Poems
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Buoyancy
By Zainab SyedI.
When we consider the buoyancy of a city’s heart
There is not much that will keep it afloat -
Takayna; Milaythina Ningi
By Theresa SaintyTAKAYNA; MILAYTHINA NINGI
(Takayna; Mother Country)
Nara Takayna; ngini paywuta
Wurangkili mulapana-nara nuritinga tunapri -
Quilting the Armour
By Nam LeSun everywhere, and shadow. Swamplight, aquarium light
turning the far-off fields almost Kelly green, bullion-fringed.
Stitch of tracer gold. Crystallised moments you see, hear things clear:
the end, and past too. Shack, hill, horses, watertank, windmill — -
I Dance
By Manal YounusI’m a little bit stiff
my back not so used to bending
my body used to spending
hours pretending -
In the event of apocalypse, remember TV
By Mitch McTaggartThere’s Australian TV content that you’ve never heard of
Sitting in archives
Collecting whatever the digital equivalent of dust is
Probably never to be watched again -
This is Wrong Way by Lore
By Kerry Bulloojeeno Archibald MoranShe white fella wanted to take me
To jaagi maam sacred site's on wajaarr country
A place of muluurr blood, galaagarrbili sweat and budii tears
This invitation I did not mangga-bayila plan -
Gowk
By Simon ArmitageOne day I had no soul and the next
I did, like a cuckoo’s egg, so
then I was lumped with this baby ego
hatching out of the heart’s nest, -
With Grace
By James ColleyThis Is Not A Poem
I am in love with a girl
who does not understand the treachery of images -
Where have all the bad boys gone?
By Patrick LentonI didn’t know who i was when i was a teenager -
a long gangle, awkward loping sack of bones -
but i knew what i wasn’t allowed to be
i was not allowed to be a bad boy or a naughty girl -
you can start anywhere, you’ll still hit all the service stations
By Hasib Houranithe laptop bag is red, i got it for free from a friend who got it for free. new things are not all that common, i suppose. my neighbours speak portuguese, the calathea loses another leaf. the heatwave runs like an old fridge, the old fridge is mostly empty, droning.
we watch the tennis. how fast is that little green blur? could whip me interstate … -
For Grandad
By Phoebe GrainerOld cowboy hat.
We were laughing
Us mob
You telling us story. -
I Fell
By Heather MitchellI cannot say I knew him
nor did he know me
yet somehow in the silence
between the siren and the stillness -
Without Her
By Felicity PlunkettWhen a body is found on a bike-path –
When a body is found in a garbage tip –
Where a body lies under a bridge, over a border
in the basement of a suburban home, washed up -
Elegy at 18
By Aloma DavisIf you take an object from a scale, it is lighter.
How, then, can an absence be so heavy?
Your loss is stony ballast dragging me under.
From now on I will shoulder a calendar of days -
Writers Block
By Rob WatersWinds rush through half clipped spaces; they whistle in the dark through windows neither closed nor open.
The tin roof rattles; shaking just beyond that point that catches those night winds rushing.
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An Heirloom of Love
By Adrian Mouhajer, Princess Arinola Adegbiteafter bell hooks
Here on my table, we share the memory of our countries,
centuries of recipes stitched into the strands of my hair, -
Circular Breathing
By Gabrielle Journey JonesBreathe in truth.
Simultaneously
Breathe out loss.
-
bird around my neck
By Aries M. Gacutanwhere is my heart? —rotting at the bottom of the pacific ocean
hurled out the side of the plane
because i didn’t have the cash.
and my mouth, full -
How to See Yourself
By Patrick GunasekeraAfter Audre Lorde and Laura Hershey
You strain against the words again,
Carefully chosen to throw out to them -
Bread: A Fifteener
By Natalie Damjanovich-NapoleonAfter Dumina Frzop’s story
In the homeland we had to struggle for a piece of bread.
Slept in one room on the floor, cooked in a komin,
