Selected poems
Robyn
Getting off the bus at Woden,I fell into conversationwith another passenger called Robyn,who then waited with mefor the bus to Manuka, to seeme off, the way friends will,or people who are closer: family, kin. I told her I had visitedthe War Memorial.She said she'd never knownher father, who'd been killedin action, somewhere. No,she couldn't tell me where,she'd been only three. She'd notbeen out to view his name,embossed in metal on the wall.Her health was poor, she wasn't sureshe'd manage all the walking.But growing up, she'd missed the fathershe had no remembrance of.She'd always felt the lack of him —an ache time could not ease
— Jena Woodhouse
Damask Roses, Syria It's happening again, in Syria —a century since people of Armeniaperished in their tens of thousands there,torched alive in caves, or put to deathby thirst and hunger, where their exileended in the desert at Deir-ez-Zor. Now, the forces of annihilationonce again cohere, as if this werea valve in history's cardiac arrhythmiathat faltered and unleasheda haemorrhage of horror, trauma,fear. The damask roses bloomunharvested in devastated fields. Their perfume cannot mask the stenchthat permeates the air, the atmosphereof dread, of mute despair. But whenthe juggernaut of war is redeployedelsewhere, the fragrant fields will comeinto their own, if there are hands to care
— Jena Woodhouse
Not VCs, VD
They huddle sorry-arsed on the platform sharing Turf cigarettes,faces above khaki greatcoats, demeanour, of older men,any ideals of medals not what they imagined,inventing tales, their ultimate destination vague,a vanishing point joked about but yearned for.They watched back yards passing by, recalled games,kitbags in the rack, windows streaked, their gaze opaque,no risk now of being blown up, yet their world askew. Crown land, an exclusion zone, rude architecture,kangaroos and copperheads patrolling the bluish bush,army doctors' blunt indifference unmitigated by nurses,women soon to be only memories of mixed emotions;porridge and penicillin, a muddle of menial tasks,a caste quarantined from locals who believe propaganda;troop movement, training exercises, returning heroes,who remain ignorant of anything to do with this lot. Look, there I am long after the war was over, a boy searchingfor his lost dog he will never see again, walkingaway from the murmur of his family's regret, almoststepping on a coiled snake under the cover of trees,calling, whistling for things to be as they were.He reaches the old army reserve where a breeze stirs,nudges his cigarette smoke, a flap of cardboard on a shed,sunlight on a soiled window as if trapped