Have a read of my poem ‘Crows Never Forget’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. ‘Crows Never Forget’ is one of the poems in my recently released collection ‘Flat White, One Sugar‘ (Ginninderra Press).
Have a read of my poem, ‘Holding On’ first published in Old Water Rat Publishing. ‘Holding On’ is one of the pieces in my second poetry collection recently released by Ginninderra Press titled ‘Flat White, One Sugar‘.
I hope you enjoy it.
Holding On:
When we are wet and cold,
we shelter under umbrellas & awnings.
When a lizard is wet and cold—often seeming
frozen or dead—they drop from trees, stunned.
They’ve shut down, no longer able to hold on.
It’s true they like to wake up in the warm sun,
just like us, even though they are cold-blooded.
Maybe a blue-tongue lizard’s easy-going nature
is what makes them a popular pet.
Maybe it’s their striking blue tongue.
You see lizards climbing the brick facade
of your house as the rain keeps pelting down.
They may hibernate in a hole in the ground,
or maybe a tree trunk or a fallen log.
City living is challenging if you’re
clinging to walls & windows. Scaling
a windowpane without falling off is one thing.
When enemies approach, some reptiles,
nicknamed the Jesus Christ lizard, can run on water.
If surprised by a predator, some lizards can detach
their tails or change colour to escape their enemies.
Have a read of my poem, ‘My Friend Is Swiping & Scrolling’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. I wrote the poem during the pandemic and it is included in my debut poetry collection, ‘The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press).
I hope you enjoy it.
My Friend Is Swiping & Scrolling:
My friend in the dark hour before dawn. My friend with the ragged stomach who had a bad night. In a different hemisphere he is turning on the bedside light, rolling out of bed, pouring a cap of antacid at the kitchen bench. My friend who hasn’t left his neighbourhood all year. My friend in London pining for how things used to be, for the Eurostar crossings to speak German and Spanish.
My friend scrolling through Facebook to see the faces of his family. My friend living alone who aches with aloneness. My friend the glass-half-full-kind-of-guy listening out for the early morning train thinking, we’ll get through this, in time. My friend who sits through forty Zoom meetings every five days. A rush of nostalgic reflections but is everything nostalgia? We’re all in this together.
The extroverted friend and the introverted one scrolling & swiping at home, the teenage friend whose father is hospitalised for a third time, my friend in China who sends me a red envelope, my friend in France dunking a croissant as she swipes left in greyish gloom, my friend in kurta pajamas beating a tabla drum, my friend in activewear driven to over-exercise, my friend who is addicted to social media like I am.
My friend in Israel my stressed-out Barista friend behind a coffee machine my friend with only one kidney my friend in palliative care under a sign I do not want visitors my young friend who was warned at school about swiping & scrolling my friend next door, who wonders if we are complaisant already my friend who is feeling lethargic my friend who hopes everyone will go back to work soon my friend who tells me she has a problem wearing a mask my friend who pretends not to see me on the street, even she must be on Zoom with others by now, so I let her go.
Scrolling will distract me from uncomfortable emotions as the cafes near me say takeaway only and the stores where I used to window-shop have empty frontages with To Lease signs and the famous writer I wish I’d had the courage to speak to when I had the chance, is diagnosed with dementia in another country, I snatch at memories of post cards sent back and forth. So who else should I pick up the phone and dial and say, Are you okay? Who else might I never see again?
All of us scrolling & swiping in the mornings and the afternoons and in the evenings near the hotel with the old TOOTH’S SHEAF STOUT Keeps you fit! poster telling us a tantalising beer with a dry finish and a medium body.
Have a read of my poem, ‘Regrets’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. ‘Regrets’ is one of the poems in my recently published second poetry collection, ‘Flat White, One Sugar’ (Gininnderra Press).
I hope you enjoy it.
Regrets:
Driving through the streets of the city
on a Sunday, we’re talking about
our crazy mistakes, the men we separated from,
the ex-husbands who remarried and married again,
those we shouldn’t have let go.
‘Yes, it’s hard having no-one to turn to,’ you say,
reversing into a “no stopping” space.
The signpost doesn’t mention Sundays.
You turn the ignition off
and cover your face with your hands.
‘I’m so hopeless at parking,’ you cry. ‘He used to tell me
we’d need to catch a cab to the kerb.’
I laugh and pat your shoulder.
‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘You’re sticking out a bit in front,
but you can try again … or not. Nothing’s perfect.’
Have a read of my poem, ‘Her Amber Necklace’ first published in ‘The Thirteenth Floor’ XIV UTS Writers Anthology. The poem is part of my debut poetry collection ‘The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press). Hope you enjoy it.
Have a read of my prose poem, ‘The Cellist’ first published in Quadrant September 2020.
Hope you enjoy it.
‘The Cellist‘:
I was grudgingly ancient. Not older, wiser and ancient. But easily recognisable as ancient. Skin was the culprit – the human body’s largest organ. I had his mobile number and he had mine, the cellist from the seniors’ dating site. I examined its configuration. Was there a pattern I needed to decode? I hated initiating, but he needed reassurance. It might take him forever to ring. Composing a text, my palms sweated. My heart thumped. Was he okay with texting? I hated my impatience. I hated my unexpected fragility. I sent the text. Yesterday’s meet-up was fun. I’d like to go for a ride on your motorbike sometime, although the helmet will squash my hair.
Then I worried I’d gone too far. My legs wrapped around him on a bike? I sounded like a whore. A desperado. A woman too long without a man. His reply was immediate. Had he been holding the phone in his hand? We can start with a short ride around the block. I’ve got a large helmet. Everyone gets hat hair.
I don’t want you to go on his motorbike, my daughter warned. I’ll go for a ride on his bike, my granddaughter offered. What sort of boat’s he got? A tinnie or a sail boat? asked my grandson. I googled: ‘what to expect when riding pillion’. Hang on. Brace for braking and acceleration by holding on to the rider’s waist. Bikes must lean to corner. Relax. Tyres provide plenty of grip.
We had dinner, exchanged silly jokes, leaned towards each other, went back to my place – and had incredible sex. The sensitivity of a stringed instrumentalist was really something else. If I knew how, I would have burst into song.
My poem Between the Islands of the Pacific was first published in June, 2018 in Quadrant magazine alongside poems by Les Murray, Barbara Fisher, Craig Kurtz, Geoff Page, Dan Guenther, Gabriel Fitzmaurice and Graeme Hetherington. Big thank you to Literary Editor, the late Les Murray.
Have a read. Hope you enjoy it.
Between the Islands of the Pacific:
Because by now we know everything is not so blue
out here.
The cities had tipped rubbish into the sea,
and we let them without even noticing.
Not even feeling our breathing clear
as gusts reaching ten knots cleaned up our days.
Not even. Today pure blue sky, blue sea,
out there the horizon drawing a line
below the clouds, the absoluteness of it. Nights
of diesel engines shuddering beneath us.
We lounge on chairs side by side on the deck.
At dusk, we stand at the railing of the ship as the sun
slips into the ocean. In the fresh sea air, their backs turned,
some raise a selfie-stick or light a cigarette while others
My prose poem ‘In the Mall’ was selected as an entry in the Microflix Writers Awards and was available to be chosen by filmmakers for adaption to a short film for the 2019 Microflix Awards. The theme was ‘sound’.
Have a read. Hope you enjoy it.
‘In the Mall‘:
In a café inside a mall in Sydney a small curly-topped girl sobbed and sobbed. She sat on her father’s lap, stabbing her finger into a slice of banana bread. Her dad soothed, whispered, coaxed. What would you like, Tara? He cut into his poached egg. Toast? he cajoled. The girl sobbed more loudly, wailing, coughing, staring out into the mall. I want my mum. She cuddled a pink soft piglet. Our eyes scanned the glass display of croissants, pies and pastries. I loved every carb that did not pass my lips. I loved the sobbing child who heard no one else in that cafe but herself, whose lungs fought hard to reach a soaring, sorrowful pitch. What have you got? an elderly woman asked her. Still crying, the child held up her toy. Her father gave up on his poached eggs and carried her out, still wailing. We went and sat at the table with the stabbed-at bread her finger had made and swept the moist crumbs into a heap.
Hello everyone. Hello to all you fellow quarantiners hanging-in-there.
I’d like to share with you my poem ELSEWHERE, first published in Quadrant magazine in December 2017. Hope you like it. The poem is relevant to today’s situation, in many ways.
Elsewhere
Hair remembers how dark a room becomes
when hair is not let loose, straw fallen from the head
of a broom, drifting onto a path,
crunched underfoot by someone who never realised
it was straw. Hair drank, jogged,
ate by itself, knew how to tick ‘Like’
on Social Media. But hair felt
out of touch with itself
unable to distinguish the difference between
fear of the unknown, and fear of something
bad. Hair remembered the ultramarine blue of sea and sky
and the hundred varieties of tuna, calamari and squid.
Hair has dreams, that’s what hair does.
Covers over a shiny scalp, frames the face.
Adventure means exploration and discovery.
And hair remembers—blankets of humidity, harsh light,
residing there in the brain’s temporal lobes.
Even now, when hair is back home,
it remembers the wanting things to remain the same
Libby Sommer, Author 