Poems

Odveig Klyve’s The Farmer’s Pear Tree

from Let’s Take the Blue Sky by Storm

the  farmer
looks at the pear tree
 outside       	the	          window
the			old			 tree				that
 spring                 after		spring	welcomes                 birds
 they	return			resting                      their		wings 
after		            	millions		        of				miles
 they		build			nests		and			sing
about				what		they		have				seen
 the     	forests	 of				steel			and		concrete 
the			dark	                            clouds	           and			sunrises 
the		sounds	of			waves				and			 weasels 
with                sharp      claws		they            scrawl       the      songs 
into         the         bark	 of			 the	 old	tree
year		by	year
 e v e r y	m o r n i n g
t h e	f a r m e r 
s p e l l s
o u t	 t h e 
t i m e
t h a t ‘ s 
h i d d e n
 i n	a
b i r d ‘ s
a l p h a b e t

Richard Tipping‘s ‘Lord Muck’

from Instant History

Picturing England
Headlands in a fattening breeze
The fragrant country
Its dark wet soil.

This pot boiled over long ago
Oozing migrants
Threading identities
Bicycle couriers urgent as bells.

Rough winds shock blossom
petals heap pink snow
Swirl up in gusts black taxi
Smut to the gutter press.

The history winners get written by
War’s cut bloodlines of before
Lord Muck must have stamped
this tongue with claws.

Cui Yuwei’s ‘Junkman’

from Fish Bones

half-naked, trawls through garbage
every day in the neighbourhood

the last items I see
him take home after sunset

are two scraps of gold armour
the sun has forged on his shoulders

Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang’s ‘first night in Macao’

from Encounters: Never Random

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?

Iris Fan Xing’s ‘Smog’

from South of Words

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

Toby Fitch’s ‘Pinned Weeks’

from ILL LIT POP

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?

Kit Kelen’s ‘sometimes’

from wake to play poems in first philosophy

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

Clark Gormley’s ‘Hanging in the Hammock’

from Not What You Think

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.