ISSUE#12

Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#38

GONE BUSH

Whether running from or rushing towards,

temporary or long-term immersion…

there is change.

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LATEST MEUSE
ANTHOLOGY

CLASS

FEATURING: Jude Aquilina, Louis Armand, Anne M Carson, Robbie Coburn,

Lisa Collyer, Beatriz Copello, Anna Couani, Barbara De Franceschi, Joe Dolce,

David Gilbey, Pip Griffin, Susan Hawthorne, Dominique Hecq, Richard Hillman,

Kit Kelen, S.K. Kelen, Myra King, Roland Leach, Harold Legaspi, Mark Liston,

Kate Lumley, Teena McCarthy, Marie McMillan, Suzi Mezei, Jan Napier,

Anna Kerdijk Nicholson, Anita Nahal, Norm Neill, Ron Riddell,

Ellen Shelley, Rose van Son, Beth Spencer,

Danielle Welborn, Rodney Williams,

Paul Williamson & Warrick Wynne

Louis Armand

DI/ODE DXXXIV

gone bush out of transpacific viral con

flagration of vanities / back when

poetry was a mobile fallout shelter.

dig far enough y'd reach China.

a whole nation lullaby'd into exception

ism / who'd bomb us? red centre

w/ crosshairs painted on it, not in yr

wildest dreams, sport. though bull-

dust knows which way the wind / but

as to gravity? a species hedging its bets

wld still be dangling from trees,

they sd. play it enough rope &

it might even make it to Mars & back.

Louis Armand's latest collection is INFANTILISMS (Puncher&Wattmann, 2024). www.louis-armand.com

Anita Nahal

From drenched thoughts (Authorspressbooks, Delhi, 2023)

Go Priya go

Run fast run

Take your son and go

To a place far away and then some

Can’t be the moon or the once non-gratis-poor planet Pluto

It’s far out, like elusive glistening dew drops on each toe

But maybe across the oceans

From where at least once they’d settled their emotions

They could fly back to see her dad

Come for a short while, not disturbing anyone

Foreign or homespun

A forced balanced cocktail Priya made, both joyful and sad

Most folks want a normalcy may come from their journeys

In that effort they keep writing new, rehashed, or retold stories.

We cook, we work, we clean

We love, we sex, we sleep

We hate, latter a word Priya likes to keep unseen

Why show our mean struggles to others, just be desirous to reap

From all that’s good and gone by

Like some decisions, some choices, some fleeting magical high

Flybys, or times that’ll never come back

Like many, many milestones, some moved, some stuck

Missed births, funerals, and weddings

The natural or adopted

Or situations to which one adapted

Don’t you think it’s all semantics?

With some feelings thrown into the mix

Will AI be unique or offer a different fix?

Her life she thought was going by

Going, going, gone

No need to stay or pry

Going, going, gone like in Bob Dylan’s song.

She: “No need for me to pry too much into my own thoughts

Might be there are too many droughts

Oh, don’t you feel sorry for me

For I’ll always have gusto and oomph in me

Will not vegetate feeling lonely

What lonely, lonely, lonely?!

Got my dear ones And near ones

Everything is my son, friends, family

Those who sit heavy in velvet-tapestry-kind-a sofas of the past

Might not see many crying in their funeral flower-less repast.”

As she aged, alchemists tugged at her sleeve often

And gypsies gestured to her

Come join us in your years of autumn

With graying hair at her temples like nascent silver fir

Salting-peppering more and more all over

Which is normal, not rare

The aging

Hopefully maturing

Her desires and wants

Her restless travels

Her few and far remaining needs

Now quietly bestriding the times and taunts

Time had not changed

Only the “times” had changed.

Anita Nahal, Ph.D., is a professor, poet, novelist, & children's book writer. Twice Pushcart Prize-nominated (22, 23) and finalist, Tagore Literary Prize, 2023, Anita won the Nissim Prize for Excellence in Literature, 2024. Her third poetry collection, What’s wrong with us Kali women?, is mandatory reading at Utrecht University. www.anitanahal.com

Jan Napier

Last Place, Next Place

In blue sky towns I sizzle donuts, work the darts,

spruik dodgems: go right ‘round the outside of the track

for a longer, smoother ride. No cubicle, no computer,

just red dust, loudspeakers, Jack giving a thumbs up.

About to bed down beside a thousand mile highway,

I walk away from the fire, away from crew yawning

and yarning: last place, next place, watching the dark

at my feet, gravel a treachery, that last tinny complicit.

Ambling along the line of semis and vans, I smile.

Someone will check that I’m not coming back, then

the boys’ll share their who got lucky stories, jokes

rough as hessian water bags hanging from bull bars.

Pausing in my doorway I look up through blue black

fathoms to stars hung in bright silences, the milky way

diamond dust flung by an unknown hand, and I am

soft and small, crawling the bed of an ancient sea.

Gazing into that cloudy light, I find myself unshelled.

Out here, away from the knives behind the city’s

neon beat, I can almost believe. Then the genny

thud thuds to a halt and the darkness floods back.

Jan Napier is a Western Australian writer. Her work has been showcased in journals and anthologies within Australia and overseas. Jan’s poem My Neighbour at Sixty Nine was included in the May 2024 issue of Live Encounters.

Norm Neill

mate

G’day, remember me?

We met last week

in Wollongong

or maybe in that pub

in Coonabarabran

a coupl’a months ago,

although it might’a been in Bourke,

but I know we sank a few.

And if I remember right,

at closing time

you still owed me a beer.

Norm Neill has been a timber-feller, fence-post splitter, shop assistant, money counter, tractor driver, factory worker, taxi driver, psychiatric nurse, door-to-door salesperson, part-time student, full-time student, teacher, historian and museum guide. His poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies and the Sun-Herald newspaper. He has convened a poetry workshop since 2002.

IMMERSED

Ellen Shelley

A Stretch of Time

It came in through the trees—

a migration of backyards to beaten tracks,

stemmed light shimmering in the clipped bark of morning,

a dog wagging on his deck of nails.

How precise this randomness

where distance enters a fraction at a time.

I walk by lip syncing to the music,

my mouth a tunnel of tunes,

the path behind

loud with fumes

and fresheners dangle

from a dash of mirrors.

Out over the creek

bats hang like prayer flags

out of wind.

Cracks are a type of regeneration

here in the trodden-in; an understudy of grass

rehearses for the flat-leaf-spin.

Weather is a transition,

a harvest of fragment and scent

binding us to what we couldn’t leave behind.

Battery low, music replaced by birdsong,

a wave of dust loaded in springs hind legs.

My bra strap digs another layer of flesh,

feet drag up the rear. This lag and snap

beneath cotton and skin, whisks away the sweat,

absorbing what I hear.

Ellen Shelley's journey as a poet began at an early age, when she discovered the power of words to heal and transform. Ellen uses language to align the uncertainties of daily life, her words find strength from wherever she calls home at the time. Her debut poetry collection is titled

Out of the Blocks (Puncher & Wattmann, 2024).

Lisa Collyer

A Field Guide to Survival

Bushwhack into the wild filtering out

the barrelling rigs due-east of the fire-track.

Follow Linnaeus and binomially key-in

Latin or Greek−this taxon or that_.

Collect the fittest, mimic a resolve to disperse.

Naturalise marsupium to stow viable offspring

and replenish the seed bank. Smoke some fruit

scarify in-between sandpaper and thumb

to wear thin, thick skin. Pose winnowing pastorals

on a gallery wall and incubate on ice to keep.

Lisa Collyer is the author of the poetry collection, How To Order Eggs Sunny Side Up, (short-listed for The Dorothy Hewett Award) and published with Gazebo Books/Life Before Man. Her personal essay, Prolonged Exposure is published in the anthology, Women of a Certain Courage with Fremantle Press.

Beth Spencer

Wild things (a serenade)

I would like to sing a song

to the loose, the wandering

and the unattached.

To those who cannot

grow themselves in rows

for the benefit of others.

I sing to the ones whose

invisible roots disappear down deep

into the earth to bring up treasure.

To the untamed

and the disarrayed.

Striding forth

in the wake of the bulldozer

— first after the fire

— bedding themselves

into clay and shaking it.

I salute even those

that in the presence of

crimes

ignorance

neglect

greed

become thugs (a mirror).

The ones saying:

‘Too much here in too few hands!

Too indiscriminate, poisonous!

And I will take it back

and take it over and create a tide

of seed that covers everything

and entangles generations.’

I honor that small wisp

that separates you

from fruit and flowers,

and the crack in me

that holds you dormant

until ready or not.

A version of this poem was previously published in Vagabondage (UWAP).

Beth Spencer’s books include The Age of Fibs, Vagabondage, and How to Conceive of a Girl. Her poems, essays, memoir and fiction have been published widely and broadcast on ABC Radio National. She writes on Darkinjung land on the NSW Central Coast, and at www.bethspencer.com and https://bethspen.substack.com/.

Rodney Williams

Sighting goannas across East Gippsland

with respect for the Gunaikurnai people

I.

graphite-grey with dotted scales
skin merging into leaves & bark
under shade still hot in summer
or plainly seen on stone & sand
glinting in sharper sunlight
this largest of local lizards
raises its nostrils to sniff,
swishing its tail just once
as a show of resolution,
before shambling off
through roughest heathland,
looking in the pink of health

· Stirling Street, Marlo

II.

driving over the Dooyeedang
you park to check out signage
for the Bataluk Cultural Trail
one of several stopping points
on a path shaped like a lizard
from mountains down to lakes
its graphic emblem a goanna
this traditional trail ages old
the message here unmistakable
in listing places of significance
cataloguing levels of losses
with pause for thought extended

· Princes Highway, Stratford

III.

by the roadside west of Bairnsdale
to the left, heading for Melbourne
on one of many cockatoo eucalypts
you spot this carving of a goanna
cut deep in timber larger than life
by the blade of a First Nations artist –
finding accommodation off the highway
you dine with a couple from Amsterdam
in awe of spotting a reptile so big
in a century-old heritage pear tree
planted by settlers ploughing up yams
to sell potatoes from a wheelbarrow

· Waterholes Guest House, Archies Road

IV.

with a quiet scuttling sound
down this leafiest driveway
that same goanna drops in again
making a point of visiting daily
perhaps pushed back to this yard
out on the edge of the village
by controlled burns in nearby bush
maybe reducing food supplies...
first found raiding a blackbird’s nest

next seen metres up a lilly pilly
now on that track back to state forest
swooped by a squadron squawking

Stirling Street, Marlo

Rodney Williams edits Catchment - Poetry of Place (within the Baw Baw Arts Alliance website), on Gunaikurnai country, in Gippsland, Victoria. He explores both Western and Japanese verse forms. Presenting work live and on radio, Rodney has had poems published widely, here and overseas, with various books released through Ginninderra Press.

Beatriz Copello

PRAYER ROOM

in my temple I lie on a bed of dead moist leaves

like Corinthian columns gum trees adorn my sanctuary

my fantasies are fanned by branches which like ballerinas

move graciously as the wind tells me stories of an ancient past

no sermons or eulogies, no chanting or prayers no homilies

just cicadas singing they tell me that tomorrow will be another hot day.

no tapestries hang from marble walls, just bark with intricate patterns

made with shades of greys browns black and beige creating a canvass

where the imagination sees nature’s hand at art

bush rocks are my sculptures and bull ants penitents

dreaming dreams of freedom and peace I pray in my refuge

above the sky dresses the forest with a velvet blue cape

I meet my creator in the crevices of fallen trunks

in the eucalyptus mist in the song of the bell bird

in the shimmering of silver leaves

flowering grevilleas make a humble offering to the native bees

while hurried lizards pass me by

the dry earth blesses me

I breathe solitude

Beatriz Copello is an award-winning poet, her books are: Women Souls and Shadows, Meditations at the Edge of a Dream, Under the Gums Long Shade, Forbidden Steps Under the Wisteria, A Call to the Stars, Witches Women and Words, No Salami Fairy Bread, Rambles, The Book of Jeremiah, Renacer en Azul and Lo Irrevocable del Halcon.

Anna Couani

Wilderness

wilderness
a map full of inlets
dark as film noir

twinkling lights
the whispering quiet
under the stars

derelict house
out of focus doorways
where things crumble

we ache for leaves
the still glassy water
this wilderness

it explodes
under the radar
riffing on words

precious jewels
words on white paper
lost in the clouds

Prev appeared Kalliope X

The line “dark as film noir” is a borrowed line by Robert Verdon from his book Spiral Life.

Anna Couani is a Sydney writer and visual artist who runs The Shop Gallery in Glebe. Published seven books of prose and poetry. The most recent is local (Flying Islands). Her out-of-print work: annacouani.com. Wilderness is also set to music at https://annacouani1.bandcamp.com.

Myra King

Morning

you take a blue-gum leaf

from its

companions identical

a balance

with its centred

heart a tremble

of quicksilver dew

in the trust of

your open hand

you carry it

gentle

to the lucid billabong

you make

a wish

then on the face of it

lay down the impossible

water afloat upon water

Myra King lives on Worlds End Highway in South Australia. A Pushcart nominee, with firsts in Global Poetry UK and Ballarat's Pure Poetry Masterclass, her poems and short stories have appeared in many magazines and published by Meuse Press, Puncher & Wattmann, Melbourne Poets Union, and Ginninderra Press.

Harold Legaspi

Blackness

The long-necked heron could see

over the hill, into the neighbouring swamp, wet

branches of cypress trees and Spanish moss.

Rain and seasonal flooding causing water levels

to fluctuate—vegetation growing moist, duckweed

covering the water’s surface. Shrubs and bushes grow

beneath the trees, and knobs poke metres above water.

They are outgrowths of the trees’ root systems; thickets

of roots accumulating soil. What news does the swamp bring

of our world to the heavens, to the gods? It’s no good.

More heartache among the fertile lakes and streams,

more wildlife like alligators and panthers calling it home.

Rain comes and the heron stands long-legged & still,

underneath a trickle from the clouds, watching closely.

There’s plenty of food and little protection. The swamp is a

sponge, absorbing excess water. Its sinister silks are forbidding.

Cloudy sunsets threaten its privacy, bracing itself for blackness,

bracing itself for the night.

Harold Legaspi is an Australian writer and artist born in Manila, Philippines, and living in unceded Darug Nura (Western Sydney). Some of Harold’s books include Letters in Language (Flying Islands), Song Sonnets: Little Songs and Bahay Kubo: Children’s Literature (Papel Publishing). His latest book is Dios Ko.

Richard Hillman

The Stifling

This is the burden’s country: all shoulders

gumnut kookaburra koala in eucalyptic decay

watching these chained trees bark-stripped

hushed as they are hauled away, into a sombre dying Light

haunted sunset back-drooping beneath the stifling

Vertical: the heat plays tricks, steam rises from the billy

smoke spirals above Paradise like birds of prey

something predatory shimmers in the soaring, stifling

I’ve had enough of this shit, constantly reminded

to watch every explorative step as if creativity were a crime

and that stifling nuisance, Light, tugging at my shoulder

for an attentiveness I cannot give, too busy wiping

the sliding scale of sweat from my searching eyes

We sit around sipping, drinking from our stack of slabs

(though there are more empty cartons than full)

newcomers bruised from their bush-knowledge

staying out of the women’s business but sometimes

the heat stifles conversation; the need, the urge, and holding

to nothing but a violence of will, to have what was never yours

The cops have just rolled up wanting to know who lit the fire

“they went that way, cobber”

Diagonal: this is the start, a stepping out of sorts, a shuffling gait

the colonial rhythm of abuse, the scraping, vituperative sounds

of clanging doors, though

we wait in the carpark of culture, your visit an Eternity

the children hanging their heads from the shame of car windows

and the stifling

Do the words end here; what a stretch to need a Voice

as if no one can hear the collective groan, the oppressive

gathering of restless humanity, the muralised buzz of mosquitos

creating a brand-new skin tone, tattooed and inked

in a swatting discourse of dissent, demonstrating that resistance

is fated to repeat the way of Bushido, the warrior dancing

on the Outback bar, as settlement settles into the new delusion

of survival: continuance as fantasy as burden as stifling

Richard Hillman lives and writes in Gumbaynggirr Country, on New South Wales far north coast. He was editor of Sidewalk: An Antipodean Journal of Poetry and Poetics (1998-2002). He has published his poetry widely on four continents over five decades. His most recent collection is Raw Nerve (Puncher & Wattmann).

Anna Kerdijk Nicholson

The cows arrive

In light rain,

there are droplets in the curled hair

on their spines and heads.

The cow in the crush is big,

her body heat steams,

she’s soft and hot to touch.

All around in the winter damp,

bracken-coloured paddocks

to her blackness.

Her calf is railed off and she wants it

but the crush’s head-lock is failing

so we say har, csh-csh, geddup,

you applying your whole force,

holding her head as she bucks entrapment,

to save her from harm.

Under flat winter skies

over frost-bitten paddocks,

we are one heated cluster,

voicing animals up from yard

through run to crush,

sliding rails, opening gates,

holding black wet nostrils,

twisting cow tails,

releasing them back to herd.

Never before so close:

each eyelash, grey tongue, ear tag

and, with bull calves just-marked,

feeling down scrotum,

counting testes below ring

as firm as wooden spoons in sacs.

I stop fussing with pumps, tubes and bags,

watch them walk into our high blond grass,

elegant herd of companionship and defence,

their individual characters: the loner, the kicker, the dancer.

They will mate, gestate and birth

barely-aided by us:

it makes me feel tender

about their new half-moon imprints,

the silky-soft skin at their tail root.

Anna Kerdijk Nicholson is an Australian/English poet and author of three books, 'The Bundanon Cantos', 'Possession' and 'Everyday Epic'. 'Possession' won the Victorian Premier’s Prize, the Wesley Michel Wight Prize and was shortlisted for two others. Anna has also won awards for individual poems. She farms in rural NSW.

THROUGH

Teena McCarthy

The Gateway #3

Travelling down

Dusty road at night

In the middle of the road

2 giant Black Dogs come together

2 giant Black dogs then part to let us thru

2 giant black dogs come together again

They seemed to be waiting for something.. someone?

We were frightened

We asked old Tjulpi’s advice

‘Don’t worry for you

That Dingo spirits

They let you thru

They are the Lore keepers

The gateway

They’ll leave u alone

Theyre waiting for theyre man

That wrong way one

That broke the lore

For the dogs know this

They need to settle the score

That rubbish man, be no more

They are gonna git him-finished!

Those gates won’t open

For now, this road is shut.

Those Dog spirits then disappeared

Into thin air

Rite in-front of our eyes

Then they just took off

Like ghosts in disguise….

Paul Williamson

The forest is growing back.

Five years after Black summer bushfires

eucalypts with black trim

stand with foliage almost normal

next to black and white skeletons

the same height. Between them half grown

saplings sport orange new leaves

near wattle, bottle brush and she oak.

No wildlife is seen.

Record temperatures have become routine

while the forest waits to burn again.

Paul Williamson lives in Canberra. He has published poems on a range of topics in Australia, NZ, the US, UK, Canada and Japan. His collections include A Hint of Eden, Along the Forest Corridor, and Edge of Southern Bright, published by Ginninderra Press. His background is in Earth Sciences.

David Gilbey

Letters to Clancy

Almost off-piste in these American-owned

snowfields at Falls Creek,

felled by my nemesis Shadow

Valley on the early morning ice:

broke three ribs but, unknowing, kept skiing

gingerly for the next day and a half.

You’ll be right by Christmas, said Sam.

Sneezing excruciated me; turning in bed

racked my lungs. Today I fall again but softly,

ski-tips failing to twist, iamb …

Outside the Wagga Lodge the Summit Chair

snakes its gaudy cargo up to the windswept ridge

before it splits, lego-like, to carve

sonnets down the gleaming Village run.

I suspect the poet’s dozen is fourteen but

belief is a shrouded word, stretching me,

breathing heavily, pausing at mossy rocks and thatch

past aged kanji inscriptions on stone memorials,

wooden slats and laminated public notices,

all the thousand steps up Yamadera and its eight

hundred-year Buddhist flame. Luckily

my body muscles my mind’s scepticism and

my heart, lifting its twenty-one year new

mitral valve, pumps my legs to almost skip

at next year’s seventy-seven: kiju – high fortune

more metaphorical than local 77 Bank

and one more trombone than the famed seventy-six

leading the hit parade. Up here poetry

is the sound of cicadas from the silence

of the rocks, wrote Basho,

agnostic about the OED.

At Futaba, this year’s Japan Writers Conference,

there is little bush and most of the ancient life

has been bulldozed, scraped and stored

as contaminated nuclear waste,

in plastic, after the tsunami broke

the seawall and fucked more than just

the Daichi power station. Its still poisonous

skeletal remains we see on the horizon,

from the roof of the modernist museum.

The business centre’s pristine rooms

frame, in steel and glass, our Facebook pics,

our reeling and writhing as we edit drafts

and create, almost spontaneously,

deft, short poems. Banzai!

Reboot the dark tourism of Route 6!

The rain is a sceptical mirror

disbelieving photography.

So, you’re airport-bound for ten hours?

First world problem – a poet’s licence.

Just think of it as a lime-tree bower

whence you can watch your friends and the world

go by. I saw your poetry extravaganza at Cobargo

online: writers whirling words

as fistfuls of poems take in the world and,

like conjurors prestidigitating, open

to reveal sestina doves, crow sonnets,

galah ghazals ... At that very time

I was travelling to a different south,

driving the Great River Road along

the Murray, past Jinjellic and Walwa

to Towong, where my sculptor friend

John Wood, an alchemist magician,

has reincarnated the ancient gods

from beaten and twisted steel,

as two-metre brolgas swooping

and stretching in huge ordovician

metasediments anchored

to the wetlands.

David Gilbey is currently President of Booranga Writers’ Centre and has edited fourW: new writing from1990-2023. His most recent poetry collections is Pachinko Sunset (Five Islands Press, 2016). He lectured in English at Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, and Miyagi Gakuin Women’s University, Sendai, Japan. He has become a casual high school teacher.

Dominique Hecq

Unwound

Night of furphies. Possums hiss like cats. We tear from the brutalities of language, machines, protocols, corollaries, sorority, synchronicity. Flee human letters and litters, their heady smells, flotsam and jetsam. I feel not terror but elation. Writhe in my skin. Revert to my wolf instincts. Howl at the giant moth ball masquerading as moon. Unlike Ginsberg, I have no teeth. I feed on dust. My saturnian eyes defy geography. I pound the ground, dog in tow. We’re off the beaten track. Prowl the parched wetlands by the obsidian necklace once creek. I give my dog silence biscuits so he doesn’t starve. The trees people their bare bones with leathery flesh. They yawn as the morning star peeps through the clouds’ curls. Bow their heads to distant thunder. Hum a wordless tune under their breath. Let them remake language without us.

The dark quenches our thirst for unbridled companionship. Trees blaze, thrumming around. Hair spiky as an echidna’s ancient coat spread all over my body, unsettling all idea of time and place. We reach the lake/ water hole together. A ripple of nausea surges into my/ her body. I/ she shakes. Pronouns drop to their knees. Dog, come back, they rasp. And throw up.

Familiar smell of bat shit on the breeze. I close my eyes on the waning moon. Come, boy, come, I open my arms wide. The caked mud crackles under my feet. Dog materialises at my side. Says we must talk about sticks.

The air’s so muggy its clings. The dog runs his ribbon tongue on my calves. Let’s go, he says. I’m rooted to the ground.

Leaving. Setting sail for the unknown. We've been in leaving mode since we disembarked in this dead-end world. Leaving without a tour operator. No craze for nomadism which, in its current forms, is nothing more than sedentarism in motion. None of this gallivanting that extends its networks of freewheeling sightings and vacuities of escapades across continents and seas.

Leaving is something else entirely. It's jumping in/ out, exiling yourself. Exsul mentis domusque. Deprived of reason and its home. Where the prose poem begins.

Dominique Hecq is a widely anthologised and award-winning poet, fiction writer, essayist and translator. She lives and works on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung land. Hecq writes in English and French. Her creative works comprise a novel, six collections of short stories and seventeen books of poetry. Otopos is her latest publication.

Warrick Wynne

walking beside the franklin

how light from that wild water lit the path beside us

how a thousand stumbling stones rattled in the rapids

how we walked a path redolent with sound

bathed in the flickering light that fuelled us

between the line of the river

and the darkness of the forest

between the heat-green

and the ice rocks

we walked beside the rushing water

and stones big and round as loaves

we walked beside a strip of light

and our faces were illuminated

we walked a wavering line by the edge

of a great river, oblivious, heading west

Warrick Wynne lives on the Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, Australia. He has three published poetry collections and his work has been featured in a wide range of magazines and journals. His poetry page is at warrickwynnepoetry.com

Jude Aquilina

Inland Sea

for Charles Sturt

The ghost of the inland sea

still swells and broils

wind waves sculpture dunes

rippling corrugated tracks

where sand sets hard

on the ancient sea floor.

The hull of our four-wheel-drive

cruises the channel country

pitching and rocking

as we accelerate over crests

then scud down slip faces

our tyre-tracks soon washed away

by a ceaseless tide of wind.

Sometimes a howling tsunami

churns the surface, swamps the land

red grit seeps into pores and crevices

drowns towns and invades homes.

When the wall of spuming dust

recedes, we creatures crawl out

red-eyed, to a patch of dead beach.

Heat keeps the faint-hearted

safely docked in city streets

while we foolhardy mariners

stock our cabins with supplies

and sail through the empty centre.

Some sink, break down or lose their way.

Never leave your vessel, they say

but thirst and fear send them overboard

to float alone, thirsty, blistered.

Their footprints vanish, until all that’s left

is a bone pile, bleached white as shell

that some nomad may or may not discover

like the ribs of a sunken ship.

Jude Aquilina's poetry is published across Australia and abroad. She has published several poetry collections and won numerous awards. Jude works as a teacher of creative writing and has taught at universities, TAFE, schools and a prison. Jude is a member of International PEN and Asia Pacific Writers and Translators.

Roland Leach

Rabbit Trapper

Here we are, Pete and I, sitting on the side

of the road, two surfboards, and a kelpie

named Sammy, heading home, late 70s,

from a surf town called Byron Bay, few

know about. Coming back through the centre,

and somewhere before Broken Hill, an old truck

stopped and we got in, boards in the back,

us in the front. ‘Good to see young fellas

this far out?’ He told us he was one

of the last rabbit trappers. ‘Sold the skins

to make a livin’, he boasted, but most

remarkable was his one arm –

lost it in the war he casually said

as if he had carelessly mislaid it –

and driving a manual vehicle, where his right

arm had to cross his body every time

he changed gears. I asked ‘snares?’ but he coughed,

winced, shook his head, ‘traps, steel-jaw traps’.

I almost told him that I knew a poem

about a rabbit catcher, early sylvia plath,

but knew it would show us interlopers,

a generation or two too late, in this dry bush country.

Marie McMillan

To the Wonderland of the Underland

No time to say hello, goodbye or I’ll be late.

I want a pink-eyed white rabbit to take me

down, down

a hole, a burrow,

to guide me through the subterranean,

to search for that which,

like the lost city of Atlantis,

is out of sight and, mostly, out of mind.

I want to dig and excavate with him

burial places of ancient peoples,

of a Mungo Man, a Mungo Woman,

of the colonial settlers,

of things ossified and fossilised,

of roots and radicles,

artichokes and radishes

implanted in the deep of the obsidian

subsoil.

I want to explore the sous-sol,

to drink and splash in its wells and aquifers,

its lakes, its caves, its micro-caverns,

to play marbles with hard,

colourless or colourful upalas,

to play hide and seek with the aerating

slugs and worms, insects and spiders,

woodlice and crustaceans,

stygofauna and troglofaunal,

multitudinous under and other things …

Trojan tillers and toilers of the alluvium.

Tick tock, tick tock …

The white rabbit reminds me

“Don’t be late, don’t be late,”

for we custodians must

guard and protect the very sods of

our secret country,

Our Wonderland of the Underland,

with its nourishing layers and strata,

replenishing and fertilising

this inverted heaven in earth,

before those merciless clods of

predatory magnates soil

irrevocably

the priceless Nibelungen nugget

of our ecosystem.

Tick tock, tick tock … our clocks are ticking.

No time to say hello, goodbye, but

“Don’t be late, don’t be late.”

- - -

With thanks to Lewis Carroll and Alice’s White Rabbit and with sincere respect to our First Nations’ People.

Marie McMillan A finalist in New South Wales Poetry and Bankstown Poetry Slams, she’s a “wanna be” poet. Some of her poems and short stories have won minor awards or been anthologised. Her crime fiction novel “The Lost Day – Under Newgrange” about spousal drink-spiking and rape was published in 2021.

Pip Griffin

Feral horses

Setting up our solitary tent

after the tyre-scorching drive

into the national park

we see feral horses far below

cavorting in the gorge

bodies ghostly in near dark

next morning we’re breathing

hot air acrid with smoke

heat encircling us

a eucalyptus-scented crucible

you say I’m going to the river –

d’you want to come?

we half-walk half-slide

scratched by scrub

slapping at March flies black as bats

must be fifty degrees! I say

we’re crazy – should go back

you gaze down granite-mute

after thirty minutes stumbling

we reach the river bank

thick with blackberry lantana dung

three horses skulk behind she-oaks

snicker with derision as we strip off

gasp in numbing water

emerge shivering dress quickly

for the climb back

you wheeze and pant

stop every five minutes

to guzzle from your water bottle

twenty years since my last smoke

lung capacity’s still crap

(how would they get you out?)

we reach the top

drag our bodies up onto the flat

collapse under sparse shade

of stringy barks

you retch into the bushes

(you made it back this time…)

lung cancer would take you

in a year.

Pip Griffin’s poetry has been published in Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand journals and anthologies. Her verse narrative, Virginia & Katherine: The Secret Diaries (Pohutukawa Press 2021) won the Society of Women Writers NSW Poetry Award 2022. Her latest publication (her eighth) is Opus: a life with music (Ginninderra Press 2023).

DISCOVERED

Kate Lumley

In the centre, out there

The widowed, or those who’d like to be,

bus into the outback at this time of year,

before heat keeps all but the wisest

away. They want to unlearn loneliness,

to let the balm of sand and winds with

different names for compass points tell them

of the deep calm of nothing. They want to forget

hard necessity, to paint abstract marks on canvas,

to avoid narration with endings, be certain of place.

In sunset by the lake, they write waka after Shikibu,

learn that words can only sketch the slope-of-light,

the water-lily-float, the dragonfly-surface-skate.

Kate Lumley is a Sydney-based writer. Kate’s poetry and prose has been published in various journals, reviews, anthologies and chapbooks including Studio, Not Very Quiet, Rochford Street Review, Australian Love Poems 2013 (Inkerman & Blunt), Prayers of a Secular World (Inkerman & Blunt, 2016); To end all wars (Puncher & Wattmann, 2018).

Mark Liston

Dissipate as Smoke

The falling night grabs cooling air

invites tree canopy and clouds to hang

hooded, to listen for whispers of deepest breath.

In our inner chatter, sorrow can taunt you.

In our softest voices, as if scared to louden

grief is the limbs and leaves rustling above us—

as if waiting for something else to go wrong.

His wheelchair stalls at this our final resting

spot for today. Eyelids of light loop the moon—

that sliver of sleep on the top branch of sky.

As your exhales sneak through gritted teeth

our words dissipate as smoke.

After a long cough I stub your cigarette.

Wheelchairs are legs and arms, and

keep chest, neck and head erect: where mouth

and lungs rescue his every word and breath

Breezes, cool our bared arms, usher us inside.

Our last talk blended truth with kneaded air.

Cicada last rite quietens, our words settle.

Stillness shares itself around.

I drive the wheelchair through the automatic door.

Guido cries as we hoist him into bed.

I feel his whisper and kiss, eyes staring through me.

Mark Liston’s poems appear in numerous publications including Canberra Times, Newcastle Poetry Prize, Australian Poetry Anthology, Meuse, Rochford St Review, Burrow, Brushstroke Anthology 2024, and shortlisted for Hammond House Poetry Prize in UK 2022. Mark is working on a poetry collection: Empathy House Suite, for 2025.

Barbara De Franceschi

Minute of Silence

Terracotta haze.

I feel the hint of heat to come.

Autumn’s dampness dissolves,

dusk quietens the sky,

birds cease to chortle,

bleats become faint,

an easterly wind controls its sighs.

Self-vibe is splashed with fragrances of eucalypts

and wild lemon grass.

The stillness contains the paradox of who I am:

half empty – half full.

Ghost gums on a sunset altar

uplift their branches to say

Behold!

For a brief fraction the acute tranquillity blurs reality,

my eyes see flames where there is no grate or fire,

I am weightless, neither captive nor free,

simply being in a spiral of shooting stars.

Anne M Carson

What the picnic taught me

Always dust and heat, sparse

eucalypt shade. Our veteran

brown tartan rug was flung over

sticks and stones on verges or

patches of scrub, confident any-

where could be made home.

Nesting anodised aluminium

travel cups unzipped from their

leather case – faded pinks and

silvers, tan and peach hues. Dad’s

beer, Mum’s shandy, home-made

lemon cordial for us kids. Tea

from the trusty thermos, sugar

from a yellow Bakelite pie-crust

frilled, screw-top jar. Something

sharp always prodded, flies and

mozzies always struck, dust always

insinuated into sandals, between

toes. I did not enjoy the bush, sullen

‘civilised’ child before what was

unfettered. I identified with the

sheep – they hadn’t asked to be

there sweltering either – you could

see they preferred shade, the herd

huddled under what the straggly

stands offered – why couldn’t they

see it, I pleaded in my cocoon

of anguished adolescence, hating

farmers. Years after the final family

picnic, I learnt to love birdsong –

carolling, choralling, filling my ears

with melody, my eyes with eucalypts’

pale khaki grace. Years more to feel

connection – bird, tree, sky; tree,

person, ground, all apiece. Years

again before recognising even those

scraggles of bush, dusty and derelict

had been loved and sung over, over

millennia.

Prev published Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2022

Anne M Carson’s poetry has been awarded and published widely including shortlisting in the Society of Women Authors New South Wales Poetry Prize (2024). Her latest book is The Detective’s Chair: prose poems about fictional detectives (Liquid Amber Press 2023). Her Phd (2023, RMIT) received an Outstanding Dissertation Prize (AERA, 2024).

Ron Riddell

Exhibition Drive Revisited

Rain on the stones, glaze on the clay

leaves still bright with the light of day

we walk on into the gathering dusk

ushered in by gusts of rain

with singular shining intent

as seagulls keen and wheel

on we go, in and out of showers

clouds darkening, hovering

at the end of the track signs gone

leaving steps into the bush undone

yet the steps we’ve taken echo on

in birdsong, leaves, inlets

while beyond the deep blue dusk

clouds begin to rise, clear

and we walk along the higher path

where the light is rose, gold-leafed

and the echoes of the words of friends

are waves still breaking on the shore

Ron Riddell is a writer with a deep commitment to ecology, on all possible levels: natural, social-temporal, philosophic and spiritual. He believes and works in the spirit of the transformative power of poetry and all creative human expression. At present, he divides his time between New Zealand and Colombia.

Susan Hawthorne

wet season

clouds each day line up differently

today at lunch a zippered cloud

slowly closes as I watch

the shining light decreasing

they go a deep grey and as they do

the temperature drops the day cools

rain can be horizontal or misty

at night wind picks up thrashing trees

the beach is wild sand scoured

grey rocks stare at me like sea lions

seaweed sprawls across the sand

commas of brown punctuating it

among the debris a sponge in lilac

the air is seaspray-wet not raining

like walking through a fine mist

two halves of a rainbow sit on the horizon

a big break in the centre someone took a bite

on the beach near the creek calophyllum

is making heavy clusters of seed pods

the glossy oval new leaves positioned

in a spiral are iridescent green

the tide has been high right to the top edge

where the greenery begins sand is hard

and easy to walk upon or roll if you are

a tiny round seed blown by the wind

the white apple tree is fruiting

any day now we can expect

to see a wandering cassowary

Susan Hawthorne is a poet, novelist and publisher who lives and works on Djiru Country. Her recent books include the novel, Dark Matters, and the poetry collection, The Sacking of the Muses. Her book, Cow, was shortlisted for the Audre Lorde Poetry Prize and the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize.

Suzi Mezei

Excursion

The past emanates from recollection’s

undergrowth;

the reek of rain-specked detritus

on the forest floor,

the human contents of the school bus

unbound in meandering sepia-damp,

the downy emerald lush

of biophytes on felled trunks

where backpacks sat demure

in anticipation of their owner’s

return, the sun shy

behind a canopy suffused with life

and writhing,

Malachi with his hands in leaf-litter,

a skink ensconced

in the soft city-flesh of his palm,

a scurry of children unconsciously

dabbed in candlebark oil,

anointed, the green-frocked myrtles

watching their initiation

like upstanding kin at a baptism,

the glorious reek and rot and breath

of the place, absorbed in pores

and spores once far enough removed

from suburbia’s concrete clutch.

Though I stand now in a cleared

space, the heady cologne

of those gnarled aunts, long disappeared

and the path to their graveyard,

machine-rippled, denuded,

ancestral seeds hide deep in clay;

inside me, hope grows, spindly at first,

a much-nurtured sapling.

Suzi Mezei is a Sri Lankan born Australian writer. She works on the lands of the Boonwurrung People. Themes include nature, animal ethics, social justice/injustice, feminism and environment.

LOST

Robbie Coburn

Crow Feathers

I used to collect the feathers of crows

I found on the farm

and place them on a shelf beside my bed.

I wondered why the crows were always here.

my Granny said they had hollow bones,

these scavengers leaving feathers as warnings,

death-birds flying above the farmland

where they are waiting

for those expected to die soon.

murders, holding funerals for each other

and awaiting ours.

I would imagine the end to their waiting,

the crows descending

on the lifeless carcasses of my family.

in the night,

I dreamed wind from an open window

would sweep the feathers

from the surface of the shelf.

an engulfed, black crest hovering

and circling me,

as they fell one by one,

covering my face and filling my mouth,

drowning me in a darkness

beyond sleep.

when I woke up

there was a scream from my body,

like the screeching

of thousands of crows overhead,

covering everything,

like rain.

Robbie Coburn is a poet based in Melbourne, Australia. His verse novel The Foal in the Wire will be published by Hachette Australia in 2025 and his most recent poetry collection is Ghost Poetry (Upswell, 2024). His website is robbiecoburn.com

Joe Dolce

Brown Snake Crossover

Waltzing the track,

I catch my balance, back-

stepping with a Whoa!

as the luster rope shimmies, slow-

ly S-bending into bush,

before I can blink,

slink-

ing off, our pas-de-deux

kaput.

Joe Dolce Composer/poet. Australian-American dual-national. Winner 2017 University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize. Longlist 2024 University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize. Highly Commended 2020 ACU Poetry Prize. Shortlist 2023, 2020 & 2014 Newcastle Poetry Prize. Longlist 2024, 2019, 2018, 2017 & 2014 University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s Poetry Prize. Selected Best Australian Poems 2015 &

2014. Winner 25th Launceston Poetry Cup.

Kit Kelen

bush week / in the cicadarama

Worimi Country

it falls to me to forget where I am

the city comes and goes

we’re here for the month of Sundays

this forest is 80kms long, 40 wide

just a thin strip, dairy, closing on the river now

a hundred years ago, no, more

one of the valley families

had a blistered man at blade

sharpening, always sharpening

his work was send the trees away

was keep them gone

axe and fire

was board and keep

and that was a hundred years

in my own recollection

the valley was all winter smoke

I call the middling winter

night’s more

light’s precious then

the stars are up to bright

spring is a season we’re here to imagine

leaves only fall with the wind

a tide of fire’s my summer fear

car’s packed and ready to go

I miss the ones we were

but can’t say always will

there’s flanelette unthreads the head

it falls to me to forget where I am

to hollow like the log

Kit Kelen is the winner of the 2024 Newcastle Poetry Prize

Rose van Son

Petroglyphs Red Rock

Indee Station—

i.m. of the MMA crew killed in

Viscount 1750 air crash 31.12.1968

stories carved

lizard legs and arms

embrace the ochre rock

a stiff breeze sweeps the rocks clean

angled lines

dark shadows lever under granite

lizards climb

slide and climb again

tunnel wind-filled air

a year longed for and lost

burnished desert red

a new year not began

Oh! you have slipped the surly bonds*

an eagle witness

soars from here soars from here

*From John Gillespie Magee Jr.: High Flight

Rose van Son has been published in Westerly, Rabbit, ACU, Australian Poetry, Cordite and Glasgow Review. In 2022 she was Patron of the Perth Poetry Festival; in 2024 she was guest of the Shanghai International Poetry Festival. Her passions: nature, art, history, family. Cloak of Letters is her latest collection.

S.K. Kelen

Lost in the Bush

Moonless night, Brindabellas,

a lone cyclist slowly

rides mountain bike

down pitch black

fire trail on the coldest,

hardest night of all

a freezing wind whistles

down and up the gullies

whistles a song of ice.

The ghosts of old Australia

are here, laughing and fierce.

Snow gums shout hooray

as a cold man freewheels

into a circle of sleeping kangaroos.

S. K. Kelen most recent book of poems is A Happening in Hades, (Puncher and Wattmann: Waratah NSW, 2020). His next volume, The Cult of What Comes Next, will be published by Puncher and Wattmann in early 2025.

Danielle Welborn

By Kiowarrah Road

Someone split blue gums,

Crouching now in empty paddocks, 

Slowly rotting fenceposts

Clutching rusting, antique wire.

Someone built a hut, 

Papered walls with archaic adverts

That overlook rivulets of water

When the god of rain descends. 

Someone raised a barren wool shed

To make the lusty wind groan, 

The floorboards slowly greening 

Beneath the weary, flapping roof.

Someone dosed dusty sheep

With a coloured medicine bottle.

It sits waiting, angular, crusted,

Half- buried in the dirt. 

Someone shoed the local horses,

Hung horseshoes in the peach tree,

Luck careening slowly 

Towards forgotten pasture. 

Someone planted foreign trees, 

So, in spring a million white blossoms

Could satisfy a delirious

Orchestra of honeybees. 

Someone bathed beneath those trees

Next to a rusted-out water tank

In a bath that claws the ground,

Part-filled with a potpourri of leaves.

I hope your spirits rest. 

Danielle Welborn is an emerging writer based on the Gold Coast. She writes poetry and short stories inspired by social and environmental issues, because this makes watching the news more interesting. When she isn’t writing, Danielle likes to rescue animals, plants and inanimate objects.

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

All work © the authors.

All individual pieces copyright their creator.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, fair dealing for the purpose of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Copyright owners may take legal action against a person or organisation who infringes their copyright through unauthorised copying. All enquiries should be directed to the publisher at the address above.

For avoidance of doubt, Authors reserve the rights, and Meuse Press has no rights to, reproduce and/or otherwise use the Work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text, including without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as the Work, unless Meuse Press obtains Author’s specific and express permission to do so. Nor does Meuse Press have the right to sublicense others to reproduce and/or otherwise use the Work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text without Author’s specific and express permission.

Meuse Press acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Country on which this work was created, the Bidjigal people of the Eora Nation, and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

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Australian

Poetry Collaboration

#37

A SELECTION OF WORK FROM EAST

& SOUTH EAST ASIAN
PLUS E/SE ASIAN BORN

OCEANIA-RESIDENT CONTEMPORARY POETS

Edited by Christine Peiying Chen & Les Wicks

FEATURING: M.K Ajay, Cao Shui, Caiyan Che, Christine Pei Ying Chen,

Felix Cheung, Frank Dong, Enya, Fang Langzhou, Helen Jia, Jie Ran Wang, Jin Jin, Lan Mu, Li Li, Li Zhongquan, Shijing Liao, Meijia Lian, Breanna Lilly, Yuhang Liu, Lu Wentao, Raymond Ren, Sou Vai Keng, Adarshani R Sharma, Tang Ying Xia, Altynai Temirova, Phu-Linh Tran,Alan Wu, Zi Fei Yu, Xiaochun Liang, Xing-Mai, Zhang Lizhong & WenZheng Zhu

Archived in Pandora

from Meuse Press –

IN COLLABORATIOIN WITH

WORLD POETRY MOVEMENT – OCEANIA

M.K Ajay

Poets Colonising Mars

Stealthy is the cat of siestas,

bio machine, Egyptian goddess

with aluminium whiskers buried in swamps,

amid rectangle mansions,

glasshouse cacti, cloned golden retrievers.

And around the cat are craters, red tiles

floating like feathers, sheer red oceans

of effortless solitude, a writing cabin.

Children stop and run among those craters

stop and run

as dragonflies do.

First published in Clawing into Water’s Skin Poetrywala

Cao Shui

Mermaid

I walk along carrying an injured fish.

This pot only fits one fish.

How was it that the fish was injured?

I too want to know the answer.

Only an examination will reveal the truth.

I traveled past mountain ranges, bodies of water,

I travel through centuries, millenia.

Great rivers cut through deep valleys.

One night I fell into flooding waters.

The fish jumped out from the jar.

I could only stare as she left.

People say I'm affable.

The fish now becomes a mermaid

with servant girls by her side.

A waning moon sits upon my head.

The mermaid ascends the moon.

A drop of fragrant dew drops down.

I extended my hands to catch it

and suddenly understood life that's passed,

life that comes.

Caiyan Che

Inheritance Through Commemoration

——For the Music Lecture In Memory of the Maestro Mr Ke-chang Lin

In the melodious and elegant sound of

the three -hundred -year -old violin

I saw you smiling and walking

from Heaven above

Full of immortal music

Waving your hands gratefully

Sending heartfelt thanks to us

Excitedly shedding tears

In the church fully seated

We hearing the touching stories

Told by the aged violinist

How noble and elegant meetings

Happening to the two great masters

How important role the Maestro Mr Lin has played

In pushing the Butterfly Lovers——

This New Chinese excellent Violin Concerto

To the Elegant World Music Stage

How amazingly I enjoyed All these beautiful melodies

Played by Mr and Mrs Pan

The Butterfly Lovers as if weeping and complaining

Ave Maria full of mercy and piety

Meditation From Thais full of peace and quietness

Souvenir so soul-stirring

Après in Reve as if wakening from a dream

How truly I admire the tacit understanding through deep love

From the married couple of Mr Pan and Ms Lei

How deeply I appreciate

The absolute sincerity

For loving music

From the old generations of the Chinese musicians

How eagerly and proudly

I want to praise

This forever special Inheritance through commemoration

Christine Pei Ying Chen

Rebirth Trilogy

I. Glazed

Bees flow with colors, weaving through the flowers

Flowers flow with colors, bathed in clouds, rain, and dew

Cats flow with colors, chasing rainbow moons

Light revolves around her

Cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, all revolve around her—

Hoeing, watering flowers, doing laundry, cooking, calling cats and dogs

She is spun around, spinning and spinning, until she becomes the core of everything

He was mesmerized, forgetting time... until

His own eyes shimmered with seven colors, draped in iridescent robes, only then did he realize

He had also become a part of her:

Together, flowing with glazed colors

II. Birth

Finally, reaching the last layer of the realm of colors: blue

Covering the sky, touching the ground, clouds diving into lakes and seas

Lotus flowers and hydrangeas bloom to extravagance

Azure, making it hard to breathe!

Clattering, hooves never stop

Within the sound of hooves, she traverses layer after layer of colored realms—

Spring's tender yellow, summer's pink, autumn's clear gold...

Overflowing with colorful light, wandering through a myriad of colors

The backpack grows lighter, like

The fading lover and hometown, gradually distant and fading away—

Entering the scroll of black and white ink

Snowy mountains, arrived

Surrounded by mountains like memories

Thousand mountains covered in dusk snow, only two flickering black pupils

Silence. Echoes resonate: calling, so clear! ...

Awakening, the various colors of her, unified like a thousand-armed Avalokitesvara

A woman in a superposition state, reborn

Her body stands tall, fair skin with rosy cheeks, chest rising and falling gently

The sky is ablaze, the earth is blanketed in white—

Falling on her body and shoulders

III. Petrified

Roaring like a tiger or resonating like a dragon

The howling thunder arrives and the shooting stars depart

Whether in exuberant vitality or in heart-wrenching pain

All fall into stillness with the wilting of plants, transforming into wonders after decay

Finally, the secret technique to resist weathering and erosion emerges.

Possessing crystal clarity and hardness

Every inch of skin is gently kissed by time, comforting and preserving

With clear bones, dynamic interplay of light and shadow, absorbing the essence of sun and moon

The body is filled with radiant flowing light

Oh darling, do not be afraid

In this world, there are always unexpected wonders--

From organic to inorganic, to transcending the mundane, how beautiful it is:

Falling leaves in flowing water, moonlight and flying birds, brushing against the body like silk

An invisible pair of hands, renewing you completely,

Love or pain, forgetting or memory, all become raw materials--

Remember, you are destined as a precious gem

Felix Cheung

Cold Wind

What woke me up

Was indeed nothing,

But a gust of cold wind

Carrying the whir of a returning boomerang,

And the metallic whistle between the massive flagpole.

A carousel music box is spinning,

Projects a halo of Christmas

Through a bizarre and colourful waste land,

Towards the ceiling.

Wind chimes tinkle,

Piercing through the walls within walls,

Echoing like distant camel bells' jingle.

Frank Dong

What will we leave behind?

The waterfowl skims over the river,

Rippling the colorful surface of the water.

Tender Sprouts turn green and then yellow;

Departing in the sunset, leaves return to their roots below.

The evening flame dies away,

The moonlight gently starts to spray.

The woods sleep through the nights,

Birds are back to their nests and dreaming of their flights.

The stars are shining,

There's always a few shooting ones flying.

What leave behind will We?

A drop of water in the a long river,

A handful soil buried deep under,

A speck of dust in the star seas,

A song of life to sing for ever.

Enya

Life is a mysterious thing

Walking in the field

Evening sun shining on my back

casting the shadow of myself

Three times longer

feet kisses the vast grass covered paddocks

The Soil is fertile, they

Were covered once with ashes

from volcanic eruptions

1000 years ago in Taupo

While here is close to Auckland

the land under the feet

is miles away from Taupo

As for me I came from China , a country

thousands miles away from this land

I start to wonder

Where the grass came from

Some were from here

The others may have travelled far away

from across the continent

Life is such a mysterious thing

I am in awe with its wonders

Fang Langzhou

Avaricious Anglers

A hook will catch deep in the throat

Tears and blood will

flow down into the heart

Helen Jia (西贝的诗)

Diverging and Converging

The light is divergent

A lampshade converges the rays

From the edges of shadows

Light takes on shapes

This is how solitude

Turning sorrow

Into a song

The sun's scattered beams

Gathered by a focusing lens

Converging into a single point

Silently piercing through fallen leaves

Emitting a wisp of smoke

This is how despair

Burning dreams

Into a pile of ashes

Published in Kalliope X, Issue 2, Autumn 2022

发散与收敛

灯光是发散的

灯罩使光收敛

由阴影的边界

光成为一些形状

这就是孤独

把悲哀

唱成一支歌的方式

太阳发散的光

在聚焦镜下收敛

聚成一个光点

无声地穿透落叶

冒出一缕轻烟

这就是绝望

把梦想

烧成一堆灰烬的过程

Jin Jin

夏日玫瑰 Summer Pray

That day I passed by your window

your red shirt was visible through the green shadow

Though the sunlight flecked your face

I can't avoid your gaze

Although you have experienced the stormy life

you still hold affection

I picked up your moistened petals.

looking for those lingering details in the past

those lovely times that have been forgotten

My mind with thoughts of past days

Who knows, on a hot summer day

I used to pray for you

I can be your momentary lover

but I can't cross over to your world

I am unable to let go of this life

our connection was destined in our previous life

那天我经过你的窗前
你红衫绿影风中飘荡
阳光透过你的胸前
让我无法回避你的目光
虽然你已退去了红颜
却依然雍容情深

我拾起你褪色的花瓣
寻找那些缭绕的余音
那些被遗忘了的甜蜜

幻想着昨日你的风采
有谁知在灼热的夏日里
我曾经为你祈祷为你牵挂

今生我是你过路的知音

你是我擦肩而过红颜

在你我失之交臂的那一刻

注定了我俩前世的姻缘

Li Li

Sunset in London

A great shame，in the China Hall of British Museum

I am ashamed to face the dolls, graffiti, clay sculptures, stone carvings, handwritings and bones

Of ancestors

Walking into a modern prison, I am a visitor

An unfilially descendant

Here，It imprisons

My sick motherland and my shabby ancestors

My dignity, my glory, my pride and all my dreams

I am repeatedly warned to be in whisper when speak and walk on tiptoe.

Countless cameras stare at my every move

To these Chinese heritage treasures which were gotten by opium and artillery and

Stealing, robbing, abducting, cheating or sneaking

From the Forbidden City, Winter Palace, Dunhuang, temples, ancient tombs and the vicissitudes of the earth of China

And imprisoned in Explosion-proof Glass Cabinet

I'm speechless，even the right to take pictures with them has been taken publicly

Their reason is high-sounding

It's like the old days ，they were wearing gentle hats, having fine walking sticks in one hand and guns in the other

And broke into my home

Standing by the London River, the flowing golden river

Is like the fading time，going away slowly

The sunset of the kingdom called The Sun Never Sets is hanging at the end of the river, round

It seems to fall

Like a painful teardrop

Rolls down from my cheek

伦敦的落日

万分羞愧。在大英博物馆
中国厅，我耻于面对列祖列宗的
玩偶，涂鸦，泥塑，石雕，手迹和骨头

走进一个现代化的囚牢，我是一个
不孝的探监子孙，这里关押着
我生病的祖国，和我衣不蔽体的祖先
我的尊严，荣耀，自豪和所有的梦

我被反复警示，要轻言细语，蹑手蹑脚
无数的摄像头盯着我的一举一动
那些用鸦片和洋炮，还有施耍
偷盗，哄抢，拐买，欺骗和偷鸡摸狗伎俩得到
来自故宫，圆明园，敦煌，庙宇荒塚，沧桑大地
囚禁于防爆玻璃柜里的祖传之宝
我无言以对，我连与它们合影的权力，也被
公然剥夺，他们的理由堂而皇之
就象当年头戴礼帽，一手举着文明杖，一手揣着
火药枪，闯进我的家园

站在伦敦河边，那流金的河水
仿佛缓缓逝去的岁月，日不落帝国的
落日，悬挂在河的尽头，浑圆
欲滴，像是从我脸颊滚落的一滴
疼痛的眼泪

Li Zhongquan

My Poetry Blanket

I have a poetry blanket, just press the button of the soul to activate it

My poetry blanket can fly, traversing 125 billion planets in the Milky Way

One night, it took me to meet seven dwarfs and Snow White

In the gourd mountain, I also encountered the gourd little warriors and the gourd siblings

My poetry blanket can save lives, can heal the pain and loneliness of the soul

It can fulfil dreams, sowing a seed of longing that slowly climbs up to the moon

Sow a seed of sunflower able to chase the sun like Hou Yi

It tells me a secret, beneath the Potala Palace

There's a passage to the world at the center of the earth, where many beings of higher dimensions reside

Translated by Christine Peiying Chen

我的诗毯

我有一块诗毯，只要按下

心灵的按钮就会启动

我的诗毯能飞，可

穿行银河系1250亿颗行星

有一天夜里，它带我见到了

七个小矮人还有白雪公主

在葫芦山，还遇见了

葫芦小金刚还有葫芦兄妹

我的诗毯能救命，能治愈

心灵上的痛苦与孤独

我的诗毯能圆梦，撒下一粒

思念的种子，会慢慢的爬上月亮

撒下一粒葵花的种子

能像夸父那样逐日

我的诗毯告诉我一个

秘密，在布达拉宫的下面

可通往地心世界，那里

住着很多高维度的人

Breanna Lilly

The Reason Why I Left Your Lock of Grey

I saw out of the corner of my eye, that you walked past me so gracefully, yet the anger you felt as you passed by shook me cold. You were the pouring rain spewing through my brain, washing me clean yet filling me with damages too far done to be erased. Your memory faded in and out, like a bad night of drinking as you sober up to the rising daylight, a hint of sparkling light weaving through the gray, a ray glaring down at you, the sun shining through a small gap within the condensed clouds, it was you. Your brain was a horrendous mess, wired shut, and there was nothing that could open it. You were wicked and sickened by a disease that could never be cured; as you whisper sad thoughts of darkness, I see you with dismay, and I learn to outlive your ways.

Jie Ran Wang

Benoit Statue

Though half of you is hidden in this earthly sea and sky

Half appearing in the human’s vision

Still can’t hide your charisma and majestic aura

Still can’t stop your enduring marvellousness

Maybe you are an explorer of the world

Searching for the soul’s fantasies and life’s shortcomings

From your pensive gaze

From your broken body

From your light luggage

I’m guessing

Maybe, you were an early member of the First Fleet

Landing at Botany Bay

From your weary, travel-worn face

From the tips of your hair tousled by the sea breeze

From your clothes that have been faded by the years

I’m guessing

Maybe, you are a rare brave man in this troubled world

Your singular cry broke the bad legacies

From your dignified and strong demeanor

From your wavy hair blowing against the wind

From your burdened steps forward

I’m guessing

Maybe, there are endless maybes

But I believe wherever your footprints touch

The impact is instant

The imaginations are endless

Moreover, a brave man will from now on stand tall

No matter on this earth or in the heart

贝努瓦雕像

诗/ 洁然

纵使你

隐身一半于尘世海天

显现一半于人间视野

依然藏不住你倜傥轩昂的气宇

依然挡不住你遗世独立的不凡

也许，你是走世界的探索者

正寻找灵魂的远方和人生的遗失

从你思索的眼神

从你残断的身躯

从你轻捷的行囊

我猜想

也许，你是早期第一舰队一员

正登入博特尼海湾的陆地

从你风尘仆仆的倦容

从你被海风凌乱了的发梢

从你被年代褪色了的衣裳

我猜想

也许，你是乱世的孤勇者

你孤声的呐喊划破了逆袭的遗风

从你凝重坚强的神态

从你逆风拂过的波发

从你负重前行的步伐

我猜想

也许，也许是无尽的

但我相信你足迹的触及之处

震撼便顷刻袭来

想象便漫漫无际

更是，一个勇者从此屹立

无论在浊世，还是在心中

Lan Mu

If Solitude is Beautiful

– About Long Jetty Long Bridge Central Coast

In the twilight of early morning

You pose like an arrow in a fully stretched bow

Ready to fly

Right into the arms of your lover

In the sunset

You drift like a flat-bottomed sailing ship

In the heart of the sea

Waiting for your lover returning from a long journey

With the wind in your left hand

And the clouds in your right hand

The sunlight brightens up as your silk carpet

Ripples dance on your fingertips to an aria

Long Jetty Bridge, oh, Long Jetty Bridge

If solitude is beautiful

I would rather be that sea bird

Soaring in your heart

Meijia Lian

Stroll up the hill

Green banyan trees spread their wings on the roof tiles,

A small fish-like boat on the Mingjiang River,

It is slowly driving into the distance.

Maybe you are washing clothes at the river at this moment,

Do you know I miss you onboard the passing boat ?

But whether you are on that stone or not,

No matter if I have time or not, I can look here from afar,

Missing is such a river that flows away.

The setting sun surrounds you,

Because you are my golden and brilliant yearning.

思念

漫步上小山岗：

绿榕展翼在屋瓦上，

闽江上小鱼般的船，

正缓缓驶向远方。

此刻也许你正在江边洗衣裳，

知不知道我的思念，o

载在那路过的小船。

但不管你在不在那青石上，

不管我有空没空在这儿遥望，

思念就是这样一条流去的江。

夕阳包围在你的那一方，

因为你是我黄金般灿烂的神往。

Shijing Liao

Inquiry on Clouds of Wandering Winds

Waking up in the clouds, over the land down under,

Sydney should be blazing in summer with fervor.

Christmas is nearing, joy should be near,

Yet storms gather, clouds hang low in sheer.

Sydney Harbor, sea waves uproariously strive,

Raindrops like pearls, on my heart they arrive.

On the bridge, lights flicker and gleam,

But veiled by mist, Santa's star's dim beam.

Boats gently sail, seeking a distant shore,

Have the dreamt gifts dampened, forevermore?

Umbrellas in streets, like dancers in trance,

Fluttering down, like snowflakes, in a celestial dance.

Thoughts in my heart, like clouds on a spree,

May the wind tell the clouds, take warmth to the sea.

Let rain cleanse the dust, leaving ripples of hope,

Behind the clouds, find a sunbeam to cope.

Yes! Whatever is coming, let's welcome!

Step into the New Year! With unparalleled enthusiasm!

Dive into the thrill of festive Sydney. With a glass of cocktail!

And dance into 2024! With unmatched happy dreams.

Yuhang Liu

Silence, Ukraine

Morning like always

Roosters are ready to sing

Farmers get cows ready to plough

Birds wait one long night

Ready to hunt for their children

Antelopes waiting for the first sunshine

To expel the dark and vicious night

Lions prepare to sleep

As the long battle night left scars all over

Of course some preys, so pity for them

Mother just milked the baby

Both in the deep sleep

What a silent move

Changing is not chirps of the birds

It is the shelling of canons

The earth trembled by the troops

Baby crying and mother awakes, asking

Putin, why you wake me up

Lu Wentao

Don’t Say

I don't say, "I love rain,"

when I open the umbrella

in the drizzle

I like the smell of the rain.

I don't say, "I love sunset,"

when I watch the sun disappear

in my eyes, she is still

shining in my mind.

I don't say, "I love wind,"

I always stand on the deck

to embrace the sea breeze.

I don't say, "I love you,"

when I first saw you in the darkness,

you never leave my heart.

不语

不言慕雨，暗赏独香

不言喜曛，余辉自耀

不言追风，凭海扶摇

不言爱汝，吾心永驻

Raymond Ren

Beauty in the hanging mind

1. Spring Gala with you,

Times passing by.

Chasing stars joyfully,

Those years in sky.

Sharing together differences,

Colourful pheasants alike.

Capturing for delicate taste,

Being mixed senses ideals and appetite.

Entered the flaming curtain with you,

Astonished by the clouds and rain in fire.

Hard to tell it was beautiful or repellent,

Still being in the midst of them and smile.

An itchy heart seeks diversion,

Oh natural Life.

It is better to find extraordinary,

Being marvellous encountering my own fate in light.

2. The Soul hidden in Sorrow and Joy,

Oh often strike,

Who plucks my heartstrings,

Several times the sharp meaning with pride.

Permeating into the palace of my mind,

Aroma water dilutes sad and cries.

Overflowing three Lifes,

A burst of sense and gasping breath disguise.

Who says poetry is Majestic,

Who says the poetry kills and die.

Once life is over,

Any poetic charm fades with the wind passing by.

That bloodthirstiness, that splendour,

That tenderness are shy,

In the vast time torrents it is nothing,

The final rightful peace of my mind never feels contrite.

3. Begins after a stunning encounter,

Savouring trial.

Another stunning encounter, then getting used to it for a while.

The world is inevitable,

Clichés like.

Repeated repellent, Repeated beauty showing fight.

Novelty leads me into mist,

Extra dimples rosy cheeks sigh.

Better the slender bones,

Stirring the Soul letting it high.

Oh too many slender bones,

Better dewy skin slight.

Embracing grace in tipsy,

Conquering three Castles for a bride.

The grandeur the Castles rises and huge,

Hidden at a needle point aspire.

Inserted into a square inch,

Revealing Bodhisattvas and Vajras the benevolent and fierce the high-five.

Then keeping attention tiny and kind,

Truly shrive.

Beauty cannot be scrutinised harshly,

while repellent can be mysteriously alive.

Beauty cannot be fully revealed,

Repellent shall see a leopard in a hole side.

Like a lute covering the half face of a beauty,

Still alluring my heart betide.

The mature ends up as withered lotuses,

Falling into autumn water multi-ply.

With a sudden gust of puzzle wind,

All falling into frost burying by the pure and white.

文（澳大利亚）

（一）

与你春晚

经年

与你傻傻追星，也经年

正如彩羽山鸡

一窝炖上

摄为娇鲜味儿，口腹与理想

那年共入罗帷

惊于云雨

如今一笑还其中，难算美难算丑

心痒自然寻消遣

生命

最好从不平凡里，找出陌路，找出一番劫数

… …

（二）

那阕悲喜藏灵

每每

敲打心弦，几番傲切

渗透泥丸宫忧怜

芳水

盈盈淹三生，一怒绽就娇喘气短

谁说诗华好谁说

诗豪杀

生死一过，什么魂韵也随风渐渐

那道血性那道绚丽

那道姣柔

在天荒洪流中，不过还是最终的心安理得，与死不冥目

… …

（三）

一场惊艳后开始

回味

再一场惊艳，然后习惯

世界如此如是

陈词

重复的美，重复的丑

新奇使人犯迷

梨涡多了

不如瘦骨，引发魂销

只是瘦骨多了

不如凝脂

唯抱艳醉醉，醉下三座城池

城池宏大掀昂

不如针尖

插入方寸，扎出善菩萨恶金刚

然后再存小家碧玉

真切

所以美不可狠狠，丑可以迷迷

美不可全窥，而丑

只可管豹

犹如琵琶遮半脸，还算骚死人

最是老老终终成残荷

坠于秋水

一阵玄风骤起，全数跌入皑雪中，埋成皓洁

Sou Vai Keng

upside-down song

bird drawing song

in canvas on the wall
hanging upside down

in mirror of sea
throwing up

a frozen sunset

wind still

over waves
eye moves
footprints

you are
on your own

now spread

over sand

Adarshani R Sharma

Women

Such a pity to see that I live in this society,

where wearing a dress can be no less than a stress,

where the length of a skirt determines my worth,

where my passion is just another persons’ comparison,

where my body size will always be a thing to criticize.

A society where females are forced to live a lie,

a society which doesn't change no matter how hard you try!

Tang Ying Xia

Nostalgia of Honor and Decline

I've experienced countless sorrows

And countless moments of happiness.

Whenever the melancholy mist descends,

I open up to the natural, newborn light—

In the forest, there's a clear and melodious spring,

Birds rest by the water, wings poised for flight.

Perhaps it's still winter here,

But my shadow

No longer accepts the cold and lingering darkness of the night—

Oh, world,

It still smiles at me so indifferently,

Like the early blooming cherry blossoms in March.

The spring water should know—

Ultimately, where will I drift? My soul—

Is heading towards all the nostalgia of honor and decline.

Altynai Temirova

Dreams are like life

And life is like dreams

For someone who doesn't know who to trust,

suffering souls are filled with

happiness...

But like a cunning playful fox

attracting a hunter

A thousand of lies in life

keep you out of your way

persuading you

“It’s me, your happiness

Get from me whatever you like!”

Little by little

You keep threading your way,

Unable to give matters fresh thought.

Actually no one managed to do that...

Түштөр – өңдөй,

а, турмуш – түш сыяктуу...

Ишенээрин билбеген кай бирине,

азаптуу жандын бакты

укмуш албан...

бирок калтар түлкүдөй

кылтылдаган,

алдына мергенчинин түшүп алып:

“Мени!..” – дейт, жашоодогу миң-миң жалган

көрүнүш көз көрүнөө колдон алып...

“Бакытың болом сенин,

бардыгын алгын менден!..”

берип ченем,

узайсың узанбаган жолдор менен,

учугун убайымдуу ойдун чубап,

учуна жаралганы жан жетпеген...

Phu-Linh Tran

A Swan Feather a Thousand Li Away

There was only one time

when my po-po said

something nice to me

that didn’t sound like screaming

she said lo ho leng ma

meaning you are beautiful

I was hiding inside

my well-established shame.

Yet my po-po saw me,

because she knew what

hiding under shame meant

and what marrying a man

for every reason other than love felt like

and how hiding your true feelings

your whole life

so no one would look down on you

could damage your soul.

My popo still sees me,

but she now sees me from heaven

and every time I want to hide

from the world she sends me

a swan feather from a thousand li

away to remind me to see myself

and to hold onto hope,

hope for a life where others

would see me too.

Alan Wu

Blue Mountains

I spent half a day in the Blue Mountains,

The maple leaves began to change faces as they grieved for spring.

Why wait until late autumn to visit again?

Lingering in the sunset, I care not to return.

心形島

淺藍深綠洗塵緣，海闊天空雲紫煙。

水底珊瑚光彩透，一泓仙境展君前。

英譯：

Zi Fei Yu

Fishing Alone in autumn

When a leaf floats

Its temperature is the same as water

Closing my lips tightly, except for the color

I shouldn't be close to the same coldness

I'm not sure if the leaf will

Wake up from the water in a certain afternoon

When autumn clouds fly by

Sing affectionately the final song for the green

The reflection is

The last touch of ink left behind

When a lone goose flies by

Repeating the style of painting over the years

Drifting past the song of “Every sound is slow” from Yian

My fingertips seem to be warmer than my breath

It can move the red wine in the glass

As if a swimming fish

Over the mountains, rivers and the ocean

Please give me a petal of cold chrysanthemum

And let it be

Waiting for me to find the forgotten blue top from my previous life

I will dance with you my final dance

No longer to be afraid to go to the west tower to listen to the sunset song

Xiaochun Liang

Journey To The US

Everyone has a journey

No matter how hard or easy

The plane is taking off again

Arising into the sky bravely

Without image of the destination

My brain is empty

A different world ahead?

I’m wondering about it

From the map I can see

It’s only inches away

A whole day travelling is not far

Since the planet is tiny

Where can I go

With a heart which is

Eager for the quietness

In such a crowded world

That is so noisy

While I’m flying high

My brain is empty

Published in the Through the Realm of Impermanence - Poetry Sydney 2022 Selected Poems

译文：

飞往美利坚

每个人生都是一段旅程

无论它是多么的艰难还是惬意

飞机再次起飞

勇敢地升上高空

想象不出目的地的模样

我的大脑一片空白

会否是一个不同的世界

我期盼着对它的了解

从地图上可以看到

两地之间的距离只有几英寸

一整天的飞行不算远

因为地球是如此的渺小

还能去到哪里呢

伴着一颗渴望宁静的心

在这样一个拥挤喧嚣的世界

飞翔在高高的天空之上

我的大脑一片空白

Xing-Mai

Symphony of life - for Ryan Martin

The sea is roaring, people are crying，

for a young man, his name is Ryan,

Ryan Martin.

He was so young，he was so strong.

His girlfriend is so beautiful.

His life would have been very very long.

However, he is gone!

like a sea eagle,

withering away in the shining of the sun.

He threw himself from jagged rock,

into 2m high waves, not because he was sick of life,

but for the sake of life, a little Asian girl, her life.

This wasn't an exchange, this was a symphony of life.

His soul was on the strings of a harp, the harp performing the song of lives.

His soul was in the song, and he didn't allow any loss of any other soul in the song.

This symphony is performed for ever.

The harp is strung by his soul, a young and strong soul,

a soul never wither away, but just hidden in the shining of the sun.

Zhang Lizhong

Syntactic Childhood

The happy ones heal life with childhood,

The unhappy heal childhood with a lifetime.

If you consider yourself a happy person,

Happy childhood can be written as a poem:

Writing life in plain as not plain.

If you consider yourself unhappy,

Unhappy childhood can be written as a dream:

Writing about the extraordinary in the ordinary.

May writing save everyone,

The happy and the unhappy write together.

WenZheng Zhu

Tune Ripples Sifting Sand

A slender waist being tied by a silk ribbon, inclining

Even to fragility, bears the grief of departing spring ;

The freshly made-up soft figure appearing in sparse shadows,

How to in it describe her slight and graceful paces?

A wisp of light cloud floating by the evening plum flowers.

Rosebud mouth singing,

Words on lips tendering,

The shady path along the peach blossom to ferry-crossing.

Left to see the beamed jade terrace, where on the fairy sky,

And the homing moon sinking with her practised eye.

（宋）李清照·

浪淘沙

素约小腰身，不奈傷春。疏梅影下晚妆新。

袅袅婷婷何样似？一縷輕雲。

歌巧動朱唇，字字嬌嗔。桃花深徑一通津。

悵望瑶臺清夜月，還送歸輪

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Sudeep Sen

Disembodied

a triptych

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.

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.

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.

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
ഈ ഭൂമി പൂർണ്ണമായും
നിശ്ചലമാകുന്നൊരു ദിനത്തിലേക്ക്
പ്രപഞ്ചം, അപരിചിതമായൊരു
കാലത്തെ നിയോഗിക്കുന്നു

Published in Madras Courier

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.

AUSTRALIAN

POETRY COLLABORATION

#1

FEATURING

Heather Brigstocke, Alison Coshott, Jean Frances,

Eileen Jones, Paula McKay, Sheryl Persson

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

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.

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

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

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

NSW Ministry for the Arts

Broken Hill City Council

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AUSTRALIAN

POETRY COLLABORATION

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.

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

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.

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.

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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

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

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

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.

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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 17^TH 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 1^st 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,

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 ?

'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,

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

¯¯¯

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

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 4^th 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

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

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.

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).

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/

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).

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.

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.

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

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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.

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Hyam Yared

Lebanon

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.

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.

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.

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

BREAD UPON THE WATERS, LAKE JUALBUP

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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.

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

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.

¯¯¯

AUSTRALIAN POETRY

COLLABORATION

#14

SYDNEY

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

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.

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 21^st 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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

¯¯¯

AUSTRALIAN POETRY

COLLABORATION

#16

ORANGE, COBAR, BROKEN HILL

& MELBOURNE

NEED TO KNOW…

¯

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.’

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.

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)

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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).

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

MEUSE PRESS publishes this collection.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

from physical laws, inscrutable yet as the surf

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

go home to bed

I added hopefully

but you changed up

from second

to third

grimly

and my hand

slid off your thigh

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

H. I. Cosar

The Demoiselle Crane

know

the

journey

south

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 Sth 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

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.