Poems
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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 -
Good Vibes Only!
By Nat’s What I ReckonI see you in the bar window
Shining so bright
With a seeming list of demands -
What the creek said
By Mike LaddThe creek chuckled
recalling me falling into it
aged four
throwing a stick -
Childhood Beaches
By Mohammad AwadTackling waves,
Tussle, wrestle Mother Nature,
Floating on ocean's surface
To defy gods gravity, -
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— -
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. -
a simple recipe for my body
By Julie-Ann Henningeringredients
a range of mountains
forests of protein
south easterly winds -
Makes You Stronger
By Nina OyamaA man once showed me around a sharehouse
and whenever he showed me a bad part he said
but hey, makes you stronger.
So the sink pipes are rotten. But hey, makes you stronger. -
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, -
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. -
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 -
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 -
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 -
0870
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, -
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: -
love song & maroochy river
By Sam Quyên Huỳnhfootprints trail your red heels.
I follow you & we traverse
flatland’s wind-wrinkled skin. -
Literature
By Damon Young1. The Green Room
‘Reading is a moral force.’ – novelist
known for writing -
What fangs out of the bracken with a head full of garden?
By Dan HoganSummer equals cicadascream plus other superimpositions
hung in the air like an idea of bunting but never the worsted
wool. I’m no mathematician but who is? Nobody in this poor
excuse for a nondescript prism hurtling birthdaytowardbirthday -
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 -
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
