Christine Ratnasingham

November 23, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Christine Ratnasingham is a Sydney based writer and poet, who was born in Sri Lanka and grew up in England and Australia. She has had her poetry published in conversations, Extempore and Hypallage, and was awarded the HB Higgins Scholarship for Poetry from the University of Melbourne.

The Foreigner

Like a little bird, one you’ve never
seen before, who appears to have accidentally
flown in
           through a slightly open window
           and into an enclosed installation, enlarged
with people busily pecking at their own
and other people’s lives – flocking, talking, necking
laughing
          oblivious to what has just
          happened. You’ve seen it, but you’re
paralysed with hopelessness. What can you
do? She’s too fast to catch, filled with
moments
           of panic, then stillness. And you watch
           her, realising that now, only seconds later
this furiously flapping bird
once frightened, now seems … okay, quite happy
in fact
           exploring her surrounds, making the most
           of the situation – nibbling at crumbs
jumping around feet, moving along with the crowd
blending in, and it seems that even if you
wanted
          to help her back outside, you may
          frighten her more, and perhaps
even be going against her will, and so
all you can now do is simply watch, slightly
amused
          who’s to say she doesn’t belong
We all do
          don’t we?

Dark skin

I forget I have it, until I remember my childhood
when nearly every student felt they needed
to remind me that I was not of their whiteness 

I forget it clothes me, until I leave home
and catch photographic glimpses in bus windows
and ad hoc reflections, reminding me 

I forget it owns me, until I’m asked where
I’m from, for I can’t be from here?
But from somewhere else, a place I don’t really
know and that has forever branded me

I forget its beauty, until I see it on other
bodies that carry it with dignity
or when they are clothed to celebrate
their difference

Only one of my many parts, yet mostly, the first
one you’ll see when you look at me

I forget, then remember
I own my

dark skin

Diane Fahey

November 23, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Diane Fahey’s The Wing Collection: New & Selected Poems 
was published by Puncher & Wattmann in 2011, and was short-listed for 
the John Bray Poetry Prize in the Adelaide Festival of Arts Awards, 
2012.
Diane has been selected for Australian Poetry’s Tour of Ireland in 2013.

Four Black-Winged Stilts

At the Barwon Estuary

As if linked by elastic thread, they lift,
trace a soundless arc across the river–
botanical, somehow, with their tapering
leaf-wings, their stem-legs. They forage
then rise as one again, drift through adverse
winds back to their spot in the shallows,
touching down at the same instant. 

Stilt hatchlings – brown-flecked heads and wings
sturdy legs half their height, fine bills a pointer
of things to come – are most easily found
in field guides, a dab of light in each inky eye.
Their future is to frequent marshlands,
make brisk forays across the water –
sometimes, with soul mates in triplicate. 

Eastern Rosellas

In a troupe they arrive one misty day
to give a musical tirade upon
the cherry plum’s bare boughs.
The lilt of their speech evokes the cries
of children at play – piercing, tremulous
 – and those of ancient scolds shrilling
what’s what in no uncertain terms. 

The primary force of yellow and red
is finessed by the gold-edged black lace
down their backs: such solid apparitions
they leave after-images in the air;
their speech, as I later recall it,
marked by swoops and lifts so giddily swift
they could only be voiced by those who fly.

Louise McKenna

November 14, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Louise McKenna was born in the UK where she completed a joint honours degree in English Literature and French.  Her first poetry collection was A Lesson in Being Mortal (Wakefield Press 2010).  She is co-editor of Flying Kites, the Friendly Street Reader 36, (Wakefield Press 2012).  Her work has appeared in Poetrix and Eureka Street.  Her work also features in Light and Glorie, an anthology of South Australian poetry forthcoming from Pantaenus.

With a rush of water

he reels the fish in,
light glancing off 

the tessellation of mirrors
on its wet piscine skin. 

In a flash he glimpses his son
writhing in a shawl of amnion, 

his wife begging for oxygen
in her river of blood. 

He unhooks the fish’s pleading mouth,
spills it over the bank 

where the current swallows it
like a bolus of grief. 

Beneath the meniscus
of his breathing world 

the barb still hangs,
trails the air.

A Walk in the Post Natal Woods

A thatch of branches and fir cones
drains the sky, sieves nuggets of light. 

In this moth-silent twilight
mushrooms flourish, 

feeding on shadow.
Or blackberries, 

sticky as blood clots.
I must carry my baby 

from this bed of stone
with its lichen and moss, 

its graveyard patinas.
Something malevolent 

waits deep in the bole
of that tree. 

I’ve heard these woods
are full of bears and witches. 

I’m an easy target—
Gretel without Hansel 

looking for exits
that appear and vanish 

like holograms I tell the midwife.
In her eyes I see her shaking her head.

“With A Rush of Water“, was published in the Friendly Street anthology

Lyn Hatherly

November 14, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Lyn Hatherly spends much of her time doing something about writing: editing, publishing, writing, and teaching. Some writers have been working with her – as members of The Writing Zone club – since 1997. Currently, apart from teaching writing and mentoring other writers, she’s one of the managing editors of the new Five Islands Press. In the past she was one of the founding board members of Australia Poetry, editor of Poetry Monash and the Medal Poets Series. In between lecturing in North Queensland Lyn set off in her small green car on a Writer on Wheels tour funded by the Regional Writing Fund. She also acted as poetry editor for LiNQ. Lyn has three published books: Acts of Abrasion (Five Islands Press 2006) Sappho’s Sweetbitter Songs (Routledge 1996) Songs of Silence (Medal Poets 1994). She contributes poetry and reviews to journals and anthologies and has won several awards. At the moment, after much house and garden building, Lyn is busy with a new book about creating a garden in the natural Australian style.

Shearwaters

It’s a miracle the way they home
every evening, braids of light from the city
to the burbs and boroughs
dark-suited parents in singles or pairs
swooping in with the day’s bacon or fish
dreaming, while halted, of the snug rooms
the glad cries of their young.
From crowded arterials they separate
gem-like threads shine up and down grey dales.
Who could believe they’d each find
that certain opening, could zoom at speed
into their own welcome. 

By February Shearwaters have nested
in earthen burrows, each parent sitting
alternate weeks sharing their warmth
with the young as they swell in curved shells.
The other floats, dives for dinner with the flock
flies unerringly home, feathered beats
matching the clouds, shape-shadowing the sea.
Each plunges straight and fast into one entrance
among thousands, each, to my eyes
exactly alike. Babies in their fluffy suits
squeal with pleasure before the family
settles in their dim cosy nest.

Flexible bones

you slip from me
slick with the fluids of ingress
and egress
my labia refold like petals
when the world turns from the sun
I think how part of you
sleeping now against my thigh
is solid brawn yet baby-skin soft 

you don’t know
in months a child will take its leave
the way you have left
my very bones spreading
almost dislocating
hormones unsettling them
as our child moves outwards
and onward 

you can’t remember
how a pelvis bent as you birthed
so you fit that thin canal
how fontanelles    those pliant spots
flexed your skull
where spaces lingered
where skin stretched
and revealed your soul 

you didn’t see the head
of our first child    pointed
as a pixie as she squeezed
into life
only love could melt bones
this way    then fuse
them for a lifetime

Mani Rao

November 9, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Jakob Ziguras

November 9, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Jakob Ziguras lives in the Blue Mountains, near Sydney. His poetry has been published in Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Literature and Aesthetics, and Measure: A Review of Formal Poetry. He was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize in 2011 and 2012, and won the 2011 Harri Jones Memorial Prize. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Sydney.

Pygmalion

Heifers with gilded horns no longer part before the axe,
in celebration of the rites of Venus; these days no
mythical obstruction dulls authentic pain, her hidden
                                                                               face.

Art always seemed to offer permanence surer than
the fading skin. But I am tired of scraping at a rock
to find the girl within. Here in my garden, beside a pine
                                                                                  tree

skirted by shadow, a youthful form burgeons in alabaster.
Caught in a state of grace, she grasps after the fluency
of air surrounding her entombed appeal. A straying
                                                                              breeze
 
whistles through her fluted curls. Beauty that cannot dance
or kiss. It scares me suddenly, to see my need transformed
into this lissom milk, compacted hard enough to grind the
                                                                                    seed
of dreams; holding my life between her glowing thighs.

Tiffany Tsao

November 6, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Tiffany Tsao grew up in Singapore and Indonesia, has spent time in the UK and US, and now resides in Sydney, Australia. She earned her PhD from UC-Berkeley in May 2009 and is a currently a lecturer in English at the University of Newcastle, Australia. In addition to writing fiction and poetry, she publishes on English and Indonesian literature. She keeps a blog at http://tiffanytsao.com

The Sprig

The man in the photo is a green shoot of a man
a slim-waisted sprig
a pocket-watch spring
with ears like the wings of a jumbo jet.
He’ll take off and you better catch on. 

The shades of white and grey can’t hide
his technicolour visions.
Through the creased paper protrudes
a jaunty ambition swelling by the second. 

I think his rakish moustache just sprouted another hair.

I know how he’ll unfurl.
He will build empires.
He will populate the earth.
He will feed multitudes.
He will shower the land with dollar bills.
Then: a modest monument, a humble knighthood,
a self-commissioned portrait hanging in the hallway. 

But let’s keep this a secret
or he’ll never get over himself.

Jas Shenstone

November 5, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

Jas writes short fiction, poetry, plays and has just finished her second novel. Her stories have appeared in various journals, including Verity La where she now reads submissions. She lives in Fremantle with her partner and dog.

String

I want to stretch my life onto a long piece of string, connected to nothing at either end. Every moment which has meant something will be cut and tied back together. I cut the string to signal the heart stopping, I tie it back together to show I am still alive. I have to cut it several times, here for when I realised your beauty, and here again when I realised my love. I’ll cut it when you come back to me, just like I did when you left.

The lesson of love and cigarettes

You tried to teach me how to roll a cigarette; I roll my own now with such ease that I forget it was you who taught me and only think of it once five years later. I remember sitting on your balcony, which we peered over in silent agony waiting for your girlfriend to arrive. You taught me ill-fated love. You taught me to make you gin and tonic while you begged your mind for any excuse to ask me to leave, and found none, and so I stayed and brought you the gin you drank so well. You taught me the game of love, the notion of winning and losing, and you were my first loss. You taught me secrets, how to keep them and how to confess them at the wrong time. You taught me to swallow love and burn desire. You taught me the power of a door—once closed—a lover can never enter. You tried to teach me how to roll a cigarette. I roll my own now and think of you, but just this once and not again for another five years.

Winter

Suddenly the night air
laid down its arms
and allowed the cold to take over.  
And as we entered the street
we were struck with the unmoving chill
that stood waiting on the pavement
and outside windows.
Our bodies shrivelled like leaves
and we caught our breath warm in our throats.
At your house the cold was forgotten.
The frosted street lamps,
the wet grass,
our frozen breath
—forgotten.

Diane Sahms-Guarnieri

November 5, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

DianeSahms-Guarnieri is currently Poetry Editor of The Fox Chase Review, and co-curates The Fox Chase Reading Series. Her first full length collection of poetry, Images of Being, (StoneGarden.net publishing) was released October 2011. You can visit her at http://www.dianesahms-guarnieri.com/

Aluminum

Unnoticed as flowers dying
or slugs crawling 

they pass as divers into liquid night
mysterious as the sick yellow glow 

of hazy streetlights, using a perfect
stream of blue laser light to shine into 

a line of curbside recycling bins.
They mine aluminum. 

It’s faint rattle wakes me
like raccoons stirring inside dumpsters.

From the distance of my bedroom window
they are of small statue; dressed in darkness

a mismatched pair: jack of spades: queen of clubs
placing each can into bundles

of plastic handled bags to muffle the sound
filling their stolen shopping carts

rolling out of sight.

John Tranter

November 5, 2012 / mascara / 0 Comments

 John Tranter is Australia’s most highly-awarded poet. His book Urban Myths: 210 Poems: New and Selected (2006) won four major state awards, and his latest book, Starlight: 150 Poems (2010), won the Melbourne Age Book of the Year poetry award and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Poetry. He received a Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong and is an Honorary Associate in the University of Sydney School of Letters, Arts and Media and an honorary fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He has given more than a hundred readings and talks in various cities around the world. He has published more than twenty collections of verse, and has edited six anthologies, including The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry (with Philip Mead) which was a standard text for twenty years. He founded the free Internet magazine Jacket in 1997 and granted it to the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, he is the founder of the Australian Poetry Library at http://poetrylibrary.edu.au/ which publishes over 40,000 Australian poems online, and he has a Journal at johntranter.net, a regular Commentary page at https://jacket2.org/commentary/john-tranter and a vast homepage at johntranter.com.

Photogaph: John Tranter, Cambridge, 2001, by Karlien van den Beukel

Poem Beginning with a Line by Kenneth Koch

This Connecticut landscape would have pleased Vermeer:
The pearly light that photographs the town,
The autumn blessing and the bitter cheer
of winter close behind, with frosty crown.
The weekender lies abandoned for the week,
the den and sunroom vacant. On a couch,
the New Yorker open at a page that speaks
of Aquascutum, Harris Tweed and scotch.   

O Aquascutum, shield me from the blast,
And Harris Tweed, protect me from the cold.
As for scotch, let’s leave it till the last
To warm my aching bones as I grow old.
     Vermeer, to please his mistress, heard her sighs,
     And painted pretty landscapes full of lies.

Another Poem Beginning with a Line by Kenneth Koch

This Connecticut landscape would have pleased Vermeer —
The trash, the pickup truck, the cans of beer —
If only Vermeer hadn’t been such a shit.
Oh well, it’s hard for an artist to paint a hit — 
To make the cut, to climb the greasy grade,
To make a real impression on the trade —
It’s really hard, when you’re totally pissed.
It isn’t easy, when you’ve slit your wrist. 

So fuck Connecticut and fuck Vermeer —
Who is this Dutchman with his can of cheer?
I’d rather look at Guston, or some Pollocks —
Who cares if the theory’s mostly bollocks?
     The landscape is really just a frame
     For something that just sat there all the same.