March 2024
Selector: Chris Palazzolo
Honorary Selector: Peter Jefferey, AO
Contributors
Lenin in Exile
—– Ferdiad and Cú Chulainn meet for battle
—– Knuckle Under
—– Sylvia’s mother on Oxford Street
—– Soul Exchange
—– Written
—– Casting Doubts
—– pylon
—– tattooed
—– Are we our stories ?
—– Thank You Mr Lemon
—– Back in Time
—– In the quietness
—– Compression
—– The Coach, Robertson Park
—– if the jacket fits
—– Star Swamp Frogs
—– End Days
—– Lake Walk
—– Intrinsic Tranquillity
—– Northbridge, a collage poem
—– The Witch’s Son
—– To Sleep
—– What price tartan socks
—– Deckbound and Free As a Bird
—– lollipop
—– Garden Café
—– Riveted in Time
—– After the Launch
—– Precious Cargo
—– Autumn Light
—– Everything
—– Looking In, Looking Out
—– From the Classifieds
—– Corroboree Frogs
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Lenin in Exile
For Ruby
James St nocturne; *
Lenin dozes at his desk,
Lulled by the
The metropolitan susurrus…
Lake Geneva, the Finland Station;
Trucks of men with rifles,
Snow clad Kremlin towers;
Rowdy Soviets,
Meeting in rooms dense
With tobacco smoke;
Strong black tea with lemon,
And dark bread, thickly buttered…
Awakening with a start
Lenin turns up his desk lamp,
Against the night,
And focuses on matters
Awaiting his urgent attention;
Letters from Trotsky and Krupskaya,
A library book,
And the day’s West Australian…
*Christopher Crouch 2017,
Lenin in Perth: No Hat, No Play!,
Atomic Activity Books, Perth, p. 16.
Fremantle Line, 6.21 pm,
24th January 2024.
Ananda Barton
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Ferdiad and Cú Chulainn meet for battle
Cú Chulainn is speaking: ——————Ferdiad is speaking:
“No witch’s curse pains us, ————- “No queen’s order binds us,
yet we meet on this ford. —————– yet here we must lock horns
where one of us must die: ————— at this place between homes:
two free men of Ireland —————— two doomed men of Ireland,
fighting a woman’s war. —————– refugees of the spear.
I call you my brother. ———————- In our might, in our heat,
Side by side we spent nights, ———– we are matched to the skin.
face to face we grew tall. —————- This will be no quick match.
I know you to the inch. ——————- We will clash for long days.
Each wound I land in you, ————— Come night, we will embrace,
will weep with my own tears. ———– charging blood for the dawn.
In this war of the bulls, ——————– I will always love you.
thousands of men have burned, ——I know you will the same.
naked in their fervour. ———————Love is a war of gore
So it will be for us. ————————– splashing between two bulls.
Bull, titan, or brother: ——————— Now, if you honour me,
great men go to the end. ————— then show me no mercy.”
Liam Blackford
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Knuckle Under
it started in the usual way
locking eyes in the crowd
light-hearted conversation
cocktails, tango, seduction
kisses under a blood moon
glutted with love and passion
white satin and vows
the fairy tale
until the first punch
control over her life
money, movements
tracker app on her phone
ring-fenced by fear
bruises buttoned-up
friendships fractured
isolation
no escape
until the final punch
Maria Bonar
Back to Top
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Sylvia’s mother on Oxford Street
Remember that opshop adventure north up
Oxford Street in Paddington one
wet Saturday? (a conference/ pre-Covid
4-hour continental sprint: Boorloo
to unceded Gadigal land)
—————– Long shot exterior establishes Vinnies or Save
—————– the Kids montage sequence panning
—————– racks/shelves landmined floors in close up
—————– confabulate stuff, kneehigh tiltframing on stacks
—————– to glut saturate viewers
—————– with residualised affluenza
—————– as the bakelite radio seizures, choking
—————– through ads/news/chat/music the usual
—————– mid-morning schmooze
Here we are, post-Fordist, consciously
skilled, seasoned grifters – no nanobot
beats the scouring of these eyes or hands
for MCM product: style, pattern or military
mode, materiel
The Saints advise, and we know
brands and advertising
Since the 20th century is archived, languishing
in charity storage cross-sectioned
as homewares, nostalgia and retrofashion in stages
of disrepair, see in hindsight that the nation
spreads like a tablecloth fibres
& dust dense as any microfiche catalogue, to be read
as culture standing in place of real books
with pages printed, bound
and human, individuals distinct
from any niche market or big-e Economy that needle stuck
playing an urban doom loop
But there in the manifest moment
that was, a conundrum vexes
at the cash register: Who recorded
“Sylvia’s mother”? Was it Smokie
or Dr. Hook?
Samantha Boswell
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Soul Exchange
I look into your eyes,
Woman I’ve just met,
you look into mine,
those of the Man I am.
I see a fellow traveller on our own arcs of life,
through this beautiful universe,
a unique soul on your journey,
a person living a life from a different
Perspective,
Experiences not mine.
So with new things to share,
a friend in the making,
part of life’s great beauty.
Perhaps.
Or not.
Friendship can only be mutual.
What do you see?
Am I just a Man,
Is that my label?
Or
A soul in transit,
just like yours
Eddy Campbell
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Written
It is the cornerstone of existence that clings
to words, dark ink on white, sharp edged.
The soft and the hard coursed around breath
as the jewelled hand trails cursive strokes.
How one folds into the other
lends substance to the immaterial
as visions construct beyond the mind.
Contort into wild images born of
past doings, fantasy developed
with the eager caress of youth.
How it all collapses to shouts of defection
as harsh sounds find anchor.
Drift from the first touch, the first trace
across dew veiled skin. The electric shudder
that cannot be written, the sudden intake
that comes unexpected unbidden
cloaked behind a smile.
It is moments where breath
is lacking that chase the pen
struggle to be formed in ink
as if permanence delivers
its own credence and yet …
it is the sun and its morning warmth
chased by the cool desert air
that is difficult to record.
It is the look in your eye, the curve
of your smile that lacks words.
Yet … words are what I seek.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
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Casting Doubts
Tourists charter a cabin cruiser
supplied with skipper and fishing expert
who knows the best spots far off the coast
where the barracuda dart
and circle, waiting for the burley
amateurs wrestle with the rod
and their first big game catch
until the professional takes over
———————————joyriders gag
———————————when the hook is cut out
———————————bile floods the deck
Gangs work on prawn trawlers with nets
gulping like huge mouths, sweeping the ocean
shooting the sharks
caught up and dragged on board
———————————–sun-scarred crew members, hardened by years at sea
———————————–hack off the fins with rusted knives
———————————–and kick the sharks overboard, still alive
Weekend cronies take their mate’s aluminium dinghy
with outboard motor and eskies full of beer
life jackets left on the jetty
to make room for the latecomer
———————————wearing thongs and shorts
———————————they don’t stand a chance
———————————smashed against the reef
After a long tug of war
reeling and pulling, reeling and pulling
the environmentalist will kiss the fish
– like a lover –
on the mouth
and carefully slip it back in to the water
ready for the next hook, line and sinker
Dedicated anglers take rod and tackle to wave-swept cliffs
ignoring the warning signs, slipping on rocks
cutting feet on razor sharp barnacles
for the best casting off point
risking their life, drowning for the dinner catch –
as they swirl in the roiling surf and disappear
those left behind
too late with the life line
bemoan
the one who got away
Kathleen Dzubiel
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pylon
a groyne-walled sea, the surf’s swift slap,
the quiet wind’s cut, your concrete torso of etch
and grey, melding into froth, a lull,
your resilience, value of iconography.
do not become fashion, do not become
cloned, do not let shire safety wire
deny us your landing. today, drawing pin
in brine, launch pad for board-shorted
esteem, wet thumb in breeze, can paint you
in only this place. proposed now?
laughed down….”on what precedent?
…..for what purpose?” at this hour
welcomed by surrounds, festooned in weed,
bricked by mussels. not lonely, not stoic,
not flotsam in wait of shore.
whipped by sou-westers, rocking-horse manes
on waves, spume, one gull in hover
and you, watching, fixed in your station.
evening glides silently in, horizon line
begins mending, and you wait,
stylus on an unplayed sea. tonight
herring will sew themselves around you,
tide will sing, and tomorrow, another
will swim to you, climb, jump and fly
Kevin James Gillam
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Tattooed
on the beach
my daughter’s mood
is Bach’s minuet in G major
a g string minor
reveals an inked peony petalled
on one pert cheek
her thighs illustrate a bouquet
from an uptown florist
a wolf waits on one shin
and a deer on the other
hunt and prey staged at every bend
a minuet in G major
under the Bee Gees sun
barefoot on the coastal strip
between striped umbrellas
and sandy beach towels
my sister discarded her husband’s name
but it remained on her wrist
she overlaid it with a feather
a wordless quill trying to score
out their marriage vows
fifteen lasers cannot
erase the ink of him
but the feather fades
on her scarred skin
like Saint-Saëns’s swan
Ann Gilchrist
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Are We Our Stories?
Am I less me
if I give away my mother’s paintings, the last photo of my father
or of my first dog,
my grandmother’s thimble,
the gold locket
enclosing
my grandmother’s
red hair, or my own daughter’s
first red curl,
thoughtfully sealed in a ziplock bag?
Can I pass on our stories without pictures, without objects handled, treasured?
Will my voice,
my remembered history, convince
a grandchild
with red hair, that her own great-great
red-headed grandmother existed?
Candy Gordon
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Thank You Mr Lemon
Mr Lemon was my patient when gender had two boxes
but people needed more,
when medical files were hard copy, print, text—
computers crowning, spewing out results on perforated sheets:
132 column printer paper, striped light blue.
Mr Lemon raises his voice—staccato blasts of grit and gravel,
laced with saliva, hurt and hate,
fired at walls of medical students—bullets in their wake.
‘The nurses say you won’t let them take your blood.’
Mr Lemon lowers his jaundiced eyes, chuckles;
extends his right arm and puckers up; cowers in my five-foot shadow.
I stick his veins with metal stylets; fill glass tubes to the brim with blood.
‘Let’s get you cleaned up, I bet it’s been a while since you had a bath.’
I reel from his pungent perfume—nicotine nectar and gin.
He nods, shuffles his bum across hospital issue white linen throws—
scratches his arms, swills spittle in a mouth with no teeth:
plucks phantom ants from his sallow skin.
My patient had nowhere else to go, his address the Gill Memorial Home for Men,
corner of Wills and A’Beckett Streets—the Salvos ran it during the eighties;
it’s called The Gill now, a posh apartment block.
Bet it still smells of tobacco, booze, vomit and sweat
from the ghosts trapped within its walls.
His spare bed the Royal Melbourne Hospital, 300 Grattan St, Parkville—
we had that in common: mine too in 1983,
more nights slept there than in my house, plumped pillow at my back,
pager at my head.
My phone would ring when day had passed—
‘Your private patient’s here,’ a sleepy voice would drone;
I dragged my plasticine limbs to clerk him in.
I sat with him. Held his hand. Waited for his smile.
He stayed a night.
You could do that then—there were hospital beds
and staff who were kind; with compassion and time
for all the strays that came and went
through doors that never closed.
A regular—his skin sheared by a myriad of mites:
scabies’ tracks on wrists and toes.
Hair dark with dust, hung low,
tethered by matted tresses of glistening white—
opalescent nits, clinging to life.
I can’t see his face, the past too far,
but my tears still shed his pain.
I smell the vomit, curdled in the bowl I held;
his sweats, his shakes—skin, ice cold,
fingers that clutched mine too tight
before a languid sigh—a white shadow on red sheets.
One night he failed to make the list—they said he didn’t show,
not that night: not the next: a dropped heartbeat on my shift.
I wonder where he last lay—outside on wet, cold stone?
Or down some alleyway, now gentrified,
graffiti scrawled across his brick wall tomb,
crumpled clothes dumped—refuse for the garbage truck
that did its rounds each day.
If anyone was next to him when splutter turned to air—I wish it had been me.
I wouldn’t be a doctor if Mr Lemon hadn’t swung my way—
complex and contrary; obnoxious, crude and mean.
The first patient who believed in me
when darkness was my home.
Elizabeth Green
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Back in Time
‘Can you hear the music?’ my wife
called from the family room
and as I entered, the longing
notes of Beethoven’s ‘For Elise’
appeared dreamlike on Spotify
as if calling back the years…
‘Close your eyes” she said
and we were drawn to
my father sitting at his piano
in our house, leaning over the
piano keys as a doctor in his 90s
caring for his patient’s needs.
Evenings at home when young
you’d hear classical melodies
held tightly in the night air: the
likes of Mozart, Bach, Debussy
and Beethoven, as if mates who
lingered, waiting on their cue
and those old movie love themes
return in memory’s glimpses –
he at the piano, with my mother
singing along from the kitchen:
“We’ll meet again, don’t know where” …
reliving those London Blitz fears.
Mike Greenacre
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In the quietness
When I am alone
I feel the sounds
vibrations of air
and the quietness
pushing in on me
Bit by tone, the sounds
take shape, form patterns
lean towards things solid
and the quietness
subsumes me
To say quietness
I reach for words
not sayable
and the quietness
endures
Ruari Jack Hughes
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Compression
No opening credits
no long shots
no CGI or model spaceships flying
Just interiors
engine rooms
galleys
bridges
at war in space
Men and women
children and aliens
hurting
hurting
hurting
It’ll end soon, I thought
Victory
rescue
everafter
Clean, American
In my dream, a capsule
empty with yellow light,
bulkheads full of untouched
instruments
One voice: a little girl’s.
If I don’t breathe, she said,
within three-quarters—
The screen went black.
The credits rolled:
COMPRESSION
The director’s name
Another name
Another name
Another name
Jackson
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The Coach, Robertson Park
During a break in lessons
his eyes pass to focal point
of tennis court’s floodlit floor
its mess of miss-hit rubber balls
his gaze then passes
through holes in chain link fencing
skips over park’s afternoon gloom
powers above low-rise houses
skims the roofs of exotic trees
shoots up steeples of the CBD
where it’s dazzled by corporately lit
harmonicas —
silver/yellow flutes
before it pauses
at that red neon glow —
Westpac’s badge
pinned below
the swellness of the moon
it drinks in metaphysics
between clouds of buzzing stars
the kaleidoscopic
universe!
Ross Jackson
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____________________
If the jacket fits …
“Long neck …,
sloping shoulders …,
prominent shoulder blades …”
the tailor barked at his assistant.
Unexpectedly I seemed to be
being measured up
as prospective understudy
for the role of hunchback of Notre Dame.
Nature has been indifferent to me,
that insult being compounded
by me not always being aware
of particular of my flaws.
Others correct my oversight.
How am I to proceed with confidence
knowing that within my newly tailored jacket
my misshapen body hides
until ultimately exposed?
I conform to others’ norms
to minimise the spread
of the scorn that I generate.
I must overcome my fear of exposure
and live my life as me,
no longer putting up with that not suitable,
taking up the challenge of being seen by others
in this tailor-fit jacket.
Not wanting to feel confined
while chafing in an ill fitting garment,
I’ll proceed anew before the world,
accepting that if my jacket fits
I will wear it and fill out my role
and not cringe before preying eyes.
peter knight
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Star Swamp Frogs’ – Lamentation
as sun slips into horizon
they sing out, calling one another
their music swells, burbling harmony,
a chorale, a vibrating anthem
such secret creatures, hiding,
hard to find in the dim of shadows
skin of motley, a perfect camouflage
laced with emerald gold filigree
crouching in mud, clinging to tree bark
gleaming like precious gems
in a fouled habitat, pools shrinking
aquifer drying out, draining away
delicate membrane is clogged
polluted, poisoned, they cannot breathe
their rumbling refrain is urgent
the pulse of the swamp, fading
silence escalates, through tomorrow
soon, they will call no more
Veronica Lake
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End Days
I’m near the meat section of Woollies
and this poem about you keeps interrupting
it’s the end of the world
and I haven’t finished my shopping
my bank debt’s increasing
creatures are abandoning
a ship that is sinking
I haven’t held your hand in days
and the last place I want to be is on my knees
near the meat section
where honey and garlic sausages
are tagged and packed and priced and tenderised
it’s the end of the world and I
can’t afford solar panels or a wind farm
with the vouchers in my letterbox
it’s the end of the world
nothing nothing nothing is sacred
everything costs
all the garbage in islands in the ocean
is everything I’ve ever thrown into a bin
returning to me
it’s the end of the world
and I haven’t told you – do you know
we’re hard wired to the ka-ching!
I’m standing near the meat section in Woollies
completely unextraordinary conditioned and behaved
I’m caught between flesh glistening behind plastic
so close I can almost touch it
trying to choose
when there’s no choice at all
it’s the end of the world
and of course that REM song is playing
the speakers pipe it through the aisles
like lost ghosts hunting
it’s the end of the world
and this poem about you keeps interrupting
I checked the horoscopes this morning
they said I’d face important choices
of wings and breasts and thighs and necks
and I can’t choose
there is no choice
everyone’s out of their minds out of their heads
there’s no hazmat suits or toilet paper frenzy
it’s the end of the world
and the carnival’s shutting down quietly
and if I can spend my last dollars on something
make it mean something
if I buy something
I might be something
it’s the end of the world and out back
someone’s working a double shift
they’re sweeping blood down the drain
and the love poem
the love poem
interrupts my gaze
how I pulled you into a poem
about the end of the world
and left us there
safe – from the end days
Deanne Leber
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Lake Walk
They are camped here again today
in the gazebo overlooking the lake,
the woman on a mat doing yoga,
two men, one rakes back unruly hair;
cleans his teeth with a finger,
clothing strewn around a humpy tent
on real estate with a lakeside view.
The path is busy this early morning
before a forecast today of 42:
familiar dogs and owners; the elderly
beating the day with walking sticks;
the woman who wears white gloves;
a couple holding hands as they bump
together along the path and two joggers
trailing a wake of aftershave and soap.
A fresh early morning, no sweat yet.
Two mornings later, new tenants are
packing the night into a Woolies trolley.
Short stay accommodation in demand
on this piece of prime real estate.
Mardi May
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Intrinsic Tranquillity
Tranquillity of a mirrored pond
Calm-coolness of a morning mist
The floating of free-falling leaves
The perfume of a perfect rose
A campfire’s glow on moonless night
Deep caverns of coals still glowing red
The tempting smell of billy tea
Creates in me tranquillity.
Glad McGough
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Northbridge, a collage poem
grime & crimes ———compacted into the disco———district———this ecstatic candy of
dancing——teens & twenty-somethings—–daylight now—-how—in a back alley, beneath
razor wire’s tendril—–a catheter stems across——cement, pink brick—-pulses to embrace,
step over combination lock———-SEZAR DYME——— PEST——–past that oasis where an
old mate once shelled meth——-a wandering distillery——- paradise karaoke wishes Merry
Christmas—–mood: punch me in the face a callout for codekids to code class—silver cross
& electric state animals are here with us————————-topiary gorilla beside a sign: this
machine is monitored——darl’, what was the rego again?———66 letters———-a woman
carries stacked dominos——-boxes compressed & bundled———an arrow points toward a
waiting terrace——-ta as a suited couple laugh & say——god i love Northbridge—sarcasm
spattered RM Williams—-bottle cap with blood of cotton swab————-how ink is a sickly
pigeon———-sticker & scrubbed halo of thunderous chunder splatter——& the nightclubs
snooze ——-ready to music & booze———& contain small riots-——– again———-tonight
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______________________
the witch’s son
wears a crystal over heartskin pours chamomile
lights red candles then takes the bins out for his mother
after all he’s still her kid with the milk moustache
uprooting a toadstool soft rocket shooting whitely
through darkness he thinks of men one man
wasabi eyes the writhe of nights sweatsalt
breath and clench how softness equalled sleep.
a finger tracing the face in the frame he mutters
the same words over and over embeds them
in memory imprisons him in ink wonders
about mirrors and reversals dares the loneliness
of microphones slides away like rain. he wins
and wins slams comps hearts he doesn’t ask for
scrys audiences and auras for the one more
enthralled a hand to hold the hug that doesn’t end
when you walk away the moon sees him home.
Jan Napier
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To Sleep
Oneiric 1
Higher branches
of the gum tree
on a heated day
draw the eyes
to profiles
and silhouettes
of waiting dogs
sketched by
the branches.
Scrying pups
and tallying tails is
as good as
counting sheep
and rarely fails
to round up
daytime sleep.
Oneiric 2
Pursuing
the setting sun
the bird
of consciousness
skims above
a settling sea
her head nodding
her beak drops
and strikes
strange thoughts
so
sheathing her wings
she falls
to commune
with the dark.
Julian O’Dea
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_____________________
What price tartan socks?
In grade four Mr Kenny stood me on a chair to shame my
wearing of tartan socks, not white plain ones from Lemon’s shop.
It had no bearing on what we’d learnt, how Inuit left
their elderly to die on ice floes in the Arctic Sea, an idea so
foreign, so calculating of need and despair I was in shock.
I thought of my mum and grandma, wrapped in seal skin
with furry hoods dragging a sled of bone through icy wastes
an aged grandpa strapped on top till he was rolled on to the snow,
falling softly all this time. Their eye lids droop, they grunt farewell
and hurry away. There is no shame, is there regret?
We leave our elderly in nursing homes, the modern equivalent
of Arctic ice floes. It takes them longer to succumb because
of air conditioning and rations arriving on trolleys, not dogsleds.
Mum is on her ice floe, where those who can no longer cope
are moved to die with clock round watches and soothing voices.
I think she’d prefer the ice. That quick sleep of death and disposal by bears.
Virginia O’Keeffe
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Deckbound and Free As a Bird
(for Peter Jeffery)
1
Forest Red-tailed Black Cockatoos,
loosely known as cockies,
crowd adjacent skies and whittle nuts away.
New Holland Honeyeaters –
from now on we’ll call them twitterers,
as they dip and slip and spray and natter,
faster than machine gun bullets.
Rainbow Lorikeets.
From here until we pass through storms of final radiation
these intensely noisy garrulous Easterners
will be known as Noisypets.
Brown Honeyeater, birdy,
honey-sweet and tiny,
lung-pumping songsters –
they make my day.
2
Like a lamington or a beef and kidney pie,
or a durian milkshake if it’s Thursday
and we are out at Morley chowing down
on slippery or crackling yum cha morsels.
Or even, if there’s room enough for stretching
a tale of many colours and diversions,
a friendly gathering of writers
spruiking their various brand-new pieces
in a caring workshop where poems
are teased, invented – read aloud.
3
Short stories, too.
There’s more than one way to tackle Everest.
This small gathering surrounds
a table built for twenty plus.
It hums with vibrating words.
It is not a competition, nor a race.
That comes as a nice surprise –
and brontobytes of relief.
4
There is more to modern life
than hiding from right-wing liars,
crooked politicians bent on corruption,
a flight of hungry seagulls,
reams of sobbing Centrelink detectives
and horses bent on losing.
5
Our skies are filled with such
diverse and beautiful songsters,
though sometimes a gang of ravens
will break and raze away this peaceful sky.
But then a tiny gathering
of Black-faced Cuckoo Shrikes
wings in to make my day again,
loopy looping, singing swing.
6
So I write another homebred poem
to catch these tremulous moments,
to while away some vagrant time,
to try and make some sense of this –
the way, the everyday.
He would say, quotidian.
Of being and caring.
Of believing and doing.
Allan Padgett
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______________________
lollipop
i couldn’t wait for school holidays.
i finally got away from him!
i boarded a country plane to the city,
a big sticker on my chest read ‘junior jet setter.’
it made me feel important and better than all my dumb friends who stayed at
home for their
holidays.
fresh smiling pretty hostesses,
kind as nurses with
soft voices chauffeured my lonely journey,
and me,
crayon coloured and chewing gum happy.
once,
they sent me to my aunty stephs in melbourne.
she was living with her best friend slav.
i liked slav.
upon landing,
i was introduced to melbourne’s grey clouds and headmaster-strict cold winds,
spearing my frisk holiday clumsy saunter on grey puddle-sad tarmac.
what i remembered most of all,
was the stranger who stood beside my
embracing warm aunty as i strolled into her airport lounge arms.
he was tall, handsome, and out of nowhere handed me the largest lollipop I ever saw.
oh my it was big!
like a balloon.
bigger than a daydream and
all circus-clown-colourful.
i liked him.
i mean i really liked him.
i had never seen such a treat.
i sat in his car and placed it on my lap like you would a christmas puppy.
staring at it like one would a birthday cake.
i could not take my heart’s desire away from that lollipop –
in between the interrupting questions adults carry and those silly traffic lights country towns don’t keep.
my friends would never believe me but
it took me five days to eat that sugary treat.
five whole days to eat a lollipop!
shrinking slowly,
dented and fading around its edges,
all sticky but loved beside my new bed-head
where i cradled fresh sugar-drunk dreams.
why even now my adult heart still skips to that memory and delight.
its whirlpool-swirling rainbow-bright face,
symbolic,
like a flag!
a strangers sweet gift,
dancing so light
inside the secretly-bleak pathway of my childhood
that for one beautiful moment,
coloured it without bruises.
Mike Pedrana
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Garden Café
A skinny ant scooting along the stem
of a corolla of pale trumpet flowers.
Some burnished papery with age
some fleshy voluptuous and white
others mere tight-fisted buds.
In the distance the faint voice of water
reflecting leaves over a verdigris vintage urn.
Where bees, wasps and mud dubbers pirouette on its lip edge
And shielded under a large umbrella
smiling terracotta children and cherubs.
All these oblivious to the rest of us here.
A plate emptied of its almond croissant
A cup lathered in crema
The noise of our chatter
The music and beeps from our phone’s notifications
The scrape of the pen across paper.
Elena Pia Preiato
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Riveted in Time
the season is over
the time of stone fruit passes
the chill in my bones overtaken
by the clambering warmth of the sun
as it moves toward its solstice
if I could I would remain
riveted in time
forgetting what has gone
not believing in a future
the present my only reality
a moment when all seems right
a time of fortuitous contentment
a new season approaches
the time of falling blossoms
the warmth I had been feeling replaced
by the descending cooling of the sun
as it moves toward its solstice.
even if I could
I cannot remain riveted in time
the past rears up in my thoughts,
the future is only a second away
the present a fleeting illusion
strangely all still seems right
fortuitous contentment remaining
I would stay if I could
riveted in time
but cannot,
the stone fruit eaten,
the blossoms scattered
Barry Sanbrook
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After the Launch
vale Andrew Burke
we read him; homeward bound
on a late-night train to Midland
flick through pages of his poems,
delight in the playfulness of words
take turns, read out loud, back
and forth across the aisle
random lines, snatches of verse
everyday words of humour and
heart, we laugh ‘til tears
trickle cheeks, noses drip
fellow travellers pick up on the
mood, the whole carriage is
smiling and laughing, joining in
young, old and careworn –
we are one
his poetry unites us all
Norma Schwind
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Precious cargo
I used to take her dog
up into the rough crags above Edinburgh.
Years ago, the Queen gave her permission
to walk through Holyrood palace.
I never chanced it. They are both gone now.
I see her tentatively moving along
a wet Edinburgh pavement near Princess St.
The Golden Mile is too cobbled for her.
She is legally blind but remembers,
feels the entwined doves on the cap.
In the perfume bottle
there is not only scent
but love.
My godmother sent it to me.
Amanda Spooner
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Autumn Light
In autumn the sun-dried grass glows
and a late afternoon orange tinge
cast against the Darling range
reminds me of a Florentine dream
of orange roofs and golden Etruscan fields.
The light so softly touches eucalypt
as if to caress nature itself.
Rich vowels sound a luminous space
and verse gives forth bucolic voice.
Genius Loci of my half-acre
cuddled against the granite slopes.
My gaze at eye level with the distant horizon
becalms my thoughts
and soothes my troubled words.
Michael Stevens
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Everything
Why do we speak of the liminal
as though it were something
other than
the passage from life to death, the slow
decay and dissipation
of one thing becoming another, just
the usual endless mess
constantly churning,
birthing
something new?
Every aspect of our Being
holds itself
uncertainly—
yet we approach the in-between
asthough it weren’t embedded
in every syllable, nor the essence
of our every breath.
Here—where late
afternoon rays
slant across
a tired floor,
where all my living loves
to remain,
everything moves,
bumps and spins,
shatters—
builds matter from light—returns
to nothing…
I’d jump—
but I already live
in the air…
Jill Taylor Neal
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Looking In, Looking Out
On my last night in San Francisco, I rode the California Street cable car to the end of the line and back. As we crested Nob Hill I saw the apartment building where I lived for seven years. Plain white blinds obscured the bay window. When I lived there the blinds were always rolled up to showcase aol Halloween pumpkin, a gaudy Christmas tree or a 49ers banner. I loved seeing tourists on the cable car point up at it and wonder about my life. Sometimes I wondered too.
framed by an empty window
so many memories
Maggie Van Putten
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From the classifieds
That old piano we bought from the classifieds
one wet night, the candelabra torn, a screw lost
forlorn notes letting fall
before the tuner wound her up
middle ‘c’ sounding ordinary
note frosted after dark
its burgundy wood semi-gloss
it seemed
someone had wished it ruby red
painted curtained strokes
ivory performing steps to the house
play resounding a symphony
in the corner of the dining room
tinkering tine
scooping notes
leftover ‘c’
miscellaneous
for a time
when called for tea
the music softened night
between courses the candelabra
lifting its head the piano
playing its own accord
finding voice
middle ‘c’ centre stage
again.
Rose van Son
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Corroboree Frogs
13th January 2020
I was twelve, and enraptured, deep in the Brindabellas,
jeans soaked to the knees in bogwaters.
Bulbous grasshoppers trundled over moss,
their gumnut-brown elytra hiding fat abdomens
multicoloured as gobstoppers. Fallen eucalypts,
grey as sable, melted into squelching soil.
And there they were, where my father’s colleague
said they would be: slow-moving corroboree frogs
like impossibly precious living stones, obsidian veined
with sulphur, breathing jewels precipitated out of
wetness, scintillating in their highly polished skins.
Today the news came: their last remaining bastions
cannot yet be reached – the fires are still burning –
so we cannot know whether nature spared them
once again, or whether the bogland is boiled alive,
and I lie in bed suppressing tears, fearing
that while I slept, these little living encapsulations
of everything that’s sublime went out of the world
forever. And the child, aged twelve, for all his delight,
could not gauge the gravity of that moment:
that the tiny being who blessed his hand by crawling
across it could, in his lifetime, be for always gone.
Giles Watson
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