Poems
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How Water Works
By Tony Birchcup a hand
skin and bone
this water well
a beating heart -
I Grew Up A Shadow Girl, With A Man Outlined Inside Me
By Madison Godfrey(Content warning: references self-harm)
When I was fifteen in a toilet cubicle next to Talia,
I exclaimed IT’S HERE with my school skirt skimming -
Occupation
By Lisa GortonListen. We can talk here,
this republic in your empire of intention.
Know when you step out of this door again
corridors will take you -
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The Portable Home
By Saba VasefiOnce, I went with the wolf to the desert
to take back honey from the bear
but in town my two eyes counted
only for one. At school -
Appearance Shadows
By Lionel FogartyAppear was always a touch seeing things
Were there one disappearing, came from what was real.
Magic give disappearing acts to appear.
For thousands of living next now one peoples disappearing, -
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 Healing Tree
By Indira NaidooI watched you
Lost in grief
Head of stone and cloud,
Steps faltering -
Not the Postage Stamp of the Christmas Island Pipistrelle!
By John KinsellaTo drag you back into viability
mainland scientists descended
to haul you into a breeding colony.
But vanishing was fast, and the last -
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Low tide
By Miranda Gillam GrantWarm room,
low tide
I left the earth and the humid air
I left myself within myself -
Slavery
By PiO (π.ο.)40 million people worldwide in 2019 were subjected to
some kind of slavery, 61% of them were used in forced labor
25% of them children (mostly in the private sector), and
38% of them in forced marriages. -
so too the sunrise
By Jazz Moneyso too the sunrise
with clarity and promise
of who you will rise to be
so too the breaking night -
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— -
Submission
By Peter GoldsworthyI accepted my first rejection slip
humbly. I took the next on the chin,
if with gritted teeth. The third
I balled, and threw four periods -
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 -
Bahloo
By Evelyn Araluen~ For Aunty Gloria Matthews
bahloo
I am watching you watch me -
the poem begins with a breathing reef
By Eunice Andradaa new cemetery blooms in the heat
we search for the last traces of colour
