Issue One - April 2007
Kylie Rose
Kylie Rose is currently studying creative writing at the University of Newcastle. Her suite of poems, Doll Songs was commended in the 2006 Newcastle Poetry Prize and she received second place for her poem Shark Egg in the 2006 Roland Robinson Literary Awards. She lives with her four children in Maitland.
West Annex Celestial Warehouse Temple of Heaven
I always see a woman in the moon. Concubine of solar congress, frail geisha undressed in the dark.
I never knew the moon was a man until I found the closet where he keeps his sleeping tablets.
God of Nocturnal Brightness, you fill and fail, obedient to the seminal will of the sun.
You will never look the same.
Summer Palace
Seventeen Arches Bridge. Afternoon is an oyster, caesarean opened, pearly lake and sky adhered to the luminous womb.
Seventeen Arches Bridge. Men smoke, giving breath to marble dragons. They fish the ox-bronze sky with kites on rod and reel.
Seventeen Arches Bridge. Pleasure boats skim the peach lake, hulls a flurry of bat wings that fracture my reflection.
Seventeen Arches Bridge. I watch willows defer to the mottled milk of evening's dawn. Their branches lip the sun.
Seventeen Arches Bridge divides this watery day like a woman's mineral wrist escaping a heavy, silver sleeve.
Forbidden CitySuited street vendors converge on the bus carcass of maggot-white spenders. Welcome swallows and willows skim the moat like nimble tongues affixed to no mouth.The South Gate parts her lips and admits me into her illicit stone pipe. Toward the secret lacquered chambers, I tread the golden stones.Women are still locked up in palanquins and camphor coffers. They chant in empty chambers, let me out.