Poems
The Mother Workshops and Other Poems by Jeri Kroll & Shadows at the Gate by Robyn Rowland
On the Hiryu, Hajime Toyoshima
Starred in the group photos like Andy Hardy,
He was so small and cute.
... (read more)On the Hiryu, Hajime Toyoshima
Starred in the group photos like Andy Hardy,
He was so small and cute.
His face, as friendly as his first name
... (read more)The Cypriot brought his wine-dark eyes with him
Along with his skin and hair. He also brought
That shirt. Swathes of fine fabric clothe a slim
Frame with a grace bespeaking taste and thought.
How will they remember us, the dead?
As a cause – a just cause – or simply an end?
Grennan sucks in air along his gums and yells
again to Davey who is filling the trough
of the gunwhale with scrabbling crabs. Far off
lightning slips down the sky like a forkful ...
Here is the ideal place for the attempt,
Here where the Christmas sales dispose
Their day-late offerings
(From which, it seems, scarcely a soul’s exempt):
Whitegoods and videos,
The manchester, the saucepans and CDs,
The swimwear, lingerie that sings
The body and its moistening promises. ... (read more)
He sang of old coins buried beneath the dunes,
to the north of the island, near the old artillery battery.
For forty years he rowed for mullet north, and south,
where the war epic motion picture was shot recently.
To the north of the island, near the old artillery battery
we played hide and seek as kids in acres of bladey-grass.
Where the war epic motion picture was shot recently
no one was allowed within a thousand metres.
Then, there were spires in every landscape
Tall, tapering fingers pressed together,
The supplications of early sainthood –
Those that the early painters made
To teach the unlettered, while the spires
Called them to listen and to pray.
A Tasmanian Paradise Lost by Graeme Hetherington & Other Gravities by Kevin Gillam
