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
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
Michelle Cahill is the author of Night Birds. Her collection Vishvarūpa was shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She has received awards and grants in poetry, including the Val Vallis Award, a Forward prize nomination, the CAL/UOW International fellowship at Kingston University, London and a Developing Writer’s Grant. She co-edited Contemporary Asian Australian Poets … Continue reading
The Last Man in Pompeii Imagine now the last man in Pompeii. Though there were many, one will more than serve to hold the many in a stable shape, if poetry has more in it of truth than history, than all the catalogues of ancient flourishing: the olive groves, their number and their yield of … Continue reading
Where I Am Not I like to walk in thought where I am not: Rain in the valley where no footprints press The soil with heavy tread of humanness; The stream that flows like blood, without the clot Of self demanding to be set apart. I like to think of things bereft of thought, Of … Continue reading
Yiddish Songs A sober dawn will turn from the Sturm und Drang Of New Year’s Eve; the crush of bodies lit With spotlights on the Rynek. Snowflakes hang Like Christmas decorations, delicate And almost plastic, waiting to be wrapped In plain brown paper. The fiery spirit Of intoxicated breath hovers, trapped In a frozen maze … Continue reading
Distant Orchards We must look forward also to the springtime of the body. Minucius Felix In distant orchards green cicadas hum; Their wings are folded in a brittle prayer. When will the springtime of the body come? Can you not hear the blind guitarist strum Songs on the hollow body of despair? In distant orchards … Continue reading
Poet of the Month for March is Jakob Ziguras. Jakob was born in Poland in 1977 to Polish and Greek parents and came to Australia in 1984. He studied fine arts before completing a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Sydney. His poetry has been published in Meanjin, Australian Poetry, Mascara, Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry, Snorkel and Southerly. He was a finalist in the Newcastle … 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
Flamenco Trio Granada An old man sits at the rear of a dusky cavern, dressed in a suit and hot pink tie. He listens intently to the dexterous fingerwork of the young guitarist on his left, mining with his ears for something that might appear behind the notes. Every now and then he claps and … Continue reading
Band of Cockatoos The white of their plumage seems a bit too white like the polished teeth of salesmen or the glare of the sheet on which I jot these observations though they remind me of children as they quietly collect twigs and leaves from around the path. Now and then they reveal the wattle … Continue reading
Poem and Dish 