Whatever they want
There was a time whenthey shared their drugsand told each other everything.
Now he has brokenpieces wrapped in skintorture has burnt his bravedown to a canyon of screams.
He is rubber to floor sliding in muckfocused only on fear.
An animal shackledmashed to un-reasonthere is only this fearthen the pain.It destroys truthwhere truth is not an answerwhen you're innocent.He tells them anything.
Susan Adams
Poem
'A man swims back to you like a friendly dog.Asks you for spare change.He hasn't eaten since Thursday and it's Sunday now in the city.You empty your wallet of all its coins$2.70The city is heavenly,full of karmaA kid with a snake tattooed on his wrist gives you two cigarettes,outside the markets,trams going past us.You see an old friend on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth StreetsA pot of gold is a hug and a kiss.
'There's treasure in the chemist shop,where she found little gifts for all her friends.But she never got to send themNow there's teardrops in the chemist shop.She was attracted to the light of my fluroscent smile,the tiny ways to say I love you were smashed like insects.It's bad,it's worse than anything I ever had,these Cinderalla slippers that give me blistersI wish she was still with us.'
'I'm a pet lamb according to my mum,to be loved,not slaughtered,a twinkling star in her eye,but I wish I wasn't fallen,it took all my strength to get up,on the stairs of Club xxxI wanted to cry because it hurt,but I know I don't have to go back and get hurt anymore.It was one slip of my jellybean soul'
Peta Edmonds
Fitzroy Villanesque
Since ecstasy is no-one's given right,mooching and drifting, waiting for the call,you haunt this shabby suburb late at night.
Each small exuberance has taken flight,night rolling in, a shrug, a dying fall,and ecstasy is no-one's given right.
Lean forms slither, black and blue through light,leave no redeeming palimpsest, no scrawl,haunting this shabby suburb late at night.
Your muffled cries, your shuffling feet, igniteonly small flames, memories half-recalled,since ecstasy is no-one's given right.
Waiting for that beloved shape, that lightwhich can draw you, specter, past these black walls,you haunt this shabby suburb late at night.
You hear again — fingers trembling — how bright,how warm that welcome voice, and its withdrawal.Since ecstasy is no-one's given right,you haunt this shabby suburb late at night.
Lyn McCredden
Susan Adams is an Emerging Australian poet who has been published extensively in literary journals both in Australia and internationally. She has been read numerously