Katherine Bainbridge, Inscape

To Curiosity

At the edge of the earth your old shop glows in the dark,

stuffed to the gills with feathers, faces, maps,

urns, coins and, behind pocked glass,

moondust, stardust, crystals of ice

from the outer rings of Saturn, a winter rose,

the names of all the lost in a box locked fast

against idle gaze.

You hear the Darro rumble its buried course

under a Moorish moon, see the way moth-flies

fold their wings so neat and flat

behind their backs, but what you do best

is lead astray, with your eye on the cracks in the wall

of the world, your smile in the coals of the fire,

your voice in my ear.

I never gave my heart to you,

you crept up close and stole it

from my shadow.

A Japanese calligrapher’s brush

creates both word and thing

each time anew.

Further details

Julie Maclean, Unsettled

Allegro non Troppo That’s What it Triggered

Late morning south of Capricornia

through the dull interior

of infinite bitumen

you could lose the will to live

if it weren't for the show on high

An archipelago of behemoths

is lugging at the speed of cloud

across the screen –

duck on a wall, blind snail

splayed-leg toad

They seem on a parade

to some celestial ark

Noah letting them all in

By dusk the light

is a descending grey

wan tones from the failing sun

A turtle with no flippers

turns to gossamer wings

in a whisper of sweepers

Amputation by godly brushstroke –

true nature of cirrus

Further details

Sanjeev Sethi, Bleb

Offing

The beauty of brackens acknowledges my presence

with a little jig. I smile back like one does to a natty

new arrival in the neighborhood. The emptiness in

those eyes summons me to shoal them with a fairing

of emollients. A poem isn’t a fable or folktale. Its

task is to temper with images and ideas that create

one’s fantasy or factuality: like those oeillades.

Further details