Category Longer Poetry

by Maria Bonar Willie wagtails share my garden, with doves honeyeaters and a bobtail lizard. We live in harmony until my grandson’s cat Stacey visits. Last year, she caught a fledgling wagtail. This time, the wagtails show their fury at…

by Peter Roberts South Gippsland Rail Trail, VIC Can these chalky bones and gristle last the distance? Heavy are the shoulders that bear the backpack but this is no Camino nor Appalachian Way or Inca Trail. I have lost my…

by Peter Roberts South Gippsland Rail Trail, VIC From a cell and without a cell I venture forth in neither pea soup fog nor driving showers but drizzle that soaks deep into the quick, and glistens in the lush velvet…

by Vanessa Proctor Mosaic-tailed rodent, long-whiskered, tiny shells for ears, glossy eyes dark with the ancient knowledge of survival. Bramble Cay Melomys, secret reef-dweller, night forager, warm-blooded eater of plants. You were no match for encroaching tides, storms pounding the…

by Wayne Pollard In the island remembered for apples, A town straddles the Leven River. That stream flows into Bass Strait and finds freedom. From another place nestling on the Bass Strait coast, When one wore shorts, Clark shoes and…

by Fred Duncan Auroras pulse and shimmer on Spitsbergen’s Isfjord, And midnight suns reflect on rock and ice and snow; Deep within the frozen ground, life and wealth are stored: A bank of seeds from field and forest, plain and…

by Laurie Keim Always there in the same place they cannot run from crisis check out how they bend and twist of all things, torsion of the pole-vaulter, pom-poms of the cheerleader, throwing themselves into the tearing wind. One ear…

by Rodney Williams outside Marvel Stadium at Docklands in Naarm on the country of the Kulin nation All that’s left here now of Batman’s Hill is a stout square pole, its red paint fading on a tall fabrication, installed stiff…

by Rodney Williams with thanks to The Lure of Montague by Laurelle Pacey; & The Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Pizzey & Knight: with respect for the Yuin Nation, traditional owners of Barunguba 1. Arriving to a fanfare…

by Glenn McPherson after Aeschylus When morning arrives black wings Finally leave you. The downdraft stumbles, turns For a moment, startled by A child’s cough, And the woman’s face, blue As though burned, ice-like, Beneath a frozen river. In the…