Longer Poetry

by L.E. WARD a lamp lights                       the back of my eyes metal heats in my skin         veinspinned                          to the table I wake upon your shoulder bladeyour breath               within…

by Rebecca Carr O, where is the moon? Shades of grey is my sky – she cannot be seen. The darkness has worn heavy, and my thread that connects frays. Memories of 90 Mile Beach – Scattered shells, sand; rock…

by Alleyne Hall In memoriam Les Hall, my father, senior constable On stage, aged eleven, before two world wars, then a senior country policeman – where did the years go? How did I get to this place of silence? At…

by Suzi Mezei Nestlings plummet hapless from shaken boughs; spat from the maw of the shrieking storm, they land waterlogged on deluged lawn. Cloudburst pastes grey plume to dermis and through water-smeared windows, frogmouths clump like rocks. Outside, under a…

by Mitch Browne I saw you, fellow relic, when we found each other out. Two truants lying smug in a bolthole meant for one. You were extinct, and I was in uniform; we both were out of bounds in the…

by Stephanie Powell there is a split above the stone harbour mouth From the window of our hotel room, I could use a finger To unpick it To break it open To jiggle about the wound Or leave it Enjoy…

by Gregory Piko If I was to walk down the short concrete path between the squares of neatly mown green grass toward the gate with its freshly painted steel bars glowing white in the sunshine like a neon sign; if…

by Pat Saunders kookaburras sang in far eucalypts her head leant back rang out, across the oval a nervy hand found her hip eyes closed waiting mission brown brick dusted her hair Lynx-diluted sweat filtered through vents high above her…

by Thomas Simpson In open air between tall wetland grass shaking off the smothering wet of weeks in dense forest, mud and growling feral pigs make way for sand and the unreachable sound of rolling waves, somewhere beyond the skeletal…

by Fred Duncan Drill holes in the spinifex break through the Pilbara crust, Red land/hills, red rocks, red sunset – and red a rusted sign: “NO ENTRY: Rio Tinto” – the irony is thrust On people whose existence must align…