March 2023
Selectors: Peter Jeffery OAM, Mike Greenacre
Contributors
Fringe Festival
Attenborough
Licenced to Drive
A Tropical Entanglement
Night Terrors
Crossing Over
Night Caller
Interlude
Lake Monger snaps
Returned to port
Night
Winter Sanctuary
The Weight of My Name
Ticket to Leave
Oh, Hypocrite!
In Memoriam
Endling
Hawk
In the maze
Drowning Rats
In The Puntjak Near Bandung
Swan River Suite
stellar
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Fringe Festival
Plaza Arcade, Tuesday afternoon.
Shoppers hurry past,
Averting eyes from
An Aboriginal woman,
Face down on the pavement,
Hands cuffed behind her back,
Policeman like a big game hunter.
I ask a Noongar shopkeeper,
What happened?
The young woman is homeless
And was allegedly shoplifting.
The cops have been told
To go hard on street people.
I wonder if it is a coincidence
That the Fringe Festival is in town?
Has word gone out
To clean up the streets?
Making sure that
The warm glow generated by
Acknowledgements of country
Won’t be spoiled by
Actual, homeless, Indigenous people?
I hadn’t planned to go to any
Fringe events,
But maybe I saw one anyway?
Boorloo / Perth 4th February 2023
Ananda Barton
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Attenborough
You have searched, shifting into landscape
since I can remember. Delved under scrubby plants
turned scabby rocks on a world crawling
shifting in intricate paths. Folded out terrains
with the care of a surgeon and clasped oval eggs
with maternal intrigue. Swam, tasted, climbed
and smelled all the creatures between dawn and dusk.
Fell into the rhythm of life and death, birth and growth
to finger skeletons, raise tadpoles to frogs.
This was our normal, the free walk across paddocks
the breath robbing climb up tree trunks
to sit on branches close to heaven.
We learnt direct form the oldest teacher
skinned our knees, bruised young flesh
to patterns matching the land, the black to blue
to green and in all this, found smiles
and laughter. Embraced new friends
on explorer paths. Became Attenborough
before the name was known.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
David Attenborough is an English broadcaster, writer, and naturalist who is noted for his innovative educational television programs, especially the nine-part Life series.
Licenced to Drive
We played in the car
beneath the pine tree, twisted
the steering—willing faster and faster
—as blurred visions played our eyes. Rounded
mountain roads, ran unswerving on highways to the horizon
to the sea. I remember lips vibrating deep engine sounds that rose
and fell to gear changes. Found a high pitch for the straights.
My mind lost in scenes that shunted each other onwards
somewhere exotic, always leader of the pack—racing.
The hours fantasying, grasping, willing more/faster
grew in each finger, each hand on the wheel until
taking the driving test was easy. Nowadays
rules hem the fantasy, cool the blood
on roads too short, too slow
creeping in the morning
peak hour crush.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
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A Tropical Entanglement*
On alighting the train at Kuranda
I could be at an African station.
On the move, a feeling of elation,
beer on my Bulawayo veranda.
Or, better still, in a train’s dining car
mesmerised by memories and plans
impis of impala on passing pans
with Matabeleland seeming so far
as now it seems even further away
when I ‘d greet station masters my dad knew
or drinking Castle with the chief steward-
no better way for me to spend the day.
How quickly a half century just flew
and these Aussie accents became fluid.
*When two particles such as a pair of photons or electrons become entangled they remain connected even when separated by vast distances.
Derek Fenton
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Night terrors
It flaps like a bat in the night,
wings unrestrained,
rabid teeth ripping the dawn,
spilling bile under the curtains.
Shadows flinch and crawl
and in the dimness,
the morning opens like a wound,
gashed, bloodied, raw.
The closet hangs itself from a rail,
crumpled, colourless.
Crammed like a mass grave,
no longer able to be contained.
Ann Gilchrist
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Crossing Over
I crossed
many borders,
trod on foreign soil,
entered unknown territories
in the name of freedom.
I marched boldly,
convinced
by my leader,
that this course
was righteous and just.
Yet as I marched,
laying waste to all before me,
my body,
heart and soul
faltered.
At a sombre home-coming
words and weaponry hidden away,
I wondered at my silent tears
and the borders
I had crossed.
Candy Gordon
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Night Caller
He was a shadow in receding light
a turn off from Canning Highway,
Jane Road, and appeared
to push himself forward as a
one-liner as I approached
‘Have you got a smoke?’
he called from nowhere.
‘Oh no’ I said, ‘sorry mate’ but my
quickened steps were not enough
to lose him or stop his word play
‘Would you like to come up for a drink?
he threw in his line as a lasso
around my steps ‘No thanks,
I have to get home’ …
as I turned my head to see him
standing dark and nightmare-like, to end
my young teenage adventures,
less than two blocks from home.
Years later, memory’s pages
opened again and I realised
this was not far from where Eric Edgar
Cooke –the Night Caller – led his
‘reign of terror’ with random killings
as in a Side Show Alley game and
bashing others as corporal punishment
for waking up in their beds
as did one girl around the corner in
Macrae Road, where the doctor
referred his patient to a specialist,
finding she had a Y shaped
fracture of her left temple,
more than just falling out of bed.
Estelle Blackburn called it ‘Broken
Lives’ in her book and cites
the incident with other actions
that helped tie the knot, lead
Cook’s footsteps to his last call.
Mike Greenacre
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Interlude
Dark hair, solitary, quiet smile,
an exchange of desultory conversation.
Is it, after all, so simple to meet someone?
An evening, a meal, nothing special;
nothing, other than that quiet smile,
the dark eyes
and sharing the table for the meal.
Odd bits of dinner chatter,
alternated with wine and pieces of salad.
Are these the ingredients of relationship?
Talking to her other neighbour;
others at the table also requiring attention,
smiling, as she talked
and occasionally turning my way.
Straining to hear above the babble,
the silly din of wine and laughter and song.
Does connection lie in these fragments?
Striving to catch a phrase in the jumble;
seeking a moment for interjection,
sudden inkling of words in the dark eyes
and that the talk meant very little.
Ruari Jack Hughes
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Lake Monger snaps
corellas hang
in Spring’s blue sheds of peace
moorhens tap on/tap off reeds
skateboards, trikes and jogging trios
just part of the family traffic
ignoring the offer
of The Jehovah’s Witness
magazines
one of those grim cyclists on yet another
way round the unconcerned lake
pursues a hobbling man
facial expression
suggesting he’s just as stressed
as the line of pines
trapped in car park cement
on Lake Monger Drive
swans still doing circuits for bread
old solos drowse, heads nodding
like those of dairy herds
from long ago
serious hunters once camped here
that’s an even older story
one running the circuits now
Ross Jackson
Returned to port
Fremantle
mandatory subject for Perth poets
convict cut limestone bones
a blunt arrowhead of one-way streets
points to the harbour
where steel cuboids clutched
from oceangoing boats
no streamlined silhouettes
against sea horizons anymore
only boxed incomers, charmless
floating multi storey storage units
which swallow hundreds of cars
and in an act of profitable defecation
discharge them from their rears
on to a concrete apron
gone are smoke stacked freighters
there’s nothing to flag thoughts
of exotic ports like Aden
or Colombo
no jute sacks or tea chests
swung in slings, no bunches
of bananas manhandled
by swarthy lascars
the only romance may remain
in a vessel’s name
take that ship unloading at E berth
Morning Wisteria
a flowery name for a ship
weighted with doomed sheep
soon to be dashed out to sea
dark shadows coming and going
in the swell of Gage Roads
unforgettable
that smell
gifted by the breeze
Ross Jackson
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Night
In the still midnight hour
a full moon hoists its sails
and glides on toward tomorrow
with me its only passenger
until we reach a land where
my dreams grow in fertile ground
On the sandy beach of my night’s vision
my feet twitch in a private dance
Pat Johnson
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Winter Sanctuary
Snug in here;
fire crackling,
flickering fine light
into the kitchen.
Cold outside;
wind howling,
hail clattering down
battering the tin roof.
The Gods are at play;
thunder growling,
lightning shattering
a leaden sky.
We sit cosy;
rugged up warm,
house trembling
buffeted by onslaught.
Hissing rain;
heralds change,
wind subsiding,
storm is ended.
Veronica Lake
The Weight of My Name
a flower blooming
spiked purple with multiple florets
a flick of fabric
rippling bright colour over a bull’s head
a saint stooping
wiping sweat from the brow of Christ
a screen goddess
golden hair sliding over one eye
such expectations
a heavy burden weighing me down
what were you thinking Dad?
Veronica Lake
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Ticket to Leave
Our mother is curled foetal in a
hospital bed, her oxygen mask
lies hissing on the pillow. She calls,
I need some help! We know we
cannot give the help she needs.
Today, the patients are restless,
pulling out tubes, tapping walls.
In the centre of it all, Mum pleads
for help and will not be consoled.
A nurse doses her with morphine
and we sit watching the shallow
flutter of her breath. Counting.
By the window, a woman in a
white gown threatens to jump.
A nurse says she will call her son.
Good! She is momentarily calm.
I’d like to be there when I speak to him.
Mum is afloat in her morphine sleep
and we kiss her goodbye once more.
Wait! The window jumper calls to us.
I’ve got no shoes. Where are my shoes?
We walk slow stepping towards the door.
I’ve got a gold card, her desperate shout,
and you can go anywhere on that!
Mardi May
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Oh, Hypocrite!
Oh, hypocrite, seducer of mankind!
Innocent blue, asleep and calm –
idyllic in dreams of peacefulness,
edged in crystal, stark-white, sand –
embellished with boulders of granite stone
and hillocks brushed with bushy green.
And there beneath soft season’s cover,
unseen by carefree epicure
great white creatures of the deep
prowl in endless mastication –
unsuspecting romping victim
devoured – oblivion…
And so, when cantankerous moods awake
can rant and rave and crash with thunder!
Destructive might, undisciplined
leave wreckage deep and on the beaches –
consuming all with vengeful wroth.
Betrayer of those drawn with faith!
Children play upon the sand,
sweet innocence and unaware,
They’re yet to learn, your pleasures wait
Until they play upon your waves
and snorkelers dip and dive down deep,
lured to your treacherous bosom.
And on the rocks sit fishermen,
invited by your spoils,
without advice cruel arms reach up
unwilling guests dragged down –
their bones to float and move about
along your reedy strand.
But I must love you as you ask –
never to be free.
With passion do I ride your tide
the risks I will not see.
Addicted to your beauty,
your churlish cut denied,
your rhythm beats within me
with unrequited drive.
Glad McGough
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In Memoriam
from the platform
I used to admire it– standing tallest
in the middle of a fine family of nine– robust trunk
creamy grey – how its tracery of branches over-arched
smaller trees– delight of sunlight tinselling wind-spun leaves
decades of reaching skywards were soon to be undone
this eucalypt stand condemned for slaughter
severed roots now buried
beneath
train
lines
unacknowledged
Diana Messervy
Back to Top
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Endling
When he first saw me my father cried
pink and white like a new piglet, and she
not expecting it, just burst out laughing.
My babyskin was purply red, rolls of creases
around the neck, knees and fat little ankles
because the Lord knows you have to grow into it.
A child forever pitching from my bike, the bay
pony, tumbling from the back yard apple tree,
scraping palms and shins, I grew bruises till Dad
asked if they’d sell better than cabbages.
I became seal girl or silkie in my teens.
With my wild kelp hair and strange pale pelt, folk said
I reminded them of the lady in that old fable.
At twenty, my body scooped and curved as kitchen
spoons, a loiter of tabasco boys outside the café
whistling, winking, offering lifts.
Winter is my season now and my love long fallen,
heart leafless as branches of aspen and ash.
Your green jumper is soft against a cheek drifted
with ghost nets no salve can untangle. Endling,
I hobble cold sands, the water calling,
calling.
Jan Napier
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Hawk
There is a hawk
on the poet’s shoulder
eager for morsels
of life
bursting
into the air to capture
a fleeting notion
and pin it down
to open and pull
it apart for the poet
to read the entrails.
Julian O’Dea
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In the maze
What shall I remove from our hearth-room?
The incomplete set of blue onion pots
found years ago in the Red Cross shop,
rarely used, which urge me back to our first home?
How about the delicate paintings of birds
each gifted from family or friends acting in sync,
without a clue about the other,
from market artists in exotic lands?
Perhaps I need to clear cookbooks by women
from off shelves ranged around the kitchen
whose wisdom seeped into my baking,
we all rejoice at a feather sponge.
Maybe it’s the blinds, bamboo flickered
in morning light that falls upon the red bench,
the cluttered table, pens in pots and paper notes,
or bowls of fruit and tomatoes ripening on that
red bench?
You must make the leap, homogenise the chaos,
clear a path through a feast of memories
in order that a brain, now slipping gears,
can find the muesli in the cupboard.
Virginia O’Keeffe
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Drowning Rats
Some things I think of when a rat appears,
or when checking how yesterday’s growth
spurt in kale and coriander have gone, and
all that is visible is the lower stem of memory:
hatred, anger, plotting, scheming, drowning.
In short – revenge. A daughter tries her best
to divert my seething mind to care, but today,
any hope of that finer emotion is lost in shreds
of former. I go online, let my inner details free
on those scary digital plains where carnivores
roam, awaiting information to share and devour.
In trepidation, a finger clicks to buy. Weeks and
weeks pass by as further vegetal destruction goes
on, and on – and bloody on. They arrive, ah ha,
this looks easy, thread some meat on a hook,
sleep easy – in the early dawning, entrapment.
A monster rat is in there raging, biting down on
ratcage bars, furious, teeth flashing bright with
saliva, revenge, and frantic intention. Fill a bucket,
take a deep breath, lower the cage. It thrashes hard
and fast, succumbs. Revenge is the game, rat death
the aim. I peer into its lifeless eyes, recoil in shock
and horror, think of my daughter’s words: family,
nurturing, evolution. My inner mammal rears its
ugly head as grief and regret smack my hairy ears,
scratch my pointy nose, scalp my inner fears. I turn
to face the evidence of our common paths, reject
the relationship, lean into a lesser form of self.
Allan Padgett
Back to Top
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In The Puntjak Near Bandung
rice paddies climb mountainsides like
staircases and buffalo wallow in the shallows
of ancient riverbeds. We breathe the moment.
A narrow entrance draws us through the
gated enclosure, Peter Canisius Orphanage.
In a sweet chorus of broken English, the
orphans welcome us with song
Oh my darling
Oh my darling
Oh my darling Clementine
the long winding drive, edged on both sides by
a straggle of small children, smiling, jiggling,
giggling, clapping and singing all at once.
You are lost and gone forever
O my darling Clementine
Humbled, we smile, wave through open
windows. Our small cavalcade, laden with
Christmas, drives slowly to the main building.
Soft drink, ice cream, popcorn, candy, cookies,
home-baked brownies, trinkets, streamers,
balloons and gifts quickly unpacked. Inside
the hall children form a ragged line.
In the excitement Father Christmas arrives,
ho-ho-ho’s his way to a waiting chair. Children
uncontainable, as he pulls wrapped and
tinselled gifts from his sack.
A gift for every child. Boys a new shirt, girls
a new dress. Sound of ripping paper
scattering of ribbon, squeals of delight.
New clothing a rare and precious gift.
The Head Brother allows them full rein.
Hearts filled with joy we share the moment
invite them to our table of treats.
Christmas morning all wear new clothes to
mass, wide smiles, shining eyes, boys fiddle
buttons on shirts, girls stroke the fabric of
dresses. Reverence escapes them.
Norma Schwind
Back to Top
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Swan River Suite
Rolling
Gutters of the old wharf sheds leak
out last night’s rain
while the first Rottnest ferry pulls
gently on its moors in the pre-dawn.
The ticket booth and coffee counter
up their shutters as gulls float in the rolling
river mouth, languid and milky
in the static cranes’ soft light,
waiting for the waste.
Stagnant
Still water laps
against Matagarup’s terraced end
as the city wakes
to sun itself along
with the shags—lined
beside the bridge spreading
their leathery wings. They tut
at me when I stoop
to inspect the last river prawn
lolling in a grimy bait packet.
Brackish
Swollen with Makuru’s deluge
the valley bleeds
into the upper Swan. Varicosed rivulets slide
under the gnarled paddock fence
and clot around charred, wet
grasstrees—their honeycombed trunks
chunking away scab by scab—before joining
the brackish foam pushing
over railway sleepers and cottonbush
that raises its defiant head
in the eddies.
A freight train lifts a flock of twenty-eights
by their greasy yellow collars
like the steam rising off the muddied boards
of Bells Rapids bridge.
Thomas Simpson
Back to Top
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stellar
‘for my part, i know nothing with any certainty .. ..
but the sight of the stars makes me dream’
— Vincent
there are four chambers to my heart
each with its own door
behind them a quiet purpose
the stories of silence
the silence of a falling star
doors that open to idea
doors to deflect not
close out the pain
many are their excited moments
from the rush of ardour’s calling
then gentle reflection’s pulse
are we moments from
extinction when we ask the
piercing night sky .. .. why
why does the long
darkness choose to call
to interrupt the
moth attracted to the
flight
of night
some say exquisite is the
pain of threatened time
pulsing to the rhythm
of the distant
brightness which
ceased beyond
comprehension’s place
anger does not choose
to accompany
it flares full frontal in the
heat of haste
redemption and
scar tissue co-exist
each memory
does not
fade
does not
wish to
Geoff Spencer
Back to Top
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