States of Poetry 2016
States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Ghost Nets: an elegy’ by Barbara Temperton
Evening, at the edge of the reef
a ghost net snags my fishing line.
Lead-core line is made to last and often
braided round plastic craypots tumbling
from West Coast to Madagascar
to shroud the coastline over there.
I write my dead friend's name in foam,
watch a wave rush it away.
In another's name a rose adrift
surfs an off-shore rip away
ove ...
I drive in on Daylight Saving Time
with a pale, fat moon rising
over the Moresby Ranges.
New subdivision: Ocean Heights Estate?
It looks like Sandcastle Land.
Foreshore dunes
limestone-terraced into sharp ledges:
high-priced real estate
perched at weed-wreathed ocean edge
awaiting global warming.
Blowouts hiberna ...
States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Dog Barks Heard from the Kitchen’ by J.P. Quinton
The river has always
sat in front of me,
mud between toes
shooting down grassy
hills on cardboard. My
brother dragged a sheep
behind a canoe
to the other side,
and painted a warning
on his rose canvas
when my sister drowned.
She was throwing rocks
when swallowed.
Dog barks heard from the kitchen.
Mum ran screaming up
States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘Reading the Landscape’ by J.P. Quinton
To read a landscape by another landscape;
Valley cloud reveals altitude.
To read the landscape visits the ego
That prevents a proper reading.
To this landscape, the circular fireplace
And a straight trunk – xanthorrhoeas present.
To read this landscape to the tune of other words,
As moisture moves us, is us, drowns us.
To read the landscape ...
States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | 'Site Visit: Ashfield Flats’ by J.P. Quinton
Part of the river begins here, car carcasses
Filter run-off, houses fenced off
A two foot foam toy stealth bomber
Discarded in the buffalo – 'the F27C
Striker Brushless' neglected, ignored.
Broken winged, landlocked like concrete islands.
Part of the river begins here,
Sweet mud smell, the hill you slide down
On tin, the old man keen to shoot to shoo ...
grasses sweep grooves in sand, the way streams forge sweeps in earth;
their soft brown tips dangle, like me, the narcissist,
searching for recognition, the call and response
the topographic certainty, the black and white pinions.
cloud gaps are light patch are sunglasses on.
loose rock and lost watch – the alpine flowers dry,
the travelling snow is sliced by skis ...
States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | ‘There is No One to Complain’ by J.P. Quinton
I walk to the river,
I am searching,
I am searching for a jar of leeches.
In the distance I see something flashing
so I head toward it.
As I come closer I see
it's a mirror dangling from a tree,
and beneath it, a table with six sealed jars.
I open a jar, stick my finger inside
pull it out –
blood slides down my arm.
I feel the sh ...
Yamaji Culture
A culture worth loving
A culture worth fighting for
A culture worthy of being loved
Why tell me I don't need it?
Why tell me I can't need it?
Why tell me I can't love it?
Why tell me it's not worth fighting for?
Why tell me it's not worthy of love?
Yamaji Culture
I love it – I laugh for it
I stress for it – I cry fo ...
Can you smell it?
Not like the first rains
Nor the first blooms
But a rather putrid
Vomit inducing smell
Jaan-jaany
The bad smell of Australia
Like stinking body odour
Emitted at footy matches
Fast on social media
With each boo the
Smell got stronger
With each name calling
The smell got stronger
With each denial the
S ...
States of Poetry 2016 - Western Australia | from ‘Emails to Manila’ by Graham Kershaw
IV
Bottle-green air,
red gravel, bark and branch,
filigrees of hazel,
blanketing roar of ocean,
inlet glints of stone.
Depths of quiet sounded out
in ducks' satellite pings.
There's no ribbon to tie these things neatly in train,
no music to make it sound okay;
just me awake, reading your email
as cockatoos swing and chime
high in ka ...