September 2024
Selectors: Helen Budge, Kevin Gillam
Contributors
Winter, Upper Warren
A poem about a duck
Blue Tiger Butterfly
To My Son
A song to drink by
Grandfather’s clock
The Night Walks
Fingertips
on hoping
In the Ionic Soup
Hollow Bones
Searching
Exclusivity of Normal
Aussie Rules 2023
Spinning Through Life
Gulped Down by Goliath
the frog
breving
Ocean Serenades 1 Paulina
serious work
Shakespeare and Me
Rules for Summer Mornings
Strange Country
Commuters
May-day
Melbourne: A Real Lady
The Rig
the tiger
Rabbiting
Exigency
How to find Perth Canyon
The Roses
The Arum Lillies
A Mantis eats the head off a cricket it is holding with its legs
Monetary Value
Tradies’ Triumph 1
My Enigma Variations
Jubilee
Spinifex Dove
Sacred Places
Mint Slices
beneath my skin
A Course of Dnipro at the Dinner Table
Generational Wreath
A Happy Birthday From Cuckoo
Supermarket Incubus
On Love Lost Days
At the Lyceum
_______________________________
Winter, Upper Warren
In memory of Louise, d. 31st July 2024
Gray sky.
The dam a
Tarnished mirror.
Unkempt feral sheep
Graze cold-stunted grass.
A sudden shaft of sunlight.
The rosemary comes alive with bees!
Ananda Barton
Koorijee Warranup / Upper Warren, 31st July 2024
_______________________________
A poem about a duck
I want to write a poem about a duck
without any queer [agenda]
without comparing the daily queer phobia
with water off a duck’s back
I love bird watching by the river
it’s duckling season
I count the fuzzy babes tailing each
mother duck
and praise the mothers with the most children
still with them
think of my own children
who are still with me
ducks will wait for any ducklings left behind
and I don’t want to compare that to
queer folk being left behind
that’s not what this poem is about
I want to write a poem about a duck
because they are a plain bird
no peacock nor a lyre
but they are always walking in pairs
which is so human
I’m never seen a peacock do anything
except show off its beauty
I just want to write a poem about a duck
who didn’t have an interesting life
but did what a duck does
[what is more interesting than that?]
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think
ducks ever experience prejudice or
discrimination just for being born as a duck
that’s also not what this poem is about.
Maybe it is about being queer
because most things are
but when I sit by the lake
watching the ducks leading their boring
lives with their boring babies
I think I’m happy to not be boring.
And to not be a duck.
Carly Beth
_______________________________
Blue Tiger Butterfly
after Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
golden orb spider
sticky web
blue tiger butterfly
toxic trinity
you are the spider
weaving a web of addiction
trapping and destroying
your soul
losing the battle between
angel and devil
spinning, devouring
swallowing sapphire wings
only you can stop
the infinite cycle
break the captivating
cuffs of addiction
resolute in the morning
wavering in the afternoon
yielding by evening
God, help me be good
but not yet
Maria Bonar
_______________________________
To My Son
after Andrew Burke, ‘When You Read This’
As you read this
I will be sitting
in my massage chair,
thinking of you.
As you read this
your day will be ending
waving to our sunrise,
our moments, in line.
As you read this
our days are short
while yours are long,
just different hemispheres.
As you read this
oceans between us
are still warming,
ice caps melting.
As you read this
feel me hugging you,
even summer’s heat
does not deter.
My son,
as you read this
know that the path to the moon
and back does not change.
Kaye Brand
_______________________________
A song to drink by
some destroy the things they love
and some they love destruction
and some they love what they destroy
and call it reproduction
so learn a song about the dark
and make it long and silly
don’t forget to make a cake
and toast the joke of living
Mar Bucknell
_______________________________
Grandfather’s clock—
the only heirloom that parsimonious
old bastard bequeathed to his daughter—
squats on top of my bookcase,
as once it did on the mantelpiece
above our family’s hearth.
Slouched in an armchair,
wreathed in cigarette smoke
and risking late night burns,
I drift lacunae between chimes,
aware of their doppelgangers
sounding in my mind
where mum’s Pellegrini Mary—
the mantelpiece’s other occupant—
is condemned, as a female Prometheus,
to an eternity of pushing moody prayers
up and over a hill so that they roll down
the other side
to where Satan, these days
just a vague sort of darkness, waits
open-mawed to consume them.
On my better days, the old clock
stares down like a brown, one-eyed owl
housing within its woody
bell-curved brood breast two
sprung engines which require,
like love, a regular winding.
Which is why, it seems that, on
my worst days, it clanks out Time
in steps as zombie-like as Prometheus;
seems as bound as he; as dulled
by ceaseless efforts to escape the chains
of eternity’s ticking.
Why too, I think, my sister so hates
the constancy of its chimes;
hears, in the cataract of clunks
a too profligate dispatch of life.
Yet my Muse, perched on peaks
of angst, finds in its basal tones,
its ticks’ contrapuntal edginess,
beats by which anxiety—
taking on the semblance of laughter—
transcends my polar moods,
and becomes a belling,
a carillon song, a dance in which,
when, partnering Her,
the clock’s ticks become as sinuous
as the passage of Time Spent,
or the pleasure found in kisses
of Her forked and quivery tongue.
Peter Burges
_______________________________
The Night Walks
The night walks the winter,
A warmth felt without coldness,
Where paced forth a love so tender,
As subtle as feather flowing endless;
Where bound forth breaks strife bound,
No one hears such tattling tale,
A love free from pain and heaven found,
Forever love shall not ever fail,
Where this love’s brought forth,
Be told by the heavens and angels,
All evil shattered, brought forth by heaven’s calling pour,
Nights of love’s proof shall hear tingling bells…
Tonight…
It shall…
…and forever love’s symphonic dwell.
Sherry Caayupan
_______________________________
Fingertips
We left each other as children,
followed separate paths,
fingertips lost touch.
Two halves of one now lost,
grew apart as we aged into teens,
became grown.
We look at each other in mystery,
Lives incomplete,
a black hole in our souls,
some fill with desire,
some with hurt,
by accident or intent.
Others find Love,
somehow.
Friendship is rare.
Our fingertips touch in the dark,
we lost sight of the other long ago.
Strangers without understanding.
It is how men and women lose sense of
the other
Eddy Campbell
_______________________________
on hoping
hold your breath / keep
vigil by the bedside of
your wishes. you dare
not whisper the words,
missives like a murmured
prayer sent far into
the ether – a place as
yet unknown, perhaps
never to be (known).
for days of nights and
weeks of months, you
finally dare to dream:
an improbability, cloaked
in shimmering possibility.
sometimes, wonder happens /
keep vigil until then.
Ellie Cottrell
_______________________________
In The Ionic Soup
In the ionic soup
of storm scrubbed ocean
hackle-raised and thundering
nanocreatures swirl the air
adorn the streams and
blur the lines
So hopefully we swam
born into seas
then fished and floundering
forever at the shores of our
omphalic search
Is this our meaning then?
To navigate this spume-jewelled juncture
of neither here nor there?
Pray to diving bells and
bellowing undertows,
to spinifex dunes and
sandcastles —
Here we write our names
in the ruthless tides.
Catriona Della Martina
Hollow Bones
A soul lands
in your outstretched hand
offering wings to borrow, not burn
but why this form above all others?
The dunes that shift and shape
the ocean, lucent
air warm and seething with
a false flush of insects
The children bring me feathers
and we trail the swallows
who have appeared from nowhere
high beyond the spinifex.
Catriona Della Martina
_______________________________
Searching
1.
Glimpse of a thought
leaning into night
I light a fire of lines
running as dogs.
Each yap a consonant
each growl a vowel as words
rage against the leash.
A stampede in check
as the strain etches the page.
How words flow in ink
double in cursive runs
seeking the sounds of thought.
A scratched existence
scrawled across the page probing
for lift, the rise above mundane.
How the world fits between lines
everything compressed, looking back
while the forward step falls short
and hours flick fast as I search
for words to sate the ache.
2.
The wind becomes your name
and it is the stillness that claims
who you are as lines run chasing
the endless tail. Devouring this ache
emptiness.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Exclusivity of Normal
It is movement that catches the eye
colours struck across the canvass.
A jagged edge screaming red as green
soothes. In the corner, a black square
represents a city’s heart and towards
the middle, a yellow sun shaped eye
calls for compassion. Swirled like
a drink, there is a blue undercurrent
a cold shiver of colour sweeping beyond
the bold grasp of a hand clasping air.
A sigh of indigo holds attention
as if different can claim a defined
habitat, something close but separate.
For normal is exclusive, something other
than Saturday nights. It is threads—
calculated, stitched, drawn and tightened—
that run as lines to bind echoes
of what is, away from the fringe.
Away from city streets, being hungry.
The sameness of it all beyond
the outstretched hand, the averted eye.
Away from holy and thou as we share
air we breathe looking, questioning
without certainty as if colours
can be drained until everything
turns to black or white.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
_______________________________
Aussie Rules 2023
Be careful what you say
Mind where you look
On a Friday night at the local tavern
As you pass through the public bar
High heels sinking into the beer-soaked carpet
Odour of sweat and unwashed bodies
Barman winking lasciviously
Showing gold-capped canines
On your way to the tropical cocktail lounge
Blokes of all shapes and sizes
Eyes glued to the television
‘Carn!’
Roaring at the game
Stop en masse
Middies halfway to their lips
And stare
As if they have never
Seen a woman before
‘Hello… ladies’
In unison like a team anthem
Laced tight with sarcasm
Rebounding through the air
Handballed in your direction
And drop kicked into your evening.
Kathleen Dzubiel
_______________________________
Spinning Through Life
Now that I am a 78
aiming to become an LP
in thirty three years. I can’t wait!
Now I am a 78
then a one-one-one on the slate.
I’ll make it, just you wait and see.
Now I am a 78
aiming to become an LP
spinning around at 33
come for a spin and watch me!
Derek Fenton
Gulped Down by Goliath
An Bang beach, an invisible giant
stretches out two welcoming arms to greet
people relaxing, cancer-defiant
smoking, eager a blazing sun to meet.
Pointing south, the Cham islands its left arm,
north, the Danang peninsula its right.
It will comfort many coming to harm,
but not like those of America’s might
who went home in stars and stripes boxes, dead;
or frail fragments physical or mental.
Who for sixty years have wept and bled.
To fickle fate they’re just incidental.
This ghostly Goliath will still haunt this place
long after French and American disgrace.
Derek Fenton
_______________________________
the frog
There’s a frog living down in the dunny,
it lives there up under the rim
and whenever we push the flush button,
he says, “Well, It’s sink or it’s swim!”
He’s lived there for quite a long time now,
it makes you wary when taking a pew,
I don’t understand why he lives there,
I wouldn’t give much for the view.
I’d have thought he would get rather lonely,
on his own in that porcelain bowl,
but he seems to find it quite homely
and at night he comes out for a stroll.
Last month we’d a bit of a bash
and boy did the beverages flow,
the poor little blighter got drunk,
all the times that the men had to go.
Old Billy was downing the strong stuff
and looked somewhat under the weather,
I saw him head straight for that dunny,
racing in there hell-for-leather.
The picture could not have been pretty,
as Billy was violently sick,
he’s just not the smartest of blokes,
it’s said that a brick’s not as thick.
At last he came out from the dunny,
his face looked so ghostly and pale,
he clutched at his throat and he shuddered
and let out a low anguished wail.
Now from that day ever onwards,
Old Billy has sworn off the grog,
I suppose I should really have told him,
it was only the poor bloody frog
Ann Gilchrist
_______________________________
breving
breving. slap of waves. semaphores. wo-
ken in r.e.m.. syllabic. bre-
ving in. on shore. think ripples. talk of
long warms. rebreving. dreams and jetty
stumps staining. breathing. swollen stories
of currents. in. on. briny unfict-
ion. sleeving. a Botoxed moon. pulling.
attols unmapped. leaving. coral thiev-
ery. call it reclaiming. pooling. brack
ish logic. god and locks. bleaching. ris-
ing. clocks. long hand. on. clammy. reaching.
of sea. and clockwise. breving. is off
Kevin James Gillam
_______________________________
Ocean Serenades 1
Paulina
In memory of my aunt
Paulina did not know how to swim
although she was born on the bank
of the Danube River on its route to the
Black Sea
She loved the water
splashed the floors and walls clean
while playing imaginary stage-roles
Over seas
Not hers was history’s choice to land
on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to watch
the fishing boats and still play imaginary stage-roles
Over Seas
Her sweetest cakes she left still warm
by the window facing the sea
the well-fed fish in the aquarium
swam amongst plastic plants in the caged water
Paulina did not know how to swim
She tied herself to a stone
Stepped into the salty waves
And sank into her under water last stage-role in the
Mediterranean Black Sea
Ita Goldberger
_______________________________
serious work
he pays attention,
asks questions,
tells me he’s excited
to help repot seedlings
he wears the smallest size
pink gardening gloves
tests my secateurs
on fat aloe vera leaves
he hands me his gloves
in order to squeeze out
the thick sticky juice
with his bare hands
he coats them carefully
concentrating
like a surgeon
scrubbing up
he’s 3 going on 30
Candy Gordon
_______________________________
Shakespeare and Me
I remember lining up like a school kid
on the footpath of Henley Street
Stratford-upon-Avon as a traveller
just landed from the world’s other side
and now here to see Shakespeare’s
birthplace one cold, dark summer day
thinking the queue will beat me,
change my course, so my
twenty-two year old self could
find another landmark
like a Tavern, where they drink
the hours by the pint, or the
Royal Shakespearean Theatre
where one of his comedies
could turn this cold to delight.
Chance had drawn me here
and it was ‘Measure for Measure’
playing and just the year before
I was standing on stage
at the New Dolphin Theatre
in the cast of Measure for
Measure from Murdoch Uni as the
simple Constable ‘Elbow’, while
Pompey (Mistress Overdone’s tapster)
took the reins of conversation
and was, I thought, defaming my wife:
Varlet, thou liest; thou liest,
wicked varlet! I cried, then flew at him
in rage off the rostrum, as Pompey
twisted me in the air, turning me
head over heels and landing me
sitting upright on the stage floor
… and as I gathered my lines
the crowd roared!
Mike Greenacre
_______________________________
Rules for Summer Mornings
The galahs and I share the veranda
eat much the same breakfast
though they don’t do coffee or read.
Today I sat too long trying to like
the wrong book, now the breeze
is in, it will be a salt blasted swim
after futile flicking through the first-
born hours of the day.
Galahs have more sense,
don’t waste a moment, fly in silver-grey pink
perfection through every hour.
I would trust their book reviews if they wrote.
Jenifer Hetherington
_______________________________
Strange Country
Some things creep up on you; others arrive in sudden surprise,
Unwary in an exotic land, I was caught by subtle seduction,
Ambushed by outlandish landscape defying sensible deduction,
Strange country where forgotten, dire yearnings again arise.
Accidents don’t happen by chance, though it’s easy to believe,
Chains of cause and effect string back, twined through time,
If I scrabble around in my mind, some echoes might chime,
The dots might connect, but memories are not easy to retrieve.
When we return, are we drawn by wistfulness or by wishful desire,
I went back to that haunting country on an impossible quest,
Blind to circumstance and evidence, all hope a churning quagmire,
Searching for a sister, or was it a lover, in any case all a sad jest.
No answers to any of it, nothing settled, nothing I could pretend,
Strange country holding all the stories, still secrets in the end.
Ruari Jack Hughes
_______________________________
Commuters
periphery of sunup, after some rain
fugitive figures running dogs
between grey, dripping trees
others bound for the bus stop over the way
have work to go to
a man from Sudan exits cold flats
poncho of Perth morning fog
slipping over his shoulders
his extra-long legs
shuffle the cards of shiny wet leaves
outside doorways, on kerbsides
on damp lamp-lit paths
take-aways in so many hands
brew an edgy vibe
arrowing towards city’s bullseye
seen from Kings Park
a whitening of first ferry’s wake
glimmer of dawn light
upon railway lines
cars forced to slow
on choked freeway below
where traffic of all sorts converges
brake lights glow
like cigarette ends
before each peloton departs
shadow of a scootering man
flashes on a dirtied brick wall
when seen from the windows
of incoming trains
a flash at each gap between
buildings and trees
pyres lit by ascending sun
blurring views of that promised city
quite distant, perhaps
or not far away
Ross Jackson
_______________________________
May-day
[Mayflies are winged aquatic insects that have a brief active lifespan – about 5 minutes for females & up to 2 days for males.]
I could defy silence
with my wings making noise,
but I don’t, yet.
I am a watcher above the brink,
now used to elevation,
now approaching the downslide.
I am wary of my imaginings
for I may come to realise
that my future has passed me by.
I could mourn the day’s incremental passing
but that would take up my eternity.
I say to myself,
I came from nothing,
I will burn bright a short while,
but no impression will I make.
Still I am not hastening
to surrender myself to a quickening end.
I do not have a choice
of any alternate environment.
Just any dream will not do.
I’m wary of fragility,
death by anticipation seems
more than conjectural.
Am I too late today to fly?
I don’t get what
I think I may need,
self acceptance & the love
for want of which I will succumb.
It’s foreboding upon this busied planet,
tangling with flying rivals
seeking common love.
It’s not an occasion,
to be mindful of others.
We are mayflies all
& will remain so a very short while.
My thoughts gather up my will to fly.
I could be flying tomorrow,
if not, I am removed from this for all days.
peter knight
_______________________________
Melbourne: A Real Lady
There’s no doubt she’s a lady;
a little bit haughty, nose in the air,
yet gracious and generous to a fault.
Adoring visitors,
she dons her finery at every opportunity.
Lady Elegance; a grand dame
inviting everyone to partake in her hospitality.
She delights in music,
the allure of jazz escaping from secret alleyways,
the drama of opera, the glitz of theatres.
Cultured to her fingertips…
(come race day,
she always has a few bets on the side.)
Putting the ‘C’ in contradictions
this lady is perverse;
It’s Arts versus Sport,
Cuisine versus Street Food
High Fashion versus Gothic Chic.
Whimsical and capricious,
she remains so, so, charming.
She pulses with new dreams,
new buildings, new ideas,
yet reveres and respects her history.
She never stands still.
Alive and vibrant
Melbourne is fusion in motion.
Her visitors are seduced
and want to come again.
Veronica Lake
_______________________________
The Rig
and now that you’re gone
my stomach hanging open
the soft mossy grit of my grief
requires persistent watering
I set up a whole rig
you’d be impressed
not a tear wasted
do you hear me
crying into the night?
it channels itself
goes right back in
pools
and starts again
Deanne Leber
_______________________________
the tiger
comes at night
circles my school
i sleep
night after night
i hover inside
lodged
he waits
me prey to his control
the weaker
in his psychosis
on his hairy lips
eerie smile
hides blunted teeth
power for show
poisonous words
persistent poise
a façade
nightly he came
paraded the mask
tiger born
pompous and entitled
a leader
in his mind
he didn’t see me
inner dragon in waiting
fire brewing
ready to fly
Lucy Marinelli
_______________________________
Rabbiting
We were two Margarets going
around the rabbit traps at dawn.
In the stillness, their squeals of fright
wild eyes, glassy in the sunlight.
The other Margaret prises traps open
swings the rabbit in a circle, hands grasp
its neck, a quick pull and twist and a
click as the light in its eye goes out.
Bunnies dangling, we returned to the
farm, me warming my hands on their fur.
She sets about skinning, slitting the limbs
then pealing the pelt like undressing.
Skin a bunny! my mother would say
when she took off our jumpers at night.
I shudder remembering the shock of cold
raising goosebumps on warm, pink skin.
A deft slice down their bellies and out
spilled the glistening innards. One is
a female with a litter of babies inside,
the mother’s tiny heart, still warm.
Mardi May
_______________________________
Exigency
Scaffolding was what I needed when you died –
metal poles and cross bars precision-placed.
I needed a corset of warm hands. Wet lips
kept to themselves. Knowing looks aimed
down someone else’s street. Sympathy cards
sorry for my loss posted to the wrong address.
Casseroles limp with three veg and meat
not left on the doorstep.
I needed wine in a tumbler
as big as a fully inflated horse lung.
The phone to ring, and a tele-scammer’s voice
not telling me you’re in a better place.
Linda McQuarrie Bowerman
_______________________________
How to find Perth Canyon
Look west – it is right there, a fissure
filled with fish and salt and pressure.
Deep sea and deep time meet in the current,
an ecology of granite path, a breeding cliff.
To find it, take a spoon, or a bucket, kneel,
unspool 10,000 years with repetitive moves.
Where does all the water go? Where does
all the water come from? Here, gigantism.
Close eyes, wade with senses, let tenses
shift – all that exists has existed all along.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
_______________________________
The Roses
The roses by the wall
are best, where mud
and leaves bank up
and rest, where human
sight does not obtain,
where God alone can
see them plain, in wind
and dark, and sun
and rain.
Julian O’Dea
_______________________________
The Arum lilies
Arum lilies, like old fashioned nun’s wimples,
the white angular shape or quiet trumpet
at the top of a thick fleshy stem, are clustered
near the tank stand at the bottom of my garden.
They should not be there, are escapees
from the armfuls I picked by the Canning
one early September to remember a birthday.
I stood them in tall earthenware jugs
lighting the gloomy corner of a room.
along with foraged fennel, deliciously soft,
feathery with delicate scent, I crush
fronds as I pass holding gaudy balloons.
In France arums decorate bridal bouquets
are beloved for their glamour and poise.
Here though, they’re on a government
watchlist, like elegant spies, do not engage.
Certainly don’t throw caution to the wind
and wallow in flooded reaches armed with
a knife to slice and slash and savour your prize.
River warriors go out in spring armed with mattocks
to dig their tubers, wrench them from the soil
deny fruition to their glorious creamy blooms
and yellow tongues laden with pollen.
And yes I have seen the havoc wrought
by these magnificent invaders, but seduction
is an insidious thing, so like a lover I keep watch,
forbid their straying to other gardens,
encircle their charms with vigilance
but remain passionately besotted.
Virginia O’Keeffe
_______________________________
A mantis eats the head off, a cricket it is holding with its legs*
The reds which fall from a burning desert sunset
coagulate the watcher’s eyes. A lost explorer
feels his throat filling, is tortured to death
by haeomoglobal choking. His body is never found –
likely a good thing, but the sky saw that in silent
desperation, he’d ripped his clothes off and torn
his leather boots to pieces. Blame the absence –
of water, love, not knowing where, exploration fever,
done beyond reason, being the falsely-minted discoverers
of lands so ancient they hum with living memory.
His shredded lower legs evidence of tearing spinifex,
eaten alive first by thorns, second by ravaging
dingoes, eagles and beetles, patient ants, all ripping,
shredding, sucking, biting. Mandibular-munching.
The tasty explorer got his way: fame through death,
from unknown, to known; from being, to unbeing.
Newspapers splash lurid stories, artists paint
scenes of a raving lunatic, desert-bound, desert-
seeking, desert-tossed and desert-lost.
A praying mantis, popping-eyed, propped triangular head –
preys, its forearms held aloft. Human watchers ascribe
human value and description. It prays to nobody,
its arms are hooked and reach for prey, they catch
it fast and hold it close, get those powerful jaws
a’munching. I imagine eating the fat cricket belly
first, its intestinal juices pouring down my bloodred
fears. Just another day in this, our post-covidian Antiverse.
Allan Padgett
* π.O., HEIDI, ‘Tucker & Europe’
_______________________________
Monetary Value
A stone of liquidity lies between my bed,
A sentiment for a sophisticated investor with large interests.
Faint exchanges of worth, sold for a soul,
Accompanied by the acoustics of greed.
A marketplace of thieves steals the minds of the weak,
Those with wealth analyse and predict the economy’s rate.
I bleed money, riches from my soul,
Intergenerational wisdom and knowledge.
Tears made of jewels leak from my eyes,
A ruby stone rests between my ribs.
Toenails of opal, eyes of beryl passionately burning,
Tongue of emerald confessing truth.
A body as solid as jasper, embedded with stones of amethyst,
I let wealth fall from my hands; it was of high value.
Every handshake and high five left vines and strings of gold,
Every hug left me with an onyx stone,
An empathy with telepathic power to transmit love.
A fair trade of hate and pain,
In a world where everyone is transactional—
Give and take, deposit and exchange.
We are stocks to trade,
Human lives reduced to empty atoms,
Energy and matter frightened by our grasp.
We no longer coexist but desperately depend
On the sick to sleep, a lone wolf surviving for itself.
Victims of envy broadcast like radio transmissions,
Aerial traffic promising blessings to those who acted correctly,
Contrary to the tide of true wishes.
Democracy dressed in communist communication,
Fighting for the right to steal from the innocent.
But money cannot be caged; it rejects capture and corruption.
It capitalises in a capitalist society,
Yet yearns for the Earth’s freedom.
Its flow commands more than the course of humanity,
Dancing with innate integrity,
Communing with lively energy.
You must let go to flow in its vibration,
Shaded viewers must now open and operate closely.
Money flows with affection, not tariffs of love.
So ask, and it shall be answered by the money tree.
Foni Paul
_______________________________
Tradies’ Triumph I
Whether it’s a brickie, a sparky
a chippie or a carkie, bring ’em
on. If there’s drains to clear or
chimneys to sweep, bring ’em on!
Don’t run ’em down. They’re salt
of the earth for fencing or tiling,
glazing or mowing, reaping or
binding. Even Ruth among alien
corn was probably a tradie, mate.
We know in Shakespeare those guys
digging up Yorick were carkies,
an honourable trade. In the end.
Glen Phillips
My Enigma Variations I
Truly all is an enigma so where is proof?
Consider your last-night dreams where
you carved the meats for a barbecue
on your bare chest. Freud would have
made much of that. Jung and Adler too.
But don’t see all dreams as enigmatic
for variations are meat for factorial
analysis or even a stew, mayhap. Stare
enigmas in the face for the ultimate
in answers and you will have proof
that enigmas truly populate the earth.
Fare thee well, fellow enigmatic reader,
or go to hell…where enigmas all burn up!
Glen Phillips
_______________________________
Jubilee
For Claudio
A young man playing his love song is breaking my heart.
Beginning his chorus, synthesizing his lover’s heartbeat
my tears flowing through verses of words that hit the mark.
Perhaps a silver anniversary renders me a little more tender
usually a time for celebration, but not for this kind of milestone.
And as I listen to the singer strumming his new song alone
I think how much your grandchildren would have loved you.
Elena Preiato
_______________________________
Spinifex Dove
Iridescent wings
green and blue
glisten in the morning sun
red eyes
wide
mind attentive
until something catches it
and she clatters away
Barry Sanbrook
Sacred Places
on traditional lands
camped beneath the canopy
on crisped brown grasses
crackling under our weight
we listen to stories
by the owners who tell
of serpents and spirits
pointing to paintings
depicting their truth
as a dingo howls
he walks through a place
sacred
to agree or contradict
we cannot tell
a place too sacred for us to enter
home of bones that speak of life
of a time when man hunted or gathered
and mega fauna trod these grasses
his stone spear heads
standing between him and death
an ochre handprint is all that reminds us
of his existence
but tell us that such places are SACRED
and demand our respect
we stand in an overhang
ceilings and walls covered in red and yellow
depictions of men and women
stylised shapes of abstraction
telling stories in pictures
colonisation and its culture
has overtaken this ancient one
but not fully absorbed it
for it lives on these walls
and we look in amazement
Barry Sanbrook
_______________________________
Mint Slices
My son, Jack, is buying a tractor
and I’m crying.
Tom, our neighbour, would’ve helped him.
He sold new tractors and
loved repairing old ones.
He never lost sight of their heritage.
Tractors were dotted around the place
like old gnomes, watching.
I liked them, they made me feel safe
somehow.
Tom scraped our firebreaks each year.
We shared only one, but he would never
accept payment.
I’d drop into their place, unannounced
sure of a cuppa and a Mint Slice or two.
They were company if I was lonely
with mischievous, insightful conversation.
Tom loved organ music; Henry taught us piano.
They were just there, always.
The best of best possible neighbours.
They both died while I was overseas
I miss them.
Jack needs a tractor
to clear up after the storm.
Twenty or more trees down, one
across my granddaughter’s play house
and a huge marri over the lawn.
Leaves, small branches scattered
across the garden, fallen on petunias
shade cloth hanging somewhere else
detritus everywhere.
If Tom was still here
he would advise Jack on
tractor business. Or lend him one.
So, my son’s buying a tractor
and I’m crying.
Amanda Spooner
beneath my skin
my cells are arranged in fascicles.
I am reminded of a plant with
bundles of leaves – that
is normal.
Not like my bundle.
It’s patterned and coloured
like a vibrant flower.
This colouring indicates
death and injury
inside me.
The clusters have enlarged elongate
nuclei. What?
I’ve got to get out of here
the house needs cleaning.
Will I ever be able to clean again?
Like once before
when I couldn’t vacuum
and it was all I wanted to do.
Once I could, I didn’t.
Amanda Spooner
_______________________________
A Course of Dnipro at the Dinner Table
I have tasted black tea from your samovar.
Absorbed the liquid aroma
of your bison grass vodka.
Savoured your Piroshki and deep-rooted Borshch.
Becoming part of the family
I sat at your dinner table
blessed by your generosity,
respecting your Orthodox truths.
I have ridden with you on your troika
through the snow of your imagination.
Revitalised by your childhood stories
of magical Kyiv.
You left your family behind
butchered by the Bolsheviks,
and became your family’s
surviving protégé.
Their wealth stitched
inside your coat lining.
Enough to purchase
a new start in Poland.
You weathered the storm
God knows how, through the work camps
the maggot scraps
and holocaust years of the war.
Immigration was assured through marriage
to a convenient Ukrainian man
who became a monster, again
escape was your option,
south by ship to Australia.
The story doesn’t end there.
You marry a Southern Italian
and have another family
of which I was blessed
to be included.
Lately, I have been thinking about your life.
Your early years all Zhivago
cold white plumes of joyful breath.
Then, the wretched years
of dark nightmares
no family only skinny ribs
and sunken eyes.
You chose not to
linger upon those years.
But still, a colourful and eventful life
like nested babushka dolls
each stage carved and painted.
Memory can do that.
A new start a little bit bigger than before.
You blossomed in the sun.
Today, I am troubled by
what you might think
of your beloved Ukraine.
The old Bolsheviks in the new age.
You have lived it and kept your shine
a smile
as if the last smile on earth.
Michael Stevens
Generational Wreath
Two white cranes
together in each frame,
a diptych.
Painted in 1918
they were an early present
for my grandparents
promised nuptials.
Gifted to me
by my mother.
In one frame
two white cranes courting
her head and neck
elegantly extended
his neck drooped
beak like a hook
hoping to catch.
The second frame
two white cranes resplendent
both together
tail feathers a white
waterfall to reedy
shallow marsh.
Home, she is
alone, pining.
He is away
serving in Palestine
Never to return the same.
The atrocity of war
the trauma
anger
depression
stupor.
A generational wreath.
Two white cranes,
framed.
Never to be that
happy again.
Michael Stevens
_______________________________
A Happy Birthday from Cuckoo
Words written carefully on the small yellow card
flutter quietly to the ground:
CONGRATULATIONS
and
All good wishes
for
A Happy Birthday
from
“CUCKOO’’
Poems of Lord Tennyson.
Your poetry book unopened till now.
I am catapulted into a past that lies
always in another country.
The faded photo on our mother’s dresser:
You, swaddled and woollen, smilling
plumped down under the oak.
Me sitting close, arm around you
grinning, proud, loving.
Now another birthday coming up.
Your birthdays ceased so long ago
We did not get old together.
I’m back with that old lady we both disliked:
an old lady who commanded, comandeered
chirped doubts and don’ts
reminders and reminiscences
then popped back inside.
“She’s mad”, we told each other, “batty old Cuckoo”.
But she was there.
Suzette Thompson
_______________________________
Supermarket Incubus
With a nod to ‘The Radish’ by James Tate
I was standing at the Coles meat section
clutching the last chicken carcass:
Mt Barker, free range and only 50 cents.
I admired the translucent pink flesh
the boning knife had missed,
the marble-white cartilage, the sculpture
of the skeleton. I imagined the perfumed
broth I’d make by boiling the carcass
with a peeled brown onion, celery,
and a bouquet garni of parsley, sage,
rosemary, and thyme, as when Simon
and Garfunkel sang ‘Scarborough Fair’.
‘Hey lady!’ A gritty voice brought me back to Coles.
‘Hey lady! You’d better give me that carcass,
or I’ll brain you.’ I hugged it to my breast
like a new-born babe. ‘No way,’ I screeched.
It was the shrunken old bloke with a warty chin,
always dressed in a lumber jacket, soiled brown
corduroys and crocs, who rifled through the bins
for lettuce and cauliflower leaves, for free.
Maybe he had chickens. Maybe he was skint.
Almost every time I popped into Coles
from the nursing home, there he was, skulking
between the aisles. ‘I’m on My Kitchen Rules
tomorrow,’ he shouted. ‘I’m making risotto.’
Then he punched me in the stomach, tore
the carcass from my breast and did a runner.
The next thing I remember I was sprawled
on the supermarket lino and a gawking youth
in a red T-shirt with Coles written over his heart
was giving me CPR. ‘Have we been hit by a bomb?’
I asked weakly, after I’d pushed him away.
All I could remember was smouldering
rubble dusted with snow between two sagging
apartment blocks in Kyiv, Kherson or Vinnytsia
on the TV news as I spread avocado on toast
for breakfast. And blood-spattered survivors,
heads swathed with thick woollen scarves,
wiping away tears while being interviewed.
‘No, lady you hit your head on the floor.
Are you alright?’ I looked around for old warty-chin
and my carcass. Both gone. ‘It was no fall,
young man. An attack, unprovoked,’ I blubbered,
struggling to stand. ‘That old bloke! He pinched
my carcass for his My Kitchen Rules risotto.’
The youth looked at me with kind
but incredulous eyes. ‘Take me to the manager!’
I shouted and rammed him with my trolley.
‘Empty shelves. No pumpkin, hardly any beans,
not a lamb chop in sight. An assault, my carcass stolen.
You’d think I was shopping in Zaporizhzhia
or Kharkiv after the Russians invaded,’ I raved,
as two beefy lady security guards grabbed each arm,
propelled me through stainless-steel doors,
into the cold store. ‘Wait here love,’ one said,
not unkindly. ‘I’ve rung the nursing home.
They’ll be here to pick you up in a few minutes.’
Rita Tognini
_______________________________
On Love Lost Days
Everything is a work of art.
Strong beads,
laced shells,
the snow clipped clubs,
the sallow sky, everything
is a work of art, your heart
left folding,
your mind a work, a ventricle,
divided of course, and
falling into its
hidden source
for you, for he, and
all those words. The soft-felt
crying on
freeze dried days,
that find you
larger than
your wounds.
Everything is a work, to start.
A heart left hard will soften
the boil, will smarten the colours,
the yolk that smothers the sullen sky, looking
down on autumnal laneways of poplar gold.
And love, you
will find, is a work of heart,
a second exit of laughs,
told smiling
in folds from nines,
of rice or road,
as the cart calls on.
You will see me there,
on
and
on
and
Elizabeth Walton
_______________________________
At the Lyceum
Centuries have dispersed into air
and neat lines of rubble,
skeletons of walls,
cluster for recognition.
Where students once whispered
their brows in stony classrooms
cicadas now drone their breaths
among the pines and cypress, whose leaves
shatter into Autumn colours.
A bush creeps over one corner
into the hollow as if its roots
were grasping after faded
knowledge. A lawn with sculpted stones
fringes three sides, so that life
and ruin are fused in an amalgam
of eternity. From a cloudless backdrop
beyond the thunder of traffic
Aristotle’s spirit prizes apart
the boundary between light and shadow.
Colin Young
_______________________________