Poems
-
Crush
By Kate LilleyWhen I say that history was my favourite
I’m thinking less of the Weimar Republic
or the militarisation of Japan
than Miss R’s contralto discipline -
several matters
By Derek Motionwater to watermark gap, canvas of the tree,
about two feet. toaster’s increased browning
capacity, a result of past usage. so clever.
i have frittered away my time. -
led zeppelin
By Eddie Paterson& great blimps
move through the clouds,
huge grey airships
curl amongst skyscrapers & through suburbs -
Fetish Commodity
By Ali AlizadehI used to be brave. Emancipation
eludes me now. There’s nothing real
in what I get paid to do. Rhetoric -
The Fan
By Craig BillinghamAre you a fan? the woman said
and then sat down.
I didn't know what she meant –
I imagined she was famous. -
Howzat
By Alan Wearnefor Chris Pettett
Caughtbowledstumpedrunoutlegbefore!
Filmed with floosies in the raw, -
Birds of Paradise
By Joel ScottLilac eruptions move upwards and
I can't help but think of us. This
is untraceable. Like moving backwards
by words in a phrase. On the return leg, -
Entrances North
By Fiona HileThe surf club car park is littered with empty
Muscle-testing image in the drum roll
tableau of sheets stripped of servitude. ‘Isn’t
there just a tiny bit of gravity in outer space?’ -
Moon on a Stick
By Rob Wilsonfor J.L.D.
Try not to breathe.
Try not to walk the highwire too fast -
Holiday
By Caitlin MalingPerth from above is a cockroach
It sits there, brown and laconic, and
The micrwave of summer can't shift it.
With its suburbs, like legs, twitching intermittently. -
Distractions
By Liam FerneyI am hoping to kick a Facebook habit
but the monsters are scary and tomorrow
is too long to wait for an anxiety
as toxic as a tax the punters don't understand -
satisfaction
By Benjamin DoddsHolding taut barbed-wire with one hand
and myself with the other
I gaze at the ground
as hundreds of shining grey dust droplets -
Insomnia
By Elizabeth CampbellFinally, on the seventh night, like a leaf
of the long blue gum, released
into a deep shade from its high tree
spinning slowly as it goes -
A Prayerflag from Dharamsala
By Michelle CahillI am dancing tonight in the Kangra valley.
Effigies of the demon king Ravan are ablaze
for Dussehra. Thorn bush dissipates in a flare.
-
Capital Limp
By Tom LeeIn the smooth
Drains they emerge
And in the sun, they put
His cars, and his houses, they -
The Bird
By Anthea StefanidisOn the worst days I try on the bird.
I have constructed of lost feathers.
Saturated and dripping its pungent mysteries
into my ears I become a bird in a tree on a mountain of brambles. -
Crossing the Hay Plains at Sunrise
By David Falconsky so coppery i can taste pennies
low lit by the sun
the plain stretches its rough gorse
to the edge of the world -
Bats
By John TranterIn a freezing attic somewhere in Prague
a hungry songwriter invents Sincerity, but alas,
too early. A decade later, a popular singer,
struck by the intimacy a microphone fakes, -
spanish fiction 2
By Michael Farrellwe were playing a mind game. but there
was a real
attraction. he was bookish,
unsuccessful; my secret -
Supreme Abyss
By Michelle LeberIn the voice of Su Nu, courtesan of
The Yellow Emperor of China
At night, snowfall uncovers