Selected poems
1.Next door they're digging up dirt with their bully machines.The sun is out shouting us free beer.I've been stuck in my hometown for years,I've been kept back with sickness and anti-psychotics making me fat like chocolates.I'm still wearing the striped pyjamas of my convict ancestors.There's still poverty and a dream of winning the lottery.Still I squeeze a fiver into the hands of a survivor.All my writing is anonymous,Only to be discovered in a thousand years by the astronomers.
2.A day of poems inside my head,Of heaven's gypsies in borrowed coats, leading their horses, full of love and lawless.One gypsy spoke to me,As my heart beat like lonely footsteps.His eyes were very bright like candles in glass jars.His voice was very dark, a black espresso.'I'll paint your dreams' he said to me.
3.I'm on a silver and blue train.I stare out the window at the outside world,At the juggling wind,Then walking down Swanston Street at the struggling people.I give them the gold coins of Jesus eyes.Down moonstone pavements,A Eucharist of French fries,A man with a bottle of rose quartz wine.I touch the sky's belly skin, and tell them the Angels are my next of kin.
Tallyho train tracks
An addict shows me his rack of ribs,He's off to the slaughter house.An addict rubs his face like a brushed potato.The addict searches through bins looking for scraps of himself and his whims.An addict lives in a room at the weaver's loom,Peddling his stories and drugs.
Ghostly visit
A ghost in my house who creaks the front door shut, and makes unexplained noises.Little boy's voices trapped like mice.Holy Ghost walking around the roundabout,Anointing us with olive oil,Frying our spirits,Mist in the mirror,A steamy moon.Ghosts mean us no harm,Be calmed, don't be alarmed,Everyone's got one or two.
4.I strum my A minor like a little child.I change to E major chords of the Lord.I pluck a hair out of your head when I fingerpick my music to the muse in my head.I've carried guitars all my life,Now the scales, then the blues of my Japanese guitar.The wood is room temperature,It's got a soft case.
Death in the family
You were always a strength and light in your mother's life that will never go out.Now we'll rake the fallen leaves together and look for new flowers on the tree.
Peta Edmonds is studying a diploma in professional writing and editing. She came first in her novel writing class with a novel she is working