Religious Observance
Oscillations
what my father taught me
all quite gainful
The Orchardist
The Countryman
I am a Noun
Woman Weaves
Flying Home to Christchurch
A Photographic Portrait
Since the Darkness
Surviving the Dark
Skeletons In the Closet
Lost Tide
It Was Far Too Easy
Nomad
Shadows of Neruda
Saintly Sonnet
A Slaughterhouse Sonnet
Us
The Finger of Fate
Psalm to Autumn
The Seville Orange Tango
Prayers
The poet berates her ex-lover on utilitarian grounds
Sour Note
Parting Glass
Australian Decades
Unfurnished
The Man Who Read Skies
Prenatal Class
Moving Instructions
Snow White
A Pastiche Past
One of Us Is a Predator
Unloading
Wetlands
figs
yearning for Constantinople
caught in the web
| Selectors: | Peter Jeffrey and Flora Smith | |
| Managing Editor: | Sally Clarke | |
| WebMaster: | Chris Arnold |
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Religious Observance
On a Sunday morning walk through coastal bushland near Trigg Beach, we descend into a swale treed either side with majestic Tuart, and wonder if we should genuflect, or at least show reverence by bowing our heads when we enter this holy place. Dappled sunlight filters through the vaulted canopy of this Tuart tree cathedral. The only clergy present are reverend magpies who piebald swoop from ceiling to floor, back up to ceiling; like playful bell-ringers pulling imaginary ropes that peal sounds of early morning summoning all to church, while their bird song chorus from choir loft beckons those who believe in surfboard, towel and thongs to worship sun and surf
Elio Novello
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Oscillations
at the end of the driest summer, the acorn banksia sway citronella flowers on ingrown branches, wind-rough knuckles buckled down over dun robes along the Reid at dawn. on the Mitchell Freeway where the bush glows, frenetic wipers absolve pangs of rain and perverse sun flare; within fifteen minutes everything has slowed to an apocalyptic beauty of no sound, of breaking cresting colour and light. the brooding midday globus deposes the long limpid reign of blue time which is summer here; gums thwart diagonally each febrile pulse of wind; lightning obtrudes the urban cirrus above CBD, hail thrashes Barbagallo. the city arteries rupture with schlerophyll anatomies and ice pustules Scarborough Beach Road herniates frigid water into ersatz lairs Mediterranean gazes spellbound— oscillations of cobalt crimson the inverted sense of freezing wet heat on the skin. Nuytsia fire flowered through the surfeit of heat, I searched your contours burned through the clothes the quiet stir between us drunken with sun at the instance of surging the power cut in the neighborhood. we foraged mutedly for a candle in the dark recesses of spindly cupboards aware of our breathing presence, groping for a waxen mandril, a fibrous wick to light the gaps we navigated by feeling, our bodies barometrically between.
John Ryan
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what my father taught me
was to eat an apple and its core and find infinity in the home and walk, walk it out and abbreviate, to say, ‘well, April’s nearly over’ on the 20
th
of the month and sing Gregorian chant in falsetto while vacuuming, to rub the bark of tuart, to sweep, pack away, put away, waste not, want not, not drink. but, in later years, to enjoy a glass of Merlot, make music in the absence of light and score, confuse watering and being, sip from sky and silence
Kevin Gillam
all quite gainful
the poet should have a day job not connected with literature James McAuley
maybe sweeper of the moon’s ne’er seen side or collector of second hand incense storeman in the warehouse of misplaced angst or firefighter on days too hot for ants shepherd of meteorites and space junk keeper and feeder of one-legged gulls apprentice to window cleaner of dreams or conductor of the paper and combs?
Kevin Gillam
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The Orchardist
The bite of winter lies hard in the shed relieved by a single globe, the old man waves slowly and nods his head, shuffles off to the radiator glow. Pears roll along the conveyor belt, tumble down in threes and fours to the whirr and clack and steady thump of fruit as it hits the sorting boards. We stamp our boots on the concrete below tuck fists under arms and blow, and watch while our breath hangs white in the shed, ‘No need for freezers today, Georgio.’ The son rolls a half case of Packhams, dull green and flecked in black and we chat about prices and footy and frosts while his father sits quietly on his packing case. His season’s done now, he’s a windfall, sap sucked thin by winters like this, but his seeds have been struck and planted over these hills. And as his fruits tractor back to the shed they are stored away in the dark, like him. An old Latin gnome in a woolly cap calmly waiting his turn to be crated in.
Virginia O’Keeffe
The Countryman
He wasn’t that old, I wonder what took him out? Last time I saw him with his dogs in the ute and a couple of dried kangaroo legs in the tray, ‘Keeps ‘em happy,’ he said, we’d been in the paddock where the bulls are kept. ‘Saw you moving fast.’ The drawl and lopsided smile. ‘The bracken’s a bugger to get through.’ He kept his dogs working or tied to a chain and locked gates behind him like he locked his thoughts to country ways, taciturn, oblique. Guess the dogs’ll miss him too.
Virginia O’Keeffe
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I am a Noun
I am a noun. I am sure of it. Like orange or chair or perfection. (maybe not perfection) I am as much a noun as the Narrow's Bridge or Geraldton Wax or riverstone. If I were a verb I would like to be falling, fleeting, flowing, fumbling. If I were a verb I would be quickliquid, unable to hold impossible to cup. But I am a noun. a countable noun a concrete noun a possessive noun If I were an adjective I would be unforgettable.
2nd in the Eaglehawk Dahlia 2011 Poetry Awards
Paula Jones
Woman Weaves
I am worn thin as husk thin as the cream-cotton sheet on the east lean of the bed where my body-shroud lingers long after the wash I am brittle as doll's skin, porcelain, painted red and browed black plumped and pursed but always awake I am invisible as the slow leak of age transparent as a stream stray grey hair collects in the closed heart of the sink I should sew a new skin a hard tapestry of storylines and talismen weave a new woman from wicker and pine Swing her from the trees by the dry creek bed as a warning to the crows sign to the murmuring worms I am not yet dead
Paula Jones
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Flying home to Christchurch
She was going home anyway
been planning it for months
Seats booked
Fares paid
Big surprise for family
Celebrating Wedding Anniversary
Horror of horrors
Christchurch in chaos
Her family mostly OK
if living without water
without electricity
without sewerage
and if the ooze of liquification spewing up from deep deep down
spreading its foulness overall
can ever be OK
In the fruit and veg department of the supermarket
she spends her working day
filling other people’s orders
Knows where the best stuff is
and gladly shares her knowledge
No flash work attire
Black pants, blue top, like everyone else
On her feet all day
in stout working shoes
Not a giant in stature
Glasses complimenting
dark wavy hair
Her impish smile lights up her face
exuding warmth that can only be experienced
Treats old people like they were real
We talk about the power of the ordinary
While she keeps on packing potatoes
Go by all means
Enjoy your family
Tell them we know about the earthquake
even if we are too far away
to be of much practical help
But hurry back please
you’re needed here
You brighten our day.
Ron Okely
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A Photographic Portrait
(Lauren [Eyes closed] – Petrina Hicks 2003)
you are as quiet as a headstone a choreograph of stillness your fine-chiselled bones a sculpted masterpiece your skin is pure poured- cream from the milk your hair is vanilla-pale & as straight as wax tapers your eyebrows are powdered expressionless white as a wig your eyelids are sealed with bleach-feathered lashes your ear – a synthetic shell – mourns for the sound of the sea your lips are naked with the sorrow you are stillborn you are a doll muffled with melancholy you are ivory you are stolen oh where where are you Lauren – how long have you been locked in this blank asylum?
Carolyn Abbs
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Since the darkness
Since the darkness I have been on the wrong side, the listing side of the ship. There are always new arrivals who wait with me to watch the moon suck us in. Balancing, balancing. Scared of the flick knives of cold Januarys. Scared of the barbed kisses of fished out Mondays. On shore, beefy voices tell us to sing, commend a new glue for this crew of scraped knees, sigh navigator-wise at our silent impasse.
Previously published by Metior Murdoch University
Sue Clennell
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Surviving the Dark
Tired you said but I knew that all night walking around in my head like you did a head full of dark clouds and twinkling stars of moonlight shining on an estuary and you travelling to I don’t know where except that I’d put a night light on a boat out there and you were wading into the black sea until you were gone. It was only when you phoned that I knew you’d swum safely and been picked up hauled aboard that I poured myself a hot coffee and pictured you naked, wrapped in blankets drinking yours.
Geoff Stevens
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Skeletons In the Closet
in memory of Yasser & Ariel The Palestine extremists have withdrawn their deadly pall; is the region on collision course for peace? No longer does Knesset have excuse to build their wall, there's a wailing now that work on it must cease. Though smiling head-robed Chairman's throwing kisses to the crowd like times before, his manner's more subdued; a tone of reconciling in his speeches is allowed – there's a new enlightened Arafat on view! His enemy communicates, is desperate to know ‘What caused this change of face, this change of heart? Perhaps the sword of Ariel might be refashioned too ... is possible? Is not too late to start?’ The answer shocks – 'twas surgery the Yasser aides confess; a bone removed from his anatomy! The Israeli Prime Minister can do with one bone less ... ‘Which bone,’ he begs, ‘might they remove from me? Oh, did they take his clavicle, the rib he gave his wife; perhaps it was the jawbone of an ass?’ The Chairman's grin has twinkles ‘Tell Sharon to get a life; those days are gone when he can anger Yass!’ A diplomatic flurry, and his answer is revealed; ‘That special bone reserved for just we two. Removing it was simple and the wound has quickly healed; they took the bone I had to pick with you!’
Max Merckenschlager
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Lost tide
just near the surface an underwater current eclipses sand patterns stories weaves tall boats anchored by tide children with buckets fall out of dinghies run barefoot slide pocket sand just below the surface water collects brittle sticks spin to touch this motif already stilled an easterly fills pockets pulls together kindling when dry afternoon light captures windblown yellowing sails always on time the tide autumn’s soft cover mirrors sea like Orpheus twilight rushes in lifts moon settling on Swan mirror flattens the tide doubles the cusp earth’s tendrils pulled close whispering lapping tide swings sonnets heard in closed eyes
Rose van Son
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It Was Far Too Easy
It was easier and far too much fun, shagging you on the back seat of my brother’s FJ at the drive-in, than it was to hold you inside my heart, later, when desire faded, and vows were eclipsed, when marriage made a fool of me and you walked off into the gathering dark of the rest of your life, and as you took a him and yet another him into your new found freedom and then into your heart quickly, jostling for space alongside the others, and then rapidly and oh so rapidly, took him and him and him and him ............ deeper and then deeper, into your mouth and into your hot wet desperate self, where lust bred like rabbits and multiplied with viral manners, and where need and self were only partly sated, for that short while, and love abated, for that shorter while, once you had his cock. And then, as the cold hard light of dawn came and you turned on his and your cold wetness, then you paused, and only then— lonely wondered: did my husband feed me more than that, or was he, too, just another fuck.
Allan Padgett
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Nomad
She packs her teeth for Melbourne to chatter when the temperature slips under her blanket and the wind slices her ankles also essential for jumping into knitting socks and storage to boot
Gail Robinson
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Shadows of Neruda
Spring was kind and we shared the sweetness of honey but Autumn stole away the perfume of jasmine. If I should wish with all my heart, will that springtime come again?
Peter Rondel
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Saintly Sonnet
I’ll never be a performance poet drawing rapturous applause from a crowd. I’ll never be up to it, I know it for me, it’s the quiet which speaks most loud. I don’t pepper my verse with ‘fs’ and ‘cs’, I’m not prone to post modern outpouring. I don’t bring an audience to its knees and my fastidious form seems boring. Some say that I am a poetic snob, a dead decasyllabic dinosaur, not fit to commune with a modern mob. While some say sod off through the nearest door or, preferably, through the pearly gates to party with dead white male poet mates!
Derek Fenton
A Slaughterhouse Sonnet
As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods:
they kill us for their sport.
William Shakespeare
Tomorrow, Easter Friday, I’ll do it. I will finally go out to my shed and choose the instrument to get through it. To make sure, once and for all, that they are dead. I am not normally the murdering kind but now I’m at the end of my tether. Their tormenting has made me lose my mind. I’m so distraught that I don’t know whether to do it slowly and make them suffer the cruel way they have tortured me, or a short sharp blow being tougher executed with considerable glee. It is time now for action not rants, time to exterminate those goddamn ants!
Derek Fenton
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Us
Once there was just us The little miss and I Then along came you And it was us Including you Then you left And it was just me And little miss again I am me And you are you And she is she And we are as we are And as we think We’re meant to be
Dean Meredith
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The Finger of Fate
It is unavoidable, inevitable, I accept without question his authority... ‘The Finger of Fate’ His forefinger points to the road, the one, curving to form the circle of life where I have walked before ... I walk his road ... without regret. Each time, I have known it to be a little different; and I shall reach out like the sapling Spreading its limbs, branches that shall never ‘wilt’ Shall another be enveloped? Within soft autumn leaves, Caressing constellations 'Engulfed within. The sea's of my universe... are inescapable. To have tasted the fruits, a soul, in one life... my tree shall not wither! Nor shall the sun ever set on the mature oak of my being. Yea, though I live, live for a hundred years, ‘or should I die tomorrow’. I have known contentment, immersed within the very core of ‘Her being’....
David Barnes
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Psalm to Autumn
The lime is laden with bright green globes
they fall and gather on the drive.
The lemon tree is swollen like a breast engorged
beside the gingko’s vacant twigs.
While quinces are stuffing their yellowing cheeks,
elder leaves shuffle across the lawn,
and the virginia creeper is running naked
wrenching out her wine red hair.
Josephine Clarke
The Seville Orange Tango
every winter they come like alien ships suspended in deep winter green an armada of fat orange mostly they crash land he collects them sits them by the bin and on the wall like trophies unexpectedly she returns with the shopping or from her aunts to find the kitchen full of steam citrus curdling in the pot behind a gauze of disinterest she admires the muslin bag and then the jars all sticky and unlabelled silent sit on the window sill for weeks until a setting point is reached she relents wipes them clean writes bright stripes gives them as gifts praising out of his hearing ole!
Josephine Clarke
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Prayers
At home we pray every morning that Uncle Athol dies. Devoutly we pray every evening saying our last farewells hoping he may slip away not to endure another day. He is a living vegetable— no, that is not quite true— he sees and hears, he tastes and feels but he can’t move or speak. Death please make a visitation— to put an end to his frustration, . A pall of utter futility has overtaken all. We tend the body here ‘Athletic Athol’ once renowned hurdler and sprinter winning Gold what stories of his feats he told! of international competitions of hormones on prescription, of false starts and disqualifications, drug rehabilitation. All these now are in the past – we pray this ordeal doesn’t last.
Meryl Manoy
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The poet berates her ex-lover on utilitarian grounds
More people Are made happy Because we are split And repaired strangely. This may be Terrifically egalitarian. Even so, I feel that The utility Would have been greater Had the shuffle Never been made.
Cuttlewoman
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Sour Note
They’re not coming of course. She says my music makes her sick. He says that it makes his ears bleed. They shout a bit about the cost laugh clink glasses. Jack looks me up and down the way a dingo stares at a snared rabbit. ‘Get to your room’, mum yells. I bite my lip on the inside where no one can see. The key clicks in the lock. I hug Teddles. Daddy gave him to me. ‘A friend for when I’m gone’, he said. Daddy always came to watch me. I miss his scratchy beard his stinky cigars his terrible jokes. Car doors slam it’s Karaoke night at the pub. I hide Ted in my violin case climb out the window. Rosin stars stick to my fingers smear my jeans. I’ve been practicing a new piece down by the creek. ‘The cows don’t care and we can’t hear’, Jack says. Sometimes in winter my fingers go purple. The judge tells me, ‘try harder and turn up in clean clothes’. Never mind Teddles still loves me. I hope Daddy heard.
Jan Napier
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Parting Glass
The aeroplane’s slow engine rattles in the night sky. A million people shut their eyes believing in the new day, surrendering to the night. Those of us still with eyes wide open throw off our blankets and wrestle with the dawn. In the dark I find it; to say goodbye, release the string of one white balloon, let it drift, let it drift. You and I were like two kids at a birthday party sitting in our frocks under a high summer sky. And I forgive you for what you cannot give, and I forgive you for clinging so tightly to your sash. Clouds merge and separate in the darkness, form, disperse, dynamic. Still, I am sad to see you go though I cannot be half to make it easier. I will not be watered down. So fill your cup with someone new and see, I will fill mine too, a parting glass let go the strings, let us drift.
Renee Schipp
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Australian Decades
Still. Midday. Air—scorched tyre-rubber, baking bitumen, exhaust pipes. Prospect— a gauze smudge of cloud above the rooves of the northern suburbs: orange rooves lookout flats, east pointing coigns of far silver office, blur to blue-sea haze, shimmering orange tile under coma-blue sky. I’ve seen this somewhere before: in the film Walkabout, which I connect with the face of John Meillon. John Meillon before the drink took him. He plays the white-collar drunk who take his two kids out to the bush and tries to shoot them. They escape and he shoots himself. A suburban loser’s madness in the bush. An Australian city under a nineteen-sixties summer. Call a ghost face from the shades the sun doesn’t mark decades. Where I work money and things change hands. Perennial transience of hands. Even when I am not there I can see them, the not-watching watchful salesmen under the office eaves—pulling cuffs, fingering white collars, puffing Winnie Reds, scanning through sunglasses. I see the yards reflected in their sunglasses. Where I live the nineteen-sixties houses on their Menzian blocks disintegrate in the night. The Federation miniatures which pop up in their places like red poppies on graves simulate a centenary anxiety (nostalgic cathexis of millenarian terror) dissimulate shelters for a feral workforce, absent by shuttered day, shadows and noises behind the cathode-blue security screens of night.
Chris Palozzolo
Unfurnished
A notice to vacate this unit finally sent, but the membrane of home is already split and starting to peel. I can feel the tender etiolated corners to be exposed when we start to pack. I can sense that time has taken here, eating away at this terminal space like rust in guttering. Soon we will be vagrants in vacant rooms, echoes off alien walls. Too look at us right now you would never guess we are loosening like poorly glued bathroom tiles or lifting like cheap parquetry. The imminent dismantling of our domestic organon has only begun to shadow our minds. Our routines continue throughout the day and following days, but we are already ghosts already translucent. In my mind the shadow will assume its formless form, for I can now see the chaos of boxes, random cuboid objects tumbling in disoccupied space.
Chris Palozzolo
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The Man Who Read Skies
My father read skies daily deciphering the message of clouds, plotting the fickle journey of weather like a traveller, map open. He searched for clues hidden in the spheres, atmo, tropo, and strato, he knew their names like old friends and family. ‘Clouds are for artists,’ he said, brush in hand above a sky-washed canvas, then billowed clouds like spinnakers on windy seas. A fisherman at heart, he liked nothing better than a mackerel sky, a mottled, scaly fish skin sky swimming with imagination, the big one that got away. He carried a coat when nimbus piled anvil-sharp warnings on his comfort of cumulus, and when the racing wind rode high, his mares’ tails streaked across the sky.
Mardi May
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Prenatal Class
Don’t believe a word you’ve heard about birth Nothing prepares you for the agony You will cry out as the engines of earth rumble tectonic plates grind and part pain pours through your belly like molten lava until the gates of heaven open and you are delivered at last In that instant when your baby and your world are newly born you will cry again Nothing prepares you for the ecstasy
Liana Christensen
Moving Instructions
Pay up front in the small change of sweat and ache and time then keep going until you intersect with this licit bliss on the downhill run wheels spinning in the dance studio leaping meeting the ocean at dawn or the river at dusk like a secret lover pleasure enough for any animal on earth
Liana Christensen
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Snow White
Briefly hunched in an overcoat with shoulders crouched shuffling snow against the wind fire filled eyes peering through the cold beyond the white rebelling against the hand determined to cast everyone and everything the same.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
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A Pastiche Past
An ekphrastic poem from The Wine Drinkers by William Dobell
A voice like darkness damps the air
forgotten promise saunters by
submerged the ancient child recalls
parched lips you numb to wear the mood
Forgotten promise saunters by
you thought him deaf yet hope he hears
parched lips you numb to wear the mood
lean close indulge a pastiche past
You thought him deaf yet hope he hears
inside that room where dreams are locked
lean close indulge a pastiche past
two bare left feet retrace your steps
Inside that room where dreams are locked
recline off key let down your guard
two bare left feet retrace your steps
walk beside your evening shadow
Recline off key let down your guard
submerged the ancient child recalls
walk beside your evening shadow
a voice like darkness damps the air
Shey Marque
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One of us is a predator
one of us is a predator but I can sit unafraid even when jaws close on my hand
Chris Arnold
Unloading
he displaces much of the air in the alley. his tattooed tuart limb felled by some neural lightning storm could crush a truck, and yet big fingers prowl the pallet as if cats’ heads lifted to sniff the wind, carefully nip cardboard coats at the neck; clutch cases like kittens.
Chris Arnold
Wetlands
The gap between my molars must be a cozy cottage; the worst house on the best street: not much to look at, but warm, safe, plenty to eat and drink. Painful as it is, it’s comforting to know that there’s something alive in us all.
Chris Arnold
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figs
for patricia
come march
generosity moves her
to climb the tree
stretching among leaves,
fingers groping
to test ripeness
reaching beyond reach
intimate softness
plundered
this year’s abundance
luscious boxful
at our door
green/white
secret pockets
ruby-wrapped seeds
poached with honey
a feast for Gods
breakfast on Olympus
Sally Clarke
yearning for Constantinople
when you came back from Stambul ‘city of the world’s desire’ like a sultan returning to his harem you brought oriental gifts. one silver Bedouin bracelet heavy shackle for a slender ankle. silver-hearted filigree brooch turquoise scarab trapped in its web. the red copper platter, intricately inscribed inscrutable Arabic calligraphy. two pale alabaster vases smooth to touch, cool as death. I remember how you presented the treasures one-by-one, taking a whole day held still in their mysterious origins reliving that cacophonous souk, how I wished I’d been with you, not left behind veiled sultana locked in the seraglio.
Sally Clarke
caught in the web
hip-hop poets’ words quickly, oh, so quickly, slickly pulled together; toe-tapping, head-banging, today, immediate. some dismiss them for Wordsworth, Keats, and where stand T.S. et al, alongside, above, below? surely, a place for all, putting words together no mean feat, quickly, slickly or considered. skills needed to express emotion, commotion. an elder poet mewling on the sidelines calling for disciplined syllable count declines immediacy, misses the point pushes away creativity, new technology resists change, language as living entity moving on, unable to hold back. irresistible tides flooding the plain recede with time, foundations newly revealed, shaken, yet remaining. underpinnings solid, evident, pages still there waiting to be turned.
Sally Clarke
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