My fisherman – by Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Poetry Scott-Patrick Mitchell Poetry Scott-Patrick Mitchell

My fisherman – by Scott-Patrick Mitchell

I know you in the brine-infused sea

an open wound that carries you away

into aquamarine photographs bouncing

between satellites before beamed

to my bed, a wreck where your touch

a ghost waiting to come hitch Anchorage

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Rescue – by Toby Davidson
Poetry Toby Davidson Poetry Toby Davidson

Rescue – by Toby Davidson

I hang out with what I suppose is your ghost

and call you by only the last of your names,

I in my new place and you in yours.

It’s waggling bliss before recall and what took you

snarl in combined from the teeth of an ocean

too broad to tear around, comical hound.

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with flowers – by Alexander Bennetts
Poetry Alex Bennetts Poetry Alex Bennetts

with flowers – by Alexander Bennetts

If you hide behind a mixed bouquet you can get out of a tram fine. You can get out of small talk when you’re hoarding grief like a bundle of paper straws. With flowers, your headshot could be a botanist’s pin-up.

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An Island of Dogs – by Ronald Araña Atilano
Poetry Ronald Araña Atilano Poetry Ronald Araña Atilano

An Island of Dogs – by Ronald Araña Atilano

Everyone had left after the typhoons,
says our boatman. Only two dogs live here—

they wander aimlessly through mudflats,
along the empty beach. See them come to the water

to meet us, tails wagging as soon as boat touches sand,
eyes leaping as we disembark.

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The Burial Feathers – by Yasmin Smith
Poetry Yasmin Smith Poetry Yasmin Smith

The Burial Feathers – by Yasmin Smith

WINNER OF THE GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024

The afternoon’s powerlines are pebbled

with the chalky plumage of white cockatoos,

tipped with overblown flaxen feathers.

In the afternoon’s unfixed light,

I am reminded of the funeral parlour.

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Lateral ambling gait – by Emilie Collyer
Poetry Emilie Collyer Poetry Emilie Collyer

Lateral ambling gait – by Emilie Collyer

RUNNER-UP, GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024

Square grey city apartment
Hindley Street Adelaide
with my siblings & mother
for a family funeral.

My bone density report
shows further deterioration
AP spine Osteopenia
& I’m losing height.

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and – by Helen Jarvis
Poetry Helen Jarvis Poetry Helen Jarvis

and – by Helen Jarvis

RUNNER-UP, GWEN HARWOOD POETRY PRIZE 2024

today I drove into a rainbow, its half-arch

picked clean and landing in the rubble beside

the new McDonald’s, and the wet road shone in my wake

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Washing my mother’s hair – by Helen Jarvis
Poetry Helen Jarvis Poetry Helen Jarvis

Washing my mother’s hair – by Helen Jarvis

My mother bends her head over the basin. Her skull is frail
as a scrap of bird’s egg, and I cover the tap with my hand to cushion it.
Hair spreads out red in the water: the red that was once the shade
of the carp in old Japanese woodblocks; the red that skipped me

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Visitor Ghazal – by Megan Cartwright
Poetry Megan Cartwright Poetry Megan Cartwright

Visitor Ghazal – by Megan Cartwright

In its practised temperance the monks’ routine compels sleep –

yet in this land I have no language; I cannot spell sleep.

 

Outsider – conspicuous. I imitate reverence.

I count sheep. In the dark my heart pounds like a death knell: sleep.

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The Edit / An Edit – by Michael Farrell
Poetry Michael Farrell Poetry Michael Farrell

The Edit / An Edit – by Michael Farrell

Immanence redirected. The infrastructure of the edgelord and the snowflake are the same.

Can power be generally oppressive? Up in the trees, radically outside the gift economy, radically outside bricolage. Read this sentence. Read this sentence linguistically. Tampering mid-ride.

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