ABANDONED SPACE: THE POLICE STATION There is a riot beyond the chain-link fence bedding is scattered wildly about and the Sting, planned carefully by Nettle is out of control. Lassoing summer’s cold blue moon a Climber has gained the perimeter— wraps the barred windows about with trumpeting billows. They catch on hidden barbs like mouths, […]
Richard Sanger | INTO THE PARK
INTO THE PARK Into the park in late summer on your bike, the sudden cool of trees and shade, the breeze down the front of your shirt cool against your chest, linen billowing, a frisson tingling your nipples, as the afternoon heat lingering on the grass starts to retreat, the bike whirrs and into the […]
Michael Quilty | PREDICTIVE MESSAGING: CONCUSSION 22
PREDICTIVE MESSAGING: CONCUSSION 22 or “hidden disability” — for K. injured, i became inured — silent replies to you seem fine text unpunctuated blank space at the end Author’s Bio Michael Quilty derives nascence along the traditional land and treaty territory of Beausoleil First Nation (part of the Chippewa Tri-Council). The work of this poet […]
Paul Muldoon | Excerpt from THE BANNISTERS
Excerpt from The Bannisters MAYDAY 1 The desert would be an ocean were it able to withhold its judgment on wavelet after sand-wavelet and suspend itself over its own floor. 2 It’s not only death’s a Great Leveller. 3 The desert has its own version of spume, its own version of spindrift— that flurry of […]
Emily Osborne | END REPLICATION PROBLEM
END REPLICATION PROBLEM Thin caps bandage our DNA, this morning’s science news explains. Chromosomes only replicate in the middle. With each division, telomeres shrivel until the unclothed genome dies. It’s before seven, and I’m unsettled by the end replication problem. At the molecular level, stress shortens lifespan. A tough job claws at our nucleotide’s fine […]
Howard Wright | BLEACH
BLEACH Soak cloths in the sink and scrub down the steps, avoiding mouth and skin. Keep it out of reach under a child-proof lid. Twist, push, lift and share. Use it wisely, making the semi-circle glow in the cement, a force-field, a cordon sanitaire, because all that elbow grease is an open invitation to those […]
Kieran Egan | LOOKING INWARD FROM MARGARET RIVER
LOOKING INWARD FROM MARGARET RIVER Driving from Perth south to Margaret River, late in the velvet night my friend pulled off the road onto a dirt track where we bumped and swayed. A fenced-off field on one side, rows of vines on the other. I turned to ask where we were going. ‘Wait,’ he said. […]
C.M. Clark | TRANSPLANT OF MARROW
TRANSPLANT OF MARROW Your cruel April begins in the dark where there is still dark to these ends of days. Still a blue evening, somewhere lilacs still roosting with creatures nesting and dishes resting in racks to dry. Your dead-to-life April will last for the duration of spring burgeoning. Am I up to this task? […]
Nicole Brossard | Excerpt from A TILT IN THE WONDERING
from A Tilt in the Wondering 15 je dois decider du nombre de fois si le mot nuit peut se reproduire seul et immense on vit avec des yeux on vit avec de la nuit mathématique sentiment de vertige je dois me rapprocher au figuré de l’intime 16 la dernière page est pleine de douceur […]