Poems
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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 -
The Water Talks
By Rob WatersLet me start by saying that I do not claim to be an academic.
But I know what it’s like to sit by a river.
What it feels like to watch water pass by, maybe never to be seen again.
Water lost around the bend -
Heat Sink
By Evelyn AraluenWhat was it you said on the phone that time
the line hissed from the missile’s radiation
I could hardly hear from the code spluttering
binaries of last night’s undeliverable lullaby -
Self portrait of the poet as his djungelskog
By Troy WongNo formal diagnosis though we’re pretty sure.
Evident from age 18 months. Machine wash
40°C max, high function. Wash-tested but sensitive. -
I wish I was chill
By SezI wish I was chill
sometimes my thoughts are landfill
childhood was netball and divorce
watched Saddle Club but never rode a horse -
from Omnia Sunt Communia
By Snack Syndicate, Astrid Lorange, Andrew BrooksTo push onto and into, as a screw bears down on its thread.
Marcus sings, in the morning I surround you.
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Warm Enough
By Jan FranThe question I ask myself the most is what temperature is my son
On the days we bake along the coast
I stare up at the sun
As it bears down on us -
No Gentle Good Night
By Debra DankSeeming anodyne and inert, coal and gas burn beds fouled rivers cannot extinguish
as if paper and pencil jottings, as if a careless mistake
taken care of with a precise slash to mark
as worthless dust like Them. -
Infinite Ibis
By Keri Glastonburyobviously aging (headshot short ashy hair
resting poet face, hook nose) but never
old enough for Winnie Blue in a silver
drawstring handbag after hockey: the slacker -
they heard how we are cedar
By Jihad Yassinethey used our children
for their walls
and took it literally because they do not know the beauty of our poetry
they call themselves ‘peace makers’ -
the courtyard
By Missy Higginsit’s in the body
a deep history remembering itself
starting out small
a tiny ball of rolling planets under my ribs -
Burri Burri
By Emma StewartThe whales call to us.
Like an umbilical cord
Stretching through salt water,
our sacred connection -
Summertime
By Amanda AnastasiThe bush has ceased its muttering, as the air tightens
like a string. The birds have flown. The koalas are higher
in the trees, hugging the trunks. The roos are heading
for the river. You are filling a hatchback with what they -
Flight Calls
By Bastian Fox PhelanIn swampy woodland, between two stands of trees
On Awabakal land, I wait, listening
The trees are alive with sound
Surround-sound chiming of the bell miner / kowoman -
I don’t need to tell you that rain is poetry (the earth is an open mouth)
By Pascalle Burton'X marks the spot—the whole thing’s an X.'
from The Ignoramus of Love by Destroyer
this morning, I stepped outside
it had rained overnight -
Smothered
By Mahalia CharlotteThe women in our family hold our trauma in our spines.
Backs bodies breaking under burdens; matrilineal line of
heightened hysterical hyper-aroused harpies.
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A Manifesto (Written) in Salt
By Noelia RamónNot proclamations, not carved marble promises,
not headlines, not smoke rehearsing its pose.
But the hand of wind rearranging clouds,
the alphabet of rain sketching itself away -
english shackles his tongue
By Nathan Mudyi Sentanceit is a box with a few holes to let air in
he smiles
tightly coiled
knowing the air -
The Arbour
By Giles WatsonLook up through the slant of Sun -
the lit side of the Leaf
whose Weight gives Curve - to Branches -
which is the Arc - of Life -
