A Beetle and a Flower

(For my mother)

Yesterday,
a beetle crossed my road —
lapis lazuli and red on black.

I watched it crawl,
so slow that twenty years crashed
as tyres crunched the asphalt all around
and sunlight draped the paddock
where you cup your pride —
an orchid, tender-stemmed,
with red veins running to pools of blue —
in hands cracked by years
scrubbing old men’s pans,
wiping lips purpled by death’s advance.

It made it to the other side, the beetle,
and, in the shadow of a leaf,
became a dark thing
burrowing into days of greying hair
and dimming eyes,
and the trembling hearts of flowers
fenced round from grazing sheep.


Peter Burges (Western Australia)

Our Tree

     (For my brother Michael and my sister Margaret)

Our tree, lissom, muscular,
Stood forever tall against wind and rain,
Shading against intrusive suns.

Only the time-blind Moonbone
Sees the ants gnawing its guts,
Its fall, long as shame.

Naked in the dust of passers-by,
It and the sheep it killed
Grow grey together

Until Half-Eye’s quickening
Transforms worm etchings
Into airy silver chimes.


Peter Burges (Western Australia)

Don't Load Me Now

I looked into her deep brown eyes
tears rolled dark within
a scent of pasture
sweet upon her breath

mood welling
pity stumbling
I looked into her deep brown eyes
love is a word
legs are for standing
ears are for tagging
don't leave me now
don't count me now
don't load me now
eyes are for crying

I looked into her deep brown eyes
I hugged her crying
I wept her crying
a stench of bbq
chuck brisket t bone eye fillet
eyes are for crying
ribs are for holding

air is for breathing
cheeks are for eating
tail is for swishing
flies are for dying

eyes are for crying
don't eat me now
cow is for being
cow is for mooing
cow is for grazing
cow is for eating

eyes are for crying


Allan Padgett (Western Australia)

Where do you go?

Where do you go at night?
Do you wonder where I go? Whether I am really here?
Yesterday I rode the train but wasn't really there at all.
Years before I took a boat but all I know is that I did not drown.

Where do we go, if we go anywhere at all?
I know where I want to go, where I have been.
Why can I not tell you where I am now?

I roll into you. You roll away
                                                  into another
                                                                            space between us.


Leila Rahimtulla (Western Australia)

Collision on Winthrop Avenue

It isn’t just the impact
that shocks.

It’s the violence
of the sound
exploding your reveries.

It’s the surprise
of your car spinning
and others whizzing past.

It’s the vehicle
stopping
facing oncoming traffic.

It’s the surprise
of children’s workbooks
strewn across lanes
colouring-in weeping in soft drizzle.

It’s the insistence
of the blaring horn
refusing to be silenced
and the door that won’t open.

It’s the surprise
of what might have been.


Rita Tognini (Western Australia)

The waiting

‘My lungs burst
like fire in dry grass.
You are scarred from rib to rib 
and it looks like a smile.

It’s loud when the moon’s out —
the dancing branches shake 
blossoms from the trees.

We were gentle when the night fell 
like eventual rain
and we slept like curled dogs 
our hearts jumping at the night owls
and all the birds sleeping.

I called you in the gum drenched dark
and you were just a shiver,
so I warmed myself 
on the curve of your spine.
I can bear it more 
if we feel real.’


Kirsty Oehlers (Western Australia)

Sneaky Piggely

I’m the sneaky piggely
I always steal the capsicum
And when the big alpha piggelys come
I pretend to be retarded

I’m the sneaky piggely
I pretend to be normal but it never works
And when the big alpha piggelys come
I pretend to be dead

I’m the sneaky piggely
I steal the corn leaves and hide in a box
And none of you big alpha piggelys are going to stop me
‘Cos I pretend to be sad

I’m the sneaky piggely
I’m disabled and dysfunctional
Please love me alpha piggely
I wish I knew more tricks


Timothy Parkin (Western Australia)
First published on the author's blog

Consent

Performed at GLITTER, Spoken Word Perth, May 2016 @ Paper Mountain Gallery


friend’s message on facebook reveals her disguise
of sexual pureness, a fabrication of lies
that hides the pain of consent stripped away
the horror that resides in her everyday

and I feel it, the pain of a past you can’t speak
the shudders in shop fronts, the shuffling of feet
subtly avoiding any spaces of fear
silent shadows, sharp corners, the stench of cheap beer

on another’s mouth, or another’s skin
innocent intoxication turned sinister grin
that snarls through nightmares, alone in her bed
his hands always present, always there in her head

former frame of fluidity reduced to regret
hip bones, now haunted, the site of lament
rib cage protrudes from translucent skin
starvation an escape from the body she’s in

my body is a prison, my body is a crime scene
my body is a puzzle and I don’t know what it means
my body isn’t mine, my body isn’t home
my body is broken and the cure remains unknown

I’m messaging my friend, she’s too far away to hold
I want to tell her it gets better, not each season is this cold
but my strength still shivers and my palms are turning pale
haunted by the malice which the human race entails

patriarchy perpetuates the purpose of penetration
as proving your penis has power past procreation
but my body is no piñata and there is no prize
for whoever hits it hard enough, whoever parts my thighs

she was asking for it
asking for it
asking for

I was asking for it
asking for it
asking for

consent.


Maddie Godfrey (Western Australia / UK)
Facebook: maddiegodfreypoet

From Maddie's zine Warm

Amateur Pole Queen

From Maddie's zine Warm

do not think about failure,
remember that even stars fall sometimes
and when they do, people wish on them


Maddie Godfrey (Western Australia / UK)
Facebook: maddiegodfreypoet

From Maddie's zine Warm

The catbeing

A sleeping catbeing,
black white ochre body curled,
furred cheek turned
     (Her free ear flicks
     as I shift on the wooden stool,
     as my sock scuffs the floor)
The catbeing, catmind, lithe catbody
has made her toilette
     (as Eliot said)
and now takes her repose

Pets are banned
But she is not my pet
Responsibility is claimed
by Unit 33
Kipper, their collar calls her
     (A motorbike dopplers past:
     her head lifts, then subsides)
She is the gentlest
of the three local catbeings,
the one most partial to humans
     (or, at least, to me)
She has come to my room for refuge,
for a pause in her difficult war
with the powerful catbeing from
beyond the fence
whom I stroked at lunchtime
but did not admit

The weary catbeing has come to rest
on the faded quilt I use
as a meditation seat
I unfold it to cat dimensions,
smooth its green 70s geometries
flat on the scarred sofa
     (catbeings enjoy a soft bed)
She kneads and stretches and washes,
clips her claws with her teeth,
clamping and yanking,
then works through a sequence of postures
until, eventually, she settles.
     (I unplug the phone)

Her spine is an opening parenthesis,
a yang matched by the yin of her tail
All along her rounded back
her filaments stand proud, separate,
like iron filings inscribing
the north and south of a magnetic field.
The purring catbeing, earthed, live,
is locus, nexus, nucleus —
a cluster of cells making waves
of Thursday afternoon peace.


Jackson (Western Australia)

Broken TV

‘My mind is a TV with no sound. And the teletext is broken. But the show goes on and I have to watch.

It gets really good around 2am. Sometimes beautiful women light up the screen.
Sometimes they teach you how to fuck.
Sometimes they fall in love with men with perfect shoulders.
Sometimes they just spend hours talking.

Sometimes there are men fighting. Sometimes they bite great chunks out of each other.
Sometimes they stab and shoot and burn.
Sometimes they hold each other.
Sometimes they cry and bleed and die.

Sometimes there's just a kid who looks sad. He's got no toys so he makes friends with the mice in his walls. He builds little houses for them out of boxes off the floor. He makes tiny mice sized toys for them.

Sometimes there are just people crying.

Sometimes there is a teenage girl lying curled up in a ball on the floor. She writes in a diary that she just wants to die.

Sometimes there are women with empty bellies and blood on their feet. They sit on the ends of beds for hours. Just crying and holding their stomachs while men watch.

Sometimes there is a man buying a rope. No one asks him why he only wants rope.

Sometimes everyone is happy.
Sometimes everyone is laughing.
Sometimes a cat falls asleep on a dog.

Sometimes lovers finish each other's thoughts.
Sometimes a kiss leads to sex.
Sometimes they fall asleep all tangled up like a plate of spaghetti.

Sometimes nothing happens.

Well actually, dark happens. Different shades of dark. Sometimes that happens for ages.

Sometimes when it's dark I wonder if I could stop watching.
But without any sound what would happen to the pictures?
Sometimes I wish I could fix it. Sometimes I wish I could turn it all the way up so someone else could listen while I shut my eyes.’


Megan Watson (Western Australia)

on seed dispersal

! flood, come : wet the
wetland
. cells chime, molecules
bind : a body of water
stands up, stretching

rain-shaking hair slick
everywhere : here, the
sound
pitter-patter’s chatter, as
heard by earth. girth

of seasonal birth is a
surge that drowns this
world in aqua love so
tense, plants relinquish
genomes

of themselves, circumvent
. future floral instances
float trope, swimming
pool in hope of rooting
homesteads

from which to sew growth
, out further, at wetland’s
highest slope, a new note of
how melaleucas cope under
water

......& the paperbarks gasp
grasp air round themselves
holdfast as trunks dive &
descend & up, water table
bends


Scott-Patrick Mitchell (Western Australia)

When I Used To

I used to track porn sites
until I realised that
patting my dog
was a better use
of time and emotion.
I used to write love songs
and then, one extended day,
my thoughts turned
to the sourness of failed
words and a jumblefield of
vapourised dreams.
I used to love planting peppercorns
and watching them grow
into salt shakers,
until I realised that
the pharmaceuticals in
my brain were setting me on fire.
I used to suck on memory, until
one blistering whitehot night
only a vacuum remained
with no trace in sight
of the path I was on.
I used to read a poem once
that seemed to posit
a choice of turn:
left here and your boring
life can continue; right here,
and whatever may happen,
will.


Allan Padgett (Western Australia)

Women of Disharmony

Disharmony is not only a state of being
But a colourless cube, built from converging walls
Bound by the mason's mortar between the brickwork
Solidified by the hot breath of weeping women.

Philosophise — believe this concrete clad room does not exist
It is simply an invention of the mind, a mental bondage
To historical inaccuracies. Or it is best forgotten, left that way
Just a square of walls in a silent, fenced-off field. But I

Heard about disharmony, in their voices travelling along
The barbed wires that now coil within my DNA strands
And their words were silenced outside those walls
Yet their last breaths were born in my lung tissue.

Have you seen disharmony? It begins with one wall.
It can build a city that stands a thousand years by a river's grassy edge.
Painted walls, cultural facades spread over the landscape. A colourful city
With sweeping designs of yellow stars smeared onto its doorways.

In that cube, that bare room, all the women were gasping
Running their hands along the concrete looking for cracks, trapped
By disharmony. Naked and brown, without sunlight or moonbeams
Not far from undivided Berlin, somewhere by a whistling train line.

Perhaps it was the same track that ran to the sea
Where families boarded boats, some never to see each other again. Separated
Sisters and cousins, children cast out like ashes from a furnace
They waved goodbye and said ‘Shalom’ to the ghosts they left behind.

Last night, I dreamed I visited Auschwitz.
A man in uniform smiled and led me through the gates.
He reunited me with the lost women of my family. They held me close
Crying as we showered in the space where those walls converged.


Wendy Beach (Western Australia)

ode

oh
how I hate the park

they don't
they long for it
they beg for the park
their first words are
onomatopoeic utterings
meaning swing or slide

they love the secret hiding spots behind the toilet block
the so much sand
the soft edge of the pond
where shoes schtock schlurp
the space to run and run and run
away towards the busy road

at the park
my neck aches with pre-prepared anxiety
which I've packed along with drinks and sliced apples

within minutes
I'm secret service agent or minder
scanning the area for danger
while they squeal and whirl and fly
loving everything about the park

how I hate it

one faraway day
teenaged and taller
they'll head here with their friends
to make out or hang out
slouching ironically in the swings
and pushing each other into the pond

at least then I can worry at home


Rebecca Freeman (Western Australia)
From Rebecca's book The Pretend Parent

Life and Death

by Remiel Ruah (aged 7)

There are things still living
in graveyards
Plants... trees...
with golden leaves...
Anyway.
If I died, I'd like to be buried here
In the graveyard.
And the headstone have two things:
A wizard, and a dragon.
The dragon be made of gold
with rubies for eyes
the scales crimson velvet.
And the wizard, made of silver,
his wand with a diamond at the top,
I would have his eyes as amethysts.
I think it would be better
to live forever,
preferably.

I have a friend
that had a baby
and the baby died
even before it was born.
That is the saddest thing
that I can think of.

I love Morgana.
She died.
I saw a shooting star when she died.
I don't know how she died, precisely.
But she died in the night, peacefully.

I would die, if I could,
as old as about
one hundred and nine years old.
And with love.
I think it isn't very good to die as a baby or a child.
Like, I would say, an elder grown up would be better.
I say, it would be better to die in battle
than to die old and weak in bed.
I think, I will travel the world...
if I can...
when I'm grown up.

When lizards are creeping through the leaves
in the graves
it sounds like dead people creeping.
But really...
it isn't.
There's things still alive in graveyards.
Such as golden trees.
And snails.
A lizard I saw was eating a snail.
I saw it crack it open and eat it.
There are also other things
I've discovered.
For instance, there are larvae, living larvae.
In little pots, flowerpots.
It's really interesting how they move
and dance across it.
I don't know how they got there.
Probably by the rain.
But how should I know?
I think it's really interesting.
Their movements
and how there's a spiderweb over their pot.

I would like to hang around graveyards more
of the time.
Just to find more interesting stuff
like lizards and stuff, you know?
Precisely.
There are actually things that are born in this cemetery.
For instance, baby lorikeets, that you can hear now.
(eee, eee)
I love baby lorikeets,
although I've never seen one.
They make such cute little noises.
They live so wonderfully
their colour all RAINBOW.
It's WONDERFUL.

When I die
I would like to have
a little place
in my gravestone
where snails can rest
and live.
So the lizards can eat them.


Remiel Ruah (aged 7) (Western Australia)

Special Class

I dreamed X in a swimming pool a man on the side with a stopwatch a race I in the water too with others all competing

I dreamed X won because part of the scoring was on how elegantly you moved your body I just couldn't match her flow I would move nicely for a while but then my muscles would rebel a distracted twitch I couldn't get my parts to synchronise whereas she

She won a trophy ‘Special Class’ it said and I was both jealous and glad jealous because I didn't win glad because I didn't want the trophy object cluttering my bookshelf and needing to be dusted and justified


Jackson (Western Australia)

Case

He had tears rolling down his face
He said:
‘I’ve spent all my money on speed
I’ve stolen off my parents
I’ve stolen off my friends
I’ve broken into houses
I’m dealing to support my habit’
I should have said:
‘You’re really fucked up man’ and got him some help
But I said:
‘Have you got some now? Well let’s have some then’


Timothy Parkin (Western Australia)

Editor's reminder: we should not assume that this poem (or any poem) is autobiographical.

The feathers of the wilder colours

Is it really freefall
Or will you bounce off bends of the tunnel
Is it really freefall
Or will you also pass thru gray clouds of unease
Is it really freefall
Or will feathers of the wilder colours bounce off you
Is it really freefall
Or have the motors merely stalled
Is it really freefall
Or is it sometimes actually a sinking into...
IS IT REALLY FREEFALL JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE WAY TO COLD EARTH
IS IT REALLY FREEFALL JUST BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING MORE REAL THAN THE AIR RUSHING RIGHT THRU YOU
Is it really freefall — can it really happen like that?

Steve ‘JC the Washingmachine’ (Western Australia)

First published on the author's Facebook page

Touch of the Butterfly

Ever watch a butterfly touch down?
There’s no screech of tyres or smoke puff,
just the fractional stopping of time
as the selected leaf or red bud
trembles imperceptibly and
braces for this,
the softest
kiss.


Glen Phillips (Western Australia)
From Glen's forthcoming book Crouching Tigers: China Poems 1