by Stephanie Powell
From the sea of the backyard you emerge and look as though you’re in need of watering. We are beneath the sky, a Filipino-swatch blue, a light paste of trout-shaped clouds. The air is dry and the bush-figs are dropping. In a different version of this afternoon, I’d pick you up as though you were the child and ask, what are gardens to old men? You would say something like, something to be tender to, something to work on. Then get back to work. It would be the answer I am expecting, though I’m not convinced that it belongs to you. With the price of petrol, semi-retirement- there is more time spent walking in circles with the hose, making space for paving stones. The city muted, on upturned glass-roots at the end of the street. Breakfast is coffee, newspaper ink, two slices of toast. Magpies warbling like heavy smokers in the trees. You grow things to the taste of bees, with your gentle, gentleman hands. What a proud man- to have seen him off to work in the morning, igniting the sensor lights in the driveway at the end of the day. A few games of online solitaire played before bed. Unwinding in the already unwind -ed night. There you go again chasing the birds off the new grass seed. Your new ways of working- hands waving, madcap under the Jacarandas. Stephanie Powell grew up in Melbourne, Australia. She has spent the last few years living in London (with some short stints in Canada and Kenya). She writes and takes photos. Her collection Bone was published by Halas Press in July 2021. Her work has also appeared in Ambit Magazine, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Dawntreader, Dream Catcher, Spelt Magazine and Sunday Mornings at the River.
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by Jackson Machado-Nunes
sits hugged by a rope in the waters of Mo’orea French Polynesia within the pitchless hum of the ocean she is the largest coral i adopted a blushing savannah brown a colour you surely would have worn. we all have different ways of keeping you alive some of us still mourn you some light a candle for you around your birthday and Christmas and the anniversary of your death some of us probably avoid thinking of you altogether attempting to move on in a way as swiftly as it seemed you left. i never cried i never attended your funeral over zoom but my views on death after all are a little alt-left but what i did know was that coral gives our planet half of our oxygen so i bought Earth a coral named it after you i felt it only fitting as on many occasions we were forced to steal extra breaths because our language together was laughter. Jackson is a Meanjin based non-binary poet with a passion for Mother Earth, and a mission to see queer representation become commonplace in Australia. They’re currently studying a BFA at QUT, where they were a co-chairperson of the QUT Literary Salon. Find their work on Instagram @deku.eku by Jane Downing
The brain is not something to save It’s hooked out through the nose Thrown away So why listen to it whispering why would he lie to you believe him do The guts, now there’s another thing Eviscerate and scoop and jar And put on a shelf for the ever-afterlife Balance the jackal head on the stomach Stopper up the gut’s shout it’s all wrong don’t believe him Stick the beaky falcon on the jar with the intestines let them turn alone in queasy pain Lungs that cannot breathe when they hear the lies stick them in an alabaster jar make a fat-bellied baboon of them Stay lily-livered Cut out that organ and give it a human face lidded with serene green-glazed eyes Let this civil war end Because the heart, the heart is left in the body even after death There is no canopic jar to hold it There is no hook to extrude the bloody mess It is left in the chest It is left gasping love, love, love Jane Downing lives and writes on Wiradjuri land. Her poetry has appeared in journals around Australia including Meanjin, Cordite, Rabbit, Canberra Times, Bluepepper, Not Very Quiet, Social Alternatives, and Best Australian Poems (2004 & 2015). Her first collection, ‘When Figs Fly’ (Close-Up Books) was published in 2019. She can be found at janedowning.wordpress.com by April Bradford
I inhale the sticky air. A kookaburra laughs at me. Memories rattle, erasing the good. Backhanded words weave cobwebs of honeydew resin around my ribs, cinched with dew drops. Viridian wasteland, no shelter nestled beneath skeletal limbs. Sink into nature’s comfort until the undergrowth bites. Ingest sunlight, sweat and green ants. Crushed lemon crawls on my tongue. I wake to laughter. April Bradford (she/her) is a UQ Creative Writing graduate. She works as an intern editor at Hunter Publishing and freelances on the side. Her writing currently features in the Toronto zine, Sapphic. Her irregularly updated Instagram is @april_elisabet. by Megan Cartwright
Do you ever catch a half-formed image fluttering at the edge of sight or sleep? A fragile thing that you might have imagined if not for the metallic dust left on your skin. My grandmother's handwriting. I recall arthritic Cs - but they are from later. In this memory I am only twenty and she is nimbly formed cursive. She breaks macadamia shells open with a rock. Her bare hands are not made of tissue paper and she is laughing and feasting. We spend an afternoon in sunshine and retire for sandwiches. Later, she makes cocoa on the stovetop, even though it’s summer and too hot for comfort. We pull husks from beneath our fingernails and marvel at the simplicity of the day. Megan Cartwright (she/her) is an Australian writer and teacher. Her poetry has been published in October Hill Magazine, Authora Australis, and Oddball Magazine. Recently, Megan was awarded a highly commended accolade by the Independent Writers Group of NSW for her entry in the Pop-Up Art Space competition ‘Haiku – Capturing a Moment’. by Claire Fitzpatrick
CW: alcoholism, trauma, family violence My mother had a broken force field. When she drank it would collapse and her sadness would erupt like spilt sugar – not a few specs here and there but enough to cover a whole table. As a child, I thought it was normal to cry and shout and break things so I would cover my head with my pillow and tell my younger sister to ignore it as best she could. I still think motherhood is spilt sugar. Claire Fitzpatrick is an award-winning author of speculative fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is the 2020 recipient of the Rocky Wood Memorial scholarship fund for her non-fiction anthology ‘A Vindication Of Monsters – essays on Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft.' In her 'real-life' she works in a wholesale nursery and doesn't use her degree. by Zoe Parsons Octopi Stimuli That’s how it goes: tentacles spread and tendrils latch. It ebbs and flows. Chemical emotion but it’s all from within, poison hatches. Frills and spots, adornments of every kind. Facades and warning signs etched into evolution. Our amazing animal minds glide through an underwater galaxy. I find peace in the metaphor and sit here for a beat. Imagine having more sense: the world emanates, kaleidoscopic vision ecstatic, muffled sound and explosions of touch. Nerves, receptors, cells explain away dips and curves, the boiling bubbling spew. Coral Wind Chimes
Broken coral wind chimes chatter as they wash ashore function served: crumbling foundations—graveyard or beach. The walking hurts, bare feet bristle against earth when calcite pierces skin, nails drag along the blackboard. Our teacher writes lessons but we don’t listen. Claws scratch at an urgent itch. The washed-up coral is high pitched. Wind whispers, waves crumple and chimes clink, urgently scrawling on the blackboard. Zoe (she/her) studies literature, philosophy, ecology and climate science in Naarm/Melbourne. She scrawls poetry on bits of paper and lives for adventures in nature. Zoe has been published by We Are Explorers, Lots Wife, Anaerkillik and Kos Magazine, as well as on her personal blog. Her Instagram is zoe.parsons. by Vanessa Rose
The pumpkin looms above the clivia up and over our fence, rooted in soil that has bloomed a thousand bongs. I should push it back, gather up its desiccating leaves, its winding vine, and bundle it along the top of the palings as evidence of the neighbour’s transgression. But then I might miss the moment - the inevitable gravity of gourd. It falls without me seeing it, thudding at night into the ground irrigated by federation houses. Months later, I find it under the glossy straps of the clivia, at the tail-end of a dog rooting out a blue tongue. Pumpkin, grey-worn and wilted, what dreams did you seed in your last days, hidden from the sun? Vanessa Rose writes poetry whenever she can. She is a member of Writing NSW and is currently undertaking a poetry feedback course in Sydney Australia. When not writing, Vanessa is a researcher at a not-for-profit social purpose centre based in Australia, Singapore and the UK. by Joanne Fong
Start with the runt, his shrill shrieks sweep out over a cruel land, where a midnight sun never sets on entrails, stains the ice luminous red Slice into the heat of his belly —a fish, ready to be gutted. Hack at limbs til you reach bone, soon you will have ragged cuts of meat, poor imitations of sliced sections hanging from hooks in butcher’s windows back home. Flinch when someone nicks the bowels, putrid fumes leak out like a tyre puncture. Once you burn those hunks of flesh til taste turns sour, season with stale salt from gritty palms. Almost forget nights spent under the endless sun, his pulse lulling you to sleep, fingers woven deep in shaggy comforts of fur. Joanne Fong is an emerging writer, creator and functional human. She is a journalist at KOS Magazine and is based in Melbourne. Find her on Instagram @joannefwrites by Linda Albertson
Her smile reaches me before I hear her footsteps - I pull her on like a dressing gown, keep her smile in the pocket. Smiley-face yellow is her favourite colour. When she is sad, the skin on her face glows blonde like a full moon behind cloud. The imprint of her three-year-old body still lies warm on my mattress. The wonder is this – what I love about her I don’t recognise in myself. Linda Albertson lives and writes on Yuin Country. Her poems have been published in Ginninderra Press anthologies. Her chapbook, Overdue, was published in 2016. @sip_a_poem |
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February 2023
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Photo used under Creative Commons from John Donges