Poems
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Rimbaud in Africa
By Bella LiI am sending you a bird’s head in a steel box filled with alcohol. I believe this
bird is unique to the Harar area; it is known here as koumou.Perhaps you
saw it when you were here. It is the size of a large turkey, and is completely
black. -
Summoning The River Snake
By Fiona BrittonClick here to read the full poem in the poet's original format.
Summoning the river snake: a death journey in five parts
… in which the poet Dorothy Porter summons her muse and death messenger, a snake, and makes a final journey. -
For The Young
By Celestine RoweIt’s time for our young people to rise
Take the fight laid before us
Let’s rise to the challenges
We fight against depression, oppression, suicide -
Emerald City
By Aden RolfeEveryone knows the story: boy meets bay, sets up
colony, steals country. Now the waterfront sets are
brighter than ever, bolstered by breakfast radio &
cameo bridge views / while backstage the Cooks River -
Fitzroy Commission Flats
By Melody PalomaPoem after Jennifer Rankin
can’t catch how the light hits the flats, at seven PM in early summer,
my iPhone camera never gets it right:
bedroom wall cracked open -
shoot
By Renee Pettitt-SchippI will not close I will not let
so much as one petal curl
as long as this light can reach me.
So long as the clear -
From The Other Side
By Judith RodriguezThe dead do not stay dead. There’s your Dad
teaching kids still in the voice of Oodgeroo;
for punishment, putting the kids on cut and dried
mission rations – that’s unsurprising news -
Untitled
By Celestine RoweWe rose up from the darkness, where they kept us all along
We shine bright, smiling, never letting go of what could become
The vision held inside, we grab them tight
The dream even though it seemed for ever to become real -
Tiger on the Beach
By Renee Pettitt-SchippWe round the point, run
into the plate-glass shock
of your presence.
Who designed -
Ballad at Manifold's
By Judith RodriguezI remember you, Kath, the quiet woman
sat with Kate on a bench at Manifolds’:
our mandolines. Those Saturdays, the Wynnum
river-flats, a hawk circling, the ballads scored -
Silvereye
By Renee Pettitt-Schippunblinking eye
looking out toward forever
the birdbath is reflective
high on stand -
Names
By Judith RodriguezAmity
A ship under sail: a sighting: a sandy beach
offers its point to the neighbour island, offers
a watering place. A safe station, on the way -
Old Ghost Dogs
By Sam Wagan Watson“Some things are beyond talking.
Not the mind, not emotions,
words will always come for them.
Perhaps the mind lives in this barrier -
Maya Angelou
By Abe NoukThe world is a mixture of everybody, everywhere
and she was a child and shall remain so
in the eyes of those who came before her
it matters not where from to make us feel -
Moongalba
By Judith RodriguezPlace holds the people. They wander, making a life – place is inside them,
staking its claims, reserving its treasures.
What place? Maybe the space by a mother, between her bed and the wall. Or the backyards of a childhood. It may be an endless plain with its secrets for living.
For Oodgeroo, the green island in the se… -
Unnamed
By Celestine RowePower to the struggle, whatever that may be
Whatever you’re feeling, rise higher
Give it all you got ‘cause you’re stronger
No matter what life throws at ya -
Last Drinks
By Aden Rolfe‘Your vocation calls
& you answer it’
John Forbes, ‘Pacific’
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Damaged Glamour
By Aden Rolfe‘Why didn’t life turn out the way it looked
in Cronulla in 1967?’ Or at least
how it does in a Go-Betweens film clip?
On the streets of this town no one cares where -
Wiped
By Sam Wagan WatsonFor Martin Harrison
“I sing the joy of wandering
and the pleasure of the wandering death …”
Guillaume Apollinaire -
This City
By Celestine RoweI love this city
Creativeness, words, they flow
From the gutters to the tips of high rise buildings
Artistic alleyways
