Poems
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The stars
By Melanie MununggurrAppeared out of nowhere
They came from every direction
Erupted through surfaces
And dove from blackened skies -
What Pathways and Songlines?
By Charmaine Papertalk GreenIn this country of milk and honey
Contemporary mechanical dreamtime mine time animals
Land stolen from traditional owners
Vomiting our precious earth on foreign shores -
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Yugambeh and Proud
By Ellen van Neerven~Yugambeh interpretations provided by Shaun Davis, Yugambeh Library
Yugambeh
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1967 Encouraged The Right Vote Now?
By Lionel FogartyReferendum who will vote for see –
Citizen to who will write the truth.
Refer what census over prohibition of us,
Who custom attitudes still stands by the old -
Evening of the day
By Jeanine LeaneSitting alone by her window, somewhere
in that extra shaft of apricot sunlight –
just days after the winter solstice
against a cold pink-streaked sky she -
Prime Petals
By Kirli SaundersFibonacci's numbers
reveal themselves in prime petals.
Lily, iris, buttercup
aster and rose, -
the light that bleeds
By Bebe Olivertake me outside to the place we both knew so well
when i’d hold your hand while walking barefoot
even though the soil was littered with bindis
but i preferred the earth to know who i was -
Our Responsibility
By Kerry Bulloojeeno Archibald MoranNarrjarrwinni
Giinagay
Yawayi
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Nginha-gulia nyiang – These words
By Jeanine Leane~ Wiradjuri interpretations provided by Aunty Elaine Lomas
These words cry out and I hear them—learn to mould
and shape them like clay. -
Mangrove Girls
By Lulu HoudiniPotato scallops from the takeaway that always smells like a camel station
but that my sisters and I can't get enough of.
Pimples show up on our faces because of it.
Tell Mum there was a price increase and that's what happened to the change. -
Bold
By Declan Fry, Craig Santos Perez[so I was listening to cassandra jenkins today
and reading the guardian]
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La-pa
By Brenda SaundersI remember taking the tram to 'the Loop'
on those fishing days with Dad. Crowds
on their way to see the 'Snake Men' scaring
all the kids. Uncles selling boomerangs. -
Wildflower
By Kirli SaundersI picked these
to remind you
that there is a place
for your struggles. -
Dreaming Track
By Lorna MunroPlease disregard the disruptions
Disconnect from the obstructions
The growth of this canopy pleads
Unweave the wires that bind -
Changing Tides
By Zachary Bennett-BrookFrom a First Nations perspective poetry is not just written or spoken word, it is found in all creativity - song, dance, art, breath, Country and relationship.
Zachary Bennett-Brook's work is a visual poem on how he sees and feels Country, its meaning, shape, pattern and colour. It is a map of our connections to each other, to our kin and to C… -
Djiringanj Country
By Jeanine LeaneBundanon
The mist takes its time rising
from the mountain. A pathway
rambles along steamy fern -
Desert is a body
By Judith Nangala CrispinI’ve walked here before, in the shadow of old Limbunya Station,
Lingiari’s heartland, where Wickham River veers toward the western sea
but never makes it—fraying instead to threads that vanish in blue clefts,
where the desert lifts in scrub and towering sandstone cliffs, then drops -
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
