Maybe she’s made a shelter from mulga branches and spinifex out on the plains somewhere. I imagine her walking from the west in grey light, barefooted, a walking stick in her right hand, a small lyre dangling at her waist. She must arrive as the clouds in the east begin to roil with the day’s … Continue reading
Dimitra Harvey has a Bachelor of Performance Studies from Theatre Nepean – University of Western Sydney, and a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of Sydney. Her poetry has been published in Meanjin, Southerly, Mascara, and Cordite; her poetry has also appeared in Australian Poetry’s Members Anthology Metabolism, the 2013 Jean Cecily … Continue reading
Once on the old port of Sunda Kelapa, Betawi cradled the East Indies spices. When tropical rain poured over her plantations of mangosteen, hibiscus, guava, nutmeg and cloves, she would surrender to the heat under her banyan tree and sleep heavily. In her youth, she bathed in the sap of pomelo rind and her nipples … Continue reading
In my hard boots I wandered into a field of thistles crushing violet weeds, bits of bricks and tiles, broken glass from a house I once knew. My mouth was wild, foaming her name. I heard my child’s moonless moaning and my house bursting into a cake of flames. After the rain, by the river-death, … 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
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
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
Last week I happened to drop by at a friend’s place and as I entered her kitchen, the smell of freshly picked olives filled my lungs. I stood still for a moment as memories of the olive pressing mill across the road from where I lived as a child, were being displayed right in front … 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
Poem and Dish 