The feminist eunuch

Crown of Thorns Euphorbia spenden Out from white bricks of the church at the junction of orange clay and a neglected border garden its spines strike into the blue hot afternoon and where the leaves fall away insignificant but showy bracts of small red flowers like an irritation of blood spots on an altogether almost perfect autumn afternoon. –Jeff Guess overcast the blanket grey overcast frayed ends with a little light to bring the sun through thin threads as a sewing needle would patch up the whole of the sky before the next storm while a village of washing is hung out to dry –Rory Harris Wouldn't write about it They say I didn't write them Didn't put quill to parchment Neither poem nor play Just played the occasional Small role, a bit of business Here, a marriage there Yet remembered forever as A literary genius Wouldn't write about it –Bruce Shearer denied sap and sun denied sap and sun puckered skin in puddle winter's orange –Kevin Gillam rainy, hail, thirteen rainy, hail, thirteen — Flinders Street under the clocks — six missing persons –Ann Healey Caress My vision is intense Sometimes frightening But also as soft As pale blue lightning Which touches your lids In an ultimate caress Of sorrow And wonder

–James Waller Layers My head in the tutu inserting layers of purple between white. A Degas or a bridal fitting. Layers. A daughter, a mother, a mother just gone, metres of tulle, pins in my mouth. I remember how at times of tulle and dreams, pinned to our roles, we rub scars into each other. How words prick. Tears fall into the tulle. Without a word she holds me. –Josephine A. Clarke The Feminist Eunuch What is Germaine to her personality? Her Catholic childhood I fear, The Virgin Mary. –James Morris The Professor and the Pentecostal The Professor and the Pentecostal, _____Who was right and who was wrong? One was a sceptic, the other an apostle, _____One wrote essays, the other sang songs. The Atheist and the Believer, _____ Who was sane and who was mad? One was honest, the other a deceiver, _____One was joyful, the other was sad. The Artist and the Accountant, _____Who was fake and who was real? One was employed, the other redundant, _____One crushed snakes, the other bit heels. –Damian Balassone

Arvo Part This is the music ice makes as it thaws and trickles coldness bumping coldness that gives away such needlepoints of light so that after all the winter dark can be fathomed and climbed from a music that accumulates builds out of air until finally inevitably nothing else is there. –Shane McCauley

Rory Harris is a poet and teacher. His poetry collections include Over the Outrow, From the Residence, Snapshots From a Moving Train, 16 poems, and