Poems
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Clouds Afternoon Jazz Sprinkles
By David PraterFor Jill Jones
(1) Clouds
Abercrombie Street, Chippendale
Reading your electrical poems in a Northcote bar -
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Lampshade Phrenology
By Joel EphraimsWollongong CBD
In the heart of the city lives the float.
She has to walk over it to see it being built there.
For three consecutive years now every day after her first coffee of the morning she has watered the bad grass which grows under the window of the municipal board, alternating before or after with the watering of the diverse window-edge plants… -
Charlotte Street
By John HawkeThe pavement is a narrow procession
of footsteps returning home in darkness.
There is a raw gas-smell past Island Street,
the rancidness of lamb-fat that clings -
Black Throated Finch
By B. R. DionysiusBy the pool, their fingernail-sized gullets undulate briskly
As if they are guilty celebrities scoffing a midnight treat,
Their black cravats panting with excitement. They can’t
Stay in this kitchen heat for long; fluent in the language -
Gladys's Party
By Michael FarrellGladys thought party short for apartment and she took
one with a ferny balcony and a good view of
the parade. The usual misfits were there. Her best
friend, Gary Two-Thumbs the ape dentist; Lana Fundingbody and her gothic squeeze Mona Persona; Henry Withchickens of course; and Dork her dog, a mind like -
Twenty Judgements
By Martin HarrisonThe whole country’s littered with them -
gaols, courthouses, police lock-ups.
If I’m judged, it’s by sadness:
how much more to do, how much time gone. -
Candlelight 95
By Megan CaseyThe moon full and bright again
Hangs over the city
As I drive down Salisbury Rd
Synchronicity, you've done it again -
Job
By Bonny CassidyA deep curve reeks
of roiled fear
and you still
breathing, leading -
STUPID SONNET I
By Tara MokhtariShe paved an eight-lane highway
Over my trodden path to the sea,
Straightway to hell spans concrete gray
Speeding towards fire in a cold-sweat frenzy. -
Singular Voices in The Strand
By Paul ScullyEnvy prowls the highway-perimeter
Modest bungalows interspersed
in turn-of-the-century streets
California among the porticos and finials -
Kati Thanda/Lake Eyre
By Rachael MeadThere’s nothing there, no horizon
water and sky melded, seamless.
From solidity the ground begins to give
and we crack through crust, -
The Plain
By Judi MorisonWhere are the trees - belah, blackbox, mayal,
gulubaa hugging the creekline, hiding flocks of gidjirrigaa that
swept up to the sky
like lightlyshaken blankets? -
YILAALU –BU-GADI (once upon a time in the bay of Gadi)
By Lorna MunroMELLALUCA
YURALI (eucalyptus)
PAPERBARK
KURRIJONG -
Stand Tall
By GT SewellThe wind carried the words through Bakery Hill.
For the white, and, the blue. The blood that was spilt.
So many have gathered, so many shall fall.
We are in this together, by oath we have sworn. -
North of Moony Point
By Berndt SellheimIt’s like we don’t even notice the chatter.
Like the river is enough for us, no mind.
1.
Driven all summer -
58, back-most lot, collapsible ceiling and underground lung ward.
By Astrid LorangeMy dear RG. Crates are melting under enamel and asbestos;
whalers are jumping ship for a slant of this rummy sham. Open the
archive to check the mobility, there’s a rotten panorama of a hundred
years of surplus. First the compositers, bakers, and small-time boiled -
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The Rain of Bodies
By Anne M. CarsonPods of gangangs hurl sleek grey bodies
into a receptive sky. They surf, rising and dipping,
catching air-current waves in sets from ridge
to ridge. Red-capped males lead. Querulous calls -
PLEASE DON'T GO
By John Lloyd-GreenNo please don’t go
don’t disappear
I still have one more wine —
You are my boats
