States of Poetry Poems
Time falls out
of your house
and onto a slab
of lucerne which
the cows eat as
they wander away
from the orchard's
long flowing hour.
Sweet and full
of wild honey
is the flower
is the bird.
Part of your love
is timeless enough
says the little track
left by ants.
Moon is a paper lamp
burning all night.
The grass
is full of shadows.
Hardly room in here
with the cupboard's coat.
Small broken windows
open dream's row.
The wild birds
all leave my mind at once –
mouth banging shut
in the dark.
'The grass is full
of blue free stars.'
The universe jus ...
The things us Murri blackfellas have to go over in life's
Futures is hard.
Love's gone bad and less money and work.
This easy going one got the flour tea sugar our mothers and fathers worked for.
We were black men before the lot say, Ah ah, what's colour got to do with it?
Well the light comes from the dark.
May our babies never forget the black men who washed clea ...
'He Had a Dream of Times' by Lionel Fogarty | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
They swing on real dreams of freedom.
Peace is like things of the past.
Justice is like ice on the lands never seen.
The dream he had was his own.
For he got pay for his speech.
People now can't dream in positive.
For money to dream became working to scream.
Years went by things same lay at the beds and rooms.
Pain anger injustices seem to be their lifelo ...
'Koala Trees Turn Her Borobi' by Lionel Fogarty | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
She was pretty young Borobi being put in the tree by her human father for four hours.
As he walk back to the other Jarjum, they ask where Borobi was. He say, Oh she jump
into a tree wanting to eat leaves and looked like happy, so I let her be what she wanted
to be, a Borobi.
Many Bilin Bilin flirted around flying high and low seems like listen to old Kargaru sing
Can I say
white people really bore me sometimes
to be exact
I grow tired with what's unmentioned
idling in surf club bathrooms
nothing wrong with the chips
but they're talking about Tasmania
my thoughts haunted by islands
maybe I'm dying
I've too many chips
teeth like stones
take me to be flossed
and cleaned
I need new soles
...
'Bricks and Lightning' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
It seems I'm always walking
into the scene of a crime
moustached copper
and fuck-off tape
don't look too closely
you won't be able to sleep
I'm new to this building
I live now by the river where
the ducks look like shoes
in the water
I go to the department store
we used to frequent
I look at grocery receipts
to see how I'm saving< ...
'the notebooks of Mr & Mrs Emeritus' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
ironing the crease into her lung with your breath
the six words in end steam over blue charcoal in her eye
your hands arrive in separate envelopes on different days
and they are addressed to each other
even the earth in its eyedropper is not medicine to our mouths
it's the milk dispensed through holes in a flute that keeps us alive
Mr & Mrs Emeritus ...
