Ben Walter

'Weight' by Ben Walter | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 20 April 2018

please settle me down inthe depths of the river,scattered ash lodgedin the silt. let metaltailings weigh, pulpdissolve my pagesand the sparkling viewof sewage be interred;do not let me drift out to sea. Ben Walter 'Weight' first appeared as part of The Red Room Company's 'Disappearing' project.   ... (read more)

'Line Up, Teeming' by Ben Walter | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 20 April 2018

The old dust was left behind;it hatched crystals, snowflakes,a multiverse dining with itself around a table. Heart twigs beat against the breath andwinding legs patrol a speck of flesh;red neurons fire the sedge, slip below the iris of lagoon. Shuffle the pool,there are diamonds;numberless suits,a face. The dry has blinked.The tear can’t miss. Ben Walter 'Line Up, Teeming' first appeared ... (read more)

'Sedgeland Nation' by Ben Walter | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 20 April 2018

if we are straws slurpingat this pool, it is to slake our own thirst; we have claimed this land as ten thousand flagpoles needing no flag, but we are gentle sceptres;a nest dispersed and cradling paper wings. this silt: our home, where all legs hurry as their days dry up;this rot: our mother,tadpole to sedge. and sowe murmur the rhythmsof frogs when our stringsare plucked by breeze;we are instrum ... (read more)

'Neither on this Mountain' by Ben Walter | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 20 April 2018

walk hard – grains of weather glitter like the night has sunk, streaks of thin stars, light rain sharpening the scrub; we are small, so small in the draining sky as squalls stroke searching for our skin.sweat-slumped on tussocks, raw pools smoking in the famished sun. dragging mud across my knees,I whip my skin with shards. words are blunt in whisperings of gust. walk hard – no honour now ... (read more)

'Four Limpets' by Ben Walter | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two

States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two • 20 April 2018

While we circled space,the paint-stained grass and the dogs in-and-outhuffing their thoughts, he’d told us how they tried to gill our work and rest in languid backyard bays. The bolts in rock, firm in life and death, were nowexempt from clasping hooks to bring the bait aboard, protected like the tiger, like the quolls;like rocks, we thoughtlike rocks and sand and water. Well, rules drift out wit ... (read more)