June 2021
Selectors: Peter Jeffery OAM and Chris Arnold
Contributors
Pushy Banks Branch Out
A Man Walks
bridge nine
learning to read
Autumn Dawn, Sikkim
Banjo Does it Tough
Down to One
Serrations
Stepping Stones
Book Barn
Annus Horribilis
A slight disagreement
A good friend
drinking why
kaat badarbiny
Arachnophobia
New Year’s Day
Childhood Vision
One Spin of a Coin
Can you stop that noise
Much more better
Late February at Jackadder Lake
The Muezzin
as I lie dying
Gary Cooper says
niggling little things
Flower Petal Cat
Downsizing
Intrinsic Quality
Bloodied Fruit
Seafarer
Another Poem About Sky To Fly In
hear this stone
Cats and Boxes
Playground
I’m Going To See a Man About a Dog
secrets shared without prejudice in a juicy tales coffee shop
Demons
On Seeing Beagle Gulf
metastasis
The Dove Cote and Shiraz
Hiatus
Childhood Treasures
brièveté
3 strands
In my old home
In the Terminal
Liberta
Cross cultural Diagnosis
Woonjoo – wet season in Kalumburu
New foundations
The missing cat
After 47 Years My Kids Teach Me How to Swim Freestyle
Cervantes
Into the Dome
RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti
________________________________________
Pushy Banks Branch Out
Nell Nudibranch
first drew a blank
when asked which bank
she’d like to thank
by Nit, rep for a US bank.
She said ‘I thank
The Nudi Bank
as I’m myself a -Branch of rank.
Its honest plank
has lots of swank.’
Nit got quite rank
and rude and frank
he said point blank
her Nude Bank stank,
and they’d outflank it so it sank.
Nell said ‘Go wank,
you fucking Yank!’
Anil
________________________________________
A man walks
A man walks in a line.
Around him is silence.
He walks for many hours
and then stops to listen
with an ear to the ground.
He hears a human voice:
“When you walk, walk with cause.
Do not walk for nothing.
If you lack direction,
then locate the lodestar.
If you cannot find it,
turn around and walk back”
The man hears this and smiles.
He looks to the dawn sky;
it is red and empty.
Around him is music;
The sound of morning birds.
He turns the other way.
A man walks in a line.
Around him is silence.
He walks for many hours
and then stops to listen
with an ear to the ground.
He hears a human voice:
“When you act, act with will.
Do not act mindlessly.
Do you lack direction?
Did you find the lodestar?
If you cannot find it,
turn around and walk back.”
The man hears this and cries.
He looks to the night sky;
it is black and empty.
Around him is white noise;
the sound of hissing snakes.
He turns the other way.
Liam Blackford
________________________________________
bridge nine
running on parapets
trying to fall off
a boat full of sandcastles
floats in the black water
all the way to the harbour
where our mad love will drown
you made me a portrait
white paper, white chalk
it feels like swimming
in a bed made of air
till we drift in to land
on a narrower parapet
of a narrower bridge
Mar Bucknell
learning to read
absence is not erasure
erasure is not absence
the signs are all around
but you must look carefully
and remember
what you see is brand new history
made by squinting
hold your nose and listen
the song changes
shout into the breeze
you will see the wrong trees
a hill that has moved
a river led astray
and the sun has lost its voice
each standing tree
is an absent breath
a stolen breath
a voice away
if you cannot see the songs
you have forgotten how to read the river
the water will not speak to you
it cannot hear your handfuls of sand
but it has also lost its way
the wind would tell it how far to walk
is this the best we can do?
lie among the leaves
eat the air
forget your feet
and listen
listen.
sing me.
shush me.
i will not be here.
where i am is secret
find my bones in trees
but only the ones we cannot see.
which are the flowers you will not see?
they are in the songs
you refuse to sing
the ones that taste like blood
blood lost
to sand
where flowers flow
Mar Bucknell
________________________________________
Autumn Dawn, Sikkim
Mandala in a snow globe:
stars instead of snowflakes drifting
westwards; Pre-dawn wrapping
purple feather boas around ridges’
thin- and bony-shouldered;
fitfuls of frost; leaves furled
crisp about summered silences.
Then a gold-robed, fat-bellied
Boddhisatva enthroned upon
Khangchendzonga, and Mara—
black-faced and already
plotting return usurpation—
retreating with Chief Minister Moon
and starry retinue through West Gate.
No snow yet; just rill rickle and sibilant
grassdrift, log hive bees filling ears
with buzzsmog, dogbarks become
shadowshapes rollicking along pathways
and falling over cliffs to where, far
far below, Gantok’s a strew of wind–
burnt peonies.
Then comes mopswish and potclash
and children brown as chestnuts running
through dapple and puddlesplash, pausing
to prod at weedsog and woodbits dark as
as nightdrift, to gaze deep-eyed upon
nearfaraways’ phantasms found drying
upon sandbright
or fossilised in rocksplits rolled down
gorges by rivermoans into waterfalls’
metronomic whumpings. And all the while:
Death-with-Secateurs slowtime tiptoeing
throughout garden and scrubland
down gorge and along mountain ridge
snipping Summer deadends to make way
for renewal of leafnubs, of butterfly
colour-shows before windowsill cats;
for peal of solstice and heart chime;
for perihelion dreaming to the rhythms
of the poetry of wide-awoke Spring.
Peter Burges
________________________________________
Banjo Does It Tough
Old Banjo lies in a hospital bed wheezing and drawing air in, falling short of breath, then a deep rattle.
84 is not that old for trees but it Is catching up with Banjo.
After two days of struggling for breath he took himself to Corowa hospital – but not before he’d fed the dog next door. He’d promised the owner. Now this happens. He waited a couple of hours until 5 o’clock, then fed the dog. Hospital can wait. He wasn’t that keen.
Banjo drove his old Jumbuk ute to the emergency department’s door. He didn’t like parking smack-dab in the way, but he couldn’t walk far and this was closest.
Now they had him trussed up on a bed made for a smaller man with leads and monitors and drips. When a young pretty nurse had trouble inserting a jack above his bed head, he suggested she ask the young male nurse. Back in Banjo’s day such suggestions were welcome. Today, she tried again with extra vigour.
The word had got around as it does in small towns. Visitors came. A young couple from over the road. He straightened his workman’s singlet to cover his sun-aged trunk, slicked back his hair with spit. An old world rough elegance surfaced and Banjo apologised for any trouble.
To these two Banjo gave instructions on how and when to feed the dog. At home, Banjo left the house open, so there was no trouble there.
No trouble here either. Banjo was on his best behaviour and full of gratitude.
Last year, Banjo’s house won the Tidiest House in Corowa Award. Not a blade of grass out of place. Roses trimmed and cared for. He was always out the front watering the lawn and the garden. As families were going past in a hurry to get home.
And now Banjo is parked, out of breath, his old ticker running.
Andrew Burke
Down to One
i.m. Hal Colebatch
What to say about your death?
We were going to change the World
But now you are gone and only
A small percentage of people
Remember you. Sad. I only heard
From a friend of a friend who
Read it in the local paper. So
Now I am nostalgic for
The ‘good old days’ when
We were young poets
Publishing ourselves if no one else would.
Huh. You ended up a candidate
For the Liberal Party – and Viv,
Our third member, went to
The far Left in Sydney. I stayed,
Making a buck in advertising.
Our poems appeared in the same edition
At rare times and we laughed about it.
Change the World? No, the nearest I got
Was changing the typeface!
You’re both gone now. Nature
Nibbled you away and you left
Wives and children who remember
Your quirky ways.
Andrew Burke
________________________________________
Serrations
Drowned in the creep of sand
the mutter of air blown hot
as clouds slug darkness
into the frames of trees.
A jagged jive of birds
echo the contour of hills
bend the cries of ancient
voices coated in dust.
A compromise between water
and fire with life on the edge
cast into the remnants
of stone and wood.
Hard and ungiving
trained on the gibber of lives
that have been and will be cloaked in isolation.
It is difference that unite
the many feet of men/women
point them to the horizon
form trails for others.
It is the harshness of things
that bends comfort into familiar
turns shadows into friends
as the sun shades the land.
It is finding the space
between cracks and serrations
to grow roots, step out each day.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Stepping Stones
Smiles and laughs caught in the bowl
of a mountain, strained by the wind
faced to the sun.
The clink of bells as cows wander
green sloped ruins and monkeys
shriek confidential rackets.
Trees crowd close to hear and rain
holds its secret. Sweating, scouring
the rough hillside.
Birds with feathers flashed sunshine
call to bamboo and teak, echo
the slatted lives of local people.
Held to centuries of doing
the ordained sequence of life
fitted to place, custom, existence.
How it all folds into one day
one night and falls into repeat.
The over and over of footsteps
sunshine, rain and the call
of the jungle. How it all comes
and goes and your name
is what holds it together.
Cements your breath to a segment
of passing before it becomes dust.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
________________________________________
Book Barn
‘between herself and the sun’ taken from ‘October’ by Louise Gluck part 6
between herself and the sun
the customer’s shadow looms
on the edge of the circle of light
where she sits with her husband
ashen from the heat, as if waiting
for someone to press the button
of a long gone black and white TV
where once the books were
fresh, not heavy with fly corpses
sweat and paper dust
Helen Doran-Wu
________________________________________
Annus Horribilis
It has been an Annus Horribilis
and now we hope it has come to an end.
We hope that, at last, we are on the mend.
It has been an Annus Horribilis,
if it doesn’t stop, I’ll go round the bend,
it is enough, God, no need to bill us!
It has been an Annus Horribilis
and now we hope it has come to an end.
By imposing stupidity taxes
we can lobotomize anti-vaxxers!
Derek Fenton
________________________________________
A slight disagreement
There’s the imprint, the shadow, the germ
resident in the depths of my eye, in my brain.
When the magpie’s beak targets that deepest nerve
strikes again and again, clouds darken, guts cramp
arms slacken, knees wobble, my head is quartered
even the wattlebird shrieks. Constant pressuring
the deepening hurt, I surrender. Give me ergot
that’s what works for deliverance, rebirth.
There’s a saint recommended for sufferers
of headaches, a Saint Gemma who prayed
for more, called for the crown of thorns each
and every evening to take her closer to Jesus.
If I could I would capture her belief. But
what I pray for is blessed relief and miracle of the day beyond.
Wendy Fleming
________________________________________
A good friend
has been with me most of this week, her words
holding me, telling of trauma followed by insight, revealing
emotion and beauty. I find I can listen to her for hours, such
is the power of her words. The way she expresses herself carries
me along and leads me to comprehend the significance of
creativity. She shows both compassion and empathy in the
story she tells me; demonstrates how self-interest can be displaced
by love in abundance.
Now it is time for her to leave me, but I know I’ll want to be
with her again.
I lead her to the bookcase, to her place on the shelf and the
company of my many other good friends.
Margaret Ferrell
________________________________________
drinking why
I guess you can hear the worms working.
was your fall gracious?
you’ve one wing splayed, pointing skyward
your plumage suggests diurnal,
male obviously, being so garish
and I guess you can hear worms working
eyes open, glazed like stars forsaken,
piercing infinity, drinking why,
one wing splayed skyward
and ants will come, seething black ropes,
swarming, feeding on your story.
I guess you’ll still hear the worms working?
then wind, whittling at hollow bones,
thieving your commas, your full stops,
one wing still splayed, skyward
‘too close to the sun’ they prattle,
but too far from dreams?
with one wing splayed skyward.
I guess you won’t hear the worms working
Kevin Gillam
kaat badarbiny
relearning landguage –
running a tongue o
ver grass trees and wel
comes to country, words
that unpick and re
sew, words that staunch the
bleeding. the wounds? too
many. Yagan, head
in a jar for a
freak show on the oth
er side of the globe,
Wagin, nineteen thir
ties, barbed wire at six
p.m., and Wadje
mup (Rottnest), Tent Land
across a centu
ry of incarcer
ated bones. today –
more bruised cumulous –
army home inva
sions in the Alice,
hooded and haunting
in Don Dale Deten
tion Centre. morrow?
remouthing the pho
netics of a land,
maarpa – hush of un
spokens –
man in coun
try, countryman be
sides tree, tree along
side man, man with man
Kevin Gillam
“maarpa” – Nyungar for shared silence
“kaat badarbiny” – Nyungar for thinking.
________________________________________
Arachnophobia
from the kitchen, the shadow is arachnid
eight legs shuffling across the wall
grey and stooping as it crawls
and dread fills my gut like sawdust
I listen to the wheezing breath of it
the rasp and the rigour of its labour
I tense, trapped by obligation
as the gaunt, multi lensed face seeks mine
she moves like she is spinning web
her walker zig-zagging over the tiles
silver threads of hair wild under the AC vent
the kitchen light glints off implant lenses
as she peers over a smudge on her spectacles
the distance between us is slowly devoured
a black widow entombed by cavernous days
doom and gloom perched on the curve of her spine
she wears them like an exoskeleton she cannot shed
she sucks the colour from kitchen cabinetry
inhaled like salbutamol into her gasping lungs
and all around us pollen falls and petals wither
until the evening is a cocoon of funereal filaments
Ann Gilchrist
New Years Day
under the moon
collared by a black tie
my woollen vest
is scratching the night
the quilted darkness
stitched to my shoulders
jacket and coat hang heavily
in the grip of a double gloved winter
a micro climate of body heat
is trapped between the layers
epaulettes numbering a thermal uniform
lined boots beating frozen streets
the air is still but for my breath
steamy puffs in the January chill
of a new decade, a new century
and the party in Angle Park Terrace is over
lit like a grotto in the Edinburgh night
the house is pouring molten gold
flooding the tread of limestone steps
rippling into the rust of wrought palings
a solitary festive greeting
pasting the street with a glittering frost
and sprinkling an artifice of warmth
halting me like a hug
Santa has concluded his nocturnal rampage
his break and enters are discarded wrappers
and a week later the doors are locked
lights extinguished to remnants of faint flickerings
but this two storey terrace is up late
a mute mirage of celebration or crime
my stealth intruding with intent
a dozen scenarios twisting in the night
I listen to the silence and enter
yellow wattage is spinning the meter
in a volume of blaze that blinds my eyes
and then I see her, I hear the snooze of her
empty vessels too many to count
but she is not one of them
she smiles as I search the walls
and mute the incandescence
I smile as I snib the door behind me
the last guest, a belated invitation
to the party in Angle Park Terrace
and the Hogmanay night warms me
Ann Gilchrist
________________________________________
Childhood Vision
Climbing our lemon-scented gum
out the backyard, became almost
a daily routine, scaling trunk
and branches as Robin Hood
hearing the laugh of kookaburras
accompany our ascent
and the magpies’ warble
reassuring our steps
somewhere close behind
brushing past rough edges
of bark giving focus
to the journeys end, with
the sweetness of the tree’s
aroma urging us on.
The taste of adventure
now alive in our mind’s eye
as we throw our voices as signals
across fence-tops to gather friends
to our tree-top rendezvous
where there was nothing
and yet everything to gain
from this capture of
nature’s world, enticing
our freedom to roam.
Mike Greenacre
One Spin of a Coin
The gold sovereign
I remember holding it
as a weight around my days,
how could I use something
so dazzling in the sun’s eye?
Worth a lot more
than currency could describe
and yet its value hidden
in boxes to keep it safe
from the possibilities
of chance – soon to be
spun to a dealer for $20,
almost two thirds of my
weekly wage at the time
with petrol less than fifty cents
a gallon, a packet of cigarettes
less than fifty and a bottle
of beer joining them beneath
this worker’s budget line
and here the possibility
of weeks of satisfaction,
all from one spin of a coin.
Mike Greenacre
________________________________________
Can you stop that noise?
If you’d asked me, I would have said it was just another day. Cold bugger, but we’d had plenty of ‘em before. Bit of a weird place. That was something new. We’d been in some odd spots over the years but I reckon this one would take the prize for truly unusual. Didn’t matter much. We weren’t there for the scenery. Chasing a few dollars as usual. There was a good chance of putting a decent little pile together. These places, remote work sites, if you don’t booze and don’t gamble, there’s not much to spend your money on. So, end of the job, you can walk off with a pretty fat cheque in your pocket. Anyway, that was the plan. But what’s a plan? Should’ve learnt by now, they seldom come together. Couldn’t have missed by more this time. Wasn’t just a plan that didn’t quite work out. This time, the whole world fell on its arse. Didn’t seem like it at the beginning. No, the sting was in the tail, as they say. Mustn’t get ahead of myself. No spoilers, right? Not good to give it away. Don’t reckon I’ll being giving much away. In the end there wasn’t anything left to give away. Lost the lot. All of ‘em. And I’m not a gambling man. Lost ‘em just the same. It’s not that hard to lose money. But losing people? How do you do that? Especially when they’re the most important things in your life? One minute she was there. And then she wasn’t. Gone. Lost. Walked away? I don’t know. Then he went too. My mate. I loved him. Loved her too. Different, but the same in lots of ways. He was the first. First one who ever loved me. Then suddenly, there was someone else. She loved me too. And once she turned up in my life, the two of ‘em went together. A man couldn’t want more than that. Didn’t want more. Thought I had all there could be. Foolish of me. You can’t have more than your portion. I probably had more even before I met her. I used to think that bloke was some sort of compensation for the rest of it. If it was too much, anyway I got away with it. For a while. Should have kept my head down. But how do you do that when somebody like her steps in front of you. You couldn’t. Anybody would look up. I did. I walked towards her and nothing could have stopped me. But it was too much. For her. For him. Me too, in the end. Though it took a long time for me to get that. We were happy for a while. Barely a year. Then it began to unravel. He went and that was the beginning. Seems that once one of the bonds broke, the others couldn’t hold. We tried. I tried. I guess we weren’t saying what we needed to say. There was talk. Not sure there was hearing. Can you stop that noise? All that racket we make when we’re trying to… What? Say something that curls around and holds? Maybe. Doesn’t seem any of us knew how. We left. Walked away. One by one. Lost each other. Lost ourselves.
Ruari Jack Hughes
Much more better
I’ve met people, now and again, who say they have
No regrets, nothing they feel bad about in their lives
Nothing worth a second take, another run, even deletion
To tell the truth, I’m suspicious, ‘cos it’s not my experience
There are lots of days I’d happily forget or at least revise
Probably not a year passes without something regrettable
On the other hand, there have been those golden days
The ones you know are unique but wish could be repeated
The days which should dominate memory … but they don’t
I’ve had what you could call my fair share of both
Moments of unalloyed joy, others when the sky was falling
This particular day seemed likely my last, a death day, an end
They say there‘s no warning, no way to know time’s been called
Perhaps they’re right, my father didn’t see the shard of steel
Flying to slash his throat, it wasn’t on his worksheet that morning
And my mother, was she geared up for an explosion in her head
Like a bomb dropped out of the blue on an ordinary day,
The sudden shift from bright consciousness to banal blackout
**********
The day it happened was a day like any other, nothing special
Unless you think of every day as special, I try to
After all, there are only so many of them, not rewindable
I should have realised my time might be up, there were signs
The steady worsening of the headaches, increasing lethargy
Obvious precursors to something dire, which I steadfastly ignored
Turned out not my time, though it felt like death and I almost died
Yet only a slide, down then up again, a rollercoaster ride
Tumbling into illness, lifting up to recovery, new days
There was no shining light, brief glimpse of eternity, no epiphany
I was sick, turned off for a while, lost in a coma where memory
Doesn’t work, nothing‘s recorded, some things irretrievably lost
Living is more than physical continuance, beyond duration
Our bodies, obvious manifestations, define only one finity
We live in memories, in prayers and imaginings, as part of others
When the cloud of coma lifted, and I found I was still standing
I joked that I was much more better, but that’s what you say
To escape what scares you, the fear of what is still to come
Ruari Jack Hughes
________________________________________
Late February at Jackadder Lake
After ninety hot, dry days
oily brown lake
water level so low landing decks
exposed;
lines of wilted Typha rushes–
dried tongues
poking out
of mosquito bogs.
We still come at dawn
to watch waterbirds
potter amidst
friable pitches of mud,
stilts skitter along sand spits
coots pick at weed
swamphen graze
yellow grass surrounds.
Brilliant people in fluoro shoes
jabbing gloves
at fat leather pads
held by personal trainers.
Hunched and panting
a kelpie looks on
until some spark
might set it off.
Though sweat evaporates
on the communal brow
and Time feels
stillborn;
a ghost of rain
may be stumbling
on a planet
somewhere else
Ross Jackson
The Muezzin
standing on a median strip, on the widest street, on the hottest day
in the flattest part of the Eastern suburbs
an even cover of pale blue smoke, drifting over his contented face
grit blows around with cellophane packaging and Styrofoam
and every five-metre span of that long, centre strip-
a tall palm tree with a fat base, growing out of hot, grey sand
he walks away, crosses the street, climbs aboard an ice-cream van
a story in itself, how he’d migrated from Iran to Canning Vale
a cousin’s business swapped for the muezzin’s savings
driving weekends, it was repeats of Greensleeves made him tired
from then on, by using his voice magnified by megaphone
a plea to the faithful, a call for salvation, a double choc freckle
or just a single cone-the hottest day, the widest street, in the flattest
part of the Eastern suburbs and he’s guessing that, with his van
parked where it is, little hope of any trade-but hey, no sweat, Man
Ross Jackson
________________________________________
as i lie dying
to die, how unkind,
to be, then to be no more.
as i lie dying,
i think: ‘what is this!?’,
i am being cast from life
and the living?
my talking head keeps talking,
but no one else knows or hears,
it talks just at me.
Me, myself, i, are gathered together
to face terror incognito
alone and in the absence of light.
this is not
what i imagined death to be,
although i had no particular drift
as to what may be or not
beyond my final
failed intake of breath.
life was so complicated,
so why not death?
Maybe there is no relief,
at the end of my life,
from my existential gripe?
2.
i wait,
while time torments me.
i don’t know where i am
or what comes next.
i’m slipping, incrementally,
away from my sense of everything
i’ve known.
i wait,
as i must, it seems,
feigning death,
waiting for the voice
in my head to cease.
Peter Knight
Gary Cooper says:
“You’re not dying yet, son,
it’s only a flesh wound.”
It’s a flesh wound,
I should take it in my stride.
But the pain, the shock,
continues to hammer at my mind.
And may do for so long,
maybe until its final throb fades
beyond the living
with me.
It’s only a flesh wound
yet I feel it is cause
for a lifetime of regret.
The trauma of accelerating hot metal
penetrating my skin,
tearing into my flesh beneath,
is one that I can’t put
out of mind, forgive or forget.
[I should, if I only could.]
If my afflicted arm hadn’t remained frozen
[useless therapy],
I would seek out my assailant,
he who unleashed that missile
[with malice aforethought]
that inflames my thoughts of revenge.
I’m shocked and angered,
regretful that I wasn’t killed.
2.
Now it’s no longer a fresh wound.
I am cursed with limited arm movement,
losing much that was most useful before
[thanks therapy.]
Uncomely scars are what I bear
about my body, consequences ricochet
in my mind.
Upon my imminent death,
medicos may gather and scowl,
revisiting my prognosis.
They concur that it was only a flesh wound.
“He lived this long thereafter,
his suffering will have been bearable,
no appreciable pain now.”
Peter Knight
niggling little things
it’s niggling little things
that can bring you down.
They hang about, seemingly
of not great import.
But they may get you
in the end
simply because they persist.
It seems like you and them
can co-exist to the end.
But beyond that point they
can stay the distance
while you don’t.
Peter Knight
________________________________________
Flower Petal Cat
my Burmese princess,
Cyn,
snoozes belly up
in a patch of
late wintry sun.
Eyes closed,
claws sheathed,
paws relaxed,
her body vibrates,
like a small coffee pot.
She rumbles deep,
in blissful hedonism.
Today,
almond blossom
falls like soft rain;
a swirl of petals tinted,
teased and tossed by wind.
Each floret drifts lazy,
fluttering light to land,
stranded on silver fur.
A silken patchwork
that lies flimsy over
Cyn, my flower petal cat.
Veronica Lake
________________________________________
Downsizing
Dad and I are at the local pub for the
Seniors Special Roast of the Day.
I wear a dress and Estee Lauder;
he wears turpentine and there’s a
button left over at the top of his shirt,
a smudge of blue across his brow
that might be a piece of fallen sky.
Today I watched him paint at home.
With three whiskies to ‘steady’ him,
he layered rocks you could climb,
texture weathered by palette knife;
a Namatjira gum stark against the
rich ochre tones of a rugged gorge.
My father paints too with his feet,
treading the fallen dobs of colour
into a Pro Hart canvas on the floor.
Now he paints from photographs,
travels the landscape of his mind,
but I have seen him measure
the land against his thumb;
shrink the vast horizon
to fit his lounge room walls.
Mardi May
________________________________________
Intrinsic Tranquillity
Tranquillity of a mirrored pond
Calm-coolness of a morning mist
Serene stillness of a dreaming babe
Alighted butterfly’s breathing wings
The floating of free-falling petals
The perfume of a perfect rose
A suckling babe on mother’s breast
The silky softness of a well-loved pet
The meditative peace of prayer
and wafting harmony softly played
The silence of a clear-blue sky
The gentle pulse of a shore-bound sea
The stillness of snow-bound slopes
and melting icebergs in placid sea
A campfire’s glow on moonless night
deep caverns of coals incandescent red
Luminous sparks soft showers of light
the tempting taste of billy tea
The star-jewelled heavens and Southern Cross
Insist for me tranquillity
Glad McGough
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Bloodied Fruit
A young man’s penknife cleaves the peach
she lies still – watching clouds
bruised as her thighs – blot a faded
future – on the point of his knife he offers a slice – peace to
pursed lips – his contrite eyes cool to slate –
knifes her closed lips – another
stab – tastes blood – swallows loss.
Diana Messervy
Words in italics at the end of each line are from
a line from the poem “Sad Utensils” by Margaret Atwood.
Seafarer
1.
When Grandpa dies his clock winds down. It’s taken from the wall and laid out on the table where every Sunday as a boy my husband ate his Grandma’s mutton roast. The ceramic face is cracked, brass weights oily rainbows of neglect. Her glass bears the gravity of years, thin as a matriarch’s skin. My husband’s fingers trace the legend in her dust, a story passed like
DNA, each father to his son. She’s a grandmother clock from the Old World, Boy, by steamship all the way, then from Sydney up the coast, a whale boat, open boat you know, the captain, wife, a new-born babe. The boy imagined both clock and baby, tightly swaddled, lying side by side like siblings for Mother to keep safe and dry. And last, the river trip from Moreton Bay. Did I tell you how they saved her from the flood of ‘93? He would see the captain, tall as Phantom, biceps bulging, hoist the clock above a roiling current; Atlas holding
up the world while Grandma’s upturned table rotated slowly in the foam, and ballooned cows bobbed past, stiff legs pointing to the sky. Each Sunday after lunch, Grandpa polished the clock’s fine boned body of mahogany, buffed and wound her weights. Once he sketched her workings, Look here Boy, this is what she hides behind her face.
2
On our watch the Captain’s clock puts to sea again. We prepare her for each voyage, oil and gloss her body, remove and polish weights. My husband swathes her in a sheet, lays her in a box, coffin shaped, custom made. Weights and pendulum thickly wrapped, are tucked in tight beside her like provisions for the afterlife. Her absence leaves a faint bruise, clock-shaped, on
our wall. Each time we settle in a far-off place, another wall waits for her to make a foreign space our home. For fifty years the captain’s clock has marked our family decades hour by hour in chimes. Her brass weights still anchor Sundays, unwind our week.
Diana Messervy
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Another Poem About Sky To Fly In
You need ink, divinity, something holy:
robes might help. Gather a path for spark
to barrel, ignite. You definitely need sky:
there are so many poems about birds,
one more doesn’t hurt. Know flux
and flow, the places where birdsong
goes. Learn to assemble weather
through language, unexpected.
How starlight is ever present.
Now, look down. Remove
shoes. Find dirt
or grass: dance.
Beneath are approximately 1,174 words for grief.
Take your time to learn each one. Look closer.
Press nose to pattern. Bouquet of repetition,
show us how to say the same thing yet
different. Ant, grain, microbe: pin imagining
on to that which collapses into vision. Go smaller.
Atom. Atom. Atom. Know that echo is the world
responding to your inquiry. Listen until speck
flexes upward into mountain. Still. You are tectonic.
You are liminal. Every gap and crack is a doorway
through which to travel. Pack ink. You need ink.
Or else, write in dirt with finger’s tip. Give birds
another poem about sky to fly in.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
hear this stone
in your palm, heart line open
to sediment & song
rock has been here for so long
there’s nothing left to do but sing
a cobble composition of land
as pre-masonry, choral,
how a house can be built from earth
how a lover is smoothed by a river
as a kid, stones kept me company
between arc of blue & green, me
with pockets full of stones
running field, stile, bridge
giant footstep god
transport for pebble
stopping to drop tenderly
a rock
listening to it sing
gratitude for new place
to weather
eternity
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
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Cats and Boxes
Muezza, favoured cat
of the Prophet,
ended her tale thus
on the one thousand
and second night:
“O cats who came from
the Libyan Desert
and conquered Egypt
and the known
world with fur and claw,
heed then this tale
of the flying box
which like the carpet
is carried by djinn
directly to Mecca;
I enjoin you to try all boxes
and sit within.”
Julian O’Dea
Playground
The children go inside
vacate the playground
and leave the light
to play alone
glancing and beaming
as a truant wind scrapes
a dry leaf along the ground
like a small boy grazing
his knee.
Julian O’Dea
________________________________________
I’m Going To See a Man About a Dog
He always said it heading for the Falcon
or the Customline or even at times the tractor,
when a far younger novice farmchild piped:
where ya going, Dad?
An always reply went sideways through a kid’s ears
like a robin’s arrow tipped with indifference,
but with only mellow intention, missed the apple –
I’m going to see a man about a dog –
& that was all we got,
no deeper stuff to satisfy an ok query.
It’s not as if he needed space nor time to buy a dog,
our dairy farm was spilling border collies,
& he was as well known for sharing squiggling litters
as we were for going nuts a’playing with & deeply loving
these wriggling newborn puppies fluffed with black & white
& sucking their Lassie or Suzie’s warm as milk all day & night
in a warm hay shed while a grinning Fred stood proudly watching.
At the time it felt quite right if somewhat hurting
to be kept offside a father’s private world,
but for him I’m guessing around six decades later,
it built a fence around his wants & needs
& just because we five each had 23 of his chromosomes
from his own private source of whipping sperm
as a luscious deeply attracting ovum
quietly shuffled waiting
& fused to create a one of us –
doesn’t mean to say
that each or any of us little stragglers
had to know his inner selves.
Allan Padgett
secrets shared without prejudice in a juicy tales coffee shop
has he ever told you
even if in secret whispers
down low & sotto voce
that his left tit hurts when he laughs
it happens every single time when
he is out in a backyard gardening turns so fast
to grab his shiny secateurs for trimming fern fronds
he’s so deep & focused when pivoting –
o the utter glory of borrowing a newmade meaning
gestated strictly for viral times –
anyway he spun he tripped he fell like a dying marri
(fell so hard he likely lost some rings)
hit the turf OUCH! gained some new scabrous identity
nearly bled out while flat on his back on a lonely
footpath waiting for a nurse to arrive
of course it is she the genius one he married
a hundred or so years ago so she quickly plugs
the gaps & stops all leakages other than his scalding tears
which are still blubbering away two days later as he tells
his poor old man story to a bright-eyed poetic queen
who listens & grins & hugs him again
as a clever young man who makes the very best of coffees
in a grown up town called perf
lends his welcome ear smiles & as he does
you can see & feel his vibrant brain composing
another of his too short list but growing
of marvellous teasing short as stories
& then the older him drives home
but then he feels empty
like a coke can drained of substance & purpose
must trip again someday soon he reckons
Allan Padgett
________________________________________
Demons
Wyndham: the poorest child
in the state’s attic. No poky barred window
above him; a steamed-up smoke-dirt sky
so hot it’s as suffocating as a low
ceiling he stuffs himself under on a bunk.
His eyes may behold infinite space; a gulf
for fishing, a floodplain for an ancient parliament;
but in landforms reduced to the most cursory contours,
they can never be deceived; the department
demons sent his aunts and uncles beyond
that plain. Go to hell and prosper, the demons said.
When the cousins returned, their eyes didn’t blink
and their mouths never spoke; but at night
he heard voices whisper ‘Oombulgurri’
from the top bunk.
Chris Palazzolo
On Seeing Beagle Gulf
My first glimpse of a sea
since our migration didn’t comfort me
with cold oblivion; it was blue
as it shouldn’t be, too smooth, too gassy,
and projecting my swimming
child phantasm of a life that may never
have been was impossible.
That has always, always been
my flashing other being,
the anti-me that’s me on the anti-shore.
He drowned. I woke.
Each one cancelled the other
and yet each one happened,
and the drowning water, black and sheer,
I’m always in it now
even as I mark the fortieth year
of the life I was hauled onto a beach to live.
Silly isn’t it. That northern sea
with its wavelets obscured by steam,
looked like an abstraction, a schema
of a sea, paradoxically hard,
as if the water had frozen at 35° celsius
to form an oblique pane
at the vanishing point of my middle age.
Maybe it was just my aging eyes
cataracted with jade, but I looked
from that foreshore and thought
of Vonnegut worms tickling the sky;
I knew I would never meet me
in that too smooth too blue sea.
Chris Palazzolo
________________________________________
metastasis
outside, my brother hovers. leans aside
an open doorway, his smile falters a rasping voice
a hacking cough dioxin’s orange shadow
burns weed and nicotine host incursions
slatted light filters my father his hands weave
rugs of rags, torn, discarded strips exhaled smoke
fades into nowhere his terrier snuffles
he waits in hijacked lungs, cytotoxins mass
nudging embers, grandfather sits shivers
imbibes his late-night fire wrestles winter
arthritic fingers tremble ash falls
milk white cataracts hide battlefields
igniting still —
Yvonne G Patterson
________________________________________
The Dove Cote and Shiraz
do you remember that night
your lips tasting the juices of lust
emboldened
reddened
smiling at me
as I stirred
besotted by the image
I’d travelled to caress
a Barossa restaurant
with white doves cooing
from their ceiling cote
sheer muslin drapes hanging
pooled on the floor
merging with the whiteness
of your dress
soon to be lifted
in a narrow lane
that meandered through shiraz vines
an illicit love
enhanced
by possibilities of discovery
all whiteness
stripped away now
only you and your softness remaining
with no other thought
we kiss
amongst shiraz vines
Barry Sanbrook
________________________________________
Hiatus
One small tent
on the bike path
beneath the overpass
near the Lord Street crossing
word spreads
small domed tents
mushroom
spawn onto the pavement
sores that can’t heal
loss of hope and dignity
a food van sets up
permanent spot
legal aid steps in
needles and life’s litter
hard core street people
write their story
on the bike path
Norma Schwind
________________________________________
Childhood Treasures
7 little memories from my childhood treasure-trove.
1. Mamma, sometimes, made rotis shaped like everyday objects for
my brother and I – trees, flowers, butterflies, stars and even the moon.
And, I wondered if someone had suspended a giant roti in the sky
for the moon. I noticed how it grew smaller, maybe, as the birds and
the mice nibbled on it secretly under the cover of night.
2. I remember how we collected and treasured the almost-perfect
smooth stones for the game of hopscotch (or stapu) we played.
And, how I’d keep mine safe under my pillow, especially if it
had helped me win – taking me swimmingly through the “end of the
world”, just beyond the last square and then back again.
3. Growing up in the quaint and quiet town of Solan, up in the
mountains had its charm. I remember plucking wild berries, trotting down
meandering lanes with only a backpack, chasing sparkling spring-water streams. And, when fancy struck calling out “Khul ja sim sim”* hoping against hope that one of the rockfaces indeed hid behind it, a secret cavern filled with gold!
4. I remember trying pop rocks for the very first time. The myriad sensations
like colourful fireworks, sizzling electricity and bursting stars in my mouth.
Such a contrast to the sweet, supple and tangy candy fruit-drops that were
always my favourite. Or, bars of ‘Kismi’ chocolate that tasted of cardamom,
that the friendly neighbourhood grocer displayed in his big glass jar.
5. How we attentively and carefully folded paper to make the perfect
chatterbox or paku-paku that could tell you your fortune. We trusted it to.
From a favourite colour to a number or a yes or no answer to a secret
question – it could tell it all. And, we even had a song we sang along
as we opened and closed its papery mouth on our small fingers.
6. That first jittery, unsure ride of the bicycle with dad treading alongside.
Trusting dad more than the supporting wheels. My tiny cycle with a basket –
that I filled with wildflowers from my outings. And, the single most-treasured
memory (from years later) of a peacock streaking across overhead, dazzling
me as I hurtled downhill – totally in control even at breakneck speed.
7. And, finally the much-anticipated annual train ride into the country
during school-holiday time. The colourful and distinct stations we passed,
the wares and toys we bought. And, after two days of travel with
the train chugging along, the welcome lights on the midnight station – Belgaum
where my grandparents and new adventures waited eagerly for us.
SoulReserve
* “Open sesame” – in Hindi
________________________________________
brièveté
.. what is a poem .. .. ..
i hear you s – i – i – i – i – g h .. ..
.. .. .. .. .. .. ..
to tell a truth
or .. ..
half a lie
Geoff Spencer
3 strands
the ageing strainer
posts .. .. ..
not in the ‘field of reeds’
not with support
for long neglected, yielding lithe limbs,
.. .. with tensioned twisted barbs
for three strands .. .. taut .. ..
wired to invective’s savage song
that cuts no slack
hands, throat, calloused with blinded minds
that shred the bark with anger and disrespect
from long – supporting skin
devoid of understanding
abandoned as a long – sacrificed womb
where gestation of impregnated seeds
took heavy toll
the trial of time may ease the tension
twisted barbs
will
not.
Geoff Spencer
________________________________________
In my old home
daylight shines
as limestone reflects
the first rays of the sun
like glossy leaves reflect moonlight
the driveway snakes through tall trees
the way birds carve paths through air
rooms intersect in sunlight–
windows gaze at the Bush
I sit outside in air cleansed by rain
legs dangling over a lichen-draped wall
hovea vines creep into gardens
bees meander over a pergola
kangaroos graze on overgrown weeds
as night falls creatures tread
with reverence over this earth
beneath the stars
where my dog lies in peace
among the scented flowers
where I left my heart
in my old home
Amanda Spooner
In the terminal
I meet a farmer who runs cattle south of Cairns
he, his young wife and their five-year old son
his older son has a property in the Gulf Country
their land is parched cattle hungry
there’s no feed drought
the state of Queensland sells water to the
highest bidder – not farmers
rain arrives falls on sun-hardened earth
deep dried mud of petrified sadness
and keeps falling
neighbours lose 30,000 head his older son
musters what livestock he can to high ground
she says the cattle knew they were being saved
he shows me photos of their land
12km from the nearest river bank
water streams through their paddocks
like snakes on steroids
eroding soil removing seed
disturbing the balance
she says mental health is the thing
townspeople don’t understand
they have no connection to the land
gentle growing rains come but no food grows
people in towns still expect
bread meat and milk on the table
she says even though we had some hay
the cattle didn’t want to eat it.
It was as if they had given up.
Amanda Spooner
________________________________________
Liberta
The two Italian old ladies
Who live down the street …
They are Freedom
Disguised in human bodies
No professional commitments
Their only appointments are medical
And they don’t care about being punctual
They laugh at the doctor
They believe the best medicine
Is an Aperitivo before each meal
No men nor date neither!
They wear comfortable ugly dresses
And only dye their hair
To thumb their nose to their old age
They sit on the veranda and no-one
Knows what they chat about for hours
In the dialect of their childhood
They speak their mind,
Give unsolicited advice to young mothers
And do not care when people roll their eyes
We all envy this freedom yet
None of us sit on the veranda
The way these old women do
Karine Suares
________________________________________
Cross cultural diagnosis
medical diagnosis, even a possibly positive prognosis
remains a mystery to someone
who cannot comprehend what the doctor meant
when the patient’s culture contains a restraint
on asking what’s already been explained
Kimberley Aboriginal English
was never intended to include
city talk’ and medical terminology
as part of its lexicology
so the patient politely makes a request
“a written diagnosis may be best
on a simple sheet of paper?”
in the hope this whitefella message stick
will finally do the trick
yet even that does not make sense
unable to pronounce
the paper’s complicated alien sounds
that are supposed to speak to him
his chances already less than slim
the patient’s trouble is now double
afraid of what his illness might be
which he can neither understand nor see,
with standard communication lines now failed
his recovery is seriously curtailed
to help interpret the situation patients from the bush may need
a script for serious mediation – only then could they afford
to have their health restored
Traudl Tan
Woonjoo – wet season in Kalumburu
low-low the clouds run
ominous grey and inky black
massive sky horses race high
close in from every direction
push away clear blue skies
to where the summer horizon
settles into the Timor Sea
sea-green waves rush into the bay
prance and dance
laugh white frilly provocations
mock the wet-feet mountains
their heads shrouded in mist
now distant – detached – dreamy
utterly inaccessible
low-low the clouds swirl
the Kimberley bush
green-jungle-green now
its breath sweet and seductive
hanging heavy in the humidity
deep drum rolls of thunder
close in right around
Traudl Tan
________________________________________
New foundations
The slab’s gone down
concrete footings
wire mesh
pipes sticking out
About to pour cat
biscuits on yoghurt –
is it all upwards from here?
Tineke Van der Eecken
The missing cat
I walk around in the rooms of my memory –
there’s my mother
teaching me to write
on that red sofa.
My brother plays Superman
and the cat bathes in the sun beside the window
licking her fur.
I walk around in the chapters of my book –
does the room smell like this season’s rain?
Is the furniture in place? Where does this door lead?
What time is it?
Where has the cat gone?
I search each page,
follow the cat around.
I walk the memories
that shape my book
to find
how the rooms connect.
Tineke Van der Eecken
________________________________________
After 47 Years My Kids Teach Me How to Swim Freestyle
with apologies to Sharon Olds 1
You’ve got the hands wrong, Mum, says the oldest. Like this. He turns his palm and slides it up past his face at right angles to the water. Then bow-and-arrow arms. The youngest cracks up laughing. You look like you’re drowning! Maybe I am. Drowning. In forty-seven years of fear. Uncle Bala surfaces—that half-drunk swimming instructor standing poolside, Singapore. Aiya! Just blow out and turn your face to the side, girl. But I can’t. Won’t. It’s all too hard and I am a kitten hauled out, yowling, from the pool, a spitting ball of defiance and shame. My mother takes me home. Can’t do the crawl. What kind of Australian are you? Pretend-kind. Half-kind. All the blond Aussie kids at the pool, swimming like they were born to rule: tumble-turning into the glorious certainty of belonging to dams and beaches, to backyard pools, to a whole southern continent waiting to receive them like softly-shined trophies in the winner’s cabinet.
Where will they put me – struggling to pull it together? Head down, windmill arms, flutter kick, tip face … my Chinese father never learned to swim. His mother kept him from the Kuching River for fear that crocodiles would take her only son. I know the regret of the body: it is my father pacing beside the pool, muttering excuses: Too late for me to learn. Your mother will have to save you if you drown. It is me, swimming breast-stroke for years, with my head above water. What does it take to break through the barriers of the mind? The walls that say Keep Out, Whites Only, Don’t Bother, Not Worth Trying? It takes imagination hooking itself into cracks, wrapping its tendrils around tiny outcrops, probing for soft-spots: cave paintings depicting swimmers, for example. Or ancient Egypt’s front-crawl hieroglyph. Or two Ojibwe men who brought freestyle to the dubious British. 2
It takes a gift: this backyard pool we never dreamed we’d have. This day with time. These children who want to show me how. It takes the body in a posture of submission, prepared to hit the stage with 尬泳[ga yong]. Awkward swimming. Clumsy arms and stuttering kicks. I crawl like a baby making her first journey on hands and knees across the pool. You did it, Mum! Who will I be now that I can swim freestyle? My mind leaps: a fish flipping over a weir, shattering the surface of the dam with the silver twist and flick of elation. The water opens its arms like a God who does not play favourites, who loves all his children the same.
Miriam Wei Wei Lo
1 “After 37 Years My Mother Apologizes for My Childhood”
2 https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-racism-kept-the-worlds-fastest-swim-stroke-out-of-the-pool
________________________________________
Cervantes
The bushes huddle cowering
and inject their roots in sympathy with the rock
that glares at the abandonment of soil.
Sea-eagles scour the plain, can’t find
a tall tree to nest their solitude.
We slide our car
into a green hypnotic emptiness
and only tickle the bitumen tattoo
of a road promising infinity.
With a flourish of wind
wattles argue with golden flowers;
A limestone outcrop foretells
the Pinnacles nearby,
while distant in haze
under sea-born clouds appear
white like faces in shock the smooth-skinned dunes.
At the Pinnacles themselves we hunt
shadows slicing into yellow sand.
Nothing is too unusual here, where pillars
collaborate in hunchback conversation
next to frozen elegance of stone.
Dwarfish mysteries of rock pepper
the swell of hills with their intimate despair
for water or plant;
Our feet hardly leave a signature
on the ground’s ancient ripples.
Homeward, and the sun in its descent
drowns in a hell of smothering cloud.
I see you asleep beside me,
the glory of your eyes is veiled.
Your smile is lost
in the long road unrolling like a dragon’s tongue.
Night shutters down in stars:
I hope for the future, catch
at my eye’s edge a farmhouse light.
Colin Young
Into the Dome
Crowds push against a teetering
metal barrier.
Yelling mixes with sweat
and grimaces. Arms
lock into centipedal
formation, prod at police.
Face-masks shield
cold chanting faces.
From wooden poles
flags wield their stars.
Fingers grapple
white brickwork
as bodies haul themselves
to the high terrace
outside the Capitol.
In the vestibule a man
lances and splinters
a thick window
into the heart of the building
where waiting voices shudder.
Under the marbled dome
a hand lifts a noose
and the echoing scrum
demands a sacrifice.
Tall and solemn portraits
stare out from walls.
A woman carries
a placard that reads:
“Don’t Step On Us”.
Torsos lunge forward
as she falls,
and a chaos of moving feet
pound her to death.
In a politician’s office
a bearded man lounges,
feet on the polished desk.
His Confederate flag
scrapes a lone table.
A pool of blood
from a policeman
disfigures the floor.
With a fire extinguisher
they have bashed in his face.
After the mob has left,
senators and congressmen
stagger from their bolt-holes,
slump into their seats,
their breath racing
in skin-shivering alarm.
As the crowd disperses
up the illustrious avenue
a bald eagle circles,
its arrow eyes aghast.
Colin Young
RIP Lawrence Ferlinghetti
When Lawrence Ferlinghetti
stepped into the storm
he slipped off his weapons
and frisked himself for ideas.
Owls and buzzards whooped
to hear his poetry
and the shards of ancestry
from so many songsters wove
their crystalline gardens into lyrics.
When Lawrence Ferlinghetti
sprang up to the cliff edge
a gang of butterflies poached
his lumbering animals
and pinned them to the sky
for everyone to admire.
Empathy slung itself from his eyes
as he trumpeted his silence
and ruminated on his Muses.
When Lawrence Ferlinghetti
fell into the sway of music
he pitched his battle on the plain,
and defeated the ordinary.
Where is he now? He laughs
in a Shangrila sculpted
out of fragrant conch-shells,
and builds his nest in the mist
that lures us to the future.
Colin Young
________________________________________