Poems
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Sonnet for a Mid-life Diagnosis
By Jake DennisTreatment delayed by a waitlist, deposit paid
for therapy with a psychiatrist who says, Hmm,
I can usually do this in sessions one or two
but for you… This is your chance to transfer -
Let the monster rest (after Jane Kenyon’s Let Evening Come)
By Mran-Maree LaingLet the taut strings of the nerves lengthen
and slacken in the arms and legs,
draw in the strummer’s claws.
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Guest Rooms
By Svetlana Sterlin1.
some poems take years to arrive,
growing to the backdrop of screaming
cicadas, galahs, and mozzies in the ears -
Village
By Huda the GoddessWe built a village with hands, with woven desire for creating and maintaining. We built it with tools slightly broken, tools that have walked with us through nothingness. We stitched out tomorrow with eyes that have dreams that feel like they stole stars out of skies. We made sure to colour in tomorrow with hope.
We built a village knowing tha… -
Miinimbi
By Bebe OliverBefore the luggers farmed the pearls,
before the missionaries carved into our mouths,
miinimbi moved the edge of gaarra,
singing beside Bardi and Jawi -
Wambuul Oceans
By Aniesha Louise Ah SeeYamandhu marang?
I asked the Wambuul in its lament
Still I was endless in wiraygulbanha
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Alight
By Jennifer Kemarre Martiniellowhat lies behind
my forehead
is my Grandmothers’ Law
her women’s wisdom -
Incant
By Kerry GreerCan’t use the fire emoji, or the heart in flames.
Can’t tell you what it means if an ambulance arrives
and doesn’t leave. Can’t unsee
the things I dream, the mundane scenes of life -
Dentist Appointment
By Arantza Garcia Ferrandyou lay back / uncomfortable / in a sterile chair. counting
clock beats / heart beats / till / end / of / session. he hovers
above like / falcon / or maybe vulture / picking / at the dead
animal / in your mouth. carrion eating decay / he fills his plate. -
The last bird poem
By Tusiata AviaEver since I wrote the first bird poem
I have been swearing to the gods of colonisation
I will not write another one.
Sparrows, starlings, pigeons, geese -
An Old Farmer Remembers His Dog
By Judith BeveridgeThe ewes are rattled; they bleat as if the wind gusting around their ears
were the hard panted breath of mustering kelpies. Last summer,
Cheroot, my best dog was struck by a king brown on Wydah Hill.
I thought he must have lapped from a fetid ditch, for a while -
Breadfruit
By Sela Ahosivi-AtiolaThe sun welds itself to Sunnyholt Road,
lights blur into liquid over the asphalt car park of Parklea Market.
Cars idle, engines hum with their mouths half open,
traffic horns bleed into the thick murmur of chatter. -
Learning Arabic
By Misbah WolfThe djinn lived in an onyx ring.
At the mosque
a man stood
with a whiteboard and a pen -
For the Machines
By Alan FyfeDoors closing. Going up. First floor, residential and quietly religious. Second floor, haberdashery and implication. Sorry, we don’t know each other – my name is Sylvia. Third floor, gardening supplies and six million empty coats. It was my fourth acting gig in thirty-seven months. Greasy little studio with the walls sweating grief. Outstanding pl… -
rat patootie
By lotus threads, Panda Wong, Hannah WuO symphony of crackle
lil rat dominatrix tell me
what to do pull my hair
with yr tender paw mincemeat -
Discretion and ambiguity
By Jacqui MalinsIt doesn’t pretend to be anything else. Not representation nor avatar. No hint of face or figure. No vase of flowers. Shapes and lines arranged in space, proximate or distant. Dynamic symmetry. A straw-yellow rectangle floats low on a field of Barraba blue. Shapes and lines. A painting replicated on screen, a beguiling simplicity. Shapes and lines… -
A HAUNTOLOGY OF TRACES
By Ellen van NeervenSit but don’t
sit. Live but don’t
live. This is beyond discomfort
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The Job
By Janiru LiyanageYou go your whole life believing
dying is the easy part, then one day
your great aunt gets a brain tumour the size of a
kumquat burrowing inside her hippocampus, and -
Watermark
By Kristen Langfor David B
4am, he wakes, reaching out –
mountains, chiselled valleys, a small
sea between us – to say he is thinking
