States of Poetry Poems
'Love and Tradition' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
for Aunty Nancy Bamaga
rising sea
takes and
breaks into backyards
to trouble families
we cannot live
with the seas in our bellies
we cannot rest
with the sea at our legs
the tide
is coming
to stroke
our dead
we want to know
who unplugged
our island
of childhood
island
of love and tr ...
Can I say
white people really bore me sometimes
to be exact
I grow tired with what's unmentioned
idling in surf club bathrooms
nothing wrong with the chips
but they're talking about Tasmania
my thoughts haunted by islands
maybe I'm dying
I've too many chips
teeth like stones
take me to be flossed
and cleaned
I need new soles
...
No name or rank supplied
We’re looking down the barrel of
a.303 Lee Enfield,
standard issue through until
the early 1960s.
The others in the firing squad
have all been cropped away, it seems.
He is an officer, we think –
that small, smart cap betrays him.
His hair’s well-trimmed and business-like;
he seems somehow unduly clea ...
'Buffalo Milk' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
Suck until you burn the room
and the heat numbs
reduced to a sound
wet
like the come and go
of the ocean
water enters
my hand in your hair
my hand
if you leave me childless
this will be yours alone
these marks you make
openings, persuasions
of the woman I will become
Ellen van Neerven
'Bricks and Lightning' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
It seems I'm always walking
into the scene of a crime
moustached copper
and fuck-off tape
don't look too closely
you won't be able to sleep
I'm new to this building
I live now by the river where
the ducks look like shoes
in the water
I go to the department store
we used to frequent
I look at grocery receipts
to see how I'm saving< ...
The ground felt like it did when it's about to storm. My feet were brown and my big toe blistered. My grandmother was talking to my grandfather. A wet patch on my grandmother's back. Her hands roping those tails along the fence.
She turned to me and I saw her. Grey. A little heavy. Everything I came here for. A magpie flew lower.
Ellen van Neer ...
'the notebooks of Mr & Mrs Emeritus' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
ironing the crease into her lung with your breath
the six words in end steam over blue charcoal in her eye
your hands arrive in separate envelopes on different days
and they are addressed to each other
even the earth in its eyedropper is not medicine to our mouths
it's the milk dispensed through holes in a flute that keeps us alive
Mr & Mrs Emeritus ...
'statements to forget when remembered' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
no one ha
s ever written
there is no gr
eater poem
than this one
no one ha
s ever written
there is no gr
eater poem
then this one
this poe ...
Patriotism
‘... the last refuge of a scoundrel’.
Samuel Johnson
But here and there a whisk of it
does no essential harm:
an accidental win or t ...
