Christmas is in the air. You are given into my hands out of quietest, loneliest lands. My trembling is all my prayer. “Five Days Old” – Francis Webb Given Poolside baby showers herald the summer pregnancies. Sweat caresses swollen knees; mothers tally labour hours; giftwrap is everywhere. Christmas is in the air. But by the … Continue reading
I prefer (wish list for autistic primary schooler) serious illness to surprises computers to my brother reading number plates to Christmas morning straight lines submerging my ears in a warm bath to waterslides deep fat fryers to matchbox cars torture to haircuts libraries to birthday parties standing ankle-deep in ocean tenpin bowling to climbing … Continue reading
I am a sundial In a sunken garden. On the days when you show your face I bask, all those long warm hours. You only see me when I glow, borrowing your radiance – but behind me, where you cannot see, circles a cold shadow blade. It gets longer the closer you are to leaving … Continue reading
The Detention Centre Christmas Island With closed eyes he looked at me silently gazing brazed lips whispers and sounds firmly locked in heavy feet sitting lightly on an empty seat. I crossed the blue waves crashed, pulled me down — I saw death a thousand times and time again, death looked me in the eye. … Continue reading
Matt Hetherington is a writer, music-maker, and moderate self-promoter living in Brisbane. He has been writing poetry for over 30 years, and has published 4 poetry collections and over 300 poems. His first all-haiku/senryu collection ‘For Instance’ was published in March 2015 by Mulla Mulla Press. He is also on the board of the Australian … Continue reading
In a kitchen in Brisbane three of us sit sharing tea and talking about dislocation how hard we find it to feel really here, to feel we belong. Each of us an unplanned baby. (An accident, or a surprise if you’re being nice.) Never felt that sense of unequivocal right-to-be, to take up space. … Continue reading
In the park at Richmond River the ibis converge on the scraps like clumsy ballerinas. One bites the tail of a water dragon who stares at me astonished, like perhaps we knew each other in a past life. Across the way a row of Queenslanders lift their skirts to avoid puddles and cars drive by, … Continue reading
Leaving is like breaking something not a single crash smash on the floor but a long drawn out rugged exhausting tearing asunder God is in the details as I pick them apart The fine bones The hush I remember that first time unbidden I heard it, as I was outside walking with my cup … Continue reading
after Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Giant Snail’ (for PS Cottier) A peaceful life is arduous to attain; desire’s not enough, nor positive aim — one side’s withdrawal is always the other’s gain. What germ inside us inclines towards hate? It seems to me there must be something rank and spindly tangled in the hub of our hearts … Continue reading
Beth Spencer’s awards include The Age Short Story Award, runner up for the Steele Rudd Award (for How to Conceive of a Girl), the inaugural Dinny O’Hearn Fellowship, and assistance from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Vagabondage, a verse memoir about the year she lived in a campervan (UWAPublishing, 2014) was her first … Continue reading
i. my darling, this night and your mouth soft ochre under the tallow that wakes us – where we taste salted-wine, sea-grass, and I pull the sea’s black reach from under your skin – sea witch, your squall of dark pearls undone, your hair a black furlong. And I give you sea-flowers, relics – a … Continue reading
The day tries to be as beautiful as you How she mimics your eyes in the dawn How she dresses the wind in your soft T shirt How she laughs sideways at me when I don’t hear what she says How she paints her doves with the same colour wingtips How she escapes me © … Continue reading
I die every second in everyday places you catch the light in my throat and lemon it so I can’t speak easy Make it moon light on the river of my chest Make it sing long as morning on the slow spines of trees green as Sunday school for lovers oh! I die many … Continue reading
Visible in the wild wreck I am is the empire I was My ruin is the most beautiful architecture Wreckage has made me dervish, an astonishing ravaged split log angel In the brown of my eyes pulled up, the Spanish doubloons of the autumn squash yellow of debris, the shock of stained glass intact after … Continue reading
Anne Walsh is a poet and a story writer whose work falls somewhere on the border of those two countries. Sometimes she’s a dual citizen and sometimes she has no country at all. Most of the time she is illegal everywhere; a local nowhere. Hers, the homeless criminality of only the deepest love. She was … Continue reading
For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle Psalm 18 1 A hackled old mind crawls in its darkness, a story-telling crab cracking the shells of night-hours tries to stretch itself out of its thoughts like a person praying for sufficiency-in-God’s-eyes, so teasingly almost possible. All worlds must end, begin, end, the rap … Continue reading
In a dream there is a veil of water between us, your face green with algae: my mirror image, separate, waterlogged in a world you trail within you. The Aztec water goddess is you, who grew the hearts that were thrown to her into a prickly pear tree, each fruit unpickable, embroiled with the spines … Continue reading
Petra White was born in Adelaide in 1975 and has lived since 1998 in Melbourne where she works as a public servant. Her first book, The Incoming Tide (John Leonard Press 2007),was shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary awards and for the ACT Judith Wright award. Her second book The Simplified World (John Leonard Press … Continue reading
After each voyage has crumbled into ephemera I return to the house and its quay; I circle the edge before skittling off to the suburbs. Come to me, I cry, crass plastic and screaming sail, shining, golden city slumped and seeping tune! This evening my heart’s emptier than a harbour. I gulp down … Continue reading
Up Broome-way recently, I was reading Philip Hodgin’s early poems about cancer and thinking back to my own fights with it, wondering what the poems might have been like had I started writing my own by the time it all began. I put his book down to pick at a nail and found a huge, … Continue reading
Poem and Dish 