Neanderthal

It could be said that
while you were talking to
me my chest turned into a cave and
my heart became the first fire lit
by the first Neanderthal. And my
hand turned into a fist which
clutched the tiniest rose in
the universe. And it could be
said that your eyes looked
like diamonds in the middle
of a field, and it could be
said your voice was like a
lake in the middle of
a forest. Fire, lake,
diamonds, rose…
it could be said.


Danny Gunzburg (Western Australia)
First published in Danny's book Dangerous Times With The Humourless Psychologist

She Said

She said ‘I like you just the way you are;
I like your seed, your head, your car, your bed,
I was going to hug you, but I’ll kiss you instead.
Your eyes, your face, your Jewish race,
your silk, your touch, your thighs, your crutch,
the miss me, I’ll miss you, I need you so much,
your hunger bells, the voice that tells the Siamese twins
that the only team that counts is the team that wins,
the orange plate, the diamond star, the god of fate
who goes too far, the church of chimes, the honest mimes,
I like the onions and the olives and the finer wines.
The simple tunes, the ghostly moons, I like the singer who talks, and the talker who croons.
The lonely few, The Beatles too, and I’ll like you more
if you love me too!’


Danny Gunzburg (Western Australia)

Andrea Morning: a song by our featured poet

Danny Gunzburg (Western Australia)

Letter to Samantha

A letter to Samantha could say this:
your eyes are like dark caves,
in each cave is a meditator.
Each meditator conceives of god and emptiness
yet wants to kiss you even more
than I.

A letter to Samantha could say this:
my mind is like a maze,
in this maze is a guitar with no strings.
Each time you look at me
a song writes itself and spills over
the stars and the dawn and the moon.
Each time you breathe a child is
born laughing.

A letter to Samantha could say this:
you move like a dove in ecstatic revelation.
You sing like Africa in love.

I’m not in Africa
But I am in love.


Danny Gunzburg (Western Australia)

Years Ago

Years ago I
loved a
girl, her name I
won't mention
was ‘Sally’ and
an outrageous ex-
boyfriend shone
his lights on
us until we
lost the mood and
parted and I
told Sally not
to go and talk
to him but
she did and he
asked me to
leave and like
an idiot, to please
her, I left, and
soon after he left
too, and Sally and
I broke up and
years after
I carried my
lost heart in
a paper bag
and now
he's a junkie and
she's left the country.


Danny Gunzburg (Western Australia)
First published in Danny's book Dangerous Times With The Humourless Psychologist

Maybe This Woman

Maybe this woman, whose
beauty is unsurpassed,
in her dress,
eats figs.

Maybe this woman, whose
beauty is uncharted,
with a lilting walk,
carries lamps.

Maybe this woman, with
lips like petals, and hips
like mountains, likes her
men naked and shy.

Maybe this woman, pure
in the moonlight, evil
in the day, carries stories to
the lost.

…whose lips are like mountains, whose
hips are like petals, speaks in
seven languages, and knows
seven words for ‘forgiveness’
and six for ‘love’.

Maybe this woman, whose
eyes are like jade, whose
knees are like turquoise, whose
arms are like curtains,
was once a girl playing with
shadows, wanting to know how
men turn to dust.

Maybe this woman, in my
bedroom, like some rare form
of electricity, whose
heart is like bravery, whose
lips are like ghosts, whose toes
are like candles, whose hips are like
diamonds, will kiss me
twelve times
till I fall asleep.


Danny Gunzburg (Western Australia)
First published in ‘Love Poetry 2012 — fire in my head’ (Mulla Mulla Press 2012).

Day of the Dogs

curled in the street and asleep on an
empty mountain morning, where the

bitumen meets gravel, they don't see
me until the last second then erupt in

paroxysms of barking, flashing fangs
and slobbering. not statues after all

but brutus, cujo and company. some
chained and pacing for an opp, others

in roaming packs that circle, the alpha
pooch snarling as his mates look on

gobsmacked. I swing sticks and spit,
shout profanities and return threats, but they

keep pouring out of places, down
mowed front yards, from doorways and

fields, from beneath cars and junk-
cramped caravans, some with the look of

hyenas or wild boars, with drapes of flesh
and drool at the snout. petite foxes

beside big-pawed bears, a motley menagerie
of dog-not-dogs lurching for calves,

Achilles or hamstrings — wagging tails
and yelping puppily between conniptic fits

as if teasing their future prey. from a porch
or a window the resident yells ‘he won't

bite’ or ‘waving them sticks only makes
him angrier’ but, understand me, my rangy

legs are not your beast’s food and what lies
beyond these forlorn country roads, these

subdued sideways looks and terse spit-
first greetings, is suddenly extremely compelling.


John Charles Ryan (Western Australia)

rapunzel

(for meg)

maybe our time was in the past
i remember you from four am couches
the messages in bottles once you get to the glass and it's talking through the last loose smoke

maybe the heroine doesn't slay the beast with her hair after he climbs the tower
the right end
to a wrong story

i remember washing the floor
with your salt and mine
‘it's all gone to shit’
and we're done for if we stay
or if they stay

this happy ending is not
climbing from the tower to end
hanging
from the coil
from the neck
with the beast looking on
nor is it taming him

i don't remember the descent
maybe thats a lie easily told
now our feet touch the grass


anthea bartholomeusz (Victoria)

On a ride

Train travel
On a ride

To nowhere
Going out

Not sure
Where

On a ride
To anywhere

Travelling
On a train

Listening
To taped music

On a ride
To who knows where

Going somewhere
On a train


Stephen Cole (Western Australia)