States of Poetry SA

how strange and Viennese you are today Adelaide
like the skating rink in front of the Rathausplatz

here I am finding it hard to stay upright too
every step I take is cautious
ambulant
                still moving
I wonder if it’s a frozen river
that I’m skating on the         ...

Eating a burrito in the Festival Theatre foyer    hair in a half-up half-down
Watching umbrellas & people blow through the door     looking for E and her mother
Are they wearing furs? Where are they? E loves the theatre    doesn’t come late
Two girls walk past in Year 12 jumpers & I never went to my five-year reunion
Hung up these port ...

I sit with you and watch you smoke cigarettes in front of me
you take photographs   but not here        not of me
I didn’t ask for sugar in my coffee   but I didn’t return it either
when the bus leaves you will be on it   when the sky opens you will be beneath it
one day in the future we will agree on something
...

after ‘Dug and Digging With’ – AEAF, July/August 2016

Looking forward to seeing you all day
& arriving at the crowded gallery steps

I say   ‘this gallery is full of the same people
desperate to see something different’

but I don’t really believe this      I mean   I am
only here to see you & ...

Listening to my own listless heart beating & you
beside me I discover we are minor seconds apart
tragic-chromatic   but if subtle harmony does exist
it’s a three-year-old playing fists   palms & elbows
we manage to stay out of each other’s way mostly
save for collateral clashes/catastrophes: collisions
& rhythms? look at this ven ...

Dominic Symes has had poetry published in Voiceworks, Award Winning Australian Writing (2016), Coldnoon (India), and Broadsheet (New Zealand). His reviews and criticism have appeared i ...

I walk through an industrial landscape
in the painful adolescent hours
before sunrise

above the sky has sobered up
but the high tensions wires
are still dripping
with conversations
long after rain has fallen

traffic lights turn
green
orange
red
city streets are wind blown
with electric light

underfoot
leaves hav ...

the early morning sky
has bled out all over

the snug tiled roofs
and tranquillised gardens
of a Buddhist monastery

the air is a medley
with yellow and orange
shavings of sunlight

in the dormitory’s courtyard
well-bred leaves
are falling like penances

stone buildings stand mute
with only a monologue of prayer bells
so ...

1.
the barbed-wire sounds
of crows
has fetched out the sun
from behind
the ridge

daybreak
has saddles up
the sky

2.
along the river
the mist is chain
smoking

otherwise the only
bright moments

are the small hoof prints
of sunlight

treading
over paddocks

3.
a river
untethered ...