March 2026
Selectors: Jan Napier and Chris Palazzolo
Contributor
————Diamonds and Ochre
————Untitled
————Teenagers
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Imprints
————Once They’ve Gone
————On seeing red red red
————Rumination
Bronte Legacy
————AI Editing Assistant
————Days
————The Woodshed
We take tea
When the bee man comes
Playing Hide and seek
New Year’s Resolution
————Red Dust Emu
The Wonder of Wandoo
Waiting to Leave
Maggie Van Putten
A visit to small claims court
————Breakfast at Jackadder Lake
Prison Break
————The Wind
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Diamonds and Ochre
After ‘Pink Diamonds’ Ochre on Canvas, by Deborah Bonar, Gidja artist, 2014
1. Barramundi
Around the campfire Gidja mothers tell their
children how the Barramundi swam the river,
chased by three women with a spinifex net.
To escape, she squeezed through a rocky gap
lost her rainbow-coloured scales
which settled in the waters and earth below,
transformed into glittering stones in the
rugged red earth of the East Kimberley.
2. Rio Tinto ̶ Argyle
Rare pink and champagne diamonds
on Gidja country, the richest piece of land
in the world. For thirty-seven years,
Kartiya*
broke
open
the belly
of the earth,
removed her precious jewels.
Gidja women don’t wear pink diamonds
on the soles of their shoes or on their fingers.
3. Painting Country
In Boorloo, the artist receives a gift of ochre
from her grandmother’s Gidja country,
two thousand kilometres away in the north.
She cups the precious pigments in her hands
grinds and mixes them with water and gum
as her ancestors did. Her pink and champagne
diamonds float and dance in layers of earth
like the petrified scales of the Barramundi.
*Kartiya: Non-Aboriginal people or ‘whitefellas’.
Maria Bonar
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let me tell you about sand and weeds
and creatures from far away
if you try really hard
you can make myths of these
you can pretend all sorts of dreams
and call them handmade
you can sing of your achievements
look!
i have made the sun
it will of course be compulsory
to join this merry circus
don’t step in the blood!
Mar Bucknell
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Teenagers
after reading Teenage Boys, Victoria Spires, The Marrow,
Issue 6, February 2026
We want them to remain like kid goats—
large-eyed, soft-skinned, still interested
in butterflies and clover’s small flowers.
And yet, in their early teens, it’s as if
some daemon flips off a switch,
leaving the worlds within their heads darkened
by razor-edged shadows they cut fingers
on, because, of course, such shadows insist
upon engagement in the danse macabre
we’ve prepared for them as the only way
to breech the bastion of adulthood, to
preserve memories of butterflies.
Peter Burges
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Imprint
I know Sundays where we surrender
to kookaburra laughs and endeavour
to learn this land’s fine print.
Study the waddle of a toddler,
in all its uneasy moments,
calculate the intense determination.
step on step
—— the prints
——-we leave
Survey environments reduced to numbers
where no one looks beyond to sight
fallen feathers amid the leaf cast
and skeleton twigs that point as accusers
while a road clears another forest,
scars another mountain.
In a habitat that is more steel
and concrete than trees and birds,
fire becomes the leveller.
green tendril
from ash and dust
another breath
Gary Colombo de Piazzi
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Once They’ve Gone
There’s so much to say:
the little bits that cling
together to make up a life
maybe you didn’t really know
I wish I had educated myself
my mother threw before me
as a page turner that
could have changed
the balance within her days
and I wish I had grabbed
that moment to remind her
how her life turned when
she started helping in one
School Library she ran
for a year or two
and the years turned to thirty
in her last school
the Principal said
they’d rename the Library/
Resource Centre in her honour,
but other voices shut down
his idea as if she was
someone hardly known.
Once they’ve gone
there’s so much to say.
Mike Greenacre
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On seeing red-red-red
With a yen for sharing the true bits of life
most likely discarded by stuffy poets
I’m giving you the drum about this little Kia
I spied in Wangara today;
though its fiery red duco dazzled my eyes|
I still managed to read ‘red red red’
stamped in red lettering
on its personalised plates.
It had me wondering…
was the redredred, just a case of a driver
displaying her pride
the original sensibility of a new owner?
As already let on, I have a yen
for what’s often overlooked
the quotidian, quizzical, whimsical
bits of human nature;
what’s beneath the bonnet of the human brain
In terms of mathematics
We’re all quadratic equations
waiting to be solved.
Ross Jackson
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rumination: a pantoum
must i be a wannabe
while being the also-ran
that i already feel to be,
invariably ineffectual?
while being the also-ran,
i’m a game player too,
invariably ineffectual,
a faux intellectual.
i’m a game player too,
crippled by my posturing,
a faux intellectual,
i’m deceiving only me.
crippled by my posturing,
the fool i sought not to be,
i’m deceiving only me,
must i be a wannabe?
peter knight
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Brontë Legacy
Those Brontë girls
have a lot to answer for:
Those three directly responsible
for the brooding hero
whose piercing dark eyes
and need to be loved,
}have troubled virgin dreams
over the last few hundred years.
They created
a prototype for elemental man.
One fused to wide open spaces,
inured to rain and cold,
prone to the wearing of billowing cloaks,
all while breathing hard
in a state of inarticulate passion.
By comparison, other men pale to insignificance,
become undesirable, and somehow – weak.
Across time,
women still dream wistful
of Jane’s taming the wild man
containing his fire,
loving him into submission.
Young girls run with Cathy over the moors
right out of their senses into primitive desire.
Even the dissolute Huntingdon has his attractions –
He might change…
Those Brontë girls;
what were they thinking?
Their actions spawning a plethora of imitations
from Rhett Butler to twilight vampires,
proliferating romantic literature,
tainting concepts of real manhood
tilting world views,
rendering silly girls senseless.
Veronica Lake
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AI Editing Assistant
, –
AI writes to the rules
it’s early days
it’s still learning to talk
and the grammar – ,, pit stops
I delete empty it , from the- page
I don’t want your poetry AI your clean
your gobbled it up and licked the plate
clean AI
I don’t, want it, ..
Deanne Leber
Days
the free calendar
from my pharmacist
is wound so tight
days curl into months
into nameless mountains
waterfalls
desert trails
I wander
aimlessly
circling dates
appointments
scans
shake grains
from sand
fighting the pull
to dance
in an hourglass
about to shatter
the skyline
I tug at the pull
of moments
the momentum to midnight
fireworks on the tele
cheese overloading
the urge
to curl into cushions
and sleep through
another day
as though it were a year
one day
I wake up
and it’s tomorrow
and I see you
all light
mountains
waterfalls
desert trails
and I know the way
and I tell you
and we remember it
like we agreed
to meet here
at midnight
no matter
strangers or lovers
laughter or tears
days or years
Deanne Leber
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The Woodshed
i
Fingers of light fall through nail holes
in the corrugated iron roof.
The thin beams illuminate stacked
firewood, box of black briquettes,
a filmy curtain of cobwebs.
I breathe the sappy scent of split
redgum, fresh kindled pine splintered
from packing cases, neat in a corner
where shadows find homes.
As I move to sit on a log of wood,
a spangle of dust motes flitters
through the bright shafts of light,
and I see fairies dance and play.
The woodshed holds my secrets,
encloses me like a mother’s arms.
ii
Years later, I will hide books in paper
bags amongst the chicken pellets,
come to the woodshed after school
to feed the chooks and read –
Peyton Place, Lady Chatterley.
In the woodshed, sap rising.
Mardi May
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We take tea
Every morning I make tea in my orange china pot
gifted from a brother, it holds two cups.
Making is ritual, kettle whistles
one heaped scoop of tea plucked from hills in India,
cover with a hand-knit cosy,
a cottage chimney with a Santa.
My mother made hers daily in a Swan aluminium pot
fancy stems etched in silver, handle bakelite.
After sixty years her hands instinctively
repeated morning’s prayer. Last night’s dregs tossed
out to hydrangeas, then rinse, heat and fill. A cosy
made by her mother of green woollen stripes and pink,
lived on breadboards, stacked near the sink –
was somewhat singed from close calls with gas.
She drank eleven cups a day.
As her hands began to tremble from the weight of water
the pots grew smaller, she just made one more.
For when you are alone you can have as much conversation
as you please, served in cups. At breakfast,
plain green china, yellow roses later.
I believe her longevity owed as much to the contemplative
selection of her porcelain, the stirring with a sliver spoon
and the patience of waiting for the brew,
as it did to the pickling properties of tannin.
I too dowse my hydrangeas.
Virginia O’Keeffe
When the bee-man comes
Edging up to Christmas, all afternoon sky the colour of smoke
it’s too hot and so humid; I want rain.
The beekeeper arrives quietly, steps over the fence wire
sets to work removing the frames, holding them up.
There are no bees about the hives. They’re taking shelter.
I see blonde comb curved like sea-slugs and darker wax.
Bring a dish he calls, thunder is soft, distant.
Maybe it will rain after all. He scrapes the frame onto the steel,
returns the dish. There’s a few stuck. You’ll need a fork.
The air thick now, some bees hover, swat them off,
prod the wax with dead gum leaves lying in a pot of bay.
Each leaf flicked into the yard sails with a drunken passenger.
Honey pools in the dish; rain begins its music on the tin
heavier now, splatting wildly on the table and the plants. Still I stand
plucking out bees, licking the sweetness from my fingers.
He yells over the rain, something about returning soon.
I linger. Decant contentment.
Virginia O’Keeffe
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Playing Hide and Seek
A sleep-over Sunday sandwiched between weeks of 9 to 5.
Grandkids playing hide and seek (full on waffles and strawberries with a side of comfort)
balese and time out for my mother cocooned on the couch,
she’s 2 coffee pods down espresso happy.
I’m content in a slow bath stretching time out like a game of elastics
while outside the soothing warble of magpies and the cooing of doves
is interrupted by the rude retorts of a neighbour’s nail gun.
Suddenly, round the door I thought secured, curly-tops pops her head.
Both sides start and there’s nowhere to hide
I chuckle a bit …
all feels kind of random in this in between kind of life.
Elena Preiato
New Year’s Resolution.
Maybe there’s no sense in making New Year’s resolutions,
just because the old year’s dead and done and the new one just birthing.
When we’re still living in a December mindset,
January a fog and February well…
How can you trust a month that can’t decide how many days it wants to be?
Maybe instead of worshipping hard resolve,
perhaps it would be better to be bendable,
cast caution to the wind,
and thumb our nose at that one day of the year.
Elena Preiato
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Red Dust Emu
she struts like a drag queen
three toed prints on a red carpet
fringing the edge of a hard shoulder
it is worn a little softer
after the rains have been
a road train thunders past
she does not put a foot wrong
she has mastered the art
of not giving a hoot
she’s not a hooting kind-of-a-gal
she travels solo
doesn’t need a backup singer
she’s a drummer
a thrum in her throat
and this is her town
she is one loose lady
ruffling feathers
and leaving the broody boys
with a clutch to hatch
moves on to lay another batch
the tourists brake on killer roads
iPhones at the ready
they splash her across social media
a star of the desert
strutting the red dust carpet
like a drag queen
Soulo
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The Wonder of Wandoo
Green eucalypt saplings
cling to the side of the white clay
cutting, that’s hard as a rock in summer,
sticky and slippery in winter.
Crimson new tip growth
changes to pale red leaves
further down the branch,
maturing to sage green.
The summer sun bakes
the west-facing bank
and the heat radiates upward
from the road.
Still, they grow.
It is a struggle to survive.
DNA against the world’s weather.
Endure long enough,
overcome the challenges,
push roots deep to survive
and grow steadily — fully grown,
the rising, towering trunk
displays a resilient character.
Its mottled, chalky–white bark
leaks sap, forming brown scabs.
Called “nature’s boarding house”,
it crawls with life.
De-crowned by fire,
Wandoo responds with regeneration,|
and winter flowers of
creamy nectar-rich stamens.
Grow, White Gum saplings,
shade my memory in another time
when you look over me no longer.
Michael Stevens
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Waiting to Leave
I’m keen to shuffle to the gate again.
There are so many of us waiting.
Said all I can say:
how ‘re you?
what can we bring?
yes, he’s fine, your son.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Perched neatly on hard chairs
knees pressed together
smiling brightly, politely
like we’re at afternoon tea
we listen for that bell.
Guards stand with feet planted wide
hands on hips, eyes front
listening too.
They must have had enough of watching
the human condition.
Last one out turn off the lights.
Suzette Thompson
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A Visit to Small Claims Court
An Abecedarian Poem
Alright. Or should it be all rise?
Begin with that. I’ve never been in
court, but now I’m suing my ex-landlady.
Dennis, my artist friend, sits up front
eager to start sketching my opponent,
first as a caricature, permed big hair,
glasses oversized, designer suit,
heels which clack as she strides forward.
I tried to stay calm as our case was called.
Just the facts, said the judge.
Keep it civil. The landlady handed him photos.
Look at that awful yellow paint, she said.
My cost to repaint is more than her deposit.
No! I protested. It was sunshine in that
old dark space. The former landlord approved.
Painting was fine with him – no
questions asked. I was a good tenant,
rent paid every month, on time.
She snorted. Dennis had stopped drawing.
This was not going well. My case was put
under review. We left, feeling dejected,
very sure it would be bad news,
which it was. Maybe in some imaginary
Xanadu, said Dennis, hugging me, where
young people got respect. Meanwhile I got
zero – but I found a nicer place – with Dennis.
Maggie Van Putten
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Breakfast at Jackadder Lake
amongst a rasp of reeds
a reed warbler is singing
its heart out
the paperbarks are turning their pages
—scripting each note
holding the music in—
you can’t always see the warblers
so swift and small they are
so brazen so flash
but you can hear their voices
melodious thick
excited by cooler mornings
darting restless
amongst a rasp of reeds
Rose van Son
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Prison Break
Into these Shylock whom they shun
goes a stone-cold stun,
a stone-cold stun that goes
trun-trun-trun
with a garrison’s beat of
a truncheon on the lung
‘til they can’t anymore with the
‘please, I have a son…’
——–To the eye of the sun they hatch like chickens on the run.
——–Their eyes are vermilion, so bright they could burn the sun.
‘I will shoot them all,’ says a guard, ‘sobald ich kann.’ And cunningly
——–They break out with a black-brown Malinois
——–and each a rifle slung
——–over a shoulder din-chiselled
——–in Verdun.
————————Meanwhile the inmates have begun
————————to pull spider-webs freshly spun,
————————play hide-and-seek now
————————as a dance of Laban.
————————But no, this is no fun.
————————This is no fun, although
——————————–they think they have won
——————————–when they
—————————————-fold into a tree trunk’s blink
—————————————-like a god-haloed nun.
——–None can outrun
——–these ersatz Huns who
——–chase and chase
——–with the grunt of a shogun.
—————————In ceilinged forests still they mark out
—————————their
—————————zman,
—————————build a leaf-lanterned sukkah
—————————with gold weight of a ton and
—————————dine in rag-cold that makes of them each
—————————a
—————————korban.
There’s a dog barking round the corner.
—————————One by one,
—————————flash of a smoking gun,
—————————they’re done.
Adam Weitzer
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——————————————————-The Wind
As the wind, oh to be free
Gliding across the sea,
Forests, deserts and farms
Felt but not seen, it’s charm
Oft its bosom full of reviving rain
Relieving the farmers’ pain
Saling yachts across the bay
Nurturing our breaths along the way
Blowing between a lovers’ embrace
A strong presence, without a face
Thou art hot and cold
Yet soft and bold
Moist and scented after fresh rains,
A land hot and tired, it helps regain.
Fences and walls cannot it, curb
Flowing freely across cities and suburbs
Ever fresh, gentle and strong
Refreshing a lone wanderer or a throng
As the wind, oh to be free,
Full of life and glee,
To float low and high
From the gushing river to the sky
Resting in a bed of clouds, awhile
Before driving a snowstorm across a vast virgin forest for miles.
Conforming to no shape or form
Trapped neither by the hills or the sea
To wander forever free.
Yawar Zoeb
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