Poems
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Stand
By Rachael MeadTwo years I’ve lived as if in a cul-de-sac,
a flat sun bathing me in cold blue glare,
my griefs orbiting like silt-faced moons.
Yet in dreams, I soar with bar-tailed godwits, -
types of beach sand
By Scott-Patrick Mitchelli. soft sand
is hard to walk on. gives out either way. wind carves inhalation into scrub. dune’s breath collapsing. beneath feet, drift’s weep. see how tangling melaleuca scribbles what was, sedge clings to ledge. when we talk about the tide reclaiming, we forget how far it hungers. where once a ridge, absence. take off shoes: let erosion carry you… -
Silence
By Huda the GoddessFive things I have learnt about the earth in the middle of worldly chaos
The ocean is the best place to be humbled and reminded of how even the calmest things can be dangerous in the most beautiful way.
Earth is the same colour as my first love’s eyes and whenever I miss him I find a space with pure sand and dig my feet so I know what it’s like to … -
love song & maroochy river
By Sam Quyên Huỳnhfootprints trail your red heels.
I follow you & we traverse
flatland’s wind-wrinkled skin. -
Where Love Blossomed
By Sachém Parkin-OwensConcrete is where love has blossomed.
The soil beneath my leaves devoid of life,
full of misconception and missed connection.
Full of self-reflections and misapprehensions. -
Still Life
By Stephen EdgarTame enough to venture and explore,
Gem-flecked with dew in the Bruny Island dawn,
Two wallabies, stock-still,
Look up and pause while feeding on the lawn. -
Phalanx (Woman's Work)
By Daniel BrowningThey talk of blak matriarchy
I feel it every day
The only blak matriarchs I know
Would refuse that title -
I Remember Dad
By Dave Clarkin response to ‘I Remember’ by Joe Brainard
I remember our family ritual of Friday night fish and chips.
I remember Dad pointing a strong finger at the chalkboard menu, his hunger piqued -
Birthright
By DENNIThey make you wanna forget your birthright
Your integrity
To fight
A war -
Cradle of Life
By Archie RoachI go down to the ocean
Here on the sand
Ah my heart is broken
As here I stand -
Ghazal for Staying Safe
By Munira Tabassum Ahmedwhich is to say we prosper until we are not safe,
all of this, worth it even when we are not safe.
I ask where you are going, what roads bend aside -
Literature
By Damon Young1. The Green Room
‘Reading is a moral force.’ – novelist
known for writing -
a simple recipe for my body
By Julie-Ann Henningeringredients
a range of mountains
forests of protein
south easterly winds -
Identity
By DOBBY, SlinCrazeGenerations of trauma, trickling through the leak
Eighty thousand years are fighting every week
Now’s the final hour, the world awaits your change,
yet you grip tightly the chains, and flick right through our pain -
Mundine, bleaching cream
By Andrew CoxI was 9 years old when Anthony Mundine beat Danny Green
The first time i remember seeing a brown person on TV
Saw a brown person win something
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For Nokutela Dube, who travelled
By Sisonke MsimangI was listening to a nice white lady celebrating the Australian elections
and she said how proud Australian women should be that they got the vote in 1902.
I corrected her and said
White women -
Train Meditation
By Robyn LambirdMy favorite time of day is spent on the train.
Meditation and contemplation, a grasp for meaning.
No task at hand, the world blurs past in my peripherals and I consider how to turn the pain in my hips into a sensation worth having? More importantly, what to have for dinner?
Surrounded by bodies, I dive deeper into myself. -
the light that bleeds
By Bebe Backhouse-Olivertake me outside to the place we both knew so well
when i’d hold your hand while walking barefoot
even though the soil was littered with bindis
but i preferred the earth to know who i was -
Every morning I am reborn
By Eloise GrillsEvery morning I am reborn, must reteach myself to function, must learn
Tiresome tasks that always need to be redone
That are in their doing unlearned and undone
Like Jesus dragging the stone from the door only to be required to attend tedious course after course on proper wound management -
Childhood Beaches
By Mohammad AwadTackling waves,
Tussle, wrestle Mother Nature,
Floating on ocean's surface
To defy gods gravity,