Issue Six -November 2009
Kirk Marshall
Kirk Marshall is the Brisbane-born(e), Melbourne-based author of "A Solution to Economic Depression in Little Tokyo, 1953", a 2007 Aurealis Award-nominated full-colour illustrated graphic novelette. He holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Creative Writing), with Distinction from the Queensland University of Technology, and a first-class Honours degree in Professional Writing from Deakin University. He has written for more than fifty publications, both in Australia and overseas, including "Going Down Swinging", "Voiceworks", "Word Riot" (U.S.A.) and "3:AM Magazine". As of 2009, he is the editor of "Red Leaves", Australia's first (and only) English-language / Japanese bi-lingual literary journal (http://www.myspace.
Suite of Haiku
Electricity: a strobing head, a cut lip My blood gloves his fist. They hug me once as pillows of breath are wrestled from my lungs: farewell. Cities capture light and reflect them back on streets slick with midnight rain. Through the winter he watches from his register: I greet him for smokes. Moon suspended as she smiles into her scarf and replaces her phone. Wolves whine at my door - On the beach, they chase waves and devour turtle eggs. I write, knowing a succession of dead poets expect something grand. He is heartbroken. She is not. She is waiting. He is years behind. She lies amidst reeds: her nude back is bruised where the ladybirds collect. Fog hugs the king’s legs as he forges through bracken: a fox turns to watch.