Poems
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Alight
By Jennifer Kemarre Martiniellowhat lies behind
my forehead
is my Grandmothers’ Law
her women’s wisdom -
Incant
By Kerry GreerCan’t use the fire emoji, or the heart in flames.
Can’t tell you what it means if an ambulance arrives
and doesn’t leave. Can’t unsee
the things I dream, the mundane scenes of life -
Dentist Appointment
By Arantza Garcia Ferrandyou lay back / uncomfortable / in a sterile chair. counting
clock beats / heart beats / till / end / of / session. he hovers
above like / falcon / or maybe vulture / picking / at the dead
animal / in your mouth. carrion eating decay / he fills his plate. -
The last bird poem
By Tusiata AviaEver since I wrote the first bird poem
I have been swearing to the gods of colonisation
I will not write another one.
Sparrows, starlings, pigeons, geese -
An Old Farmer Remembers His Dog
By Judith BeveridgeThe ewes are rattled; they bleat as if the wind gusting around their ears
were the hard panted breath of mustering kelpies. Last summer,
Cheroot, my best dog was struck by a king brown on Wydah Hill.
I thought he must have lapped from a fetid ditch, for a while -
Breadfruit
By Sela Ahosivi-AtiolaThe sun welds itself to Sunnyholt Road,
lights blur into liquid over the asphalt car park of Parklea Market.
Cars idle, engines hum with their mouths half open,
traffic horns bleed into the thick murmur of chatter. -
Learning Arabic
By Misbah WolfThe djinn lived in an onyx ring.
At the mosque
a man stood
with a whiteboard and a pen -
For the Machines
By Alan FyfeDoors closing. Going up. First floor, residential and quietly religious. Second floor, haberdashery and implication. Sorry, we don’t know each other – my name is Sylvia. Third floor, gardening supplies and six million empty coats. It was my fourth acting gig in thirty-seven months. Greasy little studio with the walls sweating grief. Outstanding pl… -
rat patootie
By lotus threads, Panda Wong, Hannah WuO symphony of crackle
lil rat dominatrix tell me
what to do pull my hair
with yr tender paw mincemeat -
Discretion and ambiguity
By Jacqui MalinsIt doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Not representation nor avatar. No hint of face or figure. No vase of flowers. Shapes and lines arranged in space, proximate or distant. Dynamic symmetry. A straw-yellow rectangle floats low on a field of Barraba blue. Shapes and lines. A painting replicated on screen, a beguiling simplicity. Shapes and lines… -
A HAUNTOLOGY OF TRACES
By Ellen van NeervenSit but don’t
sit. Live but don’t
live. This is beyond discomfort
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The Job
By Janiru LiyanageYou go your whole life believing
dying is the easy part, then one day
your great aunt gets a brain tumour the size of a
kumquat burrowing inside her hippocampus, and -
Watermark
By Kristen Langfor David B
4am, he wakes, reaching out –
mountains, chiselled valleys, a small
sea between us – to say he is thinking -
Muriyira Dreaming
By Elizabeth Luland'Muriyira Dreaming' written and performed by Elizabeth Luland. Videography by Tad Souden and sound by Syd Green.
garuga-ngayawanj muriyira lore
mudjingaal ceremony has begun
ngarawan barra barra warmth -
Temple
By Liam FerneyYour God, why is he of war?
Memed blessed bombs bloom.
Where is mercy in this?
Button warriors dependant on a silent -
Second Innings
By Bharat SundaresanThey huddled around me, like close-in fielders on a Mumbai dustbowl
A couple stood a few feet away, hands clasping their knees
The other two much closer, crouched low right under my nose
To catch anything that came their way -
home reimagined
By Isabella Eichler-OnusWhen did we become so unfamiliar? Were we collectively wronged, or did I just let go? Like my gut with the dip in the road. Thread pulling organs down, before the body has a chance to react. // Whiplash from this new new music in an old place. 70,000 years old. Sing us a song! No more than a mumble in the passenger seat. Sun’s heat magnified by th… -
Welcome
By Ziggy RamoI’d like to acknowledge
the lack of knowledge.
We renamed the Frontier Wars -
ganma-li
By Rudi BremerYour memory of my love is longer than mine
It reaches back to days when I could lose you
Simply by closing my eyes
Or letting go of your hand in a crowd
