tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75351783248831396632024-03-14T05:12:07.405+08:00Uneven FloorAn independent poetry journal. Watch your step.Jacksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15276717157135843667noreply@blogger.comBlogger351125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-30447407676241043512018-02-21T22:51:00.003+08:002018-02-21T22:51:41.099+08:00I have decided that five years publishing <i>Uneven Floor</i> is enough, so I shan't be publishing anything more. But there's plenty here to read — 350 poems and related artworks. Thanks to all the poets who have contributed — and to all the readers, especially those who have helped spread the word.<br />
<br />
Jackson (Editor)<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-440431622073715472018-02-21T22:40:00.000+08:002018-02-22T22:29:05.806+08:00My JourneyThree days of hiking with only bottled water<br />
is penance enough for one lifetime,<br />
the path littered with opera and breath-beats,<br />
the sarcasm of the bullfrog, the yelp of red fox.<br />
Every night enough stars shoot across the sky<br />
to grant every wish for a hundred years of wishing,<br />
every aspiration, every melody, every quarter note.<br />
Sweat streams puddle down the corridor of my back,<br />
my ears open into mouths, my tongue catches sound on its tip.<br />
Near the end of the trail, resting, every goodness within me,<br />
within my back, my hands, my blistered feet, my muscles,<br />
everything thyme, sage, peach water, an essence of Aradia.<br />
<br />
In the end I did not enter the shiny box of darkness.<br />
I dyed my hair instead, removed my teeth,<br />
fell back in love.<br />
<br />
That was what was written on the exit sign<br />
at the beginning of the trail<br />
leading back home.<br />
<br />
<br />
Michael H. Brownstein (USA)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-34968145201564105862018-02-21T22:31:00.001+08:002018-02-21T22:31:33.374+08:00south australia is mauve flowers on quartz red sand spinifex ringworms of new growth outside my Father’s town blown tyres dead 'roo lies prostrate gestures at nowhere in his harsh light green saltbush grey parallels a road edge along a childhood flash the EK Holden the smell of heat the first long shimmer of mirage / above <br />
<br />
Brown Falcons circle patiently awaiting the feast their timeless gaze fixed there again the town arrives sudden from nothing corrugated iron roof brown bottle garden of sand and blue blue house blue sky blue water blue gulf hills lizard thick shingle smooth blue your clawed feet splayed underbelly lies low and warming close to female earth dark faces compact memory cool water tank shades a past of silence of us and them those parks we must not play not ever again Aunty said / red sand <br />
<br />
creeps slowly over skin folds of a flesh crevasse verandah lattice screens canvas cool painted porch doors shut out ovens of desert white heat first taste of orange blossom smells and dust and flies and language and you old lady<br />
<br />
<br />
Elanna Herbert (New South Wales)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-8835184854883180962018-02-21T22:11:00.000+08:002018-02-21T22:11:50.556+08:00A Beetle and a Flower<i>(For my mother)</i><br />
<br />
Yesterday, <br />
a beetle crossed my road —<br />
lapis lazuli and red on black.<br />
<br />
I watched it crawl, <br />
so slow that twenty years crashed<br />
as tyres crunched the asphalt all around<br />
and sunlight draped the paddock<br />
where you cup your pride —<br />
an orchid, tender-stemmed,<br />
with red veins running to pools of blue —<br />
in hands cracked by years<br />
scrubbing old men’s pans, <br />
wiping lips purpled by death’s advance.<br />
<br />
It made it to the other side, the beetle,<br />
and, in the shadow of a leaf,<br />
became a dark thing<br />
burrowing into days of greying hair<br />
and dimming eyes,<br />
and the trembling hearts of flowers<br />
fenced round from grazing sheep.<br />
<br />
<br />
Peter Burges (Western Australia)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-85627100951826896042018-02-07T21:11:00.000+08:002018-02-07T21:11:35.876+08:00generational stillnessit’s one of those centre-strip<br />
wishing wells<br />
surrounded by lawns in increments of neat,<br />
neater, neatest<br />
with nice old trees too, their bark gnarled<br />
as if waiting for the pencil<br />
of a still-life student<br />
<br />
but when I lean over<br />
it’s just typical small-town grimness<br />
with cigarette butts<br />
half a foot deep<br />
locked in that generational stillness,<br />
grey water<br />
strangling every dream<br />
<br />
and it’s all the way across town<br />
but I swear<br />
that the graveyard<br />
has sent its hoar-frost here to roost,<br />
I can almost taste the down-payment it’s made<br />
on every kid I used to teach<br />
<br />
how far the stars seem now<br />
from the grill of a fast-food sweat shop<br />
or the single-hinge backdoor<br />
after daddy-o<br />
puts in another nomination for shitbag of the year<br />
and I’m supposed to impress upon them<br />
the everlasting importance<br />
of proper essay structure?<br />
<br />
on the way home I slaughter a thousand bugs<br />
with my windscreen<br />
and somehow it feels hopelessly right.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://poetry.ashleycapes.com/" target="_blank">Ashley Capes</a> (Victoria)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-24274025562396812352017-12-20T23:07:00.001+08:002017-12-20T23:07:40.546+08:00Gentle LivesYour letter came, Irene<br />
It rose up through the thorning patch<br />
And flowered Robert's grave<br />
I — know you spoke proud<br />
I saw the name of your son<br />
I ache when careful words<br />
come, Irene<br />
<br />
Your husband's here, Irene<br />
When wardens cleared his tulips off<br />
You drove a bramble deep<br />
You sing to him still<br />
You — held for twenty-five years<br />
You found the strength to wait<br />
here, Irene<br />
<br />
Your colour left, Irene<br />
I crawled beneath the airing shelf<br />
And wishing to be found<br />
I whispered your name<br />
I hide behind a Daniel<br />
I — crush when gentle lives<br />
leave, Irene<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://dannyhutley.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Daniel Hutley</a> (Victoria)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-64918701117889494692017-12-14T13:20:00.002+08:002017-12-20T22:22:57.494+08:00Our Tree (For my brother Michael and my sister Margaret)<br />
<br />
Our tree, lissom, muscular,<br />
Stood forever tall against wind and rain,<br />
Shading against intrusive suns.<br />
<br />
Only the time-blind Moonbone<br />
Sees the ants gnawing its guts,<br />
Its fall, long as shame.<br />
<br />
Naked in the dust of passers-by,<br />
It and the sheep it killed<br />
Grow grey together<br />
<br />
Until Half-Eye’s quickening<br />
Transforms worm etchings<br />
Into airy silver chimes.<br />
<br />
<br />
Peter Burges (Western Australia)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-25448770924548487172017-12-14T13:06:00.002+08:002017-12-14T13:06:34.165+08:00Don't Load Me NowI looked into her deep brown eyes<br />
tears rolled dark within<br />
a scent of pasture<br />
sweet upon her breath<br />
<br />
mood welling<br />
pity stumbling<br />
I looked into her deep brown eyes<br />
love is a word<br />
legs are for standing<br />
ears are for tagging<br />
don't leave me now<br />
don't count me now<br />
don't load me now<br />
eyes are for crying<br />
<br />
I looked into her deep brown eyes<br />
I hugged her crying<br />
I wept her crying<br />
a stench of bbq<br />
chuck brisket t bone eye fillet<br />
eyes are for crying<br />
ribs are for holding<br />
<br />
air is for breathing<br />
cheeks are for eating<br />
tail is for swishing<br />
flies are for dying<br />
<br />
eyes are for crying<br />
don't eat me now<br />
cow is for being<br />
cow is for mooing<br />
cow is for grazing<br />
cow is for eating<br />
<br />
eyes are for crying<br />
<br />
<br />
Allan Padgett (Western Australia)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-61546507485314795602017-12-06T22:08:00.001+08:002017-12-06T22:08:13.725+08:00St EdmundsI have washed downstairs in<br />
a cold, functional corridor — the wash block.<br />
And now I am permitted to walk around with only a jacket<br />
to cover the nakedness of my chest.<br />
<br />
Soon, I will know that tiny moment when the body is confused between pain and ecstasy.<br />
I have been talking or eating<br />
in those areas where talking and eating are offences punishable by caning.<br />
I watch from a distance I have discovered inside myself.<br />
<br />
At night,<br />
the Devil walks the corridors of this place,<br />
A huge black insect<br />
given substance from the sweated essence<br />
of each boy’s secret anguish.<br />
<br />
He is looking for<br />
someone whose eyes will widen at His darkness.<br />
Some boy who is still small, not yet cold and closed. <br />
He will lie on top of the young body, sucking into himself.<br />
While the boy tries,<br />
until the last moment, to hold his mouth up where the air is.<br />
<br />
In the morning,<br />
the bell will sound loudly<br />
next to any sleeping heads that have not already been called to prayer<br />
and we will pretend not to notice the empty bed.<br />
<br />
<br />
Jim Conwell (UK)<br />
<br />
Jacksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15276717157135843667noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-52971314122792021792017-11-29T21:59:00.000+08:002017-11-29T21:59:38.033+08:00the kissYou find me in the secret place, that corner of <br />
Rodin’s woods where his statues begin to thin,<br />
<br />
forlorn in a sparseness of tourists who never <br />
stray from the path or their first language,<br />
<br />
where I’ve begun to wonder if I’m visitor <br />
or visited, the wax heartbeat of a hot day. <br />
<br />
You drag me to the shade where we hide from <br />
the curator, wait for her to chain the gates, <br />
<br />
lock us up in some out-of-hours limbic limbo, <br />
insisting I’m a real boy: that an original rhythm <br />
<br />
still thumps in me. — <i>there’s room for two more here</i>, <br />
is what you said — already our skin peeling, <br />
<br />
unfurling around ankles, discovering each <br />
other’s earth.<br />
<br />
The last light meets an unfettered moment, burns out <br />
on our Balzac bodies, verdigris busy on new bronze.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://migueljacq.com/" target="_blank">Miguel Jacq</a> (Victoria)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-17970974136971223202017-11-22T21:40:00.000+08:002017-11-22T21:40:27.414+08:00Where do you go?Where do you go at night?<br />
Do you wonder where I go? Whether I am really here?<br />
Yesterday I rode the train but wasn't really there at all.<br />
Years before I took a boat but all I know is that I did not drown.<br />
<br />
Where do we go, if we go anywhere at all?<br />
I know where I want to go, where I have been. <br />
Why can I not tell you where I am now?<br />
<br />
I roll into you. You roll away<br />
into another<br />
space between us.<br />
<br />
<br />
Leila Rahimtulla (Western Australia)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-40223481114652445532017-11-22T21:27:00.000+08:002017-11-22T21:51:30.952+08:00Bad FaithMost often I spot them way off in the distance:<br />
something in the gait and the weight of their symptoms<br />
is bearing the stamp of repeat prescriptions.<br />
Alarm bells screech, I turn on a sixpence<br />
to cross roads inventing a previous engagement,<br />
catch a flower arrangement, bend to tie laces,<br />
bury my head in shop windows replete<br />
with cheap trinkets. I tread light on my feet<br />
for dejected spirits make cock-crow visits<br />
and patches of ice combine with the rain<br />
to throw me off-balance; I clutch at displacement<br />
before facing ex-patients again.<br />
<br />
Or maybe my elbow shudders at fingers<br />
as a “Hello, stranger!” wraps round my shoulder. <br />
I spin to a name that I can’t remember;<br />
a drug, diagnosis or simply disorder.<br />
The furrowed flesh of distress and despond; <br />
their failure to bond and exasperation<br />
with trial separations from errant husbands,<br />
the scars and bruises borne by the infants;<br />
a rooted abhorrence roared at the parents.<br />
I am emptied of empathic slaps on the back —<br />
all my unconditional regard is packed<br />
into yellow plastic bags for waste disposal<br />
alongside the attire of the non-judgemental. <br />
What’s once contemplated can’t be unthought;<br />
they take me at face value; I sell them short.<br />
<br />
<br />
Raymond Miller (UK)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-32601111762351001402017-11-15T21:12:00.000+08:002017-11-15T21:12:01.239+08:00Orahovac poemThe man from Glasgow, surprisingly dull<br />
<i>and</i> quick, like a sunshine of partial cloud,<br />
stops near us and asks “These people, Serbs —”<br />
We say they are Croats. It's not the same<br />
to them. Take care. Think Scotland and England.<br />
“Bugger that,” he says. “Do they have liquor?<br />
Good stuff. Liqueurs and that?”. And we say Yes.<br />
We are drinking Orahovac. Walnut.<br />
We've had two litres in the last ten days.<br />
We were surprised when we counted it. It is<br />
delicious. He practices the name with us<br />
and smiles: “Right then,” he says, walking off,<br />
leaving his wife to speak apologies<br />
and say that she prefers a glass of wine.<br />
He returns with a brown bag: “Is this the one?”.<br />
We say it is. “Right then.” He pulls the cork<br />
and swigs a large mouthful; holds it; grimaces;<br />
turns sideways to us and spits everything<br />
on to the piazza. “Jesus Christ! That's bad.<br />
What's that?” We say it's walnuts. “Is it now?<br />
Nuts? I hate the bloody things. You have it.”<br />
He pushes me bottle and top; and strides<br />
towards the hotel bar, his wife following.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://lawrenceupton.org" target="_blank">Lawrence Upton</a> (UK)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-23262553736239931022017-11-01T21:39:00.000+08:002017-11-01T21:39:48.687+08:00TrustI went to another dead end town<br />
just to be somewhere else.<br />
It was quiet<br />
a few women in shops smiled at me<br />
and i even got adventurous in Nando's <br />
ordered something different.<br />
<br />
There was a table in front of mine<br />
about 10 young men on it<br />
and time after time the girl came up with food and shouted it out<br />
but they couldn't remember what they ordered<br />
and some took other people's food.<br />
Eventually they got it all.<br />
<br />
As i was about to get up for a drink<br />
one of the men got up<br />
He was carrying his plate of chips<br />
but as i got up behind him<br />
he went for a drink<br />
I thought he was going to put some sauce on his chips<br />
but he didn't he just went back to the table<br />
with his drink and plate of chips<br />
I guess he didn't trust the blokes at his table<br />
I can't blame him<br />
sometimes it is hard to trust<br />
<br />
<br />
Marc Carver (UK)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-42060211310292524652017-10-11T21:46:00.000+08:002017-10-11T21:46:05.365+08:00SentimentIt’s your bad handwriting<br />
I like to look at,<br />
your giant hands,<br />
sharp stubble,<br />
the grey in your hair,<br />
the lines on your face,<br />
jagged finger nails,<br />
you picking food from your teeth.<br />
<br />
I don’t want you to catch me<br />
there<br />
looking. I’m too afraid I’ll annoy you<br />
by saying the wrong thing.<br />
<br />
But I'll always be right there.<br />
Unless the cat walks in.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gayle Richardson (UK)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-66862892438412499802017-10-11T21:35:00.001+08:002017-10-11T21:35:24.783+08:00HoarderWhen I asked my brain to stop playing games with me<br />
it made my eyes roll so far back<br />
I could see flashes of where all the self-punishment began.<br />
<br />
I felt so stupid the moment I realised —<br />
It wasn’t my brain on a mission to destroy me.<br />
It was just all that junk I chose to hoard up there.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gayle Richardson (UK)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-43230720806855872792017-09-14T21:22:00.001+08:002017-09-14T21:22:50.275+08:00before dawnhe wants her in the<br />
morning<br />
before the bird chorus<br />
and the idea of daily news<br />
breath like silk<br />
cheeks flushed<br />
body warm from the river of<br />
dreams running through<br />
her<br />
<br />
he wants her in the<br />
river<br />
hair spooling out in rings<br />
wild bracken water<br />
nuzzling her skin<br />
mossed wet rocks she climbs<br />
to dry off<br />
<br />
he wants her on the<br />
rock<br />
flesh open to the sun<br />
skin turning in the<br />
golden light<br />
eyes closed and flickering<br />
remembering her dreams<br />
<br />
<br />
Kathryn Lyster (Australia)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-63131670866228505632017-09-06T22:11:00.001+08:002017-09-06T22:30:00.209+08:00UtensilThey forgot to make me a boy. I was born and everything. Smelted in the forge. I’ve got a good bowl. Weighty handle. But they made me a not-boy. I know I’m a boy. I can feel my cock. Or perhaps it is the stirring of power tools. How can I prove my boyness to you? Or should I proclaim to be a man by now? I do not count age by years but soups. I know I am a man because I do not want to be a woman. Must find a beard. Waiter there’s a hair in my soup. I want to fuck things. I’m always hard as stainless steel. Maker’s mark stamped on my spine. I want to fuck things up.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.monicacarroll.com.au/" target="_blank">Monica Carroll</a> (Australian Capital Territory)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://recentworkpress.com/store/products/isolator/" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left;" target="_blank"><img border="0" title="Monica's new book from Recent Work Press" alt="Isolator by Monica Carroll book cover" src="https://i0.wp.com/recentworkpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Isolator-web.png?fit=300%2C469" width="128" height="200" data-original-width="300" data-original-height="469" /><br />
Monica's new book from Recent Work Press</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-40704266797877162022017-08-31T16:59:00.001+08:002017-08-31T16:59:55.297+08:00I knewI knew the woman who<br />
walked into the river that winter<br />
it took three days to find her<br />
bundled like a sleeping swan<br />
in the frost-sharpened reeds<br />
I was a child in those days<br />
even mud-heavy emptiness<br />
was something to make into a song<br />
practised silently over tea<br />
before going out to play<br />
the new game of Drop Down Dead.<br />
<br />
<br />
Andrew Turner (UK)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-39036130426443352432017-08-31T16:48:00.000+08:002017-08-31T16:48:42.456+08:00Whatever Happened to InfinityThey call me Nowhere; a non-place<br />
known, at least, to non-people —<br />
They think. But a where cannot<br />
not exist and be a non-position.<br />
Thus logic wins its arm-wrestle<br />
with the Theys and the question.<br />
<br />
And I might have a brother nowhere.<br />
Let’s not stop at two. Everywhere<br />
that isn’t somewhere’s nowhere, Brother:<br />
on my right — nowheres in the noughts,<br />
on my other — legion. Simple addition.<br />
Cheers for Nowhere the mathematician.<br />
<br />
I’m in love with Anywhere, leader of vague;<br />
queen of can’t-pin-me-down-ness, blipped<br />
into the gap between somewhere and yonder;<br />
my lover, lost wanderer — Anywhere;<br />
unseen but known to be somewhere;<br />
alluring in her wherever.<br />
<br />
Then omnipotent Everywhere, god of where-ness<br />
king of location, in every corner<br />
of planets and space. E.W. — slang for Universe.<br />
But he’s only position and place-ness. Our cousins,<br />
Thing-ness and When-ness, each harbour<br />
their deities — Everything, All and Eternity.<br />
<br />
<br />
E A M Harris (England)<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-60730624399450378812017-08-09T21:57:00.000+08:002017-08-09T21:57:19.746+08:00Ceyx azureusThere,<br />
on a bough of wattle<br />
jutting over water,<br />
a little azure kingfisher,<br />
<i>Ceyx azureus</i>,<br />
sits.<br />
<br />
Blue as a summer sky,<br />
bronze-breasted,<br />
stump-tailed,<br />
squat,<br />
with long beak disproportionate,<br />
it waits.<br />
<br />
I know that if its<br />
keen eye spots a fish<br />
it will dart down<br />
and splash<br />
and instantly be back there<br />
with its catch.<br />
<br />
The summer day being long,<br />
I take a spell from busyness<br />
to sit<br />
in stillness <br />
like this little bird<br />
whose business is stillness.<br />
<br />
I watch the kingfisher<br />
watching for fish.<br />
<br />
<br />
Yvonne Deering (Victoria)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-6866428319780938402017-08-09T21:49:00.000+08:002017-08-09T21:49:45.736+08:00The Wren BoyI must have been having the time<br />
of my life the year I started singing, <br />
trying hard to remember the words,<br />
but high on applause and silver.<br />
<br />
In the lounge bar of a pub<br />
in Swinford I tried out a repertoire<br />
I’d culled from The Clancys and mixed<br />
to a Home Counties hybrid.<br />
<br />
Shock-headed, crowd-pleasing,<br />
I might have been one of their own,<br />
giving them back <i>The Irish Rover</i>,<br />
<i>The Woman from Wexford Town</i>.<br />
<br />
Lured by the promise of easy pickings, <br />
I tagged along St Stephen’s Day,<br />
togged out as a mummer, <br />
and welcomed for miles around.<br />
<br />
Strapped across her shoulder,<br />
my cousin lugged her squeezebox, <br />
melodeon, whatever, down lanes<br />
and over fields. At each house <br />
<br />
we stopped I gave them my party piece, <br />
while across the buttons and keys <br />
perished fingers danced<br />
like spiders on warm stones.<br />
<br />
<br />
David Cooke (UK)<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wren_Day" target="_blank">What's a wren boy?</a><br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-17326853613430393042017-08-02T21:34:00.000+08:002017-08-02T21:34:49.611+08:00Purple LadyBig City<br />
Busy Street<br />
People catching buses<br />
<br />
Sit down<br />
Wait for bus<br />
Next to purple lady<br />
<br />
Busy busy<br />
Coming and going<br />
Lady unmoving, staring<br />
<br />
Odd smell<br />
Is it me?<br />
Hope not<br />
<br />
There again<br />
This time stronger<br />
Sweet but unclean<br />
<br />
Purple lady<br />
hands unsettled<br />
Mumbles under breath<br />
<br />
I look at her<br />
<br />
I look<br />
<br />
I notice<br />
<br />
Short hair once highlighted<br />
Clothes seem neat<br />
Like for travelling<br />
She wears a zipped up purple jacket<br />
Neat and tidy over black pants<br />
Cowboy boots underneath<br />
<br />
Clean complexion<br />
In her 30’s <br />
Rather pretty except<br />
<br />
Staring vacantly<br />
Waiting for the night<br />
Alone and withdrawn<br />
<br />
She is not catching a bus<br />
<br />
Should I offer to help?<br />
<br />
Last few times <br />
I received fear and anger<br />
I hesitate<br />
<br />
Bus arrives and I am whisked away.<br />
<br />
…<br />
<br />
A few days later<br />
Walking in the crowd<br />
Face marked with dirt and a white smear<br />
<br />
Clothes are the same but<br />
Dirty and unkempt<br />
Greywhite t-shirt hanging out raggedly<br />
<br />
The days have been unkind<br />
<br />
She is washed away <br />
River of people<br />
Lost in the crowd.<br />
<br />
I am filled with sadness, loss, and feel ashamed.<br />
<br />
<br />
Kim Robertson (Queensland)<br />
First published on <a href="http://miksture.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">the author's blog</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-66573566884151410012017-07-26T21:08:00.000+08:002017-07-26T21:08:33.157+08:00Collision on Winthrop Avenue It isn’t just the impact<br />
that shocks.<br />
<br />
It’s the violence<br />
of the sound <br />
exploding your reveries.<br />
<br />
It’s the surprise <br />
of your car spinning <br />
and others whizzing past.<br />
<br />
It’s the vehicle <br />
stopping<br />
facing oncoming traffic.<br />
<br />
It’s the surprise <br />
of children’s workbooks <br />
strewn across lanes<br />
colouring-in weeping in soft drizzle.<br />
<br />
It’s the insistence<br />
of the blaring horn <br />
refusing to be silenced<br />
and the door that won’t open.<br />
<br />
It’s the surprise <br />
of what might have been.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rita Tognini (Western Australia)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7535178324883139663.post-55089955476973408012017-07-19T21:41:00.000+08:002017-07-19T21:41:05.945+08:00BothSo let’s say<br />
we’re centaurs<br />
<br />
& in front <br />
we keep a face<br />
<br />
a place <br />
to land<br />
<br />
if someone’s <br />
looking<br />
<br />
while behind<br />
we go for what<br />
<br />
we can get<br />
& as for love<br />
<br />
& death while<br />
we’re ripe<br />
<br />
they run<br />
<br />
along for the ride<br />
<br />
<br />
Laurinda Lind (USA)<br />
First published in <i>Afterthoughts</i> (London, ON, Canada, 1997)<br />
<br />
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0