June 2023
Selectors: Mike Greenacre, Jan Napier.
Honorary Selector: Peter Jeffery AO
Contributors:
Summer’s End
A day with her
Stillborn
Brian Westlake Is Dead
Strippers
Life Song
in the time of
The Cemetery Visit
Breathe
Day Patrol
Double Cross
The Stranger
Afternoon tea at The Ritz
the angle of feathers
when they fell
Forgetting
Honey Trap
Common Seadragon
Clearing
Was it the stars
Evolution at the workshop
A Daytime Moon
I am three
Anatomy
Erased
Fragile
Portrait
Transience
Snail Hunt
Androgyne
East of the western ocean
Belief
A Day In June, 20 Always
dualisms
The Way the River Flowed
A Conundrum
Seen From My Kitchen Window
For Mark
The Sorrows
Agonis Flexuosa
_______________________________________
Summer’s End
Manjimup,
Summer’s end.
A social worker,
Is telling me of her work,
Too many clients,
Too many miles,
Too few resources.
I will pass her concerns on
To a parliamentarian,
Who struggles with
Too many problems,
Too many miles,
Too few resources.
Ananda Barton
Koorijee Warranup / Upper Warren
24th February 2023
_______________________________________
A day with her
I am searching frantically for a song
Something to calm her down.
Calm baby songs. Classical music for babies.
I push play on my phone as she screams on my hip
My skin crawls at the tinny noise on the phone speaker
The Bluetooth speaker is under my son’s pillow
She continues to wail.
We’re connected now
Phone to speaker
Pushing the sounds into her belly,
She stops.
Holds the pink music maker
Between spongy palms,
Looks at me.
She’s happy.
Cheek against my shoulder
Cuddly for a one-year-old
Her breath steadies
As she grows heavy on my hip.
I lower her into the cot.
She sits up and looks for the speaker so I give her the bunny
So of course she puts her thumb in her mouth as I put the speaker
Next to the bed.
The tension in my shoulders releases as I back out of the room
Another day keeping her alive, done.
It isn’t until I close her door I realise-
I haven’t spoken to her all day.
Carly Beth
_______________________________________
Stillborn
The midwife sighs
tenderly offers mama
the silent babe
perfect but tiny
in her cupped hands
mama snuggles him
against her breast
caresses elfin fingers
nuzzles his downy head
still warm from her womb
teardrops shimmer
about to
fall
for the future
they have lost.
Maria Bonar
_______________________________________
Brian Westlake Is Dead*
the city strolls on
in glitter and grime
and painted prayers
FEDUP was here
the city grinds on
in love and despair
and bent reflections
who is not here?
the city slides on
with gritted teeth resolve
gliding down rails
wheeled leaps in the air
the city cries on
in baseless hope
pushing through clouds
and nobody here
the city lies on
in its chosen blindness
and a bone deep ugly
unshakeable fear
the city screams on
in defiant isolation
prove it, prove me, prove yourself
wrong — i dare you
Mar Bucknell
*‘Graffiti reputedly by The Triffids, seen in male pub toilets across Perth in the eighties.’
_______________________________________
Strippers
The red-river gums are
at it again.
Long chunks of bark,
russet, brown and grey
litter the grass while
wanton strips swing
from the trunk
undulating in the wind to
reveal a new, pale coat
like beachgoers spreading
towels on white sand
discarding shorts and tops to
expose brown, white, pink and black
skin as varied as bark.
Helen Budge
_______________________________________
Life Song:
Listen to the melody of my life,
a tune that fades and brightens.
To its own rhythm, it seems.
I reach out for the song,
barely heard,
just beyond me,
the melody fades.
Drowned out by the noise.
In refuge I pause,
reach out to those who care,
light a path I stumble on,
start to hear the melody,
reaching out for me.
I look on from my refuge,
this island of safety in a storm,
let go the touch of those who care.
My path ahead grows clear,
the melody regained,
joy of life
returned.
Listen to my spirit soar as I begin to sing,
free once more.
The next verse of this song,
my song of life.
Eddy Campbell
_______________________________________
in the time of
I receive a letter from a Jehovah’s Witness unable to door knock Bendigo calls to say the sheilas are cutting crook the family order is blown apart in zoom meetings we ask each other are you OK? can you hear me? a ringed moon promises rain later in the gutter each raindrop creates its own bubble on still days only shadows move at dawn in the west the Baxter hills absorb the night sky in the spot where I planted seeds I find only tracks of birds the gulf is grey and chopped in rain sometimes it sparkles blue paint peels on the gate hinge lets the rust in silent galahs fly in mated pairs a goshawk tears apart a dove bloodied feathers around the birdbath white-cheeked honey-eaters fight all-comers a forklift delivers a box wrapped in black plastic our neighbours’ dogs bark bark bark bark bark bark the empty council bus speeds by on the hour late afternoon kids on motorbikes break out of kitchen table home school dog walkers pass at the same time each day some nights drunken neighbours scream into the dark I dream of a frozen duckling wrapped in paper I dream I stir my tea with a poisoned spoon I dream the shipwrecked dead crawl from the sea trailing ropes I dream my car is stolen abandoned and burnt I ask my mask if it is up to the job to fight disease with paisley print there is a quiver in my voice when I say the word home on the veranda unmoving prayer flags hang a bird dashes its brains against the window falls dead into a thorny bush clouds roll in and clouds roll out the top leaf on the gum is new growth I bake the daily bread
Coral Carter
The Cemetery Visit
Went into the sandhills
to pick a bunch for Dad’s grave—
into the hills he walked daily
where he collected discarded toys
from the modern plastic middens.
Brought them home for a second chance
organised them in the shade house
aircraft boneyards,
dinosaur herds mingling with farm animals,
a showcase of Disney characters,
a toy caryard,
my little pony and friends,
arranged to peer into the fish pond
shelter under the monstera deliciosa,
perch on pots of aspidistra
gather around creek-bed stones.
I picked
wattle, daisies and grasses,
feral hops along the rail line,
saltbush and blue bush,
sandhill cane grass and
pimelea microcephala,
its tiny cream flowers
enticing yellow berries.
I tied the bush bunch with
a bit of twine recycled from somewhere
thought he would probably say—
What are you bringing me this rubbish for?
Mum thought not.
Two understandings
of the same man.
It was just us
the day we visited
a willy wag tail
and the dead.
Mum was reflective:
Well, here you are down there,
in your Westies’ jumper.
I’m coming down too.
You’re not getting away
from me.
I had decay thoughts.
I hoped for a hole
in the plastic coffin liner,
so Dad’s juices could escape.
Maybe the deep red
flowering gum nearby
would send a root
down and lift him up.
Coral Carter
_______________________________________
Breathe
Inhale, exhale, breathe
Tell me this isn’t real.
Tell me this is all a dream.
Bow legged,
right foot turned inward.
I’m me.
Hospitals are weird.
Sutures,
Sterile air,
stainless hands,
tubes,
swollen hands,
socks you never wore,
oversized hospital gowns,
swollen lips blackened-
from charcoal,
you’re not you.
Tahliyah Davis
_______________________________________
Day Patrol
Da Nang is a word that trowels
off lips as ash and dust cycle
with the swirl of chopper blades.
Slice the heat and dump
the humidity back on the jungle.
Trapped in the trudge between orders
between faces and places unknown
in the cycle of swelter and rain.
One step, two step march
always watching.
The sweat
the stench held together
by cordite and napalm
as green turns to rust
and everywhere
brown faces.
Brown faces with eyes
that define friend or foe.
Coming or going
it’s always the eyes
you look for
while Hanoi girls smile
“come Osie, I make you fo’get”.
At patrol’s end
trapped in a hole
named for a fox
the gleam on the M16
is dark, like the eyes
watching.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
- Da Nang Air Base was used as a primary entry point for American and Allied service members flying into Vietnam during the Vietnam War 1962–1975.
- Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam,
- The M16 is an assault rifle that was used in the Vietnam War
_______________________________________
Double Cross
a poem based on true events in the Mug and Bean, Mulbarton
I sat down beside the trio by chance
and soon felt I was in Breaking Bad.
An un-curtailed conversational dance:
while I, septuagenarian grandad,
struggling to squeeze out another sonnet
as the growling, garrulous gangster boss
with a sculptured chest like a car bonnet
boasted of balancing profit and loss
blowing up rival’s heads like a melon.
The other two listening in silence
until the entitled light skinned felon
swaggered out in a cloak of violence.
I hope they think I am not eavesdropping
waiting for my wife to finish shopping.
Minutes later, two of them departed
until one returned, unnoticed by me
to be joined by another who carted
a small satchel for all of us to see.
This new cartel conversed only by phone
silently holding up cells to be read
while I dreamt up scenarios alone
all types of series swimming in my head
and I have seen enough of them to know
what can happen in a revenge shoot-out.
As soon as my good wife comes, I should go.
This is the closest I’ve been to a rout.
This, after all, is Johannesburg south,
time to hide this poem and close my mouth!
Derek Fenton
Written at the time and scene of the events
_______________________________________
The Stranger
I caught sight of her the other day,
her long wild hair flying in the wind,
demeanour watchful, hesitant, her whole
being reminiscent of a lost soul.
Nothing had changed – sense of fear
palpable, an awareness of flight imminent.
Once more I saw her anxiety take over
as it had so often two years ago.
I remember watching her as she stumbled
for words, noticing her acquiescence to
any requests made to her. Worst of all
was her total acceptance – resignation
from life. She was always afraid to question.
As she crossed the road, not having seen me,
I spoke to her, asked if she was well.
She shrugged, said nothing. I suggested
coffee together and had the response –
a shake of the head.
Some secrets are too painful to break.
Margaret Ferrell
_______________________________________
Afternoon tea at The Ritz
I bend my pinkie
Just so, as I hold my china cup.
Aqua with primroses,
One flower below the rim.
You in your plush chair
Sports jacket, bow tie
My conversation ringed fingers
Sparkle, our eyes sparkle
Reflections in silver tea service.
We eat petit fours,
Thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches,
I offer you an éclair
You launch into an account of the Peloponnesian War
At the next table a Saudi sheik
Smiles at the well known
Red headed-woman with him
A young woman with cantilevered breasts
She flatters him through fluattering mascara lashes
This Mayfair hotel is the place to be seen, noticed, photographed
“I would come down from Edinburgh” he smiled
“Meet my parents, wonderful times, catching up”
I brush crumbs of saviordi off my chartreuse velvet dress.
“Shall we go to the British museum tomorrow” I ask
“No” he said, “I attend the corronation”
“We shall now take a stroll: I want to show you Westminster bridge”
“Earth has not anything so fair?”
He nodded.
When the waiter brought the bill on a silver salver.
The table groaned, split.
Sally Gaunt
_______________________________________
the angle of feathers
the bird articulates death better,
full stop on the footpath,
two feathers raised skyward,
reminders
walking past the child stares, mouths death,
can’t sound it. something
about the angle of feathers
speaks for her
Kevin James Gillam
when they fell
when they fell. lead soldiers. on lino.
fully dead. no story has an ending.
not raining. Sunday. drive to Oats Street.
back seat of Cortina. egg sandwiches.
Monday leaking backwards. passage. laundry.
used green soap. no towel. shadehouse.
maiden hair fern. drinking light. an ending.
listen to that sentence. bathroom. Smell
of wet flannels. know what silence is?
green berber carpet. aeroplane models.
airfix glue. too many doors. can be
a stone. lounge. be a hole. piano.
F# major. all the blacks. listen to that.
an unspoken. slack jawed in the dark.
now raining. too much undoing. nappies
and sponge cake. listen. everyone’s
undone. all vowel and awkward. venetians.
mopoke’s call. slivered. sunroom. shoe box.
silkworms. fat logic. when they fell. white
trams. an ending. too much undone. Never
raining. all vowels. lino. scribbles into thought
Kevin James Gillam
_______________________________________
Forgetting
When there is no tomorrow
when now is under threat
yesterday forgotten
passage through
smoke and bombs impossible
yesterday forgotten
life lived second by second
in reckless panic
yesterday forgotten
when you tell your grandchildren
of this war of madness
yesterday
will be a memory
you can never share
Candy Gordon
Honey Trap
His words, delivered
in mellifluous tones,
always stilled her.
Honey he called her.
Honey he repeated,
This is what I
want you to do.
That little space
in her chest,
that bit where
she drew in breath,
where life still existed,
shrivelled.
Fingers curled, toes tensed,
ready for flight, yet still
she waited,
inexplicably arrested
by his coolly
hypnotic
honey-coated endearments.
Candy Gordon
_______________________________________
Common Seadragon
we have found each other
washed up on pristine sand
both out of our natural habitat
you often mistaken as
a seahorse
that latches onto plants
in times of need and me
a foreign body that seeks
the ocean’s patience
without a map or sense of
direction, so we are both
here out of sorts – you
with no prehensile tail
to hold your ground
and me as bodysurfer
whose propulsion clashed with
an intruder – another wave and
angle, cutting-in for a dance
left your body and leaf-like
appendages and my tumbled form
flattened together on wet sand.
Mike Greenacre
_______________________________________
Clearing
Hurled down honkey nuts
Steep slope, dread grips
of slide to knee crack
of shiver slip away
from serpentine sticks.
Power plumped haunches
poised, a roo drinks at the dam
dusty roar of mind grit clears.
Jenifer Hetherington
Was it the stars
that kept me from sleep–
a clear night, no moon
far from city glare—
their dazzle-dance through
time, through space
or was it Djilba*—
whispering, draping peppermint
trees with floral finery–
or the swish of low branches as
the wind picked up
or thud of plummeting
marri nuts—
counterpoint to errant
magpies’ midnight
carolling.
Time marked by the mantle clock
drip, dripped,
spiralling thoughts from
what Psyche did next drove
me out to impossible silver
our galaxy—
ropey brilliance piercing
the black of absence—
shining aeons away
from before all that’s ever been.
Our eternal wondering
a mere twinkle
in this swirling fire—
I ponder, on what will light
from stars burning now, fall.
Jenifer Hetherington
•Djilba: the Noongar season of ‘first spring’: August, September
_______________________________________
Evolution at the workshop
for Laurie Smith
seeing Laurie across the table
head down curating words
an apparition of Charles Darwin
similarities in their bearded faces
shared concerns with arachnids, lizards and birds
this thought happening
at the pace of advancing shadows
Laurie and Charles melded firmly enough
to be classified as clones
as a toad blows up on sensing human footfall
a wild idea may overgrow my brain
Ross Jackson
A Daytime Moon
for Jan Napier
Between dreaming and dawn staring at a gap through
an open door to above our bedroom balcony’s roofline;
little milky disc angled above horizon at 11 o’clock
an old silver sixpence in plain grey sky, shiny pearl button
perfect circle of a daytime moon.
For other sentient beings breathing dawn air, this choice
of metaphors may jar and while I stand by ‘A Daytime Moon’
as title for this poem, you could prefer’The Daylight Moon,’
a collection the late Les Murray put out, or even ‘Day Moon,’
the title a friend of mine had for her haiku book.
A prominent local would rather write poetry naked than swap
clothes with a prose poet; contends that so-called prose poems
either poorly dressed prose or slovenly poetry. Maybe he’s right.
Is this piece just a hybrid mess? Has whatever romance
‘A Daytime Moon’ may have had, been lost forever?
Ross Jackson
_______________________________________
I am three
I am three:
Hair of fire,
Coat buttoned up tight
brimming excitement
I am three:
lying in pouring rain
in my riding-hood cape
water streaming
I am three:
a stealthy black cat
Stealing silent on pit-pat paws
Shadowing dark
I am three:
high on a branch
caught by the wind
tossing freedom
I am three;
ready to live
the world is waiting
spinning adventure.
Veronica Lake
_______________________________________
Anatomy
I see the words you fashion on your skin,
the ink that dries within the carapace,
each character and line you choose to redefine
the flesh you had assigned to you at birth,
and all you’ve plucked and pierced and shaped,
abused and scorned since then,
the map of your anatomy and thought,
your every feeling wrought so carefully,
the irony of font choice, serif, comic sans,
a clue to you, a history, a sign that I can follow back in time,
interpret or align, aesthetics of the barely-understood
or boldly-worn mistakes, your secrets etched
in every perfect line.
Kate Larsen
Erased
Now, we cannot speak or tweet
without our words being cancelled or erased.
Now, we choke on our own content,
and voice less hope and more rage.
Now, our files have finally been corrupted,
our memories unable to be obtained.
Now, we have flattened the page of our own expectations,
and crossed off the lists of the words we can no longer claim.
Now, the lines we’ve deleted have stained us like ink,
obscured and littered markings on our newest-growing skin.
Now, when everyone’s exhausted
by the never-coming, never-ending rain.
Kate Larsen
_______________________________________
Fragile
Life is lived
as a bombastic light show
laser beams pointed
at all the key moments
visual displays
sparkling with vibrant graphics
a spotlight shone
directly on us
the star of the show.
But life is a candle
slowly melting away
in the corner
of a dark room
and any moment
a wisp of wind
threatens to
blow it out.
A. R. Levett
_______________________________________
Portrait
Vermeer leans into twilight
filtering through the casement
window; paints an old woman
familiar with stillness;
shaping her form against
the deepening dusk.
He works deftly as day fades,
gilding her face with late sun;
lets light play on the lace at
her collar, strokes depth into
the gathers of her gown.
He saddens a shadow pooling
in the hollow at her throat,
traces a sable tip along
the crease left by a frown,
this woman who wears
life’s concerns on her face.
He allows the last ray of sun
to settle in the palm of her hand.
If she could hold life as lightly.
Sometimes, the nature of muted
light teases a memory of a girl,
he once painted, the delft blue,
an earring of luminous pearl.
Mardi May
_______________________________________
Transience
Ghost of Gwalia whisper their histories.
through hessian-lined walls, their shacks
saved from the open cut, moved, rebuilt
using salvaged sleepers and un-milled timbers
placed higgeldy-piggeldy
as they were when
a Sicilian bride fresh from her village
wept, stirring the cook pot
in a kitchen of tin roof and walls
floor of mis-matched bricks
the old mine closed one Friday
rush for Kalgoorlie and promise of Monday jobs
home-made tables, bed frames and barrows, abandoned
fraternity of nations lost overnight.
Diana Messervy
_______________________________________
Snail Hunt
Soft footing through crackling Autumn, we kneel and peer,
scan for signs. He tugs my cuff, lifts finger to lips. Sleepin’,
swipes mud on to Sponge Bob overalls. Chinese eyes
meet mine. Ssshhh! Together we lift leaves. High five.
Clustered snails. Shells clatter into our collecting pail.
You’re so clever, I tell him. I know. Nodding, solemn
as an old man, he crawls towards lavender, rummages.
Hands crumbed with damp sand hitch a sock, point.
More molluscs winkled from rockery, a white one
discovered under the letter box. I spy silver
stripes wavering over pavers. Fairies? I shake
my head, show him our quarry. We squat to watch.
Chuckling he touches eyestalks, sees Disney in
animal’s vanishing, hasn’t witnessed these creatures
glide like ice dancers, seen them celebrate rain.
I look into our old green bucket. Hmmm.
We toss the lot to hens, avenge my ravaged mint.
Jan Napier
_______________________________________
Androgyne
Following me all
my life like a coloured
shadow,
the woman I might
have been.
I see her sometimes
smiling softly
nearby
without
recognition.
Narcissus
loved only himself
but I dream of
the hidden woman
I would have been
if chance had set
another scene.
If my father had not
intoned a son
but I has been born
a daughter
to happy laughter.
I see bright eyes that
might have been mine,
rising breasts,
eyebrows cresting on
waves of youthful
joy, so unlike a
glowering boy.
But she went her way,
a girl, and I went mine,
a boy, twins separated
at birth, closer than
brother and sister,
but never to merge;
although I love her
as myself, lost female
version of me.
Julian O’Dea
_______________________________________
East of the western ocean
Three hundred and sixty degrees in all sight lines,
the land an Arnotts’ brown.
On a crest, the howling east wind scarifies eyes,
shoes implant in sticky tar, hat blows away.
In grain paddocks remnant ringbarked posts of York
or salmon gum crisscross; painfully stitching up scars.
No water softening greens, just tan.
No sheltering branches, just vast incomprehensible expanses
of biscuits, porridge, bread, flour, a morning croissant.
At what price the refuge hidden between sheoaks, melaleucas,
shivering in the heat, its waters glaring skyward,
the ducks gliding in scant rushes?
Long ago the fledgling township drew its water from this pool,
sailed boats, had races, learned to swim.
Eons ago other women birthed beneath its trees,
gathered mussels, crays and yams. Sang to the waters.
Once there was a chain of pools, feeding veins,
sinuous snaking beneath softer light cradling long necked turtles,
swamp rats, tiny bats, antechinus, wallaby, waders.
Now further out. Salt.
Creeping upward. Nothing to diffuse this poisonous inevitability.
In a year or three all will be white, crystalline and briny.
Virginia O’Keeffe
Belief
In 1956 my parents said: Every four hundred yards
the water renews itself; a fervent belief.
They cleaned the frying pan of fried trout with pure creek sand
watched detritus sink into benthic mica glints and tiny pebbles
or rush over green rounded stones in water swiftly flushing.
Did I find such ideas satisfying?
Not really, wondered if I dunked a can of motor oil
how far would it take to debunk or prove the theory?
Would its slick suck up through bullrush straws
or gather in basket willows’ wafting red claws?
If we ran four hundred yards along the bank would magic work?
I doubted them but love struck my tongue mute.
Older, I made sure never to leave more than
my skin lick in the depths.
Virginia O’Keeffe
_______________________________________
A Day in June, 20 Always
The shortest day is this, the one that strangles diurnal,
the one that sucks restless photons from shortening light
and hammers dark to day. Too short, too short – this blood
needs shine to warm and flow, wants heat to beat and
bright to light. Flick a switch, these spilling beams flow
from coal not plasma, do not know how to shine a beam
into pulsing bubbles of chlorophyll’s green-eyed pigments.
My Eucalyptus yearnings, my shimmering platitudes. This
winter day of solitude and solstice does not glow enough,
it turns itself to off before it switches on, this pink and
skinny mammal needs grass to grow, waves to flow, penetration
of pulse to startle cells. That sucking in of sunlit lighting thrusts
into this far too stay-on glooming, takes the better part of day
to dismal dark, to night, as a heart beats slower as restless veins
flow faster, going hard to catch and hold a sunbeam corking
bright of day, bottling light for after flick, a switch this season’s
done. I’m on fire, I am not happy that someone who knows the
detail far, far more than me, pulled the Eucalyptus out of Lemon-
Scented Gum and left it in a new nomenclature. It whispered to me
as I stumbled past in the park in the dark that it does not like
being called Corymbia, it wants and needs its former splendour.
What’s in a name? Not so much, say some. For me, I say it’s all
in the name, bring back the word I love, do not leave these unspoken
dreams a’dangling. Suckle sun and hope it’s over soon. It is, whispers
the thing that shifts the gears, this is the day of most contraction,
it is only another 24 hours before expansion, before days enlarge
through greater photon shower, as green lives suckle harder and
turn my grimace to upturned lips, fake frowning, take grim to grin.
Allan Padgett
_______________________________________
dualisms
the poet,
a collision of
of chipped antique dark and desolate alphabet in
headstone-grey saunter and echoing madness,
have upon themselves a
courtship with the heart.
for the poet – broken winged and adrift – recognises its voice;
a language built for the imprisoned.
because of it,
the poet – an exile from the ordinary –
can therefore touch the most unreachable of women –
hypnotising them with
storms learned from hearts lust.
there,
the woman – breathless and birthing fresh cavern deep shrills –
warms their internal river in a sweet rising tide,
soaking the
celebration of the poets dancing tongue,
who,
on swollen pulsating clitoris,
orchestrates
her submissive electrical gasping song;
its crescendo rising to heights
and
rewarding the poet with yet another heart,
because in a catching of her breath upon nights soft wet sheets,
she wraps her arms around him
like a rescue.
Mike Pedrana
_______________________________________
The Way the River Flowed
with reference to Bob Dylan
Did Bob really care which way the river flowed
Or did he just sit back on that bank of sand
As his words spread across the land
Well, anyway, folk listened and they cared
Which is why multitudes gathered
In the street; making images, chanting and
Burning images until the story was written
And good things happened
Then, years later, when his debt had been repaid
An old man wrote about a river in need
Before long, a woman answered with a tweet
And her words turned into a trickle
That became a flood of twenty million tweets
As every single soul clicked Like, saying
“All along the valley those waters shall be released
And good things happened”
After which, people looked at their screens
And watched the river grow.
Gregory Piko
_______________________________________
A Conundrum
I worry about my poems
that have gone to live in the cloud
worry I may never get them back
or where they are on cloudless days
worry at the dangers out there in the sky
spy balloons, drones and fighter jets
about wild and wintry days, what if my
cloud came down as rain
and all my poems were scattered far and
wide, mountains, deserts, jungles, oceans
or fluttered down as ticker tape in
Wall Street or Fifth Avenue
I want to touch the paper, feel the words, have them
back in folders on my desk
Norma Schwind
_______________________________________
Seen From My Kitchen Window
Early summer morning
billow-drift breeze
a spider dangles
from a dead rose bloom
full kit armour -clad arachnid
drawn to combat like a magnet
armed vehicle descends
sliding, fast- roping, earth bound
ratchet clicks
web unwinds yet more
our hunter spins, gyrates
like a marine exiting a Chinook
silky undercarriage deployed
compound eyes kick in
from Mothership to warrior
now lurking under petals below
preen those palps
take no prisoners.
Laurie Smith
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for Mark
.. .. remembering “Kat” {6-3-2023}
Autumn’s dappled light shifts
silently across shore’s sand and ocean
a feline has farewelled the night .. ..
imagine the emotion
as a longboard drifts
where the paddle cut deep
shadow and trauma block out sun’s light
body and memory salt tears do reap
savage invader, relentless, raise their fatal fibre’s fists
pummel and punish .. the flesh .. the blood
while perseverance and willpower continue to fight
against the avalanche unleashed by the flood
of a cocktail of chemicals; draining body resists
as purpose persists until the raven’s call
heralds dark feathers on the collar of night
gradually .. .. gently, the will said .. “fall”
this Winter will pass, grey fog lifts
Spring blossom returns indigo hue above
a new Summer’s warmth, sets you alight
and all that is remembered .. .. is love
Geoff Spencer
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The Sorrows
Sorrows always come in threes, they say.
Why three ?
Why not four or five or six?
Or one?
Surely one sorrow, one proper sorrow, is
Enough?
I know hardly anyone who has just one
But plenty who have more than three.
It’s like sorrows come
Just arrive at your door
Without knocking at all.
They emerge from darkness fully clothed
Armed
Visors up
Swords drawn
Eyes front-
Charge !
Whispered in the night or morning air:From somewhere they comeThe Sorrows .
Suzette Thompson
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Agonis Flexuosa
Commonly known as the Swan River Peppermint or Wannang to Noongar people.
You gather in shoals inland from dunes,
fringe the limestone heath along Geographe’s coast
play understudy to stands of Tuart
bring memories of gales and heaving
waves to city parks and suburban verges.
On the streets of my inner-city suburb
your sinewy trunks sheathed in bark,
cracked and stained as drowned ships timbers
raise a delta of boles against the sky,
trail branches quickened by cascades
of long narrow leaves low to the ground.
And in Djilba, first spring, tight white
flowerlets cluster at each leaf, stud
foliage from tip to source, whitecap crown
and twisting boughs with seed-pearl sheen.
Rita Tognini
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