Selected poems
a landscape called humanity
guided by divers and ropes
via a birth canal
from the womb of the cave in a dark mountain
through the tightness of crevasses
hold your breath to clamber the choke point
surrender fear inner light
heave in the labour from death to life
why is it disasters create heroes
under monsoon darkening skies
one cannot rely on the mercy of rain gods
it is tanks of air
and an international team
navy seal divers engineers scientists
technical expertise
medicos and teams of supporters
that garner our attention
surrounded by a world of tragedies and suffering
it is the challenge the pull-together
that we marvel at
holds our focus holds our breath
its peaks and troughs
with all hope mustered
its sheer beauty
this landscape of humanity
— Colleen Keating
Battle Tales of the Accidental Soldier
It always starts with congruence between empty paths.
Concentration on further introspection proves that
our disaster awaits us in tandem with the last Supper
The machine suffers from a train wreck and contributes nothing to the cause.
What lengths do we go to try and gain some higher ground?
Now. They are at it again, those wily harbingers.
They are driving up to the side of the house carrying your belongings in porcelain veil,
And their tongue held together by splinters and filled with Pierce Lipped Venom.
Yet I see an Absence of Malice in your eyes.
Why must it always be this way?
Can’t you show me something new
Why not embrace transcendence with a smile and a remembrance?
I have only cascading ionization to offer at the peak of my natural course
Though they only crave perfection through gestures of excommunicated expression.
And so, embarking on the ultimate strategy in my purest form,
I meet together, I agree.
— Joshua Ryujin
July
The highway opens like a hand
the slip steam rhythm hiss song of tyres
as the pasture lamb clouds in green wave past
The long stare towards what it is that drives us
early morning smoke breathe drifts across the footpath
A history of behaviour hangs on the NGV
mapped & named into the gags of our lives
drum beat credit card on a wooden counter top
outside the street freezes in a wrap of daughters
The next day the bitumen shimmers through its cold
The early evening half dark is dog bark romp on a patch of green in the shade of the housing commission flats blocking what sun
Gelato just makes it colder
The wide boulevards drawing children
under the wings of winter coats
A young man waits for the knock
this is not another day in paradise
your portraits hang around us & every parent’s nightmare
stretches a heart to breaking point
Myuran Sukumaran we have lit candles for & Andrew
& stopped the traffic in liturgy
— Rory Harris