Polystyrene

The white of it slices eyes
like a glint
of deception.

Touch brings a cringe
where ears ache to curl
inward for protection.

To hold is like a pain
that to survive must be
moved through fast.

The slip of fingers is skin
left naked    cold
exposed for cutting.

Its break is a long
stretched second
of another’s hell.


Sandie Walker (Western Australia)

Dress rehearsal rag

She had stood still. Small
bones bound in hard
foreign heels. Body wounded
wound in band-aid
shroud. Found
listing. Stitched
intricate with the great weight
of his colossal wishings.

She stood, still. Saw
he had left, had left her
tattooed ablaze in blue. Left
her heavy in helix sequins,
tricked-up mirrors, leaden
beads. Left that failed
wedding dress of shimmer and glint
tacked to skin with falsehoods
fine as hair. He had sewn her up.
Sutured tight. Tiny needled
nips made each breath
tug    tear    shred. She bled
and he called it love.

With sharp scissors she severed a thread
     stepped
Left sequins    beads    mirrors
          all to fall
               Fall like scales
                    like cataracts
                         stars
                              like darkly
                                   blooded
                                        petals.

Left a messed        maze of
                  broken shadows        dying      lights
     scattered ashes.            Left a shattered
                        mess                        of wedding
          dress, dress          rehearsal
                                   rag.


Sandie Walker (Western Australia)

Reading the sheets

One mud-red sheet laid
wild on the wide berth
of our nights.  One sheet

blue as black opal, left
messed.  An effigy of wakes
formed by bodies    hands

from our fingers raking
through the stilled
ocean of each drowned

voice.  Two sheets, their
troughs and crests a jetsam
of jagged dreams dragged

through choked sleep.  Read
cloth as some read cards
crystal    runes.  Read ruins

in the surge and stain of our
last night’s violent scends.  Held
mud-red    black opal   close.

Inhaled deeply that last shared
breath.  Surrendered to the
thalassic swell of separation.


Sandie Walker (Western Australia)

The drowning bed

He came to me rank with visions
of her     and her     and her     dripping
loose     blind
eyes     fingers     mouth
roots of these eyes
torn       balls
left to flounder.

His kisses spoke in foreign tongues drunk
from their secret sites
left wet unctuous messages
trapped in the hollow
of my tongue     choked
behind teeth.

His pounding strokes brimmed this bed with the slap
and slop     of sweat     semen
saliva.

He may drown me yet
in some other.

I cannot spit them out.


Sandie Walker (Western Australia)

This morning

This morning without you curling around my body in full question
I could not answer yes, and yes, and I love you.
This morning without your eyes reading warm curving scripture
this bed lay cold,     blind with query.
Without your hand tracing that delicate map of our history
this morning held no compass.
Without your lips shaping sentiments of entry
my own mouth struck dumb.
This morning
without you.


Sandie Walker (Western Australia)

The light

The light has to get somewhere, touch something, to exist
You take acid as we're sitting in the air
The old woman pours whitewash over her husband's head
We're on the left
There's no box, no comfort zone
Anything but raw paper is a compromise
Two girls with acne and stringy bleached hair
Occupy Wall Street
A month in the hole
In solitary
The way to connect is to work together
I had a clear vision
Looming orange clouds, an apocalyptic sunset
Something that makes you smaller or channels your movement

The light has to get somewhere
A curve through spacetime
A function
A journey, transmission, idea
In the dream we're on a plane, rows of seats, going somewhere
We don't know what we want but it isn't this
People keep pets
The husband is grey and decrepit
If your mother couldn't hold you while you cried
hold yourself now
Try to hide yourself
If you throw up the next morning
does that mean you've poisoned yourself?
When you look for yourself as a thing
there is nothing there

The light has to get somewhere, touch something
Is that the same t-shirt?
Occupy Breastfeeding
Howl, keen, be the banshee of yourself, announcing your death
I take scissors out of your hand
You're taking acid
Seeing the nothing inside yourself
A curve through spacetime
A function
A journey, transmission, idea
In touching something, the light
is not destroyed, but changed
In the dream
the husband is grey and decrepit
The woman pours whitewash
Anything but raw paper is a compromise
The noises when I cried and cried frightened me

The light has to get somewhere, touch something, to exist
People keep pets instead
Curl into a ball, try to hide yourself
We don't know what we want but it isn't this
Fenced in, fenced out
You in the aisle seat
I in the middle
Light is nothing, only
potential
When you look for yourself as a thing
there is nothing
The way to connect is to work
against each other
In touching something, the light
is not destroyed, but changed
Reflected, absorbed, refracted
Tear at your clothes and hair, bite yourself

The light has to get somewhere
I smile a little
Acid, you're taking acid
Light is nothing, only
potential, just
an idea
Occupy Everything
Looming orange clouds
The window seat free
No-one looking out
This is not conditional
A month in the hole
Two months
Give you time to think
What if the neighbours come
and try to cheer me up?
Not depressed
Not ill
Don't need anything
In full control
of self, life, responses
An adult
Tear at your clothes and hair, bite yourself
I don't know what I want
If your father couldn't hold you while you cried
hold yourself now
In touching something, the light
is not destroyed, but changed
Polarised, amplified, focussed
There's no box
This is not
conditional
You don't have to be
a good boy, a good girl
I had a clear vision
The light
has to touch something


Jackson (Western Australia)

Grass

One day I’ll be a blade of grass
like a bendable razor, plastic, elastic.
With only sun and water and
an occasional foot in the face.

I’ll be green.
I’ll be the same as everyone else.
People just like me moored to my side.
I’d like to be green, please.


Christine Della Vedova (Western Australia)

St Malachy’s

I take from the Collection —
silver and copper
palmed off the platter

I grow to be King
of the game ‘Lookalikes’
picking out the faces of the famous

I keep a straight face
kneeling at Holy Communion
acting transformed and saved

I lip-sync hymns
in my Sunday best and dream
of the bowling alley afterwards

I play with panache
the child part of Saturday
Confession

the expert manner
I deal with made-up Sin
and Penance

Me,
Myself,
I


Anthony Costello (UK)

This poem was first published in Orbis and is included in Anthony’s second collection Dreaming Tigers.

Third World C*nts

I was pickpocketed by wily street kids.
I was bag snatched by knife wielding thugs.

I was emotionally manipulated out of funds
by my Spanish dance teachers.
An old woman with fire fused hands
grabbed my pants, begging, ‘Ayudame!’

A one-eyed man robbed a taco off my plate in a well priced café.
A grizzled old labourer knocked on our door, begging for food.

A local woman walked five kilometres carrying her live chicken
to make my room-mate’s birthday lunch.
I painted the toenails of a woman
silently dying of AIDS.

Third World Cunts.
To call them ‘Cunts’ is my highest form of compliment
because amongst all the slime, blood and hair
life begins there.


Christine Della Vedova (Western Australia)

Eternal Return

the man says it isn’t like that
the woman says it is
the man says it isn’t like that
the woman says it is
the man says
the woman says
the man
the woman
he enters
she envelopes
they are one

they slide apart
the man says it isn’t like that
the woman says…


Richard James Allen (New South Wales)