New Australian poems
Coalcliff
You knew that I would love youand you whispered to my reach.
I lay a kiss on youbeside the sea.
I learnedthat it is goodto have fallenlike an angel.
Ithaka
While I was dying I learned how to live.I found the old red doors behind which everythingcomes together silently with candles and height.I found the water from the well, cool and holy;the road, the dirty road, the adorable mountains, the sea-road,the song, the lovely danger, all while I was dying,all while I picked up this habit in my home-dirt, my hunger for the origins,and learned here how to live.
John Falzon
Cat whisperer
wearer of itchy mohair turtleneckstofu cooker, stir-fryerenthusiastic woodpusherbiter of the exposed arm or handcontrite apologist of toothmarksknitter of scarves& an interminable crocheted quilt
reader of books and Facebooknuzzler, hummercat whispererconfessor of obvious secretspracticed auto-conversationalistmourner of other people's lost petsbike rider and cycling evangelistmaker of exquisite duck-faces
Sean Goedecke
Sushi and the food court
How you love courting me around the food courtThe court is our playgroundEating sushi grounds usAs we do the roundsAnd find food abounds
Isabella Fels
To whom it may concern
'I was dreaming that I loved you, until you woke me up.now my flowers grow in somebody else's garden, for little girls to love.It was my imagination that you loved me back,but you picked another flower, you kissed another girlnow my heart is empty, broken down on the side of the road,and I wonder who will stop to help me.'
'I'm lucky to have you as a friend,your friendship means the world to me,like the yellow rose of friendship that was in the chapel when we meditated.It's also the rose of jealousy, but I'm not envious,and I wont get drunk on your champagne eyes.It's the year of the poet, and poetry's all we've got.I won't let myself get hurt by you.My heart's not a sweet to be sucked.Some are starving and some are fat,but you think I'm some puppy dog with my tongue hanging out.'
Peta Edmonds
On wondering about the close cousin of religious passion
Their need for intimacy is what drives men onAnd women too though they are better at itSo little wonder that religious song
Touching our hearts with resonance and longHistory in our blood we can't combat itOur need for intimacy driving on
With outcomes showing us where we belongWe grow to crave for more become erraticDrunk on all that wonder in the song
And closer to each other so the throngBrings oldest feelings down from musty atticTheir un-replenishment