                         

Ben gradually became aware of muffled, unfamiliar background noises.­ He opened his eyes to see the ceiling and walls of a strange room.­ A stranger smiled at him from alongside the bed.­

"Welcome back," the man said. "You've had us all worried.­ You have been asleep for a week.­ How do you feel?" 

"Where am I?" Ben asked and who are you?"

"You're in the Royal Adelaide Hospital and this is an intensive care unit," said the man.­ "I'm John Newton, your surgeon.­ You've been through a fairly severe ordeal. We were not sure we could save you but you've managed to beat the odds.­ We, that is you and I, have lots to talk about but that can wait 'til tomorrow.  Rest is more important."  He quickly left the room and a nurse appeared on the other side of the bed.

"Hello Mr Martin," she said with a friendly smile.­ "I'm Nurse Wilson, one of the team who has been looking after you for the past week.”

"Have I really been here a week?" Ben asked the nurse.

"Yes," she replied.­ "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't know, it's all very hazy.­ I'll have to work on it."

 

"Good idea but don't work too hard," she said.­ "Right now you need all

 

the rest you can get.­ It will come back as your strength returns. If you need me just press this button," she said, handing him the remote call ­button before moving out of sight.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

"Good morning Ben." Ben moved his face towards the sound. It was the surgeon as he came in next day.­ "How are you feeling today?"                                                                      

"Well...all right I suppose," answered Ben. ­"But I feel like I've been run over by a train." 

"Sounds like you're coming on fine," said Mr Newton.­ "Now tell me how did you get to the hospital?"  Ben looked puzzled.­

"This hospital?" He asked.­ "I don't know."

"No no, the Broken Hill hospital," Mr Newton corrected himself.

"I don't know that either," said Ben.­ "I can remember driving as far as the Westside School, that's about half way, then the sides of the road closed in and I blacked out.­ That's all I remember." 

"You remember driving the car?"

"Yes," answered Ben. "But only as far as I said."

"Well I'll tell you what I know," said Mr Newton.­ He then related the events as he had been informed, leading to the admission of Ben to RAH (Royal Adelaide Hospital). He told Ben how Sister McInnes of the Broken Hill Hospital had just exited the main door en route to the Kiosk when she noticed a car driving in an erratic manner as it entered the hospital grounds.­ She stood anchored to the spot as the car approached the main entrance swerving from side to side, with the driver slumped over the steering wheel either drunk or unconscious!  The car mounted the kerb and stopped just before hitting the hospital wall.­

The driver switched off the engine, opened the door and fell out into the waiting arms of Sister McInnes who had quickly sized up the situation and raced to help.  She had broken his fall but was powerless to move him.­ He was no light weight with a heavily muscled body, particularly arms and shoulders, from a life

time of hard manual labour.­ The problem was resolved almost immediately by a nurse.­ She was on her way back from the Kiosk and only a few metres away when the car stopped, so quickly ran to assist.­ The two women dragged the unconscious man up the few steps and through the door into the foyer.­ Sister McInnes stayed with the patient keeping him alive while the nurse ran for help. By the time Ben's wife and family arrived in Jill’s car, he was safely hooked up to a life support system in Intensive Care but had not regained consciousness.

Later that night, when the Doctor on duty was satisfied his condition had stabilised, Ben was transferred to Adelaide by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

At RAH, after a quick check, he was rushed into theatre for emergency open heart surgery.­

Mr Newton continued, "Your heart had a large tear in the outer wall and blood was pouring into your chest cavity.­ There is no way you could have driven a car 5 kms.­ You should've been dead long before reaching the hospital!"

"Is this heaven?" Ben asked.

"Not quite," replied Mr Newton. “But we do try.”

"In that case I must have a guardian angel," said Ben.

"Yes," Mr Newton agreed.­ "Maybe several!"                        

 

 

 

¯

 
This edition is a selection of work arising from a tour of western NSW 
plus guest spots at Broken Hill Poetry Festival & Overload Poetry festival.

 

Sponsored by:

Overload Poetry Festival, ArtsNSW, Countrylink, Broken Hill City Council, Broken Hill Regional Writers’ Centre,

Cobar Shire Council, Central West Libraries & Words Out West

 

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

APC is an occasional anthology.

 

¯¯¯

 


 

Australian Poetry
Collaboration
 
#17
 
SYDNEY

 

 

 

FEATURING

Jan Denham, Gillian Hunt, Chris Pechy, Paul Scully,

Tan Truong, Anne B. Udy, Leanne Wicks & Paul Williamson

¯

Jan Denham

The hunt

 

Contrary mind

moving like a cat

 

Compliant

and then not

In repose

and then stalker

 

Understanding … a mouse it must hunt

 

Whiskers twitch

a quiver of intellect

curl of paw

as logics claw closes in

 

The pounce mid-air

falls to earth

shades-subtle devoured

as death quiets

 

A small thing cries out

and the earth hears

her dance of the elements

restores the balance

 

Mind purrs

thinking it knows

plump satisfaction

passing pleasure

Nomad

 

Silence speaks

world soundless

a sense of depth rising through

the veneer of conversation

the brush of a stranger’s coat

gliding by

 

Silence speaks 

sun and moon dusk the air

impressions gather

subtle shapes of understanding

and still chaos dances

as if its one chance for expression is now

 

Silence smiles

peace an arthurian lake

reflects the spelled mind

catches the spill that fills in the spaces

 

Between one destination and the next

silence moves as nomad

hinting at a world

with no fixed address

¯

Gillian Hunt

sleuth

 

Agent infiltrating networks of

lotus roots, and trekkers’ boots,

it sticks and cleaves and clings

after its initial contact;

has a reputation, and a smell

not always sweet in tidal zones -

its presence palpable.

 

It slicks between the toes of trees

and elephants; I saw prints

embedded, caked into a track

hacked out by tour guides

in a Sabah jungle, where

our boat left viscous ripples

on mangrove rivers.

              

At the bottom of bogs, wells and

deep emotional pits

it wallows, a glorious slurry,

glutinous and limp, yet able to

support a body’s weight;

bides, decides precisely when

to yield its treasure

up.

 

Past perfect, tense

 

He is sapling tall.

Olive eyes spike a shopper

picked for being female and middle-aged.

A sample tube is in his proffered hand.

               Would you like to try?

 

She recalls her youthful glow, face

a commune of healthy cells. 

Products packed in gloss

stack beckoning behind him

loaded with pledge,

minerals from Dead Sea dredge.

 

Memories invade her nostrils: smell of

               salt-polluted water

               powder dust of worn skeletal land

               black garbage hills left to cram old souks

                               and camps,

               acrid dangle of cables down shelled walls;

              

               lemon-scented offerings for strangers.

 

He leans in.

               And what do you use on your skin?

 

She is glaringly exposed;

               a flotilla of lines under scrutiny,

               a strip of identity under siege.

Outrage ratchets up the tightness in her throat.

 

She has lost him:                    politics of pain.     

He has lost her:                     a muddied claim.

¯

Chris Pechey

Otherson

 

Who are you now

all of a sudden?

blood bound

but not around.

when did you drift

into this otherland

where I’m locked out

and you’re locked in

headphones dangling

I-podded

in a secret world

where the blood thuds

beats, repeats

umbilically fed

un-read

you locked in

me locked out

or cyber-spaced

unfaced

mobile linked

in sync 

text-dead silenced

sliced, diced

sent

master linguist

in that other world

monosyllabic

minimalist

in mine

so it goes

with me locked out

and you locked in

xx

 

Elegy for a Schoolboy Eight

 

The chanting crowds are now left far behind,

so too the lost rhythms of a gliding,

soaring shell, slave to the swift  sweep

 and feather of beating oars.

Dip, pull, stretch

the rowers cut and fly,

water, boat, spirit, flesh

all realms are one.

Bending backs, blades arc liquid fire,

turn blood into sweat

might  into flight

all into one.

Like ancient warriors bent on battle

they row to glory or defeat

one last time.

 

Now it’s over they sit

high on a craggy rock

canopied by whispering trees

gazing down over an autumn river,

sinuous mirror rippling to the caress

of a late afternoon breeze

while memories burning  warm and terrible

drift on the fading light.

 

Below, the boatshed stands  silent,

locked within, row on row,

sleek shells lie resting, waiting

for some spring day, when new  boys

dreaming old dreams,

break the musty darkness

with laughter and shiny eyes.

Till then, the last of the shedded water

slipping from those empty hulls

dries in tiny pools on a darkened floor.

¯

Paul Scully

The people of the lake

 

Along the river

all around the lake

the people of the rearing snake

called Naggar

whose daughter gave birth to them

swelter in a humidity

undeniably theirs

 

Time has restarted for them

like a motor bike kicked into life

by a tuk-tuk driver

freshly hammocked in it

in a sleep that placates history

even in the shade

of a memorial stupa

 

A rain some would say

comes to all under

the same witnessing sun

fell across the generations

of river lake and temple

To kill a plant you must uproot it

not merely hack at its stem

 

The rain fell in a long deluge of percussion

the coarse stammer of AK47s

when bullets weren’t being saved

the chop and rasp of machetes through emaciation

babies’ heads thudded into tree trunks

the spike and slush of bayonets

engorging them in mid air

 

The rainmakers pitched the seeds and husks

of the people to the diagonal winds

and turned their backs

Smiles fled the people’s faces

their gentleness powdered away

skin drawn tight over hollowness

drums without rhythm

 

Savages who wanted to annihilate knowledge

and memory and antecedence

Salvation writ in ennobling work

and a weary gruel

sandals spun from bicycle tyres

tenable only

in a constancy of watching

 

Now the pepper vines

bear fruit once more

fish heads ferment in barrels

the abbot has washed

the river silt from his robes

The old corruptions have resumed

and they recite the alphabets of charity

 

Small change

in the pockets of the tourists

ushered through

the laterite and the sandstone

but a rebirth at least

into a life

that can endure

 

Venn Diagrams

 

She was a model of efficiency

with well defined compartments

for career  for family for dalliance

 

She had a dress code for each

and an undress code for some

She was always well turned out

 

She was cool and calculating

with little capacity for abstraction

I tried to draw us in a Venn diagram

 

As part of part of her life

I was also part of her life

I pledged my undying love

 

She introduced me to

the statute of limitations

of which I had many

 

Her anger was vesuvian

her passions too

I wanted to ignite her

 

She was the only woman

I have ever met

who had never cleaned a toilet

 

I am tempted to say

she flushed me away

but she left me floating

 

¯

Tan Truong

only one race

 

 

They  laugh, cry,

love,  die.

 

Just like you and I

they do not deserve

to live in constant war

and be indefinitely poor

 

They happen to be

in a place

of constant mistakes

 

We say,

yes we will help you

Let us in

 

 

 

What else can they do?

 

When they cannot choose?

 

 

 

Survivors  become  victims

when personal powers

are taken away

 

 

This is what is done

to ordinary people

like you and me

 

 

And we say

they should feel lucky

that they are on our side

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We rescued them,

Protected them,

and educated them

from poverty, war

and destruction

that are created

by their people

 

 

Is this really true,

or have we a secret to hide?

and have we ever thought

that we also took away

their dignity and pride?

the very core of all being

 

 

So please take care of

our status, power and pride

as you and I,

we also laugh, cry,

love , die

in the end,

there are no sides

 

 

The land of fruit salads

 

 

Amidst the colour riots

of a fruit salad

one is wholeheartedly

colour blind

 

 

the colours however,

are vibrant and alive

every single fruit is unique

each one has a story to tell

 

 

some sweet;

some sour;

some hard;

others bitter

few are bland,

but many, eclectic

 

 

regardless of their

diverse differences,

they all root

a common ground

 

 

now imagine this

community of fruit salad,

with its distinctive

characters and origins

an intricate weave

of electric colours

its own dynamic

story to tell.

¯

Anne B. Udy

The Elephant and I

 

we could do anything—ANYTHING AT ALL.

But he is at the zoo

and I am eight and cannot speak or creep across the floor—

beached like a jelly-fish, my bed a crib.

I only move within a chair on wheels

to go where I am put or pushed.

I think, but only do what others’ thoughts conceive.

 

Sometimes I dream he wraps his trunk around

my shrunken form and lifts me to his back.

A sound I make is like the mahout’s call;

he understands.

 

I could be an actor on the stage

held by the gentle muscled trunk.

The act would bring the people to their feet

to laugh and clap and say,’encore’, ‘encore’.

 

We could investigate this hidden town,

the Elephant and I.

Upon his back, I would direct our way

and get a view up there of sights

I never see from where I slump

wrapped like a spring roll in my holding chair.

 

All painted and adorned with sparkling streamers

we’d be begged

to lead the Grand Parade.

We can do anything—ANYTHING AT ALL—the Elephant and I.

 

Number 71

 

Weather-spotted roof clasps the verandah

like two warm hands sheltering the space.

A family home, an office, once a shop

this house invites and offers ghosts and dreams.

 

I glimpse a sandpit—

edges mulched into the ground.

Where children built imaginary worlds

there grow two thistles, clumps of grass,

a jacaranda tree—ten centimeters high.

 

A wooden chair—now strangled by the passion vine

was gentle Nancy’s perch on sunny days.

Two hooks embedded in a post and tree remain—

minus the hammock which belonged to Tom.

Bill Nelson planted crocus. Now they march

halfway across the yard—yellow and white—

singing of yesterday.

 

Each crack could tell a tale:

perhaps the mischief of a grinning child

like ‘Kenny’, who wrapped himself around the coldest hearts

but tripped unwary feet;

or yet of Myrtle’s Gran who spread her love so thick

that even Lucy—chili pepper child—

learned how to care and nursed her jailbird Dad before he died.

 

Next year—DA approved—

a modern town house

will claim its squatter’s right

to occupy.

¯

Leanne Wicks

Ultrasoundless

˄  ˄                        ˄  ˄

heart beat               nurture

cot sheets               spring joy

promise   future

name book             girl boy

__________________

A             no           ther

      dead child.

Can you hear the universe screaming –

did anyone hear her baby screaming?

Sense.  Less.  Loss.

               from cocoon he emerges.

Butchered wings growndead.

Dread flesh spatters the steel womb.

Blade’s birth announces

cure(?)ette is done.

Edge of Rain

On mountain crest I stand.

Watch.                   Wait.                      Will

the storm to come

 

Streaks of silver

s                                                            d

               h                                                           e

                        i                       a                      s      

                                              m                            n                             c

                                                             m                            d                             e

                                                                            e                                                            n

                                                                                            r                                                            d

joining oceanic canopy and thirsty soil.

 

Clouds swirl in tortured writhe.

Gusts gather to gulp.

               Dark.

Galahs announce and thunder answers.

Firmament scrolls toward me.

I close my eyes, face heavenward, keen to receive the

first drops.

 

Genesian energy.

Welcome want will

the thrust,

that consummation of seed and rain. 

¯

Paul Williamson

Busy

 

There struggles a whispered voice

beneath the din. It tells

what I need to do to survive,

                                   even thrive.

 

Distractions from the faint words echo

from what I want

                     want to be

 in the trick I fell into.

 Afraid of not being distracted?

 Because when I hear that whisper

 it might say

 I am not doing what must be done

                                   before anything else.

 

Belgrave Pool Party

A hundred people mill about

in the water or on the lawn beneath the trees

at the inflatable slide in deep water

or the play castle on the grass.

The Belgrave pool party is sunny.

Music is played by a disc jockey

with a pointed beard

who wears his hair in a martial arts top knot

at work and down for swimming.

Women wave to approaching friends.

Children seek out those they know

then unconsciously shout with fun.

Slender healthy kids with limbs

like large drinking straws

-almost nobody obese -

swim in small groups watched over

by matter of fact mothers, fathers, grandparents

as sunburn creeps onto unwary shoulders.

Dress is functionally varied

with minor claims to hippiedom.

Two lovers break for a fashion statement.

A few insecure teenagers crave attention

with unspectacular posturing.

No-one is demanding status

in the blended crowd.

No sign at the gate

                          ‘No dogs or fighting’.

¯

¯¯¯

#18
 
SUNSHINE COAST

 

PREVIOUS ISSUES

 

This issue arose from a workshop that was part of the Noosa Long Weekend... 10 days of arts, literature, food & fun in June 2011.
http://www.noosalongweekend.com

 

from Meuse Press –

https://meusepress.tripod.com/Meuse.htm

 

FEATURING

Hamish Danks Brown, Lesley Anne Christian, Geoffrey Datson,

David Hilton, Rapheal Prasetyo, Coral Sturgess & Bryan Ward

 

 

 

¯

Hamish Danks Brown a.k.a. Danksta Downunder

KEEPING A VIGIL ON THE POINT

 

Here willing to be among a moonlit presence

Nobody on the beach

The mountain reads over our shoulders

Semi-circular shore

Everywhere around and round this city

Vagrant gulls stalk over

Which ever way we walk

Dark and brooding rocks

All aspects of its peak right behind us

Immersed in the tidal floss

Overhanging our very steps

Beckoning the next hapless surfer

To solve the crosswords before we do

Out of all seasons and about

To find a bargain in the classifieds

To imprint another wound

To pick the winning team and the losers

Right through the wetsuit.

Give it up for the weather bureau forecast!

Landforms dipped into an ocean tip

Being ahead of us at the garage sale

Climbing down and slipping up

Casting its shadow across us

From out of the watery ledge,

 

The mountain moves in tandem

Flint blade barnacles to tread around

To the Births

Wax the body Deaths and

Oil the board Marriages.

Away with you and your unsmiling shore!

Glowing caramel coast

Sweet swivel through the incoming walls

Dressed in fairy floss mist

Leave land behind to fold into itself

Strip the layers of the headland cake

With any memory crinkling chips

Taking our attention and

Towing it behind

Clutch-starting it through ever higher gears

On the rhythmic violence off the sea

Revved up its eucalypt-sticky slopes

So heave to be stranded

Until after the next late news flash

By the left of a right-hand break.

The mountain swings slowly

While I fossick and forage

Closer against us

Through the whooping voices of waves

From it's eons hewn dome of

Epiphany turns rip rapidly to "Look! – No arms!" chair Wipeout!

 

Holding mute court above

The peace of pause before the splat strikes

All of us base and below

Unplug the swell and cleanse the swollen

As we pace our flat lives

Until they're mended to each and other

Backlined up and front forwarded

Once the sea rushes in again to wash

Beneath its basalt brow

Away the shards of self-consciousness

Wondering if anyone is

By deluging and delivering me

Ever apprehended by

Into the shallows of pale, pimply ghosts

Who dares to step up to it

Cloaked in a veil of algae

Only to be stared down upon

Stringy wings of jellyfish

As we are just

Afloat and flipped by forgetting

Barely making our way across the plain

To follow the foamy retreat.

 

The mountain has already read us

Again and again, way ahead of the

First word written and wrought from it.

 

EMJC I hesitate to remember you as I much as I seek to be jostled the throngs of recall propelling me towards stars no longer affixed in their customary constellations displaced by the risk of remembering you is the wish to be forgotten by you so why did you show up like that dressed as you did and what are you on tonight and who invited you here and who was it who told me all about you and join-the-dotted a portrait of you that in no way resembled the memories I'd downloaded of you and had nothing to do with rebuilding us from the foundations that we had tried to lay down that evening squeezed out of everyone's tube until all we knew was that we were blushing and bleeding into each-other like indelible ink staining through the interleaves of our lives curling us as a pair of dog-eared pages open to a story stretching and straining to hold us both together we collided head-on without any warning and both sides set ablaze and blistered with blame how it still smoulders even on the surface of my daily water I find myself trudging at least twenty years after your swimming wake around and around the same buoy blind with still seeing you not looking back along my tardy tack ticking and docking behind me as I lose my way home stuck fast to no-one since all distances to you are the same void so how do I hope to measure of the blue-through-to-black space that's replaced you?

 

The memory of you clings to one side of my raft, clawing at me to haul it aboard, waiting for what happened in our past to be rescued once more, while we bounce and bruise across an endlessly tossing triangle of denuded dreams, like a rubber ball slowly and inexorably losing its capacity to care at all if it's rebounding.

 

Buildings that have died

Demolished people

Two brawny brick townhouses

Squat and squabble amongst themselves

Where once a low-slung fibro and timber frame farmhouse lounged across the hilltop.

 

Last spring

Complained of some pains in the

Neck and head splitting

Soldier settlement blocks

Tearing the cottage down

Too soon

It was pushed aside and asunder

To the ground by a swinging blow

From the DA grasping fists of the service station next door

NOW THAT ALL THE REMNANTS HAVE BEEN CARTED AWAY

My family has been freed to recollect it

All four to the floor of us!

 

Nobody actually witnessed

What happened to him and/or her:

Police are still pursuing their inquiries.

 

I got a head start on taking

This former holiday cabin

Out for it's last getaway drive-by

Walking face first into the plate glass of its back door

At "the end of the grove as we know it" barbecue.

I merely gave it the lightest of nudges with my forehead and

The whole pane was reminded of how many times I should have fallen straight through it

And shattered into a cascade of glittering missed opportunities to impale somebody

Knowing that after tonight no-one would ever stumble home through that sliding door again.

 

He never said anything to anyone at all - no indication no note to explain why.

She walked into the sea as if she were a house that had been built

Too close to the shifting sand dune along a shore that had been whittled away

As if she had been eroded and he had been undermined

By an overdue storm sweeping out from within

 

Has the latest version of life already been purchased off the plan?

When are we to be pulled down? What debris will we bequeath to you?

This oft-cracked tile or that well glazed tale?

 

So we meandered along the restless edge of the arriving tide

And magged away for around an hour or two or maybe three.

 

Later I went for a second solitary stroll along that beach and clambered up the slope to some lookout for a view of the endangered fishing fleet and to watch its crew gutting and scaling their catch at a killing table just up from the Co-op's ramp.

 

 

Would you believe that he was there at the lookout too!

 

So we swam out into a somewhat deeper pond of conversation than I'm used to splashing my words in, except with people I've known for a very long time. Being with this Wyoming wayfarer was like being in the company of a slightly variegated and somewhat skewiff doppleganger. It could be said that he was a wowser but he wasn't a crank about it. He had this manner which made being teetotal and non-smoking and early to bed and no excesses seem like obvious commonsense, as if it was the perfectly normal way to be. He did not preach about it. Life was his laugh-track. That was simply the way he was.

 

So we played the refrain of our first conversation and walked around the heads as far as the caravan park where he invited me to continue on with him to the rock pools but I had to get back to town because the others were packing and I had arranged to catch a lift home with them reluctantly and what for? Why was I having to go home?

 

I should have just kept on wandering with him

However long or little time we would have had

Walking and talking in a bond right over the horizon

To be taken up by the current of a new life approaching

Either with the tide or the landslide. Whatever!

 

And I still want to take up this other journey and I do and I do not know why!

 

How to find or founder How to give these abandoned plans away

Where have we / where haven't we been and done with it?

What coast? Which riverbank? What is any shore for?

What has any direction got to do with it?

As much as any one of yours and / or mine….

The speed of dark

Our steps towards the house are the punctuated marks of

It could be, from your viewpoint sentences

That it is the lights of eyes which are beaming into yours except

What seems to compel you closer in trying to go from A to B to C.

 

In time and space and so on and so forth

We all know those stories we end up reversing from L to G

That have concluded as soon as 2 people then P, then M, then L repeated,

Start gazing, grazing on each-other's eyes M-squared, N, back to M

In an illogical order

In your eyes indeed shuffling, scraping sentences

Yet how much more quickly do /  don't seem to match the pace

We avert our eyes or the posture of our stopped up

Steppe-stampeding thoughts

And shun eye contact and like an overgrown dog that

Has suddenly pushed away to opposite poles pulled free,

Trailing a liberated lead behind.

 

When you and I look through While we sniff and let our tongue swoop to the

Each translucent other's lenses source of that enticing scent!

 

How time is arrested without bail like a child hurrying to catch up

Between all the alleged charges with an impatient adult marching in quick

As our two zones adjust steps to be heard once

Two sighs blend to a single space within the house

When we can't even face one another as an orderly and purposeful procession.

 

However it all becomes futilely full of some significance rather than all this

Frustration and we whip ourselves with why

the awkward, ungainly stumble

Asking

Why we even bother to be there where those within the house

With whoever it is already discerned who are all outsiders by now.

 

At night I imagine that these steps

Maintain a steady holding pattern of

All those distant spitting sparklers and the discourse of departures and arrivals

Whooping Catherine Wheels.

 

Have our steps already tripped us over or are we drawn instead to a crease in the paper or the vacuum to which we all belong a warp in the woodpile or stopped by a superstition about liking the dark to lighten up in stepping on the cracks after all we had hoped for a blank sheet dancing to the Springsteen-stencilled dark to reach out as fresh as the song goes and sings along to shiny black sea shoes instead of barefoot blackout in a maze with a loose heel and holes in our unpaired socks because by walking we could see once again two again creased over and tucked in around a whisper and a wriggle all the more untamed the feeling that we have trespassed against the partitions pitched below above and between the echo as we get closer to the house.

 

How ever many uncounted steps (39?) to walk one word let alone each and every letter (26?).

 

Let us lettuce lest us leapt thus slept us kept unkempt plus bus fuss us pepped prepped crept

piped us abed aboard.

 

As the foreshore flung to the right we could see the lights of the town

Luminously sprouting over the supine slope

A flock of neon flamingos with antenna ruffled plumage wading under the leaf coated hill

Scales of fluorescent storey upon story reflected in the sea

For every house and home for miles around had been gathered up by the beach

While staked blocks of land slaked their thirst for water frontage

A driven dervish of headlight toting insects beeped and braked down the pass

Honk-honk huddling in between the hovering houses

Bumper to bumper barking and parking snuffling and snorting at each-other's tailpipes

A siren sounded summoning a siren reply for a false, true or don't know alarm

A passing rumble from a commuting worm

A bursting tracer of techno no no

A mobile phone tree

A cut and pasted announcement

Approaching footsteps and then voices and then

Faces closing in from along the fading path

Faces blooming and budding

Into the foredeck of the pickets as fire and wood lamp glow

Faces filling in the cactus-and-pallet

Flapping canvas rimmed sky

 

Faces forward fastening with their here we are and now here (hear hear) right here-ness

And the anxiety dispersing laughter at meeting

A changing of the shift's gear shaft

 

One more episode savoured and safely spoken for at the handover of duty for the next while

A while (and maybe a whale will surface whence cruising by)

A brief glance to check the roster stapled to the trestle-table

A shortbread conversation fulfilled by your replacement

Famished by our relief.

 

The country we've kept calling out to, in beseeching it to please come back

Yet we have somehow turned ourselves and returned again in spite of

This thriving, writhing, throttling, bloating town closing us all in and clearing us out and about

As all for and from that

We've all been speedily, greedily, freely, finally

Released to tag along with levelled spirits any way in, to and from, and out.

 

¯

Lesley Anne Christian

GRANDMA'S LOVE

 

"Grandma,you have a funny neck don't you?"

"Grandma, you are old aren't you?"

"Grandma, will you get old like Nana?"

"Grandma, will you die like Nana?"

 

"Yes Libby, I will get old like Nana and

yes Libby I will die like Nana but not until you are a big

lady like your Mummy"

 

"I love you Grandma"

"Don't you hate it when people get old and die Grandma?"

 

"Yes Libby I do"

 

"Mum, will you get old like Grandma?"

 

"Yes Libby I will get old like Grandma and hopefully as old as Nana"

 

"Mum will I get old like you?"

 

"Yes Libby you will"

 

"Oh no mum, don't you hate it when you get old?"

 

"Yes Libby I do"

 

"Grandma"

 

"Yes Madison"

 

"Where is your boy Grandma?"

 

"I don't have a boy Madison  will you be my boy Madison?"

 

"Yes Grandma I will be your boy"

 

"I love you Grandma"

 

 

The words as simple as the emotions complex

Feelings leap like deep flames

There are no fire breaks between generations

¯

Geoffrey Datson

What Thou Art

Time line, 1977

Spring I guess

Sunrise on Black Mountain Road

the air a-pulse with incandescent wildlife

Hello universe!

 

Imagination

it’s a field of abandoned cars

Native tobacco, and ferns burst through rust

Oxidation

We’re all on the slow burn down here

 

So, to the floor of a fifty-seven De Soto:

discarded tools, feathers,

crushed beer cans, greasy rags

and a message from the out-lands -

As without, so within

 

And I’m hearing Patti Smith and

I’ve been reading the symbolist poets and

I’m fairly pretentious

Another lonely boy

out on the weekend

 

But, it’s a big land

and given to dreaming

Through the windscreen

the morning clouds pile up

our heaped canopy of joy

 

 

And fearful

that my head will explode

from too much cumulonimbus

out and spinning, spinning

Spin the world

 

Slow

till racing backwards

retreat into our own eternal sunset

Hey Sheba, hey Salome, hey Venus

eclipsin’ my way’

 

And a quarter of a century later

I dreamt of this same morning

crouching in the wet grass

hugging myself hysterical with connection

and voicing all time

 

in the wet grass

¯

David Hilton

The Touch

 

It happens in a moment,

that brush with the Divine,

the sudden warm embrace of the Spirit,

unexpected, affirming, chastening,

like a light, friendly hand on the shoulder,

a subtle presence, radiant, pure.

The experience is not to be conjured up,

for it is a gift.

 

This heavenly embrace, like its earthly counterpart,

brings two hearts together,

exchanging warmth, feeling and intent.

But why should the Creator wish to commune

with so miniscule a member of his creation,

the all-transcendent being with the earthly clay?

It is a happy mystery.

 

Would that these moments were not so fleeting,

but continued on to glorious ecstacy.

Yet we should give thanks

for a glimpse of the possible, a brief taste of heaven,

sustaining us through life, its joy in happiness, its joy in loss.

 

But how to place ourselves within the Spirit’s sphere

that he might touch us?

It is when we treat the gutter-dweller as having dignity,

reach out to the reeking old woman as if she were steeped in the fragrance of roses,

spend ourselves in the cause of the world’s poor,

or hold the hand of a dying friend.

It is when we acknowledge and love the Creator,

have the grace to see an echo of Him in the unlovely,

or generously forgive the mongrel that robbed us.

And I am in that sphere when, in adoration, I survey the stars,

gaze in awe at the beauty of a sunset,

or look lovingly into my little grandchild’s face.

 

It happens in a moment,

but when and where?

A happy mystery.

¯

 

Rapheal Prasetyo

One More Chance

 

I pulled the fungus and mould infected ply board

from its swollen back

The flood had been too much for it,

I could not bring it back.

 

Yes I could still see it’s potential

In the colors and lines

but the mould had taken over everything,

and now it was the time.

 

I had to face the facts of life,

I could not mend it

It was beyond repair, there was no way

I could tend it.

 

I had wanted to kill the infection, restore it,

repair and renew

But facing the reality of all the flood damage,

I could not see it through

 

As a symbol of my adventurous life

Of all the places I had been

I wanted to give it just one more chance 

to be healthy and clean.

 

But the infection lingers for a reason

It’s too strong to be cured.

Attempting to save the damaged

Is how the weak are lured.

 

I know I can’t keep going back

Trying to revive

All those things from my life that are

No longer alive.

 

Sometimes I just have to let them go,

Have to give them up.

Relinquish the urge to come to the rescue again

And just pass them up.

 

So on the fire heap it landed

Burning door by door

Leaving white coal ashes and soft dust

drawer by drawer.

¯

Coral Sturgess

The Miners

A mining town, ’bout nineteen twenty,

Tasmania’s west, bled its rich, red vein

carted by rail, to ore ships aplenty,

sold to the mainland, for all they could gain.

 

Boys became men, legends were born.

Poor as church-mice, some high and mighty,

in leaky old ships they ’rounded the Horn,

often in chains, came out from “Blighty”.

 

Bob, born in Tasmania, a Tassie, true blue,

stood six foot four and nearly as wide.

Worked at the mine, with number one crew,

Picked not a fight, nor from one did hide.

 

Second in charge, was Hank the Yank.

Tall as Bob; but lean and lanky.

Hands big as plates an’ strong as a tank.

One look said, don’t make ’im cranky.

 

Don Miguel de la Rosa, came tryin’ his luck

Spanish royalty, ’e said, coughin’ a spit.

All just called him“Lord Muckety-Muck.”

There’s no room for toffs when down in the pit.

 

Big Kev, Welsh miner, was one of the crew. 

Sixth sense ’bout pending disaster.

Tells ’em move it, trouble’s starting to brew,

all ran like hell, where once was laughter.

 

Two brawny Scots lived near mountains so fair.

Close, wild heath, wild weather and mist,

small creeks, craggy peaks, and pure fresh air,

just like the highland, homeland they missed.

 

The Russian, English good, but accent strong,

Ivan was always good for a song, loud and stirrin’;

Who cared? Free grog or eleven, all sang along.

Words didn’t matter when all words was slurrin’.

 

Paddy and Mick free settlers they told the team.

Dabbled in politics coloured orange and green.

Boyos they played with played dirty an’ mean,

an’ why they needed a quick change of scene.

 

Members of crew number one, each man worked,

to the benefit of his mates, all sharing the loot.

Angelo slowed an all knew he never once shirked,

All just added a bit, saved him gettin’ the boot.

 

Charlie, cockney, played pianna, on Saturd’y night.

Got many a grown man dancin’, all booze fed.

Can’t get serious angry, singing with all yer might.

Stopped many a fight when full-grown men see red.

 

Billy, all of sixteen, tried to pretend he was twenty.

Caused trouble taunting the crew of pit number three,

He swaggered and swore; thought it sounded manly.

‘Can’t mine!  Sheilas, who sit down to sit down to pee.’

 

Bob, winked at Blond Kate, could see trouble brewing. 

‘Charlie; keep playing ’ta keep יem all calm.’

Kate pushed Billy up stairs, all his hormones stewing.

‘Take it easy boys, no cause for alarm.’

 

But, Black Jack could smell a good fight.

‘Bloody kid, ruinin’ the name of me crew.’

They won’t insult me, it just isn’t right.

So he pulled Willy’s long plaited queue.

 

Willy, team cook, saved the money he earned

to buy “Chinee” market-garden, maybe even a store.

Those who teased him, they very soon learned

Queue, no disadvantage fightin’, nor pyjamas he wore.

 

Black Jack, reputation to make, serious eager to do it.

’Who‘s top miner?’ He shouted, soundin’ downright mean.

But he overlooked Willy, his ability to kick and hit.

He stood tall beside Bob, who’s lookin’after their team.

 

When Black Jack pulled Willie’s queue, bar went quiet, all knew;

It’s on now, for sure, many brave men now ran for their life.

Barman grabbed glasses’n grog, before round the bar they flew.

“Get the coppers!” An’ his lad scarpered ta stay out of strife.

 

Jack pushed Willie’s chest with outstretched arm.

Nose dripped. Breath ragged. Eyes open wide.

He stared in wonder, then screamed with alarm, 

couldn’t believe the broke arm loose at his side.

 

Two of Jack’s mates jump in, revenge in their rage-glazed eyes. 

First ran in for a head-butt; but speed only hastened his fall.

The second soon learned fightin’ Willy, weren’t really too wise,

pain searin’ an’ eyes tearin’, he slowly slid down the wall.

 

Another one faltered, wasn’t too sure, shaped up, showing his fists.

Willy with one flying foot to the chest, another one under his chin,

he downed the bare knuckle boxer, who stared off into the mists.

Three men down, Willy looked ’round, see if any more wanted in.

 

The pit one fellahs was cheering, coppers stormed in, lookin’ mean.

‘Seems a fair fight, I reckon? So guess we’ll call it a night.’

 ‘Not you again, Willy?’ Copper smiled, an’ looked at the scene,

‘Stay out of trouble you lot. Clear up this mess ’n stay quiet.’

 

Soon the bar’s jumping an’ the grog’s flowin’ ag’in. 

I’m shouting.”  Bob yelled, makin’ the old barman hear,

“Give Willie a drink; don’t care if it’s whiskey or gin.

Willy smiled and scoffed down a cold ginger beer.

 

Lookin’ all sheepish, downstairs came Kate and the Kid.

This brought great howls of laughter. Billy’s face turned red;

‘Miss anything, while Miss Kate, showed me sketches she did?’

The smile on his dial, lasted more than a week, so they said.

 

Like to’ve been there ’nd meet those men bold and free.

Who carved out this country 'nd did it tough as can be.

Left environmental problems, they could never foresee;

But their larrikin ways brought wealth for you and me.

¯

Bryan Ward

A Low Dim Wailing

It seems all beauty is gone,

Soaked deep into the sand

That now dries in the sun.

 

A pinpoint of sound envelops my head

And flattens to a thin,

Infinite line between my temples.

 

This continuum of sameness confounds me.

Delivers a madness over and over.

Delivers lessons barely learnt.

 

A low dim wailing

Speaks of unspeakable desires

In this baffling composition of life.

 

In a split second’s reprieve

A bridge holds back the downpour,

And while we pass I see tomorrow.

 

A powder blue sky holding no water.

Wind exiling clouds to another place.

Our bodies reclining on the hill.

 

An arch of branches reaches over the water,

An iridescent turquoise that plunges to unseen sands.

Your lips are at my ear.

 

The sand is damp under us again.

A winding thread of footprints leads away.

My arms fold you into me.

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

¯

 

 

 

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#19

The NSW Writers’ Centre has proven itself over decades to be a fertile nursery for new and developing writers. 
Australian Poetry runs an exciting series of national e-workshops with some of the country’s leading facilitators.
This is a selection from some of those participating in an AP e-workshop in May 2012 
plus others who attended a NSWWC workshop in August 2012. 
 
 
 

Archived in Pandora

 

 

from Meuse Press –

https://meusepress.tripod.com/Meuse.htm

 

NSW Writers' Centre
Australian Poetry

 

FEATURING:

Benjamin Dodds, Carolyn Fisher, Fran Graham, Matthew. J. Jenkins,

Betty Johnston, Sue Jordan, Cecilia Morris, Moya Pacey,

Ian Pettit, Jennifer Sutherland, Margaret Vermeesch,

Peggy Marks Wahlhaus &  Julie Watts.

 

¯

Captive

Benjamin Dodds

Amid tour guidance

(Flemington, the MCG)

and the shorthand speak of old friends,

one of the pets they’d just picked up from

a stay at the cattery

pissed and shat itself

in the back of their Yaris.

During the letting-out of all it had held in

for two days of deaf and unresponsive silence,

it skewered me, fellow backseat passenger,

with steady sulphurous eyes.

Bell and collar tamed nothing:

what was in that box

was wild, alive and rigid with hate.

¯

Because

Carolyn Fisher

 

the old horse has teeth as worn as his saddle,

every morning, take him across

the road to the empty paddock where the grass

is lush and long, where he can tear

instead of nibble, won’t need to press

his greying muzzle so close to the dirt.

 

You’ll enjoy the short walk of his company,

as will he: singled out from the others

to push his nose eagerly into the halter, lowering

his head so you can easily fasten the buckle.

Rest your arm on his warm neck

as you wait for a passing ute,

 

lean into the could-only-be-horse smell of him,

see his ear turn just a few degrees in your direction,

like an old man cupping his hand, to hear

you say go on. Turn him loose and stay awhile,

watch him graze, lifting his head to sounds

of minute-to-minute living.

 

After a day of wandering from one

green patch to another he’ll come to your call

at a stiff-legged run, have you half laughing

half terrified he’ll stumble and fall.

He’ll wait, tossing his head as if impatience

is just another testy fly.

 

Spring the latch, let him nudge the gate

from your hand and rudely push past you, because

a horse on occasion lives life on his terms.

If you listen, so again will you will ring

in the rhythm of his hooves, in the routine

of him leading you home each evening.

 

Previously published in Island.

¯

Autumn Courtyard

Fran Graham

 

I.

 

Rose of Sharon buds, still blind from sleep,

blink in the first rays.

Overnight drizzle stretches on foliage.

 

Leaves drop    whisper on landing.

Eyes fresh from sleep

capture every frame.

 

The scent of early damp blends

with the aroma of warming soil.

Ashen half-light stirs the freshness.

 

Fronds grow green as the garden becomes.

 

II.

 

Overhead, pelicans jet-stream the ether.

On the morning-dark estuary

yesterday’s feathers relax.

 

Like a breath-tossed paper crane

emerging from shadow

dawn turns the corner into day.

 

¯

Boab Prison

Matthew. J. Jenkins

 

 

Is there a significance to knowing

that Mark & Anna were here in 96’?

Or, the cleaver taken to your side?

A viscid two-man slice.

Your paunch torso, a gashed 

penal hold for a black

no trial: skin father and kin cousin

rifle raided, from bush-camp home

– to tomb.

A confusion of law, as fear becomes

old Gadawon tree.

 

Shackles ring, a forever verb

against the Cretaceous bark

of your browning.

Cries in the night dark

 – cruel eclipse not healing,

like your histories and fear

of a Nikon visitor.

Upside-down roots

attempting the otherworld,

to grow out of past burdens 

and escape              the Marks & Annas of us all.

¯

Grandson

Betty Johnston

 

They turned off life

support and yet it seemed life

waited still.

 

Adopted, bawled out for wetting beds

he grew awkwardly, inheriting

no gold watch.

 

Liked Anzac biscuits, the cat’s silence.

Drove me to bowls, was a bit fresh with the girls

diffident, not wordy. A good kid, Col.

 

Got into trouble though. They said

he drank, did drugs, went too far with a girl.

Left home, not welcome 

 

back. Turned up here one day

checked on cat and garden, hugged us

zoomed off with a tin full of Anzacs.

 

Prison, court

drunk and disorderly, grievous

bodily harm. Words

 

and circumstances twist our Col.

Freed then and rumours of a girl

a child.

 

A road.

A random car.

¯

Mary Gone

Sue Jordan

 

Gracie, she cryin,

sniffin so loud everyone lookin at er,

she louder than the plane engine and they loud.

Shame. 

We all sad, me, Veronica n Gracie. 

Out the window the Daly look like a snake.

I trace my finger to Umbrawarra Gorge;

we high n leavin our Mary at Umbrawarra

with a bad man.

 

Down into red Weipa land, white Marist boys get on,

we dont look at em as we off again,

but we know they look at us.

Then we there, in green wet Cairns

ready to go up the mountain to school.

 

Mary not here Miss,

she not comin. 

Miss too busy watchin Gracie,

she bin cryin since the Daly.

   

Mary taken, Miss. 

Her man came to camp, said it’s time.

She no want to go Miss.

Her parents drunk, say she have to,

‘forget school, you had enough’. 

 

We screamin then, Miss.

Our Mary run, not enough -

he tie her legs n arms,

throw her on the truck. 

He beat women Miss,

he ugly ole pig drunk man.

She scream, kick and cry

but

she gone, Miss,

somewhere near Umbrawarra.

 Quiet, we near our school now,

Cathlic boarding school

in Herberton - a town full a lotsa tin.

 

Gracie wanna sleep with me,

she crawl in bed

sniffing and shakin like a baby. 

She worried bout bleeding,

if she start,

then what?

‘You okay here, Miss

won’t let anything happen’,

but she and me know that not true.

We all finished growing now, cept Gracie -

but she already given.

Miss dont know nothin.

Gracie scared to go home at Easter

she have to

n me

n Veronica,

we gotta go too.

 

¯

Design for Living

Cecilia Morris

 

 

The tea leaves from dreams

read before daylight

bring forgetfulness.

 

In the open living area

two large couches face to face

for conversation.

 

Wide windows frame

trees and sky turning

black and white.

 

Fingers in pockets

magpies stride the garden.

 

The hall is wide for smiles.

 

At night there is the sigh of leaves

outside the grass is lengthening.

 

The pond swallows sound.

 

¯

Romance

Moya Pacey

 

 

He’s all leather and slouch

breath like cinders in my ear;

slivers of crescent moons

grime beneath his fingernails.

 

I liked that last one, you say

so did your father. Lovely manners

on him and a real way with words.

It’s funny how opposites attract.

 

In the wood, shadows fall

beyond roads and rail lines. Dark

crescent moons stroke my golden

hair; press the flesh of my milk-white neck.

 

Mark my words he’ll never settle.

That sort never does. This one,

well… It’s your funeral.

 

No mention of the fox cub

in the wood, searching for her mother.

¯

 

A Fishin' and A Hopin'

Ian Pettit

 

 All year, bar August’s cold clear water, we fish the Hawkesbury River and Cowan Creek

systems, expectantly holding those nylon or spiderwire braid lines of liaison,

waiting for the tap, tap, tap, or the tug of piscatorial communication,

the jerk to set the hooks, gently lead them in, play with them as saline freedom they seek,

the excitement of discovering the species as they lie flapping on the surface,

although the flathead’s languor, nicknamed ‘lizards’, their sawing heads, the fighting black

bream’s pace,

are characteristic, I slide the landing net underneath; aboard I cut their throats,

they bleed into a bucket of salt water, eyes glaze over, rigor mortis throttles

their muscles; in summer we anchor at dawn at Juno Point, coinciding with high

tide, downstream from Brooklyn with Lion Island visible perhaps six kilometres

out to sea, we hope to catch with their orange mouths and concave tails mighty mulloway,

also known as jew- or jewel- fish, similar in appearance to teraglin the school ones:

there are occasional monsters which grow to sixty kilos, but ours are in the two

to four kilos range, we catch up to a dozen on fresh local prawns in five fathoms;

in winter at Akuna Bay, Coal and Candle Creek, we seek the mystical hairtails,

four needle fangs in toothy jaws, eyes black discs, flattened body, silver skin without scales,

they dwell in deep, still water in the Cowan Creek system, we feed out the lines with steel

traces to the bottom and raise them two metres, wait for the characteristic pull

and let out three metres of line, count to ten, then hard in the bony mouth the hook sets,

one to two metres of thrashing whip-body lighting up the phosphorescent plankton,

lift out of the water and drop them into the landing net, sadism, gingerly

grab their necks covered by the net’s webbing, extricate the hook with a pair of pliers,

drop the fish into a bucket, remove head and guts, grill, eat buttered lemoned cutlets.

 

¯

Salon

Jennifer Sutherland

 

 

holding up both hands, Thao reveals

a fairy tale she painted 

on her fingernails.

 

two smoky dolphins leap in blue abandon

over the half moon

crescent of her thumb.

 

cream peaked waves crash 

across each tender finger,

iridescent silver stars cascade in pinpoint dots.

 

each plate clouded blue framing a picture

my design is love story

she tells me with a smile.

 

her eyes lift to mine 

and she becomes wistful 

I am probably childish?

 

the question hangs between us, 

suspended in silence....

 

with a vehement reassurance,

I shake my head and tell her no.

 

 

¯

New Evidence

Margaret Vermeesch

In place of sandstone cliffs at Ballast Point

caged rocks rear up in shapes resembling ships

with warnings – No climbing or abseiling

 

at head and arm-stretch height around each prow

hang padlocks glinting silver in the sun

each etched with names of lovers and a date.

 

Of bronze or red or blue, of diverse

size, some cluster like a bunch of grapes

enlarging every anniversary

 

a few display a heart pierced by an arrow

a sign I’ve seen pressed in wet cement

scrawled on walls, scratched on battlements

 

witness to a gift that’s so astonishing

it comes with an imperative to tell the world

in song or sign in every public place.

 

¯

I lost my mother in a dream last night

Peggy Marks Wahlhaus

 

when we walked together, did I,

careless, mislay her as I would a bag

or an umbrella?

 

I called her “Mom, Mommy”

her name, Sarah, pet name Sally,

“Where are you?” - I told everyone

who wondered why I was screaming:

“When she comes back, I will be so angry

with her.  How could she do this to me?”

 

Did she vanish into the crack of infinity,

did the night open for her to thread  

through the slit of the sky

using the stars for stepping stones?

 

She went past me through the cold cloud

of the dark of my dream

rode on the back of the night’s mare

 

and when I woke I tried to catch the tail

of the horse and pull it into consciousness

like a Chagall painting

of circus ponies pirouetting

for the fiddler on the roof.

 

But it slipped through my hands,

misted into tiny wisps of vapour

onto my face.

 

I will search again tonight.                    

 

¯

Maslow and the Ladybird

Julie Watts

 

 

 

a ladybird fell on my wrist

dropped from afternoon flight

to arid ridge

 

wandered in forest of down

bright bead     on dry bone

and there,      almost tapping

 

at the sharp-edge of shoulder

the russet tapperings

of a quickening bud

 

gaudy in greens

lusty with aphids

its red flags flapping.

 

under a leaf's juicy tip

I park my skin      urge a path 

but this blank speck

 

runs blind     

whichever way I spin     the desert

twist     to sly escape     it runs amok

 

scuttled by coercion

dives deeper into valleys

abyss of elbow      over

 

shifting hills of muscle

then Maslow      in my ear

be still

 

and I hang the long wasteland

out across the leaves

and wait     for wind      waft

 

the absence of fear

and it flys  –  wings

translucent as water      hinged

 

sides of an up-turned cup

steering for a stem's high wall

it scales     enters     the tender summit

 

vermilion folds       a savannah

of all libidos.

 

¯

 

 

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

 

#20

 

Australian Poetry runs an exciting series of national e-workshops with some of the country’s leading facilitators.
This is a selection from some of those participating in an AP e-workshop in August 2013.
 
Kogarah City Council (in southern Sydney) runs a comprehensive arts programme supporting a diverse and energetic community. Also included in this issue is a selection of work from the local writers and members of the Kogarah Writers Group who hosted a workshop in November 2013.
 

Finally, Coastlines Poetry is an energetic group run out of Brighton Library, Melbourne.  They meet monthly and held a workshop there in December 2013.   At present they are putting together a DVD of their poetry set to music and film to be shown at the Bayside Literary Festival in 2014.

 
 
 
 
Australian Poetry

 

 

FEATURING:

gillian bennett, Sherryn Danaher, John Dingeldei, Geoffrey Dobbs,

June Dobbs, Jennie Fraine, Jasmine Giuliani,

Judyth Keighran, Sandra Lanteri, Stephen Le Page, John Lowe ,

Virginia Lowe, Bridget McKern, Judi Menzies, Patricia Meredith, Cecilia Morris,

Michele Seminara, Ruth Teicher, Anne Thompson, Margie Ulbrick,

Jim Walton, Lana Wayne, Kathryn Yuen & Ilse F Zipfel

 

¯

 

gillian bennett

Dark Night.

 

I lost the God within

as I walked that cliff road

fraught with death.

 

I lost him somewhere near the oak

that grows dangerously close

and swings a noose so nicely tied

to neatly finish off a life.

 

I felt him slip from my fingers

as I tried to stuff him into my pocket,

a pocket so lint lined

with grief and vomit.

 

I tried to catch him as he fell

but he fell too fast,

suddenly he was gone

and I was alone.

 

I missed his voice.

I missed him telling me

which way to go or turn.

I missed him showing me sunset’s

slow orange and ochre burn.

 

At first the silence

was the single most awful thing,

then it was the terror of lost light,

as I stood alone on that cliff road

one dark and dreadful night.

¯

 

Sherryn Danaher

Took It All In His Stride

    

Luck in life

is to have known an elder

who after digging the trenches

returned to parley with his plants

hunting, fishing, the bush

quietening his soul

 

Married, with children

she a dancer, he a bouncer

they danced and bounced their way

out of the Depression

He’d visit ‘the boys’ in Heidelberg

he declared, the unlucky ones

 

Still twenty years yet to live

she died, left him

only her love

and a cupboard to the ceiling

Fowlers Vacola bottled bastion

against his diabetic state

 

To visit his daughter and

family each year

he’d anticipate

the enduring twenty hour flight

as he dug and plotted their garden

did his thoughts drift back to France

 

One trip, mixed up dates

not met at JFK

concerned passengers drove him

an hour to his daughter’s gate

6.00 am, too early to make a fuss

grandson found him asleep in the car

 

He’d fly home to Melbourne

when the weather turned

at eighty five he stopped going

said his roses were suffering

At ninety we said goodbye to him

wore sprigs of rosemary

 

Good fortune

is to ponder the dicky knee

in terms of his Pozieres punctured leg

unhealed in a lifetime

 

Took it all in his stride

¯

John Dingeldei

Regret

 

I have no regrets

I do not like the word

 

It is not that I cannot feel 

sadness

repentance 

disappointment

 

I feel sorrow and remorse 

I can be contrite

rue mourn grieve

and weep

 

I have compunction 

penitence and guilt 

but regret?

None.

 

I may be unable to

accept an invitation

but I will not apologise with regret 

for this was my choice

 

I am the sum of myself 

all the hurts

losses

failures

mistakes

and struggles

 

I have wailed in despair 

in the foetal position 

vomiting anguish

 

I am 

compassionate caring kind 

adventurous inquisitive ponderous 

aware 

sensual 

alive

 

I am responsible for where I am 

Exactly where I want to be

so how can I regret?

 

I am

the sum of all things 

I will not call

regret.

¯

 

Geoffrey Dobbs

Disappeared

 

Decay became terminal, a tipping point reached

and things went too far.

 

The odd board he could nail back on a rotting strut—maybe.

The abscess on a window frame, cut out,

 the fist deep concavity fill with agonised care.

But his own struts and cross beams

had already crumbled.

Sinews, muscles slackened,

fingers reset into mad, useless shapes,

eyes milky, sight blurred

so that nothing went where it should or could.

 

Meanwhile the house shed its skin and bones around him,

coated the vegetating yard with fine snow,

dropped hunks of odd shaped timber,

purpose forgotten or incomprehensible.

Cracked tiles slid with glacial slowness to the roofs edge

then plunged over the rusted gutter to smash below and

stub his unguided, blundering feet.

 

In the end they came for him, the nephews and nieces,

Concerned, efficient, unanimous in their assessment.

His protests fluttered in vain against their

smooth intransigence.

And one morning he was gone.

 

The house remained, for a while:

a discarded, threadbare suit,

all its worn cavities cold and empty.

Then, it too disappeared:

not a board, tile or brick remained.

¯

 

June Dobbs

Encounter

 

Home from school I longed for a book

under the shady veranda.

But the weaners must be brought to water.

 

Dog Ponty joined me, sunset still ablaze with heat.

Together we traipsed to the distant paddock

summonsed by the  hollow bleat of the mob, bewildered , thirsty.

 

 ‘Come Ponty, way back’, diligently he worked

mustering, chivvying  those foolish lambs.

An older lamb, scenting water, took the cue,

and they jostled, panting

to those troughs of cold fresh water, and drank thirstily.

Soothed, they drifted to further pastures.

 

Last rays, burnt red, streaked the sky.

I sank wearily in the shade of a bleached, dead gum

amid the tall, brittle-dry grass, beside a fallen limb.

Dog Ponty backed away, barked and barked—

foolish dog. I rose to fetch him, to cool and rest awhile.

Then—a curious quiver in the grass;

I peered.

There, coiled and glistening, black eyes watching,

golden scales broken by dark russet bands:

a tiger snake.

Recoiling, shocked, we ran, dog and girl together.

 

‘Lambs all up to water then?’

My father, rolling a cigarette.

 

I stared back in silence

recalling that moment under the old tree,

that fatal beauty

coiled, waiting.

¯

Jennie Fraine

Mungo National Park

 

Bones poke through after weather; from the weight

of sand and clay baked in outback’s kiln

they speak with delicacy: a bare whisper.

Small pieces of ossified tree, and grey patches

where fires roamed or cooked snacks

also reveal themselves.

 

Births and extinctions: cycles within cycles

continuing beyond our ability to think or imagine.

North was once East North East, he says, and

we acquiesce as patterns begin to make sense.

 

Neither the vast lunette sands, finer than beach,

spreading one and a half metres east per year

nor that lone whistling kite pursued by a plover

cares what we make of it all, what meanings we add.

Nevertheless, I see a future starkly imaginable

arriving faster than the speed of human thought.

from her book Births and Extinctions

¯

Jasmine Giuliani

Google predictive search

 

My fingers fleeting lances

as they enter the urgently hallow query upon my mind

but when my eyes raise

the predictive quandary sitting sheepishly in the bar is

the definition of love?

such a question upon where I spoil each and every whim

hauled to see

a collected urging for understanding from those 

unscathed, 

the interlopers who dare fill such knowings with one

click.

This, the kind of question which is so obvious and elusive to

those wrenched

like I, a copper nail pulled and swooning away from the plaster

indulgent of nothing

other than the lean.

¯

 

Judyth Keighran

Knitting

 

At the foothills of Donegal

in a new thatched cottage

(public housing for the aged)

Hannah spent her days

knitting Aran cardigans

mapped in memory

 

A family of tourists came

to the cottage next door

The woman spent the evenings

knitting from a pattern

plotted in letters and numbers

 

Hannah’s door was open

to her neighbours

from Australia

The women’s conversation

was wound and unwound

in the coil of their craft

 

She sold her cardigans

bought potatoes

at the Sunday market—

cooled her pint of milk

in the stream near her house

 

The tourists bought broccolini

and whole fresh salmon

chilled their milk

in the refrigerator

 

Smoke from both chimneys carved

identical patterns

blown by the same wind

The brash call of a donkey

fractured sleep in both houses

 

At holiday’s end

Hannah gave their daughter

a red Aran cardigan—

a Celtic shield against

icy nomadic winds

¯

 

Sandra Lanteri

Double take

 

My home is hallow

my heart wooden

a perfect miniature

in a larger world

 

My mouth a cavern

I’m piano played

man handled

butter malleable

limp ragged, tin taut,

a go-between

vocal yet dumb

as dishonest as you

pulling my strings

 

I am you

you are me

but when the curtain drops

I’m doubled up

cased inward

and you go free

¯

 

Stephen Le Page

Deck Cargo

 

She crouches in limbo -

frog-like, with legs ajar.

 

Java cotton bunches and

shifts, flutters, floats

on see-sawing deck water

anointing crinkled toes,

a baptism of past labours

in melancholy sea-driven rhythm.

 

She is separate, oblivious and

dazed perhaps.

 

Ceaseless squeals,

the hubbub of humanity,

fail to mask and silence

groans of rivets and

plank-squeeze,  squelching

as her carriage rots.

 

She sits,

pores clogged with flying salt

whipped by whistling winds

via flaky paint holes and gunnel gaps,

while the engine

thud-thud, thuds,

wanting to break but

yet to choose its time.

 

Her mind unfathomed, massive

like the sea beneath.

 

Though eyes be distant,

glazed to cramming crowds,

though her boat decays --

inside she’s alive

recounting,  reviving

that budding pubescent radical notion

now wormed deep-deep inside,

first dared ages past.

 

Of something ahead

better, greener, fairer--

to her mind

imagined, so dazzling

to stir and lure and

build within her

a lust, a thirst.

That speck of light she holds

still within –

and waits.

¯

 

John Lowe

Rock

 

Sailors once again engage

that old thug god, the sea,

boiling and bullying.

 

Above its boundlessness

stands the lighthouse,

built upon rock to avoid.

 

The navigator,

rocking upon the sea,

can now draw a line

that walks the water.

 

The lighthouse

offers deliverance,

a place, a fixing –

upright, whited,

it stands upon its bluff.

¯

 

Virginia Lowe

Conception of a Grandmother

 "Bless what there is for being" [Auden]

 

Embryo

 

A tiny creature floats

contained, content

in whose nascent mind

inheres a world in which

its mother's childhood

has no place

will not exist -

 

A world so real

so tangible to me

for this little one

will be forever

mythical

 

Daughter

 

It was you

who made me a mother

who changed my life

by vesting me

with the mantle

of motherhood

You are mother-maker

 

But now

the world shifts

You are mother yourself

You bear within you

your own mother-maker

 

Mother-maker, you

and now child-bearer too

¯

Bridget McKern

Greed

 

Fat cats

claw

and scratch

great holes

in the maw of our holy land

 

Not enough

that we have

clawed

the indigenous Soul

to the edge of extinction 

 

Greed knows

no bounds –

is there

no perception of indignity

in this scrabbling

for insane wealth

before the world

shakes its head

wakes up and says

a mighty NO

no more

to these disastrous

megalomaniac days

 

Do we run and hide

our heads in disbelief

from the greed

of fat feral cats

who claw

and scratch

ever bigger holes

and profits

from this body of the Great South Land

¯

 

Judi Menzies

A City is…

 

She longed to leave that desolate place.

She slammed the window and cried.

The roofs were grey, the buildings grey,

even the weather was grey that day

and she longed to pack and run away

before part of her died.

 

Sleet and rain beat on the town,

the buildings cowered beneath.

Mount Wellington looked foul and white

while gnarled trees framed the chilling sight

and convict ghosts were rife that night

with damp and misty breath.

 

Mount Wellington lay bathed in sun…

She glimpsed a harbour of blue.

They circled round, the plane flew low,

a golden city grew below

fringed by beaches she did not know

and hills of blue-green hue.

 

In parks of thick green lushness snoozed

quaint ruins of sandstone blocks

and fountains played in city squares

while honeymooners strolled in pairs

past sleepy shops of antique wares

and miles of sandstone docks.

 

How strange that now this city seemed

so different from before.

Even the wind that howled and whined

once conjured terrors to her mind

but Hobart now seemed warm and kind…

she loved it more and more.

 

On a mountain path, a traveller

Gazed at the city below.

‘Hey man!’ he asked a passer-by

‘Is their lifestlyle worth a try?’

The local looked down to the valley

And said he didn’t know.

 

‘I’ve travelled ‘round for 60 years

to places of every kind

and I’ve come to see a city is

a personal thing. The pity is

so few can see a city is

an attitude of mind’.

¯

 

Patricia Meredith

The Essence of Valour

 

            Imperious authoritarians

            Decimators…of strategic rationale

            Orders so vehemently disputably

            followed through

            There was no escape for heroes

            Foreboding cliffs

            Artillery fire…

            Their footprints ebbed on a lapping shore

            To lie side by side on blood soaked sand

            Survivors’ relived the truth…

            Only the lifeless won

                                    rising to…the elusive peace

¯

 

Cecilia Morris

To be

The tilted land,

buckled spirits

tightened

the rising globe

oil outage

whales used for bait.

 

A crease through desert

asphalt veins

drive sand away

from what was

the sudden fall

odious wings stilled

a symmetry of green

sharpened trees a military line

guard the awe of resorts

rolex time 2.20 am landing

the 8th wonder Dubai

¯

 

Michele Seminara

All Dried Up

 

I

an old lady

waiting in this parched bed

for something to happen

 

which cannot happen.

 

I

an old lady

with an impatient

unsated belly

 

that will not rain.

 

I

an old lady

whose slow mind spreads out

so far her eye has

lost sight.

 

I

the one

who age must not tame -

 

May my drying up cause this spark to flame!

First published in BLUEPEPPER 2013

¯

Ruth Teicher

Nature

 

Wind blows,

Trees writhe in agony

Branches drop

Birds migrate

To warmer climes

We shiver and shake

Wishing we had wings

And could fly to

to warmer climes.

¯

Anne Thompson

      Sung Dynasty Pottery Jar       

 

      Blue, like my memories, indistinct

      and hazy, hovers over

      the jar’s near-black glaze;

      while outside my window, deep

      snow buries crocuses

      that yesterday bore spring

      through yielding ground. The world

      is stilled, when

 

      suddenly, this day, the dead pour

      out of the old vessel

      like snow over lotus flowers.

      Words shape the past

      into song. I am surrounded

      by yellow and purple blossoms,   

      and you are with me in the garden. 

      I am no longer full

      of winter.

 

      I clatter about in silence,

      reaching out, strangely,

      for the presence of the ancient

      potter, his finger mark

      in the jar’s clay.  I find shards,

      mist of blue, black glaze,

      patterns without sound.

¯

 

Margie Ulbrick

After Waxwings

 

The small wild fruit that lies at your feet

As if it would purr in sun feasts on such elegance

And outside the black wind blows

Leaves catch cold like fire that smirks in your eyes

Every time I see you dance delighted as a silk-blue sky

Reminds me of the first time you stood out under the jealous midnight moon Knowingly

And all together for this I have abandoned my other lives

To converse with you as if you were really here

Coming home today as I did

I saw you from a distance working away

Bent over manacles clutch measure pour fill

In the sheer dogged carrying on of you

I knew you would not don tools and see me there

I knew this coming home today as I did

Bone achingly weary red crumbly bricks inside your skin

Eyes burn leak like tears that cannot find a way home

I do not know where I live

I do not know when you will come back

I do not know what I do not know

Fallen stars now under vanished skies

Come in flashes like inspiration

From this choleric universe we inhabit

And I lie here try to sleep

Will it breathe it sense it

Until at last peace comes

And finds me all curled up

Alone in your bed

Waiting for you to come

I’m going to spend my whole life waiting for you here

Wanting and not wanting you

The warmth you bring to my cold chilled heart

The havoc you bring to my neat little life

My children will keep you here and not here

With remnants of our story echoing in theirs

On again off again like some old broken Greek myth

And there in Mykonos the kiss we could never have

That speaks of birth trauma love loss

It goes on and on like some stolen curse

As I live a kind of half halting life wondering

Deeply treacherous inside my skull

The curse of family at my back

My small stunted heart lying smashed

My weary wild bones ache from absence

¯

 

Jim Walton

Blackberry Sonnet

The hay cutter speaks of his love

 

Lady, I came for your love – not to haggle.

I am no wisened mariner of orbs familiar knowledge,

But a castaway escaping the casket’s clamour -

Our years wait in your mantled hourglass beyond that door,

My journey is measured in the distance to the bed head.

 

Strand me not here for my bones shudder to cease and the sand runs down.

I would be Warm and Content and Yours.

 

Madam, I am no callow stent and lack the vigour to court these months;

The days are ours and I have not the tongue to maintain the nights as once

I climbed to masthead nests and sailed high.

Put away this doubting nunnery,

Turn the key, loose the handle and say you are mine.

¯

 

Lana Wayne

Shadow on the Wall

 

He stands there looking at the sleeping angel

As she lays beneath her covers

And he remains with her till sunrise

When she stirs awakens to find him gone

 

The shadows play tricks on her

AS she searches for her love

Yet he does not reveal himself

Until its time to rest once more

 

How much longer can they play this game

The torment is too hard to bear

Please she begs

Let me come into your world

 

Once you become a part of me

There will never be the light of day

Only shadows on the wall

To keep you near.

¯

Kathryn Yuen

Unpalatable Pretense

 

Evil lurks behind bleached teeth and blond highlights in hair

‘I look good for my age’, she says as she

      backstabs and emotionally abuses her ‘friend’ on the phone

      and ignores  the psychological damage she inflicts on her

            toy-boy f#@% buddy and other ‘acquaintances’

 

‘You’re very good to just ignore me

Not get upset. It’s just my Slavic nature’, she says

But her acid-tongue would threaten the devil

And she thinks she could be a music therapist? Start a new career.

 

I’m aware that the stench of excretment lingers if not flushed.

 

For too long, an out of school hours carer of young minds

‘This business pays very well’, she says

 

She’d pulp and insinkerate a baby or her own mother

If  she could get away with it

 

She’s a hypocritical, frustrated creative who minces values and ethics

‘I’m best at structuring other people’s work”, she says

But her work is pedestrian and all her skills like a

      homicidal road train before it creates road-kill splatter

 

Note - her only child was a mealticket and laneway  access

      to white picket fence respectability

 

And that I have not flushed sufficiently.

¯

 

Ilse F Zipfel

Externals

 

Nestled around glazed columns

beside a glassy waterfall

cascades of curved patterns repeat

along plate-bound exuberance

for little hands to reach

 

On black and white pillows

rounding this picture

children scribble on bits of paper

or swirl ‘round on this concrete floor

- a dull appearance in grey begs for light to fall

into its subdued texture variation -

 

Sleeping nearby in half-circle fashion

around a pillar close to exit

three ladies of Asian complexion

dressed in costumes of their land

found refuge here

 

Wrapped in colorful clothes

upright in comforting sitting pose

like dolls I practiced propping up

recover from flights or other commotions

 

I met these three women next day

awake and alert amidst this city’s week-end strollers

aware of others and of me

I think they feel safe

by returning knowing glances

at strangers they met asleep

 

 

¯¯¯

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

Australian Poetry Collaboration

#21

 

Australian Poetry runs an exciting series of national e-workshops with some of the country’s leading facilitators.
This edition includes work from some of those participating in an AP e-workshop in August 2014.
 

Coastlines Poetry is an energetic group run out of Brighton Library, Melbourne.  They meet monthly

and held a workshop there in December 2014.

 

An intensive small group workshop was held in Melbourne the next day.

 

Here is a selection from all three events.

 
 
 

 

FEATURING: Christopher Conrad, Sherryn Danaher, Wendy Fleming, Jennie Fraine,Barbara De Franceschi, Janice Lawton,

Garry McDougall, Cecilia Morris,Barbara Orlowska-Westwood,

Anne Pettit, Laura Jan Shore, Ruth Teicher,

Anne Thompson, June Torcasio, Margie Ulbrick,

Jim Walton & Deborah Williams

 

¯

 

Bandar Seri Begawan Airport

 

I feel like I’ve accomplished everything I ever wanted to    he said

no frills, sappy solipsism or perhaps even self-awareness

just your ordinary, everyday Mancunian accent and she

skinned in Versace leather  rifles through her ear ring collection

as if surveying every loaded meaning in what he’d just said. At Gate 5

 

freezing air  conditioning inside steaming temperatures outside.

Caught in a crucible of mobiles, lap tops and boredom.

Signs of Islam everywhere and its seven hundred year reach

over this island. A Babel of languages and rustling

of papers, some unidentifiable beeps: the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf Cafe

 

looking down over the airport lounge like a jungle Sultanate.

The Englishman’s benign comment seemed to call out to me

like the Adhan: God is Great. Has god achieved everything he wanted?

In transit the kid across from me is bent over laughing at a text

surrounded by a Weltschmerz of hijabs and baseball caps.

 

Versace’s killer shot himself in the mouth with a Taurus PT100.

His ashes lie neat at the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in San Diego.

I’m not sure Gianni, who made it as far as the front door

of his villa on Miami Beach, achieved everything he ever wanted either.

 

¯

Sherryn Danaher

The First Attempt

 

Night stealth smoulders as

we inch towards the stream

until,

in that exposed green field,

we acquiesce

to hours of refuge,

welded to a solitary palm

prominent as the sacred stupa.

 

Fugitive to soldiers’ sights.

Sweep of their torchlights like

fireflies through our veins.

 

Stock-still,

your father and I

sternum to spine,

bate our breaths.

You are

my warm, swaddled hump,

your wisps of exhalation

speak into my nape.

 

What knowing

suppresses your cry,         

discerns danger of soldiers’ shot,                    

till tired of the hunt,                                        

they grudge their retreat?

 

With caution,

time separates our bodies

from our perpendicular lair.

 

Onwards to the river

 

Escape craft gone.

¯

Wendy Fleming

Nebraska

 

I'm drinking rosé wine after the film, at Balwyn Cinema, its

wide staircase, chrome railings, black and silver geometry blazed

on mirrors, glass, my glass. My wine has to be rosé. I have to be

alone, an Edward Hopper image, last person in the café window.

 

Old picture house, a black and white film and I'm reeling

back to how it used to be , protest songs, jazz, underground

in Collins Street; Hungarian refugees  teaching us to love 

wine, Burrows rhythm, hi-pitched trumpet . Where to next?

 

Anywhere away from the incessant noise, bombardment

from those who overtook the plot imagined its unfolding   

Yellow hordes of reds swarming down Asia to Australia.

We listened with fear then finally learned to yawn.

 

Now it's that time of day when the wind has dropped,

overhanging bushes flicker shadows on the path, there's

an unusually long pause between trams, the occasional car slinks

past with ease of a cat. I'll cross the road, start walking up the hill

 

then I'll stop, rewrite the scenes,  a long straight road slicing

through empty landscape, splice Charlie and his son to journey

through mean hearts, failure and splendid resolution

It won't be long. The wait for metaphor.  I'll let go, surrender

to forgiving air and joy’s surge, alone and free.  

¯

Jennie Fraine

School Garden

 
Whenever the heat beat
the fight out of even 
the toughest grevillea, or
the tanks groaned and screamed
with the effort of drawing water
from a sluggish River Murray,

Dad's watercolour vision
of the school's front garden
provided an alternate universe
of mild weather, certain rains.
I imagined lying cushioned on

the leaf-green lawn at its centre.


There were to be cheerful
flower beds, natives and hardy
immigrants bonding in rich
alluvial soils, creating
with entwined arms a space

for freedom, harmony, peace.

Their sturdy growth would

ensure a new world order. 
This was a painting steeped

in soft Spring sunshine.

Yet one thing he left out:
a fountain healing the pain

for the garden that never
was realised, the world
that grew spiky and dry,
the resentful children crouching
on its hard clods, pulling stubborn
weeds under a blinding white sky.

 

¯

Barbara De Franceschi

Traces

 

The mourners have gone.

Moods are a queasy drench of grey.

Muscle and bone jostle for purpose.

I need to stop the heart

from leasing its vacancy to aversion –

the loathe of all things vibrant and hopeful.

 

I decide to douse time in bleach,

exhaust conscious thought,

purge and clean.

Every task is meticulous,        

eardrums ting with dizzy rings,

fatigued limbs shriek.

 

The last post – a blithe room,

floor to ceiling panes consigned to sunbeams;

an empty daybed/ its vain identity bolstered

by plumped cushions and folded quilt.

 

As the sun hits French doors

hand-prints are outlined – as though the owner

has interrupted a journey to lean

against the lucent panels and peer in at my pain.

 

I stare in a wish-haze.

Hours pass in a sting.

The hands/ so familiar/ rework reality.

 

Fingertips swirl in pleasurable rotations,

they speak from a place where quivers

were set on masculine scent;

ring finger has a smudged indent,

map lines between thumb and palm

decode the secrets – how flesh was kneaded

with a subtle squeeze more potent

than love-words baked on heated tongue.

 

I feel the night-push.                                                                            

Yellow chamois flinches.

Touch cannot live on glass.

¯

Penny Gibson

Stuck

 

Trapped under a glass grey sky, like specimens

we are stuck, spinning our wheels

immobilised by mud, thick

 

and glutinous as the clouds that hang

above the hospital bed

of the Darling.

 

You refuse to accept. You leap from the ute

Dig. Drain. Reverse, one puddle

at a time while I sit, eyes closed

 

against the mud, the view, the future.

Can I help? I ask, reluctantly.

No,’ you say, ‘Stay there. I will do this!’

 

In the sodden paddock, sheep shiver

in a north east corner, seek

an alternative vision.

 

You are perpetual motion, violent

as a radiotherapy ray. Mud

splatters the seat, the dash, windows,

gearstick. The floor caked with mud

slick, sticky.

 

Two hours it takes, until I understand

what draws you to this country. We reverse

10 ks to safety. Turn, and lead the storm.

 

Sky boils, cavitates.

Rain bursts free, wind now a howl. You smile,

triumphant. A light is in your eyes.

¯

Janice Lawton

Time Out of Step

 

Fleeting echoes

Ocean hissing

Cavernous, propelled

 

Fallen attitudes

Stark reflection

Florid pause

 

Dank image

Time warp

He lamented

 

Barren hulls

Viability lost

rotting reality

 

Bones fragmented

Youth undone

Dripping regret

 

Feathered clouds

Shredded storm

Dreams sink

 

Prosperity fraught

Time to reflect

Image caught

¯

Garry McDougall

A Trouser Ecology

 

In June 1944, the Marquis' or French Resistance supported the Allie's D-Day landings with uprisings against Nazi occupation. On June 12, forty-three Resistance

volunteers from the Drome's Venterol, Grignan and Valraes were captured and massacred by the SS.

 

Men of the Marquis

strive where the enemy dare not,

ceding the embittered valley,

our doctor tormented and shot,

teachers beaten before roses,

men shunted to German factories,

the Rhone groaning

our liberation born

of worn trousers and dirty socks.

 

Under night's wilt showers,

chill cascades and ice,

trousers and I on Venterol's sleeping slopes

my hot breath falling

on a cold weapon,

dreaming of my wife,

a back to stroke, fingers in hair, eyes of smoke

-cheek of the Marquis -

bare blanket only, comforts me.

 

Sunrise to armpit reality,

watershed eyes,

lashes entangled in sleepy pining,

swamp aromatics,

forehead a palisade,

a nose for No-Surrender.

When the microscopic invades your scalp

and Nazis your land, all shall itch.

People call for action, and leaders for patience.

 

In the upland of soiled normality

hiding refugee, airmen and escapee,

learning regimen and drill,

pushing Will uphill to cache and carry,

our legs bearing the Baronnies,

driving our trousers to the world's end,

following the path of Free France of the farm,

hoe and rifle, plough and grenade,

ready for some-day-soon.

Won't the years run Nazi's ragged?

 

Our leaders speak of springs

welling beneath our dirty boots,

flowing from hills into valley,

nurturing the fruits of liberty.

But we farmers forbid optimism,

the grace to fine words -

infected toes wriggling,

knees a wildlife refuge,

thighs of toad and boar.

Itchiness is spiky time,

all of us thinking,

some-day-soon, some-day-soon,

our trousers bearing the years

as interlude to victory.

¯

 

 

Cecilia Morris

TimeTable

 

There is an age when you are most yourself,

you feel as large as an empire.

A tall Moment .

 

The Moment knows exactness,

when to speak, what not to say.

Strangers at a distance table smile

as the Moment hears grace then departs.

 

The Past and Present takeover,

spread clock hands, adjust their

forehead locks, deliver the living timetable.

 

The past like rusted armour

has fallen away,

a wasted man vanished.

The road ahead buttoned with sunshine.

¯

 

Barbara Orlowska-Westwood

Beach Volleyball

 

Sky and sea– denim                    

smell of eucalypts 

voices from the beach 

a girl at the net

crowd’s applause cut short

by umpire’s whistle                          

she smiles

her body tense again.

 

Remember years away

beach volleyball at eba*

a fishing town

threatened by shifting dunes

its deepened valleys revealing fossils

of ancient trees, insects, animals.

 

From the town a day’s excursion

to the launch of Hitler’s rocket–

broken concrete, rusty rails

protrude from the sand

smell of pine sap

silence

shattered by the seagull’s cry.

 

Memory

like eba’s shifting dunes

burying and uncovering

the fragments of the past.

 

*eba – a fishing town on the Baltic coast in Poland.

¯

 

Anne Pettit

Emergent C

 

Oblivion has been bliss,

but in the haze at the periphery,

doubt now stirs, even in closed minds.

Carbon burns its way into our consciousness

and strikes an uncool balance in a delicate atmosphere.

 

With innate logic, it moves as always

through the structures of each being,

in carbohydrates, fats, proteins

and DNA, the stuff of genes.

 

Yet without us all even coming to know

and wonder at the energetic trail of carbon

- from air through plants to food to cells,

driving life powered by sun -

it seems fraught.

 

It’s not carbon itself that is to be pilloried,

or feared as savage chemistry unleashed.

From fuels razed to meet more extravagant energy needs

- unearthed from plants and animals long-dead,

themselves once powered as we all are still -

cast skyward as carbon dioxide,

it now warms in excess,

greenhouse-style.

 

Reckless fortune hunters ply their trade

and would convince us otherwise,

but the future shines on our choices

to leave this carbon buried - and de-fossilize.

¯

 

 

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#22

 

SPIRIT OF SYDNEY-

POETRY ALIVE

 

 

From among over 400 submissions 20 poems were selected to be read at Manly Art Gallery.

Some of the country’s leading poets presented alongside energetic local voices. This is a selection from the day.

Sunday 6 December, 2015
Manly Art Gallery & Museum, West Esplanade Reserve, Manly

This event was part of Destination Sydney Exhibition
at Manly Art Gallery & Museum (5 December 2015 - 14 February 2016).
In an unique collaboration, three major Sydney public galleries presented the
work of nine major artists to celebrate the important influence Sydney has
had on some of Australia's greatest painters; Lloyd Rees, Brett Whiteley,
Elisabeth Cummings (Manly Art Gallery & Museum), John Olsen, Kevin
Connor, Peter Kingston (Mosman Art Gallery) and Margaret Preston,

Grace Cossington Smith, Cressida Campbell (S.H. Ervin Gallery).

This project was supported by the D.I.G. (Dream. Inspire. Grow)
Manly Sustainability Program at Manly Council.

 

 

 

 

FEATURING (in order of appearance): Alan Jefferies, Rae Desmond Jones, Beth Spencer, Anna Couani, Paul Scully, joanne burns, Norm Neill, jenni nixon, John Carey,

Martin Langford, Jenny Pollak, Susan Adams, Michele Seminara, Ross Donlon, Thoraiya Dyer, Margaret Bradstock & Andrew Franks.

 

¯

Alan Jefferies

Sighting, 1988

 

 

A man is lying face down

in Botany Bay.

I’m not certain

if he’s swimming or he’s snorkelling

or he’s just plain pretending

but he’s definitely floating

in smaller and smaller circles,

hanging from the sky like it was a banner

Bobbing up and down

in the very blue waters of Botany Bay.

 

He’s attracting less and less attention

from a group of well meaning tourists, who shout

and  point the other way.

He’s failing to interest

the traffic, or the shopkeepers,

this man seems so unafraid.

 

He’s neither black nor white

(often he appears quite gray)

I’ve heard it said

it happens every other day

A man is drowned

in the very blue waters of Botany Bay.

Previously published Sydney Morning Herald

¯

Rae Desmond Jones

Bandstand in Yeo Park (Ashfield)

(Opened by Ald. F. O. Hedger, Mayor 30 November 1929)

 

The twenty first century

Has dropped onto you, old whale

Whitening in the Sun

Rising from a sea of lawn,

Bleaching with slow dignity.

 

As you rise the clocks on each side

Point up with immobile fingers

To condemn the smoking lines

Of trucks & cars rolling

Along Old Canterbury Road

With such rude certainty

 

Your silence reflecting

A spring sky in glassy water

Feeding those hungry mosses patiently

Gnawing your base

¯


Beth Spencer

We Are the Rejected

 

The rejected in love

come down to sigh in the park

at Glebe Point.

 

The rejected drive down late at night

crammed in a yellow two door sedan

radio blaring,

arms flailing out of windows

hair a mess, mascara running.

 

We shout

'We are the REJECTED!'

across Blackwattle Bay

 

and wait

 

and the shark coloured water

creaks against the bank

'Hmmm... Hmm...'

like a $90 shrink.

 

'We are THE REJECTED!'

again, just to be sure

because it is comforting to be something

even if it's only this

 

and up on the other side of the bay

the cars cruise by

headlights politely averted.

 

But we are everywhere,

in the dark in the bushes, on benches

kneeling or leaning against the white rails

resting our foreheads against lamp-posts

bumping them against fences (boop, boop).

 

As dark falls on Glebe Point

you can hear the rustling of the

grievers, the deceived

listen to the

'Hmmm… Hmmm…' of the bay

and see the cars drive away

(the unrejected, with places to go, busy schedules).

 

The chimney stacks:

(no comment).

 

The skyline glitters

out of reach

like a big birthday cake

for someone's party that the rejected are

too dejected to go to

(and weren't invited in the first place).

 

We are the world's nocturnal shuffling creatures,

hunched shoulders, long thin overcoats

pale lined faces.

 

Short, fat, balding, beautiful, long-legged,

smart, witty, dull and mean.

We come in all types.

Shuffling through the trees,

leaning against the white rail,

knocking our heads against lamp-posts

doing hand-stands in the dark,

avoiding the dog shit.

 

'We are the rejected,' we shout and we hear the echoes

and sighs all around us in the bushes and on the benches,

a woman is kneeling at the white rail.

 

'Hmmm… Hmm…' says the water.

 

'We are the rejected!' we shout.

 

'Not my problem' say the cars going up the hill (somewhere).

 

We are the weepers, the left

the ones with

big question marks in our eyes

the ones still hoping.

 

Gnawed fingernails, chewed hair.

 

'We are REJECTED!'

 

'Hmm… Hmm…' says the water.

 

We are the rejected.

Previously published in The Party of Life (flying islands)

¯

Anna Couani

Ideas for Novels 7

 

Sydney gives you space to breathe

with its up and down hills

and huge liquid ambers

 

skinny peninsulas

deep deep harbour

 

anonymity

lost in the crowd

 

trams that live on

in Australian novels

 

my generations

in the inner city

 

a blessing

a curse

 

the city as it is lived

 

the Greek kids

four brothers

who built canoes

from corrugated iron

and tar

to sink like a stone

in Rose Bay

 

the glittering church windows

of John Radecki

Polish great grandpa

nestling like forgotten jewels

in corners of the city

only discovered by us atheists

fifty years later

 

Mum and Dad snapped in Lee Street

just as it is today

with the old stone wall

the steep slate roof

looking like Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck

in Spellbound

especially as they were doctors

and the shot was in black and white

 

the excitement of the CBD

all of us walking those streets

different feet

different decades

across 140 years

 

Uncle Con’s café in George Street

long and narrow

and Con, ex-army cook

frantic at the grill

way down inside

how did he stop customers

from running off without paying?

 

John Radecki’s stained glass factory

in Dixon Street

near today’s Food World food court

when the buildings were entirely blackened

and grandma toiling to keep it afloat

struggling with her heart condition

and her proud husband

 

Uncles George and Con

later on

with the fruit barrow

horse-drawn

just outside

the old Anthony Hordern’s building

spinning those paper bags

carrying change in those leather aprons

 

Auntie Nellie in the Oceanic Café

for 65 years

                   on the other side of Central Station

Mum on the till

pregnant with me

                   strange she was taking time off her own work

                   and 10 years later was working just up the hill

 

those Poles and those Greeks

 

the place more like an American city

for us

seemed like we were in the wrong movie

¯

                               Paul Scully          

Henley Park Canto

                                            33:54:30 S,151:6:190 E

 

This cul-de-sac sits like a thermometer bulb at the bottom of a street lined

with housing of various degrees–Californian bungalows, miners’ cottages

adapted to open-cut suburbia, stucco incursions that conceal grandiloquent

stairways while the next generation experiments with sheepishness.

 

Nearby,  a distant view would have sketched calligraphic brushstrokes

in gold-clearing light, stick figures stepping on egg shells while their hands wove

jing in the bountiful void between the cresting sun and resting moon. 

                                                                                                           South-east,

acres of bermudagrass lie still in regimented fields, while athletes, joggers

 

and mums in three-quarter tights pushing bivouac strollers hug the convention

of perimeter.  On weekends the fields thud and scrape with the long ball booted

forward by a thirsty fullback and sprigs that bite the turf for grip, or

the vertical alignment of a bowler in delivery stride and the deliberating willow

 

of a watchful batsman.

                                            Foam-soft, low-swung play equipment breaks

the park’s sporting stranglehold and evokes hardier memories.

      My thoughts

            rove, like Rilke’s dog, around the corner to the off-leash strip beside the back fences

          and its yap for a greater allotment.  It peters out at the slope the graders forgot

 

and the garden border of the Blind Centre that has toiled for decades to be

seen.  Across the road the forever “new” nursery has retained the cocky cages

and fish ponds of its predecessor, though its owners reportedly hunger

for tenements.

                               The dog comes to heel, returns to the leash at the cyclone fencing

 

on the boundary of the pool that abuts the cul-de-sac.  In the civilian lane a burkini

reveals girlish joy within the strictures of her faith.   Alongside lap swimmers

ply their litanies of stroke and kick.  Those who shudder at the merest whisper

of respiting breeze seal themselves in the humidicrib of the heated pool.

 

I remember I first apprehended truth’s elasticity in this pool as my father cajoled

me into swimming–an Olympian propelled me to the 33 yard mark; my brothers

and sisters share this experience in their own measure–and that the coelacanth

has inhabited the deep Indian Ocean since the Devonian Era, and swims on. 

¯


joanne burns                                                       

    keyboard   

                                  

                                          coin inacup   here's a milkcrate

                                          linguist   instant noodle meeting potts

                                          point poodle   pique explosions along

                                          the golden mile   a battered telephone

                                          dangles after a drug deal mangle in the

                                          pissed off phase   000 to go   a deficit of

                                          glory how happy is that happy hour, naive

                                          tequila squealer   why not have a contemplative

 

                                          spritzer at the photogenic

                                          fountain, sacred as a spindly homer

                                          in the setting sun   pinochet-ed of late

                                          by a ring of stark black bollards as snappy

                                          tourists circulate, weekend urinals proliferate

                                          evangelists pluck out their whiffy

                                          tunes

 

                                          clutching clipboard quizzes girls in party

                                          hats romp by making notes on cop

                                          shops adult entertainments colourful identities

                                          conserved on grubby pavement plaques   such

                                          enthusiastic squizzers   this surge to win a prize

 

                                          ibis scratch their arcane dialects into the random

                                          rubble     the duke of darlo-road's ghost, his face

                                          still glowing like a roast, begins to rattle that

                                          lavish chain of keys =

                                       

  ** 'the duke of darlo-road' [or Darlinghurst Road] was a Kings Cross figure during the 1950s

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Norm Neill

cbd

 

The early-morning hum of cleaners swells

to fitful choruses of snarling engines,

clattering construction sites

and shuffling grumbles of the workers’ feet

 

that echo from the cliffs of glass that glint

like waterfalls snap-frozen overnight,

their chill intensified by wailing

sirens and the flashing neon signs

 

until the sun warms tiny yellow flowers

glowing in the cracks in Hosking Place

and a cellist with a purple beanie

busking Ode to Joy by the Town Hall steps.

¯


jenni nixon

harbour spin

 

sandstone and sparkling glass buildings

grasp the sky of infinite riches

lose yourself in a city of green park beauty.

trawl down deprivation alleys where the homeless beg

on pavements with cardboard signs  

the more enterprising sell copies of The Big Issue.                

this harbour city thumping under constant reconstruction           

in a ‘bag lady’s waltz’ twirl of traffic through tunnels

burning rubber over buried shell middens

of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation    

on to freeways and down  thoroughfares into back alleys

in an eternal search for parking.

 

‘Goddess Asphalta     grant me a place  

within walking distance

that I can take time to get back and forth

before ticket inspectors overflow their coffers.’

 

a city of red traffic lights    stop-start flash headlights

on high beam reveal uneven footpaths filled not with gold   

but pedestrians   in a non-stop rush for shop sales and coffee.    

take a deep breath   as bicycle couriers flit out and in        

before braking screech of tyres and beeping horns.

in this violent city fuelled by alcohol

built on convict sweat and corpses

where  Eternity is a prophecy scrawled in chalk.

musical fireworks explode on the bridge stitched in steel

lovers like a statue   kiss at Museum of Contemporary Art.

thousands of fruit bats fly over the harbour

flutter high above St Vincent’s hospice      

where a dying poet crafts revisions.

 

in Taylor Square sticky summer heat

gays lift their gaze from each other to a flapping sky.

the sad face of the full moon

slowly climbs over the packed Sydney Opera House 

and everybody else is watching Reality TV.

a Manly ferry’s foghorn blasts warnings at tourists       

who scrutinize strange maps upside down in the Rocks  

hear faint sound of bells on warships at anchor

before opening doors to trendy stores and quaint pubs:

chocolarts    boutique belle      The Lord Nelson    Hero of Waterloo. 

listen to enfolded history of shanghaied sailors  whalers   whores

razor gangs    enthral on the ghost walk tour’s talk of rats and bubonic plague

that led to demolition of thousands of houses and green ban protests

to save what was left.

 

2.

in a multibillion-dollar playground at Barangaroo     

thin ibis stalk puddles on concrete

as a cocktail of lethal chemicals bleeds into Darling Harbour

through a pall of grey cloud the city sprawls

dotted with islands   netted by rippling water 

wooden finger wharves tease the surge

the wash of boats that scythe the bays.

over at Taronga Zoo   a giraffe nibbles treetop leaves 

fringed eyelashes blink at the best harbour views in Sydney.

 

in this throbbing city   another dance

an everlasting image etched into memory.

The Dancing Man   after the war    holding his hat high

pirouettes down the years in Martin Place

as bronze soldiers lest we forget

stand in sad remembrance at the cenotaph.

 

in Rowe Street once the heart-of-the-city

picture framers    printmakers   a bustling artist’s colony  

now the backend of tall building’s ugly laneway

graffitied  One Way   and  No Parking  signs

above rotting pamphlets   cigarette butts   syringes  

used condoms   there huddle the homeless  

who curl into threadbare comfort blankets

as shopping trolleys spill ecofriendly Woolies travel-bags

 

exhale    slowly

this city that never comes to an end

originally published swimming underground (Ginninderra, 2015)

¯

John Carey

Best Medicine

 

I have been feeding a wild kookaburra,

not because I need the company,

I tell myself, but because he has a withered

foot that puts him off-balance so his mid-winter

catch of annelids is never enough.

He visits for the grubs hatching in the rough

porous wood of the palm-tree in late August.

I call him “Byron” for the long metrical

lines of his song and the seductive imperfection

of his foot, an anapest in a platoon of spondees.

His mate seems larger and bossier

than most females, forced into a male

role by Byron’s deformity. Ladies

never take their love to town once the knot is tied.

They greet me each morning with a stifled

chuckle that settles into a sort of purring

as if to say: “ good morning, large-furless-

mammal-that-feeds-me”. Byron snags his meat

from the palm of my right hand. Each detail

of the ritual is repeated in perfect sequence.

Madame, always perching exactly twenty

centimetres from Byron along the balcony rail,

shivers and makes her long tail

swing up and down rhythmically like the pulse

of a mouse startled out of its cover.

She likes me to lob each piece of steak

gently within reach of her clapping beak

then she makes it disappear down her twitching

throat like a keeper’s gloves swallowing a faint snick.

They shake their heads to clear the debris,

give me the once-over, a final check

to see that my full stock of anthropomorphic

imagery is well and truly exhausted,

then off into the blue. This is not silliness

or lack of proportion. I am also kind to children.

¯

Martin Langford

                      The Currawongs

 

No matter how fine-grained the present –

a clearing of brilliant, nibbed grasses:

centreless, endless, a sea of blond etching,

stem-shadows rhyming with seedheads,

tiny white stars nestling deep

in the creases and blacks –

there are always the farewells of currawongs,

rising through neighbouring forest

and wheeling away: Goodbye to the moment,

Goodbye to the sacrament, detail.

One song, split up, amongst many;

carol of distances, echoing upwards and out,

through the high, tattered bark:

Goodbye ungraspable, looping and veering,

spiralling out through the trees…

Wherever, it seems, there’s attention;

where senses stand still in the gardens of forms:

through cold-shadowed cliffs, in the cities;

through reaches in parks; through the back-streets –

Goodbye to the moment, goodbye…

 

Goodbye to the Edens of presence

From sun doodling neon on water at Circular Quay;

from shops of worn sandstone;

from luminous weed and warm steps;

                 diasporas – the part-song departures –

        never more potent than out through a silence:

                 the pause before rain starts;

        through blue-shaded cumulus,

                  pale-green and wind-harried skies –

         blown leaf scraps, keening and belling –

                  leaving you, always, behind, at your birthplace:

         the bare rock no art can redeem –

                  the sweet-moment-just-passed.

Previously published in Sensual Horizon (FIP, 2001)

¯

Jenny Pollak

On Broken Bay

 

I'm done for done in

undone

struck down by a thousand pricks of shimmering

light slipped sideways

inside my retina losing

my mind

Unhinged by sun

a hip of rock

this smiling lip of sand this topaz

tongue (the sea that sits

so still and flat it's stolen

the sky)

But listen —

for now I'm made defenceless by a trill so sharp

and sweet

it catches in my throat

If I were not already struck dumb

by light then here I am

unmade by song

and tripping

solo

somewhere between my ear

and eye as she sharpens her beak

on a shaft of sun

Rainbows hum and air peels back

from blue to white

through rain

and spills through

light and variable

(somewhere between)

Song and Storm

¯

Susan Adams

Under the Craze of Heavens

 

There is such a large edge

                               to this pre-dawn world.

Waves swell with timeless purpose

                               after the storm

and shore rebounds with noise

                               as they thrust

towards their end.

                               Each gathering

of water a tsunami belt of ruin.

 

 

The balloon of night is pierced

                               with javelin light,

day is again the repetition of begin.

 

 

In the slope of the folding waves,

                               lit by new sun,

seaweed ripped from dark floors

                               is graceful in the eddy.

Life caught in the skirts of this kelp

                               lands to the applause of sand.

Seabirds snatch at their breakfast.

 

 

Each our own heaven,

                               each our own end

as a tangle of weed discard.

                               Yet - every torn clump

was once a ballet on a wave.

¯

Michele Seminara

Southerly Buster

 

A bloody sun rose through misty veils
another steaming white day.
Morning smoked on the red roofs
swarming the hills,
the barren headland
curled like a scorpion in the blinding sea. 

 

At the wharf
people burst out of the turnstiles
flushed girls in floating dresses
twisting in streams through the streets.

 

Cicadas skirled from the foreshores,
trees rose up to dissolve into light
and picnickers deliquesced
in the cool pools
of deep green between the pines.

 

The afternoon, wearing on,  
shone copper, the whole ocean
rolling in molten motion toward the land,
meteorologists singing up a storm
as the people, waiting, wilted.

 

Dusk gathered, houses shadowed,
the eight o’clock ferry
trailed its golden lights out of the wharf,
street lamps yellowly came on…

 

In the gloaming, the wind charged in.

Dusty leaves twisted and blazed
the grass reared itself with a pugnacious thrust
rats streaked up from the waterfront
cockroaches scuttled into cracks.

 

The sea was running high
gathering force in mile long rollers,
a howling parliament of waves plunging
booming into the caves
then draining hissing back off the rocks.

For hours the squall drove from the south,  
battering at the window panes
chattering at the doors,
and bursts of rain rang like blasts of shot.

Then, an imperceptible illumination:
in the west, a faint low glimmer
announcing the setting of the moon;
in the east, dawn breaking behind the black clouds,
the pale contour of the Heads emerging
radiant
like a somnolent lover’s limbs.

 

 

* A found poem sourced from Seven Poor Men of Sydney, by Christina Stead

¯

Ross Donlon

The Manly Boys

 

They dived for coins where the ferry docked,

slotting loose change beneath their tongues

stopping us as we arrived for the day,

white faced and fresh from the suburbs.

 

Lolling in the water, the Manly Boys,

eye whites upraised and mouths silent

watched a tossed bob sparkle and flicker

then enter the water in a  flash

 

before they ducked under faster than the coin

spangled and sashayed, until fingers slipped silver

quick as a doubloon, into a pirate mouth.

 

From the other side of the sea’s glass,

they were a boy I could never be,

they a man-boy, seal-like, sea being

me a child on leave from a suburb, 

longing either to be that boy

or else the coin held tight in his mouth.

¯

Thoraiya Dyer

Something Older

 

Is there anything that matters

more than haunting

you and I

this place where concrete desert

kisses

sizzling summer sky?

Who owns the stones? The ones

who gleam with wealth

we don’t possess?

Can they command the sea-swell,

sunlit,

foaming at the crest?

Or is there something older,

carparks cutting

through its skin?

And when we spirits, salty-cloaked

arrive

it waves us in?

¯

Margaret Bradstock

Barnacle Rock

(Reef Beach, Manly)

 

You will go back through the quiet bush

past Aboriginal middens

rainbow lorikeets nesting

                                in tree knolls

to the uninhabited beach

water dragons in pairs

scrambling up tufted rock

                     the vanishing beak of land.

 

Your voices tear

at the substance of wind

        a boy gathers shells

fragments of smashed glass

glittering like gemstones

the baby staggers in wet sand

demolishing fortified cities

                  with her plastic spade.

 

Now the kookaburra swoops, scissoring

                   ham from a sandwich

where a phalanx of crows

               falls on the picnic remains.

The mirage of a sail

crests on the swell

         like a captain looking for land

 

finding shellfish and bones of sea creatures

snapped branches jabbing like country

dividing winter

         from the frenzy of birds.

A man and his shadow

stride across skyline

         in the footprints of worn sandstone.

¯

Andrew Franks

Il dolce far niente

 

As the ozone at Freshwater surf collides

with chilled bluebottle peppered sand

demi-scorched toast clouds flutter from the Breville

Scrabble square cups of peppermint tea

are left languishing unmade

as urgent bills and rent are contentedly unpaid.

 

There is no hurry. The sun might rise. It might not.

…Il dolce far niente.

 

While the high octane clouds hum over the Spit

and Maritimo dreams collide with higher interest rates

a DVD spins idly in a sellotaped machine

and a disconnected Panasonic TV

ignores the errant doofer

as a cat falls asleep on the nice warm computer.

 

There is no hurry. The sun might rise. It might not.

…Il dolce far niente.

 

Marine birds scan the fleeing morning menu

whilst the waves approach the Steyne unbidden

solar slats turn the room into zebra town

and in the corner a Guild guitar

with mahogany looks

goes unplayed and neglected just like the piles of books.

 

There is no hurry. The sun might rise. It might not.

…Il dolce far niente.

 

The pre-lunch surge of commerce roars on

flowing through vast Warringah Mall.

In here the toilet seat remains doggedly up

and the taps are left to drip as the

water begins to rise

‘Cos we are not joining in today we are just gazing into each others eyes.

 

There is no hurry.

The sun might rise.

It might not.

…Il dolce far niente.

 

There is no hurry.

The sun might rise.

It might not.

…Il dolce far niente.

 

There is no hurry.

The sun might rise.

It might not.

 

…Il dolce far niente.

www.soulbaypress.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#23

 

MELBOURNE and SYDNEY

 

Work arising from workshops in 2016.

 

 

FEATURING: David Atkinson, Louise Berry, Wendy Fleming, Betty Johnston, Gemma Mahadeo,

Cecilia Morris, Claire Roberts, Gisela Sophia, Lyn Vellins & James Walton

 

 

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David Atkinson

Eddies of Memory

 

Murray and Darling junction;

river red gum saplings, reeds,

subdued chatter of yellow rosellas.

 

Deep convergence, silence.

A flashback fifty years;

sitting in a primary class,

remote country town.

Teacher strides. Our great rivers,

highways of the pioneers.

 

Wooden desk, attached chair;

cramped for a gangly boy.

Initials “B.T.”, a predecessor’s etching.

Sunlight dances on last year’s

ink spill.

 

Remnant fragments swirl,

corellas circling on the river.

Recollections flow, the tributaries

of recall; unconscious eddies.

 

Memory drifts back

like skeins of geese returning

to the river as daylight pales.

 

¯

Louise Berry

Guilt

 

branches scatter garden and verge

sun glints through gum’s dying leaves

 

does it know its life

is to expire under the roar of chainsaws

will it curse me with its dying sap

leave me to roast when its shade is removed

 

I grieve in advance

yet my remaining peace 

shattered in the chatter

of those carrying out my wish

protecting my home

 

inside

I know that to take a life

for one’s own comfort

shows a callousness

hiding under a veneer of justification

will my guilt be eased

by another

 

am I and my ilk

the cause of global warming

will the anger of citizens

swamped by rising seas

remove my last vestiges of peace

 

you’re too thin skinned

I hear my mother say 

 

inside I know 

I committed an ecological crime

will spend the rest of my days

repenting         replanting       watering

forgiving myself.

¯

Wendy Fleming

The day I decide to sort my sock drawer is the day the phone rings 10 times

 

to tell me of your demise.

 

I have seven pairs of dark blue socks,

several of abstract design and one green

knee high with black hoops (cost $30)

a hole in the right foot.

 

Some official, probably police,

called first, announced your death

in breathy voice said   ‘hospital…

but nothing could be done’ 

 

I like to wear the knee highs

or the green and purple stripes

feel a bit out there, member of a club

My rebel mum , you said.

 

The next caller and the next after that

and the next after that said

He was doing what he loved.

One EVEN said, His art consumed him.

 

It was JK6 who filled me in. He said

you had finished your best piece ever.

Look out for it rolling on freight

all over Queensland, back of beyond 

 

like the others it will make it to LA

The outrageous flares, vivid colours 

fit for angels. Like he knew. He said.

 

He said you were flying high, then Icarus-like

forgot the rules, leant back, punched overhead

power lines …melted man atop the car.

FAME. is yours

 

I'd celebrate wearing those loopy socks. If it didn't hurt so much.

Previously published Eureka St

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Betty Johnston

The present as third party

 

Parties

are not the thing.

 

Even dressed in my best

and with a clean handkerchief

I’d feel more in keeping

hung on the wall

above the old Chinese vase.

 

Better

is chopping wood, and scruffy

drinking tea on the back steps

with you.

¯

Gemma Mahadeo

a sketch for a modern loss poem

after Tadeusz Rozewicz’s ‘A Sketch For A Modern Love Poem’ (trans. Czeslaw Milosz)

 

white is stark

grey, more reassuring.

petrol-feathered roadkill

coalesces on molten granite;

summer, in december

 

old love poems describe, inscribe.

flesh extols papyric virtues of minutiae;

eyelashes tease unsated skin

 

bread

is tangible hunger

 

rattle the pips of an apple core

carcase; cages ripen solely for

marriage to century eggs.

that bird not yet born

putrifies. pomegranate molasses

plagiarise blood in vain

wasted organic chem texts

 

water : transparent thirst

 

absence, made flesh.

a description of love, this

  statistic seems high, tho—

hyper modern; loss

- a poem.

¯

Cecilia Morris

Sometimes a day just passes

 

nothing marks it

not even the date

life measured in habits

something ordinary

opens

that encasement in mind

an incoming tide

a girl standing small in a wooden door frame

wearing a grey tunic with black patent shoes

no pick up sticks or spinning top

just a girl

recording what she misses

someone still hurts for her

¯

Claire Roberts

Behind and Before the Day

after Matthew

There's a voice barely
decipherable above the river water
sweeping a name under the tide.
Open-armed sunlight slowly passes
until evening throws darkness
over the city like a body bag
behind and before the day.

Comparison to the Continent

after Philippe Jaccottet

Outside daylight tunes its colours. Grignan
flowers: here woody as a girl's hairbrush.

Underfoot branches creak like floorboards
and dry grasses
pass a whisper along their fingertips;

there are no frail slits of flowers but a trumpet-shaped
orange and yellow Chrysophaea dipping its nose into a flame.

December

 

Now the summer flies hardly move
but seem bolted to the air.
The Overland passes the aged
Eucalyptus Pauciflora
bent with the seriousness
of their agreement with fire.

REFERENCES

Behind and Before the Day:
the title refers to one of Matthew John Davies’ poems “Behind and Before the Day”.

Comparison to the Continent
: the italicised phrase 'frail slits of flowers' comes from Philippe Jaccottet's prose poem 'Colours, La-Bas' as part of And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry 1990-2009  (Chelsea Editions, 2011).

¯

Gisela Sophia

friday night

             fragmentation blues

 

 

their bellies bloat with corporation kilojoules consumed

     in solitary, their livers close to drowning in currents

of inebriation more perfidious than coastal rips 

 

infatuated with big sugar’s kool-aid promise of satiated

      cravings they’ve fallen for the anodyne convenience of

24/7 over-easy TV series that leave them all singularly

 

slouched on no-frills couches optimized for goggling

     celebrity gourmets self-marinated in medium-rare ratings

battles with teenage zombie vampires who now

 

proliferate on pornographically super-sized flat screens

    while tweets & texts metastasize unnoticed on symbiotic

my-phones flashing error messages about pixelating frontal

 

lobes & terabytes of far too torpid neurons languidly

     asphyxiating in sticky inter-webs of unredacted megadata

nothing that another virus check & defrag can’t fix

¯

Lyn Vellins

Colour me popular culture.

On watching the final of Breaking Bad and looking back.

 

There’s nothing but chemistry here.

But doesn’t it seem like something’s missing?

What about the soul? Not life alone.


Death, too many blue on gold deaths ignored

all put on the line for that rush.

 

The incomparable contrast of freedom and control

hasten Heisenberg to his eventful downfall.

 

White amused by blue, Sky betrayed by an eye

the fallen king, victim of his own breaking body.

 

Out of control Pink and White zig and zag

as they crackle through hoops and sharp reliefs

 

Jesse and Walt spin into tribalism

deep shadows etched on their faces

 

Blue meth twisted out of White and Pink.

 

Who cares about Saul?

Endless life possibilities miss the fact:

The heart of the Matter is Gray.

¯

James Walton

Dark Falls by Railway Lines/

The Murderer’s Motif

 

How the souls cry out their battered endings

from this shallow dumping ground,

here where the train gasps going by,

the abandoned rooms licking their cracked sour paint.

 

The sandy track glimpsed looking up

from the page or lap top,

the endearing favourite song fluttering in scrubby messmate,

my decorative sentinels shedding skins.

 

So carefully placed and tended now,

a travelling case, glove, sweater, leaky shoe,

the pair left at home in mistake,

the two dollar umbrella bought especially.

 

Cured now of all sentient need,

this is how I haunt those lost in waiting,

with the feinted shadow that old mail left unopened

offers the respite of a returnee’s call.

 

I shimmy down the greasy pole of hope

into the baking sweaty wakeful nights,

the fire blanket of visitation suffocates any promise

that no news tantalises the kindling of a chance. 

 

And into this terrarium of ordinary come exotic

is strained the pattern of vicarious makings,

for a scaffold of all the generous donations,

to craft the collection of what cannot be named.

 

My heart out of tune from this riff raff life,

sometimes sirens pass by other streets,

the arias of justice play to the audience of the comfortable.

Loaded up, all the mementos burned out of the vanity of possession,

 

leave only traces of material anonymity.

Gathered from their singularities my vacancies are filled,

one big breath on the overpass,

the express rushes to me.

Previously published Bluepepper

 

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#24

 

Manly Art Gallery & Museum

 

Ekphrasis selected to be read in celebration of the artworks in the Gallery’s collection exhibition ‘Manly: Art from the Vault’

 

FEATURING (roughly in chronological order of the pieces they addressed): Meredith Pitt, Danny Gardner, Jan Dean, Paul Williamson, Adam Aitken, Frank Russo, Jenny Blackford, Halee Isil Cosar, Lou Steer, Bhupen Thakker, Marie McMillan,  Rebecca Kylie Law,  Magdalena Ball,  Colleen Z Burke,

Gisela Sophia Nittel, Ian Pettit,  Leigh McGregor-Upton

& Angela Gardner.

 

 

 

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Meredith Pitt

Breathe

after Manly Beach with lady lifesavers by Percy Spence

 

I have been standing on the beach, waiting
for my turn to breathe since I was four

 

there have been years where I watched

the seagulls for a signal—

their white shit always missed

 

A lineage of women who wore half-moon aprons

and ironed with an astronaut’s helmet

attached to a shoulder bag of hot air

 

My tunnelled escape meant assuming past the point of knowing

until another           appeared

 

A conversation waiting to be had

splits ripe—it’s not me you want at your side

but a child’s crayon drawing

 

I’m sorry I can’t be your missing mother, or

mine.  I still buy sandalwood soap to keep in my drawers.

 

Two currawongs visit me,

pacing the railing of my balcony.  I’ve

learnt not to approach but allow them

to ignore me

 

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Danny Gardner

A Response to: Moslems in Procession by Emanuel Philips Fox.    1911

 

It’s a matter of knowing when you should go – that’s the key.

Did Mr Fox meet and talk with them -

the other artists and writers - from Europe?

People like Andre Gide, Antoine Saint Exupery,

Paul Klee, August Macke, Henri Matisse and so many others.

They were all interested in finding out about the oriental at that time.

Did they ask him about the Antipodes?

Or did he see them and shear off – wanting the Orient to himself,

keeping the low profile.

Did he interact with the Moslems at all?

I’m sure he had to hire all kinds of guides.

Everyone has to pay ‘baksheesh’ to village urchins and their mummies.

It’s been said the artist’s first aim is to observe

And what was that quote of William Hazlitt’s?

‘In a stranger’s ignorance of me and my affairs

I – in a manner – forget myself.’

 

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Jan Dean

Red floral swimsuit 1950

Primary Colours

Railway Picnic, Manly 1950

 

Tired from the trip and so much excitement, I flop

on the pontoon with friends, watching a teenager

stride the sandy strip in her colourful costume

 

bright red with blue and yellow flowers.

We’ve seen nothing like it. She walked out of a dream.

 

The long journey, ginger beer from a barrel, ice cream

in tiny cartons with wooden paddles, lollies in paper

bags with twisted tops, the sack and egg & spoon races

 

fade into insignificance.

Thanks to her swimmers, the teenager is more potent

 

than Wonder Woman because those colours dazzle.

Her mother must use Persil.

I pleaded for this bubble swimsuit with elastic shirring

 

on the bodice, all the rage for fellow ten year-olds

back home. Now it’s feeble, the way the world looks

 

through blue cellophane. Still, I can wriggle inside a towel

to dress and undress in full sight of company

but imagine the teenager uses a dressing room.

 

When I peel my cossie off, it leaves scale marks on my skin

and my scrawny straggle of long plaits, dripping after a dip

 

feels fishy, whereas the girl on the shore is adorable

trimmed by her tiny skirt, perky yet demure.

My suit is a bubble atrocity and I’m kin to seaweed.

 

Here I am; a pretend member of the family of seven across

the street whose father works for the railways, tagging along

 

at their annual picnic. When I grow up I want to be

that teenager. Her swimsuit will never get wet

so maybe I should stay a legitimate form of sea life.

 

 

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Paul Williamson

Alan Hind Surfers with Long Boards 1950

Primeval Shore

 

Breakers roll in - they are smaller today.
It doesn’t matter.
Dull sun freshens the white roofs
of shelters, sharpens their peaks.
Gulls move quick red legs across the grass.
Two long-haired surfers sit on boards
waiting in low swell for their next ride

during our visit
to the semi-eternal mother
at this ancestral edge that holds a place
to reconcile us with what we are.
Others dream of forests
Our lot longs for seashores.

We slowly calm to the dull roar.

 

previously published To the Spice Islands (Belgrove, 2015)

 

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Adam Aitken

Ashton’s Notre Dame

 

Sir John William Ashton (1881-1963)

Notre Dame undated oil on canvas

mounted on composition board

38 x 54cm Gift of Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo, 1954

 

What is it you really want to argue with

stone machine of anti-gravity?

 

Statement buttressed & exquisitely glassed

in a summer in Paris.

 

(Cathedral Industries that thrive.)

 

Today three gentlemen walk by

on their way to the view.

Nearby a man in a pink smock

and white cap

(the artist?)

 

They see a river

dust or swallow feathers

some stony sense of it

take off into cumulus.

 

Painting another summer in Paris

twin tower of levers and stained glass:

magnificence come to Mosman,

the origin of light (blue sky version).

 

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Frank Russo

Tom Thompson Annunciation 1973

The Annunciation

 

Mary of Bingara, of Gongolgon,

of Mahra Station, sits beneath

the skillion verandah, watching

the trees on the horizon

as if they might transfigure

into horsemen in clouds

of hoof-kicked dust.

 

Six days now her husband left,

with him five stockmen,

a thousand head of short horns.

The wooden dining table polished,

the linens, bore-water washed,

stiffen in the dry wind.

 

She keeps company

with the old man saltbush,

make believing it speaks to her

in the blithe tones of childhood

until her daydream is interrupted

by a low susurration,

a flutter of wings

caught in her left field of vision.

 

Fearing a hawk or a kite, she shields

her face from the light.

Glimpsing the form before her,

she imagines it a Birra-gnulu

the local women speak of—this landscape

of red earth and dunes

is a place for spirits, not saints—

 

and trembles at the sight

of the emu-god transformed

to human flesh, two-pocket

cotton shirt loose around his form,

skin and hair sun-baked to a flaxen glow.

As he speaks, she thinks of how

the tin awning her husband built

is no altar of incense; the nearest Galilee

forty days ride by horseback.

 

Once the spirit has departed

she gathers the folds of her cloak

and observes the landscape shift

in the morning light: the earth a swirl

of coral-shaped channels, organs

of salty white and pale marine

soaking past the wooden posts,

heedless of lines drawn on parchment.

 

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Jenny Blackford 

Promotional Poster South Steyn

South Steyne

 

Landlocked in Bexley North,

cramped all week in the wooden desk

stained blue around the inkwell,

I pined for the sea.

 

Wherever my parents drove us – tear-free

Sans Souci, Picnic Point, or Manly –

I fell fully-clothed into water,

came back wrapped in Dad's holey old jumper

from the car boot. Too often I skinned my knee

on rocks. There's still a tooth-scar on my lip,

if you look hard.

 

The South Steyne ferry was heaven

for me, though doubtless hell for parents

trying to keep me from dragging my baby sisters

over wooden sides not quite steep enough

to deter a determined child. The trip took days,

or months. Pure ecstasy

with ice cream at the end.

 

Then the ride back with sleeping babies

piled over the parents,

and my last chance to fall. 

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Halee Isil Cosar

Bill Samuels Shino Bowl 1995

Wabi-Sabi

 

Perhaps he has no expectations

after all these years

He knows the kiln can produce

many mysteries

The fire, works its magic

in the confines of the womb

Stains the cup where it has the deepest wound

 

Each one is made with the same materials

He guides, the breast like white with fingers gliding

A meditation of work that writes its own destiny

To create the cup that is empty, he must be empty

He must be present, yet willing to let go

Let go

Of wanting to know

 

He is just like this shino cup

Made from clay and cooked by life

His glazed skin is mist that covers his stains

wabi-sabi

He also fits into his maker’s hands

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 Lou Steer

Paola Talbert, Kairos (Moment of Truth) 2000

Muse

 

Muse appears,

not  - as we imagine -

in a cloud of cherubs, trumpets blaring -

softly,  a feather falling on water,

silent,  a breath in the deep.

 

Muse descends, 

floating beneath the surface of your thoughts,

suspended in a solution only you can make for her.

 

Her party finery trails behind her,

shedding pearls, diamonds, periwinkles,

glimmering drops of light into the abyss.

 

She reaches out her hand, takes yours,

her pearly fingertips brush your palm,

tracing a phosphorescent trail along your destiny line.

 

 

 

Ephemeral, evanescent,

Muse needs your poor hands and mind

to show her to the world.

 

Muse flees, 

leaving no trace –

except the dreams you try to capture before they vanish.

 

No matter how much care you take,

you never quite surf the crest of her wave

as she breaks over you.

Human -  your visions are limited

by the daily grind of living,

your need to keep that body going,

so your mind can soar free into Muse’s realm. 

 

Nothing to do now -

but accept the extravagant praise

of those who have not felt her touch

and yearn for her uncertain return.

 

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Bhupen Thakker

John Olsen Sydney \Harbour Seaport of Desire    2003

(spirit of the collection) …..An old Indian woman who speaks no English       

 

 

lost her sparkle at seventeen. Her husband threw her art against a wall and pointed to his many siblings who needed looking after

Sunita did it well.

a walking stick roams a gallery-  by a light blue harbour, beside golden sand. The determined Rat tat tat tat wakes a lonely art group… swaying elderly traditional clothing sends messages

I like the sweep of the bridge in this….pointing to the John Olsen

I was as beautiful as that. The Rah Fizelle

in Manly Art Gallery. Sunita does it well

And look at this one she utters to her son. You see how the purple is, to lead the eye into infinity……….” Ketlu saru kam che” she says in Gujarati…”what beautiful strokes”. This is the Ralph Balson. ”Gulabi ketlu Nache che” - “pink dancing strongly”,“safed jane bole che”- “the white almost talking”,“lilu chupai ne bethu che”- green hides and sits,“shu light blue joyu”- did you see the light blue.“Ane soneri jaane swarg no darvajo”- and the gold like a door to paradise…

Sunita sits down              for

perhaps  a thousand long breaths/sighs ,  a thousand memories,  a thousand tears, a thousand imagined strokes of paint, a life missed, of no regret, of many religious chants, a thousand perfectly shaped chapatis…and delicate aromas of crackling mustard seeds

“stillness red

touch orange         awareness yellow        hearts green

words light blue                 sounds indigo blue         presence navy blue         holiness pink pink

truth gold        the wonder of purple        sparkle gold

white quiet”

 

a air-bubble critique in Gujarati surfaces.

Sunita sparkles well

leaving eventually a repose of a second, a second’s recognition, a second of happiness, a second of remembrance with a glance back to the Ralph Balson on her departure rat tat tat tat

 

Years later her son walks past the John Olsen noting the curviness of the bridge, past the beauty of the woman in the Rah Fizelle and sits with his walking stick opposite the Ralph Balson by the light blue harbour near golden sand

white quiet,  gold sparkle, purple wonder,  gold truth, pink holiness, navy blue presence, indigo blue sounds, light blue words, green hearts, yellow awareness, orange touch and red stillness  know him

He wonders how Sunita is. Whether she sparkles? He does not see her much due to her domineering. It’s best this way he thinks. We both sparkle…in our own ways

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Marie McMillan

LAUNCHED IN LINO

Peter Kingston’s Friday Night at Kookaburras 2003

 

On finest cream laid tissue
Old Hegarty's ferry plies
With end-of-week
                                                                          Commuters

Some jarred, some others jaded

In this illuminated matchbox
Warmth beckoning from inside
Old beacon of conveyance
 - by briny cousin Charon -
Ferrying t'other side
Of living harbour
Whose hidden depths 
                                                                         Beguile

A ligneous lighthouse
Its shadow doppelganger
Floats in timbered sea’s
Inked waters
A severed arboretum
Immortalised
In aqueous diagonals
Its sylvan ancestry
Slashed and slivered

                                                                          Cut

Swashbuckled strokes

Laboured upon
Its frothy ruff, it
Frolicks aft
While tail of noirish wake
Wags ‘cross the
                                                                            Linoprint
Until the vessel's launched

 


                                                 
We're told 'twas Friday night and latish
Straight rain and
Jet-black sleet,
Cross-seared, cut deep by
Tridentating Neptune,
Spill from chimneyed,

Stygian sky
O'er grainless
                                                                           Linoleum


                                                                     

His finger tips excoriated,
Scraped and bloodied
(Perhaps even band-aided)
From glass 'n blades and knives
Is artist Kingston now?

 

While
Mentor Hiroshige
Of Hegarty's ferry
Would have been very
                                                                           Proud                                                                         

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Rebecca Kylie Law

Shimmer.

 

After Chris Langlois’ Landscape (Narrabeen Lake) no.2

Standing in the prayer space

of headland rock at low tide,

flat and empty of ornament,

 

I followed you to the water’s edge,

avoiding ‘the brown’ as we called it,

the hazard zones of ocean peat;

 

and every now and then steadied myself

when you turned with your hands in your pockets

for a kiss. You talked later, as we

stood at the island’s edge, about

the water’s tendency to move back into

shore surreptitiously; and how many tourists

had found themselves marooned here

 

for oh, hours until the tide turned.

 

We fossicked for crabs in the pools

back inland of the prayer space

 

and when I held out my palm

to receive one you’d hidden inside,

behind knuckles, I looked up smiling

and said softly: “it’s okay, I like them.”

 

There were small shells and larger shells,

the one still holding a creature in good conscience

you lobbed back into deeper waters, not so much

soundlessly as reverently, the sunlight on turquoise

promising a further passage. In your bright green, v-necked

 

t-shirt, my friend, I asked you if you had ever

thrown a stone across a lake and watched

it skip. You replied yes and I thought of that

awhile, moving into shore behind you,

the light still sunny and cloudless

though winter had come; that in those

 

moments it was a wish cast also, though

 

the thrown stone would plummet and its

wholehearted dream would soar.

Published "Earthly Darling Came" (Ginninderra, 2017).

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Magdalena Ball

Just like that

                        After Chris Langlois’ Landscape (Narrabeen Lake) no.2

 

 

Just like that, she was there

the mirror that was your lake

creeping across the shore

in shadow like a film

disappearing as heroes do

beyond sea, sky

the end of this day or every day

fogged up into memory

the patina rubbed to satin sheen

so all you feel is a tug

a longing where words fail

fall to hunger, desire

 

thistle, or liseran purple

cut down to the raw centre

becomes gravity, charging a force

two bodies of mass drawn together

 

the brain aches with the smell of it

knows what it knows

and reaches for what it no longer sees

 

it could be anywhere that space

with you in it and not

a body in the darkening day

low tide drawing the eye

 

you know your fingers will pass

through that water as glass

she isn’t the only ghost

inhabiting the scene

you too, breathe out mist

sliding deep into the space

and listen for it

the twist, when the lake becomes

blood, your eyes shield against

soft glare, and hold.

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 Colleen Z Burke

After Chris Langlois’ Landscape (Narrabeen Lake) no.2

 

 

Life’s ambiguities

  

 

Waters of the mauve

tinged lagoon

slide into silvery riffs

spiky with darkness

as a woman

enmeshed in mist  

vanishes

with barely a ripple

Only her mossy scarf

splices the lagoon

as lake    sky     merge

and    hills     bush

                 waver

beyond the

charcoal headland

 

 

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 Gisela Sophia Nittel

Joshua Yeldham (1970- )

Mangrove Country, Hawkesbury River – Protection 2009

Patterns of surrender

 

Such understated culmination

in these Hawkesbury River mangroves.

A different time zone to your mountain

climbing days, your days of Emmy triumph

& Oscar nomination for the re-creation

of what seemed such folly at the time:

a near hubristic plan to scale Pico Humboldt,

Venezuela’s second highest peak,

without map or guide.

 

Your camera was abandoned for a paintbrush

years ago. Even so in interviews your eyes

spark with semi-disbelief, recalling that green

teenager, so irreversibly lost until Chucho,

the local hermit, found you. Muy loco!

he scolded. Yet struck a deal to lead you

to the top, wearing your Gore-Tex boots

while you trekked on in the only other shoes

you had – your father’s leather loafers.

Muy loco, indeed.

 

Hard to trace this reckless youth back

to that reclusive eight-year old, who hid

in racks of fashion garments, watching

his parents entice customers

with the latest shipment of exquisite imports.

Like the young Matisse, you swooned

with love for textiles, surrendering your eyes

to colour & succumbing to the mesmerising

language of repetition in design. 

 

Here now in the mangroves of ‘Protection’

I search for anticipated shades of green & blue

but find instead pale blood-orange tones

& fleshy hues that blush with youth

& vulnerability. Or is it maternal warmth

that forms an amniotic backdrop to textile

textures, whose patterns could be crinkled layers

of sun-ravaged skin under a microscope.

Front stage, burnt-match-coloured outlines

form reverse x-rays of speckled trunks

& limbs painstakingly hand-carved on what

could be a sheaf ripped from a paper-bark.

 

Initially perplexing, your palette now

soaks up clarity. Why not cast flesh

tones & patterns of scaled skin

as a silent chorus

for wiry, charcoaled trees

born to sing the arias of oxygen

to an audience of life in muddy tributaries

between land & sea? With boundaries

so porous, protection works both ways.

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Ian Pettit

Joshua Yeldham (1970- )

Mangrove Country, Hawkesbury River – Protection 2009

Red Mangrove Country

 

Trollope called the Hawkesbury River Australia’s Rhine

Mangroves are our castles, our bulwarks, with complex roots

Binding the mud together, reducing erosion

A superstructure above and below saltwater

Within which is a most rich, complex environment

Managing high salinity, tidal inundation

Full algae, Sydney rock oysters, sponges, barnacles

Shrimps, mangrove crabs, destructive termites, moss animals

They cope with low oxygen in soil, intense sunlight

Australia’s mangrove species may be red, black or white

On a red mangrove, one of many seeds germinates

The seedling inexorably grows out through the fruit

To form a propagule for ready away to float

The mature propagule drops into the water salt

Remaining dormant and resisting from drying out

For about a year drifts while the density alters

The elongated shape’s like a vertical fish float

So it is more likely to lodge in the mud and root

A teaspoon of mud from temperate mangrove forest

Contains more than ten billion bacteria, mangroves

Produce one litter kilogram per square meter per year

Some is consumed by crabs but most must disintegrate

As bacteria and fungi reduce unusable

Carbohydrates and increase up four-fold the protein

Becoming available to other animals

All this nutrition, partly decomposed particles

Of leaf are then eaten by prawns and fish, they produce

In turn, waste which, along with smallest mangrove debris

 

Red Mangrove Country

 

Is consumed by molluscs and small crustaceans, shrimps, prawns

Dissolved substances are eaten by plankton, or landing

On the mud surface, are consumed by crabs and mud whelks

The mangroves are a nursery for many fish, sharks

Chasing and growing amongst the root forest playground

Until their size and strength for independence are sound

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 Leigh McGregor-Upton

Peter Tilly and Andy Devine exhibition Black Harvest

Spirit Contemplation

­­­­

Walking along the Corso

After visiting manly art gallery 

Watching children playing 

In the fountain in front of me

 

Another day passing me by

In this beautifully lavish land

Comprising of pristine beaches

With magnificent golden sand­­

 

Contemplating the future changes

Taking place on the land and sea

As I reminisce about ‘Black Harvest’  

An exhibition on the coal industry

 

Questioning the devastating mess 

Its impact and environmental effects

­­­­­­Partly created by human’s excess

Waiting to see sustainable progress

 

I continue walking to Manly Beach

The smell of salt lingers in the air

Feeling blessed that it’s wintertime

No clouds in the sky, completely fine

 

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Angela Gardner

Figures on Manly Beach, Anne Zahalka (after Nancy Kilgour), 2015

 

It has the stillness of Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte,

that recognisable indolence of a Summer day. Sun that warms our backs

even as it dazzles headland cliffs with green alps, suggesting we lay down

in the alternate violet-scumbled shade, here on the yellow zing of beach

towel, the soft abutting lemon-wedge of sand. The figures, arranged,

regard the sea (its arrested movement of the waves). A boy’s semaphore

-stance (looks straight to camera), a supplicant girl-child to her mother,

a clothed man holds his surfboard, each we measure against the bright

red beach umbrella with its furled tight flag. Sun dresses and boardies,

bright towels and dark glasses, beach bags and bikinis, all the expected

objects for a day at the beach. Receding: the sea and its successive blues,

the figures and the bays, each a wave that day-long laps our moments.

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Malcolm Fisher

What’s Past is Present.

 

Imagine the industry, the concentration, the blended juice of creation.

Captured and distilled, frozen in time.

Living an infinite life, on Manly’s care-free shores.

Picture the conceit, the frustration, the triumph.

Condensed, harnessed, coveted.

Fragments of forgotten lives, sweating still.

Reaching out with coded cyphers.

Canvas time-capsules leaking emotional energy back into the world.

Drip feeding the past’s composure to a restless present.

The collection exhales, reflects, reveals.

It lives on in curated spirit.

Preston, Proctor, Rees.

We still hear you.

Still see you.

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Doug Neale

 

Calling out to a time past 

Here Kay-ye-my, sandstone and sand,

Site of concrete, brick and mortar 

Sleeping pavilion garments into gallery.

 

Abstract white rendered walls

Exhibit the passage of memory,

Ushered upon stained timber floors 

Culture illuminates 

 

A burst of claret and fired medieval nature 

Hardened glaze in a cacophony of shape and colour,

Kangaroo, owl, tea and flower 

Bob and his medals oversee his beloved's room.

 

Sculpture, photograph, watercolour, painting, once witnessed,

Roberts and Rees, Proctor and Preston

Ferry and fashion, rock and roll,

From social comment

To social voice

The gallery sees.

 

 

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#25

 Dangar Island

 

A selection of work arising from 2 workshops at 
Dangar Island in March/April 2017.

 

 

FEATURING: Lorraine Bower, John Brinnand, Kim Core,

Penny Gibson, Gabrielle Higgins, Garry Robert McDougall,

Margaret Mahony, Alison Miller, Frances Paterson, Ian Pettit,

Kerri Shying, Peter J Wells, Michael Williamson & Kathryn Yuen

 

 

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Lorraine Bower

CAMPFIRE

 

I want to be somewhere else. I’m knee deep in bushes

bracing against angophora’s dark bulk

in the cold, smoke curls round the rim of an overhang,

carrying the scent of roasted meat,

 

shadows swirl behind loose-limbed figures,

air carries the cadence of an unknown tongue,

there is laughter, eyes mirror firelight,

a branch crack is a bullet, a glider thuds to a nearby trunk.

 

Later, the figures sleep, curled around embers dying to charcoal

beneath rock, sky and constellations,

as wind shakes the trees, water laps the shore,

the dreamers, fire, night, stars, are one.

 

I am no companion in this scene. My intangible self is drawn here,

to taste the ashes in my mouth.

 

The overhang is ghostly grey, roof time blackened with soot.

Where oars have dipped the river ruffles,

air curves around space left by the dispossessed.

 

Walking along the path I look back,

but there’s nothing except the wind, and water lapping the shore.

 ¯

John Brinnand

Descent

 

Where elements rule ancestors replenish.

In the high country, spilling from fragile shelters,

they crackle over frost into remoteness

undreamt by the domesticated.

 

This evening, in bitter sleet kangaroos grow dark and hunch.

At camp, resinous plumes conjure fitful sleep and fancy

from wells deeper than imagination's reach.

 

A dingo, singed, nostrils stuffed with soot,

sprints through flaming pillars of button grass,

re-telling gunpowder dreaming: massacre, exile, grog,

spirit punctured, taut, thin.

 

Mid-morning, reluctantly descending from Murray Gap,

the metered clap of my footfall deepens the silence.

To the left, the high side of the track,

a stirring sweeps windless treetops, quickening breath.

Sun shafts pierce the canopy, magnifying vault and volume,

illuminating the crack between reality and reverie.

 

Like a becalmed sailor, cheek tuned for faintest puffs,

I'm alert when the song breaks, then floods.

The same forever song: stalking country like a ghost, 

re-weaving with hypnotic fugue.

 

It passes quickly, drafting my reluctance.

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 Kim Core

Lay On Me... and/or Taking Direction

 

it’s like Atlas carrying

the world

upon his shoulders

Jesus, nailed to the Cross

 

it’s like wanting something

so badly

like motherhood

 

put me in the lion’s den

it’s like I can

stand up

to anything

 

it’s like we’re in a sonnet

like we are in

communion

 

the question why/how?

pick one

sonnet XLII,

my nanna’s house number

mine as well               

you explain that!  Some

 

people are just born

for the job

delivering babies was

my speciality

bringing them up

was the challenge

 

I could’ve been

the King of England –

I could’ve been the Pope

the Captain of a ship

the Captain’s mate

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Penny Gibson

After Fire

 

Black trunks lean towards each other, consoling.

Through years of drought, they husbanded their strength,

survived north winds and lightning strikes

surrounded by the rough charcoal scribble

of fires. In a landscape of black twisted remains

stark branches mourn

but below, new leaves scramble up blackened bodies,

thick, and quick with life.  In another country,

newly widowed women stand gaunt

and solitary, staring with glass-dry eyes

at the burnt out remains of home. Beneath their feet

small blue and white star flowers nod,

hopeful as spring. The dull eyes of the women

search endlessly for their children.

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Gabrielle Higgins

Spring

 

pushes at my clingy soiled-ness:

I am not the tight white buds,

strong in their thin layered folds.

 

Beneath

the whispered shouts

of the pale pink blossoms,

the very-here rock daisies

remind me, but of what

 

I can't be sure,

as I seek reassurance

by the mouthful in

the crowding ordinary,

to fill the chasm

 

that remains.

Sometimes though, sunlight

dances through the leaves,

soothing the infant in me,

as I watch the evident wind.

Previously published New Shoots

¯

Garry Robert McDougall

To Portomarin*

 

From teahouse peak, rollercoaster ride

besides gorse, because

Portomarin moved from time to time

underwater cause, applause missing,

aa their town drowned

turned back men and women

mourn the dam-to-damn hours

by Helculean estate.

 

by women's gaze, damned tears

a cause for men's applause

from time to time,

Portomarin moved to gorse hill,

rollercoaster ride

history's teahouse tilt to hill,

cathedral stones journey

below measure.

 

Pilgrims walk over hollow hill,

the missing buried 'neath tears,

arrivals beer-friendly,

wayfarers waving, cafe applause

spare ribs and hymns at source,

Portomarin's pilgrims turned away

all regret, no doubt, strides

Gonzar bound.

 

*Portomarin is a small ancient town in Galicia, on the pilgrimage route to Santigo de Compostela, Spain.

¯

Margaret Mahony

 

One year on

 

 

 

 

time has

no trouble passing

it’s impossible

to hold on to

 

look back

and wonder

did I do well

or slip through

 

I’m still displaced

the home

familiar

outside I’m a stranger

 

can’t belong

do I wait

or make it happen

 

will one foot

always be in the past

if I could find the thread

I’d cut it

 

I will grow old here

but still not sure

how to do it

 

 

 

Sutherland

¯

Alison Miller

I never knew.

 

“You’re the daughter I never had”.

It’s said almost as an aside

to the aide holding the door

as we leave the Home.

 

I don’t think she knows

how much it meant

to hear those words

from my mother-in-law.

 

“I only had two sons”.

I nod to her summation.

Then “you’re the daughter

I never had…”

 

We glide out of the shade.

She: frail and ninety,

me: pushing her chair

together into the sun.

 

 

I know too much.

(For mum)

 

She wilts

in the summer heat

like a drooping rose-

worn out.

 

Dad’s love

fills the air,

“we manage

one day at a time”.

 

“She’s my only love.

I don’t think of

The future without her”.

 

But,

alone,

I do.

¯

Frances Paterson

Fig at Number 28

 

Up the hill a strangler fig fills up the block

at Number 28; I write a letter and there

it sits, a white corella, posted home, unread,

while special fig wasp pollinates, and seeds

crunch inside tiny packets of jam. I lean

into his wrinkled limbs, spread and tapered from

 

the air, to ask him what he ate. Strangler figs

swallowed whole the clay-baked temples of Angkor.

Two leaves sprout from an under-ledge and cities

fall to their knees, less polite than the five-lobe fig

of the old world, a public leaf on a private part.

In the maw of the new, old names survive,

 

Daranggara in Dharawal. Draughtsman’s

pencil rasps against the straight-edge of the rule;

he freely draws his lines across a pulp of wood

but cannot feel the form of land, its flow, the creek

which drops from pool to pool, which carves with reckless hands,

wreck to regularity. The houses line up

 

on the hill, disciples to the road. The fig

has grown beyond their tidy mantra as he rains

syconia down. At 26 and 30, twin-

-trunked treelings racket round; the staunch fig

holds his place but cannot draw the line; he can

be chopped like Figtree’s fig to clear the empty block.

¯

Ian Pettit

The Jewelfish                                                                                                       

I am anchored at Flint and Steel Reef, at the base of West Head

Bathed in the pearly summer sheet of full moon as slowly bled

On the horizon are flashes of lightning, trying to spear

Mako sharks, Southern bluefin tuna, Portuguese man-of-war

Remnant harpoons in knobbly head humpback whales as they give birth

After they migrate from krill feed, cavort, to tropical dearth

Of food where they mate and produce young, suckle, fill up their lungs

I feed out line, baited with fresh prawn, on the run-out tide, tongue

Of squid finds prey, latches on with suckers, I bring it aboard

And hook it gently, balanced through its mantle and in accord

With light sinker, cast its translucence upon the brisk water

I hope the storm clouds won’t zero in on me with their slaughter

There is a quick tap on the nylon line and I hook the fish

Play it carefully and bring on board five kilograms of bliss

In the landing net, it is a jewelfish, named for its ears’ pearls

Jewfish or mulloway, dilated eyes lunar, scales are whorls

Of silver and a refracted purple, orange-tinted mouth

I saltwater fill a bucket, hold the fish’s head, uncouth

Cut deeply into its gills to its backbone, the fish evokes

Her childhood in the mangroves, learning to ambush as she strokes

Among roots, plays with her family, from enemies she hides

She dreams of adult playgrounds, sunken hulls, rock reefs, beaches wide

To hit her stride amongst clean curls of waves, currents and curved rips

Finding kelp on gravel to chase yellowtail, grasp with her lips

She learns to dance a waltz and pirouette to a humpback’s song

Her tail is ‘en pointe’ as she spins across the stage: “Am I wrong

As ‘Anna Karenina’ to seek freedom from a husband

Who is conservative, dull as a fishing knife with a band

Of rust?” She perceives the veil is falling, like a climax, flecks

Of celestial bodies as her mind joins the rotten wrecks

¯

Kerri Shying

Bury the Lede

 

We are our own stories now   

 unpinned from places times

 

sans the facts minus the figures  

 people trade in futures   

 

please don’t tell them 

 more rustic hocus pocus superstition

 

fit for peasants those that

 don’t have one foot stuck hard in the IT door

 

 the element of suspense drained  

  our once-wetland of wonder   shoved

 

 into the twenty-four-hour news

 cycle  day-in day-out no rinse    all spin    

 

when you take the delicates from the pillowcase  

 where they used to hang    it all just looks tawdry

 

the story it is me  

 the story it is me and you 

 

 the story it is  

 

 how I feel   about  

  me-and-you-against -the world  

 

who I say the world is

 what I  see from this pile 

 

 this stuff and nonsense heap  

 minus a yard and give or take these   forty acres and a mule  

 

 sacred flag 

 they fought  for freedom   

 

other ways to measure land  

  fibre   air and sea  no space 

 

but here   inside   

  hell   what a balcony  

 

 out here on the terrace  

 we sit   exclaiming   what a view

¯

Peter J Wells

Making Totems

 

When he said Harris she heard

Paris and willingly agreed

but thought it strange when he found

a cottage by the sea;

 

before too long

her hopes were stranded

on his Scottish isle, with no boulangeries

no French-filled Latin Quarter

 

just one wood stove

in the workshop

keeping out the mist

the damp while

 

he spent days

making totems,

his tribute to

non-existent tribes

 

from the hollows

of his dreams; long fingers

calloused by the stone

and bone of art

 

ain’t this fine, he said one day

in long black coat and slippers

well it ain’t Paris, she replied

but fine you say and fine it is

 

across our treeless isle,

all cairn and stone

across the ground,

all wafer thin pathways

 

down which we walk

and sing our songs

our ragged rhyme

and reason.

¯

Michael Williamson

ALIVE AT NIGHT

Living in sharp sketches,

proficient empty, blind, after

the tight blur of the office, I need

to roam my own verandas and see

openness. Next door her clarinet's

purple moods overture the moving sky.

Evening clouds are rusty, patched stone-wash

blue, though half-past nine at night

Silk grey curtains swoop along

deep horizons, over chinks of saffron lights.

A table cloth of lightning flaps

over the whole land, a flash of silence

suspended for the dawdle of sound, yet no

thunder. Every two minutes a spark

cruises up across the darkening south.

Around the night, the surf of traffic.

The giant shawm of a closer jet

fades into a distant rubble of sound.

Behind, a dark blue siren thrills itself

shut. Almost at arms' length one more

white and ruby chandelier roars over

our nightfall valley. As I bend back to see,

my metal chair screeches to end

this chronicle of sky and flight

Dark time rings. Timelessness

ticks in the shadows, and with one step

into his night sky, enters our possum.

¯

Kathryn Yuen

Ode to a poem I’m TRYING very hard to like

 

Who the f#%k is Derrida?

…sorry I believe it’s pronounced Deruda

Like the airline? Hah.

And who do Sappho and Batho think they are?

Why do you keep appearing in poems

 I’m trying so hard to like??

You three have trespassed

onto my private poetry haven!

Nuked my pleasure.

Like nose rings and nipple

rings and ‘greek flute’ rings

on a Christian minister or

Buddhist monk…..

You don’t belong!

Get!  and take Icarus with you!

 

DBS (or apology for the poem I just wrote)

 

Homer of Simpsons

And MadMen of TV

Salute

 

Turn polite and attentive to

their partners or comforters

Like mere mortal males

 

There is an uncomfortable

Dangerous Buildup of Sperm

During the ratings and mating

 

Period                          Imagine

 

a Rorschach blot on

Brad Pitt’s butt.

The inkings of a drug-sick

Drug-high tattoo-artist

Who’d rather paint walls                      flyyyyy

 

Icarus with concrete boots and

wings stiff with copious birdshit                      there are

 

Turns of phrase to end hostilities or

Kiss away sorrow or tweak pleasure                Words

 

Re-created as a hard bowel movement             ahh

 

The alchemy of turning honey into $%#^!

Is ordinary everyday immanence.

 

¯


 

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#26

 

Manly Art Gallery & Museum

 

www.magam.com.au

 
SPIRIT OF THE LAND

In November 2017 twenty selected poets read their work in response to ‘LAND’… as a noun, a verb, a place, an idea, a possibility, a presence, a contested space. Landscape, headland, wasteland, landfill, landmine, landform, landed, etc.

 

 

Proudly supported by

Northern Beaches Council

 

 

FEATURING: David Atkinson, Emily Sylvia Audrey, Loretta Barnard, joanne burns, John Carey, Giselle Dreyer, Gabrielle Higgins, Judy Johnson Betty Johnston, Garry McDougall, Mark Roberts, Margaret Owen Ruckert, Michele Seminara, Kerri Shying,

Marshall Smither, John-Karl Stokes, Saba Vasefi,

Peter J Wells & Ron Wilkins

 

 

 

¯

David Atkinson

Unsealed Innocence

 

The unsealed road deviates

from gorges and gullies, transects cuttings

to the quarry. Excavated by front loader,

earth transported in a dump truck.

In a reverie the engineer designs and labours.

Formulates and forges an industrial estate.

 

The purity of dirt

on nimble fingers,

the stench of rank soil

as he concentrates,

face ruddy in the half-light.

Fixes on the russet workings.

 

With tonka trucks of plastic and steel,

he perseveres to construct

the infrastructure of childhood.

Under a wooden ramp six feet square.

 

¯

 

 

Emily Audrey

 

the ocean doesn't share my panic attacks

for the ocean doesn't care enough about her daughter to sit with recitative depressants

 

the catering station adored by the

ungrounded wire of utmost stupidity

inundated in ungrounded grace

a friar

a festival

the adopted distance in the lines generated by ideas of connections and

disconnections and

time

the time i've known the ground

the time again the ground i've known applied to die

in a righteous fire

a supercilious sorrow

the ground designed to grace the etchings on an

insipid doctor's headstone

 

instead the ocean lets itself be dirtied by the

silvery planes swirling

when the ground refuses to merge

see:

when the mud formerly entrusted by my feet turns once more, my shoes will never be found

and the land will bawl that i am far too calm to be here

 

 

and the ocean i evade

in a sentient nightmare

let my cursed body stumble

see if i care

¯

Loretta Barnard

Plainsong

 

 

Cleaving the cyan sonata of sky a jagged sienna scar – 

Hurled to ground by arcane celestial hands

Or savagely shoved upward from earth’s bowels 

To sit askew and pass judgment on the land – 

Is the sleepless misshapen guardian of the shore.

No matter the furious force of folding unfurling froth

The relentless ostinato of the currents, 

The cliff is an anchor: stoic, abiding.

 

And from its Darien peak, a bony finger of skinny gum,

Its spindly trunk an exercise in tenacity,

Points toward infinity – to that portentous, heedless

Endless zed of horizon, last letter of Time, 

The fusion of sky and land and sea.

 

And from an arthritic knuckle of that finger

A cockatoo spreads a snowy adagio of wings,

Nods its regal crest to the sun and soars,

Shrieking its dominance over earth and reverie.

 

And in that moment, recognition of our place – 

Unembellished cavatinas in the oratorio of life,

Mere motes in the dust of existence.

 

The land – consoling condoling custodian,

Eternal reminder of the fleeting allegro of being.

 

¯

joanne burns              

nod                                      

                                                the breath of history

                                                the murmur, roar

                                                the silences    deep and

                                                full and fresh    the dark

                                                bush across the harbour

                                                the rocks    the headland

                                                the swimmers    seagulls on

                                                the shore    a twilight moment

                                                backdropped by all the smug

                                                and lavish houses that recede

                                                as you sit and sense the place

                                                long before the tall ships came;

                                                the notches in this blue ribbon

                                                belt of harbour nod off like

                                                discarded fancy dress

 

¯

John Carey

Traffic Wardens

 

White cockatoos find their food more easily

than other birds and have time on their claws

to be easily bored. On wet days, they gather

at intersections to stare at the binary chains

of red and white lights from the cars sliding

over the slick road and rippling through puddles.

They perch on traffic-lights and Optus cables,

play chicken with buses and muscled-up SUV’s

and drown out boom-boxes with their screaming.

They are our symbiotic shadows, like dogs,

more distant but also more mischievous.

I saw one once snipping through strings

of Christmas lights on a balcony and watching

the coloured globes bounce through the car-park,

the way a puppy shreds slippers and tangles

itself in sheets and knickers on a clothesline.

 

A reviewer wonders why birds are so omni-

present in a recent Anthology of Contemporary

Australian Poetry. No mystery or conspiracy here.

Australian suburbs thread through the bush

where birds live and the more robust ones

stay and thrive near the homes where poets

can afford to live. And poets often seem to

talk only to the birds and one another.

¯

Giselle Dreyer

Flame forged crowns

you’ve risen with the sun again

prepared until that star had sunk
and by the glow of twilight skies

you set your swathes of grass to flame

 

beneath your eye the fire flows

fibres wilt and cinders cringe

but heat alone cannot kill earth

scarred banksias and armoured gums

are far too strong to be undone

 

they’ll stop and rest, in silver coats
trunks safe beneath their scabbing burns

they’ll bleed sap and slough their rusting bark

become ghost gums shedding skin -

baring trunks of marbled bone

smooth and cool against your palm

and soon enough, emerald leaves will sprout

now adorned with wreaths of victory red

 

till then, rejoice

the ash below lies warm with life

not just burnt, but almost ripe

now rich and black as furnace coals

 

for fire’s furnace does not kill
flames cloak and clothe budding gums
and forge crowns for them of

sweet blossoms and ruby suns.

¯

Gabrielle Higgins

We started when

 

 

I kept thinking of news-clip images 

grief collapsing people

 

the irrelevance of vertical

my affinity with the floor

 

once I stopped on a track

unable to go on  I curled on a rock

 

there  in the sun

I was sedimentary

 

everything gained clarity

Then  there was something to say

 

He, like I

began from broken

 

now writes himself as landscape

All that residue in the make up of cliffs

previously published Plumwood Mountain

¯

 

 

Judy Johnson

Church Tree

 

On the first Sunday in February 1788, The Reverend Richard Johnson, Chaplain of the First Fleet, conducted his first service under a great tree at Port Jackson.  Present were convicts and sailors. This tree would remain a place of worship for several years.

 

 

Like a lightening lash

a teaching from the other end

                          of the world descended

 

denouncing fornication

   fighting, the evils of hard liquor.

 

   Brought the eucalypts to their knees.

 

Gave extreme unction to the motherland.

 

What shall I render unto the Lord

   for all that He has done for me?

 

The hard four-square scripture

              of a hold.  The communion of abandonment

 

casting the past to the fire

                          of another hemisphere

 

and the convicts, each a bundle

              of bare sticks soaked with resin.

 

That first day, first service

              so familiar, so strange

 

looking up through branches

              and leaves like tiny British flags

 

in an uncharted antipodean

   grey-green, the dazzling

              uncountable spaces

of yearning between

 

in which clouds drifted

   without psalm or verse.

 

The needles of seagulls’ beaks

              stitching the canvas sail of the sky

 

and sunlight, a blanket of wasps

   on the outgoing tide of a tormenting harbour

              always shipless.

 

¯

 

Betty Johnston

The Wedding of Comfort Mary Baffoe

 

 

We sit in the courtyard of the round brown house

sunbaked brown mud yard

mud brown walls around us

curved and rounded

small doorways arched.

 

Sky clear, watercolour wash

sundrained

and walls stand out, moulded rounder

wanting hand smoothing with warm palm

smooth fingers.

 

We sit, angular.

Others move, changing and smooth as mercury

joining, or gone and rejoining

silent on brown feet on mud brown earth.

¯

 

Garry McDougall

Potts Hill

 

Channel waters flow brim from Warragamba

Potts Hill reservoir for a million mouths

high dam, high noon

embraced in a cockatoo's crest

to suburban three-bedroom surrounds.

 

A boy steals over Barbary fence

ambush face, paspalum legs

itch at the pond

eyes dancing to the tankard depths

sob-sob echoes polite in waiting

while cicadas drum the snail air.

 

Lizard alert.

He imagines the guardhouse of outdoor vigilance

boyhood fight, flashlight battalions

with impressive maybes, hey-presto perhaps

imbroglio, his new word.

 

With night turning battle

generation humble

he returns to Alsatian 'Skipper'

a mother's welcome, a father's threat

memory eyes thankful

for meat-and-three veg meal

on a custard promise.

¯

Mark Roberts

Summer Hill Creek

 

I drive out of town

            in summer heat

across the train line

           

            head north east

past a poet's birthplace

            a fenced off ruin

 

through grazing land

            & paddocks of canola

the road narrows

 

            paddocks replaced

by bush then the bitumen

            runs out i’m driving

           

on gravel & dry dirt 

            rolling hills replaced by flatness

the road bending around boulders

 

            coloured with age and moss

dust hangs behind the car

            i listen to the engine & the bumps

 

& thumps of stones

& small branches

banging against the floor

of the car

a hairpin corner

the road turns & drops

 

above the engine

i hear bird calls

at each hairpin

 

I brake to a crawl

            & turn into my own cloud

of dust

 

below the road

scattered  down the hillside

boulders & smaller rocks

           

i can see the creek now when

i glance sideways

a final hairpin

 

i'm on the creek flat

a causeway ahead

i pull off the road

 

into the picnic ground

& turn the engine

off

¯

Margaret Ruckert

Sightings from the edge (at Brighton)

 

 

A woman, shining in lycra and self-esteem,

strides along the promenade, with pram and dog,

looking out on a scene as changeable as mood,

thinking of her body, the emptiness of skin,

the months till a swim will recharge her day.

 

Water fills the focus of every direction—

far out an industrious blue, then rolling in

to confuse our senses; as if water, magic water,

could soak up the yellow pall of autumn

and change its identity, till finally translucent.

 

Two yachts at anchor bow to the wind,

like seagulls tied to land on their patient watch.

A plump wind-soc flies from a pole

and this is kilometres from an airport.

Someone might care, act on the signal. 

 

A patriotic flag shreds in patches, its presence

redundant as traditional learning. Waves

carry in their dead, their dumps of seaweed.

Drinks are emptied, bets regretted

on this stiff southerly afternoon.

 

Scattered couples have turned their backs

on bully weather beating the glass,

the bay of botanicals drifting its shoreline.

Only a group of men near the desolate bar

to google footballers, injured and out.

 

¯

Michele Seminara

Plot

 

All afternoon the women shared their wounding:

loosed from fathers, free of knots,

under their belts, the secret smut,

a hothouse lark, the race to wed,

time gripping tighter.

 

Along the line, children defined

the marked off landscape of their lives:

marriage struck then swelled then slowed

the girl displaced inside.

 

A blinding sense of nondescript,

bright parodies of dull success;

their aims like arrows falling

 

out of sight as if they'd died—

And not one flashed uniquely:

and nothing fresh survived.

*A found poem sourced from ‘The Whitsun Weddings’ by Philip Larkin

 

¯

Kerri Shying

Home Land

 

Speared in both legs 

and  exiled 

 

that  dolorous wound  

back   fell the spear

 

 white blight 

 turned along the edges   of my land 

 

the mould came in   on low sun  and

 crept along the finger vines   

 

 was washed again

 with mother’s milk  to no avail 

 

that year   was the turning of the family away  

to the lighter path   our place of nothingness 

 

 we waited  for the guests to smile  our way and

I grew up   while higher up they forgot

 

us children  

growing by the river yet

 

we all would meet   in sneaks   would set our heads  smiling

to the same pillows    bring it back

 

to long green grass   because there never was an exile

unless you swam across the sea  

 

the ground still held us   I can say it kept

the foot of me  with every solid step

 

in home

inside my land

 

¯

 

Marshall Smither

Landed.

 

This ancient land remembers ages past. 

Sixty long millennia 

When the First People wove 

Their fish traps and nets 

From grass and fibrous plants. 

The sinews of the earth 

Enmeshing water creatures 

Trapped by unseen barriers 

Floundering, caught, dragged up 

Desperately drowning in air. 

We chose to forget the old People. 

As we forget those now who come by sea 

Enticed by false promises

And are held in our nets of politics and cruelty.

 

¯

 

John-Karl Stokes

Man who lived under the Spiders (from “Fire in the Afternoon”) 

 

Three girls and a boy pass a dark man on a headland:

  Yeah. He lived up here.

Weird when Black Uncle

pressed his face against you,

When that famous girl-girl fancier

 takes your space; when he begins,

you know, when he begins

 to believe in the evolution of himself.

 

Remember how the Sisters whispered

             he could never go back;

that he evolved without thought out of his ti-tree

 lean-to under the spiders

above the beach, the new city

  flickering across the harbour

          burning his old eyelids

  and passing softly under edgeless dreams…

 

But he did not survive, he devolved.

      He was simply missed, falling

between the shift of the light

and the strange dark falling.

  Not knowing where he was

(in the white hospital), he was classified

  as an innocent. Not having bred,

he was classified as guilty.

 

The truth is simpler: he decays

   in the memory. His hide sloughs

into insubstantial passions,

old lies losing their reason,

the voices from the cliffs over the water

   used to be his girl-wind

and now, naked of memory,

his lush dreaming is ebbing …

 

      The white quiet is shining

above the beach. The silence

of the waves becomes his last chant.

  And he simply dissolves, at an edge,

an edge of no-one. His passing

   will not be marked by his Makers;

his passing  will  be marked by a constant,

                                    constant, constant, sea.           

           

¯

 

Saba Vasefi

Moon

 

In the street whose end is not my home

the rain falls on hope’s end.

 

We were coming back the way

We’d gone, leaving the shooting behind us.

 

I live far from the explosions now,

But still I hear it, the sound of your absence.

 

I am gazing

At the residue of days.

 

Spring is winter’s exhumation. I step

Through the moon’s reflection, a body

 

On the moist macadam. A woman wounded,

Trammelled, mangled by boots.

 

The moon is lunatic in my solitary pit

Moon! For years you’ve been a roof

 

For me, and a light in a home I haven’t

Known. Company my sorrow can keep.

 

What land are you from that,

When you lie with me,

 

And I whisper in my stranger’s accent,

My longing finds a home?

 

¯

 

 

Peter J Wells

Visit to the Hartz Mountains

 

above the howl of wind

winter or summer

there are sounds of water

falling cascades, twisting streams

the slap of waves against the headwall

of an alpine lake, a reminder

of a long-gone glacier;

close your eyes and listen

for the shrill of ground parrots

beneath the wind, beneath the slap

of water; within those one thousand sounds

there is bird song,

open your eyes and look

for a flash of colour

in the low slung undergrowth,

the red and green, not often seen

not by you, you are passing through,

a visitor to this high place

not your home

this world of multiplicity

loose leaf is our book of life.

 

¯

Ron Wilkins

Subterranean thoughts                          

 

What is the spirit of the land

but accumulated memory of how it came to be?

Was there a spirit in the land when neither plants nor animals

lived upon its surface; when only blue-green algae

freshened the air with oxygen in its fringing waters?

Sweep away the frippery of green,

the ephemeral faunas, the exhausted soil, and cut to the rocks

that hold all secrets of happenings before we chanced upon this land.

Four thousand million years to gather the discrete

crystalline cratons of the early crust, welded by mobile orogenic zones,

the subsequent accretion of sedimentary prisms. Long erosion to relax

and mould the surface of the landmass to its present form. And all the while,

innumerable radioactive clocks set at crystallization record

like as many scribes, the passage of geological time.

 

The surface rocks seem dead.

But drop a kilometre into the earth in a rattling miner’s cage.

Heat flow from the molten core of the earth is palpable.

Only the blast from giant fans forcing a gale

of surface air along the drive makes the dark space endurable. Veins

where fluids flowed, the cleavage of folded rock, slickensided faults,

all clear evidence of a form of life—but lived

at a slower pace, for unlike us, the earth has ample time to flex

its backbone, thrust up its mountain chains, volcanoes, lava flood plains.

Reflect that when our species has lived out its allotted time

and become extinct like all that came before, the immutable spirit of the land 

will drive the earth, as it always has, to do what it must, unaware

that man is here—or gone—or ever was.

 

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#27

 

Kitchen Table Poets

Shoalhaven

 

 

Kitchen Table Poets has been in operation for 18 years.

This diverse group has been bringing poetry to the Shoalhaven with a roar and a smile.

his is a selection from the weekend in March 2018. 

 

Supported by

  

NSW Government — Regional Arts New South Wales —

Country Arts Support Programme

 

 

 

FEATURING:

Elaine Chin, Jennifer Dickerson, Colleen Duncan,

Jill Forster, Chere Le Page, Jennifer Mors,

Mardijah Simpson, Alison Thompson & Irene Wilkie

 

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Elaine Chin

Nursing  Hospital

 

the room thick with frustration

a small figure in the bed watches

bewildered as visitors shout

think he’s deaf not confused

his mind fights to comprehend

 

what is happening?

 

a fixed smile on his face he listens

to the conversation around him

struggles to connect his memories

to what is being said

no one sees his confusion

 

what is going to happen to me?

 

he asks his wife when the visitors leave

her heart jumps in her chest

helpless she feels sad

tries not to take hope away

her only reply is

 

it’s early days, love, early days

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Jennifer Dickerson

Takeover

 

I am not myself today.

Yesterday I noticed

the subtle alteration

Change of life I expected

with all the associated

advice from friends

This is a much more sinister

gradual overtaking of my body

like a sub cutaneous worm


It was of course bound to happen

She was always an invasive

overpowering woman.


It’s my mother taking over

when I am working or busy

absorbed in some project


She is wheedling her way in

through the ankles perhaps

at night when I am sleeping.

I glimpse her in the morning mirror.

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Colleen Duncan

Unspoken

 

We’re heading north this time,

making an early start to miss

the rush. Still, we find ourselves

caught in a snarl of traffic

along the south coast road.

 

We sit in silence.

 

Voluptuous hills are clothed 

in russet, a hint of green adorns 

their slopes. The sun hangs low 

at the edge casting grim shadows 

over places where the secrets lie.

 

Our suffering has no voice.

 

The spine of a stone wall

winds around the land

like a girdle, and I recall

that one night spent with

a stranger, elsewhere.

 

I didn’t tell you.

 

The shadow where two hills

converge hides the memory

of the child I wanted to know,

his tiny fists curled like

unfolding fronds of a fern.

 

I didn’t speak of this.

 

Where land meets sea, high water 

gurgles into gutters, drowns every 

impulse to run. Unspoken words

become bitter stones of regret,

exposing us with every ebbing tide.

 

Still I say nothing.

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     Jill Forster

Summer Oscillations    

 

The whipbird’s call cracks

stark across the dry-leaved silence,

cockatoos’ urgent shrills

dare and retreat,

sulphur crests rise with the upsurging waves

while seagulls wheel on the diminuendo.

 

Ochre dawning with enthusiastic blush hush and rush, ocean murmurings, goose bumps and chills, thrills and summer-fuelled  voices from the beach come in waves,  gentle piano and crashing forte.

 

Hunched on the seaside she-oak bark the cicadas drum their cadenza; close the window on the blast and glare  like the sea’s surge now subsiding. tidal highs to low, on the summer to and fro draw the blinds down. 

 

Listing sailboat sun-dipped on the beyond, brilliance and haze, we loll and laze,  stroked by the sun, lulled unthinking swimmers

moods in syncopated motion

drift on the swirl and calm.

 

In the fading light seaweed and shells contraband on the sand, blue-bottle sea creatures evening nor-easter on the salt-spray,  undulating currents , lapping ripples, deep vermillion triples sun-up to sun-down.

 

Muffled rumbling of a fan’s blades - oscillating drone, whirring, constant,  tilted to cool wide-gapped toes - lullabies into sun-drunk dozing; cloying honeysuckle  clings to the air,

scents reverberate.

 

Ebbing undertones, laughing flow, sounds of solstice revelry 

In pillow dishevelry sun-streaked hair, bronze bangles and candles, gilt-edged pleasures moon-gleam treasures  flicker and fade,

light turned to shade,

time and tide... take the summer-long ride.             

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Chere Le Page

beware of potent moons

 

It’s a full moon tonight

 

In Room 7

Vanessa stirs, stretches her hand across the bed

to nothing. She remembers their moments of passion,

his lips brushing hers, her tongue flicking his skin.

She wonders if he’ll find her again.

 

the sky is shot silk

 

In Room 8

Richard, hair black as a crow, stands at the door.

Cracks open a beer. Remembers Janie nestling against him,                               

her curls spread like ink across his pillow.

Eyes red from tears, a wretched expression darkens his face.

 

a branch drums a window

 

In Room 9

Elizabeth quiets her baby, she’ll wake her big sister sleeping

in the double bed. She thinks of Dan’s body moving

over hers, the warmth of his skin when he whispered

just one more time before he left forever.

 

shadows crouch in darkness

 

In Room 12

Douglas, speckled and tagged with age, is dying

for a cigarette. He shuffles to the door, lights up,                                                     

sparks an episode of brutal coughs.

No need to worry about that now.

 

silent owls hunt

 

At reception

Ruby, in her golden years, swirls her tongue around her glass,

downs a brandy, prays for a gentle night.

She’s tired of fights, fugitives, guitars and liquor-fueled parties.

Of being alone in this old motel.

 

the moon watches                  and waits

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Jennifer Mors

Five                                                                                                      

 

Family stands in a tidy line;

complex vessels related by substance.

Textures intertwined, enmeshed with twists, turns

of navigation and negotiation; look closer, within

to see the strain of contorted fragilities;

one to the other.

 

Father is protector and keeper;

stable and stoic, he is tight-woven.

A tamer of gardens - straight edges, symmetry;

converter of maths to algebraic equation.

With patience, he watches his children grow

and waits for them to leave.

 

Brother stands next to father,

and sees the world with artist eyes.

Irregular into abstract with a density of texture

disguises a deep darkness; danger within.

Deception trembles at brother’s edges;

secrets remain withheld.

 

Middle child is woven open loops;

a tumbled tangle of undisguised threads.

Perfect shape to placate, ameliorate; accommodate.

Gullible giver and hopeless helper stretches

to hold them within the wired frame;

keeps them guessing.

 

Sister is wispy, delicate threads;

fragile and tiny – careful, she may break.

There is longing for mother’s womb; a refuge from fear

that elicits possession, priority and captive control;

twisted contortion in a soft-stitched pocket

pretends an evenness of fibre. 

 

Mother is curvaceous and creative;

complex tussled threads chase predictability.

She is the weft that binds, ties them to the functional warp

but the fibre tangles, strangles; twists and pulls

as she weaves in and out and around.

No-one sees, and no-one asks. 

 

Five are strong in the weaving;

secure knotted strings holding them tight.

Contours differ; shapes and sizes determined by the weave.

Some tighter in the construction; others wayward.  

They are all a little frayed at the edges

but won’t unravel.

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Mardijah Simpson

One Week Baby

 

I bring wild orange lilies for a free spirit.

She lurks in a grubby brown quilt nest

within the sterile bed (her bundles under).

An old stained pillow

big as a rock guards her head –

sprouting red curls.

One beady eye peers out

from her vixen hole.

 

As I greet her she knows me

and unfolds like a red flower

blossoming white breasts

and her black haired baby.

It clings marsupial to her nipple.

She tells me her armistice day story

of pain and triumph – push by push.

‘I thought my arse was going to bust’.

 

She speaks with protective passion

of her child, her ferile furies, fighting the system,

ripping her body, savouring her drama –

prima donna of her own opera.

She fights and frightens the nurses.

Professionals hold case conferences.

One week and another child joins the stolen.

The striped orange petals will have fallen now.

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Alison Thompson

Cocoon

 

For eight years your body lay on the floor of your Sydney house,

a three-story terrace overlooking Centennial park,

the drawn curtains 

shutting out the view.

 

All they found were folded bones

eased down between a table and a chair,

indistinguishable at first,

from the patterned swirls of the carpet.

 

Now strangers mark your passing in newspapers and poems.

In the slums of the world,

no-one dying takes this long to be found.

I like to think when they opened that room your soul flew.

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Irene Wilkie                                                      

The Eye Beholding                         

                                                                                                  

It’s too much,

an ibis arrowing,

a peacock feathering –

too much

a silky web against my cheek,

the chiffon air.

 

I am benumbed –

so many things to choose from.

I wait and watch, hatch the words

to wrap them in with

footnotes

on every variation.

 

It’s just too much –

clouds roll over the mountain crest

spilling in the  valley fold

a mantle,

against the orange cliff,

a clinging breath, so different from

last summer’s choking blast.

Exploded canopies, blackened trunks

have given way

to eager red-flushed growth.

 

The trees along the creek show off

their short-cropped heads.

 

 

 

And here,

in the grass, a lilac lily fringes,

a dead leaf cha-chas on the patio,                                               

then, in a breath,

a yellow-wattled streak breaks through the view,  

snatches soft spiders from under the eaves,

as if plucking grapes.

 

It’s all too much,

this promise –

yet not enough;

the eye beholding    

falters,

marks time until

a new day pulses morning’s

proof again.  

 

acknowledgement: HC 2016 WB Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia

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MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

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Top of the Document

 

email

 

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#28

 

Intense Workshops

Dangar Island

 
A selection of work arising from
two workshops at Dangar Island, March 2018.
 

 

FEATURING: Linda Adair, l.e.berry, John Brinnand, Jeanette Campbell, Luciana Croci,

Anne Elvey, Irina Frolova, Marie Mc Millan, Mark Roberts, Ellen Shelley,

Erin Signal, Gillian Swain & Michael Williamson

 

 

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Linda Adair

Dodging Bullets

 

Again …

with Kevlar-like charm

the rogue salesman

floats by

without concern

or comeuppance

escaping the consequences

of near enough is good enough

knowing all the rules to break

one more time.

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l.e.berry

Bubble Babble

 

through the myriad of lies a single strand of truth weaves under and over and through     by-passing the negative of this modern world     until the only thing that matters is the innate truth of who I am     yet    in that knowledge there is doubt      was Descartes right when he proclaimed his ability to think created his identity   or is an artist in her righteousness correct     her view of the world the one true one

 

yet   if I am not a thinker     a philosopher     nor an artist     do I have a right to know who I am     was Yevtushenko true     am I     forever doomed to travel in the half-light    neither one thing nor another       not ichthyoid nor bird    not one of them not one of us     do I really have an identity that I can call my own    hang upon the wall     take out on birthdays

 

am I delusional     like a trump hand     believing I need to cleanse the world of mixed-blood       leaving only those in my image to rule     am I     right     the voices in my head     tell me the undiluted truth     or has that single strand been corrupted by proximity to its neighbours

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John Brinnand

Truth be $old 

i read my feed today, oh boy

bespoke, it said that I’m a lucky man

and though the news was rather glad

i just had to sigh, can’t remember why

i agreed they could spy 

like sugar, the feed delivers its hit

to my posse of righteous friends

but with no nourishment, no gristle or cud

i hang out to score, craving more

cheap shots, any trending whore 

algorithm-shuffled-metadata plots my profile

my every want and then some

lures me to the free market (where nothing’s free)

merchandise I might like to buy, friends I may like

or at least try, any fish to fry   

discounted for quick turnover, yesterday’s tweet  

a post-truth stale sale to make of what you will

perhaps a rum trifle with alternate facts and double fake-news

then caption a trifling selfie, upload it to your feed

pray it goes viral, becomes the new creed 

when identity is fashion and fashion identity

every body corporate, available to deal

you have to wonder, is anything for real

so if you’re a truth-seeker and not sure where to look

my advice…….get your arse off Facebook

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Jeanette Campbell

Belonging

 

The room resonates with chatter,

I sit, hands curled around my coffee cup,

try to look connected.

Those each side are turned away

conversing with others, palpable wall.

 

I stand and stroll towards the supper table,

feign interest, take a chocolate, unwrap the foil.

Friends are in a huddle of intensity,

maybe I can nudge my way in,

become a part.

 

I shift towards the trio,

linger on the outside.

No-one steps back, welcomes me in,

overlooked, disregarded.

 

Compelled to withdraw,

I creep from the festive mood,

retreat to the balcony,

sneak down the stairs.

 

I head towards the safety of my car,

slip in behind the steering wheel,

draw away from the kerb,

drive into the night

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Luciana Croci

Day at Dangar

(for Susan)

 

houses are half thoughts

sheds of corrugated iron used timber flaking fibro

paint mould-stained or peeling

no fences   each house separated by its own debris

weeds wooden posts slashed trees ––

 

pink ginger's spent shells

are skeletons on pirates' ragged pennants

dangling below a Cornish tower

on a treasure island off the Penzance shore ––

tin bird baths are coracles

aground on jagged rocks

in oceans of littered leaves

 

you can walk the island in a half-hour

presumptuous earthen paths named like city streets

where the smell of gasolene and diesel linger ––

no cars   just motor boats and ferry ––   

 

then a stone patio high over water

the sun reflects in glimpse of golden sandstone

behind fruit trellises and pink autumn camellias

a mish-mash of succulents and lilies –– a house where inside and outside meet

where walls become verandahs overgrown with climbers

where strength of giant bamboos aligns with antique wood

and energy radiates through elongated windows

on scattered cushions silks curios

and paintings and tapestries gleam from every wall.

A house where brown-eyed Susan dwells.

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Anne Elvey

Inscribed stone

   

     below via Mulino, Sottochiesa

 

 

The mill road runs two ways: beside and

down to a stream then upward slightly

 

toward land with the feel keep out, something

of tradition, privacy, perhaps also

 

privation. Water makes a short

fall over rocks smoothing, then pooling before

 

picking up pace under Sottochiesa Bridge. Pebbles

and course. Near the creek’s edge one stands out –

 

a stone the size of my fist. Deep grey. Threaded

with white. A hatching of white, patterned

 

like a Mondrian. Or hieroglyph that tells

the flow of stepped days under stacked

 

wall, as if human-constructed – naturally. Seams

of stone in stone. I have no tools to decipher and

 

dissect, or to date these signs formed in pulse under

acqua minerale naturale, glide of grit over grain.

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Irina Frolova

All but the Moon

 

Alone in the sleeping street

you linger.

A small flame in one hand

contends with a bigger unseen one.

 

Ashes fall quietly - thought

after burning thought. Later

the wind will sweep them aside.

 

The moon, she watches

through the foam of clouds.

They too shall pass.

 

She’s seen it all: the burning,

fallen ashes. All go.

There will be stillness.

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Marie Mc Millan

The Dyad

 

Like a button sewn onto a cuff,

the thread of love secures and binds,

permitting the button of oneself

to slide smoothly

into the button hole

of the other;

the fit a happy captive.

 

The filament, the love bond,

needs careful choice …

cotton and silk gratifying,

weakness gauged,

in thread and fabric,

for both could chafe,

become frayed.

 

The knot securely tightened,

its immutable durability,

leaves no room for unravelling.

 

Properly chosen, carefully maintained,

conjoined, the dyad strengthens and endures.

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Mark Roberts

Hidden (17/12/2017)

 

leaving melbourne

flying northwest

across night desert

below

a scattering of lights

above

a richness of stars

in daylight stories

are hidden here

at night they call

singing

            across country

reaching through the sky

            in this plane

we eat

watch a movie

try to sleep

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Ellen Shelley

Desiccated

 

My body’s a swing     scaling air -

chained limbs

graze asphalt like flint.

 

Under the surface and all around,

what’s left shakes like sawdust

 

a door slamming shut.

Your scent of indifference

 

opens me up

a whale in mid yawn

an isolated speck,

 

inhaled then out.        

 

I remain in the dark

layers of skin

rubbed raw from rocking,

 

pinned between sheets

a pressed flower dries

the colour of a bruise.

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Erin Signal

Serpent

 

dark seeps
from the asphalt
neon slashes paths
for the hungry beneath
which the creature appears
luminous scales descend
grip ground one by one
by designer shoes
flash like retinas
of discovered
prey
teen boy
exits the car
retrieves feet later
follows yellow slick road
from side street where spiders
bide spinning their traps
he paints pavement
with phone light
sweep
girls bobble
creature twine trips
young beauty in traffic
knee hand emesis tripod
grips world amid toots
friend holds back
glossy curtain
of hair

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Gillian Swain

Howl

 

Howling. The walls have ears but are no help

probably have answers too

but cannot offer them, cannot be heard.

The cry travels vast distances, reaches out, way out

rooftops rest mute     watch it pass

over tiles mottled with moss and the remnants of silty air

terracotta peppered with discarded words.

The window is grimy, wishes the voice had swept the grit away with it.

The glass is no clearer

like the lungs that had flung this surging grief into sound.

They remain heavy yet empty

still heaving

the walls remain quiet.

 

Howling. Like a wolf I raise my chin to the sky

my song to the air, my heart to the moon.

The night is an audience of stories with good manners

hanging and quietly listening to this truth-telling.

The sky’s arms are wide open

arcing, like my neck.

The moon does not mind that I

did not wait for it

to be full.

My voice is dense with its light.

I am giving the bed of stars

clean sheets

fresh, one thousand thread-count rest

crisp clean luxuriant.

The stars

drink the cotton scented confessions

before they sleep.

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Michael Williamson

Michelangelo’s “Night”                                   

 

Red wine, a joke about

his brown paintings. For good-

byes, a photo in plastic:

“You might like this…

I don’t:” Michelangelo’s

recumbent marble

‘Night’ rests

her grave, deserving head

on her rolling bicep,

her tumescent pigtail

draped under her right

breast, her nipples

dolphin’s eyes. Beneath

her loaded shoulder,

his mask, eyes alarmed,

weary, for her

for life. Below

her raised white thigh,

the vulva-headed owl.

Across the listening hall,

just the hands

of your wife in bed,

sculpting

burning red nails.

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MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

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 Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#29

 

Manly Art Gallery & Museum

 

Ekphrasis selected to be read in celebration of the artworks in the Gallery’s “Spirit of Nature” exhibition.

 

Curated by Michele Seminara

 

FEATURING:

Kathryn Fry, K. A. Rees, Samuel Elliott, Anna Kerdijk Nicholson, Judy Johnson, Marie McMillan, Magdalena Ball,

Eileen Chong, Jill Carter-Hansen, Gareth Jenkins, Martin Langford, Ruth Nelson, Justine Poon,Shale Preston, Peter Lach-Newinsky, Teena McCarthy, Mohammad Ali Maleki,

Lorne Johnson & Anne Casey.

 

 

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Swifts in the Sclerophyll                            Kathryn Fry

after Gill Burke’s 'The Nectar Eater'

 

You might wonder how those feathers

came to be: the streaks of red above

and below the beak, the cheek and crown

washed in blue, lemon splash here and

there, the remarkable greens, the long fit

of a scarlet-trimmed tail. As you might

 

consider the ruffle of stamens and rub

of nectar in robusta, maculata, gummifera

and other woodland trees, the grey box

and white, the blackbutt and ironbark.

Our evergreens. And you might suppose

when it first began, this blossoming of

 

purpose: the birds from across Bass Strait

to lean into flower after flower and lerp, over

winter. The sure, swift flights. You might stop

to simply be under the chatter and busyness.

Yet, most of all, you’ll know the price of this

feasting. How it can persist. Why it must.

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Swamp Mahogany                           K. A. Rees

 

after Gill Burke’s ‘The Nectar Eater’

 

We are flying again. Across the Tasman

headphones jacked in—volume dialled

to eleven, ignoring the cabin crew as they mime

the brace position, how to inflate a life jacket

with a tube of plastic; how to blow a whistle

to attract attention if we plummet

into the Strait. This is only

one type of emergency: a thing broke, exploded

or gave up the ghost—expiration; immediate.

There are other emergencies too

grey to notice in the first misting of snow.

Despite our noise we are missing

each other, songs stretching out, echoing aloneness.
I’ve been in the trees, searching through stands
feathers stroking the skin of blue gum, the tickle

of white floral circles, honeyed buds within reach. Now,
the long return to the beaches, searching for trees:
Winter flowering Spotted Gum; Red Bloodwood
Ironbark. White Box. So few Swamp Mahogany.

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Bandicoots were bastions                           Samuel Elliott

 

after Julia Sample’s ‘Once, high on the hill’ 

 

When the Bandicoots were only and all

Tones were sepia and

Lush when vegetation

Was a gilded green kingdom

Silence was golden and strident sounds

Were blissfully rare so was

Violence

On the hill

On the creatures that dwelled in its manifold embrace

Darkness was a friend

The shores were mighty and steep

The waves warbled

Carriers of the ocean’s brooding

But dry land was paradise

The dead of night was the heart of all life

A time of industry

Bandicoots were bastions

They supped no more that most

They returned more than they took

They grunted their contentment

Mellifluous staccato 

Movers and shakers

Moving and turning over the

Rich heady fertile soil

Never mistreated always worshipped

Then an intruder

Darkened their dominion

Cleaving the virginal waters

Offloading a cargo of a scourge

Man many of man

Their hordes spread as their singular hand curled into a fist

That thudded the earth decimating

The Bandicoot people were eradicated

But not all

They the resourceful

Burrowed deep and prayed hard

For mankind’s reckoning

For the return of normalcy and the splendour of

Before

Closure and certainty are still denied them

In this repurposed realm

Where the killer monster cats and dogs rove and reign and grow fat

On the unwary and the bereft

There are still the brave few Bandicoots

Holding subterranean parliament

Existing waiting

For man to turn on man

Then when the dust settles

So too will the ground

Nature will breathe easy not bated

As the Bandicoots arise to rebuild

The grandmotherly night will take her eternal mantle again

Host endless new markets in her zenith

The harmonious babble will carry out as it used to way back when

Hushing the envious encroaching ocean

As the gentle hues repair the vista once

More

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Elsewhere people have never felt you—but what are you?                        Anna Kerdijk Nicholson

 

after Elizabeth Harriott’s ‘GBF’

 

You are impact, rib-affecting, long term,

you feel rare, a bit poetic (worthy of sensitivity,

slightly out-of-place in society). In the corner house,

messy and shambolic, maybe they don’t care.

 

Your booming hum comes from the wetter land.

I wonder if the school kids at the bus

or the tradies feel you. I text my friend when

I think I’ve found you on the Internet.

 

I don’t quite know what it is, this me and you

thing. It’s certainly not you, most disruptive,

unidentifiable, physically present sound.

Round here, the luscious reeds are nearly gone.

 

I guess you’re not in the alpaca paddock

or in with the swings and trampoline.

I also guess you’re ex-spawn—and static,

if your constant sonorities prove the place.

 

I want corroboration that some other person

has woken and looked at the speckled blackness

in a new place and found your resonance

in their throat, in their being.

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Brittle Midge Orchid                        Judy Johnson

after Rebecca Baird’s ‘Bauer’s Midge Orchid’

 

Perhaps he saw in you his own redemption.

            Ferdinand Bauer: the Leonardo of Natural History painting.

 

In his lifetime he remained un-lauded.  Barely published

            or exhibited.

                        He left no portraits behind.  No diaries of his journeys

to chart the floral and faunal minutiae

                                                of his newly discovered world. 

 

At best, a handful of letters remain

                        and they are guarded.  No way to read the man behind the man. 

 

It is as though, as artist,

                                    he desired his acts of replication, if they must include him

                                                to do so, not in a realm above his subjects

                                                            but instead in the measure

                                                                        of just another

 

environmental curiosity: a shy creature read only by the tracks

            that his brush left behind.

 

As artist aboard Investigator, Bauer circumnavigated Australia

with Matthew Flinders. 

                                    There is that half-true cliche that no man is

an island, but the other half is that an island

 

eventually erodes the most diffident of men, exposing the stark cliffs,

                        the perilous

                                           battering waves of his loneliness.

 

After Flinders’ ship was condemned,

            Bauer stayed behind in Port Jackson, an aging bachelor,

                                    longing to pick up the faint scent

                                                            of his last chance at happiness.

 

Instead he found you, and in you, his true reflection. 

 

You were the last plant he collected and painted in 1805

            just before he sailed home, alone, to England.

 

                               Like a wife, you took his surname: baueri.

 

He called you Brittle Midge, for your fragility and for

the diminutive flies who were your pollinators. 

 

                                                            He raised you above

the obscurity of your retiring nature, as he never quite

                                                                        managed to raise himself.

 

I think of both of you:

                               elusive, clinging to the margins. Neither of you haunting

                                                the habitats of showy blooms

 

            those other native orchids who brazenly jut from rocks

                        on sandstone peaks

                                    or else find a high perch in the fork of a tree.

 

            The artists who push themselves forward for posterity

 

You were both more at home in leaf-litter’s camouflage.

                                                                                                           

Back in London,

 

                        I imagine Bauer dreaming

            that your single cylindrical leaf,

                                                wrapped tightly around your stem     

                                                                                                for protection

 

                        and the cloak he gathered snug to his body

in Winter, as he wandered the banks of the Thames

                                                                        were one and the same. 

 

He would have known back then what it was

                                                that would make you endangered.

 

Your impossibly fussy,

                                    incurably romantic habit,

                                                so like his own,

of waiting year after year

 

                                    to be stimulated into flower

                                                by the perfumed intoxication

                                                            of the perfect texture of droplets

                                                                        in the exact volume

                                                                                                of autumn rain.

 

He must also have realised, the world does not cater

                        for the likes of you two.

 

It was enough that you took his name as your name

                        (no woman ever did). 

 

And in return he took the tiny, perfect red bloom

inside you

            as emblematic,

                                    a miniature replica of his secret heart.

¯

Top Billing                    Marie McMillan

 

after Marguerite De Fondaumiere’s ‘Our soul has flown away’

 

Our bodies some artists have painted,

extolled breasts, curves, nipples and arms,

the crack bifurcating cheeks’ dimpled,

not to mention l’origine du monde*

 

Avian creatures some artists have painted,

some in trees or sabulous habitat,

extolled crests, their feathers, their plumage

variegated or multi-coloured,
speckled eggs, nests an’ legs short an’ slight

 

‘Top billing’, I gave

Limicola falcinellus,

for extolling beccus so hefty and broad,

so puissant when pecking and probing,

mandibles there in arabesque curved

 

Simple, striking an’ sickled Sandpiper,

from treeless Siberian tracts,

has visited our shores of Pittwater

eye keenly invigilating

molluscs, biofilm or mites, 

not to mention preening or probing,

when not feeding or pondering leaving

 

While I, ‘neath the arch of your beak,

so keratinous and audacious,

see the oval of infinity

 

        

 

 

* a painting by Gustave Courbet

¯

orchid inventory                     Magdalena Ball

after Rebecca Baird’s Bauer’s ‘Midge Orchid’

 

it’s always a matter of scale

incremental changes remain invisible

until it’s too late, blind embossed

the image of an orchid receding

a body in motion

so easily unhinged

 

it’s always been a matter of when

fleshy terrestrial sister

 

I feel the brush

inflorescence 

stems, stalks, bracts

against my face

 

body brittle

unhinged by the lightest wind

by growth, progress, heat, and of course

hunger, the ever-present danger

your beauty a curse

 

it’s a matter of urgency

size doesn’t indicate importance

or the speed of decline

 

sound is slipping back

a Doppler shift

birdsong altered into silence

dry sclerophyll forest, moss over sandstone

the abstracted impression of what

you once were

¯

Sweet truth                              Eileen Chong

 

after Wendy Morrison’s ‘Salt’

 

I push a fingertip along the rail:

salt. My hair stiff and obedient

 

in the weighted air. Salt blooms

within the kiln; eats away at steel.

 

The long march, the spinning wheel.

The wife who would look: a crystallised

 

pillar. Blocks of currency dissolving.

Rake the ponds of salt, let them shrivel

 

for the harvest. Pink like a stain that won’t

come clean. The magic salt grinder fallen

 

from the captain’s ship, sunk to the bottom

of a salted sea. Were it so simple,

 

this knowledge that we are all but salt—

Sweat and tears. Sweetness and truth.


¯

To The Barking Owl                         Jill Carter–Hansen

 

after Negin Maddock’s ‘The Barking Owl’

 

Could there be any doubt about that call at night-

your call  - when creatures pause and freeze in fright?

 

Your talons tightly clutch that ancient bough 

prepared - to thrust you forward and down

towards your prey, as evening lengthens

on a closing wing of light.

 

Your prey - I pray for them sometime,

those creatures - that your golden orbs of sight, magnify

to fit within your expectations and your appetite.

With powerful wings prepared, you wait the time to strike,

assessing subtle movements far below.

 

Those soundless wings - their feathers lightly fringed -

defy the normal turbulence of air, so quiet - superbly spread, 

a promised shroud descending on your prey,

delivered by a ghost whose talons pierce

a sugar-glider on her maiden flight.

 

The final mea culpa of the day.

 

That sacrifice - that gift dropped in your nest

while, resting there, your pleading brood

and faithful partner waits.

                She checks the distribution of the meal.

                She checks the feathered pattern on your breast,

                each season reassured you’ll stay together,

                until that final rest.

¯

The Shadowing                       Gareth Jenkins

 

after Bernadette Facer’s ‘Coping with salt’

 

Because I am reading Irradiated Cities

Little Boy and Fat Man

conjure atomic plumes

like bolls of cotton,

plaited hair,

strands of wool.

 

Look how shadowed background

looks like a body's shadow

looking back

from that day,

when suddenly only shadows remained,

minus the bodies to make them.

 

Because of 'make' my mind goes to 'grace' then quickly to 'grease'

but of course the heat

that was nothing like any heat previously known

would have done away with all that and the bodies that held it.

In the night, those that survived the shadowing

called for water

and in the bottom right corner you can see the dark run off.

 

A beauty in these margins:

the sluice marks

of right to left ink drag,

topographical bottom left

sound wave valley and crest,

new shoots lifting from the top edge,

            the organic delicacy

            of chance.

 

Look how the plumes look like bolls of cotton

and my mind in Wilcannia

with steamboats

steaming around Steamer's Point.

Remember the one that sunk?

And the stories they told of the sinking:

that thing down there in the deep hollow

elbow of the river,

            I dare not name.

 

Because that was 100 years ago,

when water still ran in the Darling,

it is wool, not cotton

that washes ashore from the sinking steamer,

woven into a thick fat plait

of hair

falling from a dark neck

shadowed by one last scene

in miniature,

top right: black crust of sky cracked by lit column,

momentary fission of atoms

silent from behind cockpit glass

from within war room

leather recliner crystal decanter

refracting polished mahogany

in depleting afternoon light.

¯

The Line                        Martin Langford

after Gill Burke’s ‘The Nectar Eater’

 

We need to draw a line a line of pipes  

against those who think they’ve a right to complain

if their tap-water smokes, or refuses to flow.

Who are these people?

And what makes them think the stuff’s theirs?

 

And we need to draw a line in five-storey blue  

against those who gabble and squawk

about room for the bird with the splotchy red mush.

What is this? Coast-views for cocky?

When we’re not allowed near that blade-ready, high-margin scrub?

 

We need to draw a line a line of conveyor-belts  

against those who whinge about sea-levels rising

Who bought there! Who knew how to read!

And even for those who have lived there for five generations  

Ownership’s no guarantee against natural events!

 

We need to draw a line a line of transmission-wires  

hard, high and long: against those

who threaten the hum of a smooth-running grid:

planting unsightly, vertiginous, sickness-inducing, bird-splattering fans

on our personal hills our proprietary views.

 

And we need to draw a line:

a line of jocks each with a weird need

to nuzzle the ears of the strong

a line of conspiracy-theories and blunt, bare-faced claims

against those who still believe evidence:

 

a moist line of private anxieties;

a line of raw memories, pegged out with photos of kids;

a line of resentments, of sour gobs of knowledge;

of lost loves the sweetness and wreckage of beds

a line of the needy, who will not who can’t afford ever

                                   to weigh or to budge.

¯

Honeycomb and Salt                        Ruth Nelson

 

after Wendy Morrison's ‘Salt’

 

I see myself reflected in the waters of Wendy —

A child on holiday at the beach,
climbing on rock shelves, through the tunnel, dark and a little frightening.

 

What is obvious is the mingling of yellow and blue-green; the sliding
of water over rock’s honeycombed weathering; the saltiness
as the sea bites your mouth. The urgency of its flavour.

 

I remember a boy shaking his thin country body as he spat —
It’s salty! Who put the salt in

 

I think of a school friend driving west today
with a trailer full of food and supplies
to where farmers haven’t planted their winter crop
because there’s no moisture in the soil. None at all. 

 

Out there, men shoot themselves after they shoot their cattle
and women have thick forearms, from holding up so much over so many years. 

 

I remember someone in the playground saying —

From a geological perspective, the Earth will be fine

 

Then we all looked at our babies, oblivious to the dirt and salt.

  ¯

 

Coping with salt                      Justine Poon

 

after Bernadette Facer’s ‘Coping with salt’

 

the channels all converge here.

from the air a tightening

weave of river delta and dense

rhizomic shrubland

crawling outwards

like the atomic bloom

of your stems in close up,

furred with salt.

 

your leaves a spine of succulent tongues

entwined at the edge of the land,

snaring feet and sheltering small animals

beneath an unruly lattice

that holds down the salt breath

where the liminal zone exhales.

but it is becoming too much

like human tastes, there are degrees

to which you welcome the jolt

of brittle crystalline minerals

leaching into your bones.

 

we can dissect the disaster in slow motion,

parse out the parts that are dying

in the hope that knowledge

will fight the retreat of your wild domain.

 

hold the image close

remember, death comes

cell by cell.  

¯

 


 

Sound pictures                        Shale Preston

 

after Rosanna Jurisevic’s ‘Large Eared Pied Bat’

 

I make sound pictures

As I fly

 

The pulses I send out

Through my nose and mouth

Return after a slight delay

To a point just in front of

My splendid ears

 

If there is nothing much about

The pulses slow

And the images are indistinct

But when insects come into my orbit

The pulses quicken into shimmering dioramas

 

I like to fly around the street lights

To catch the ones who find themselves

Beguiled by the light

And I particularly enjoy

The mezzo-staccato point

Of my sound articulation

Just before I catch the large ones

In my brilliant, expansive wings

 

I am not shy to underscore my attributes

Far better to impress you with the majesty of my gifts

Than to speak of my fear of losing the hollow of the old tree

That affords me the warmth of my kind

For it too will go

In the interests

Of the strange imperatives

That appear to guide the instincts

Of your kind

¯

Glossy Black Cockatoo                     Peter Lach-Newinsky

 

after Avrille Ciccone’s ‘Birds of a Feather’

 

Still my dignity towers skywards

from this fire continent, my colours

red as flames, black as embers, seven

 

feathers falling in a flurry of loss,

the slow sad joy of my call stranded,

unheard inside glass tractors, screens,

 

dailyness, distraction from bone-deep

knowledge that we all inter-are.

Disrupted, displaced, applauded,

 

shall I close my ancient feathers like

some final fan among the last casuarinas?

Yet perhaps through your dreams

 

my flight may still drop down gravity

like a wave of black light shining

a spiralling way down through the maze

 

of compassion, anger, grief, some dark

sense of planet plastic bereft of birdcall, 

the silence, the space, the soul I sing.

¯

A Single Black Cockatoo                           Teena McCarthy

after Avrille Ciccone’s ‘Birds of a Feather’

 

A poem for Janice aka JBird, 1958-2004

 

While we stood boiling the billy,

the river whispering

and you declaring
your last will and testament,

your imminent death

 

a single black cockatoo

flew overhead —

 

The bird

stopped us in our tracks.

 

We held our breath

as it swooped above

crying out loud as if it knew

that all I could do

was love and comfort you,

my friend of twenty years.

 

I suggested you head north to Kakadu,

follow the bird

to a place in the sun,

with green trees, pandanas

leaves and crocodiles lurking below.

 

Later, I was happy to hear

you’d found joy in the Top End; not knowing

it was also where you’d meet your end…

 

Travelling to our old lookout spot

searching for signs of you

at this moment

a single black cockatoo

again flies overhead —

signaling what — life or death?

 

Either way, it’s a sight I’ll never forget.

 

And when the world is quiet,

I look to the sky and smile

remembering the story of me and you
and that single, black cockatoo.

¯

Parrot                            Mohammad Ali Maleki

 

after Gill Burke’s ‘The Nectar Eater’

 

I went to the jungle —

It was serene and green,

beautiful and fresh.

The sun was playing in the trees;
it was a scene from
nature’s heart.

 

Deep in the jungle
butterflies danced on flowers,

birds ate from berry bushes

and sang sweet and joyful

messages to their friends.

 

But I also heard the moan of a bird

from inside a flock of noisy parrots.

I moved closer and saw that one parrot
had fallen to the ground

It had fine
features, rare and brightly coloured.

Feeling pity, I brought it home,
feeding it medicine day and night

until it was strong enough to be set free.  
Then I returned my pretty parrot to the wild.

After a few months I visited the jungle

but couldn’t find her anywhere.

Tired and worried, I started home…

when a voice from behind me said Hi.
I saw no one but felt something on my shoulder —

My parrot with some of her young!

She had learned to say hello.

 

Dear Friends, come —
Let us help this next generation of birds to survive.

Don’t you know that as we rely upon her,
Mother Nature relies upon us?

¯

Red Crowned Toadlets                     Lorne Johnson

 

after Helen Clare’s ‘The Red Crowned Toadlet’

 

When everything was imploding

in our shrinking Pymble apartment,

 

and we’d both turned ourselves

into Namibian sandstorms,

 

I’d take lengthy nighttime walks

in delicate summer rain,

 

through a wide Ku-ring-gai gully

below a shale-capped sandstone ridge

 

festooned with boronia, fern and banksia,

close to where, in the early twenties,

 

a returned World War One veteran

built miniature stone pyramids,

 

a miniature sphinx. The rain

would produce what sounded like

 

an old Cuban musician slowly scraping

a wooden guiro — really chirruping toadlets,

 

under leaf litter. I’d carefully dig

them up, cup them in a warm torch-lit hand;

 

they were grubby red, black and white

humbug-jewels the size of my thumb nail;

 

still, calm, with delicate throat membranes

pulsating, pulsating, pulsating,

 

and tiny eyes as dark as scarabs

pinned to a pharaoh’s bandages.

¯

 

Scion                              Anne Casey

after Ruth Thompson’s ‘Remnant Community’

 

high on a branch

on a soaring crown

in a grove of trees between

sunbeam starburst leaves

that twists and turns

but goes nowhere

 

kookaburras canoodling

far above the middle of

everything that is all

cicadas calling to prayer

the crash of a branch

in the out there somewhere

 

a memory infused in cells

falling to earth

immersed engorged dispersed

echo of all that is everything

cycling through dirt to rise

to a branch on a soaring crown

 

in a grove of trees somewhere

in the

out

there

 

 

¯

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

¯

 

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#30

 

Work selected from workshops in Melbourne, at the Newcastle Writers Festival

& at the KSP Writers Centre Perth.

 

 

FEATURING:

Dael Allison, l e berry, Henry Briffa, Andrew Carter, Luciana Croci,

Kristen de Kline, Lisaba Holt, Judyth Keighran, Michael Kyd,

Jenny Magann, Mardi May, Rebecca Moran,

Barbara Orlowska-Westwood,

David Pecotic & Ellen Shelley

 

 

¯

Dael Allison

flagpole                                                       

 

outside your house rainbirds

nest to be killed. you say this

as a challenge, glance over

your shoulder in case somebody

covets the buttons that you like

to press. you feed on diminishment

every door locked, the halves in your glass

never equal, your flagpole

a middle finger.

 

you’re a tourist where you were born

opinions pre-mapped. sites you visit

are tarnished, the geckos long gone.

inside your house you slow-clap the tv.

just sport, you say, nothing personal –

go back where you came from.

 

outside your house clouds rot

and the sea sullies with your

shock-jock anger, your rancorous

shadow. refugee boats turn back

to dismembered silence.

 

neighbourhood watch should watch

your vanity, your damage.

you don’t listen for rainbirds – 

the rain belongs to you.

¯

l e berry

WHEN THE CICADAS FELL SILENT

 

i.

crimson rhythm of summer

stutters

cicadas stop

 

earth battered and bruised

rejects decades of abuse                     

dredges up its steely charcoal strength

 

anxious plants and people

watch self-preservation wither

under unrelenting heat                       

 

radar shows tantalizing azure patches

only to see them pushed by hell’s heat

out to turbulent sea

 

ii.

drab earth

mourns

 

yesteryear when trees lined the foreshore

beckoning fickle rain

 

iii.

many scorn doubters

earnestly advocate

planting more trees

 

replay images from past centuries

when our ancestors remembered

to replenish what they took

 

wonder why ‘they’ forget

trees clean air

preserve salubrious moisture             

 

iv.

if lessons learnt

we wouldn’t have to go to museums

to hear birds sing

¯

Henry Briffa   

life model

 

    sketch one:

  knee deep in water

   emerging from rocks

 

     sketch two:

       in a spotted gum

         camouflaged

 

         sketch three:

           submerged

           objectively viewed

             outlined

               tilts her head

                squints her eyes

             sees me as everyman

           two dimensional

         within her landscape

 

   eyes meet at times

  like we’ve been intimate

                                                 while still shy

   I muse in private

      contemplate a line

        “so good to paint     

           full lips    your eyes

           (as if seeing me for the first time)

 

       “when I paint you     

       you’re so Mediterranean

     please don’t smile

   in the evening

puts down her brush

 

I’m alive

¯

Andrew Carter

An Orchid Silence

 

Black striped

social insect

fertilizes green earth

for rapacious human beings

harm done

 

Harm done

to all who breathe

apathetic for now

why not listen as humble bees

gather

 

Gather

pollinators

return pollen baskets

to your honeycombed palaces

humming

 

Humming

to position

returning to blossom

sipping nature’s nectar again

sensing

 

Sensing

doom approaching

a bee stings defensive

offensive man treads underfoot

beware

¯

Luciana Croci

Octopus

 

They sent me a hospital photo

of you in your last days,

a cavalier's smile under a woollen cap

far too large for your head.

 

An image of gravity reversed,

large overwhelming small ...

like my glass statuette of an octopus

perched on a piece of rock.

 

It sits,

its head, lengthening at one end,

dragging roundness into ellipse,

posing inquisitive

eyes puckered into a hollow squint.

 

I imagine it pulling me,

entangling me within tentacles

lined with rosy drosera suckers

craving live tissue to trap and digest.

 

Glass loops curl into tentacles,

ends rounded as teardrops,

spill down the side,

seem to slither,

seek, ingest, digest,

slither,

strengthen,

ensnarl the whole, wholesome base

into a matted, impassive slag.

 

Brain cancer,

like any usurper consuming its own creation.

 

¯

Kristen de Kline

A third Margarita

 

so many dreams

land with a thud

in the safe house

where I woke up

we speak in tongues

I lose my mind

 

outside waves crash hard

break against the sea wall

what am I trying to say

you order another Margarita

trace the salt on the glass

 

what was I thinking

 

An earlier version appeared in Pink Cover Zine

¯

Lisaba Holt

Consistent Discipline

 

Bring me the head of that kitten;

He’s jumped on the birdcage twice.

Just the head of that kitten,

His heart’s as cold as ice.

No don’t bring me the whole kitten,

I only require his head.

Oh look at his sleepy kitten eyes

He looks all ready for bed.

Oh what a sweet little kitten,

He’s all cuddled up and so contrite.

Of course I’ll hold the kitten.

Stop, you’re giving him a fright.

Ah what a warm ickle kitten.

He didn’t intend any wickedness.

I’m sorry baby kitten. 

I can see in your face you confess.

No kitten. 

The birds aren’t calling for you to come back.

The birds just like to sing.

It’s not cos a kitten they lack.

Now stop that you horrible kitten!

Don’t scratch me I’m already sore.

Fine run away evil kitten. 

But birds are off limits, evermore.

Sic’em Charlie attack that kitten,

Prove to all that you’re not just a cushion

Don’t just sit there looking shocked. 

Now bring me the head of that kitten.

¯

Judyth Keighran

December Poem

for Matthew

 

On the Macleod train station

I hear a small boy say

What’s four plus two mummy?

 

I remember trips in the Valiant sedan

to the old fibro house at Port Campbell

my crinkle-haired son, five–years-old

 

unravelling the power of numbers.

Guessing games lightened the journey,

his impatience to arrive.

 

Early December sun casts patches

of feeble light on steel grey concrete.

No-one loved Christmas more than you.

 

You shied away from the Kris Kringle fad:

selecting personal gifts for all

was never a chore for you.

 

This year you will not appear

weighed down with shopping bags

brimming with gifts and bonbons

from the two-dollar shop, no more

tales of missed connections

at Flinders Street Station.

 

The mother takes her son’s hand

together they move forward on the platform.

Now he is jumping, his feet

drumming the concrete

his body alight with excitement.

It’s coming, it’s coming, he shrills

 

I will myself to move forward

adding one step to another.

¯

Michael Kyd

A Fox in Therapy

 

 

I came across a wild cat caught in a rabbit trap

tried to free it,

It spat and shat and pissed and bit and scratched me,

kept trying,

the cat jerked out of the trap, left its paw behind.

I cried,

learned from that.

 

One day going down to the creek to catch gilgies,

a fox was caught in a rabbit trap,

sat down near and spoke to it.

It snapped and snarled.

 

After a while it stopped,

threw it some gilgie bait,

snarled some more.

Later it smelled the meat,

ate the meat,

I moved closer.

 

After a few hours it allowed me to pet it

was eating out of my hand, let me stroke it,

allowed me to free it from the trap, I carried it home.

 

Mother bandaged his leg,

father let me keep him until his leg healed.

After we let him go that fox visited me at night,

shared his meal with my cats,

slept on the end of my bed.

 

That fox loved me and I loved him.

When I was five I knew a lot about therapy.

¯

Jenny Magann

The Bride Doll

 

Age and love have taken their toll.

Brown-painted eyebrows

give a look of surprise to her faded face.

Nylon curls, tangled from brushing,

are ungluing from her hollow head.

One eye is forever closed

a perpetual wink at her life.

 

A Christmas present, she arrived

named Diana

dressed as a bride.

She held a bouquet of paper rosebuds

wired to dainty hands.

On silken hair she wore a net veil,

a rosebud at each perfect ear.

A fringe of curls fell on her forehead.

I kissed her cupid lips.

Her blue eyes closed with a tilt of her head.

Her legs swiveled out at the hips

as she sat to take tea with me.

Her arms twisted at the shoulders

to reach out for a cuddle.

When I lifted her, a hidden voice

from her tummy rattled “Mama, Mama’.

 

It was never incongruous,

a bride that was a baby,

a child that was a mother.

 

¯

Mardi May

The Raven Master

 

Our Queen’s Master of Ravens

is at home in the tower of dread.

Could have been Keeper of Stamps,

 

Grand Carver or the Queen’s Piper,

perhaps the Royal Clockwinder.

No, he’s the keeper of corvids.

 

His favourite, Merlina, an iridescent

oil-slick of black-feathered beauty,

is Raven Queen of the Tower.

 

He feeds them dog biscuits

soaked in blood and they

give him rat tails in return.

 

Like true Brits, they love their chips,

but wash away the vinegar and salt.

Claws and beaks sharp

 

as Swiss army knives,

they skin mice precisely

as the removal of gloves.

 

Dickens with a pet called, Grip,

thought they walked like gentlemen

in tight boots across loose pebbles.

 

Think – stilettoes on cobblestones,

or perhaps the Poirot mince!

Legends abound on the celebrity

 

birds and the Tower Keeper’s role.

It’s ‘look but don’t touch’ and

the Raven Master bears the scars

 

from his family of seven;

an Unkindness of Ravens

but not a Murder of Crows.

¯

Rebecca Moran

Decades

 

This goddamn swamp

of submerged memories

dislodged by my stumbling feet

their dead eyes roll toward the surface 

 

I feel them on my back

in my blood, my throat, my skin

 

puppet, shaped and folded

Is this how you want me tonight

 

Confusion is my phantom limb

breath suspended (suffocate)

While I calculate

                                    too late

I reach an answer

 

4am again, again

coldfoot lizards crawling up my sides

 

brace

 

wait

 

breathe

 

¯

Barbara Orlowska-Westwood

 

School Photograph

for Zosia

 

 

Our hair was in plaits

knees angular,

we moved with awkwardness 

on our way from larvae

to hopefully butterflies.

 

In our city cinder dust

hazed the summer sun,

winter muddy slush

covered the streets.

White collars of school shirts

always grey.

 

Frost grew flowers on window panes,  

rugged up we filled our heads with stories

of Amazon jungle’s steaming heat,

wilderness of prairies,

Tahiti’s sandy beaches, azure lagoons

swarming with tropical fish.

 

The iron curtain hung tight.

Our dreams – soap bubbles

bursting on barbed wire,

parents’ worries soaking into us.         

 

Now we live in our paradise

citizens of two countries

strangers in both.

 

You wrote the book Amazon rainforest.

My poems speak of gum trees,

drought, bushfire,

devastation of the coral reef. 

At night we dream in black and white.

¯

David Pecotic

Inheritance, or the Korculan

 

Out of time,

I am become

what I was:

a fisherman

off & on

a black goddess

island,

where the fish

that make dreams

school their poison.

Back on shore,

I tell the bees

the names

of every gutted vision earned.

A million glass wings

beat sweetness in return.

 

 

Further inland,

I am the goat man,

hoofed hard-on

chasing every woody

piece of arse,

even my own.

Up on the mountain,

I’m his father,

equally erect

but frozen,

the holy thief

whose hungry mouth

made the music.

A dead ringer for shades

who wings for tricks.

 

 

Only in the forest dark

can I reach down my throat

to pull myself out,

 a vukodlach,

wolf-skin

turned inside-out,

drum-like

and ruddy.

Village monster

I kept down for so long,

I had cut my hams,

pricked my whole body

with pins to prevent this:

 

I cannot pretend

after this operation

I won’t walk about

forcing your submission.

Strigun— human by day,

demon at night;

held in check

by my krsnik:

the warlock gift with his hawthorn stick,

that takes away,

gives peace

by piercing,

the heart again.

¯

Ellen Shelley

Appointment

 

you wait in the overcrowded

waiting room     feeling alone

a fog builds

the grey wall opposite

hangs a half daylight moon

 

a television flickers

above wooden stares

the doctor calls

someone else’s name

you think about

those reoccurring dreams

how they sound like water

 

reflections window the light from outside

 

you hear your name

between chairs & something to say

stomach words

with the trajectory of a jump

 

pain rubs itself an edge

this time spent

is a broken promise

 

admittance a bloody crack

beneath feet

 

fisted hands

on open wounds

 

the fog stifles

attaches itself like ghosts

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#31

 

SPIRIT OF HOME

@

Manly Art Gallery & Museum

Curated by Michele Seminara

 

FEATURING:

Denise O’Hagan, Ivy Ireland, Claire Albrecht, Mario Licón Cabrera,

Toby Davidson, Teena McCarthy, Angela Stretch, Misbah Ansari, Dave Drayton, David Ades,

Tug Dumbly, Peter Bakoswki, Chris Lake, Helen Moore,

Anne Casey, James Provencher & Jenny Blackford.

 

 

¯

 

Bedsitter                                           Denise O’Hagan

Bedsitter

 

Strewn throughout this sub-divided, many-sided house

Run through by its creaking backbone of a staircase

And several narrow arterial corridors

Are two or three rooms to a floor,

The smaller ones pasted on like afterthoughts,

And one of them is mine.

 

Narrow as a capsule

More a container of daily necessities than a home

It signifies a pause, a hiatus, nothing more,

A chilly low-cost limbo, a waiting room of sorts,

The place I unravel my nine-to-five secretarial self

Let the feelings of the day unspool

Over a half-eaten left-over take-away 

And yesterday’s wine bottle full of emptiness

As downstairs other people’s footsteps

Pound the worn, beige wall-to-wall moquette

And the front door clicks the outside world away.

 

Cocooned in bedsit-land I sit
Forever a foreigner, unnaturally alert,

Yet if I’m still and silent and listen hard enough

I can hear the backward creak of time

Peeling away the plaster of the years,

The makeshift cover-ups and crude add-ons,

And can feel the brush of petticoats,

See the imprint of footsteps hastening downstairs

Past bannisters polished creamy as butter,

Wallpapered walls chock-a-block with paintings,

And hear the murmur of confident conversation

Behind panelled, stain-glass doors opening

To a slice of parlour with burgundy walls

And a fireplace flanked by flickering lamps:

The air is rich and heavy with success,
Smug and snug and velvet warm.

A young maid with her tray of empties slips out

Her apron fluttering about her like a ghost,

A bead of perspiration glossy on her forehead.

 

I tuck the layers of the past back under my belongings

(how paper-thin the present seems!)

Tidy up my thoughts and dishes,

Stand and stretch and wipe my brow

And set my alarm for another six-thirty start.

¯

 

 

Household Accounting                                        Ivy Ireland

 

Four boys on four bikes,

fourth street of your walk,

forth hour of the afternoon,

fourth day of the week.

 

Uncanny:

four pelicans claim the sky.

 

‘I’m that one!’

Boy out in front claims

the premier bird.

‘No, I’m that one!’

The very same bird,

runner-up child.

‘You always get the best one, I’m – ’

Third boy.

 

More bickering,

dwarfing a small voice:

‘I’m that one over there.’

 

There’s always one.

 

You glance up.

The furthest away flyer,

almost invisible now, off-kilter,

defies the built-in compass,

chasing solely the arcane way.

 

Fourth boy, otherwise unremarkable,

follows potency,

worships unheralded augury,

in the same way you do –

both of you will sing the wordless hymn later

when asked to defend your singular stance.

 

Easy to name it glorious,

deliberate mystification,

but for the accumulative cost of

choosing the peculiar path home – 

the unaccounted-for way –

time and time again.

 

The price is well known to you,

data inked into your well-lined skin.

No point warning forth boy,

such as he will not take heed. Not yet.

 

Instead, return home

along well-manicured footpaths,

forgive all your precious things

for being just so and nothing else –

for lining themselves up to

create symmetrical shapes.

Clutch them close,

hold to the ordering principle of

personal daily habit.

 

Forgive yourself for choosing the

straight way to small victory;

for finding safety in the folds of

clean towels crisping up the linen press.

All you can do with a home is

hold space for overlapping worlds –

the mediocre and the mundane

spoon neatly up against

the cosmic and the absurd.

 

All you can do with containment is

document, name, account for:

write out what’s yours,

minus the bifurcations of chaos,

solve what small equations you can,

then own the blessing in tiny repetitions.

 

Next time you walk,

don’t account for any of it.

Leave the boys on bikes

to race through the safe streets,

flee to the patch of wood

not yet eaten up by kit-homes.

Move beyond late afternoon

sun-blazed pelicans,

inch toward dim eldritch owl-light:

darker, less certain,

yet still within the reach of

those well-lit windows of home.

¯

  

 

Claire Albrecht

the vivisector’s cottage

 

for Pam and Hurtle

 

 

I
spoke to
a stone and it
told me to build a
house, a cottage, of wood
and iron in the wet mess of a gully.
I didn’t do it, because I don’t trust the word
of rocks but I thought about it, sure. I saw how the
small verandah would slump towards the earth, a curved
spine like mine. I saw the way the trees would rest against
my walls, would drop their supplies at night and my eyes
would snap open, alone and afraid of everything.
I saw the melamine table, the camp stove,
the mismatched towels and linen.
I tasted the runs from the gutters
which I would always forget to clean,
kicked stumps with my toes and felt what
it would be like to bathe in a bathtub outdoors.
the sunlight sweeping through like a dust storm.
I could smell the shit from the hole I dug
too shallow with my weak, white arms.
I spoke to a stone and it told me to
build a house – to construct.
I cannot trust stone, so I
built instead a poem.
far from a house,
inherited from
the world, it
is a safer
shape
__
_
.

 

¯

 

 

 

Up there, far away from here                                        Mario Licón Cabrera

 

The train tracks divide in two the town 

where I was born. When I started to grow I realized

that our backyard ended at the train tracks. From the age

of four to six – before entering school, I used to cross the tracks every day

at noon, carrying an almost-my-size silver bucket filled to the rim with

nixtamal to be ground at the local (full-of-mice) mill for the daily holy

corn tortillas that my mother, heart-in-hand, used to cook for our delight.

 

The commercial area was also divided by the train tracks: on our side were

the mysterious Mennonites with their horse carts loaded with gigantic wheels of

creamy Chihuahua cheese; then, the no less mysterious dwarves with their

mini-tables restaurants – my father’s favourites.  On the other side were

the Chinese (expelled from the U.S.) with their huge general stores, restaurants

coffee shops and opium dens. Where did all those dwarves and Mennonite come from?

 

The circuses, the only cinema and rings for wrestlers and boxers were always

on our side; but also, there was the rundown graveyard were my mother

used to take us and (amidst whirlwinds of gravel thick dust) tried to find her

two children’s graves, a brother and sister I never met. I remember

the famished hares commuting from grave to grave in search of dry skin

and bones to gnaw on. 

 

The plain was on our side too, there we ran in rage flying

our balsa planes, then, we’d slow down to get closer to the enormous

vultures snoozing in a line on top of the barbed wire fence posts. Gently

we’d throw small stones at their bony chests, till they’d wake up, get down, jump heavily

 spreading and flapping their large wings as they followed us. We ran faster than the wind to

our protective home. Through the kitchen window we saw them

circling high up in the translucid blue of the summer afternoon.

 

The river was on the other side of the tracks, not on ours, but

we often walked over there, and from my father’s mountain-like belly we’d throw ourselves

into the fresh limpid flow beneath a sheltering clear sky, listening to the wind’s hum

blowing amid branches and leaves of black-nuts, apple and poplar trees. One of those days,

everything darkened suddenly: in less than a second the sky cracked with lightning

and the ground was shaken to its core by heavy thunder, the peaceful river quickly overflowing.

 

We ran as fast as we could and many times slid down over the muddy soil but kept

running. Then, before us we saw half of the town in flames, on both sides of the train tracks. 

When we finally arrived home, the door was wide open, an oil-lamp

burning on top of the table, my mother kneeling down on the floor – fully covered

in a white sheet, praying aloud:  Blessed be our Lord, Sacred Heart of Jesus, we beg you

bring them back home safe.

¯

 

 

At the Non-Existent Statue of a Speared Arthur Phillip                  Toby Davidson

 

I

 

The first drunks of Summer

are windily weaving,

and windily leaving

their minds from a can.

 

An empty, kicked somewhere,

skids phonically, pleading.

Public profanity

is the new placelessness:

 

Weak prick!

Go hard or go home.  

(But the dead!)

 

The local prime member shrinks,

does himself in, wades on,

shark-toothed at the scent

of blent victimhood.

 

Scull, get stuck in

blue fire, white wharf

as another ramp crashes

and tongues of the earth

 

loosen to swim

in their

version of it.  

 

 

 

II

 

It never costs nothin’ to go to the beach,

gleams a freed, ecstatic man

to his family.

 

Steyne means stone. Heads over water

in hours only stone hears,

featureless, dim.

 

Pines relieved of their birdsong,

crawling. On, or over

the line,

 

promised touch— pigment where

there’s a skin

again.

 

III

 

Again, Phillip advanced,

playing father,

chiding and soothing

his pre-arranged

wounding.

 

His sentencing judge,

the esteemed Willemaring,

yells stay in the dock,

take up spear

or club;

 

Bennelong, your honourable

Counsel Assisting,

is just as impossible,

healed smooth

to prove it.

 

No contest?

No more will

you not

get the

point.

 

IV

 

Point, pistol, pox, plinth,

picnic, pub, parade.

‘Seven miles from Sydney

and a thousand miles from care’.

The gilled Pacific nips   

 

plaques for Olympians,

mixed bathing pervs

and a frilled Georgian

Bennelong, underfoot,

outside McDonald’s.

 

Bricked-down languages,

local and Latin, share

whale (gawura, megaptera

novaeangliae) as they

could share the sea.

 

A whale feast here, meat

—‘Mate’ as recorded—

canoed to the po-faced father

of galgalla and much let

between supply and deploy.

 

Incisions, middens,

bloodlines persist.     

Tides mark the deep 

passing through

of continuance.

 

V

 

Continuance now has a countenance, contrivance:

Bath boy of German Jakob, Lizzy Breach,

the little breacher bronzed on his block

of this block-headed Ice-Aged sea dragon of land.

 

Rendered due East, Willemaring’s tip West

juts like a beak from the governor’s spine;  

harbour sparks hook up his wreck of a shoulder,

ride its reverberant shaft to the pines.

 

Long bicorn hat unbelievably fastened,

head thrown back, but his face—we can know

the face—imminent, bulging, eyes flung agog

in a heaven of surprise. Thin rhomboid lips

 

frame a right missing tooth (Art’s fluke),

flashing golden abandon at those who’ll recover

from physical laws, inscrutable yet as the surf

or the Feds fanging arcs in their black ops boats—

 

not the friends of late lanced circulations

changing states of the glazed drawn to linger.

Winter. Masts lash for Art each electric night;

rocked just like his condescending sight.

 

Note: This poem variously restages the spearing of Governor Phillip at Manly Cove in 1790, drawing on accounts in The First Australians documentary by Rachel Perkins and Beck Cole and Inga Clendinnen's book Dancing with Strangers. Galgalla is a Sydney-area Aboriginal word for smallpox. By sheer coincidence, Phillip happened to be missing the very same tooth that was knocked out in local initiation rituals, which signalled (incorrectly) that he understood Aboriginal law.    

 

¯

 

 

Untitled                                             Teena McCarthy

Dedicated to my family members of the Stolen Generations:
Father (1934, WA) and Nanna Mc (1889, NSW) RIP

 

Walking slowly
yet striding fast
across the countryside
whilst searching for my Country —
Ich bin ein angsthasen.
Yes! Why does it feel like broken glass?

I’ve been anxious n’ gutted
for I’m sure I had a home in the past
where the old ones danced joyously
around the fire
and merged back into the universe…

They seem to be calling me by name x 3
Napaltjarri! Napaltjarri! Napaltjarri!
We are here!
Home is here!

I spin around
excited n’ expecting to see
a Corroboree —

When no one’s there
dancing under the stars
I realise that person
is actually me,
just a shadow in the bushes
of her former self,
walking that rabbit-proof fence.
 

 

References:

*‘Broken Glass’ used for ancient Aboriginal burial sites around the graves.
* Ich bin ein angsthasen: German, used to reference racism; white Oz Policy; removal of children; stolen generations; eugenics; elimination of Indigenous First Australians.
* ‘Called me by name x 3’: Jesus spoke to Judas 3 times and was denied
* Napaltjarri is one of many names used explain your place in the community and in the Arrente NT skin-ship system; a skin-name given by certain Elders in the community which the gives you a responsibility within the tribe to care for others within that skin-ship system.


¯

 

 

 

Angela Stretch

 

¯

 

 

I talk too much of Homely Epiphanies                                             Misbah Ansari

 

I see my turquoise bead stained eyes fall upon the three people standing at Summer hill station,

arranged in a filigree misbegotten -

three ended, blubbered, sitting inside a certain lake of nostalgia in my neck.

 

They stand in a park twelve feet under the platform,

with a distance associated with the sea in Bombay –

 

a boy who is a pro at ocean water swimming 

 

              mother who eats shaved ice topped with nine flavors

                    father trying to hold the mother's hand in the sands of Bombay.

 

I see them walking again towards a certain moon,

forming pyramids as they hold hands,

like a mirage of desert straw huts of Sahara –

 

well,

the straw hut is

the home of my childhood dreams

purple tinted, embellished earrings wall, baking cake in the corner

I wonder how do they know all my ephemeral dream homes that I cremate every morning.

 

Sometimes I think about them with a geo – emotional yearning,

An explosion of longing comfort,

A curiosity of dancing curtains,         

Ravens lending their feathers to the trio

to fly back to their abdominally stuck house, residence, home (?).

¯

 

 

 

the youthfulness of cliffs                                                Dave Drayton

 

the youthfulness of cliffs                                              cannot persuade us all to gather

seeking terraces or patios                                                               civilization outdoors

 

corrugate

identity

 

pledge emancipation to                                                 howling knolls above yourselves

a block, a fence, a cricket pitch                        mowed in the lawn of the backyard

 

a fridge

a fringe

 

pleasure sends us                                                                    a fortuitous example of

what it means                                                                                           a diagram

 

or thereabouts

protruded

 

a larger diagnosis                                            and then abstracted the refrigerator

mushroom thickets disrupt an over           the price of the landslide is forgetting

 

the application of grass stains

 

absorbs a ceremonious biography

¯

 

 

Hidden from My View                                         David Ades

 

 

Today is a wetly new day, the heat of recent days having broken,

a thirsty sky having turned on its tap

and forgotten to turn it off,

 

whilst bustling white cockatoos flap loud and low,

screech their pterodactyl scrawl above the drenched

urban lawns, the glistening, orderly trees.

 

Amid the constant drip and trickle

 I have sloughed off all the skins of my former selves,

gone like shadows in the dark,

and stand naked, feather-light, my body familiar, a stranger wearing it.

 

Where did I go, in the cacophony of family life, and who is this, now,

                                    in a suddenly empty house, strewn with the tailings

of other lives?

 

I want to hear the poetry of the almost silence I once thought

cleaved to me like a lonely ghost, I once thought I had had too much of,

 

just as all the paths I took, took me far from the path I thought

I was taking.

 

For years I wanted to compromise my long solitude,

I wanted unknown territory until it became too much so,

until I no longer recognised myself,

the life I had led myself into with no prospect of retreat,

 

the life that has gone on vacation for a few days, leaving me with my nakedness,

a window to prise myself open,

to see if I have become empty in the giving, or if

 

something wild and hungry is growing, untended, unkempt, hidden from my view.

¯

 

 

A bum plays Flight of the Bumblebee                                              Tug Dumbly

 

on a street piano near the station 
and Rasta Man, with the amped up didge 
and FX rack, joins the jam. They’re hitting 
Rachmanioff, Beethoven, Bach – Fur Elise, 
Anna Magdalena, then The Entertainer …
the man’s childhood repertoire on this 
out of tune wreck of a piano, outside the 
chicken shop, full pedal down sound 
rolling over the bipping Friday afternoon 
traffic vivisecting Newtown, the sound 
reverberating rich, with the didge barping 
and honking like a goose on top
as Rasta Man chucks his dreads and spare arm 
about like it’s a baroque rave,

and waves of commuters shoal up 
from the afternoon trains.
I call the piano player a bum, but that’s 
a cheap shot, he’s just a man, one of
the street irregulars who gladhand longnecks 
in brown paper bags outside the community 
centre, close by the pub, police station

and courthouse, with hospital, rehab 
and funeral home within a spit ...
it’s like the set of a toytown village, 
with life laid out neat as clothes on a bed,

a go to woe Truman Show in a Salvos Cheers bar 
where the cops all know your name 
and everyone’s stamped In Transit, 
as released flocks of schoolkids screech past 
in a Lorikeet identity parade. 
I like sitting afternoons on the steps of the old 
Hub porno theatre and seeing it all.

It’s like a duck hide from which to watch

humanity pass by, free street theatre,

no two plays the same.

I meet my boy’s bus and we head home,

Beethoven reimagined for didge, incongruous

cuz to a piano that melts to Moonlight Sonata.

¯

 

 

Isolated cottage, Skopelos, 16 October 1972                                     Peter Bakowski

 

Ink spilt on the best tablecloth.

Now that the guests have gone Papa removes his belt, screams

 

That I deserve such a thrashing.

Healing—never found in the loose-hinged medicine cabinet.

Each cut, each plea, each fleck of blood on the bedroom wallpaper

 

Prepares me for what I must thieve from this

Implosive house.

Now this dawning hour I’ll pay, with 

Every drachma stolen, for passage to the mainland where I’ll

Sing in concert and dancehall louder than the roar of any father.

¯

 

 

RESOLUTE                                               Chris Lake

 

You decide not to take guns for this boarding.  

The night scope is full of puking women and kids.

It’s your calculation of effect. Your matrix of control.

The scope turns the seeing eye blind with its green light.

You have to save the other one for peering into darkness.

 

Darkness. The sea is a black corrugated iron roof,

Its ridges impossibly high. You skip and fly across the crests

And brace for the spine crushing slap of each trough and

You curse the god-damned half-blind coxswain under your breath. 

You check your webbing, but there’s nothing in it. No guns.

 

The edges of the darkness are two pools of different light.

Behind you is the grey steel, shark-headed, wasp-eared

Boat you call ‘mother’. Ahead, the greasy-planked,  

Wallowing, garbage pail that, try as you might,

You can’t stop designating in your mind as ‘the target’. 

 

‘Target, but not ‘enemy’. They’re too clumsy for that. Childlike.

Their cabin is bathed stupidly in white light that blinds them.

They peer out into the starless black night, squinting 

At the tactical red-lit bulk of your wasp-eared, shark-headed ship.

They wallow helplessly. The sea is always hungry for these folk.

 

The sea is always hungry for them. This is the third 

You have sought and the first you have found. 

The last two evanesced into a nothing of plastic rubbish,

Sad rumples of clothing and child-sized crocs bobbing forlornly

In a little slick of unlamented failure. No one even took a photo.

“Light ‘em up,” you hear on the comm. They’re talking about spots.

They don’t see your boats until the beams transfix and blind them.

They rush the side, wave and cheer, and the sea waves back

And for a long and oddly silent moment you think it’s 

Three for three – the third, from three, for the hungry sea.

A miracle of physics. The head of their dhow somehow

Nods its way back from the wavetops, settles itself

Once again on its laughably shallow keel. Chastened, the people

Edge back. They’ve taken you in now. Your war-suit, your gear.

No cheers or waves now. Their stillness is the stillness of fear. 

You stare at these waifs in this blank moonless sea. 

Some spew over the side, some clutch children, purses,

Tin pannikins of rice and tuna which is all they’ve ate

For the past two weeks. They stink. That deep-grained,

Napthene, hobo stink. You’re desperate for them to live.

Their faces are my face. Foreign. Strange. As I lift them from 

Their boat to mine, my hands deep in their stinking armpits,

Returning the embraces of their shivering, stinking bodies,

I think about what you’ll see when you see them in the street.

Incomers. Aliens, to be suffered in kindness. Immigrants like me. 

Ashore, maybe years from now, this child I’m lifting into my boat

Will be out somewhere, in school perhaps, or shopping at the mall.

And I too will be out somewhere, shorn of my war-suit,

And the little white ensign on my shoulder that makes me master here, 

And we shall be the same in your eyes – both intruders in your home.

¯

 

 

 

The House is On Fire                                           Helen Moore

 

After Greta Thunberg

God’s own property, some call it,

for others it was built by Allah, Jah, or Rainbow Serpent;

yet most agree it’s priceless and that for sheer scale

and beauty it surpasses any maharajah’s palace,

its treasures infinitely more splendid

than we could ever fashion.

And this house is ancient –

4.5 billion years by some calculations;

it should be listed

top for conservation due to its uniqueness.

Nowhere else we know of in the Cosmos –

this living, breathing home

extending hospitality to every guest who comes

from spore, seed, egg or womb.

Fire! Fire! the girl cries at the gates of the law-makers,

as she finds its blue and white ceiling

is rapidly overheating.

Who heeds the young?

Having made themselves too comfortable

some men pretend not to hear.

Other people claim: It’s Divine will!

We should all pray for salvation.

Yet others wear that tattered coat of fantasy

in which they seek disguise:

If it gets too bad in here, we’ll leave this old house!

But where can they go?

This is our home and there are flames consuming its rafters.

¯

 

 

Singularity                                        Anne Casey

 

Staring back through that magnificent desolation

to this devilled blue globe, one dome suspended in light,

the other obscured by the shadow of where you stood;

immersed as you were in light particles

from long-dead stars, did you wonder

at our seemingly eternal journey,

cycling over and over from light

to dark to light? Reflecting on Earth:

seeing ‘home’ for the first time in that vast

perspective at once vivid and spectral; this silenced beauty

turning slowly over its own desolate truth:

the enormity of its one persisting challenge—

to somehow find our allied humanity

—a singular planetary alignment

as subtly elusive as one

perfect surface reflection.

As great and bungled.

As necessary as the light

we feed on, as desperate

to repel the dark, over and

over to separate and break us

apart from the spectre of some alternative reality,

time folded in on itself, suspending us in an-

other perpetual virtual truth

and the hovering ghosts of

what could have been.

 

* Singularity was first published in the anthology Giant Steps: Fifty poets reflect on the Apollo 11 moon landing and beyond (Recent Work Press 2019).

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Webbing                                           Jenny Blackford

 

 

Some people say that there's a spider

in the centre of the interwebs, a giant

redback with a black hole at her heart

sucking your most important emails

into oblivion. That's all too likely.

 

Others assert it's made of pussycats

billions of fluffy kits and kitty fluffs

preening pouncing prancing

through fur-lined cat-sized pipes.

That’s less worrying to contemplate.

 

Often the net’s a shouty battleground

for those who scream the loudest.

Sigh.

 

I want to think the internet (hollowed

like Einstein's famous space-time trampoline)

is home, webbed by friends and relatives

interstate or overseas (some we’ve never met)

or in the room across the hall

 

stuffing the bulgy intertubes with baby pics

and garden tips, first days at school

and next year’s travel plans, scanned slides

of unforgotten family, last night’s peak dessert,

pleas for refugees and close-up snaps

of native bees

 

all filling up the aching hollow centre of the net

 

webbing us with love.

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Homecoming                                              James Provencher

 

Emerging

from the groaning bus

into frozen night streets

hailing a cab

telling the silhouetted driver

my home address

still warm, expansive

from flask-scotch on the bus

from the girl I fell in love with

who got off at the first stop

 

Cabbie’s a veteran too

and when he turns for the fare

hopeful of some small-change shrapnel

tip, I catch his Phantom of the Opera

face, half shot off, half hidden, missing                                                                                                   

behind a plastic cheek-mask

 

Reeling out into midnight

I enter the dark house called home

The inside-air, close, murky with smoke

My father’s pink-tipped cigarette

brightens and dims in the lounge-room corner.

Waiting up for me—

a distant channel marker

wrapped in fog

 

I’m out too, he blurts

They mustered me today

Gave me the flick

Just like that

After 30 years

 

Both out of the army

the same day

and only one of us

happy

 

I sit with him

through the hours

of his complaint

turning it over and over

touching every side

of the mocking matter

his to-hell-with-it tirade

Savouring slights

How the world hurt us

 

Together

we stay that way

til the new day’s dull light begins

and my mother’s kitchen sounds.

 

 

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#32

 

A selection of work arising from the 2020 workshops in

 

BRIGHTON & DANGAR ISLAND

 

FEATURING: Richard C. Bell, l.e.berry, H. I. Cosar, Luciana Croci,

K de Kline, Jennie Fraine, Sandra G. Lanteri, Virginia Lowe,

Kate Lumley, Peter Mitchell, Cecilia Morris,

Ellen Shelley and Erin Signal.

 

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Richard C. Bell

I’m driving she said

 

we had

been drinking I think it was

champagne

and the unfamiliar roads

unfolded past the car

as I turned the pages

of the street directory

 

it was falling apart

we too felt that way

Sue I said let’s stop

find out where we are

and where we’re going

or

 

go home to bed

I added hopefully

 

but you changed up

from second

to third

grimly

 

and my hand

slid off your thigh

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l.e.berry

ROMAN BATHS

 

he eyed his favourite

slid into warm water

leisurely turned

on his back

he wriggled in anticipation

 

at a clap of his hands

a slave brought grapes

filled his goblet

drops glistened then ran

he moved in anticipation

 

his toga slipped further

down his oil-softened torso

sweat dripped from his

brow       down his chest

he stood in anticipation

 

warm water glided

over his once rippled

chest then sent

creases to water’s edge

he swam in anticipation

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H. I. Cosar

The Demoiselle Crane

 

I

know

the

journey

south

is

long

 

You are preparing - it is not yet time

You are hard wired to uphold tradition

You will follow the path of generations

So I will wait

 

But listen- is that the whisper of changing winds

 

I feel the lick of monsoon on the back of my neck

(or is that a memory of your kiss)

 

Fly to me my sweet crane fly

over lustrous wetlands

through ferocious winds

across shadows of snow capped mountains

face and fight the golden eagle- win

 

Teach me

how to dwell in deserts

how to move with seasons

how to survive this mess

 

Since the storms pushed me

Off our path

I’m a vagrant near the brolgas

Who peck me away

 

 

They don’t hear my cry

I am a crane too

 

You can hear me

through the sky and deep seas

 

Come to me

I know you want to dance too

Put your face near mine

I want to see your skin change colour

and expand from joy

 

Fly to me

so we can dance

to our ancient song

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Luciana Croci

Non-time

 

Gradually

gases make peace,

rain down as water

harden as land.

Skull plates grate

in the throes of fever

magma spews into mountains

steals into seas

warms ocean streams.

Aeons of cold

welds water to ice

island footholds

stay for a while

then submerge

Gaia inconstant

in cycles of change.

 

We thought She stopped

falling through time.

In our Garden of Eden

we were bold

all was allowed.

 

Gaia's agony of becoming

is ours now,

we cling to her bosom,

fearful

caught in the helter-skelter.

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K de Kline

When you left

 

+

we loved like demons
our kisses, fresh
and fugitive

we snorted lines

as Cave wrestled skeleton trees
crooned away to KD:
hold me captive
just a while

+
on willow-pattern plates
and pieces of tin foil
I chased the dragon
the wind
and you

 

+
when you left
I found long blonde strands
tangling on the purple sofa
a book of poems
about a tired sky
and a plane
dropping out
of sight
when you left

 

From the 2019 workshop, Prev published Backstory.

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Jennie Fraine

FOR THE PALMS UNDER THE SIX UNDERPASSES

Darling Harbour, Sydney

 

 

The way your topknots dance I sense

you get some kind of rush from the waves

of cars and trucks whose tyres send

vibrations to the earth in which your feet

are sturdily planted. Sitting here, I admire

your delinquent greens, stubborn undergrowth.

Whatever feeds you, it isn’t classical

melodies, or songbird assurances,

or the swash of warm Pacific beaches.

 

Here comes your squawking chorus:

two rosellas, a dozen galahs, a lone

cockatoo, counterpointed by a horn,

the grunt of an impatient motorbike,

more blasts. Now a sharp-beaked heron

pierces your space through

the invisible fabric surrounding you.

 

The waters nearby

remain single-minded, imperturbable.

The birds, entangled briefly,

spin away, agents of cacophony.

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Sandra G. Lanteri

Adam

 

Eve’s been with him for some time now

and though delivered fashionably designed

to his precise specifications,

he occasionally wishes his daily rituals

are not always met with her

silent, predictable acquiescence,

then smiles at such arrant hypocrisy

and returns her to his favourite closet

 

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Virginia Lowe

Dicing with Poverty

I am convinced [the Old One] does not play dice with the universe. Einstein

 

 

The bridge kept the rain off but not the rapists. The dog kept the cold at bay, but couldn’t prevent bullying. A Macca’s filled the hunger void without supplying any noticeable nutrition. Goddog in tatters pushed a laden trolley under the bridge, pulled out an old blue sleeping bag and laid it in a spare space. A tin of tuna and a loaf of sliced sourdough led to an outpouring of tales amongst which violent husbands featured most often as the protagonists. Shehe was amused by the thought of the fancy fairy tale princesses in their beautiful virginal white dresses devolving so quickly into battered mistreated wives. What irony! How these humans ran their society! These homeless women had done all the caring for little or no money, and now were cast out of home to sleep on the streets. Society, which had deprived them in their working years, made no attempt to find compensatory accommodation, even to sleep out of the weather, let alone to call their own for ever. Doggod allowed the deserted women to play a game with Hisher dice for a few moments, then remembered planet Yorg with its goodbye songs and favourite meals, as the innocent well-wishing inhabitants tended to the dying. Taking the dice back Shehe rolled them to see what they would decree.

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Kate Lumley

The last walk we took

for Glenda Linscott

 

Along the littoral at Cullendulla, 

past middens mosaicked on the sand

 

a flick of fish corral between mangroves

soldier crabs are the mud’s heartbeat

 

on the bay, black swans cut their form

from air to water then back to air

 

the salty freight of wind hums through casuarinas,

a low lament that rounds the shore.

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PeterMitchell

At Home

 

I am prone

on the carpet: eyes closed, muscles tight-strings. 

 

Depression clouds; the sum of my worth:

          zeros line the horizon.

 

Taps drip, a huntsman

runs under the table

& the earth spins.

 

The bed-clothes call Come back.

I am a bird-man

in a warm nest. 

 

Later I rise,

a body vast with longing,

but breathe deeply & trust,

     a green vista just ahead.

 

Coffee's warmth

& sweet bitterness, the hearth

       of a cigarette & the sun's divinity

on my shoulders, cushion the muscles.

 

I slide Open Up by Leftfield

into the player. The drums

and base thud. My feet step

one-two beats & swirl around the loungeroom.

 

John Lydon snarls Burn Hollywood Burn

& whirls my body through

                    the rickle of the day.

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Cecilia Morris

Naming Things

Breezy early morning summer.

I slip with ease into red garden clogs.

 

Shasta daisies like blotted cream

bend and sway and Hollyhocks

float pink lace edged petticoats.

 

I move beyond the large green leaves of

the Taro which gives me a gentle smack,

keeps me alert to walk on stepping stones.

 

Against the old paling fence,

beneath the violin shaped leaves of the Fig tree

is the Green Goddess Lily, its cone like contoured

flowers captivate my eye.

 

I’ve overshot the path a little,

there’s a nest of 4 eggs under the

Plumbago it’s built too low for comfort,

The magpies will have a treat.

 

Nearby the honeyeater hangs topsy turvy 

to sip nectar from the Chinese Lantern

I delight knowing its botanical name Abutilen.

 

Then the phone call and you tell me

tests found something growing inside you.

But you can’t name the thing.

You leave it up to me to ask the question.

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Ellen Shelley

When I Listen

 

to the not so pretty

down here in this trailer-park             an inlet both wild & farmed

 

tinnies rev hard                      the oysters fix to brackish racks        

                                                                       

at the end of a road

 

                                   people knocking on a last resort

& time is a stand-still

 

washed up particles     hidden from only who knows what                

numbness opened at the same time each day —

 

but little matters here in the off the grid        

the unobserved routine of apathy resigned to basics

 

the unstitched plastic of a foldout chair

patched over                hardened against the ground

                                   

stumbling becomes an opening                      

a fissure for the grime

 

isolation seals off its contents

trading in its warmth                          the only way it can

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Erin Signal

Listen

 

I put in the new hearing aid and fly

from muted bush to crisp golden rustles.

 

Birds in stereo as we take the rise

through a butterfly cloud, my girl and I.

                                                          

She stomps to scare snakes; we place hands with care

as the old ones did laying their stencils,

 

outlining knowledge in expelled ochre
on rocks undulate as my prosthesis.

Now Bunjil crouches in a tiny cave

with daubed dogs behind bars and barbed wire.                            

 

A roo stirs with a crackle and I squeal,

spin, come to rest against the smoky wall. 

 

Domestic calm enfolds me where untold

other daughters and mothers talked by fires.

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#33

 

BRIGHTON & BEROWRA

 

A selection of work arising from workshops in 2021

 

FEATURING: Henry Briffa, Kristen de Kline,

Jennie Fraine, Colleen Keating, Kate Lumley,

Cecilia Morris, Nicole Rain Sellers, Ellen Shelley,

Sarah St Vincent Welch, Alice Wanderer,

Mathew Wenham & Ron Wilkins

 

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Henry Briffa

Rapunzel

 

you project

through your tower

 

a voice

 

but you’re beyond reach

your structure

 

betrays a history

that hangs like a carcass

 

mother traded you

for grass

 

you’re uptight

mad

 

unable to let down your hair

(if you try there’s trouble)

 

ghost claws back

won’t go away

 

what’s behind you

climbs that ladder

 

sold for a song

early trauma shatters

 

a love that cures is

difficult to find

 

having not known trust

it could blow your mind

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Kristen de Kline

Tailslap

 

it's never

enough:

staying alive

 

black rain beats

into rusted buckets

down the front windows

muddy water on the patio

 

I know you’re listening

 

all your words

flail about

in the wrong places

 

don’t pretend you can’t hear me

 

on a laconic television

Australian Open

players collapse

 

a rogue tide

little fish flounder

tails slap

against the breeze

when the storm breaks

will we fuck

in the moonlight

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Jennie Fraine

Art on the Riverbank, Nathalia

 

Among islands of shade

at birds’ resting time

secateurs snap.

Each bamboo rod

surrenders green tassels

to sharp blades.

 

While we construct ungainly eagles

wind flutters river’s

milk-coffee current.

 

A pair of imported geese float

beneath Broken Creek’s bridge

creating new reflections.

 

The limping one is glad

to rest aching joints,

paint water with ripples.

 

I brush flies away

as the quiet work

of cane-and-paper art continues,

write poems for children

about all-seeing eagles that soar

above shadows and dry light.

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Colleen Keating

A Day of mourning

 

although everything is a mess, all is well    Charlotte Joko Beck

 

the mess of now

silence textured into stone

falls like lagan into the sea of my mind

 

i remember when i didn’t know the truth

 

when i was nine

i was taken to Farm Cove

to a re-enactment of the first fleet

with a sense of childlike pride

an open mind fresh as a shucked oyster

the Union Jack was raised

we sang God save the Queen

 

I wrote up the story for Social Studies

excited at our country’s progress and prosperity

and my comfortable place in it

 

years later

i learnt the story was inaccurate

with a sense of shame I heard

the men who did the re-enactment

feet stamping the blooded sand

were bused in    as locals had refused

 

only later i imagined

their eyes were empty 

as dry dams on the dusty plain

 

i remember when i didn’t want to know the truth

 

today after my ocean swim

i walk the tidal line 

crowded now mid-morning

my usually lonely beach

basks in hundreds of family groups

children dig castles and canals 

chase waves   waves chase them

every sun tent exudes

smells and sounds of sizzling foods

mingled with a buzz of languages

 

I remember when i knew the truth

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Kate Lumley

Anarchy

 

Ill with a summer ‘flu merciless as ivy, I shun the beach

and read Antigone. Sophocles’ trope of pride and its wages,

 

of statecraft becalmed, reminds me of Trump

so I muse on the Athenians who watched the play

 

(were they only men?) and what they made of the war

of wills between an old ruler and a girl. He wants to punish.

 

The king proclaims her brother, slain as he stormed the city,

a traitor and denies him burial. Antigone is defiant.

 

Under a grave sky, she performs grief’s work. Beyond

the city’s gates, she pours earth on his body left

 

for carrion birds and dogs. She pays with her life. Did this

entertain or was it a code to goad rebellion against irrational laws?

 

Would they have the girl’s pluck and conscience? 

The Chorus sings that when we are old,

 

we learn wisdom. The play ends. The king,

stepping over corpses, slouches off to play golf.

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Cecilia Morris

Brush and Pen

 

to draw the outline of a naked woman

or follow the shape of sails on a boat

 

the dagger brush drops vermillion

that creeps between cotton paper

then blooms in wet areas

 

a curved back draped in velvet robe

backlit by a window catching sunlight

 

violet and blue for shadows

transparency glows in the final glaze

 

to make a full moon punch

from behind dark clouds

make light drift with intimacy.

 

my face is bruised with colour

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Nicole Rain Sellers

                               sunflower nocturne

                               

                                   helianthus rotate           lush satellite dishes

                                      nod neon arcs           bioactive phalanx

                            effloresce midnight           bonneted moon angels

                          hum wormhole music           starfield sonar cones

                                     tilt bullseye auras           infrared antennas

                                       glow fractal seed           lurid-petaled vacuums

                                  analyse space junk           frilly data helmets

                                scan sunrise curve           planetary heralds

                               excavate silence           geocentric probes

 

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Ellen Shelley

Discovery

 

The shriek of a bird hitches to the wind at my back.

The waterfront shimmers orange, green then blue;

a coloured globe turns in an ornamental moon.

 

I look back to a time friends spoke a strange language:

university, moving out, the new car —

a centrifugal force except I was the only one unslung.

 

The haunted path serenades like an aimless tune.

It sticks to the remains of a nearly gone sunset

like the roof of my mouth or an idea of a thing;

 

that fake flickering, a bird in the wind I can’t see,

until I can. That time I stood still or the other way around.

Uncertainty was not like any song I knew, so I left

 

with nothing at my back. An intersection of home

and truths, narrowed towards the natural phrase

of a place, I was glad to know the words to.

¯

Sarah St Vincent Welch

Anju’s hair

 

is burnt

she is an anime character

of my childhood the girl

in The Littlest Warrior

the sacrificial sister

almost married off

to her tormentor

 

transcending to crane

 

she is now my maple tree

next in a lineage of symbolic plants

the dead azalea for a failed marriage

a withered and nipped jade plant

for luck

 

Anju’s hair is growing back

acer leaves pressed against glass

imagine Anju

simply walking away

I watch the green shadows from my bed

¯

Alice Wanderer

RIPPLES IN A MIRROR

 

 

A clearing. And there it is. Pond-like but rock rather than water… until people appearing near the edge break the illusion and it becomes a wall of boulders barely up to their knees. Then, as the approach brings me to slightly higher ground, concentric barriers and paths.

 

A group of kids burst into the space. They climb, balance, jump or sprint around the pathway. Come on. You’ll lose. A boy goes all out, using a stiff restraining arm to overtake his older sister. I am the king of the maze! 

 

As someone who wants to drum, to make them sing, I resent the do not touch signs by the sculptures. The labyrinth, though, insists on interaction. No nautilus shell, no bobbin’s rapid climbing and descending thread, it teases, tantalizes. I’m taken almost to the goal, then thrown back out towards its edge. Travel clockwise, anticlockwise. Repeat, repeat.

 

Once I have reached the heart, the whole course lies before me in reverse. Seven hundred steps. Three score and ten.

 

 

her circle skirt…

 

oh to be Mirka Mora

 

when I grow up

¯

Mathew Wenham

For a moment

all history was compressed

into the rusty shark

bolted

to the awning above

the fish ‘n’ chips shop.

 

All engineering, all power

of representation, silent

persuasion, stillness

centred

for that floating moment

on the iron shark

 

and for that moment

the shark swam

in the open sea of experience

free

like the birds that perched

on its bent dorsal fin.

¯

Ron Wilkins

What’s in a name?    

 

I recollect the old dry watercourse 

where I was seated, splitting shale, each hammer blow

revealing yet another fragment of the sea floor

from 400 million years ago.

And suddenly in the rock, against all odds,

the clean cast of an unknown fossil with some crinoids, brachiopods,

the common fauna from its marine source.

 

The paleo-biologists were swift      

to ascertain this fossil was a new carpoid

and as Victoriacystis wilkinsi they linked this creature to my name,

whereby I can’t avoid

the thought that I am one with it, and it

with me, yet it could never know how our relationship would fit

the vagaries of continental drift.

 

How can we comprehend a form of life

its line extinct, with nothing like it living now?

A flattened sack of calcite plates that differ front and back, two

openings—an anus, mouth, we can allow—

but we have no idea which is which,

a stalk perhaps to fix the creature to its chosen sea floor niche,

or with a prod propel it out of strife.

 

The last V. wilkinsi did not outgrow

Silurian time; what object then lays proper claim

to the binomial appellation, posthumously conferred? Should a

figment of imagination hold my name?

Or is the cast sarcophagus the last

repository; one side facing sedimentary layers past,

the other a future it would never know.

 

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#34

 

CANBERRA, SYDNEY & MELBOURNE

 

Work arising from 2022 workshops

 

FEATURING:

David Atkinson, Margaret Boyes-Pringle, Arthur Conigrave, Kristen de Kline,

Jennie Fraine, Virginia Lowe, Amanda McLeod, Cecilia Morris, Belinda Morrissey,

Maithri Panagoda, David Pecotic & Shale Preston

 

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David Atkinson

Severed

 

The ramshackle barbed wire fence requires repair;

I curse the Hereford heifers straying

onto the sprouting sorghum crop,

 

shoots hopeful as spectres in the half-light,

at risk now as they sprawl

like vapour from the soil.

 

I syncopate suitable tools; proliferation of wire,

distinctive pliers, fence stretcher,

protective gloves. Inevitable serration

 

by rueful spurs. I stake a foothold

under sharp-eyed vigilance,

the supervision of a murder of crows.

 

A seeping cloudburst scuds down

from the ridge; droplets trail across

the brim of my felt hat,

 

onto the raw nape of my neck,

a tactile rivulet inside

my driza-bone coat.

 

Bleak brooding on the day long past

when I should have undertaken the overhaul,

adjusted the tension, tightened the torsion.

 

Thoughts pinned to the sunken sky,

I peel away concentric layers,

the Russian dolls of the mind.

 

How difficult it is to mend fences,

to make amends decades after

I severed my friendship with you.

Previously published in Tamba

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Margaret Boyes-Pringle

Sea

 

Soft sussurations steal into the shell;

sighings of sea shanties

from the mouths of spectral mariners

 

Like notes on a stave, the murmured

quavers of drowning men

flow on the current

 

Broiling water laps the shingled shores

and breathes in rasps against

huddled windows and walls

 

Far out at sea, the long low boom

and wail of fog horns radiate

in waves unseen

 

The night seems endless.

Those in their beds turn

and riffle through sand

¯

Arthur Conigrave

After Crécy

 

In these Covid days I walk uphill most every morning; then,

coffee-in-hand descend again, just minutes later.

I once ignored them but the service lanes are now my route.

Old stone walls, trees that lean across my way

- one invites my partner’s hand ever upwards,

to its hanging berries, blackening in the Spring.

 

Vaccine: it took one year to find it,

another then to share it round.

Resilient immunity.

 

In 1348 the blackness struck them, villages

of France and England in enmity.

Brother in want of power sought it

over brother.

Crécy 1346! English victory. God wasted it

just two years on

in putrefaction!

Crécy! French defeat. Her vulnerability compounded

into general disaster.

It lasted.

 

Now in 2021:

we fragile demi-gods ply our way uphill, downdale,

and by the home lane breathe

more easily again.

 

Children used to sing:

‘… a rosie,

pocket full of posie,

a-tishoo, tishoo,

we all fall down.’

 

Here now,

some still fall

still others yet

stand firm.

¯

Kristen de Kline

 In the old stomping ground

 

I pick up a latte from the Espresso Bar
                the haunted barista

 

that chick who used to show off her peroxided hair          

       walks out with             violent

                     violet locks

                                           thrashing

                                                              the sides of her face

 

one wayward strand tangled up         in a (gold-studded) nose ring

 

   she hands me three (too thin) paper serviettes and two tubed sugar cones

         

               electric orange scales        swim upstream on her arms

she tells me the koi fish is trying to get to the top of the waterfall

               where the Gods will turn it into a dragon

 

   it’s a sign of overcoming obstacles      she says        perseverance

 

                                       she doesn’t say:


it's been a while          where did you go        it's been a while

¯

Jennie Fraine

The Gleaners, 1986

 

We cram garbags full with plastic bags from supermarkets,

bread packets, coin bags, plastic straws, fruit juice boxes.

Our harvest flacks in trees on the cliff-side.

Despite dry biscuit crumbs and mandarine peels

which our children pile on a towel in this open air

not one seagull appears.

Sewn together, the plastic sheets and strips we gather

might make sails, or scarecrows.

 

Plucking at wrack indelibly dyes our hands.

We tread a sea of round yellow rocks to the water’s edge.

Here, the sole of a shoe; seaweed forms delicate fronds

where once the ball of a foot pressed firm.

Here’s a bucket, a polystyrene box. New World treasure?

No, we’re shoving dismemberment in these black bags.

Layers of plastic coat my mind, bind it.

Still, not one seagull appears.

 

Our five children frolic on a triangle of sand.

At home we will wipe noses, scrape nappies,

scour stoves and frying pans, flush toilet bowls.

We are their mothers.

Twenty-four garbags crowd the foot of the steps.

We haul them up in relays after taking photographs.

The children smile for the camera. Then they are sharks.

 

We have covered less than half the cove’s beach.

Our crop flacks in trees, the bits that are out of reach.

We leave crumbs on the sand. Not one seagull appears.

 

A ship moves like clockwork on the horizon.

The sea continues to regurgitate. Water-fat bags like jelly-fish

float dreamily, founder on rocks, cling and wrap.

¯

Virginia Lowe

Worlds, Creation and Demise

 

A world is born

I sit and sing

 

Into this nascent world I bring

security and comfort

lullabies and nursery rhymes

human presence

in the earliest hours

of world-creation

 

By the humidicrib

I sit and sing

 

I sit and sing

in intensive care

 

comfort and love

hymns familiar and consoling

as a world ends

 

Her rich world -

great grandchild –

baby of delight

late husband, sisters, mother

Victorian furniture

houses, clothes, music

impulsiveness

righteous indignation

joy –

that perspective ceases.

 

I sit and sing

¯

Amanda McLeod

The Phenomenology of Trees

 

We walk, my son and I, through any weather, to look at trees. I see ribboned bark. Leaves glossed with oil, and veined like the back of my own hands. Buds, closed up tight, wait for the change in temperature and lengthening of days to tell them winter is over. A microclimate gathers in the folds of soil around roots which stretch deep into the earth. Come, join me, she whispers, here is a place you can grow; I will nurture you, shelter you, nourish you. She is a mother too, this tree. Like me, she tightropes between too-much and not-enough; raising fierce but fragile children. I want to hold her, tell her it will be okay, that I will fight for her children’s futures. Instead I look to my own child. He is halfway up her body already, all legs and hair and eyes. He sits in the crook of her arm, feet adrift in the breeze, and laments his lack of a book. He is not a mother but he recognises motherhood like his own face…instinctive connection to the sacred birthing force. We both feel the motherness of this tree, see it through our separate eyes. How does he see it, I wonder—and for a moment I am overwhelmed by vision—there are as many ways to see this tree as there are beings with senses on this rolling blue-green ball. What joins us is the seeing, the experience, the being in a place at a time, here and now, and looking on a glorious thing together without knowing for certain how others see it. Hope—that for a fleeting moment, they saw it too, and it moved them. We walk, my son and I, through any weather, to look at trees.

¯

Cecilia Morris

Lunch with a Working Poet

 

Alert as always,

you found a mushroom in the park,

small and perfectly formed.

Held it in your hand delighted

then threw it down again,

Quickly, too quickly.

 

We went on to eat roast beef

at the nearby pub.

 

Across the wide, quiet street,

we had business to do,

climbing a steep stairway,

talking the jargon that

that would open secrets to others.

 

When the book stands with others on the shelf,

I shall open it remember the mushroom.

¯

Belinda Morrissey

Welcome to München

 

Why can I never come to Germany in peace? Why do I forget who I am as soon as I breathe the air? Or don't. I can't breathe here. I am in München slowly unravelling, spiralling down.  Even the airport is terrible. Flat, featureless, badly signposted. Except for all the Aushgang signs everywhere. We had to get on a bus. Simple procedure. Change terminals. Could happen anywhere. Does happen everywhere. So why here do they make you walk down some featureless stairs to a featureless room whose ceiling is filled with strange round lights or filters or somesuch, whose huge windows do nothing to dispel the rising terror. This room could so easily be locked off. The thought comes into my head so fast I am horrified. I look around me. Others are lounging on the few seats locked onto the perimeter. People are standing in the centre, rocking luggage, staring at nothing. This room could be locked off. It comes again. Insistent. They could gas us through the lights or filters or whatever they are. The gas would just pour through, so easily; we'd be dead before anyone even noticed outside. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. My chest tightens. I try not to gulp air, not to gasp in the only life source I can imagine here. Why can Germany never live down this institutionalised, mechanised killing? It's been 70 years! Surely that's enough time. Enough to forget the 12 years of Nazism and go back to the image of Germany as cultural capital of Europe. But no. Not for me. Not in München particularly. Pretty, pretty München. City of cobbled streets and wedding cake palaces. Land of spectacular beer and tiny, cosy restaurants. Postcard perfect. If you don't remember Dachau just down the road. If you can forget the ghostly overlay of Nazis goosestepping in time down Hitler's favourite boulevards in Hitler's favourite city. I concentrate on breathing quietly. I stare at my luggage as though it has something new to tell me after all this long time on the road. Am I going mad? Am I the only one thinking any of this? Why put people in such a room in Germany? Surely they have learned something. But no, their efficiency can't be beaten, can't be lost; surrounds don't matter, only that the bus will be on time. But it isn't. In this world of extraordinary ruthless efficiency, the bus runs late. Not by much, only a few minutes. But enough, enough to make one wonder, enough not to trust the driver when he rolls by, enough to wonder where the hell we are going. We get out of the room at least. Another woman, and then another, breaths out hard. One even dares to complain of the lack of oxygen in that room. I put my head down, lift my bags, say nothing. We drive around the stark landscape, planes from all different worlds grounded here. Then we start to pass the wire, and then the barbed wire, rolled in neat coils all along the top. I look out the other window. No wire there. I can dare to hope. Then it starts again and I see the barbed wire prisoning us. The driver is nonchalant. How can he be? Don't these people remember anything? Why put barbed wire in coils everywhere where we might see? We tourists. We non-Germans. We don't deserve this. I study the other passengers. Most are quiet, contained. The boy standing near me could be straight from a Hitler Youth poster in all his 18-year-old blonde glory. In a past world, he would have been the perfect Aryan specimen. Perhaps his grandfather was. What a horrible thought. I have no more information on this boy than he on me. Me with my blonde hair and my blue eyes. I have been stared at in the Middle East and Asia. Goggled at as if I come from another planet (perhaps I do). But in Germany I feel ashamed. I could not live here with this colouring. I would have to dye my hair. Wear any other coloured contacts to hide the guilty blue. I wasn't even alive for any of this. My own parents were barely alive. Young people starting their lives. But my perfect Aryan colouring has always haunted me, since I heard it was the cause of so much suffering for so many others merely blessed with darker or different hair, eyes, skin. The boy, my Hitler Jungen, might not even be German. He could have come from anywhere, like I did. But he and I are made collusive; it doesn't matter that he can't possibly realise the tenor of my thoughts. We belong somehow to the race that made those crimes possible, even if those committing them weren't exactly Aryan themselves but little dark men, impossible pseudo-Vikings, fakes. The thought comes unbidden – Germany will never escape this. It will never live those paltry 12 years down. Hitler was right. We will remember the Third Reich for 1000 years. It doesn't matter about all the centuries of culture and music and art that came before. It doesn't matter about all the enlightened policies now. It doesn't matter that I know if I were to get into some trouble, the Germans would help me, courteously, kindly. It doesn't matter at all. All I can see, and I suspect from the breathing troubles suffered in that bloody room by others not me, all anyone can really still see, is that awful stain. Maybe they should have had the atomic bomb dropped on them, I think, murderously, and am suddenly humbled by myself. Of course, that is a terrible proposition. But this blood that has seeped into the earth, the marrow of bone and the litter of teeth and luggage and shoes and hair is still in the atmosphere. The dust from it still stinks. Germany will never overcome this. Never go back to being the land of Bach and Wagner (especially not Wagner, Hitler's favourite composer), Hegel and Kant. The stench of the real bodies left to rot drowns out any amount of mere music and philosophy. What Hitler created cannot be undone. I stumble from the bus. It has stopped where it should. I take a deep breath, but surreptitiously, I don't want anyone else to notice. The air feels good for a second. The taste of freedom, even though I have no idea what lack of freedom feels like. Then back into the incomprehensible airport. Why can't the Germans label things clearly? I am lost over and over, then I find a cafe. I order a beer. I inhale.

¯

Maithri Panagoda

Life

 

 

A disconsolate Marigold hunched

as bees whispered

around the Lavender bushes

 

Is my nectar

not sweet enough

are you blind to my colour

 

Rain drops decorated the Marigold

like tears on a centerfold’s cheeks

making it seductive

in all its glory of yellowness

 

As Lavender leaves faded

the bush turned into bare sticks

deserted by the bees

 

Marigold blushed

as a swarm of bees came flocking

¯

David Pecotic

There are Days You Cross Hunted

 

There are days you cross hunted

in rivers, shaded and breezed.

Foot after sucked foot,

this little can be a lot

if it’s yours

in the solid dark.

Where you stand,

others barely

there

move slightly

unseen

and you see to live

is to live around yourself

closer and finer

and doesn’t take

the eyes in a face.

 

Where they narrow,

they blow in.

 

Where they long,

they draw out.

 

Such small round things

slip

through the net strings.

Even at the last

strung

at the estuary’s edge.

¯

Shale Preston

Swimming with Nuns

 

Twenty years before the directives

about which transgender women could receive entry

& the subsequent ousting of the Ladies Swimming Club management committee

We sat on the rocks above the Coogee Women’s Pool

And you told me it was your sacred space

You were smoking a joint which wasn’t allowed

Drinking a can of VB which shouldn’t have been there

It’s so cool

You made an encompassing wave of your hand

Every kind of woman comes here

There are Indigenous women, Muslim women, women with disabilities

Mothers and grandmothers, lesbians and bisexual women

There are even nuns

I mean that woman on the rock over there could be a nun

What—the one

With the Celtic wheel tattoo above her breast and the nose piercing?

Why not? You unlaced your Doc Martens

She could be letting her hair down

And her septum ring, I laughed

You’re too quick to judge, women can be anything and everything

You turned away from me & looked out across the Pacific

like Keats’s Cortez

Yeah

I started to rummage through my knapsack

 I suppose they can

Anyway

You stood up, stubbed out your joint, kicked off your boots

It’s time for a dip

Okay

I pulled out my heavily notated copy of Gender Trouble

I’ll join you a bit later

I’m just going to read for a while

 

¯

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

¯

 

 Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#35

 

A SELECTION OF WORK ARISING FROM

PROJECTS WITH SEVERAL CENTRES IN 2022

 

BINALONG, BROKEN HILL, CANBERRA,

LEETON, MELBOURNE, SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS

& WAGGA WAGGA

 

Largely volunteer groups bring invaluable energy & insight to the communities they serve.

A huge thanks to:

 

Booranga Writers Centre

Binalong Arts Group

Under the Silver Tree

Riverina Writing House

Cherry Poets

U3A Wagga Writing for Pleasure

FAW Southern Highlands

?

 

 

FEATURING: Nanette Betts, Barbara Biddle, Elizabeth Blackmore, Maureen Clark, Maurice Corlett, Chris Dawe, Barbara De Franceschi, Lois Eaton, Sally Farmer, Annette Herd, Julia Kaylock, Laurelle Lewis, Harry Melkonian, Peter Olson,

Jan Pittard, Roya Pouya, Uta Purcell, Alan Reid, David Riddell,

Leticia RP, Steve Smart, Susan Starr, Robyn Sykes, CJ Talbot,

Jen Thompson, Sarah Tiffen, Tim Train, Jack Walton

& Sanaa Younis

 

 

¯

 

Nanette Betts

--Nature’s iconic secret-Derringullen-revealed—                           

Beneath a craggy deep ravine, a waterway below-

In secrecy long revered, only black man known

From dreamtime long, long ago, Derringullen Falls.

A place of belonging, a first peoples hide-away,

Secret trails in step with wildlife, his place, his water hole,

A place where Derringullen creek’s water falls, flows on

To join Yass River long before white man found his way.

 

Now all those who hope to protect this iconic place-

With urgency, who says it is to be left as Nature created

A sacred place where the land enfolds into a deep ravine

Nature formed in ancient time, ever-flowing water worn

Nature’s wonderland, revered by all land carers over time.

Old Derringullen’s sparkling water, drops to a deep pond

Where waters kissed by midday sun and night moon beams.

 

Dreamtime evolves in timeless evolution, Nature governs-

Mother Callitris pine seeds fall to propagate atop the falls

Grasses and shrubs bed down with old Eucalyptus bridgesiana

Rough barked deep rooted to rock, holding tight the soil,

Ragged branches, out-stretched droop shading creek banks,

Provide multi-hollows for possums and numerous birds

Multiple vibrant coloured parrots vie for place to nest

 

Elegant Heron finds camouflage nesting on the highest bow,

Wild-life belonging over time immemorial sharing homeland-

Great Wedge-tailed Eagle, king of the skies, claim the tall Eucalypt.

Little Eagle finds space and Peregrine nests safely on a cliff face.

Squabbling ducks dabbling in ponds share nest space in Eucalypts.

In pecking order in time with a frog chorus, all the while many

Lizards and snakes hidden in a world unto themselves.

 

Old wombat and kangaroo hold proud status as overseers on tracks,

Come and go early mornings and evenings along to water and back,

Lithe water-rats scurry about, old turtles laze around keep an eye out,

While platypus keep underwater tight secret service control-

The echidna shuffles, focused, scratching his native bush surrounds,

Cream furry chest wallaby’s ears turn ever alert, with an eye observe

Old Owls wisdom unchanged from the time of his creation.

 

First People’s to Modern man’s observation of Nature is a privilege,

He knows respect – for on this iconic place he has no ownership,

His role is to protect the ecological status, hold the privilege to observe,

To absorb and account for each man’s observation, and interpretation

Of nature’s Creation, be that of the, scientist, naturalist, ornithologists,

The ecologist, the photographer, writer, poet, artist or the bush walker.

Protecting nature’s making, of Derringullen, such an iconic place

¯

Barbara Biddle

I visited Auschwitz

 

He said

I don't feel the horror

(over 6 million lives)

I don't feel the fear

(women and children first)

I don't feel the intensity

(herded like cattle)

 

We walked where their footsteps had echoed

And, in my mind continued to do so

 

We saw the crematorium, the gas chamber and the execution wall

Can you feel that?

 

This man

Who requires a movie drama to be moved

Where is his empathy?

Where is his understanding?

Where is his connection?

 

I don't like him less

I do understand him more

 

and I understand how

these things happen.

¯

Elizabeth Blackmore

The Flood

 

Retreating sullenly from the flooded paddocks,

the rain is followed by an uneasy silence.

Against the midday dusk the kelpie is a flash of red

weaving and darting behind  the nervous ewes,

heavy with lamb, sodden and slow,

pushing them towards the safety of a sheltered rise. 

In a corner of the paddock, the horses are huddled

with eyes fear flags of white.

The electricity is drowned and the kitchen 

is bathed in the soft glow of kerosene lamps,

while around the fire, the two city dogs curl and snore.

High on the branch of a gum tree,

the day - blind eyes of the owl idly watch.

¯

Maureen Clark

Menindee

The water… at first just a rumour but could it be true?

The Darling-Baaka was dead. Well, this much we all knew when

we saw it… the fish, millions dead, packed in muddy puddles no space between, silversides

 showing their best sides

to the flashing cameras.

What a waste.

City TV screens showed the drama, in real time,

the obscenity of death,

soon forgotten in Sydney where

they have the beach, and their own crime.

But the stories were coming thick and fast

about the water,

coming at last.  All the way from Queensland

where they were cursing flooded highways. 

The water snaked its way

under cover of dark

past cotton farms

to reach Menindee.

It’s true! It’s on the news!

The radio could talk of nothing else. It was huge!

The road to Menindee, packed with cars, the river bank lined

With fishermen’s lines flashing in the sun, arcs of light

watched by curious crows whose guttural cries of doom

are ignored.

Parrots take flight and soon there will be pelicans.

Oh, the excitement!

I push through the crowd:  young and old, eager for the show.

Oldtimers compete with stories of the Dry while

young ones wonder why.

What’s all the fuss about?

A small child in pink shorts and thongs 

knowing only drought,

oblivious to the moment,

plays with a barking dog of undetermined genes.

And I reach the barrier to see the silver grey deluge burst forth, spewing, roaring thunder  through the weir gates -

open to celebration

- pouring, a torrent, no sign of stopping can it be true?  

Young and old, we hung over the edge to watch in

silence.

Even the dog stopped barking.

 The atmosphere, like in church.  Reverential.

Holy.

The water flows, uninhibited. A blessing.

We lunch at Maiden’s pub - fish and chips, what else? –

Make the dusty drive back to Broken Hill still fizzing with hope.

No waterbirds here. There will always be crows.

¯

Maurice Corlett

My Sweet Lord

 

Reminds me of a bar off Main Street

in Gibraltar - that last bastion of

British empire in the Med - Cyprus

gone, Malta gone, Alexandria gone -

only echoes now of all those outposts

that Dad knew when he was with

Mountbatten fighting the

Germans' need for oil.

 

Smith started me off. We were working

on the site down by the harbour. He told

me about Gibraltar and how he had gone

there when that cruel fascist Franco shut

the gates of La Linea to the Spanish

workers and UK casuals were filling the void.

Soon after he left for another stint in the south.

Like Rat intrigued by the travel

tales of a seafaring rodent  -

I followed him down.

 

Finding Smithy at one of the worker’s cottages

of Saccone and Speed - the ancient distributors

of booze around the Rock. He took me upstairs

to the glassed box office that oversaw the comings

and goings amongst the pallets of bottled beer and

kegs. Signed up for work on lorries I began

a job that lasted me until I left for the

Canaries just before Xmas.

 

One day walking back to work after lunch I saw Clive

coming down the road towards us. He had thrown

in his job at menswear in Brighton and flown

out to join our crew. No sooner had he arrived than

he got on the books at Saccone’s and began to deliver

Courage with us to the thirsty hotels and bars.

¯

Chris Dawe

Drawing From Few Resources

 

Drawing from few resources

A decision was made

In the interests of most

Which affected a few

 

Those concerned were informed

Their concerns duly listed

As the decision continued

And affected a few

 

In due course

The former referred to the latter

And the latter did too

As the minds concerned

Did what they must do

 

And in time it was seen

That between me and you

A decision was made

Confounding the few

¯

Barbara De Franceschi

Do Not Pity Me

 

I have never seen snow.

Never heard its muffled hymn sing to my bones.

Existence is hummed with an arid drone.

 

Sandy plains are my birth franchise where loose winds

puff or wheeze depending on mood.

I breathe.

 

Days are stewed, nights sniffle on a heated haze,

rampant claypans do not suffer the slop of slush.

A grateful psyche stirs the dust.

 

Rusty colours zing at full swing to a far horizon

shaped like a fingernail buffed round and smooth.

I spin tranquillity on the earth’s curved loom.

 

Rain is a miserable stooge. Drought tolerance is preached

by crows from an altar of bare-boned trees.

How sweet the dream to sleep in Eden’s shade.

 

Love and infidelities mingle with grubs and ant hills,

flies swarm in a slow buzz to sting with lazy opinions.

So are the habits of heart and local things.

 

Sunsets are crimson hounds that hunt at dusk

for clouds untouched by hoary frost.

Rapture is woven from glowing embers.

 

This desert has no jealousies.

It does not need the favour a white Christmas brings.

Knees bend to revere a tinselled wasteland galaxy.

 

Should snow decide to make a shock visit, I will have to oil

this land’s creaky gate – and let the bleach in.

Rose coloured glasses will tint my tears.

¯

Lois Eaton

 

But I Didn’t!

 

My earliest memory is being in a humidy crib designed for toddlers. I was 2 years old.

They put me in a coffin-shaped wooden box and expected me to get better.

 

A little brown box full of steam was my world

    ‘Set me free – set me free.’

Long weeks I lie there, afraid, alone

While I struggle to breathe; I cry, I groan

    Nobody sets me free.

 

They put me in a wooden box and expected me to get better.

 

Two small glass panels run down the sides

    ‘Let me see – let me see’

But the steam blurs the scene – it’s just shadows for me

I struggle to breath and I long just to see

    I’m in the box. My eyes are not free.

 

They put me in a box and expected me to get better.

 

Away from my family the box was my world

    Take me home I plead - take me home.

Long weeks I lie there, afraid, alone

While I struggle to breathe; I cry, I groan

    At last, they took me home

 

They sent me home to die.

But…

¯

Sally Farmer

Land of Unexpected Enchantment

 

The driver parked the 4WD beside a tiny village cafe.

seven pilgrims alighted, a comfort stop and refreshments a priority.

Connected souls were peaceful;

combined hearts mindful;

thoughts of Stupas, Monks and spiritual blessings;

sacred songs, remembered

 “Om mane padme hum”.

Snow-capped Himalayas, a stunning backdrop.

In the distance, Mt Everest, the necklace of Nepal.

 

A mug of hot ginger honey lemon tea in hand,

I wandered outside to smell the mountain air;

to immerse myself in this spiritual, ancient land.

Prayer flags fluttered in the breeze.

Shanties adorned with vibrant red flowers.

Washing strung between poles;

Colourful freshly laundered clothes;

trousers, jackets, aprons and blankets.

Near the fluttering laundry,

a man and woman each at small desks -

old treadle “Singer” sewing machines upon them:

right there, in the open, beside the road!

 

She, sensing me watching her, 

and looked up from her sewing, 

her young face serene, bright ribbons in shiny black hair.

She smiled, flashing perfect white teeth.

The man, beside her, concentrating on fabric and machine.

 

Simultaneously the seamstress and I were drawn to gaze

at a slender old woman

carefully walking across the open ground.

A conical cane basket covered her back,

attached by fabric around her forehead.

Buckets of water in each hand, assisted her balance.

Suddenly, her thongs failed to negotiate the rocky path.

She slipped - Splosh!

One bucket fell to the ground;

clucking chickens scattered.

The water bearer regained her composure,

picked up the empty vessel then continued her journey.

One less bucket of water for the family.

 

The seamstress and I, voyeurs.

In that moment, feelings of shared compassion.

We smiled as our eyes met.

I bowed, hands in prayer.

Namaste seamstress;

Namaste water carrier;

Namaste Nepal, land of unexpected enchantment.

¯

Annette Herd

An Eyelash

 

After you had gone

I found an eyelash of yours.

Long and curved.

Dark against the white of the basin.

You stood here

Combing your hair

Washing your face

Looking at yourself in the mirror.

 

I sat on the edge of the seat

And gave way to mourning.

¯

Julia Kaylock

Seventeen

 

As you laid your pain before me,

I felt it, wriggling its way into my being

touching places I had not known existed

 

I lack a lived experience

of torture, anguish, of the fear of tyranny;

and felt ashamed, then,

of my need, at seventeen

(the year I knew everything, and nothing about life)

to escape my papered, painted prison,

it suddenly seemed so trivial

 

my stomach did not scream it's emptiness

I did not share a tent

with twelve strangers

wondering if the rest of my family

had made it to a safe haven

 

I did not ride frothing seas

in a sinking boat

bailing water and what was left of my pride

only to find myself

in an alien country

that had no desire of me,

to a system that devalued my humanity,

with no plan to see me free

 

I put my white-washed pain aside

where it could simmer in its pot

while you gently took me on a journey

that I did not take, at seventeen,

when I knew everything, and nothing.

¯

Laurelle Lewis

Open Palm

 

Hold me in the palm of your hand,

like a butterfly,

let me flutter gently,

but do not crush me,

let me linger, upon your soft skin,

that tastes sweet to my lips.

 

As the breeze caresses me,

as the gusts push me,

I may fly further than you’d like.

I may be carried away,

upon Summer currents

and lost in rainy hazes.

 

But my love,

as your palm lays open,

waiting for me,

a space for me to return,

do not close your grip,

but leave it open in anticipation,

that I will always return to the one,

that holds me lightly,

but with steadfast love and strength.

¯

Harry Melkonian

Could I?

 

It’s tragic that I’m not sad

not lonely, and rarely depressed

I’m a little down right now because
just not forlorn or anxious

 

Great poets seem to be tormented

challenged by depression, loneliness, and abuse

Hating themselves and everyone else

I just don’t fit in

 

I don’t think I was ever abused

Hope I never abused anyone

While having known some setbacks

Nothing to lose sleep over

 

As I sat with poets and artists

one became exasperated

She cried out that I never even contemplated suicide

I was an outcast in that group

 

When I go to a poets’ workshop

as they explore their personal hauntings

I am quietly, quickly isolated

My only angst is washing the car or painting the garage

 

Once I knew a poet who would hold his face in his hands

As he mournfully sat on the curb

And decried over and over – just the single word – Art

Everyone agreed, he was a genius

 

My existence is so without real hurt or pain

That I was almost grateful for climate change

At last, a reason for anxiety and despair

Now I too can be a poet and sit on the curb.

¯

Peter Olson

Black

 

There is no colour, it is very dark,

Deep and Shiny, soulless and stark.

It is just like charcoal, colour it lacks,

But no not plain, magnificent black!

 

Just yards away and visiting often,

The harsh “GER, GER” sound suddenly softens.

To observe some loving togetherness,

A well-constructed, high-up “Crows-Nest”!

 

Australian Ravens they actually are,

A mated pair, who “KAR, KAR, KAR”.

They have set up home in our backyard,

And now a decision becomes hard.

 

Do we let Mother Nature take its course?

And rob the Wattlebird of his re-course.

Or intervene from it all going wrong,

As Magpies out front begin their song!

 

It’s safety of chooks, budgies and cavalier,

But really believe we should play it by ear.

It will surely be an entertaining Spring,

We look forward for the Bird Show to begin.

¯

Jan Pittard

Trauma Cycle

 

Chaos erupts – unheralded

 

sepsis in a wound

family dog’s sudden attack

train hurtles from the track

 

a barrage assails us

seeping into all our senses

 

shock jocks’ brazen porn

politician’s weasel words

commentators’ feigned indignation

 

threats, known or imagined,

prime us  for action

fright, fight or flight…

 

adrenaline and fatigue

undo us

we cannot hold the line.

¯

Roya Pouya

 

This poem is based a historical myth called hermaphrodite. Hermaphrodite as a metaphor is an objectified figure of a perspective pointing out transcending the androgenic as a solution for resolving the imposed patriarchy. Hermaphrodite in this poem is like a witness to the conversation between two opposite-gender. This ideal has presented an androgynous superhuman aiming to reflect femininity and masculinity simultaneously. In other words, it can be considered as a warning to discover both anima and animus in humans. I strongly believe this outlook can have a latent impact on reducing the violence against women.

 

The Conversation Table

 

The chips I have shaved off my body,

have been half of the first tree of the peak.

The poisonous tick-tock in your mouth,

has poisoned the nectar.

Our conversation table always lacks a seat for Hermaphrodite,

who coughs before even taking a sip.

 

 

The table seems bare,

from the sun shone on Olympus,

and from birds sitting down on woods, moving up-and-down, up-and-down!

 

 

Hermaphrodite’s voice is echoed through the absence,

and the tick-tocks in your mouth,

pound on the edge of the table.

 

 

I try to hang a worn-out shirt with my masculine hands,

which never been likened to a soldier.

You were a seventeen-years-old girl who is isolated in the Mountain,

I mean Olympus,

which never lies between you and me,

unless we add an extra seat to this conversation.

 

 

When the moon is full,

you will shine brighter,

and the rotation of your shadows,

will awake the planets in the laundry room.

 

 

Zeus,

the new arrival,

puts collars around birds’ neck.

I turn the woods into a man,

and will be halved behind the conversation table.

 

 

My other half,

is a woman who has dropped an anchor from the Moon,

and explores behind the dried clouds.

 

 

The chips you have shaved off the body,

have turned the woods into the legs of the table,

and this tree had always been frozen before the advent of Olympus.

 

Bring me a dress, I beg you.

¯

Uta Purcell 

Of Clay and Mud

 

Hard baked by sun and lack of rain

Thirsty cracks opening, looking for relief

Plants searching with parched roots

Their lives cut short

Bareness!

 

It attaches to shoes with every step

It invades floors and carpets with abstract smears

It captures unsuspecting cars parked on grassy verges

It is the colour of 80% cocoa chocolate

Fruitfulness!

 

Extremes are more common now

Drought, floods, fire, storms

Inconvenient but also manageable

Man is clever but also foolish

Nature always wins!

¯

Alan Reid

Kangaroo

 

The kangaroo is labelled macropod

But in reality it’s a tripod

Because when looking around it never fails

The ‘roo leans back and stands on his tail.

So whether he fights or begs

He invariably relies on three legs.

 

The kangaroo is a real bounder

Who’s seldom known to flounder

And when he fights

There’s no sign of flight

He never ever cowers

But with both legs disembowels.

 

The poor old ‘roo can’t turn his head

Because no sooner than he bred

He was left without a neck,

So he said, what the heck.

If I can’t twist from the top

I’ll just learn to hop

And now a ‘roo can jump

High as a camel’s hump.

So when your temper it do goad

By stopping in the road

Just recall from your hospital bed

The poor old ‘roo can’t turn his head

¯

David Riddell

only time

 

in the beginning..........
all danced the beguine

mannequins in
robotic stance

time
laughed............

regrets
forgotten

passing chance
future change

present sceptic
fallacy acceptable

let the revisionist return.

blue on blue
tangerine trees
the lion and the lamb

virgin earth
lusts for
the seeds of life

only time
smirks

the lost stumble.

breath of breath
gift of life
ends in the last exhale

the god of science
flounders
discovers nothing
but the finite

only time
forgets

hidden memories
blasphemy within
blasphemy without

suppressed demons
never forgive
never heal

"visions of Johanna
they make it all seem so cruel"

only time
reveals us naked

secrets taken to the grave

then the
end.

¯

Leticia RP

Unit 3, 1 bedroom, built with wardrobes, electric stove and 

carport parking

 

His room is a pool of silence

where the past has left a tiny hole on the roof

when it rains 

a leak starts crying yellow liquid

 

nobody cares 

 

that the carpet is wet

that dishes are in the sink and

spider webs along the edge of the window

 

green and brown tones are a vortex painting 

on the white bowl of the toilet 

spreading sewerage odour

and 

nobody cares

 

a new day will come 

with different people and stories

 

maybe more gentle and quieter

maybe he will laugh more often 

and be happier

 

and 

 

nobody cares…

¯

Steve Smart

Finding a title for a poem I might never write

 

This poem was almost called

The year 2022 of Our Lord can fuck its own parched blowhole

 

honest in the moment, still

more aggressive than I can allow myself

the way the world is right now (foul)

 

so I changed it to

#eeeeaaaggghhsgskaesk@%*&#$

 

wanting something more personal, somehow heartfelt

I attempted to make it a sort of lullaby called

One pandemic - two years - four seasons of ‘Virgin River’

 

if you don’t get the reference, you might not bother with the poem

and you probably think Virgin River is too much like American cheese

which you’ve repeated many times “isn’t even real cheese”

 

when it was called

Panic ATtack at the PancaKe Sssshack

it had some vigour, I like a twisty rhyme —

too cutesy — but give me any excuse to use an ‘em dash’ or two

 

I thought about making it more of a concrete poem and calling it

BLOCK CHAIN END GAME

before realising I don’t really understand crypto or coding

it would have been all title, no poem

 

for a moment I considered

Brief asides from a sliding mind

that exposed more than I was inclined to, emotionally

 

I took a picture of one of our cats with my phone and looked for a while

seeking inspiration, invention, intervention or…       distraction

 

which offered little practical solution to the problem and why the hell don’t I just 

look at the cat sitting right in front of me demanding attention 

as I stare at her digital representation?

 

so in the end I just called it

 

Finding a title for a poem I might never write

¯

Susan Starr

My lover’s eyes

My lover’s eyes are nothing like the sun.

He silent stays with brooding unsure lips.

If snow is white, his hair is as the raven,

Untidy, like his scarred and scolded soul.

 

But come some darkling, angry storm

Which falls like shards upon my sorrowed head.

He folds me in his true and deep embrace

And listens as my tortured angst outpours.

And if he walks in human form by day

His very essence is from angels born.

¯

Robyn Sykes

Pumpkin patch

 

Coal rises, ripped and stolen, from earth’s womb,

oceans sweat as gasses grip the heat,

pygmy possums starve but microbes bloom

and politicians practise their deceit.

While islanders exchange their homes for boats,

corals oust their algae, bleach to white.

Bell frogs choke and flee their withered moats

as smoke and ash and flames attack the light.

Can climate action turn the soil of hope?

Will green laws boost like compost, prove their worth?

Could oxygen lead carbon to elope

and honeymoon where worms enrich the earth?

Solutions sprout like pumpkins on the vine.

The hands on which the harvest hangs are mine.

¯

CJ Talbot

Lookout

 

Horse-tail clouds flicking newish housing hope

in attache-town, shiny grey metallic sheened rooftops like

a bale of turtles perched on lowland hill; a semi-city guy in a magenta shirt

loans us a jack, and we get out faster than the

turtles, first holiday after lockdown; unrecommended, dishevelled

in spring village fever breakout, to re-examine

layers of sandstone limestone bluestone at Evan’s Leap, the face of cliff

across gullies – rock parchment - why is the toddler not

scared of the drop? - semi-divine parchment, rock and bones;

untouched by backyard sprawl, summer flames, tourist hordes tracking

to rhododendron fans; people from all polities and degrees,

companioned firm, here in corona-year, to saunter,

partake, breathe and puff eucalypted air, blue gum, blue-bounding,

mountain lands where lookouts are cloud-bathed, omniferous,

and steep legs are burnt; it’s like Covid and bushfires were never here,

the lockdown rimmed by craggy ocean-cut steely drops

for locals to blink in their yearly fill of soaring views, what’s it like,

living on a precipice? And semi-social distant trekkers on this

ancient ash and gum eco valley-drops distant to eye;

on the way she holds the sun in her hand and looks down to me,

light immersion blinding, and is there meant to be a realisation,

I think I missed it or is that the lookout realisation,

or it’s another lamentation, year of swish, in the face.

¯

Jen Thompson

The Scrap of Ninety Two

 

Times were tough on the Barrier Range in the big strike of ’92,

we were boilin’ the tongues of our miner’s boots to thicken the bunny stew,

when this toff called Lord Darcy blows into town,

on his wagon is painted: ‘World Wrestling Crown’

and a gaggle of gawkers gather around,

because light entertainments are few.

 

Lord Darcy sees Larry, a gammy-legged lout,

calls him into the circle, then says ‘Get me out!’

Larry’s all gangly and wild but green:

Darcy’s all flabby and pasty, but mean.

Lord Darcy bends Larry like softenin’ a shoe,

ties Larry in knots only rubber can do.

 

The Ladies cry “Mercy!” and there’s a to-do,

so Larry breaks free and decides to shoot through.

Well, we are disgusted, we all turn to go,

but he follows us down to the pub for our dough.

He skites about beating the Broken Hill lout.

He drinks all our beer but wont buy a shout.

 

Now Larry’s mate Boney still sits at the trough.

He hates mining managers, swindlers and toffs.

He’s weedy and poisoned and hardly worth tuppence,

but he dreams up a scheme for Darcy’s come-uppance.

He sidles along to where Darcy scoffs,

and grabs him with hands like fluttering moths.

 

“Your lordship, I’m done for, me last days are few,

if I only had strength and courage like you,

I’d wrestle and capture Old King Kangaroo.

He would make a man’s fortune in a show like you do.”

Boney takes us out back with his kangaroo dogs –

leads Darcy from peaks to unsanitary bogs.

 

They bail up their quarry beside Stephens Creek,

but the old ‘roo is cunning and brazen, not meek.

Darcy eyes off the ‘roo as he splashes around,

but it never occurs to him he could get drowned.

As sure and as sharp as the crack of a whip,

Lord Darcy darts in shouting, “King! Take thy grip!”

 

The kangaroo’s forearms are skillful and fine,

they wrap round Lord Darcy like lengths of steel twine.

The kangaroo washes the Lord like a cloth,

‘til he’s faded and frayed and his limbs have gone soft.

We knew he’d remember the gammy-legged kid –

the value of mercy – the cost of a quid.

 

‘Though times were tough, and our lessons grim in those days of ’92,

when we grappled with politicians in the arms of a ding-dong blue,

and wrestled with bosses, who’d strangle a mate,

‘til they shipped in their scabs from the city like freight,

there’s one thing we recall when we congregate,

that’s  how Darcy wrestled the ‘roo.

¯

Sarah Tiffen

Dark Side of the Moon

 

I found myself on the dark side of the moon.

I didn’t see it coming.

I was blindsided as the world fell away.

I was in a daze

I could move neither forward nor backward

I was paralysed by grief

I found myself on my knees

I had the axeman standing over me.

My neck on the block.

My skin was like it had abraded.

Everything was painful. I was in shock. I was lost.

I was on the dark side of the moon.

Every night, I sat by the fire and watched the stars.

They moved across the sky each night a little farther out

As days turned into weeks.

Each night I watched the moon and kept the fire burning.

I tried to move.

I was paralysed by fear.

Grief was a yawning chasm.

I looked down into it as from an Eyrie,

The captive woman in the Red Keep, keening for touch.

Undo the trapdoor of my mind,

And I could easily fall through to my death whilst looking down for signs.

Like Alice, tempted by the darkest Looking Glass.

I had no hooks to hang myself on, to tether me,

To catch me up.

A marionette, dangling

And the absence of any master puppeteer.

I felt unworthy

I disgorged my insides, my heart

A bloody pulsing muscle on the platter of unspeakably silent days.

I was nothing.

I became nothing.

I knew it was untenable.

I tried to think my way beyond the eclipse.

My mind stalled, remained eclipsed.

I tried to take counsel from new angles.

I died and rose.

I cried and cried and cried.

I hoped for things that could never be.

I lost my faith.

The world was a wilderness

I was only as good as my next steps.

I took them falteringly, from the bed to the door,

From the door to the street,

From the street, past the showground and round to the church

Like a furtive, desperate pilgrim, I sat and prayed.

I agonized

I cried.

I felt the wrench of pain.

I accepted my Fate.

 

I knew – that no one is required to love me.

I learned humility.

I emerged broken.

I remain broken.

But I found the new moon like

A sickle in the sky

And sought new solace.

¯

Tim Train

Coffee and Ice Cream

 

I went and bought a coffee

Bought a cough cough coffee

Bought a cough cough coffee

From the coughy coffee man.

Got a coffee, man, cough

Cough cough cough coffee

Coughy man coffee man

Coffee coffee cough.

So I stand here with the coffee

With the cough cough coffee

And it's not that I am coughy

From the coffee man. It's snot.

Snot snot coughy coughy

Coughy coughy cough cough

No it's not that I am snotty -

Excuse me while ice cream.

¯

Jack Walton

Grandfather

 

 

Alone, tall and firm, whether I sit or stand,

A friendly face and a steady hand.

It’s easy for me to get up in arms,

But what can I say, it’s part of my charm.

 

I constantly strike, though I deal no pain,

Barring that of a seldom migraine.

I’m usually silent, only sounding by the hour,

When my voice comes, forthwith, and beckons my power.

 

Perking up to my call, my presence now clear,

Your mind made aware that I’m always near.

It seems to me that whenever I chime,

You always seem to think of the time.

 

When I try to speak, you can’t seem to stay,

Oh, I do hope you’d fight off these urges someday.

That’s all there is to it, my tale goes no further,

Just make sure you remember, your dear grandfather.

¯

Sanaa Younis

I am

 

My time has come. I sit

Inside my skin, content.

I am the cat on the window sill

On a Sunday afternoon;

I am Vivaldi’s Spring

On a Venetian night;

I am a cedar in the snow;

I am a lemon myrtle

After the rain.

 

 

¯

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

 

 

 

Australian Poetry Collaboration #36

 

A SELECTION OF WORK FROM SOUTH ASIAN
& SOUTH ASIAN BORN OCEANIA-RESIDENT CONTEMPORARY POETS

 

Edited by Raj Nair & Les Wicks

 

 

FEATURING: Vinita Agrawal, Usha Akella, Ganesh Bala, M.K.Gnanasekera, Amlanjyoti Goswami, Sunil Govinnage, Lakshmi Kanchi, Ali Afzal Khan, Likitha Kujala, Suzi Mezei, Sonnet Mondal, Anita Nahal, Natsha Nair, Raj Nair, Maithri Panagoda, Roya Pouya, M.P. Pratheesh, Jaydeep Sarangi,

K Satchidanandan, Rati Saxena, Sudeep Sen, Keshab Sigdel, Kuma Raj Subedi,

Bhupen Thakker, Priya Unnikrishnan & Sanaa Younis

 

 

 

Notes on Contributors

 

 

 

 

from Meuse Press –

 

IN COLLABORATION WITH

WORLD POETRY MOVEMENT – OCEANIA

 

¯

Vinita Agrawal

I Tell The River That I Shall Pray Again

 

For years I've been trading promises with God.

Offering flowers for mercies

Fasts for protection

Money for more wealth.

 

And now, it’s not as if I've stopped praying,

but something's muted over the years.

When I fold my hands at the altar

I'm thinking the flowers in the vase

need to be changed

the brand of incense leaves too much ash,

the silver needs polishing, the frames need dusting.

 

Cremating you

and returning to the raven blackness of our home,

I fastened the urn of ashes

to a clothesline outside the house

because it was bad omen to carry it inside.

 

Nothing epitomises waiting more

than a boat on the shore

or an urn of warm ashes

tied to a tree or a clothesline.

 

The river is the end to the wait

the final quencher of thirst.

Tonight I lie porous

Tomorrow the river will consume the ashes

and fill me with prayers again.

 

 

 

First published in Twilight Language (Proverse Hongkong)

Translation by Kinshuk Gupta

 

मैं नदी से कहती हूं मैं फिर प्रार्थना करूंगी

 

सालों तक मैं ईश्वर से वायदों की फरोख्त करती रही.

कभी दया के बदले फूल अर्पित किए

सुरक्षा के लिए व्रत रखे

धन चढ़ाया अधिक धन की कामना में

 

ऐसा नहीं कि अब मैंने प्रार्थना छोड़ दी है,

पर इन सालों में मेरे अंदर कुछ मौन हो गया है.

मूर्ति के सामने हाथ जोड़ने पर

मुझे याद आते हैं गुलदान में बदले जाने वाले फूल

किस ब्रांड की अगरबत्ती से ज्यादा राख गिरती है,

चांदी जिसे चमकाना है, पल्ले जिन्हें झाड़ना है.

 

तुम्हारे क्रियाकर्म के बाद

घर के भयानक अंधेरे में लौटकर

मैंने अस्थि-कलश को बाहर की रस्सी से बांध दिया 

क्योंकि उसे अंदर ले जाना अपशकुन था.

 

तट पर खड़ी नाव

या रस्सी से बंधा

गर्म अस्थियों का कलश

इंतज़ार का कितना सटीक प्रतीक है.

 

प्यास को शांत करने वाली नदी

अन्तत: इस इंतज़ार को समाप्त कर देगी

आज रात मैं बिल्कुल खाली हूं

कल नदी इस राख को जज्ब कर लेगी

और मुझे फिर प्रार्थना से भर देगी

 

¯

Usha Akella

Embayed

 

…every city I live in is a rib ruptured from my ribcage in

     turn the city teaches me to cover my naked

ness  offers me serpents’ tongues, devious Gods

ss         poisoned apples bringing heart/break;

then on, we kayak

rapids

          falling from a God’s hair, home-longing the slim

paddle pushing                       us on in unsaid desperation

then on we are free!

flight

with

 

Giddy                                     

 

                                 a smear of landings and take-offs

borders melt, blue-blooded with

anthems of loss, our father’s voices re       cede

like balding hairlines from our memory.

 

There are no Edens we know by now

                                    only orchards of lament

passports for exile      and      visas of unbelonging …

 

                                      for the embayed.

¯

Ganesh Bala

Eternal Quest

 

Falling hair, they kissed me with profound ecstasy

In the past I rendered those enlightened prophesy

The irrational mystic love

Love with no bounds

Brotherly love, erotic love  and what not

I found the touch of nothingness

There is no gateway to human hearts

No transparency, no secret, no mystery

There’s that love for power

That lust for money, that spirit of avarice

I sought the simplicity of events

That innocent sound of music

Found the dreadful lady Macbeth

Fiercely deadly wish, piercing frantic gestures

Where did you find this passion?

The passion for disguise, of playful manipulation?

But I know you, much more than you know me,

You are the scapegoat of human alien love

You are the victim of my profess

My eternal quest for worthless passion.

¯

M.K.Gnanasekera

Inevitable

 

It is inevitable 

 

like a bullet  fired

from the opposite end

it is coming 

for the fateful meeting .

 

Knowing it is coming 

I am running towards it

ducking the crossfire 

in the battle field

hurriedly picking flowers 

and titbits scattered around 

beating the others in the game

to build a wall

my fortress

as if  to avoid 

the fateful meeting 

 

"surrender "

is the command 

no option 

surrender to the knife

surrender to the Fire 

surrender to the sand

surrender  to the wind 

get ready for the ride 

to the unknown 

 

It is inevitable

¯

Amlanjyoti Goswami

The Last Potter of Mohenjodaro

 

Little is known of the last potter of Mohenjodaro.

What he had for breakfast.

If rain lashed his shadow.

Did he know of the storm coming?

 

Was it wheat, or barley he loved?

Who loved him more – his wife or his child?

Did he like to talk – before – or after work?

Did he start his day at dawn or dusk? Did he toil all day?

 

Were there dancing girls in his dreams? Perhaps summer storms?

Did he earn an extra buck for that pipe under the rich man’s house?

Who did he bake his kiln with?

When he fired it – was he alone?

 

Was he silent most days? Or did it depend on the weather?

Did he like a drink or two?

Did he play the fool? Or was he taciturn?

There’s something else – unanswered –

 

Why did he take this up?

What inner urge, what outer fire?

Forged with bare hand this wheel of time

This cup for water, glazed sunshine pouring into his life

 

Like a mixed blessing?

This red dark earth, baked with the dry clay of ambition.

Or was it just vigour, desire to make new?

Did he know what he was about to do?

 

Was work and play ever one?

What did he munch for lunch?

And who did he call out to, that day, after the meal?

Knowing he would return, for one more summer.

¯

Sunil Govinnage

The Mute Sea and My Heritage

 

I came leaving my heritage

like a drop of morning spittle

breaking free from the fear of war

That hung heavy on the heart

Swiftly crossing the Mute Sea.[1]

 

My babies on my shoulders.

Their mouths still unsweetened

by the first golden breast milk,

the sound of their mother tongue.

 

We have come to a land

strange and unfamiliar

swiftly crossing the Mute Sea,

killing all our heritage

leaving behind mother and father,

a close host of friends,

casting away life’s riches

thrusting away our language

from the tongue’s tip.

 

As constant sneezes stream like rain,

like steam rising from a kettle

the burden of my catarrh

flows to my mind again

like some inheritance

banished from the homeland

it has come here,

my catarrh,

the burning,

the pain.

Translated from the original Sinhala by Lakshmi de Silva

This poem first appeared in Sinhala in Mathaka Divaina,

(Isle of memory) (2007)

¯

Lakshmi Kanchi

The Silkworm

 

The Mysore silk saree is my wedding

present.  I feel the tender writhing

of the silkworm            in its texture

where others may revel in its beauty.

 

Against my skin,

silk becomes second skin. The threads—

unwrapped from the cocoon inside which

the silkworm sleeps and dreams, feeds on the kino

—become textile. Become yards and yards

of colourful yarn spun from the undoing

    of the silkworm's spittle-

         cocoon,

          its last shroud. 

          The chrysalis is cleaned to extract the fibres.

         I tremble thinking

       of its body curled-foetal into a soft mess

     as it is boiled whole.

  Raw fibres then pass through hands of artisans

who weave and weave, pour sweat and labour

into the textile that    finally    becomes my saree.

 

I adorn the saree, wear a bindi.

Wear jhumkas and mangalsutra and kajal.

 

The silkworm is sacrificed.

Each time a woman becomes a bride

and stands on the threshold. The silkworm

is sacrificed each time—and it serves as a reminder

to the bride. The woman. The dreamer.

 

Decades later I learn that the silkworm remembers its dreams

even when it becomes a moth, through the pain of metamorphosis.

Its whispers emerge and whirr like pale motifs on my saree

 ¯

Ali Afzal Khan

Bellybutton

 

A tiny lotus

On the bosom of a formless sea.

A small river

To get drowned and to get lost into.

A small wave to immerse yourself under.

A Hijol tree keeps standing in the pond.

A rose of gold

On a cot of gold.

A wideopen tunnel.

The first word

In primordial silence.

Translated from the Bangla by Jewel Mazhar

¯

Likitha Kujala

all i want to be

 

in love with the way

she plays with those bangles,

she stares at her own mehndi and smiles a little.

the way she teaches her sister rather than do the work for her,

the fact she doesn’t notice what a good elder sister she makes.

her perfect face with that nose a little too big,

the way she scrunches it when she bursts with laughter,

the space she takes up in the room when she walks in,

those huge brown eyes that hold so much truth.

the way her eyes narrow a little when she’s concentrating,

the way she learnt to voice her ideas coming about from being the eldest daughter of immigrant parents.

the way she doesn’t swear for she is too intelligent to use those basic words,

the fact she doesn’t hate for she knows everyone has a little good in them.

her stop when she spots the sky with sunset hues and her admiration for what seems so simple.

her acknowledgment that life’s too short to not enjoy the little things,

the fact she’d kill for a pint of ice cream.

her need to understand people, the ways in which their hearts come into play.

the sound of her own heart beat slower than the rest of us for she is at peace.

her smile lines ever so subtle on her face,

those dark circles from the insomnia she inherited from her mother.

the way she goes to sleep so early to help herself,

the way she doesn’t search for validation in others.

the way her body is curvier than most,

the way she moves with the confidence that it is perfect for she knows that it is.

the way she wakes up early to catch the sunrise each morning,

her read for 26 minutes right before bed.

the love she radiates to those she wants in her life,

the need to turn everything she touches into something with purpose.

for she is all i want to be.

all i want to be

¯

Suzi Mezei

Karapincha: Endowments from My Mother

 

I keep the curry trees in neat black pots        behind glass

        in the smallest room

that gets the most sun                near a window

where they can watch the untamed garden        riot

unhindered, its earthen scalp a knot of unkempt botanical hair,

clogged with the heavy syrup of July’s winter rain

on the other side of the double glaze; inside

I keep the house warm.

We were not born to embrace chills,

the trees and I, our tap roots        meander

through dense Kulin loam, infiltrate the sea and end

        in the subcontinent, intertwined with an island fringe

frequented by turtles and tsunamis. In recycled heat, my trees

arch their backs, unspool verdant canopies, adorn their heads in pinnacles

of tiny white bloom,        the aroma of their eastern disposition

fills the place like goddess-breath and        drops

        in cavernous pots that wait to be filled

with the taste of shared history.

 

First published in Burrow Feb 2022

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Sonnet Mondal

Hungry Faith

 

The fisherman in the Sundarbans

was hauling his boat out of mud

and into an intoxicated river.

 

Between the prow and his hands

a sweat-soaked turban

hollowed out the sounds of struggle.

 

His bulging veins more resolute

than the wary holes

of the fishing net—soaking up the sun.

 

The stooping trees of the forest

tried to lend a hand

but, held by the riverbank,

moaned in the wind.

 

The water looked warm

but didn’t rise to the boat.

 

Somewhere in the fragmented sun

hunger was savouring muddy toil.

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Anita Nahal

What’s wrong with us Kali women?

 

There’s nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. That’s your fear labelling us. We are the Kali women. And all other female, male, androgynous gods. We don’t distinguish. We seek. We learn. Comprehend. Embrace. We are the Kali women. In the forefront, striding and yes, strutting our stuff too. Some men gulp and gawk. Making a tight knot of patriarchy right in front of their balls. They are the same who have been bowing before Kali’s statues for centuries. Marking their foreheads with mitti from her robes. And then they call her Ma Kali and walk away brash, brazen, evil. Don’t think she’s not watching.

There’s nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. That’s your fear labelling us. We are the Kali women. And all other female, male, androgynous gods. Always in front, straddling between pathways, poles, blocks, and behavior. Between screams and footsteps pinning for justice denied. Justice battered. Justice flagged. Murdered. Burned. Their dark skin, their gender, religion, their sandals blood stained, their clothes drenched and smelling of your foul breath, with your hands striking, your feet jutting and hitting. And then some in their sinister voice sing well into the murky night, Ma Kali. Ma Kali. Ma Kali. Ma Kali. Don’t think she’s not watching.

There’s nothing wrong. Nothing wrong. That’s your fear labelling us. We are the Kali women. My skin is kali, my heart is gold, my soul is a child, cries, laughs, jumps, feelings flow like fresh churned cream from cow’s milk. My skin disgusts you. Yet you try to tan yours. My skin disturbs you, yet you find it exotic. My skin you call gandi. But I am clean. I bathe. In winters when my skin lightens a bit, you proclaim, I’m looking saaf, fair. I was always clean. It’s your mind that is dirty. Even mock bathing in river Ganga might skim above your falseness. Ma Kali. Ma Kali. Ma Kali. Ma Kali. Don’t think she’s not watching.

 

 

 

*Mitti: Dirt/Earth *Kali: Of Black color and also Goddess of destroyer of evil

*Ma: Mother

*Gandi: Dirty

*Saaf: Clean, also, a colloquial word to imply fair skinned

*Ganga: Considered to be one of the holiest rivers in India.

 

This poem was previously published in the authors prose poetry book, What’s wrong with us Kali women? (Kelsay, 2021).

¯

Natsha Nair

Handwriting

 

Erasing is impossible for I still write,

Changed my F’s to crochet stitches like yours

My L’s twice as long,

First to you, then returned to me

Sitting across from each other.

 

You made me selfish with words

They don’t mean what I write,

Follow the dotted lines, blurred lines

Gone with you is their loyalty,

How cruel I find you in this place.

 

I reminisce this grip,

Having envied your pen closely,

Two fingers kissed on top

One kneading underneath,

You never held me like that.

 

Sitting across from an empty chair

My L’s know no limit,

They slip off the page and drip to the ground,

Don’t look at me for answers

When do we turn around?

 

The clock mocks me still,

Forgotten how to bite my nails

A dangerous game of blood,

Ink is thicker yet

Write me back you thief.

¯

Raj Nair

Silverfish of Anahuac

 

silverfish disrelish my insatiable curiosity

yellow was the colour of her home

 

an obese silverfish jumped to the left

and dived into a thick Don Quixote

 

a skinny one – must be a lad –

crawled inadvertently

 

and vanished in Spanish Great Gatsby

torn of the spine into equal halves

 

an easy kill that I relinquish

death in between cymbals clap

 

eye raped pages shut in the fallen past

diverting my madness into a dug up channel

 

blue green brown black and Athena’s grey eyes

 

what would alphabet of words feel

lost on pages for aeons?

 

who rejoices the spreading of pages?

questions never needing answers like sunrise

 

afternoon sea roaring in my left ear

 

screaming of an old man a father

through the camera of baby monitor

 

from my thighs his daughter

separates her wet half naked body

 

his daughter running to her father

squeaking the blue painted stairs

 

his granddaughter screaming spanish

onto the ocean blue black

 

horses gliding with silent hooves

in the black flowering sand of deep salt

 

two dolphin male lovers exposing

their white sex filled bellies

 

lone lovebird afloat with wings lost

within invisible winds

 

I wiped her juices dry

a blind sun within a cloudy sky

 

through the dark wet ocean

Neftali came splashing his fins

 

his mouth was open like a creature

I pulled out my lungi to stop his shivers   

 

his belly fell over the yellow table

we rejoiced pouring tequila

 

mixed stale columbian coffee

our cigar stained fingers teased each other

 

wrote a poem at the age of ten

hate the name father had given

 

we rhymed senses instead of cheers

we laughed open mouthed like dead

 

ageing books fell upon us

virgin pages slashing our bellies

 

we dived into them bleeding white blood

wagging our split yellow tails

¯

Maithri Panagoda

Silenced

 

Small groups gathered around the capital

only glances and whispers

hand signals

punching phone screens

eyes moving in different directions

 

Suddenly they converged

like all the rivers meeting at sea estuary

 

Hands transformed into fists

placards came out

voices raised

 

Eyes that cried tears

turned into angry spotlights

 

Demands were simple enough

freedom from hunger

right to live

 

Shaken rulers took notice

planned a solution

invisible army went into action

 

Candles turned into a conflagration

teargas blinded the masses

masked enforcers took control

as thick black smoke blanked out the sun

unarmed pigeons darted away

 

Next morning

several bodies washed off on the beach

hands tied behind back

faces unrecognisable

¯

Roya Pouya

Her Voice

 

History has cut me off,

one lost between the borders,

the other parading through time.

 

Can you hear the voice of her?

 

Landing in the past,

or flipping over the future,

if you’re not a so-called “good” soldier.

Just for a few seconds,

hearing how she is demanding to breathe,

and then staring at the street.

Watching how millions of strands of hair have fruited,

even though they killed the gardeners.

 

Can you hear their voices?

 

Women who came to wear the world,

even like a sea with broken boats,

or like thirsty captives who licked the pain,

Women who took off their fears

Became naked just like this poem,

and the poem that was always slow steps,

from the imitation of history in the hollow of time.

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M.P. Pratheesh

Stones

 

Heard a stone rub against stone

Fire spreads over the entire hill

Beasts run for life

 

Between stone and stone

Grains of paddy get ground to dust

 

At a distance beyond remembrance

A sharp stone moves

Between my ribs

Translated from Malayalam by K Satchidanandan

 

 

കല്ലുകൾ

 

കല്ലിൽ മറ്റൊരു കല്ല് ഉരയുന്നതു കേട്ടു

കുന്നിഞ്ചെരിവിലാകെ തീ പടരുന്നു

ജന്തുക്കളോടിപ്പോകുന്നു

കല്ലിനും കല്ലിനുമിടയിൽ നെൻമണികൾ പൊടിഞ്ഞമരുന്നു

ഓർമ വരാത്ത അകലത്തിൽ

എന്റെ വാരിയെല്ലുകൾക്കിടയിലൂടെ

മൂർച്ചയുള്ളൊരു കല്ല് നീങ്ങുന്നു

¯

Jaydeep Sarangi

When I Lose My Home of Poems

 

All started with the poems 

All  can end  with silence .

 

Poems to silence is a long  book

We planned, we travelled together

 

I couldn't touch her words, shades of thoughts

She remained a virgin  poem 

 

It's time to leave for no tomorrow

Tonight is a long thoughtless  spell.

 

My ancestors are lined up, gates are open

to welcome me  with no unfulfilled wishes. 

 

I understand how I made crude calls 

behaved like a bull of no reason 

 

Each home has a lantern, not in my house 

deep dark of no words, no poems 

 

Without poems promises smile,

some leave behind  in a tunnel of no tomorrow

 

When you change your mind 

I wait, I listen to silence 

 

Some unbearable darkness kill me 

my rites are done , guest leave too early 

 

When I lose my home of poems, all will be well for the poems

Silence is my muse, no opportunity to pull myself out.

¯

K Satchidanandan

On This Earth

 

1

We landed on earth from different stars

That is why we speak different languages.

Each word carries the aura

Of the memories of the stars we left.

In sleep we travel to those glittering homes.

There we speak to our forefathers

Like geckos that know

Every one of its walls.

 

We wake up to discover its star- dust

On our skins.

 

2

From which star did you come?

I ask, watching the blue dust

On her shoulders at dawn.

She stares jealous at the red dust

On my chest.

 

We are now characters

in some  science fiction

Even our heads do not look human.

 

3

As we die we return to the

Stars we left.

We will forget our sojourn on earth.

We will float in space,

As weightless souls, until we get

Another body and another language.

 

4

I want to be reborn on earth,

This time as a tree.

You will be a bird 

perched on its bough.

I will recognise you by the

Blue dust on your wings.

And you, me with the

Red dust on my bark.

 

This time we won’t quarrel.

I’ll exchange my fruits for your song.

There won’t be humans

To see or hear it.

Butterflies,

Only butterflies.

from Questions from the Dead

(Copper Coin, Delhi, 2021).

Translated from Malayalam by the poet.

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Rati Saxena

Refugee

 

They came to this land

as if by sea, the way wind

clings to spar, like the dew

on a humid morning

somewhere near the equator,

or the way moths on rainy nights

fly towards the light,

they took shelter in this place

the way wasps nest in the holes

of old wooden doors, or a letter

wrongly addressed in its post office box,

or unwanted email in an inbox,

they settled in this land

the way ice floats in a glass of juice,

like kites holding tight

to the ruins of buildings,

and each night they return

by marshy paths

where footprints stipple the land

like goosebumps, their hunger

stubborn as the blackened ash

stuck to the bottom of a pan,

one step backward

to lurch one forward

they disappear into the land

that is not theirs.

translated by Seth Michelson

 

1.     शरणार्थी

 

वे  कुछ इस तरह चले आये

इस जमीन पर,जैसे कि

जहाजीय पताका पर लिपटी समन्दरी हवा,

विषुवतरेखीय प्रदेश में उमस भरी भोर में ओस

 

या फिर

बरसाती साँझ में रौशनी की और उड़ान भरते पतंगे

 

वे कुछ इस तरह बस गये

इस जमीन पर, जैसे कि

दरवाजों की सुराखों में तत्तैयों के घरोन्दें

पोस्ट बाक्स में गलत पते वाली चिट्ठी

इनबाक्स में अनचाहे अनजाने मेल

 

वे कुछ इस तरह रम गये

इस जमीन पर, जैसे कि

रंगीन प्यालों पर तैरते बर्फ के टुकड़े

अधूरी बनी इमारत के खण्डहर से लिपटी पतंगे

 

वे हर रात लौटते हैं

दलदल के पार उन पगडन्डियों पर

जिन पर उनके पाँवों के निशां

सर्द हवा में रोंगटों से  खड़े हैं

 

टूटी पतीलियों कें पैन्दों मे भूख

जम कर कालिख बन गई है

 

हर कदम लौटे हुए

हर कदम आगे बढ़ते हुए

वे बिला जाते हैं इसी जमीन की हवा में

जो इनकी कभी नहीं रही

 

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Sudeep Sen

Disembodied

                    a triptych

 

1.

 

My body carved from abandoned bricks of a ruined temple,

                                                from minaret-shards of an old mosque,

from slate-remnants of a medieval church apse,

            from soil tilled by my ancestors.

 

My bones don’t fit together correctly                        as they should —

the searing ultra-violet light from Aurora Borealis

                                    patches and etch-corrects my orientation —

magnetic pulses prove potent.

 

 

My flesh sculpted from fruits of the tropics,

                                                            blood from coconut water,

skin coloured by brown bark of Indian teak.

 

My lungs fuelled by Delhi’s insidious toxic air

                                    echo asthmatic sounds, a new vinyl dub-remix.

Our universe — where radiation germinates from human follies,

                        where contamination persists from mistrust,

where pleasures of sex are merely a sport —

where everything is ambition,

everything is desire,                           everything is nothing.

                                    Nothing and everything.

 

2.

 

White light everywhere,

but no one can recognize its hue,

no one knows that there is colour in it —      all possible colours.

 

Body worshipped, not for its blessing,

                                    but its contour —

                                                artificial shape shaped by Nautilus.

Skin moistened by L’Oreal 

            and not by season’s first rains —

skeleton’s strength not shaped by earthquakes

                                                or slow-moulded by fearless forest-fires.

 

Ice-caps are rapidly melting — too fast to arrest glacial slide.

In the near future — there will be no water left

or too much water that is undrinkable,

                                                excess water that will drown us all.

Disembodied floats,                           afloat like Noah’s Ark —

 

no gps, no pole-star navigation,       no fossil fuel to burn away —

just maps with empty grids and names of places that might exist.

 

Already, there is too much traffic on the road —

unpeopled hollow metal-shells                                  without brakes,

swerve about   directionless —                      looking for an elusive compass.

*

 

DISEMBODIED 2: LES VOYAGEURS

            for Bruno Catalano

 

To understand yourself, you must create a mirror

                                    that reflects accurately what you are ….

Only in the understanding of what is,

                        is there freedom from what is.

J Krishnamurti

 

 

Bronze humanforms sculpted, then parts deleted —

            as if eroded by poisoned weather, eaten away

by civilisational time —

                                    corrosion, corruption, callousness.

Power, strength, gravitas residing in metal’s absence.

 

Men-women, old-young, statuesque —

                                    holding their lives in briefcases —

            incomplete travellers,

Marseilles les voyageurs, parts of their bodies

                                                            missing —

surreal —                                steadfast, anchored.

 

Engineered within their histories

                        of migration, travel — over land, by sea —

coping with life’s mechanised emptiness.

 

Artform’s negative space or positive? What are we too see?

            Have these voyagers left something behind,

or are they yearning

                        to complete the incompleteness

in their lives?

            They are still looking —

                                    as am I,            searching within.

 

 

Marseilles, France

 

*

 

DISEMBODIED 3:Within

     for Aditi Mangaldas

 

You emerge — from within darkness, your face

                                    sliding into light —

you squirm virus-like in a womb,

draped blood-red,                               on black stage-floor.

                                    Around you, others swirl about

dressed as green algae,

                        like frenetic atoms

            under a microscope in a dimly lit laboratory.

Art mirroring life — reflecting the pandemic on stage.

 

Your hands palpitate,

                        as the sun’s own blinding yellow corona

cracks through the cyclorama.

            People leap about — masked, veiled.

                                                You snare a man’s sight

with your fingers mimicking a chakravavyuh

                        you are red, he is green, she is blue —

trishanku — life, birth, death —

                        regermination, rejuvenation, nirvana.

 

Everything on stage — as in life —

                                                moves in circular arcs.

Irises close and open, faces veiled unveil —

            hearts love, lungs breathe — breathless.

 

Lights, electromagnetic —     knotted, unwrapped

                        music pulsates, reaching a crescendo,

                                                            then silence.

Time stops. Far away in the infinite blue of the cosmos —

            I look up and spot a moving white.

I see a white feather

                                    trying its best to breathe

in these times of breathlessness, floating downwards —

 

and as it touches the floor, in a split-second

everything bursts into colour, movement, the bols/taals

                                                try to restore order,

rhythm,           both contained and free.

 

The backdrop bright orange,

                                    the silhouettes pitch-black.

As you embrace another humanform,

            the infinite journey of timelessness might seem

                                                            inter_rupted,

but now is the moment to reflect and recalibrate

immersed in the uncharted seas, in the widening circles,

                        telling us —                others matter,

the collective counts.

 

I examine minutely the striated strands

                        of the pirouetting feather, now fallen —

its heart still beating, its blood still pumping,

                                                its white untarnished.

Life’s dance continues — with or without us —

only in the understanding of what is,

                                    is there freedom from what is.

¯

Keshab Sigdel

Colour of the Sun

 

My daughter is busy colouring her thoughts

The fingers restlessly

Move across the drawings

On the card board paper.

“What is the colour of the sun?” she fumbles–

Yellow, orange, or crimson red–

Who knows it? The colour of the sun?

She takes a colouring pencil, and before she fills in

The colour, she tries to sharpen the tip of the pencil;

The tip breaks again and again...

And it only sharpens her nerves.

Irritated, confused,

She raises her head, and slowly, turns it a little right,

And gives a puzzled look at me,

Her eyes are enough to tell what she feels

About me; But I have never coloured

A sun, you know! I have never felt it closely

To know its colours. At times,

I have hated the irresistible heat, or

Its absence too. But colours?

Does the sun have a colour at all?

With my little daughter, the sun smiles, and how

Do I tell what colour is the smile?

It’s raining heavily outside, and inside

My conscience erodes to create a grim, bleak lake

That receives the reflection of the sun.

What colour is the sun in the lake?

The colour of my mind, probably.

To my daughter, I just said—

Paint your own sun, dear!

 

Publication credit:  Barve Sonca/Colour of the Sun.

Published by Poesis in Ljubljana in 2017.

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Kuma Raj Subedi

Assassination of Dreams

 

Thus is the plight-

vibrant wedded youths march 

towards foreign lands

like a colony of ants 

for a dream of contentment 

they are setting fires to domestic dreams! 

 

Oldies' hearts, like a drought, split the land 

despise downpour of memories desperately 

utterly unable to uphold delusion laden brains!

 

Wives, in the fountain, fill pitchers with dreams of reunion 

until rolled tears splash 

tranquil waters like hailstones in a lake.

Wetting pillows when the world is asleep, 

Fantasise caresses till the ominous cock-a-doodle-do

unfolds new hardships reveries!

 

Children's envisaged shelter 

drowns like a failed paper boat-

decorated with flowers and crimson, 

adorned dream coffin returns home 

defeated waging wars of the wages

assassinating the dreams of the dreamers!

Publication credit: The Colours of Spring, 2023

Previously also published in The Gorkha Times, 2021.

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Bhupen Thakker

Heaven (Jaise Swarg)

 

My father touches dance anklets decorated with red beads as soon as he rises in the morning Is heaven red? Then orange flowers …Is heaven orange? He may then tap a yellow silk fabric. Green leaves await him next Is heaven yellow-green?

 

At this time light blue naturally awakes in his throat.

If it is the season he will whisper affirmations of red stillness, orange touch,

yellow stillness,

green love

light blue words,

indigo blue sound,

navy blue pink gold clarity

purple good thoughts,

gold reach,

white reach,

and

all-encompassing black

Heaven could be light blue

 

The flute music comes on each day

so his indigo-blue hearing is in rapture

as he softly weaves 

flowers in a navy blue thread.

There could be a pink ribbon or gold stars.

 

silence is maintained at this time ...

could this be purple?

 

A golden plate and serving vessels are also washed during

the silence

Food which may be white is gently placed on these

-he will see black when he shuts his eyes to do this

 

is heaven indigo blue navy blue pink gold purple gold white black?

 

Is peace in the traditions of India?

¯

Priya Unnikrishnan 

Great Sadness

 

I can feel a grave,
A grave of graves
Under each footstep

Only eyes can recognize
The voices of silence
That created a sovereign
Between our mourn.

I fear my death
In this decayed wind of a
Midday depression

If you don’t break this loneliness
By your words,
Cosmos, assigns
A strange Kismet to the day
When earth stands completely still.

 

അഗാധദുഃഖം

 

ഓരോ ചലനത്തിലും
ശവകുടീരങ്ങളുടെ സമുച്ചയങ്ങൾ
എന്റെ കാൽപാദങ്ങളറിയുന്നു

നമ്മുടെ വിലാപങ്ങൾക്കിടയിൽ
രാജകീയമാക്കപ്പെട്ട
മൂകശബ്ദങ്ങളെ
കണ്ണുകൾക്ക് മാത്രം തിരിച്ചറിയാനാകുന്നു

വിഷാദപൂരിതമായ
നട്ടുച്ചയിലെ
ദ്രവിച്ച കാറ്റുപോലെ
ഞാനും മരിയ്ക്കുമോ എന്ന് ഭയക്കുന്നു

ഏകാന്തമല്ലെന്ന് തോന്നിയ്ക്കും വിധം
നീയെന്നോട് സംസാരിക്കില്ലെന്നിരിയ്ക്കേ
ഭൂമി പൂർണ്ണമായും
നിശ്ചലമാകുന്നൊരു ദിനത്തിലേക്ക്
പ്രപഞ്ചം, അപരിചിതമായൊരു
കാലത്തെ നിയോഗിക്കുന്നു 

 

Published in Madras Courier

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Sanaa Younis

She stands tall

 

Her edges are frayed, yet

Her centre is earthed and electric

The outward vitality of her neighbours

Betrays a hollowness of spirit

Like all the storms past, she’ll weather

The tempest that swirls without

 

Forever green while they change with the seasons

A constant among variables, limitless

No one can contain you

You’re beyond their limitations. It’s your

Transcendence they can’t unriddle

A diviner of possibility, you are

 

Your heart is receptive, full and wide as all the galaxies

Through you runs life and all that is sacred

Equanimous you remain, while oceans rise, and

Southerly winds blow.

A candle to banish the darkness,

Steeped in oils divine.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

 

Usha Akella has authored nine books that include poetry, one chapbook and two musical dramas. Her latest poetry book is I will not bear you sons, was published by Spinifex, Australia. The Waiting published by Sahitya Akademi, Delhi was translated by Elsa Cross in Spanish and published by Mantis Editores, Mexico. She edited and conceived Hum Aiseich Bolte! This is just how we speak, a poetry anthology on the city of Hyderabad released at HLF 2023. Recently, in February 2023 she was invited to read for the literary festival organized by the Ministry of Arts and Letters, Mexico.

She earned an MSt. in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge, UK.  She is the founder of Matwaala (www.matwaala.com) and www.the-pov.com, a website of curated interviews. She was selected as one of the Creative Ambassadors for the city of Austin in 2019 & 2015. She is widely anthologized, and has been invited to numerous international poetry festivals.

Ganesh Bala, Academic for 22 years in India, Dubai and Australia. Published his PhD thesis with a German publisher Lambert on “Global Economic Crises - 1930s and 2007 - An Economic Policy Analysis with special reference to India in 2019. A Corporate trainer with leading multinationals in Dubai. A writer who has published 4 books in English and another 5 in his mother tongue Malayalam. A musician conducting classical concerts in Sydney.

Amlanjyoti Goswami’s new book of poetry, Vital Signs (Poetrywala) follows his widely reviewed collection, River Wedding (Poetrywala). Published in journals and anthologies across the world, including Poetry, The Poetry Review, Penguin Vintage, Rattle and Sahitya Akademi, he is also a Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee. His work has appeared on street walls of Christchurch, buses in Philadelphia, exhibitions in Johannesburg and an e-gallery in Brighton. He has reviewed poetry for Modern Poetry in Translation and Review 31 and has read at various places, including New York, Boston and Delhi. He grew up in Guwahati, Assam and lives in Delhi.

 

Lakshmi Kanchi, pen name SoulReserve, is a Western Australian poet of Indian descent. Her debut collection, "Lakesong," explores themes of love, nature, and culturation. She won the 2021 Pocketry Prize and was shortlisted for SCWC Wollongong’s 2022 Poetry Prize. She is currently the Poet-in-Residence at The Wetlands Centre Cockburn.

 

Likitha Kujala, an Indian-Australian student at a school in Melbourne, Victoria. With so much change in life through immigration, adolescence and the people I so often encounter, I find that there are days where writing my thoughts onto paper makes them that much more beautiful. To be able to put thoughts into words is a satisfaction that I will forever appreciate and hope to give those around me a little glimpse of into my own. I hope that ‘all i want to be’ will be a little relatable to every South-Asian girl as it is to me.

Suzi Mezei is a Sri Lankan born Australian writer from Naarm.  Her work appears in numerous journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas and has also been performed on stage. It will also be included in a forthcoming  podcast. Suzi is currently reading Shankari Chandran and Louise Gluck while editing and collating her own works.

Sonnet Mondal is an Indian poet, editor, and author of An Afternoon in My Mind (Copper Coin 2022), Karmic Chanting(Copper Coin 2018), Ink and Line (Dhauli Books 2018) and five other books of poetry. He was awarded the Gayatri GamarshMemorial Award for literary excellence in 2016 and was one of the authors of the Silk Routes project of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa from 2014 to 2016. Founder and director of Chair Poetry Evenings – Kolkata’s International Poetry Festival, Mondal edits the Indian section of Lyrikline (Haus für Poesie, Berlin) and serves as managing editor of Verseville. He has been a guest editor for Words Without Borders, New York, and Poetry at Sangam, India. His works have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Slovak, Macedonian, French, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovenian, Hungarian, and Arabic.

Anita Nahal, Ph.D., CDP, is a Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author-academic. She has one novel, four poetry collections, one of flash fiction, four for children, and five edited anthologies published. Her third poetry collectionWhat’s wrong with us Kali women(Kelsay, 2021) was nominated by Cyril Dabydeen as the best poetry book, 2021 for British Ars Notoria, and is mandatory reading in a multicultural society course at Utrecht University. Her just released novel, drenched thoughts is also prescribed at the same university. Anita’s poems have appeared in numerous journals in the US, UK, Asia, and Australia and anthologized in many collections, including The Polaris Trilogy, which will be sent to the moon in the Space X launch. Anita is the editor of the Newsletter, Poetry Virginia Society and secretary of the Montgomery Chapter, Maryland Writers Association. She teaches at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC.  Anita is the daughter of Sahitya Akademi award-winning Indian novelist, Late Dr. Chaman Nahal, and educationist Late Dr. Sudarshna Nahal. www.anitanahal.com

 

Born in Sri Lanka, Maithri Panagoda has lived most of his life in Australia. He began writing when he was a teenager. His creative work in Sinhalese consists of poems, lyrics for many popular songs and other writings. A lawyer by profession, Maithri has been involved in many landmark cases on behalf of indigenous Australians. "Pages of Life", his latest poetry collection was published in 2022.

 

Natsha Nair enjoys writing poetry. She is a medical student, a visual artist and an ocean lover from Queensland, Australia.

 

Raj Nair is an Australian bilingual writer, academic and clinician from Queensland, Australia. He published his first poem at the age of eleven years. He has written poems, short-stories and novels in his native language Malayalam and English. He is also a writer-director of feature and documentary films. He was educated at the universities of London, Harvard and Hong Kong (PhD). Raj is a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Medicine Hospitals in the US.

 

M.P. Pratheesh is a poet and artist from Kerala, India. He has published several collections of poetry in Malayalam language. His texts and images were part of 'let me come to your wounds; heal myself', a cross -disciplinary art event curated by C F John. His poems and object/visual poems have been appeared or forthcoming at various places including Singing in the dark (Penguin), Greening the earth ( Penguin) Portside Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, Oxford Anthology of Poetry, RlC journal, Tiny seed, Indianapolis Review, kavyabharati, Nationalpoetrymonth.ca(Angelhouse press), The bombay Review, Keralakavitha, Guftugu, Experiment-O, Acropolis, Tiny spoon, Door is a jar, Ethelzine, True copy, Indian Literature and elsewhere. His recent books are Transfiguring Places,(Paperview books, Portugal) and The Burial, (forthcoming from Osmosis press, UK). He is the recipient of Kedarnath Singh Memorial poetry prize,2022. 

 

Jaydeep Sarangi is a widely anthologized poet with  ten collections, latest being, letters in lower case (2022). A  regular reviewer for poetry journals and newspapers, Sarangi  has delivered keynote addresses and read poems in different continents and lectured on poetry and marginal  studies  in universities/colleges  of repute. His books on poetry and Indian Writings, articles and poems are archived in all major libraries and online restores in the world, including Harvard University, Oxford University, Sorbonne University, Barkley Library and University of Chicago.  He is the   President, Guild of Indian English Writers, Editors and Critics (GIEWEC) and Vice  President, EC, Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library,Kolkata. He has been known as ‘the bard of Dulung’ for his poems on the rivulet Dulung and people who reside on its banks. Sarangi is Principal and professor of English at New Alipore College, Kolkata and actively spreading the wings of poetry among generations. He edits Teesta, a journal devoted poetry and poetry criticism. With Rob Harle he has edited six anthologies of poems from Australia and India which are a great literary link between the nations. . With Amelia Walker, he has guest edited a special issue for TEXT, Australia. His website is : https://jaydeepsarangi.in/

E mail: jaydeepsarangi1@gmail.com

K Satchidanandan (b.1946) is a bilingual poet, critic, playwright, editor, fiction writer and travel writer. He has been a Professor of English and of Translation Studies, , editor of Indian Literature bimonthly and Beyond Borders , a SAARC literature quarterly, the executive head of the National Academy of Letters, invited National fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, He has thirty-two collections of poetry in Malayalam, ten in English, seven in Hindi, and thirty collections in other languages including Arabic, Irish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese besides all major Indian languages. He has won sixty one literary awards - including the National Academy award, Dante Medal from Italy, Poet Laureate Award from Tata Literature Festival, Bombay, five awards in five genres from Kerala Sahitya Akademi besides the topmost awards for poetry and total literary contribution from Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra. He has read his poetry and lectured at several festivals and bookfairs in over thirty countries in six continents and translated poetry from across the world. He has also edited dozens of books in Malayalam and English besides several journals. His latest books of poetry in English include While I Write (Harper-Collins), Misplaced Objects and Other Poems (Indian National Academy), The Missing Rib, Not Only the Oceans ( Poetrywala, Bombay), The Whispering Tree, No Borders for Me (both Hawakal, Kolakata) I am a Language ( Dhauli Books, Bhubaneshwar), Questions from the Dead ( CopperCoin, Delhi) and Singing in the Dark ( ed. with Nishi Chawla, Penguin-Random House, India). His selected essays on Indian literature, Positions was published by Niyogi Books, Delhi in 2020 and a collection of resistance writing, Words Matter edited and introduced by him came out from Penguin Random House in 2018. Greening the Earth, an international anthology of eco-poetry edited by him is due for publication from Penguin Random House in 2022. K. Satchidanandan is now the President of the Kerala Sahitya Akademi.

Sudeep Sen’s [www.sudeepsen.org] is one of the leading international poets whose prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Rain, Aria (A. K. Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Vintage: Penguin Random House), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury) and Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation (Pippa Rann, 2021-22 Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize winner). He has edited influential anthologies, including: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry (editor), World English Poetry, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi), and Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (Pippa Rann). Blue Nude: Ekphrasis & New Poems (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. Sen’s works have been translated into over 25 languages. His words have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Herald, Poetry Review, Literary Review, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Indian Express, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast on BBC, PBS, CNN IBN, NDTV, AIR & Doordarshan. Sen’s newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Leela: An Erotic Play of Verse and Art (Collins), Indian Love Poems (Knopf/Random House/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell), and Name me a Word (Yale). He is the editorial director of AARK ARTS, editor of Atlas, and currently the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Museo Camera. His professional photography is represented by ArtMbassy, Rome [http://www.artmbassy.com/artists.html]. The Government of India awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature.” Sen is the first Asian honoured to deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture and read at the Nobel Laureate Festival.

 

Keshab Sigdel, born in 1979 in Bardiya, Nepal, is the author of two poetry books, Samaya Bighatan (2007) and Colour of the Sun (2017). He has edited Madness: An Anthology of World Poetry (RedPanda Books, 2023) and An Anthology of Contemporary Nepali Poetry (digital volume, Big Bridge, 2016). His work of translation, Shades of Color (2021), is a collection of indigenous Nepali poetry published by Nepal Academy. He co-edited literary magazines Of Nepalese Clay and Rupantaran. He is also the editor of Poetry Planetariat, a magazine of poetry published by World Poetry Movement. He is the recipient of literary awards Bhanubhakta Gold Medal (Culture Ministry of Nepal, 2014) and Youth Year Moti Award for literature (National Youth Fund, 2018). Sigdel teaches Poetry and Cultural Studies at Tribhuvan University.

 

Born in 1997 in Parbat district of Nepal, Kuma Raj Subedi, is a bilingual Australian published poet and translator. He is also the recipient of The Best Poet of the Event Award in the International Nazrul Poetry Festival-2023, Bangladesh. ESL lecturer and an associate member of the Ethics Academy, Mr. Subedi, often writes about nature, female suffrage, memories, history and has been featured in international journals, magazines, anthology and reviews. The Colours of Spring is his anthology of collected poems.

 

Bhupen Thakker - Obsessed by the colour Light Blue / Winner of NSW Poetry Sprint/ Highly Commended CJ Dennis awards/Three-time State Finalist in Australian Poetry Slam/2016 Winner Australian Multilingual Slam/A blog post number 2 in the world/ Currently missing a tooth?/Performances at 2018 Sydney Biennale, Manly Art Gallery, Gosford Regional Gallery, South Coast Writers Centre, Damien Minton Gallery, Don Banks Museum, Word in Hand/Featured on ABC radio/Day Job International Finance/Novel “A New Gandhi, a New Monet and many others” emerging.

 

Priya Unnikrishnan, a writer from USA. She is originally from Kerala, India. Her poems have been published in many magazines, both in Malayalam and English.

 

 

 

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

 

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[1] In Sri Lankan folklore, the Indian Ocean is named as Mute Sea.

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