Issue 4
November 2025
BRIAN ADAMS
My Leeward Island
A late Friday afternoon
Balmy as usual
The Trade Wind
Has subsided
To a gentle breeze
I’m sitting
On my rickety balcony
Rum lime and soda in hand
Mount Gay of course
Dead fag in the other
I think of lighting-up a joint
Heady island Ganja
But I’m already
Off my head
Thanks to my garden
A profusion of colour and scent
Grevillia
Hibiscus
Oleander
And more
A Hummingbird
Hovers back and forth
Before a crimson trumpet
Sipping its nectar
Erotically
I fall asleep
Contentedly
And dream
Erotically
And dream
When I awake
It is dusk
Monkeys frolic
In the banana palms
Below
From the kitchen
I smell cooking
Flying Fish
Garlic and Breadfruit
And Okra
My last novel
Has sold well
So I can afford a cook
Black Beauty
Platonic of course
But her bosom stirs me
Even though
I’m getting-on a bit
More likely
On-the-way-out
From the village below
A steel drum band
Fires-up
Limbo time
The bar solid
Reggae
Bob Marley
Calypso
Harry Belafonte
My Island in the Sun
As I look West
Over the Caribbean Sea
The Sun
Dips below the horizon
Green flash
Another rum
Before dinner
Then dessert
Black Beauty
Maybe
Brian Adams aka Aramis is a novice poet with the North Shore Poetry Collective. Born in England during WW2 before emigrating to Australia, he writes mainly prose, generally of a social commentary nature, sometimes philosophically.And also has a go at memoirs and nonsense.
CHARLES MURRAY
I Believe
We can be gods, not divine gods
But gods of love and adoration,
The mortal kind;
Bound by what we breathe,
And always with loving hearts,
There should be no dominions…
The whole of our lives
Will be as a confession
In search of the grace
Of forgiveness;
We will all be gods, not divine gods
But gods of kindness and compassion
Bound only by the breadth of our embrace,
Our humanity;
Then, there will be no dominions...
Let’s Share A Shawl
Let’s share a shawl and be as one in friendship,
arms about our shoulders as we go,
uniting hearts and minds to face the future,
respecting all diversity we know.
Let’s accept the bounds of human limitation,
resolve to be compassionate and share;
for all the given weakness in each other
is but our nature’s way to teach us care.
Let’s step outside the comfort of our having,
to recognize the need in others’ lives;
the hunger and the war-torn dislocation,
the culture where withoutness grows and thrives.
Let’s break the mould which drives the cruel exclusion
of the poor and stateless knocking at our door,
let’s gift the sanctuary of home and gentle mercy,
the blessing to be here on Freedom’s Shore.
Funambulating…A Balancing Act
I need to say I see the sure offensive, the way you look at life, its view of me,
and lifting me to peril on life’s tightrope, the madness in the act of being free.
I am up here now observing all the danger and feel eternity beneath my feet,
I’m stripped of cover and my soul is naked as I step out on the wire of
bittersweet.
Must focus as I challenge this last venture and gird my rattled courage as I go,
keeping sense aware for deadly windshear as the optics note what’s happening
below.
There is no safety net for consolation, just the space between old history and me
and straight ahead the object of the journey, that sacred place which breathes
Serenity.
While down below the pachyderms of presence trumpet an existence for their
sake;
reminding me of all the rooms they hid in and my unacknowledged trailing of
their wake.
The reconciled, the lost, the unforgiven, all cry a place of notice and acclaim,
buffeting and flailing at my balance demanding an acknowledgement and name.
How precarious the journey ‘cross this chasm and faltering the step weighed
with regret;
the futile hope that maybe during passage my elephants won’t remember and
forget!
Charles Murray has lived on Sydney's Upper North Shore for over 45 years and was an active, invested contributor member of The North Shore Poetry Project during its currency and is a founder member of The North Shore Poetry Collective.
SARNIE HAY
Danse Macabre Beckons
That hat in the faded photo
she’d only worn it once before
to the picnic races
It cost almost a month’s wages
What was she thinking?
I fancy it was a sign of the times
Remember, it was the sixties
hems lifted, spirits free—
wistful dreams of peace
Her face leans towards the lens
in the same way a sunflower tilts to the sun
her whole life before her
The camera once her friend
now regards her with a foot tapping
indifference—I see her in the mirror
looking back at me with curiosity,
like pixels in the opacity of the nearly forgotten
And I know where this is heading—
lead on Danse Macabre
Heaven Doesn’t Come With A Map
Where will it take us
this slice of heaven
winding its way
past our bedroom window
Cockatoos unwinding behind
their heads radiant with
sulphur-crested halos
They stumble on winters
slippery branches—
breaking off buds
that will never bloom
You kiss me lightly
on the cheek
Puppets of the Gods
you whisper in a husky voice
I’m floating on Magrittean clouds
but where do we go
from here, lover
if buds can’t bloom
in spring
My Old Friend
At the closing of the curtains
you emerge, lolloping down the hallway
of the good old used-to-be’s
to sit lightly at my slippered feet—
memories tapping across the keyboard
while I try to make you immortal
Among the Gilgamesh-like fragments
you sprawl on the midnight edit,
ears pricked for undo typing skirmishes
Lordly in appearance, awesome to perfection
two thirds human, one third Great Dane
with the strength of a mighty meteorite
A gentle giant, constantly inquisitive
you paw at my grammatical inflections
set to tackle any melancholy footnotes
Sarnie’s poems have appeared in The Intimacy of Strangers, Poetry Matters and Starbeck Orion UK. In 2023 she released her book of poems Rusty Nails and Goddesses. Currently, she coordinates the North Shore Poetry Collective, a group of established and local poets meeting at the Willoughby pub for memorable fortnightly workshops.
HELEN BERSTEN
Water and Clouds
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now- Joni Mitchell
Three days of water and clouds
Burning sunsets and cooling rain
Crashing waves and churning water
Till I turn inward once again.
I walk the cliffs from Bondi to Tamarama
Watch the ocean swell and subside
See it anew through sculptured forms
which clouds above can’t hide.
I walk the beach from Wanda to Cronulla
See the sandhills in the heavy noon
See the young girls lost forever*
and the woman gone too soon. **
I cruise along the Hawkesbury River
Flowing rhythmically with the tide
See small jetties by the water’s edge
See the sky, cloud-free and wide.
The waves re-form, the clouds re-group
The sky turns gold then red then pink.
Nothing is constant – but it remains
Still there, until I blink.
*January 1965. Bodies of 15 year-olds discovered in sandhills at Wanda Beach.
**Death of 49 year old friend Leeanne.
Ghazal: The Muezzin’s Call
From the dusty streets of Kolkata I catch the lilt of the muezzin’s call
I tilt my head in the musty dawn - a snatch of the muezzin’s call.
Like falling mist, the mournful twist of this ancient song
Sends echoes from the garden patch at the muezzin’s call.
Rich, and beggars alike, walk softly to their holy mosque
Rivers of voices flow as they match the muezzin’s call.
The summer air has a sweet smell of ripening fruit and flowers
It’s said that even birds and bees can hatch to the muezzin’s call.
Only peace should be called for in this beautiful way
“Allah u Akbar, Akbar” is the latch to the muezzin’s call.
Helen has been writing sporadically for over 60 years – mostly poetry and short stories. She has been included in the North Shore Poetry Project anthologies as well as The Lawson Room magazine and recently had some poems included in The Starbeck Orion UK. She has also braved the Don Bank live readings. She is an avid writer of letters to newspapers and enjoys solving crosswords and online jigsaw puzzles. Professionally, she is a trained librarian and has been a volunteer reader for Radio 2RPH for 20 years. She lives in Lindfield.
MARILYN HUMBERT
Schism
the river divides
your space and mine
where currents undercut the bank
ripples hide the undertow.
our words erupt freestyle
across the water and tangle
in river gum branches
like giant birds upside down
wings spread, beaks snapping
block a way forward.
on opposite banks
our footprints in the muddy edge.
I watch as you shrink away
my voice diminishes to a whisper.
(First Published Poetry d’Amour Love Anthology 2025)
Marilyn Humbert lives on Darug and GuriNgai land in Berowra, NSW Australia. Her tanka and haiku appear in many International, Australian journals, anthologies and online. She is a member of the editing team for Echidna Tracks - Australian Haiku Journal. Her free verse poems have been awarded prizes in competitions, published in anthologies, journals and online.
HENRI METCALFE
Transit of Venus
A fleeting glimpse
Into a passing train
And your heart is in torment
To see her again
Her golden hair flowing
Covers one breast
Her other breast hid by her hand
Unlocked from marble
Her skin alabaster
Inside the carriage she stands
The cabin is empty
Save for the moon
Which flickers across the frayed light
Where sunlight once played
Now threadbare and tattered
The transit of Venus has captured your night
Unadorned and unguarded
Unwrapped from above
The mere hint of her beauty
Moves you to love
As sometimes soft footsteps
You might hear down the hall
Maybe a whisper you can’t quite recall
There lingers a memory
Of her sweet siren call
And a trace of her perfume
Which echoes the rose
As you reach out towards her
Before sliding doors close
The Painted Lady
Ebony dreams
Your heart dismisses
A haunting shadow
Veiled by moonlight
Her lips of fire
And scarlet kisses
Are all you have left
The painted lady of the night
Struts down easy street
Smiling silver dollar smiles
Golden chains around her feet
And all the stage door Jonnies
Dressed in self conceit
Are hungry for the fruits of love
They know taste bitter sweet
Like a lion on heat
He’s prowling the street
While she waits under a lamp light
It’s always touch and go
With every Romeo
And the painted lady of the night
Hear my voice
See my face
Call my name
Know my love
El Gato De Schrodinger
Is the cat in the box?
Is he wearing red socks?
Is he wearing a hat?
Is he chasing a rat?
Is he alive?
Is he dead?
Is he really inside?
Or is he out of his head?
Is he coming or going
When alarms start to ring?
Or is he roaming the quantum
On the end of a string?
Is he hiding in the alley
Neither alive or playing dead?
But in the end the cats gonna get it
Just like Schrodinger said
Henri Metcalfe is a retired English teacher who lives, works and studies in the Cammereygal region of Sydney. Her interests include writing, everything Shakespeare, studying mysticism, and meeting friends for coffee. The first poem to have a profound effect on Henri was "The Forsaken Merman" by Matthew Arnold, read to her by her older sister. She was about five years old, yet something awakened in her which she could not articulate at the time, but she recognised as deeply important. This poem of longing and pain spoke directly to her emotions awakening her sympathy for the impossibility of this love and heartfelt loss as well as curiosity and confusion about the subject matter. In retrospect the confluence of rhyme, rhythm, biblical references, mythic resonances and deep emotion were yet to be analysed and absorbed, nevertheless Henri’s abiding love of poetry was born that day.
LINDA NEWCOMB
The Search
I have sought me for so long
Down long beaches
Scrambling over rocks
Diving in the ocean
Shaking at the edge
of dizzy heights – hands gripping the rail
I have seen glimpses
In relatives’ faces
In loved ones’ eyes
In soft giggles, smiles
Indifferent shrugs and tight-lipped gestures
These fleet-footed moments pass
A Crossover in Thoughts
Lost in thoughts
Circling like sharks
Seeking to feast now
Upon my confusion.
As yet nothing surfaces
No bright inspiration
To settle my mind
Or cross to acceptance.
Random criss-cross in patterns
Grown over with weeds
Ideas flicker through brain
Useful concepts accepted.
Thoughts start to converge
Pen and paper are found
Mind stirs into action
The hand guided now.
Take the Time
We should try to take the time
To closely watch the nature world
Or study ants replete with crumbs
And little lizards in sunshine.
To simplify, to listen, to hear
The sounds of crickets in the night
Or whistling birds and purring cats
And children’s energetic screams.
We shut our mouths, refuse to take
The time to say “hello” to you
Or smile and wave and chat
And laugh and care enough to pause.
So, city-dweller watch your step
Tomorrow you may soon forget
The smell of grass, the feel of rain
And power of a pleasant smile.
Observe – look around you – rejoice
Linda Newcomb retired in 2022 from working with Lifeline in various roles including as a Clinical Counsellor. Prior to this, education was her focus, first as an English and History teacher, then as a vocational educator, and finally in tertiary education as a teaching and learning consultant at university specialising in supporting postgraduate students from non-English speaking backgrounds in their understanding of academic writing. She now pursues her love of poetry and writing picking up from her interest years ago. She is guided by her belief that “What you are is God’s Gift to you, what you become is your gift to God” (Hans Urs von Balthasar 1905 – 1988 and 20th century Theologian.)
OORMILA V. PRAHLAD
Blue bardo: a zuihitsu
3:00 a.m. My eyeballs burn.
I stare at the ceiling thinking
of the Hope Diamond.
The lab-grown stones in my jewelry box are benign—
the color of lagoons, of cast-off identities.
Not precious like hope or nursing curses.
Just a reminder of my unholiness.
The blue-winged parakeets come to life in the portia trees at dawn.
Her last breath escapes her nostrils. The body begins its steady forgetting.
What I remember most clearly are her lips. How death always begins at the cupid’s bow.
How the pallor spills over her wrinkles
like a fountain—
a gurgle of grey.
I slip out the window and tiptoe to the rock pools in the moonlight.
A scorpion joins me at its edge, its jaws studded with dew.
I gather blue lotuses. Hymns pollinate the air.
Water freeze in jagged lines
like a smashed mirror.
Seven years of misfortune follow.
When I was seven, my friend invited me home to see his new Siamese fighting fish.
It swirled around the Java moss like a glamorous alien,
fanning its skirt of cornflower tulle,
the undisputed emperor of the five foot tank.
Then someone gave him a pair of guppies for his birthday.
He slipped it into the aquarium.
Minutes later the tank became a graveyard of scales.
In my last memory of her, she is crushing saskatoon berries in a fruit press.
Pectin, sugar, cinnamon, and water come to a sputtering boil.
Her jam is lustrous—inky and full-bodied
with an after taste of almonds.
At a dollar store in the city, I buy a tube of grey-blue paint.
Frost Blue.
The color of lifeless lips.
A birthmark ripples down my right arm, shoulder to elbow
in a ribbon of jam-packed pixels.
In my origin story, I imagine myself as an extra-terrestrial
stamped with the map of a distant dust cloud. The Butterfly Nebula.
A fortune teller once told me it is an imprint from a past life. A reptilian one.
I begin to hear hissing in astral projections.
I worry I am becoming cold-blooded.
Once, in winter, I stood outside a stone igloo—
a temple housing the origin of a sacred river in the Himalayas.
No one tells you how sugary and pearlescent snow is in the sun.
How it makes a whole valley convulse into existence.
How the ice drip feeds the river new corpuscles.
How everything becomes a mountain of light.
I was taught to count using an abacus.
Numbers grew steadily nebulous.
Someday, when I have a daughter,
I will teach her to count in morpho butterflies.
On the ultrasound, the mulberry is suspiciously still.
It hangs like a weighted comma in the star-studded static.
There is no viable heartbeat.
There is no way to sugarcoat this.
She used to tell me I was the Kohinoor when I smiled. Come on, peel your lips back fully, my love.
A good smile must tingle your ears. Your laughter must sound like xylophones.
I am not allowed to be sad. Blue is inauspicious—both as colour and feeling.
We always smile.
The women in our family always smile.
No matter what happens to us.
The scorpion sting on my skin is raised in copper sulfate rings.
The tincture in the vial grows cloudy as I dress my bruises in flowers—Viper’s bugloss.
6:00 a.m. Dawn streaks the east in blue diamonds.
I think of the artist who leapt into the void:
At first there is nothing, then there is a profound nothingness, after that a blue profundity.*
*quote by Yves Klein
( First published in The West Trestle Review, October 2025.)
The oil stain
When you fry sardines
the whole world will know,
my mother would say,
seated at the kitchen table.
She rubbed the fish
with chili paste,
silver skins sparkling,
as they crackled like fireworks
in the blazing vat.
Oil splattered in amber spots
she never wiped away.
People often complain
about the stench of sardines,
but I never found it repulsive.
Never thought of them
as fertiliser for trees either.
What the neighbours used
for garden compost,
I saw as sustenance—
delicious salvation
served on a plate.
It was the year of the war.
Mother called it
the year of the eclipse
the year of the wandering feet,
the year of flames and ash.
But, misfortune was no match
for my mother’s grit.
She gathered our restless souls
and folded us
in warmth at the kitchen table—
a mahogany bench,
on which she served
the same humble meal,
night after night:
green beans, yogurt
and sardines on rice—
each dish
infused with faith,
and the hope
that we might rise
from the trenches of strife
That we might find
stable ground again.
And slowly, the shadows yielded to light.
Bad times faded
as our wheel of fortune
creaked and turned
and brighter days returned.
And now, all these years later
what I still remember
is my mother at that kitchen table—
seated at the mahogany bench
from the year of the war
the year of the eclipse
the year of the wandering feet,
how that table glowed
like an apparition,
like an altar of sacred communion,
with its green beans, yogurt
and fried sardines
shimmering in a plate of bronze,
how I once toppled the fish
and a puddle of oil
splashed onto the wood
in the shape of a fluttering pool
seeping deep
like a prayer,
like a blessing,
like a hymn,
how that memory still lives
of that oil stain
on that kitchen table,
still warm, still holy
like my mother’s
fearless heart.
(Performed as a spoken word piece as part of a curated open mic at the Sydney launch of Padraig O’Tuama’s book, Kitchen Hymns. Published in The Red Eft Review 2025)
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is a widely published Indian-Australian artist and poet whose works have appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, The 2025 Grieve Anthology (Hunters Writers Centre), Black Bough Poetry (UK), The Salons and Poetry Sydney collaborations among others. She has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. The author of Patchwork Fugue (Atomic Bohemian Press, UK, 2024) and A Second Life in Eighty-eight Keys (micro-chap, winner of The Little Black Book Competition, Hedgehog Poetry Press, UK, 2024), she was awarded Runner-up in the 2025 Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship. Her second full-length collection is forthcoming from 5 Islands Press in 2026. She lives and works in Lindfield, on traditional Gammeragal land.
GRAHAM WOOD
Cricket Practice, Corfu
In this unexpected outfield
of colonial England, the pitch of dominion
crumbled long ago, though aspects
of its cultural remit linger.
Those bred to the flannel still play
weekend cricket by the town square,
catching tourists unaware.
Even mid-autumn Saturdays harbour
illusions of high summer, cricketers
gambolling on the green, practising
in the footsteps of those long gone,
the sun of their empire
refusing to set.
In Corfu this week-day afternoon,
high school kids under teacherly instruction
work at their bowling on the green.
I enjoy a beer, watching them
from the sidelines as I sit in café shade.
The best by far is a girl about fourteen
with a whip-smart action, all coiled strength
summoned perhaps from Olympian gods
but a little clumsy still, unperfected –
something unyielding to be grown into.
It springs though from hidden depths,
up the bounding line of leg and spine,
the ball carried unseen
until the moment before
she lets it go.
This young girl wouldn’t know
Jeff Thomson’s name of course,
but each step of hers echoes the god of fling
in full flight, unleashing his fearsome bursts.
With time and practice, she too like Thommo
might unsling, coil and crack
thunderbolts across her native turf,
plucking lightning from the earth.
(First published in the Books & Poetry section of IN DAILY, an online South Australian newspaper, on July 24, 2025.)
Graham Wood has had poems published in Australian and international anthologies and journals, and on poetry websites. His poetry collection Of Moments and Days and 5 earlier chapbooks were published by Ginninderra Press, Australia over 2021-2023. He is working on his next collection.
SUSAN GRANT
A Home in Gaza Friday 10th October 2025
you may close your ears, or avert your eyes
but don’t cover your mouth.
Today the sky is clear, soundless, without drones or bombs,
as both her feet join murmurations of refugees in return.
The air peppered with dust from rubble and those scrambling
over fallen concrete to seek out their home. It was here, or
was it there? Addresses no longer matter, the whole street
congealed in stones lying together covering the dead.
Feeling gently, she lays herself upon the slabs but none
of them are familiar. Her hands pluck at the piles to find …
to find a thing that meant this was her home,
maybe her unfinished embroidery
maybe a shard of the great bowl for salad
maybe a spoon to serve even now
maybe something of his, or hers, or his, or his or hers –
all members of her family who lived here once,
three generations together in talk, playing hide and seek,
touching skin, witness to each other’s lives.
Their remains linger in a space inside her.
She tries to remember hearing their voices
above the singing in her ears, not from song but
through residual screams, screeches of bombs, wounds,
and protests, the rattle of tins and crying pans,
all the false words, denials and hate in slogans.
Only, she, has returned from the genocide
carrying her world from camp to camp
listening and waiting, sitting in hospital,
the floors in blood of the living and the dead.
Her inner ear rings a toll for the days counted
between the beginning and the end
and into the after-silence to bear her life.
Can she see me stretch out my arm through the screen to hold her hand?
Martinsville Aubade
I
At dark, crickets and Eastern brown frogs choral
the creek deep into the hours when rain
strips the night, slides on lightening,
drums the tanks until daylight time is restored.
On the paddock where fog still sits in the morning,
a magpie stirs the breeze,
curls its path through a stand of
rainforest by the creek to reach the first rays of sun.
An old turpentine holds the slope, bark
still dark from the wet hints at magic,
branches flow through the air, some droop
in tiredness. Its pose holds my attention.
II
As the fog withers and colour comes into the sky,
I climb the hillock back to the house, where
rituals of our retreat begin; chapter reading,
meditation, qigong, some work, some roll over in
snugness.
Around the table we settle in kitchen talk—
thread ideas of being in the world— plan for
fossicking: blossom, fungi, boughs, ferns, skeletons,
buttonwood tepals, to inspire our work in the coming
days.
Down the road, autumn maples lose their green,
flame their pigments of iron,
rain, beads leaves ambivalent
about when to fall and crunch in their finite lives.
Even so, each leaf waits in longing to dance,
the wind obliges, pairs them in a waltz
pulsing in time, three step; one, two, three.
Dance cards are filled branch by branch.
III
All the cedars have gone from this place, deer roam
as pests, a tank has lost its rainwater,
jacarandas are not flourishing. But we set up
on tables inside the shed or house, work on our makings;
leaves pressed imprinted in ink, words folded into a book,
lines of architecture rendered in colour,
hatched lines, stag horn leaves in gouache,
and the beginnings of a murder of crows in paper mache,
blind drawings and tree trunks in filigree cloth. Above,
shrikes and falcons play. Ducks,
here on the dam call their friends
across the valley. Bellbirds respond inviting us to lunch.
The path we take over the creek is scattered with silver
pools, bordered by a swathe of flattened reeds.
Our boots reconcile with sticky mud, scuff debris
that lies on the bridge, testament to the flash flood.
Through strangler vines we enter a pasture
of moist soil, pudding rich, smells of
the soaking in last night’s rain; earthworms,
mites and larvae loosen its skin to breathe with the
sky.
Impermanence (Lets Go for a Walk)
our bodies no longer a thing of wild magic
— ‘Einstein’s Dream’, Alan Lightman
Take my arm, my dear. Let’s go for a walk,
a lap of honour around our garden
for it may be some time before we sit
together here again. Tell me the names
of your favourites; shrub, tree, perennial,
maybe an annual for now, given time.
See there, the wall of sasanquas we shaped.
Remember, your hands holding moist earth,
a spade, or fork to weed out blemishes.
What will we use now to time this season,
its body time, making it up in days
following the rhythm of our life — once
together— soon separated by fate.
Our tears too salty to water the blooms.
(First published in the exhibition Time Will Tell, The Incinerator Art Space, Sydney, 2022)
Susan Grant is a Sydney based poet and has been a member of the NSPC, Sydney, for the last eight years. Her work centers on the natural world, our being in the world through motifs of domestic life and relationships and travel. She writes mostly free verse, lyrical and haiku forms and has published a range of poems in art exhibitions and occasionally haiku. She has read at the NSPP Incinerator dinners, Brett Whitely Studio, Sappho, and has performed at art exhibitions in Gallery 109, Manly and The Incinerator Art Space, Willoughby.
CHRIS BRADSHAW
Spaces
I
Jacaranda fronds
frame shards of aqua sky
in filigree lace,
the gaps filtering sunlight
like stained glass
in an ancient place of prayer.
Living form is defined by spaces
that bring essence of being
into sharp relief,
deep-etch inner nature
with a delicate hand,
eliminate the peripheral
and illuminate the core.
II
Reach out with your senses
into the formless places
that surround you:
the lull between surging waves
in a powerful sea;
the aura of strength emanating
from a weathered cliff face;
the lustre of darkness
that enfolds celestial gems
set alight in the cosmos.
We too are made
from the stuff of stars,
vast atomic expanses
that fill the physical plane
with light years of the unknown.
But the pattern of self-similarity
has begun to replicate
in the distances that separate people,
unwilling to hear
what the spaces have to tell them.
III
How infinite the silence
from which sounds are born:
beating wings suspended
in a thermal glide;
music that leaves emotion hanging
on a trembling interval;
voices that say less
than the stillness between words;
the open listening
that can distil meaning
from a barely perceptible pause.
In the soft shadow of evening
there is a presence
flowing through the spaces,
connecting all that is.
I surrender to the timeless tide
and float in the ocean of the Now.
I can hear it in the peace
that lies submerged
between my heartbeats,
a gentle calm that sounds
the quiet depths of my soul.
Metamorphosis
Darkness surveys my still-life
through windows framed
by uncertain years;
breathing on the pane,
blurring the edges of sameness
like vaseline on a lens.
It beckons, and I step out
into the night dimension.
Restless boughs and skewed palings
mirror the state of my days;
ghost leaves glisten and thrum,
resonant with memories;
shadows like latticework
criss-cross garden beds,
cast in alien shapes
befitting another world.
I lift my face to the moon
and feel my feet
leave their mooring,
set free like thistledown
in a gulf-stream wind.
Drifting through reflected light,
I ebb and flow
on the lunar tide.
Luminous silver threads
draw me on
to seek the source
of this gentle shining.
The further out I travel,
the more I see within until,
looking back toward earth,
I discover that I am the dawn.
Chris Bradshaw has lived most of her life in Sydney and has worked in journalism, publications and education policy. Her published works include Silver Shadows - a book of her early poetry; a research work on her family’s post-World War 2 immigration to Australia; several social history programs broadcast on 2SER-FM; and Sisterly Musings – a book of poetry and prose co-written with her sisters. She continues to write and publish poems, short stories and children’s stories, though poetry remains her first love.