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, -
Good Vibes Only!
By Nat’s What I ReckonI see you in the bar window
Shining so bright
With a seeming list of demands -
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 -
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 -
Birthright
By DENNIThey make you wanna forget your birthright
Your integrity
To fight
A war -
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. -
What the creek said
By Mike LaddThe creek chuckled
recalling me falling into it
aged four
throwing a stick -
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 -
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. -
Cradle of Life
By Archie RoachI go down to the ocean
Here on the sand
Ah my heart is broken
As here I stand -
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 -
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… -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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: -
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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