after five hours of floating
in the air
or a hundred years
since the sailing
a great escape
my great grandfather did
this place he transited
now I’ll call it home
he could never
return
in flesh
his blood
that flows in me
now here afoot
he used to walk
or maybe run
whose house?
Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang’s ‘first night in Macao’ Read More »
In Southern Bosnia
where I first knew you
where there was so much death
there was a beautiful bridge
you can’t kill memory
where there is a beautiful bridge
this is a story about Mostar
a story about Stari Most
but no, it’s a story about us
and the fight we had
on the beautiful bridge
and how I swore to you
we would both grow old
there would be no war
you didn’t listen (I remember)
you kept on slapping me
we got home we didn’t speak
we made japrak and chorba
we cried and held each other tight
later they tortured you
then they killed you
it was a beautiful bridge
all the water gone
of course I write this.
Rob Schackne’s ‘Stari Most’ Read More »
when street lights are smudged
when high-rises lose their grids
when the city submits to abstraction
on a red alarm night
on an east-bound train
silence behind masks
warning ring in the ears
smog herds us home
it was in early summer when I last saw you
around Travessa da Paixão
you told me you’d eventually
move to the mainland and I replied
I’d go overseas
don’t know why but parting
always reminds me of drifting clouds
maybe because I know that Xu Zhimo poem
embarrassingly well and you’ll agree with me
a seaside town like Macao presents
the best kind of summer cloud
generous in volume and almost tangible
the same kind in Perth in winter
with colours like the orange and pink
in Bonnard’s le bol de lait
now as we emerge from another hutong
branched out from the Drum Tower
counting yellow and red halos
cast by street lamps on our way to DDC
I’ve forgotten the air is toxic
and wish instead
with dust’s magic trick
a seedling will appear on my palm
and then I can watch it sprout
leaf by leaf and on a rainy day
strive to catch every droplet
from returning clouds
Iris Fan Xing’s ‘Smog’ Read More »
absence touches me in ways i couldn’t predict
your body feels nice against mine
filled w/ secrets
is that bag smiling?
the heart’s an emotional organ mine
consumed 15 donuts today all jelly
when did you get so tense? there’s nothing
quite like urinating
out in the open air there’s always
god i love this music isn’t it dreamy?
[the sound of wind thru pines]
i’m now upside-down
i’m talking about seeing beyond fear
really sick & rotten really weird stuff is love
the blood of the universe?
pride obscures it i’m holding
in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies
there are things dark & heinous in this world
of things you can’t get anywhere
but we dream they can be found in other people
[pours a coffee]
i plan on writing an epic poem about this
[promptly spits it out]
about looking at the world w/ love
[into a microphone]
is this thing on?
Toby Fitch’s ‘Pinned Weeks’ Read More »
sometimes a mountain
will have its one little cloud
grey as water falling
just there
neither here nor
high hover of all day hung
as if grazing
although at this height
the grass is gone
no matter
in another world
it’s a feather fallen
for windlick
wisp of weather
small
so thick sometimes
you won’t see through
like a little fleece you’d call in for dinner
lithe as the day is long
climb to it
and watch your footing
hang halo
with a length of word
and mouthful meaning
too much has been read in
all summer
soft as shadow
grass woven
in the years of wind
clouds cut hard here
shape straight lines
carve time from
the day to pass
there’s nothing in this world
fast as a mountain
see how it ran till
watch the moss bloom
there’s nothing so sound
as a cloud asleep
time simply
won’t pass here
Kit Kelen’s ‘sometimes’ Read More »
Sitting on a tram,
watching a group
of tough young people,
I notice one of the girls
has a huge hickey
on her neck. I’m sorry
but that is hilarious.
Now I’m convinced
that the world is conspiring
against me being a serious writer
and any minute now
there will be a giant
banana cream pie flying
through the air towards me…
just before it hits me
a poem will sacrifice itself
and jump in the way
to save me from losing my mind,
just like this one did.
Michael Crane’s ‘The great conspiracy’ Read More »
When something’s the matter
she hangs in her hammock
and sways the sad days away.
She gives in to gravity
lying there passively
letting the levity
carry her
haunting and
traumatic
thoughts to the
sky.
The swaying brings a stillness
that relieves her illnesses
even if just for a while.
Her mind is uncluttered
and pacified gradually
thinking how
very apt
it is that
the hammock
hangs in the
shape of a
smile.
Clark Gormley’s ‘Hanging in the Hammock’ Read More »
Having received from several sides
divers accounts of savage crimes
committed on the Clarence River
by native Aboriginees
and the scattering of cattle
with numerous other depredations
most notably the robbery of
a shepherd’s hut on Ramornie station
a party of settlers suitably armed
was raised up by my constable
and under my express command
entrapped an evening camp of blacks
on the banks of the Orara
complete with sundry gins and young.
Our discipline began at dawn.
Two men of ours alas
were somewhat pierced by spears.
The “lords of the soil’ as they are called
took to the river by the score
and were shot as they swam;
many were I understand
to be seen downstream a few days later
against the wharves of the Settlement.
More late intelligence confirms
the felonies were practised by
a rogue named Lynch without a doubt.
The blacks it appears have yet to commit
a single crime or depredation
upon Ramornie or thereabouts.
Geoff Page’s ‘Dispatch Ramornie 1842’ Read More »
The sky,
this morning’s brilliant blue,
asks, “So, do you love me now?”
“Yes” I reply, “and never more
than this moment.”
The pavement under my feet is worn.
It speaks of passage
and of autumn leaves that stain its pores.
I say to this ground
“I’m thankful for all you’ve seen
and how you’ve served.”
The Chinese tallow-woods
that line the street say, “Eye our bones;
soon we’ll be glamorous and green.”
I see their rough bark and how sunlight
reaches into cracks and crevices.
The air whispers,
“Take me softly and take me deep.”
And I do,
for the air is warming
with the perfumes of the earth in this
changing season time.
My feet say, “Keep your rhythm.”
but the flowers by the path won’t be told
and say their piece,
“Behold our colours, they’re more beautiful
than you can bear, for you fail to stop.”
Then I do, a fool
falling through the eye of a bloom.
Steve Armstrog’s ‘Meeting with the Morning Walking’ Read More »
speech
I am told
by others
*
the name of
life
belief in
a name
*
you old cock
*
the day
the past
amplifying
the fashion
the sort of rueful
smile
not to say
*
hoisting
the boy
at noon, in
the city, up
the time for any
going of
may, remember at
if found it
is aid
a picture
why may come
*
in a
muscle
a plain
slow
a lighter
than any of us
love
*
is more
how to
eh, the fool
a, a bit
luxe, luxuriant
age as an
age
chrome sky
behind reception
flanked
by the damned
lifts up to
straightened and
gives you
the wrong way to go
who begins using
your
name, the
adopted
a cold little
in these hands
actresses
that name
an enormity of
crap. Made
bold
heavy-muscled
a bull in pen
thin corners
flash out
a voice
deadly, cool
stories
of conciliation
the ball, carelessly or
with skill or grace
flings the ball away
shouts:
compare
the decay
of the cygne, tian’e
*
to whom
in loneliness
those who
in trust
return
*
power: maybe something else, and
*
comedy
in a comedy
to say
the gods will not
jibe
have a little fun, earth
heaped on us
both
vowing together
to slog
*
by a servant
housed
by sleep
fathered
by love
positioned
nonvirginal
*
the being
for storing
this
other future
*
undyed
blankets, hot wool
list of reef, star, swine
but again you are, in all things, once
a guest, please
*
excellent
adultery
of, drift out, common speech
less party if
it could
be
a blue-black
clash of
pricks
an old
habit
rocky coast to remain
wind an
Matt Turner’s ‘Marriage’ Read More »