Selectors: Peter Jeffery OAM and Jan Napier
Submissions Manager: Telisha Reid
Contributors
Just Looking for Home
Fallen Mandarin
Threads, Loosening
While Feeding Magpies
Mine
Unscheduled Flood
Building a Road in Burma
Quandongs
My Corona
Daylight
Old Gold
All the Thoughts
Out Here
Once Upon a Time
Car Key Performance
Take-Aways
Last Resort
Once in
Fading to White
Scenting
Observed Constraints
Shrunken and Small
Forty-six
Circular
Trust Me
Brunetti’s Café – Melbourne
Earth Adam
Trick of the Ear
Carry the Truth
Gasp
Answering Neruda
Bucephalas
Daybreaks
Limbo
The Returned
The Country of the Shout
Death by Dying with Animals
Just Another Day in Post-Industrial Suburbia
Air Minus Time
On Boredom as Placebo
Choreography in the Shadows
Something Happened Here
The Bird
Windows into Dreams
A Testament to Age
Two Rivers
The Copycat Girls
Muezzin Calls
An Anthology of Poets
Breakfast for Dinner
Full-Time Poet
Chronology
Rhinorrhea
Renewal
Purple
Tapestry
Turtle Dreaming
_______________________________
Just a Looking for a Home
I, Lonely Pal PLOVER
do seek to uncover
a place I can hover
and welcome a lover
to cuddle and smother.
Or maybe a brother,
or even a mother.
One or the other!
Anil
_______________________________
Fallen Mandarin
Last night
a whirling dervish
of a wind
whipped the mandarin tree,
stripped and spun
its last fruit
to the brick path
splitting its skin.
In a moment we
too, are
ripped from innocence,
flung to a hard place
and broken open.
Helen Budge
_______________________________
Threads, Loosening
All across this country he has come to,
where, were he a Bodhi, he’d be rooted,
providing useful shade and shelter:
networks of tracks threading rice paddies
to hills and dunes; to forests; to horizons
smeared by humidity and lantana.
Leaving Bangkok – a seam of shifting sands
in a steaming mandala – he loosens;
becomes a single strand among the tapestried
dapplings sunlight and wind thread through
strange trees; all the time hearing dtukaes
barking like dogs, far off. Touches down
here and there on paddy fields and lives.
Hamlets that offer gifts of water and an over-
arching sky; that extol the lives of ghosts
but bury their secrets along with paper cars
and houses, enough money to ensure eternity
is furnished with familiar comforts.
Or, lying on jungle’s rough shed, he observes
day’s recession. Feels it – crisp-cooling or
searingly hot – crinkling hairs in nostrils,
burning tips of ears until, rising again,
he climbs through bracken, follows over-
leaved paths into evening; into exhilaration
and exhaustion’s disassociation in which
colours live wild lives of their own, though
the high call of blue still comforts with its
up and up countering of land-weight’s massive
drawing, always down, then down again
until suddenly he’s in familiar country
watching’roos propping, cautious at the edges
of mallee. Yet, it is these – exhaustion,
disassociation, borderlessness – once
drew him ever inward until he discovered
the outward pull rendering him both
restless escapee and recidivist. Still,
the part of him that remains captive
to hollowing – by trees, by vastness –
continues to sit upon granite outcrops
overlooking that space carved out against
madness, ever cycloning. A madness
in which too many creatures are crying
and dying. Yet, dawns still gild lotuses;
monks out on pindebaat; children dressed
in blue and white going to school along
paddy dykes. But he? He is gone. Back
to that monstrous conurbation where streets
are wrapped in smog, and he is still a thread.
A loosening vacuity. Still hearing dtukaes
barking reminders of whatever it is he’s forgotten.
Peter Burges
Note: dtukae ( dtukair) = large gecko
While Feeding Magpies
on my balcony,
a huddle of elderly women on the corner
opposite catches my attention. All grey
and white – like gulls red-green-yellow
jacketed, scarved and hatted; all paused,
one pointing this way, another that. Unsure
of where they are?
Of traffic?
I think COVID, and the instant becomes
dark, uncertain, filled with ghostly others
spiralling around, or hanging, transfixed,
as if waiting upon the women’s decision.
The magpies bite fingers, drawing my
attention back.
In one eye’s
fisheye lens, the women continue to mill
until one says something, occasioning
laughter. Overhead, a gull hovers –
inspecting the women? a stain on the road? –
then stoops, lands, pecks and rejects.
It’s not food then.
La Vespa
is closed. Is it this has thrown the women?
A group breaks off, drifts across the road –
toward greater certainty on the other side? –
pauses along the half-way island for pointers
scuttle after. Closer, wrinkles come clear,
stains on jackets, rips,
bleaching
from countless washings. Some have tags
showing, inner seams. There’s no home
for the aged nearby, but perhaps they are
escapees, if not from COVID and isolation,
then the rough care that fills the news lately.
The magpies,
impatient,
prop, breasts thrust out, beaks wide, necks
stretched into Ss pulsing loud choruses.
The women look up, all pointing now,
smiling. They wave, so I wave back,
aware I’m flushing, like a Peeping Tom
caught out.
They’re gone
next I look. But connections linger,
become fingers, sharp-nailed, incisive,
scratching at then peeling off layers
to get at memories, also grey-haired, but
buried deep, sleeping and snoring softly,
reluctant to be woken, to be reminded
again of themselves.
Peter Burges
_______________________________
Mine
Gold trinkets split
lobes. I am disfigured
by the purity of gold.
A scar trucks
on an open pit
across my pubis.
They extract a girl,
a gift of gold,
supposed to be mine.
We bury her blue
− cover in sand,
grain-sized pieces.
I want to drown,
a cyanide mouthwash
around gold crowns
but I wear black.
Treasure buried.
Lisa Collyer
_______________________________
Unscheduled Flood
sounds like bricks being cracked
as houses are swept aside in the rush
of bobbing trees and cars caught
in the dirty swirl. The mad course
of streets turned brown where
a dog straddles a log under the grey
weight of a sky pressing clouds close,
like dirty wadding, and wind spurts
bitter sounds that find echo in crannies
and windows. The chaos of a chorus
rising and falling.
There is symmetry
in the vision of drowned rivers
that collect what they grasp
bundled and turned, alive.
The insatiable erosion eating
foundations as if devouring
the notion of permanence.
Washed out faces in relief centres
the evening news alive in their eyes.
A favourite doll the only possession.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
_______________________________
Building a Road in Burma
mosquitos droned
around the single light bulb
of a road side shop.
She, squatted in the yard,
back bent over the bamboo sieve,
sifted, patted, yellow rocks,
small to large, ready to lay the road.
coal burner sizzled on the street,
he, sweat and soot smeared,
poured seething black tar
through the plastic funnel,
that oozed over loose limestone.
Helen Doran-Wu
Quandongs
drought withered sheep
stuck to barbed fences
drip blood and bone
salt displaces sand,
sticks to farm boots,
wheat seeds are dead.
sun drenched emus
gulp, scatter our seeds
by desert roads,
fences, granite
rocks, claypans, cars,
carrion prey
we grow scraggy,
pesticide and
herbicide free
our only use now
jam for tourists,
wild Christmas tree
once we fed
everyone
Helen Doran-Wu
_______________________________
My Corona
It used to have pleasant connotations
especially with a lemon on the top
mostly at all kinds of celebrations
having only pleasant connotations,
but now it just means commiserations
as all festivities come to a stop.
It used to have pleasant connotations:
now it just causes our faces to drop!
Derek Fenton
_______________________________
Daylight
‘On the nature of daylight’
Max Richter, Composer
out of the darkness
daylight comes
a pale wash of grey emerging
ma non troppo
later a streaking of gold
like a message:
hope trust
yesterday’s future is with us
a new day beckons
sun’s rays break through –
moving palette of colour
signalling clear sky
out of the darkness daylight
spreads as morning’s gift
stalks the trees
wakes us from sleep
promises another beginning
colours our day our mood
until the diminuendo of twilight
Margaret Ferrell
_______________________________
Old Gold
Old gold is yellow turning umber,
Not pliable like filigree
So delicate, or leaf,
Old gold is tough,
weighs up, balances, is careful.
Round throated first gold trumpets,
clamours for Change,
Upheaval, Revolution.
New gold looks forward to birth,
old gold re – birth,
New gold bursts with Spring ;
surge of melting snow
in pebble clear streams,
old gold moves slowly,
deliberately,
relishes each moment, the sights,
the sounds, the tastes, the feel;
Old gold is high in the wattle tree,
nectar to the bees,
sweet scent of honey.
New gold glitters, crackles, cracks –
Old gold extenuates, thins, flattens out,
imposes order,
loves.
Sally Gaunt
_______________________________
All the Thoughts
concerned for smallers –
all the drowning bees
late afternoon blood,
sun on the eyelids
where sits the god of
mauve and in-betweens?
but smudge and swarm and
smear sound like they feel
if all the thoughts were
to flock and seek North
while the diamet-
er of solitude?
and if was as full
a sentence as why?
Kevin Gillam
Out Here
out here, a different
quality of silence, as if
sifted, as if wrung of
possibility, as
if notes, the missing fourth and sev-
enth from a pentaton-
ic scale. out here no dis-
sonance, out here where the fur of
thought won’t crackle static,
out here just a petha-
dined blue. here you let, here you pause
and permit then pour, here
you lick behind shadows, find flight,
propose theories for déjà-vu
Kevin Gillam
_______________________________
Once upon a Time
your version of our history
shredded beyond repair
fragile reminders that
once
we
were
close
once
we shared space and time
no gaps, no pauses
once
was
enough
Candy Gordon
_______________________________
Car Key Performance
You’ll often hear the shout: “Does
anyone know where I left my bloody
keys?!”and see savage thrusts of hands
and arms as last-minute detectors
under books and clothes
with the smell of panic rushing through
seconds, as if time was the only
missing opponent, hidden in a language
of heartbeats pounding out all else around
as temper inflames the cerebral coil
that’s twisting your equilibrium,
until you feel the shape of familiar curves
tingle excitement like taste-buds
of love as you swivel the key ring
around your finger, absorbing
the applause, still ringing
in that metallic jingling sound.
Mike Greenacre
Take-Aways
As a married man a
father, there was no desk
or study to write from
seemed it was always
just a make-shift place,
a gathering of thoughts
in amongst the now
of children’s activities
and demands finding me
at the kitchen table –
a dinner in a way divided
into parts, or courses
without a menu or
dishes to select from just
a broken steam of ideas,
servings from which
came a tasting,
a certain mind-frame
laid-out on file paper,
not confined by the hard
borders of exercise books
more like a take-away
style of thinking –
to drop in, then leave.
Mike Greenacre
_______________________________
Last Resort
She said
on this holiday – mention money once – and that’s it
they travelled
palm fronds
azure skies
turquoise sea
they sat on the balcony
sipping their daiquiris
watched as fishermen hauled in the catch
He said
how on earth do they make a crust?
She drained her glass
packed her bag.
Jenifer Hetherington
Once in
Once in
what we used to call
spring
it was time to sort
out
to make way for something
to walk barefoot
on the litter of the littoral
white shell, gold shell, pink shell
(grit for caged birds)
didn’t hurt your feet
a man intent on herring noticed
turned, called out,
tough soles, hard to find in a woman,
you crunched on.
Waxed and polished your legs
as if they were fine furniture,
stroked the finishing touch
across your toenails,
lacquer dipped from
bright coloured pots,
ruby port, plum wine, cognac
and off you went
tipsy toed through the night.
Jenifer Hetherington
_______________________________
Fading to White
Seniors’ days become blended like
cheap black teas, daily news only
muddles their hours
interstate trips misremembered
when Sydney in summer
becomes Melbourne at Cup time
which turns into a Darwin dry
closer to the finish, it only gets worse
a palm tree’s outline
confused
with a spouting fountain
or a larger woman’s silhouette
then one day in old age
you too, are throwing lucky coins
at a palm tree
seeking shade under a sprinkler
tripping over cloud shadows
fading to white
Ross Jackson
Scenting
after this year’s first rains
strolling under what’s left
of Perth sun sprinkled
through branches
a steward is still needed
for the banksia woodland
it’s full of sick
looking sticks
knock kneed saplings
in grey canvas vests
full of holes
Bonnie’s muzzling amongst
thigh high oat grass
I’m pulling her away
from what may
be decomposing
in the soil below
bent to untangle the lead
parting wet brush
humus of colder
climate smells
released into my nose
my childhood dashed under cold swoops of rain
Bonnie remains
happily scenting amongst
dryland Perth’s
sick looking sticks
Ross Jackson
_______________________________
Observed Constraints
This house I am temporarily inhabiting has so many walls.
We fought for our freedom to build.
Difference between a wall and a fence: you can see through a fence.
Which is crueler?
This is nonsense; this is a lie; this is a paradox; this is a theorem.
Once I got free I wanted back inside.
In the prison things were calmer after the razor wire was installed.
You have to know the gate and how to get a key.
I will not call them laws; I will call them observed constraints.
I could climb it without much difficulty.
Freedom is the fluid swirl of a complex system obeying its mathematical laws.
Dignified persons do not climb it.
In my old country some people are remembering how to build the old walls.
Everything we build is subject to entropy.
Jackson
Shrunken and Small
for Coral
I dreamed my friend was suicidal
So useless she said so useless
that I may as well just die
Shrunken and small she was
A little old nothing
When I told her the dream she said
yes shrunken and small that’s how I feel
I hope she soon feels better
Expands back into her everyday
tremendousness
Jackson
_______________________________
Forty-Six
I never thought I would get so far –
I never planned for this either.
Just kept my head down, the poetry flowing
The writing coming,
just kept going.
Call me foolish –
I didn’t write for an editor
and I cared little for the reader.
Just wrote,
that’s all.
Now I am forty-six, old-age beckons
and I must compromise, perhaps, I suppose.
Did I think my audience out there?
Did I presume editors would fall at my knees?
No. I wrote for myself and hoped others would enjoy –
perhaps not even that.
But when I get up on stage
and people laugh, try not to cry,
I know that I have hit a note.
So now? A trashy novel, a Mills and Boon?
A pointless violent movie about cars with pretty women
caterwauling over the set?
I doubt it.
Fame interests me very little, money only slightly more so.
Poetry in the beautiful morning with the Magpies corralling?
I have a friend – a well-known poet in his old-age.
Academics pursue him, for titbits.
I don’t want to get old like that.
In fact, I feel I should start life again –but you can’t at forty-six.
I have the craft for an audience, an editor?
I could start all over, but I doubt I would change.
Chris Kennedy
_______________________________
Circular
electrons flung about a nucleus,
planets slung around a star,
their orbits describe a universe
but do not tell us who we are.
there’s something about a circle,
that it has no beginning or end,
and something about our circuitry
that brings us around again, again.
how far, then near, each bend ahead,
with each slight incremental change
our straight-line intent is fractionally bent,
with each short shift of moment
we bend and bend again.
no matter where, however we run,
which-ever course, whatever done,
however which way we’re spun,
i’m taken aback, (even when in front),
upon reaching the same point
i passed before (and may again.)
whatever has been,
whatever is done,
whatever evolved,
whatever we are become,
we track the same groove,
describe the same curve,
held in the circumference
of our inescapable star.
And at each ending,
our journey is begun.
Peter Knight
‘Trust me’
high wall image
of native dog,
alert, erect, stood up on paws,
sprayed on the curve
of a flour mill tower,
in supersized dimensions,
a dingo, painted in red,
ears pricked, (teeth not bared,)
an image that silently proclaims:
“trust me”.
dingo you:
that imprint inadequately articulates
my predatory inclinations, presently withheld,
my wily canine instincts, now restrained.
dingo me:
my pointed muzzle
is set at monumental height
to ground-swellers below,
their upward gaze unguarded,
not appreciating what I intend.
dingo you:
my bold appearance may garner admiration.
I thrive on my red-dog reputation,
invisibly endorsed with my deception:
“trust me”.
dingo me:
upon padded paws
I softly stealth my way,
my threat not revealed to prey.
dingo you:
by my teeth bared,
you may identify me, but you will be too late,
too late as to any timely inkling of my deceit
as I, marauder, descend upon you.
drongo you:
you now stand before me
unwittingly as prey,
and I know that
I am in for of a kill.
‘trust me’
True, but never to be admitted,
I am a predator,
a glowering, feral dog,
a shifty grifter,
a provender of deception.
You can trust me as to that.
– Adam Blond
Peter Knight
_______________________________
Brunetti’s Café – Melbourne
Lygon Street is damp with rain.
Tucked away in an arcade;
an Aladdin’s cave
filled with gleaming jewelled tarts,
chocolate towers, almond biscotti
and toffee in fantastic amber swirls,
is waiting to warm our hearts.
There is coffee sublime
straight from the barista’s hands
to ease our craving.
Conversation pauses,
Our eyes glaze with childish greed.
My choice alights on
the modest lobster tail
sitting demure amidst this riotous pageant .
A layered encasement of
thin, thin pastry
cooked to crisp perfection,
shattering in the mouth
as the first bite explodes
liqueur custard and dark cherry.
Bellissimo…
Veronica Lake
Earth Adam
“this quintessence of dust?” Hamlet
Fashioned from clay
from dust particles,
fine motes floating,
light streaming through.
Life breathed into soil
set first limbs twitching;
a Gollum shambling,
simple, of the earth.
A creature content to be.
Then came knowledge,
changing everything.
Sucked it up
this creature of earth.
Learned about power,
about greed and domination.
Became a fearful thing,
composed of dust and shadows,
blotting the land’s surface.
Changed the earth itself.
Mined it deep, drained it dry
Crumbled it to powder
to wastelands barren,
to sands sifting sterile.
Earth turns, drifting slow
shifting under our feet
piling into empty spaces,
blowing in the wind.
Veronica Lake
_______________________________
Trick of the Ear
Snatch of a song
an easy beat
heavy metal crash
of almost music
takes you back
lands you in the moment
under a boardwalk
sand in my hair
Marley through smoke haze
drifting on reggae
Hah! Takes you back to
the Hammersmith Odeon
blasted with sound
hearing dimmed for life;
but one Beach Boys note and
I’m under that boardwalk again.
Mardi May
_______________________________
Carry the Truth
Inspired by Archie Roach speaking in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens, Adelaide
Shy sorrow lifts on the air
This quiet Indigenous man
bowed, not yet cracked,
sweetly speaks the healing power
of music and songs
Sings to take the pain away
Sorrow and stories carry the truth
his humility the lightest of touch
words lyrical gently amuse
a bloom of white faces
Stories of booze and abuse
euphoria of drink
love and redemption, dispossession
‘Is this enough to bear?’
My European shoes
smudge this dirt, the land
of the Kaurna
Truth-telling his gift
and words
to spear the hearts
of little brothers
feigning not to hear
‘Be proud, be deadly
be excellent, and strive’
Winds pick up the whispers
of stolen children
from stolen lands
we dedicate to our women
Helen McDonald
Gasp
Let me dust off
desert burnt red
dirt blown in from the dry
A faint rotting scent still
sticks to tiny grains
groaning, whispering
of falling down on
knobbled knees, a whiff
of hot breath from blackened
tongues protruding
a speck of salted moisture
leaking from bulging eyes
The dying of the north
clouding to the city
Death, drought, dryness
beyond recovery
Dusty seas rising to drown us all
choking on smoke from
fireblasts gobbling everything
in their searing paths.
Helen McDonald
_______________________________
Answering Neruda
Why do leaves die when they feel yellow? Neruda.
They die because yellow is only a borrowed hue.
Old Sol may be arrayed in it and saffron flowers,
bananas are thick with it. Palomino stallions
and the brass fittings of galleons glow with that
radiance called by the French, jaune.
It is too much for something so humble as a leaf
to shrug its shy and lifelong greenity and flush
pale veins with that tint reserved solely for Chinese
emperors, pineapples and of course the jaundiced.
Jan Napier
Bucephalus *
Paah! Thirteen silver talents for a Thessalian
that sidles, high steps, strikes so no man may mount?
Phillip refuses the price. Alexander asks to try.
Atremble, bloody, you stand; the boy’s hand reaching,
strokes sweat from hide black as the shadow you shy from,
circles you sunward, fears falling behind.
The pause before battle, and a muzzle nuzzles in
for an apple carried. Ears flick back to catch commands,
you snatch at the bit, paw, impatient as rider.
Warhorse you watch Persopolis burn, rear white-eyed,
yet quieten at a word, follow at his shoulder
through streets looted by troops redwild with victory.
At Siwah, your master knee deep in water, grins,
lips splitting as his favourite drinks away desert
parch, needs consult no oracle to name you hero.
Issa, and Darius, chariot bolting,
flees the field, the Persian too craven to face
this boy king on his storming stallion.
Ears flattened, you snort, refuse to falter,
charge Rajah’s elephant lines at Hydaspes
through raining spears, flanks streaming crimson.
And when in far off India time conquers that
great heart, Alexander weeps for this first loss,
raises a city where you fall, names you a god.
Jan Napier
* Bucephalus was Alexander The Great’s favourite horse.
_______________________________
Daybreaks
Tree line is a darker mass, a barely shaped ridge of charcoal.
Dawn is coming.
Somewhere a bird calls, sip sip char sip sip char
and cockatoos scream.
The sky is lighter.
Now I can see a cloud, a hint of blue beyond the gum tops.
Birds fall silent, the world stills.
What was it like for you on the Front?
Did you watch daylight steal across the earth?
Was nightfall a blessing?
I can only wonder, remembering your
old spotted hands flicking the bamboo rod
on a cold beach, waiting for the sunrise
that flared on the waves.
Virginia O’Keeffe
Limbo
Cold out they all exclaim and huddle inside their jackets
rub skinny hands and stare at the footpath
lost in thought. Too cold to dream,
reality is wet jeans and a badly knitted beenie
someone stitched near a comfortable hearth.
Grimy wind rips round the corner, the world is grey
ciggie butts wash down gutters and a pigeon
feathers tattered in cream and black
[attuned to fellow street dwellers] pecks at nothing
in a doorway where someone dossed last night.
Whose hand stretches out to you, palm upturned?
Whose child is this man, enamel cup and cardboard sign
squatting in the wind tunnel beside the library steps?
A middle aged male berates me in his vowely voice
hisses at me in the carpark: If you feed them they’ll only ask for more.
How Dare They?
Ask?
For More?
Virginia O’Keeffe
the returned
a tiny bird on the drive with a broken wing
you wouldn’t want to see its suffering
he lifted his boot and the deed was done
poor thing he said poor thing
the small child with an addled brain
struggled in his pram boarding the train
while his mother stared away well beyond weary
poor thing he thinks poor thing
an ex digger thumbing with a khaki swag
stumbles with a bottle outside the pub
and he holds out an arm to steady him
poor thing he murmurs poor thing
but in his bed they crowd around at night
soundlessly screaming, eyes without sight
I didn’t want to kill at all he cries
poor thing, she croons, poor thing.
Virginia O’Keeffe
_______________________________
The Country of the Shout
The Creator shouted Australia into
being
Bellowing loud way down South
And now the men and women shout
across paddocks and backyards
Cries like a whipcrack or splitting
timber
Over the sound of cicadas or
grumbling surf
or ravens barracking dissent
For everything is within cooee
and it’s your shout
Julian O’Dea
_______________________________
Death by Dying with Animals
sharks kill about 15 people a year
but only the nice ones
crocodiles 1,000
they’ll take anyone
dogs 25,000
snakes 50,000
other humans about 475,000…
mosquitoes about a million
if I had to choose
i’d take the snake
a short sharp bite
a dripping fang
a hit of shit & fear
a moment’s wondering
then a longtime gone
if the money we spend on sharks
was spent on mosquitoes
there may well be an
efficiency dividend!
and if not, then at the least
there would be more people
not being eaten alive by mosquitoes
even if the cost was more swimmers
& surfers being torn to pieces by sharks –
worldwide, this might even rise to 23
i must ring the wa tourism bureau
& see what they reckon
Allan Padgett
Just Another Day in Post-industrial Suburbia
when i try to place the oblong plastic cap of the yoghurt jar
onto the small white china breakfast bowl’s smooth round rim
and it doesn’t fit, a small majority decides:
it’s just a tiny asymptomatic common garden variety mistake
when i spoon the tea leaves into the sugar bowl
with the open steel teapot sitting benchside, right there
and then, waiting for the pour:
it seems clear that some deeper thinking may be overdue
when i add the half teaspoon of sugar to the teapot
rather than into my wife’s desperately waiting ceramic mug
and then stare and wonder if this is right or wrong:
my hands start shaking as my mind spins and early tears fall
when someone i know very very well
is yakking hard and deep with her best mate in Melbourne
and asks me have you seen my phone, i can’t find it, i quietly say:
you are speaking into it
when the moon rises sharp in the north and birds stop tweeting (no
news today!) and a sullen sun rises in the south and late
and shops are closed before they open and nothing’s happening:
it is time to ponder what the hell is going on in this world of ours
Allan Padgett
_______________________________
Air Minus Time
The fans seem oblivious of seconds –
they whirr as if a second is a second,
each oscillation consigns another one
to the past. But really, time is as sluggish
as my head on a damp pillow, infuriating
as a droplet of sweat running into
my underwear elastic. These things
are the true measurements of what the day
flows in; heat bands that wend through
all spaces, rubbing my skin and reddening
my eyes, separate time from air,
render all digits and units irrelevant
and leave me engulfed in a static unframed
here-now visualising my body
as a combusting test dummy. So fans,
continue spinning in that dimension
of rationed segments; I’ll find you
translated from the meter to our next bill;
but while I can see you turn
you have no impact on any other sense.
Chris Palazzolo
On Boredom as Placebo
Memory tends to sift all the unpleasant bits
of where we were. Projections inflate and multiply
all our possible and not-possible beings.
But where we are; that’s where infinite multiples become limits.
Hold both those contradictory concepts as equally valid
and co-dependent, and maybe we can begin to grasp
how this singular now from which all possibles arise
can be so boring.
It’s the key the universe hides
to stop us waking to the fact that we are being dreamed,
momentarily, idly; a little half-conscious care
for our sensitivities, to distract in the cage of the present.
Chris Palazzolo
_______________________________
Choreography in the shadows
light glinted through its velvet wings, beating
against cracked windowpanes
her mind stretched there with images of life
of life deconstructing, of inchoate fractals of a life
flowing onto soft moth wings
wisps of hessian hang in despondent folds
torn and shredded by relentless grips
of time and damp and mould, framing
cracked and yellowed windowpanes
filaments of shattered silken dress frame
a canvass of translucent skin, carved
with blackened crevasses
a Goth mosaic engraved with inks of pain
erasing, redrawing her terrain
mute shadows watched her journey into silence
her voice excised by ice-glazed eyes
dust devils danced upon her canvass, supped
with dessicated tongues and yet
buoyed upon those soft moth wings she flew
through cracks in yellowed windowpanes
Yvonne G Patterson
Something happened here
that bridge, last autumn, I’d walked just where
now, digital choreographies resurrect —
an old man leaning into his walking stick, watching
river traffic flow, a tartan beret signaling his clan
two boys taking selfies, tank-tops ripped, newly painted
body-art, self conscious peacocks strutting into teenage years
a Scottish terrier inhales his daily mail
leaves comments peed along the Tower Bridge
a toddler, stroller-bound, throws a toy car overboard, cry’s
surprised by sudden disappearance
giggles when her toy returns in daddy’s magic game
river gulls feast along the bridge’s daily smorgasbord
cinnamon honeyed cashews, sandwich bits, dried figs
before —
a pandemonium of ashen gulls
flee directionless
a scotty pup convulses
beneath a fractured guard-rail
a red toy car implodes
wound inside a tartan shroud
a phantom limb of memory
a child
who will never know
what disappearance really means
Yvonne G Patterson
_______________________________
the bird’s song
daughter! how gallant love lustres!
the colour of a country fair;
its carousel the rainbow in my purpose
and i life’s happiest slave.
daughter! laughter, soft as warm cygnets,
hypnotises and floats from your mouth agape.
its vowels, feathered with little tiny hooks
snagging inside the balloon of my dreams.
daughter! you are a mountain as large as idols!
breathing through the ventricles of my fate
as it farms endlessly upon your landscapes;
safe passages.
daughter! i am a universe!
my moon glows eternity on continents.
full of freedoms!
you govern.
daughter! on the odd season, ‘sometimes a storm!’.
the earthquake in my soul swallows itself up like an eclipse.
‘thoughts of losing you’ – a hurricane of doubt,
until images of you evaporate it into shadow.
daughter! from the dawn of your first whisper until the sunset
of your very last, listen!
the forest in my heart’s breath – twigs with armies of endless birds singing!
inside their incessant orchestral dew-soft lullabies;
you!
Mike Pedrana
_______________________________
Windows into Dreams
Thin walls glued to hold together are hollow.
The frames around the window are black.
The fragile glass, smooth like moonlight.
With a stillness to the picture, suggesting peace.
More to it, more than a motionless dream.
Something underneath, pushing through a whisper.
The quietness of the night, voices pulled down to a whisper,
with no breeze, the air feels empty and hollow.
It’s the time of a captured dream
underneath this colossal blanket of black.
Eyelashes fluttering against the cheek, breathing a deep peace,
guided by the shimmering, silver moonlight.
An ethereal beauty to the moonlight.
Angels singing, voices a calming whisper.
They sing of nothing else but peace,
but the words feel hollow,
edges crippled with black.
It shifts, moves, changes the dream.
Can you hear the children dream?
Faces washed pale by the moonlight,
when outside the window, everything is black.
In the dark, do they scream, or do they whisper?
When their voices turn, gasps that are hollow,
everything is shattered, falling into peace.
An urgency, a need, a desire for peace,
something to keep us quiet, something to make us dream.
When the rest of the world turns hollow,
as they roam in the moonlight.
The air turns cold with a chilling whisper.
Can you see through the black?
In darkness, in shadow, in black,
there is no more peace,
only a haunted whisper.
Frozen in an unspoken, thoughtful dream,
felt under the gaze of moonlight,
stuck in a shell that is hollow.
There is nothing but a whisper, lost in the black.
In the night, the walls are hollow, hidden behind false peace.
Do you still dream, when they catch you, moonlight your only witness?
Telisha Reid.
_______________________________
A Testament to Age
How long have you been here, old friend
your dominating limbs
some long gone
leaving gaping holes
where bird’s nest
and spiders reign
each hollow a testament of age,
your mottled bark
dark near your roots
cracked,
like desiccated soil
a contrast
to your creamy green tinged trunk
bent in the direction of the wind
and the torrents
that pour through here
each big wet,
while your gnarled neighbour
smaller, less significant
tries to emulate your majesty
but stunted and deformed
fails,
becomes a backdrop to beauty
competing through the ages
with bright yellow flowers.
Barry Sanbrook
Two Rivers
The Oakover and the Nullagine
parallel rivers
fed by cyclone’s fury
surging to the De Grey
but now drying
leaving algae boundaries
around shrinking waterholes
guarded by soaring kites
Cadjebuts and river gum
that allow sunlight
to dapple their banks.
A silver slash at night
as the filling moon
spreads its glow
marking surface ripples
each a wave of sparkling light
to be reawakened by the birds
their chorus greeting the new day.
He hooted-a plaintiff call
tinged with desperation.
She answered from a distance
the same call-a higher pitch
more optimistic.
I wonder if they ever met.
With the sun a heron resumes her duties,
a sentry-static-patient.
then a snap of the neck
the fish taken,
so quick
pushing past her beak,
hardly gluttony.
Like the silver thread of the water
trees are linked by glistening strands
sunlight highlighting their erratic movements
as the breeze plays over them,
nature’s violin strings that play no tune,
their owner enthralled
by the trap.
Barry Sanbrook
_______________________________
The Copycat Girls
I saw them again
this morning
on the train
the copycat girls
all eyebrows
and long hair
full moon breasts on show
catching eyes
catching cold
in the mall and in the shops
a swagger of linked arms
a whispering of secrets
wide-mouthed and happy
orthodontic smiles
besties forever
I button my coat
clutch at my purse
and remember
Norma Schwind
_______________________________
Muezzin Calls …
Stars retreat, fade away.
Green light inflates sky splashing
shadows, eating dawn.
Faithful souls washed and chastened
retrieve shoes from jumbled piles.
Green-tiled Cupola
girdled with calligraphy.
Sun’s crisp dust-filled shafts
invade shaded colonnades.
Late devotee sidles to mosque.
Atop this altar
a stork nestles on her sticks,
staring at snowmelt
cascading down treeless screes
tumbling to a verdant quilt.
Dun coloured houses.
Their gardens guarded by mute birds.
Such eerie quietude
makes silence itself audible
above time’s tinkling water.
Laurie Smith
_______________________________
An Anthology of Poets
I listen to the soft chime of red-capped parrots,
musical notes punctuated by the splitting of seeds
I sip a glass of red and the infrared heater melts the morning
Have you noticed that rain is a natural exfoliant?
it brightens the colours of feathers
and polishes the leaves of the silver ragwort
I am sitting in the old asbestos garage,
the tilt-a-door is secretly adding rust to its hinges,
after years of being stubbornly closed, it is free
and there’s no going back to those shut in days now
I am reading poetry with a judgemental tongue
I read with cloudy day clarity and the rain applauds,
grooving on the roof between mossy ridges
heckling base notes drop un-guttered into a discarded flower pot
Two hundred and fifty nine poems,
an anthology of poets, hungry for a mention,
they stand like parents on the sidelines and I am the ref,
half time and there are not enough oranges to go around
“Get some glasses ref!”
“Who bribed ya ref?”
It’s never “just a game,” when a virus doesn’t stop it
It could have been worse, there could have been more poems
Thursday, the sixteenth and they might have filled Optus Stadium to capacity
The red caps have gone and the crows are cawing,
but bounce down isn’t until later
I’ve read the poems three times now
a fourth quarter should take them through to the finals
but not everyone wins in the rain
Soulo
Breakfast for dinner
my mother waves a spring-roll at me
it looks like a metaphor for a rude finger
her upper denture drifts from her gums
factory teeth protruding along her lower lip
and she sulks like a petulant dormouse
“You can eat it, or feed it to the dog!” she lisps
the greyhound wags his tail and licks his nose
“I think I’ll have breakfast for dinner”, says my mother
I queued for thirty minutes on this side of Thailand
“Get it yourself” my tongue sizzles like a wok
some days she likes eggs
then she complains she’ll turn into one
or into a vine ripened tomato
the food colouring in peas makes her skin itch
she doesn’t like the texture of porridge
sausage and mincemeat are too meaty
soup and baked beans are dirty words
I hoped the spring roll would excite her palate
like the San Choy Bow from the local Chinese
she had eaten every sprout and piglet particle
I remind her children are starving in Africa
she replies, “feed it to them then,” and calls me impatient
she would like breakfast for dinner
I feed the dog
he vacuums the same food everyday and still loves me
my mother follows her walker into the kitchen,
breathes like a marathon runner at the finish line
asks for water as I pop Webster’s paper bubbles
and four and a half tablets spill from the pack
I tell her I’ll see her tomorrow for breakfast
I turn down her bed, neaten her pyjamas,
check the charge on the battery of her mobile
count out the nebules for her nebuliser
kiss her on the forehead and mutter ‘goodnight’
I go home and it is not a good night
I left a hungry dormouse sitting in her kitchen
and my conscience is on the sofa poking me
my cheer squad says it’s about time I ‘told her’
like I have kicked a goal in the aged care premiership
next morning my mother smiles at me
I pick up chocolate wrappers and give her breakfast for breakfast
I add cheerfulness with extra honey and raspberries
the warmth of the flat white coffee in her mug hugs her
she eats a tomato and philly sandwich for lunch
and I pepper her any-which-way eggs at dinner time
Soulo
_______________________________
Full-time Poet
there, by his lonely corner
he sits
notebook in hand
the neighbourhood bard
and his lengthy beard.
stuttering,
stumbling words
fall off his lips
on deaf
ears, he knows
no one is listening.
he isn’t really speaking,
only whispering.
only easing words
as they come and go
through the soft folds of his mind,
uninterrupted
and onto paper
like smears of watercolour.
he halts
reflects, conjures
deflects
and then continues on.
and as hours grow quiet, lonesome
he straightens his
makeshift bed and lies
beneath unfiltered streetlight
never once closing
his eyes to thoughts.
every day
in his tired little corner.
every day in the tidy little corner
the stack of
notebooks grows steep
and his bones grow brittle,
his body bent over.
until one day
years later
as I walk these streets again
I find
the ghost
of the old bard
still tirelessly
at work and his words
hanging in the air. still.
SoulReserve
_______________________________
Chronology
A drenalin soars
N ew horizons beckon
T he assembled cast
A dventure calls
R aging ocean
C ross latitude 60
T ime displaced
I ce . . . . violent crystal walls
C hallenging us
A t the end of the world
Geoff Spencer
Rhinorrhea
I love it
when a cow
licks its nose
as it chews its cud
Like a fissure
in an eye-ball
lanced by a razor blade
more than a dull thud
this constant stream
not of consciousness
but rhinorrhea
for without it
there would be no
milk
no clotted cream
with fig and ginger jam
on Grandma’s
steaming fresh-made scones
no
salted buttered croissant
or baguette
with coffee
on the patio
of Vincent’s
Café de nuit
no
simple pleasures
of life
so get over it
you,
yes,
you
the one whose voice
seems to rise and fall
as a staccato
of broken chips of ice
flecked with
terminal moraine
cold and furtive
discouraging
exclude this word
which rhymes
with a transformative
event that exudes from
one’s opposing orifice
and what remains?
an abyss
devoid
of imagination
of creativity
get over it!
I love it
when a cow
licks its nose
as it chews its cud
Geoff Spencer
_______________________________
Renewal
torn open on the bench
the rates for harsh land
compressed soils
tractors going nowhere.
I look outside: a harvest
of weeds grow through
decayed leather seats
notes of rust with red flowers
like a flamenco dancer
vines flirt with old steel
twirl through spokes of a
twisted steering wheel.
But in the gold of dawn
tractors shine
flowers beckon and entwine
in this new woven light
tractors dance again
Amanda Spooner
_______________________________
Purple
Purple once was the colour of imperium,
of robes for emperors majestic and manic,
for clerics obese and sybaritic
who ruled a-while all Christendom.
But since Betty, Germaine, Gloria and Kate,
they have been in disarray, in total panic
at expression of ideas, well – heretic,
by purple-clad amazons at their gates.
Rita Tognini
_______________________________
Tapestry
across the warp and weft of her loom
Earth weaves her robe
ants mountains snow cold curve of a sea wave
stars the precise geometry of salt wings marked in space
a whip of water the drum of rain
She weaves
transfixed under the aspect of eternity
our past moves from left to right yours between tracks
I should have known you would look behind you disappear
slip away into the weave of Earths tapestry
She’s weaving
innumerable colours of summers harvest
grass blows language once learned
kelp brown fingers the rhythm of wind
dissolves words pins shoulders
weaving
If I was hard rain I would beat skin into submission
scalp hair drown your levis drag hips against mine
anchor you to the season of us
Gail Willems
Turtle Dreaming
summer moon leapt whole from the sea
into a stillness of indigo blue
threw its light across the sand
ruffled leaves on mangled trees
never thought of leaving you
to a simple bed upon the land
night shivered, found us spread
among dunes not so few
as to hide us from a broken band
of tideline where we fled
old moon man
Gail Willems
_______________________________