A visit to a shoe repair shop in a nearby town followed by a couple of questions lead to a story experienced by the cobbler at the age of seventeen. After examining my shoe, he told me I could take a seat and he will mend it on the spot, sparing me another trip back. The … Continue reading
Time passes so slowly around here, everything seems to be weighed down by this heat. My feet are so lazy and my eyelids wish to indulge in another nap on the swing. I seem to blend in quite well with my hometown, its streets are much more quiet than usual and its souk’s usual hustle … Continue reading
Two halters of rope around your neck, and two bodies jammed hard against your sides, is all it takes to hold you while he slips his blade beneath your eye. You hear the wet slide and suck as he scoops the eye out. He does the other, they roll together in the dirt. Does it … Continue reading
Do not judge me by my size I am almost invisible on a white page I could be mistaken for a spec of dust. Power is not in how big you are, power is in how big your actions are. Oh! The responsibilities I have Please, can’t you see my size! A barrage of words … Continue reading
Do not say a prayer, shed a tear, nor place a wreath on my grave, but bury me instead under a mangosteen tree once I’m stiff like lead. Once I’m dead, drip mangosteen milk, and wring the sweet white arils till its juices soak my funeral shroud. And when I die, embalm my head and … Continue reading
The gods do not make great-grandmothers like they used to. Mine reeked of damp earth, nutmeg, grew betel vine to feed her habit, chewed and spat betel-quid till her lips ochered and teeth blackened. She reeked of damp earth and nutmeg, plucked vine leaves at subuh, wrapped them into quids, chewed and spat them till … Continue reading
Mona Zahra Attamimi is Arab-Indonesian, born in Jakarta. She lived in Washington DC and Manila before settling in Sydney at age nine. Her poems have appeared in Meanjin, Southerly, Mascara Literary Review, and the recently published anthology, Contemporary Asian Australian Poets. She has studied Anthropology and Women’s Studies at The Australian National University and the … Continue reading
Blue water and blue fibreglass reflect the sun. Salt and cinnamon grease our battered skin and pumpkin flesh. Still-damp costumes chill our nipples and trace wide outlines of our arses on the lounge. I have the Jack of Diamonds. It’s my left bower. I shuffle my suits to suit this new addition. The breeze is … Continue reading
The Darker Continent Sestina for Elizabeth Bishop Step off the pier and into the unknown, flushed from the balmy cabin, out of breath, piqued by dreams of a feathered samba dance, your heart is like a squirrel in a cage, preparing eagerly to test the dark: the frontier you imagined ‘cross the sea. What drove … Continue reading
Tegan Jane Schetrumpf lives in the small coastal town of Budgewoi, and writes poetry, essays and creative non-fiction. The writers she most admires are Sylvia Plath, Gwen Harwood, George Orwell, Jorge Luis Borges and of course, Shakespeare. The cuisines she most admires are Mediterranean and Asian, but she’ll eat anything vegetarian. Tegan was educated at … Continue reading
I am shadow I demarcate one blade of grass from its brother and unite objects together on the wall hat-stand couch- corner pot-plant I make shape out of line and frame form I follow and lead I am shadow black bird in water twin in air I take flights of fancy that cost nothing It … Continue reading
Sometimes heart or head leads you by the hand on hill walks To the sudden sparkle of water seen through trees metallic glint of shot silk and silver To the serene surface of one-of-three dams and the ducks held tight by the water’s skin pulling at its seam pleating its calm dragging the thin top … Continue reading
Funny how a yawn travels through a room a pied piper gathering all the rats In that instant we all draw from the same source a great swallowed gasp shoved into our lungs like socks stuffed in a bag and the long outward sigh That we try to hide it up our sleeves makes us … Continue reading
Many things have a grain best not to go against Even slicing ginger we come across it the fibrous root close enough in this way to its woody neighbour oak or pine An anchovy can be slid along the tongue only in one direction without the salty bristles catching A dog, a fish, a man’s … Continue reading
Sarah Rice is an art-theory lecturer, visual artist and writer. She holds a PhD in Philosophy and a Graduate Diploma in Visual Arts. She currently lectures in Art Theory at the School of Art, ANU. She works collaboratively with visual artists, runs art/poetry workshops, and gives poetry readings in the ACT and nationally. She was … Continue reading
As wave is driven by wave And each, pursued, pursues the wave ahead, So time flies on and follows, flies, and follows, Always, for ever and new. What was before Is left behind; what never was is now; And every passing moment is renewed. As I was walking yesterday, these autumn leaves scattered on the … Continue reading
How the Dusk Portions Time Then one evening, after the gallery, hung with invisible abstracts, you take me apart to flesh the miniatures: a fleck of craquelure, speckles of mascara from my shadow eyes, already panda-streaked. I fail to notice how you slip the pieces in your coat pocket. Distracted as I am by wolf … Continue reading
Dying to Meet You for Aravind Adiga Maybe it wasn’t deferred by the hardness of rain, my lack of sincerity, your lover, an unfinished book, a hangover; the cigarettes I didn’t smoke to save my lungs. I wasn’t breathless last night. I dreamt an email I opened from a publisher wishing me well was an … Continue reading
Laksmī under Oath I left my footprints on the threshold of ancient temples, pointing inwards, like the flow of fortune. In 200 BC, well-intentioned seers fashioned me, etched in bronze on lintels, the gateways to the city. The land was barren, a salt marsh where Indra slayed a three-headed fiend, pole stars drifting and rivers … Continue reading
The Photographer’s Light All the petals scatter in the folding light. The road before me has its own emissary. Tree branches bow to changed weather, this afternoon they were sunset’s veins. Birds lash the dark, dissolving sky, make a scene of leaving where something like dying is not the reverse of memory. The future’s rank … Continue reading
Poem and Dish 