Bonnards' cat
Pierre Bonnard's White Cat (Le Chat Blanc) 1894has the smug face of a cat and the whipping tail of a catand the four legs of a cat, only this is Impressionism: the legs are far too longEach leg floats like those of a halved octopus not like my cat on the windowsillBut it is like the cat I saw in the movie The Hurt Lockerabout the war where we're bringing democracy to the Middle EastBaghdad, where they need our bomb disposal teams_____also teams with catsThe streetscape is desolate sand on sand and the cat picks its wayskinny, white fur with a hint of ginger_____ long_____long_____legs to clear the rubble
Jane Downing
Perceval's delinquent angel
Perceval's delinquent angelIs up to somethingBut will not revealThat tricksy intentionFor eyes raisedHands extended, it listensFor the starting gunIn the hands of a distant God
Bruce Shearer
Miniature womenKangra Valley Paintings, 18th century
Suspended like a cloud of ambered fliesare women, caught in motion, centre stage.It could be London, 1970s;some confluence of history. Every pageexudes imagined scent — there's jasmine here,despite the thrumming air-con's temperate flow:it perfumes all the heated spaces wherebold flowered fabric blooms, where hookahs smoke.
The women talk. They read and write, listento music, wear their long hair loose in fallsover bare breasts and flowing robes. The menare in the background, if they're there at all.
The caption calls this art 'a song that singsitself'. Faint sitar strums. It's ravishing.
Virginia Jealous
heads
the trailinghand, a mother
waves behind hera nibble
of fingerlingsfor a child
to grasp & holdin their absence
of toucha nothingness
& then the horrora wall full of Sid Nolan heads
Rory Harris
Jane Downing recently completed a Doctor of Creative Arts degree at the University of Technology, Sydney. She teaches at Charles Sturt University, Albury.
Bruce Shearer is a Melbourne writer who has been published in the USA, Poland and Australia. A collection of his children's plays, Plays to Value, was published by Curriculum Corporation in 2005.
Virginia Jealous is a poet, travel writer and former emergency relief worker. Her second collection of poetry, Hidden World, was published by Hallowell Press in 2013. She lives out of a suitcase and on the road when not at home in Denmark, Western Australia.
Rory Harris is a poet and teacher. His poetry