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Keywords: Four Poems

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    To feel this world

    • Allan Padgett
    • 01 March 2017

    Notes that humans cannot hear include the sound of thylacines crying in a van diemen forest, a dodo's plaintive shuffle on a nearshore kiwi island, a mammoth's woolly orgasm on an ecstatic arctic tundra, an esperance dog weed's silent transpiration, the rumbles of a gastric brooding frog giving birth by burping - these things are far too late for caring. Things we need to see and taste include the surging milk of human kindness, the euphoric rainbow of random caring - these would make a nice day nicer.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Washed in Thomas Becket's blood

    • Earl Livings
    • 06 February 2017
    4 Comments

    Narrow, pointed arch entrance, low vaulted ceiling, stone and wood panelling - here four murderers walked over 800 years ago to rid their king of a meddlesome priest. Amidst singing and candlelight at Vespers, Thomas Becket stood at the Cathedral altar, knowing the armoured knights were coming: 'Here I am, not a traitor of the King, but a priest. Why do you seek me?' After their clamouring and brandishing of hatchets and axe, he knew his fate, bent his head in submission.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Moonlight conventions

    • Ross Jackson
    • 06 September 2016
    2 Comments

    I put in my journal: 'a full moon tonight, crisp and splendidly clear for our walk around the shore and back to the resort' ... What did the Israeli professor remark? 'It bodes well on Hoshana Rabbah that we are casting shadows in moonlight.' Though our Chinese friend had little to say following this evening's lecture, he was right about the yellow plum at the bottom of the lake.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Death and resurrection on Christmas Rock

    • Deanne Davies
    • 05 April 2016
    1 Comment

    The breeze spills, engulfing gorges, ruffling trees. The leaves whisper ancestral stories, signalling from hill to hill creation mysteries. The track wends past abandoned tennis courts, their turf is crushed, compacted anthills that salmon gums reclaim. The creek is waterless but when seeded with rain froglets bleat like lambs. Once trees flaming orange were common ... the granite, grey with age, once barren, yet when Earth trembled, it crevassed and soil collected, water funnelled, plants sowed.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dreams, storms and boyhood

    • David Ishaya Osu
    • 29 September 2015
    5 Comments

    A family of four: an ex secret, a doll to share new moons with, a sky-blue diary and a door — nobody does the sign of the cross during sex; a braid of moonlight and shadow directs your head to a pillow, and next to your window hangs a raindrop ready to touch your heart; even a rat cannot feast on a field of vows; can i go outside of this life, you ask.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    In defence of judges

    • John Ellison Davies
    • 16 July 2014
    18 Comments

    Judge Garry Neilson is in a spot of bother after comparing incest and paedophilia to homosexuality. He is not the first judge to find himself in this situation and he will not be the last. Judges enjoy a life of privilege and status. In their own courtroom they are feudal masters. But when one of them makes a mistake, the media jumps all over them. Politicians rant. The controversy is always out of proportion to the alleged error. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Four poems for Seamus Heaney

    • Various
    • 10 December 2013
    3 Comments

    I was brought up to become a Scottish Protestant boy in exile from the country that was my father's homeland. You grew up to be at home in your history and tongue; my father banned your accent, set me to elocution, as if your speech was my speech-defect. Our history lay elsewhere, even as we were living it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Warm fuzzy flipside to a fidgety control freak

    • Brian Doyle
    • 08 October 2013
    5 Comments

    We did not see eye to eye, yet no one cared more about the work we did. He was subject to fits of temper, and you never met a gentler man. He held grudges, and was the soul of mercy. He was the worst manager I ever saw and the best employee. He had been a quiet drunk and when he realised he'd damage his new children he stopped and never took another sip. Lots of people knew him and no one knew him well.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A conversation in the wind

    • Bai Helin
    • 01 October 2013

    When husbands and wives quarrelled, I put it down to personality clashes. It's not till I got married that I found it's a tradition.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Asylum seeker sonnet

    • Brendan Doyle, Ben Walter and Rob Wallis
    • 28 May 2013
    5 Comments

    With every boat that sinks our grief's untold; the smugglers just don't care they're overfull; So join the queue, no need to bribe with gold; and get a proper visa in Kabul.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Philosophical kissing

    • N. N. Trakakis and Vivien Arnold
    • 23 April 2013
    4 Comments

    'When it comes to the kiss, philosophy has very little to say,' you once protested. 'It would seem that the lovers of wisdom don't know how to kiss!' ... Always longing for union with my other (and better) half, the two pieces, long astray, finally fitted together, mouth-to-mouth ...

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Perceval's delinquent angel

    • Various
    • 16 April 2013
    1 Comment

    ... is up to something, but will not reveal that tricksy intention ... it listens for the starting gun in the hands of a distant God.

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