even sunstruck the ribs rise from Bennelong Point like Arthur C. Clarke’s black slab I storm the frets, stopping only to whirl when your aperture’s cocked at my spine this hair’s a tornado of sand ridiculous, you needle, a blond gothic no licks of laughter (Father, Son, Ghost shedding Prozac) my Scorpio sting: fuck off, … Continue reading
for Michelle Cahill Some evenings are this fragile. Rainbow lorikeets court baroque chords creaking in my nest of bones. You wrote to wrap my limbs. Morning will sprinkle the conifers, Which of us abandoned the other? We cannot answer with insect wings, serrated jacaranda. What colour is truth? Some days we trust more than desire, … Continue reading
Hanging upside down perched in its own Heaven the cricket sings: “I have eaten and am full. This is good.” Does it sing for us? Possibly. If we too have been touched all over by fire If we have balanced for hours on the infinite porosity of earth and know what it’s like to be … Continue reading
Was there ever any way This plump and comely assassin— Named for all knowing and unknowing—would not know how To meet all prying with a look both tender And intense, both Peaceful and implacable, merciful and savage—sad, Yes, but by no means sorry— Surprised but not unduly— Across the threshold of her forest lodge? … Continue reading
We thank the clouds that come and go and sometimes linger We thank the cumuli for the brooding that arrests our busyness our preoccupations We thank the storm clouds for our passions and the lightning that splits the dead stumps our hearts had become, opens them to the rain We thank the quills of cirrus … Continue reading
They are a stand of bitter wisdom trees eyes revolving inwards like moons beguiling faces smiling down upon us. They don’t mention (or only in passing) the ways the world is slipping from them: the deft departure of the boyhood friend, the driver’s license routinely revoked, the inability to leave the bath without resting —shamefully—on … Continue reading
for Germaine Greer after the Festival of Dangerous Ideas In the cut lip of the coliseum within its raised arches of white I came, in twenty-twelve, to see you fight. For every man who loves to loathe is a woman who loves to love: my mother made you our household god. And I believed she … Continue reading
A pervasive hum, invasive lights, white gown swooping hairy legs, a skinny ghost whose nest-like-head buzzes with static and stinks of cigarettes; a woman afraid to be sent home convinced that death is imminent, and from a key locked room a wail ascends the air to crest the brutal surface of sedation. While I drink … Continue reading
Fifteen thousand years I have slumbered In my icy casket, a hoary Princess waiting Not to be kissed, but punctured By the pick of a prying scientist. My blood, dark as a fairy tale Leached insidiously into the Siberian snow, And my flesh flared red and fresh Enough to eat. My lower limbs devoured By … Continue reading
They used to be joyful the pictures of babies used to pertain to me. But today my belly is swollen with portent and I note with unease that my haruspex is a man. Female seers are reserved for life and I am an obedient bag of death, viscera spread on the gritty screen waiting to … Continue reading
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew. —Jack Gilbert, “Failing and Flying” Like some nocturnal Icarus, I dream too close to heaven— I fly too close to morning— and I wake in pieces. And so I woke this Wednesday, a child disarmed in sleep and felled By the gravity of the ancient light he dawns in. … Continue reading
It’s dusk, and I’m listening to an old Indian devotional, the woman’s voice is a coil of plum honey. As the sun slips down the empty western sky, the tiles of houses are silvered in light. At some angles the sun is forked by newly budded branches. I’ve stared too long at its gold-lash pinwheel, … 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
Syrian Desert I walk off alone through the hot winds that flap my clothes like the broken sail of a dhow beaten by storms on the Red Sea, across the ochre sands and scattered rocks and past the caves where desert fathers once dwelled and prayed. My eyes settle before the calm expanse, trace the … Continue reading
Augury? Samothraki, Greece for Jakob Ziguras 1 I’m not sure if I’m following a trail left by goats or on the human path as I attempt to circumvent the farmstead where, the last time I came near, a dog pursued me, snapping and snarling. Noticing the piles of rusting junk dispersed around the place … Continue reading
Poem and Dish is creating a new category titled: Poet of the Month. A poet will be featured every month and one of his or her poems will be posted weekly for four consecutive weeks. I am so excited to be highlighting in the month of February the work of Luke Fischer. Luke Fischer is … Continue reading
For many long years I had lost my voice, and with it I lost my essence. As I travelled across continents heading towards civilisation, I left all the sophistication of words accumulated in my young eighteen years behind. In this new land I was a newborn who had to learn to crawl, walk and talk … Continue reading
When a person decides to go public with either their personal or political opinion,literature, poetry or recipes for food; he or she has just opened the door to approval, disapproval, critique, judgement and / or popularity. So why did I start this blog!! I mainly started it because I have always liked sharing. Isn’t humanity … Continue reading
Poem and Dish 