Poems
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By Hugh WinterfloodShe’s a quiet wee thing, though her temper's often flaring,
swearing and carrying on through the night,
she stays in the middle and many lost wanderers, come to her
to offer themselves to her bodice and consume her life, -
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. -
winter faeries
By Jamie Marina LauBecause the behaviour of salt imitates memory, the coffee grinds of lovers, the spines of armadillos,
Salt takes poetry from your tongue by arching it, and holds it there to extract you. Salt splits itself molecularly to be tasted.
I’ve found a way to make language a ‘concentrating pool’, that is, in essence, an industrial sea: -
Childhood Beaches
By Mohammad AwadTackling waves,
Tussle, wrestle Mother Nature,
Floating on ocean's surface
To defy gods gravity, -
Post-Credits Scene
By Dan HoganYour face raised dollar signs for eyes. An open
smile and protruding tongue styled after a banknote. Should
we stay till the end? A sausage roll like the credits roll. Sorry -
Assembly (The Modelled Forms)
By Judith Nangala CrispinListen to audio of Judith reading her poem here
There will be no forgiveness. Not for any of us who’ve come here— -
the light that bleeds
By Bebe 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 -
The koala and the cyclist
By Steven HerrickLast night on the television news,
I saw a koala crawl through a burnt forest
and sit on the side of a road
where a group of cyclists were resting. -
Cradle of Life
By Archie RoachI go down to the ocean
Here on the sand
Ah my heart is broken
As here I stand -
Elegy with the Incredulity of Saint Thomas
By Gavin Yuan GaoLast night, my grandfather came back from the grave
wearing the tailor-made Mao suit he was buried in.
The grasses between us swayed in their crisis
of faith. Under the mulberry tree’s ceaseless sighing -
Good Vibes Only!
By Nat’s What I ReckonI see you in the bar window
Shining so bright
With a seeming list of demands -
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 … -
Dead Giveaway
By Dan HoganFeast your eyes on the lung candy
as it whips through the air at a speed
marvellous save for the foul accents
protruding less in plumes and more in -
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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 -
What the creek said
By Mike LaddThe creek chuckled
recalling me falling into it
aged four
throwing a stick -
she marries her
By Sandra Renewshe asks her for her hand to marry
after five years of not holy espousal nuptial
but partnership in civility let’s do it honey
promising to waste no time -
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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Olympic Hour
By Bronte CampbellThe lotus flower
Lurks in murk and mud and dark
Biding time, keeping count
‘Til it bursts forth in light and bright and colour -
War and Peace
By Maria TumarkinWho knew war would be the time of neologisms,
so linguistically fertile.
(Specify which war. You’re in Australia.)
On Russian TV the topdog propagandist coins ‘to macron’,