Tag: Poetry

• Stop

  August 13, 2018 6:53 pm Comments Off on Stop

  Stop
  When I say
  Your words are like needles,
  Pricking every fibre of my humanity,
  Threatening to go deeper every time.
  Stop
  When you notice
  You’re on the verge of violence.
  Names hurt worse than sticks and stones
  So don’t pretend that they go over my head.
  Stop
  When you realise
  What you’re doing does not help me.
  All it does is further stigmas,
  Files me to the side
  Of what you think is normal.
  Stop.
  Is it really that hard?
  Does your right to use your voice
  Trump my right to be alive?
  You have your power – now use it for good.
  Stop
  Before it’s too late.

  Phoebe Lupton

• Embraces and Empires

  6:49 pm Comments Off on Embraces and Empires

  When your arms are around me
  I feel a gentle, kindly breeze
  That dances on my skin
  As it wafts up from the seas
  We play on the sand
  Building castles of our own
  An expanding empire
  For us to rule alone
  But now it just feels strange
  Our bond is somehow broken
  I am a tide drifting away
  My fear is slowly awoken
  The waves pull me off my feet
  And your world is that much brighter
  For whenever we embrace
  I know that I am holding tighter

  Julia Faragher

• When I Get Used to Something

  August 12, 2018 3:10 pm Comments Off on When I Get Used to Something

                                                                                                                                           
  When I hear a sound,
  I look around frantically,
  Hoping to reconnect an image or scene,
  Hoping to see something… anything.
   
  Instinct wins over obstinance and consciousness.
  Response without analysis or decision  
  And when emptiness ensues as nothing correlates
  I remember…
   
  Frustrations, disappointment, disbelief
  Stifles and conceals the light
  Moments, laughs, embarrassment…
  Warmth dissipates, longing dissolves, nostalgia disintegrates.
   
  The progression, too quick.
  I wonder if it is the very reason
  That this friendship, so strong, so comfortable
  Was fleeting.
   
  And the trappings left beckon for my attention
  At every sound, every moment, every silhouette
  Haunting my mind and vision in the periphery.
  I put an end, the end, to it.
   
  But life persists even in tough conditions.
  Shadows flicker and remain.
  Thoughts pass and linger.
  And I move but still, I stay.
   

  A Little Fuji Apple

• Molecules/fables

  3:02 pm Comments Off on Molecules/fables

  There is a very real stream that flows from the beginning of life to now
  In a warm little pond some cell split in two and each of the children took their grand inheritance that was a small sack of fluid to keep alive the molecular stories that their ancestors learned
  Long after, something heaved itself from the maternal waters and onto the mud
  Mothers wrapped their babies to keep them wet, to allow them to collect themselves, to allow the fables that their ancestors passed down to instruct the matter within into a new form
  I came from the waters of my own mother and our long story sings through my veins
  I look around and see all the different ways that story’s being told
  Life makes the rocks and the air and the water breathe and scream and sing
  We don’t just wake up the Earth, we are the Earth waking up
  How many other worlds have woken up? And how many ways are there to be awake?
   

  Geoffrey Bonning

• The Fisherman and the Syren

  July 28, 2018 12:05 pm Comments Off on The Fisherman and the Syren

  The air is cold and crisp
  when the Syren calls to him.
  Her voice is cool,
  it flows along the deck
  and summons his feet to move,
  his heart to thump.
  Water crashes around the ship,
  yet lays calm and black
  around her waist.
  He leans closer.
  What a strange thing to see in the night:
  Gilded locks caressing the velvet sea,
  a half formed smile,
  fully exposed breasts.
  The thrum and crash of salt licked waves
  are silent.
  The boat creaks but he does not hear.
  All is held,
  held within her gaze.
  She whispers to him and he leans close,
  “Come to me fisherman
  For you know I am lonely,
  Come to the water,
  Come to me.”
  Salty scales
  weigh a man’s heart.
  They hold him still
  ‘til the cloth of his pants
  are wet,
  her body wrapped securely around him.
  And then under,
  Under,
  Under…

  Shae Maree Nicholson

• Make Light

  11:46 am Comments Off on Make Light

  You are a mask that a far greater face is looking through
  Feel the pulse of chemical energy, sensation flowing through channels of clay
  Your seriousness is the funniest joke in the Universe
  Flow
  Make light
  Return
  All that you fear may come to pass
  And utopias, joyful arrangements of beings, will also bloom in their time
  And then fade away
  Make light
  Even if it’s only for now

  Geoffrey Bonning

• Luxury Clouds Drowning

  July 27, 2018 5:29 pm Comments Off on Luxury Clouds Drowning

  dry retching –
  there are things that remind me – of you (still?)/ scattered across the sky / in the way the grey banks / like it could snow?
  (it’s 17 degrees)
  and in how my / bread rips / because the butter is too hard / and I got impatient with / the toaster.
  ‘families are weird’
  you tell me blowing / out your dart / directly into my mouth
  (my fault for having it open)
  and I KNOW / there are thousands of worm-hole openings / conversations I could start / among the clutter / of what we pick apart to hold / as our friendship
  (I’m leaving tomorrow)
  free-held early adult / of suburban walking home with too many groceries so the plastic bags we shouldn’t have bought dig into our palms and leave fighting marks until they’re gone / is momentarily over.
  It will begin again and stop Adani.
  For us and more likely for others.
  and I guess too, we will find our own lanes/ in swimming pools in the open ocean / wonder at what made us whole / misplace that we even had grandmothers.
  keep drowning but forget / call it home
  (this is what they now label stoic optimism)

  Anonymous

• A Life in the Making

  February 18, 2018 3:48 pm Comments Off on A Life in the Making

  I’m going travelling and I want you to come with me. This is the beginning.
   
  When I was eleven years old I wrote bitch on my stomach in Black Permanent Marker
  I realised my mistake
  As soon as I was done.
  I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed
  Body blotchy
  Sore
  Pink
  But it was,
  Too late
  Too, too late
  So
  I had to walk around
  Quietly
  But not
  With a faded stain
  Imprinted on my body
  A grey idea
  Silent
  Almost
  Seeping into my skin
  As a reminder
  Of what
  I was yet
  To understand
  Stand
   
  I stand here
  Again
  And I feel sick.
  Head, fuzzy
  Heart, raw
  A wobbling
  Echoing through my body
  Because
  It happened
  So early and so quickly
  And the floor turned wet
  And deep
  And I was drowning
  Help.
  Help me.
  I need to
  Leave
   
  And those words
  Harsh stabs
  Stab
  Into me
  Again
  And again
  And again
  Bitch
  And I feel them
  Bitch
  From, ago
  Bitch
  They sting
  And feel so real
  The letters
  Look
  Sound
  Strange
  But real
  So, I run
  I keep running
  I’ve been running
  For so long
  I’m so
  Tired
  Will I ever stop?

  Mahalia Crawshaw

• The Noise

  October 2, 2017 11:26 pm Comments Off on The Noise

  Chaos is an endless openness
  of too many vowels in a row
  which somehow spills out of our mouths
  that makes sense
  but doesn’t
  It is a lost thought
  Or a vacant heart
  Or a heart full of so much noise you can’t hear anything
  I want to be chaos
  Because it is everything and nothing at the same time
  It is a clamour, a loud and extended shriek
  And it is silent
  It is a fucking ocean
  And it is fierce
  And chaos does not apologise for what it is
  For the paradox that inevitably follows
  But I do
  For doing everything and doing nothing
  For being too much or not enough
  For caring so much that it hurts –
  But I am learning not to
  She taught me that
  The ocean did
  She reminds me that the swirling mess of blue and black and grey and purple is beautiful
  She is beautiful because of her chaos, not despite it
  And my noise is
  Loud and strong and present
  It is and it is beautiful
  I am beautiful. And terrifying

  Mahalia Crawshaw

• An Ode to Vegemite

  September 19, 2017 4:52 pm Comments Off on An Ode to Vegemite

  Brown, glistening, viscous and spreadable
  Pretty much looks like literal shit
  Dispersed sporadically over cold, burnt toast
  The perfect combination of fats and carbs
  Makes for a surprisingly bitter sensation
  A taste just as salty as my attitude
  Delivers stained teeth almost instantly
  Ensures the breath smells mitey bad
  Embarrassment puts a rose in every cheek
  Attempted diversification of cooking potential
  Vegemite lamb roasts aren’t fooling anyone
  B vitamins do nothing for immunity
  Yet still marketed as a health staple
  For some reason, an Australian cultural icon
  Made from beer manufacturing waste
  Briefly pinched by the Americans (typical!)
  Poorly imitated by the British overlords
  The traditionalists wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Anonymous