by Kate Compston 

The other world is here,
        just under our fingertips.
            --Charles Wright

Child in the garden mines                
the winter soil for worms
to tempt a cocksure robin.
The pulsing of a worm, of earth
within the worm, shocks her
at core. No-one has told her all
the world’s a dance. 
 
Woman in the darkness plays
her lover’s octaves of vertebrae,
rehearses notes and space
between the notes,  teases
sonatas out from bone, skin,
woken whisperings of blood:
a music played by heart.
 
Mother in the dawnlight soothes            
her baby:  sorrows for her own
crass roughnesses, is awed
by contours of her child’s
unblemished landscape.
Under the fontanelle, a dragon huffs
a lifetime’s threats.
 
Mourner in the hospice strokes
her father’s watercolour hands;
wants to paint in oils to bring back
colour, vibrancy. Under tissue-skin,
the merest flicker — as though
he stops to bless her. Then   
the slipping past.

Kate worked as a counsellor in the NHS, then voluntarily in a hospice setting. She lives by the Atlantic in Cornwall, has been involved with XR, and is trying to learn BSL. (She dislikes abbreviations …) She feels writing itself is enough to quicken the blood — publication an affirming bonus.

by Glen Hunting 

This place’s wounds
are sacred ranges,

sagging houses, 
scarified sedans.

But body art can’t disrupt
the eruption of buffel.

Only the blossoms
move with the seasons:

spectra in rubble
waiting beside the rails.

Standing room only
for refugees after rain.

Glen Hunting is a writer from Perth, Western Australia (Boorloo, Whadjuk Noongar boodja), now living in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) on Arrernte country. His poetry has been published in Plumwood Mountain Journal, Meniscus, Portside Review, London Grip New Poetry, Burrow, and elsewhere. He was the recipient of a 2024 Varuna/Arts NT residential fellowship.

by Zoe Odessa

My heart is too big for my body / So you take a piece and hold it under your tongue / Hair
between fingers, criss-crossing / (weaving I love you I love you I love you) / into the back of
your head / Peals of laughter, choking sobs, stony silences / Head to toe on your bed /
breathing in time / You’d kill for me / I’d kill for you / Halving clementines and sharing gum /
He doesn’t deserve you / You stick your fingers down my throat / To clear out the dust /
Hold my hair back as I retch / Then kneel as if in prayer / So I may hold back yours / And yes
there are moments / Stretches / Of silence / Of wondering / Where have you gone / But you
spring back / as ever / And our hearts meld as one again and / Forever 

Zoe Odessa (she/her) is a 23-year-old poet and writer who wishes to be utterly consumed by words. Currently based in Cairns, Australia, on Yirrganydji land, she is at the tail end of her USYD B.A in English Literature. She loves difficult women and challenging feminist literature. She has previously had poetry published in Sour Cherry Mag. You can find her on her instagram @zoe_odessa_

by Dave Clark

I go on a trip overseas
and get these messages saying
that I seem to be doing a lot
more than usual
 
I am making the most
of packed-away moments
and several people are still surprised
and subtly criticise when they see me enjoy life
 
Micro-aggressive texts
contiki across continents
to suck the steam
from this dream holiday,
 
making me feel
like I’ve done something wrong
whenever I do
something fun
 
I chase occasions that transcend
chronic illness
and yet words strike
at these hard-fought steps,
 
flattening the topography
of my health, pounding it
to a plateau
of predictability
 
until I'm standing on an Arctic butte
veiled in pure snow
and can only feel the stinging cold
of their scolding
 
As my knees fall into the frozen
blanket spread beneath,
I make a ball of their slush
and sling it to where it belongs
 
so that nature’s song can be heard again,
the seraph sound of snowfall
mixed with the playful giggles
of someone so used to red desert dust

Dave Clark is a reliable human with unreliable health.
He is a writer-poet with chronic fatigue syndrome, living in Mparntwe (Alice Springs).
His writing speaks into grief, illness, justice and how we love and laugh together.
Dave works as a counsellor, creating space for stories of significance.
Instagram/X: @DaveClarkWriter

by Angela Arnold

Such a thin band of despair,
shaped with all the care of a parent
snugging a child's scarf. The kiss
of death a prolonged affair,
kicking the habit of living
with a lust and a zest and a violent
longing for air –
the circlet's neat grip
making it a monstrous appetite.
Feet still dreaming.
A telling hollow there
just a foot from where greenstuff
would have been made complicit.
The magic attraction
dangled just-so inviting plain
habit: lured home; beguiled
to venture into another
pale Grass Moon night.
A dog's bark in the distance perhaps
the last flippant comment
on a life now left as hairy powder,
forgotten bone. The final insult.
Some mighty Human
never even clucked in triumph.

​Angela Arnold (she/her) lives in Wales. She’s also an artist, a creative gardener and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have been published in print, anthologies and online, in the UK and elsewhere. Collection: In Between (Stairwell Books, 2023). Twitter: @AngelaArnold777

by John Bartlett 

wattlebirds wait for darkness
to loosen the dreams of children
for days to taste of peace

Dianella fibres like silk
strong enough to resist
the callous winds of winter

river redgums along the banks
of my childhood suffered
dumb rage of axe and saw

autumn dew drops from leaves’ length  clear
dear atonements  of magpie song 
slice the crisp air into a day full of sky

where is that untouched world
its birds wide-winging
cormorants their dottled dipping 
scratching the surface
of mirrored creeks               where

 John Bartlett is the author of eleven books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. He was winner of the 2020 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize, Highly Commended in the 2021 Mundaring Poetry Competition. His latest poetry collection is Excitations of Entanglement.

by Tony Norris

I was born         foaming
          at the crux of  
where salt   meets   water
two things your diet needs
but cannot have together
and I the deity of every motivation on earth
       cannot be divined
without being dissected
    not even in my birth
 
but I was born    longing
before you
spent my life
being chased
being made un
til I became
pearl-like which is to say
girl-like which is to say
weary eyed from being
lapped at but rarely swallowed
 and all this time
I knew I was ancient
but forgot I was also  hallowed
 
it is true, what the Greeks think
there is terror in the beautiful
there is beauty in the terrible
 
when you first saw me I saw you
tremble
 
     I was  cradled in a clam shell
 
naked
arm on breast
hand on _____
 
this became my symbol
not for pleasure, not for modesty
but to be born     knowing
what it is like
to hold
            and to be held

Tony (he/him) is a Meanjin/Brisbane-based performance poet. He has been a state finalist for the National Slam Championship and has hosted Rainbow Open Mic Nights with Gold Coast Libraries. Tony started out at Ruckus Youth and Voices of Colour and has been a featured poet at numerous creative events across Brisbane. 

by Izzy Roberts-Orr 

If you spend enough time with the trees
you begin to feel endless.

There are some here I'd wager
almost three times your lifetime
triple your wingspan
more than ten times your height.

Your handspan – a trick of the eye – 
the same branches bolstering sky.

The trees bow and remember.
They'll fall, humbled by termites
hiding homes for the busy lives
of spitting possums and the
parenthetical bodies of galahs.

The trees know they'll fall
but continue standing all the same
through downpour and drought
blazing heat and smokestacked,
encroaching flame.

Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet, writer, broadcaster and arts worker based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Izzy is Creative Producer for Red Room Poetry and a 2020-2022 recipient of the Australia Council Marten Bequest Scholarship for Poetry. Her debut collection, Raw Salt (Vagabond, 2024) was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, and longlisted for the Colorado Prize for Poetry.

by Madeleine Dale

I break the surface of anger 
unexpectedly, like a diver 

prising the bay into halves,
a knife through muscle 

and shell. The oyster reefs
were licking the tide clean,

honeycombed on their racks,
varnishing their little hurts

without philosophy. Helpless
as swell, I have painted 

indifference over injury,
and it has turned 

so heavy. My body lolls
in the estuary, where silt 

meets salt. Broken shuck
catches my skin. I carry

the pearl-weight of love
                       out to sea.

Madeleine Dale grew up on Tamborine Mountain and now lives in Brisbane. She holds first-class honours and a Masters degree in creative writing from the University of Queensland, where she is currently completing a PhD. Her first chapbook, On Fire with Dangerous Cargo, was published by Queensland Poetry in 2023. Her first full length collection, Portraits of Drowning, won the 2023 Thomas Shapcott Prize and is forthcoming from UQP.

by Rae White

​bloated catfish surge 
at the cusp of river’s 
oil-licked lips.
the bent elbows and legs 
of rocks have grey foam 
and bottle tops 
in their crooks. 

at my side, your fist 
is clenched 
like balled-up lunch wrap. 

‘what a mess’ lingers 
at the edge of my teeth 
before I swallow it down 
with my throat’s impatient bile. 

a waning moon flickers 
behind wind-ruffled blue gums. 
another storm 
is on the way.

Rae White (they/them) is a non-binary transgender poet, writer and zine maker. They're the award-winning author of poetry collections Milk Teeth (UQP 2018) and Exactly As I Am (UQP 2022), and the Bitsy game stand up. Rae is the founding editor of #EnbyLife, a journal for non-binary creatives.