Poems
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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 … -
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 -
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. -
There’s no disabled girls with style like mine
By Esther OttawayA woman wearing makeup must be fine.
They tell me there is nothing wrong with you.
Disabled girls cannot have style like mine.
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Good Vibes Only!
By Nat’s What I ReckonI see you in the bar window
Shining so bright
With a seeming list of demands -
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 -
What the creek said
By Mike LaddThe creek chuckled
recalling me falling into it
aged four
throwing a stick -
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. -
Denatured Spirits
By Dan HoganThe python’s morning nap was rudely interrupted
when my body looked like his body interrupted
Hogan was brought into custody
charged when caravan park resident -
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 -
love song & maroochy river
By Sam Quyên Huỳnhfootprints trail your red heels.
I follow you & we traverse
flatland’s wind-wrinkled skin. -
a simple recipe for my body
By Julie-Ann Henningeringredients
a range of mountains
forests of protein
south easterly winds -
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: -
Concrete Country
By Elfie ShiosakiI stand on burial grounds
of interconnected freshwater wetlands, swamps and lakes
seasonally flooding cleansing
sheltering water birds, frogs, gilgies and turtles -
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. -
Literature
By Damon Young1. The Green Room
‘Reading is a moral force.’ – novelist
known for writing -
Cradle of Life
By Archie RoachI go down to the ocean
Here on the sand
Ah my heart is broken
As here I stand -
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 -
Childhood Beaches
By Mohammad AwadTackling waves,
Tussle, wrestle Mother Nature,
Floating on ocean's surface
To defy gods gravity, -
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…
