Poems
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Summoning The River Snake
By Fiona BrittonClick here to read the full poem in the poet's original format.
Summoning the river snake: a death journey in five parts
… in which the poet Dorothy Porter summons her muse and death messenger, a snake, and makes a final journey. -
Moongalba
By Judith RodriguezPlace holds the people. They wander, making a life – place is inside them,
staking its claims, reserving its treasures.
What place? Maybe the space by a mother, between her bed and the wall. Or the backyards of a childhood. It may be an endless plain with its secrets for living.
For Oodgeroo, the green island in the se… -
Old Ghost Dogs
By Sam Wagan Watson“Some things are beyond talking.
Not the mind, not emotions,
words will always come for them.
Perhaps the mind lives in this barrier -
Snow Like Wool, Frost Like Ashes
By Jakob ZigurasFor Stanisław Barańczak
Snow is false purity.
—J.W. von Goethe -
Song for Silence
By Renee Pettitt-SchippSilence is the rock where I shall stand.
Oh, when I strike it with my hand
may the artesian waters spring
from that source I long to find. -
Maya Angelou
By Abe NoukThe world is a mixture of everybody, everywhere
and she was a child and shall remain so
in the eyes of those who came before her
it matters not where from to make us feel -
Last Drinks
By Aden Rolfe‘Your vocation calls
& you answer it’
John Forbes, ‘Pacific’
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Names
By Judith RodriguezAmity
A ship under sail: a sighting: a sandy beach
offers its point to the neighbour island, offers
a watering place. A safe station, on the way -
Wiped
By Sam Wagan WatsonFor Martin Harrison
“I sing the joy of wandering
and the pleasure of the wandering death …”
Guillaume Apollinaire -
Unnamed
By Celestine RowePower to the struggle, whatever that may be
Whatever you’re feeling, rise higher
Give it all you got ‘cause you’re stronger
No matter what life throws at ya -
Tiger on the Beach
By Renee Pettitt-SchippWe round the point, run
into the plate-glass shock
of your presence.
Who designed -
The Dark Clearing
By Judith RodriguezHere is the shady clearing
of honour and farewell,
here the Noonuccal, neighbours,
and visitors off the ferry. -
For The Young
By Celestine RoweIt’s time for our young people to rise
Take the fight laid before us
Let’s rise to the challenges
We fight against depression, oppression, suicide -
From The Other Side
By Judith RodriguezThe dead do not stay dead. There’s your Dad
teaching kids still in the voice of Oodgeroo;
for punishment, putting the kids on cut and dried
mission rations – that’s unsurprising news -
shoot
By Renee Pettitt-SchippI will not close I will not let
so much as one petal curl
as long as this light can reach me.
So long as the clear -
Silvereye
By Renee Pettitt-Schippunblinking eye
looking out toward forever
the birdbath is reflective
high on stand -
Redwood Plantation, Otways National Park
By Melody PalomaPoem after Jennifer Rankin
Things seem cut up here, clipped up in straight lines, divided on/by the
ground: -
Fitzroy Commission Flats
By Melody PalomaPoem after Jennifer Rankin
can’t catch how the light hits the flats, at seven PM in early summer,
my iPhone camera never gets it right:
bedroom wall cracked open -
Ballad at Manifold's
By Judith RodriguezI remember you, Kath, the quiet woman
sat with Kate on a bench at Manifolds’:
our mandolines. Those Saturdays, the Wynnum
river-flats, a hawk circling, the ballads scored -
This City
By Celestine RoweI love this city
Creativeness, words, they flow
From the gutters to the tips of high rise buildings
Artistic alleyways
