Nathan Curnow

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Nathan Curnow’s latest collection, The Ghost Poetry Project (Puncher & Wattmann), is based upon his stays at ten haunted sites around the country.  He has featured widely on ABC and with further assistance from the Australia Council is writing a new play based upon convict stories and escape myths.   

www.ncurnow.blogspot.com

Sails and Anvils

Travelling to Australia’s most ‘haunted’ house

Upon arrival I will be the working poet cocked

for inspiration, directing my hosts with a pen’s arrow

from the signs of my splitting headache.  Inside

the plane the cabin of my head is rocked by

turbulence.  Great sails and anvils are bright

arctic pages, the story of a doomed expedition. 

This is the lesson—do not stay with poets

the night before flying out, drinking ensues

and they just want to have sex or complain

about their rejections.  I left them moaning,

friends of mine, making love like friends,

bearing all but their vocabularies, competing

in wild noises.  Aren’t we all falling, our egos

packed with a plastic whistle to draw attention?

If the plane lands safely there is a rental car

waiting, some compartment I can crash in. 

Another brittle booth, certain to betray me

when the impact finally comes.  I am cranky

this morning, hurtling toward the chapter of

my decline.  But with a pen and a pose I go

to work as if spirited by questions of ‘soul’.

I just want to get off.  Go, get fucked. 

We are turning into cloud.

Love Note On Serviette

Inspired by an account of the ‘prisoner’ who in 1899 threw a love poem

weighted by a stone over the wall of the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum.

my own fond love
this portion find your path
I feel myself beyond myself
am able to choose this rock
to traffic these words
put your cold on me
gazing forever upward
throw me something
I love you I love you
lavender is making sense

notice the rocks
I have practiced this
promise me yourself
I found a secret passage
beneath the Peppercorn trees
it is forbidden by the Pope
instead he blessed me
with a hole in the wall
I have imagined
that you wave
 
much like you throw
throw me something
be my gracious garden
your voice climbs over
a lavender ladder
do you want to
hear me breathing
I am feeling myself
the stiff sin of a sinner
the Pope is always watching

The Frame Around Us  

Following my night in a ‘haunted’ hearse

again my weight on the edge of your bed,

words fall like empty shells, your ticking clock is

Pinocchio’s face, hands point to always speak the truth

my up-late brainteaser, I beg you to tell me

but your body is a ruthless mime, signalling all 

that you refuse to say, scared the words will turn to flesh  

a shrug of your shoulders, you are locked,

it is late, I am so tired of this coming and going,

one day I will tell you of this grand adventure, what it did

and did not achieve, these long road-trips,

a night in a hearse cocooned in my sleeping bag,

I saw shadows spill over the ceiling’s canvas, slide off

above my head, slowly at first, each one fell

the way I have become my poems, retreated to

my cluttered desk, I am disappointing to meet in person

stranded by language, designed for answers,

neat squares on a page of black, filling the boxes

with crude solutions, revising, we are grubby crosswords

down and across, the hands of your clock

trim away the night, as if time decides the rules

of the puzzle, keeps changing the frame around us 

just lie down, we are safe for now,

it takes more than courage and words, waiting

to tell you of all I have seen, tonight I will not budge

(These poems are published in The Ghost Poetry Project, Puncher and Wattmann, 2009)  http://www.puncherandwattmann.com/pwghost.html

Kirk Marshall

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

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.com/redleaveskoyo). His debut short-story collection, “Carnivalesque, And: Other Stories”, will be published by Black Rider Press in 2010.

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.

Omar Musa

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Omar Musa “Hemingway” (Dir: Tom Spiers) from MRTVIDZ on Vimeo.

Omar Musa is the 2008 Australian Poetry Slam champion. A rapper and hip-hop artist, he counts amongst his experiences having swum with piranhas and alligators in Bolivia and teaching Aboriginal children in outback Australia. The Malaysian-Australian baritone has backpacked almost every continent and has a treasure-trove of stories to tell. Raised in the orange brick flats of Queanbeyan, Australia as part of an artistic family, the 25-year old says he wants to “introduce a new level of poetry to Australian hip-hop.”

Musa was a winner of the prestigious British Council’s Realise Your Dream award in 2007 and relocated to London to work in the UK hip-hop scene with grime star Akala and slam poet Jahnell. He has been played on Triple J and has recorded with J Records band 2AM Club in Los Angeles. He recorded his debut The Massive EP with veteran producer Geoff Stanfield in Seattle, USA, of whom he says “I finally felt as if I had found the perfect sound to compliment my lyrics.”

“It is a strange animal of an EP,” says Musa. “Written in London, recorded in the States by a Malaysian-Australian, it definitely has an original feel.”  Navigating between underground hip-hop and mainstage performance poetry, Musa’s work is unique.

Musa’s first poetry collection The Clocks was launched at this year’s Ubud Writers’ Festival.

Brooke Linford

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Brooke Linford was co-editor of Egg(Poetry) from 2002-2006. Her work has appeared in several Australian publications. Brooke currently lives in Victoria where she works in Administration and studies Italian.

Fifteen

I loved you at fifteen

days of green cordial

nights of coconut ice

you understood me

or fooled me well

we stole garden statues

drank warm beer by the river

coloured our hair for $3.50

you’re covered in scars now

I’ve heard

and I know

you could never love me

the way you did at fifteen

Motel

I’m barely here

restrained

and untouching

tucking holidays

into the gaps

with irrational insistence

can I love you more

than that

more

than any frantic grab

at poise

at calm

I can love you more

than that

screened windows

and borrowed sheets

tucked into your arm

with a $3 dinner

I don’t care what’s on

any movie

in any room

with any view

Taste

there are books spread out
a circle of love and heartache – slowly
a drop of red pools
on my top lip

I notice in the mirror how tired
my eyes are
tugging the curls from my hair

I translate
halting
using my fingers
using my tongue to taste the difference

mio marito abita con me
mio marito abita con me

Julie Chevalier

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Julie Chevalier is a Sydney poet and short story writer.  Her work appears in Antipodes, BlueDog, Famous Reporter, Island, Meanjin, Overland, snorkel, and Southerly.  

Women of Antiquity 2002 was joint runner-up for the Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets, 2008.  A Cylinder for the Tree Trunk won the National Short Story Competition 2009 run by the Society of Women Writers NSW.

She teaches at NSW Writers’ Centre, South Coast Writers’ Centre and Sydney WEA.

the airport curfew ends at 06:00

05:30.   attic skylights, braced

against dark and rain, admit soundwaves.

commuters are driving to the cbd,

their highway drone like planes idling. 

the blanketing hum turns to roar;

my stomach clenches.

double insulation lines the roof, but,

at 06:00 hours, planes abrade the 8/8 cloud cover

low hovering lights penetrate fog.

once, at a no airport noise rally

i marched with stentorian garbage trucks,

now they’re mustering bins

at the curb, as my alarm whoops it up

with some bird’s deet deet deet

and a van rumbling in the lane.

the western distributor drums

its all-weather thunder

and again i try to sleep

Jal Nicholl

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Jal Nicholl’s poetry has appeared in Retort Magazine, Stylus Poetry, Famous Reporter, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, The Diagram and Shampoo Poetry.

Prelude

Conjecture what his studies were that year:

to ride a pony led by the harness

was far the largest part of his tuition.

Conjecture how he gathered in

the blackberry harvest; through what conceit

sucking, as he went, the juice of recognition.

Conjecture it was a rented domain¾

weevils in the grain-chute, dry vats in the dairy;

still, rule at that time was by divine commission.

On the Demolition of an Inner-City Housing-Estate

A discontinued pylon waves

Steel tendons that anneal

A stump that won’t let go the earth.

And, strange to say, that steel

Calls to my mind the tentacles

An invertebrate puts forth—

And thus, seemingly, on the sea

To again submerge the earth.

And the fact is there’s little here

But suffers a sea-change,

And turns to something rich—though far

From positively strange.

Ah! No more arguments by night

Over bail or heroin:

Pigeons and poverty alike

Have left on tattered wing.

***

And I will put my things away

As well, and throw away

All that I can of my life till now,

And set up house and stay

Where car-lots, fast-food and store-outlets

Are unevenly strewn

In clumps, like ethnic diasporas.

I’ll learn to live alone—

But still remain dissatisfied

As with a kiss on the cheek,

With the only answer you could give

To one who, for the sake

Of more than you acknowledge asks

Again: is my worth greater

Than my wages, the same, or less?

That you were of the latter

View then was clear, although you claimed

No answer could be found

To a question that—could I not see?

Was patently unsound.

Evening Piece (After Houellebecq)

Outside the shopping centre

A crowd is on the boil;

A crippled pigeon doesn’t ask

Whose tyger, or why so cruel,

But seeks the gutter; while, nearby,

A beggar holds his sign, and bears

The foreign students’ chatter

As saints submit to jeers.

I make my way down Swanston St.,

Passing electric signs

That point pseudo-erotically

Down stairs and back-lanes.

Oh, hi, It’s Adeline;

I make my excuse, and hear catcalls

Directed at a Doric-skirted

Pair of school-age girls.

The economy flourishes;

I try to breathe—my chest grows tighter;

And you will not appear.

I still love you, Rita.

Dona Samson Zappone

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Dona was born in Malaysia of Sri Lankan parents. She migrated to Australia in 1981. Her work has appeared in Poetry Without Borders, Sun and Sleet Zinewest, Reunion WEA Poetry Project, Auburn Letters Zinewest, She has exhibited her artworks and design, and has a short film and a play to her credit.

Muddy River (Malaysia)

Anne M Carson

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Anne M Carson is a Melbourne writer who is most happy immersed in creative projects.  She gave up social work to write, teach and produce visual art.  Her prose and poetry have been featured on local and National Radio and she has curated two PoeticA programmes on Radio National.  She has been published in a range of literary journals and anthologies including Best Australian Poems, 2005.  

The Hearse

All around us rude life swirls.  Our guests

mill in the vestibule, spill onto the footpath,

sharing grief and reminiscence.  No-one notices

the hearse pull out from the curb, the lead man’s

measured pace.  The air holds its breath –

an undercurrent shivers out like an eddy

stirring just a handful of leaves.  It brushes

my mind, prickling.  My sister notices too. 

The sky like a lid on a box, lowers.  Underfoot,

the bluestone is hard.  Death has us in a press. 

We turn in slow synchronicity, each sealed

in our own sling of sorrow.  Time opens,

draws us into a pocket of pain and departure. 

We watch the hearse move away with our father’s

unaccompanied body.  Around us, inside us,

molecules rearrange, adjust to his dying. 

Green Is The Colour

Wilson’s Prom 2009

Roberta Lowing

January 1, 2011 / mascara / 0 Comments

Roberta Lowing recently graduated with a Master Of Letters from the University of Sydney. Her poetry has appeared in Meanjin, Blue Dog, and Overland journals. For the past four years she has run the monthly PoetryUnLimited Press Poetry Readings and Open Mic Competitions in Sydney. In 2007, she edited PULP’s Ilumina Journal.

North

The past is only just now reaching us
and the last perfect place of exile

is another gateway to the dead

Even when we smelled the blackened hands

of the officials abandoning the capsized tanker

we kept applauding those who cut arteries of rock

and severed the ocean’s silver-scaled veins

We lived at the heart of the crystal

surrounded by ice roses and frosted fossils

we thought we could merely open another door to another north

and the devil would rush by

When the shadows appeared out of that first bruise-coloured dusk

(bird-shaped, seal-shaped) we didn’t listen to the cracking

from the battles of past winters     we didn’t realize

our black pages would never be white again

As the graveyard pools washed up on shore

our cliffs were reduced to midnight silhouettes

tendrils of shotgun smoke froze above the slumped bodies

ropes hung rigid from wooden beams in the boat houses

In other places

the land is knocked down by noisy winds

or it murmurs in resignation

as it swells into blurriness after the winter storms

Places that die every winter

are revived by the returning sun

but in Cordova Alaska

there are no new beginnings

We must stand glistening like chandeliers

crystal knots of tears on our cheeks

as the snow

falls burning on our hands

The Country Behind Us

Strangers who drove through Badourie in 1938

must have thought the war already happened: 

the bomb to end all bombs had bitten into the flat plain

and hissed out a grey wind, red around the edges.

It must have been more than the sun that bleached

the splitting fences and the cattle ribs that hugged the fissures,

chiselled out the wooden blades of the windmill

so it frowned, gap-toothed, over

the crumbling wattle-and-daub houses, the absence

of children staring from doorways, dogs

rolling their tufted yellow bellies

into the cleft shadow of the rotting porch.

In bullock-breath weather,

the ice gripping the wooden teeth clicks

as it turns under a sky as thin and white

as chalk smeared by a falling hand,

the birds remain blurs on the horizon,

the ground leans away to the summoned faces.

The windmill grimaces as the days descend

with their hammers of sun.   

Neda

you lie on your back

 in your jeans and headscarf

on your new bed of blue asphalt and red lace

when I rock the developing tray

your arms flail through the wet yellow smoke

under the crimson globe

lapping water is the only sound in my darkroom

but your world reverberates

with beating garbage tin lids

defiant cries from rooftops  

the soft hiss as the air divides

for stones flung by desperate students

we are satellites apart – the chemical smell

that bites my nostrils comes from your world –

but as I place the tongs over your heart

it seems we are the ones running through smoke

chased by razor-wielding men

in black helmets on black unmarked motorbikes

my hands are still

but you keep moving

sending out your indissoluble ripples