Poems

Learning Resources

Dalgah
Jagunu
Yarabih barehbanu

make music
from the land
sing in dreams

~ Ellen van Neerven from ‘Gibam Garandalehn (Full Moon)’, Poetry In First Languages

• Welcome to the Memory Cabin
  By Misbah Wolf, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  I don’t want there to be any more buildings
  that separate us from each other
   
  Footnote: this poem was created using the Listening or Viewing Party constraint as the starting point.
  

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• all the while, trying to start the engine
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Helen Franzmann

  (for Jupiter)
   
  between waking and sleep, two switches flicker
  connecting stop-starts from Life and Now 

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• I Love You (they do not exist)
  By Tamryn Bennett, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  Desert is a childhood
  how we bury time in sand
  hands born to excavate 
  impale, inhale a fetish, hide

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• April Fool's Day
  By Angie Hart, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  Turn off the smart lights, let the shadows chase street credit
  trace the tape around my shape just a silhouette
  of this crime, a brave new world of connected things
   

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• CHOOSE ME A BROTHER
  By Liliane Lijn, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  chaos disturbed everything to ashes chemical animal hides
  in your heart metal body code delete memory departed earth
   
  Footnote: this poem was created using the Found Texts constraint as the starting point.
  

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• I wake in bed with a beard
  By Laura Jean McKay, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  It is June. I am tired of being brave.  
  ~ Anne Sexton
   
   

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• sometimes feels day and sometimes feels night
  By Andrew Galan, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  Trapped in this cement and brick and gypsum and nylon work
  not compressed unmoving but walking and walking and walking
  finding repetition or transient newness at corners but no exit
   

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• Class war in the airport lounge
  By Timmah Ball, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  “The Power Elite”
  were not just self-interested.
  but sick. 
   

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• irreconcilable ambiguity (after John Stezaker)
  By Nathan Shepherdson, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  i never sleep in autumn.
  22nd century workers complete their monument to loneliness.
  only one of the apostles wore pearls.
  my eyes can breathe.

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• iron filings (after Liliane Lijn’s Solar Cutting)
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Liliane Lijn

  clouds reflect -18% light untrained
  relationships shift -21% oil unanswered
  radiowaves shrink -17% light uncontrollable
   

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• Parroting
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  There is a picture of a parrot but no bird.
  It is hard to reassure Joanne that the things we miss return.
  I listen as air pushes past cartilage to fill empty space. My lungs are heavy.
  Hands shake, sweat grows on face.

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• She had a ‘Zest for Life’
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Maddie Nixon

  The secret of longevity is to eat
  an incredible amount of meat
  and surround yourself with colourful 
  characters in defiance of the fates.

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• Poem For a Stranger in a Time of War
  By Tishani Doshi, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  We left the city and found at the gates
  a prescription with your name on it.
  We took the metro to the beach
  and on the shore, we saw

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• An historical notation that you've known better (up-down and I)
  By Andrew McLellan, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  if there was a beginning then this beginning was a moment
  press your palms together and feel the heat it generates
  how each event is misshapen
  acupuncturists used to use fishbones and saprophyte

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• Everything's blue in this world
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Sam Wagan Watson

  I have trouble (remembering)
  haemorrhaging where the dream staircase leads
  is that the basement or the room where we first met? 
   

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• The Appointment
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Vidya Rajan

  You must sit.
  You must attend.
  And make the pledge.
  Ensure you are certified.

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• Assembly
  By Vidya Rajan, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  1.
  The bell rings.
  We march into the yard -
  neat hair, neat knees,

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• Principles for victims and others
  By Robin M Eames, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  The patient is unfit to appear / in this Act
  in absence of person / the person becomes an involuntary patient
  when the person is admitted.
  A person is presumed / a person only if it’s appropriate

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• The Shrine of Beauty
  By Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips, Timmah Ball

  Footnote: this poem was created using the Found Text constraint as the starting point.
  

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• Your adventures may be tragic
  By Carody Culver, Jackie Ryan, Vacant Dragon à la Subverted Lips

  this is the story of a journey
  which begins at Mount Bartle Frere and ends at Pigeon Forge
  a rollercoaster of attractions, fire and dirge
  and believe me, you will definitely need something to get you dry

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