Visitor Ghazal – by Megan Cartwright
Poetry Megan Cartwright Poetry Megan Cartwright

Visitor Ghazal – by Megan Cartwright

In its practised temperance the monks’ routine compels sleep –

yet in this land I have no language; I cannot spell sleep.

 

Outsider – conspicuous. I imitate reverence.

I count sheep. In the dark my heart pounds like a death knell: sleep.

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The Edit / An Edit – by Michael Farrell
Poetry Michael Farrell Poetry Michael Farrell

The Edit / An Edit – by Michael Farrell

Immanence redirected. The infrastructure of the edgelord and the snowflake are the same.

Can power be generally oppressive? Up in the trees, radically outside the gift economy, radically outside bricolage. Read this sentence. Read this sentence linguistically. Tampering mid-ride.

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Telegram – by Natalie Susak
Poetry Natalie Susak Poetry Natalie Susak

Telegram – by Natalie Susak

In this language / I am trying / to carve / a home / for us.

This old wind / raises my hair / to my face / grazes the hair / of my arm.

Molim, I say, the way / they taught me / with tongue stopped / at the end.

I hate / to beg, but / when I search for words / I call to them / as if over

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Advice and Warnings – by Jill Jones
Poetry Jill Jones Poetry Jill Jones

Advice and Warnings – by Jill Jones

Cover your heels
Keep unpicking what you sew
Beyond the known world is a busy place for failures

Don’t visit abandoned theme parks with your parents
Never call anything by its right name
Never look back at love

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If Movement Were a Language: Triptych – by Svetlana Sterlin
Poetry Svetlana Sterlin Poetry Svetlana Sterlin

If Movement Were a Language: Triptych – by Svetlana Sterlin

no one would be as fluent as us / swimmers. gliding through what we know as air

density augmented. our shoulders feel / brunt of gym tiles Dad and i flipped /

onto faded patchwork carpet. i still remember / miniature brick pattern of black

and grey. now hidden beneath those tiles / does our presence haunt them, woven

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23 vignettes on the rental crisis – by Anna Jacobson
Poetry Anna Jacobson Poetry Anna Jacobson

23 vignettes on the rental crisis – by Anna Jacobson

1. When I move in, the manager stands in my room. He says it’s important for me to be quiet. His gaze fixes on the wall, trying to appease whoever is on the other side.

2. Someone told me that people go missing here – that my street is the Bermuda Triangle of Brisbane. Today was the first day my lips started tasting like metal. I think it’s stress.

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Stanzas – by Jo Gardiner
Poetry Jo Gardiner Poetry Jo Gardiner

Stanzas – by Jo Gardiner

If you talk about tomorrow, they say,

the rats in the ceiling will laugh, so speak

only of this one day when morning drops

its bright curtain across the window

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Parturition Chairs I-V – by Isabella G Mead
Poetry Isabella G Mead Poetry Isabella G Mead

Parturition Chairs I-V – by Isabella G Mead

How can a chair look like a scream? 

And why do its arms recoil? 

A cry trapped in polished walnut 

curves and re-curves. No frills in a shout.

Sit here only if you want to feel six-legged.

Where is the voice that birthed its legs?

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Friendly fire – by Tricia Dearborn
Poetry Tricia Dearborn Poetry Tricia Dearborn

Friendly fire – by Tricia Dearborn

the reassuring foof as it ignites      

flickering blue under a small saucepan

coaxing the milk to warmth for cocoa

puffing up the dumplings, alchemising

sugar and butter and golden syrup

to sumptuous stickiness

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