28.0: SECRET CITIES
Jennifer Compton: Open City
Like breathing out forever we announce our imminent absence. The oracle told each of us at the same time in a specific voice that the great conversation of armed rhetoric and counter-attack that the flags and insignia, the fine, high …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffLia Hills: axes of orientation
sit in parks with leaves as feet the eloquence of the day waning as seeds become antiques (the stairs lead to carparks and loose bricks) razor wire curls to your emergency ears you seek assistance green for timetables red for …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffLia Hills: Beirut cyber café (make love not war)
a furtive smile behind screen beheading's no way to heart images of catalyst eyes and infant crimes foreign to endorphin lands bums cupped on plastic seats only the absent seek jihadi clips the rest post boasted worth and doctored skin …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffLia Hills: Sarajevo snow
as shells purr through darkness tomcat black my palms read the stone between blasts your letter folded twice over in my hip pocket worthy of pilgrimage through fated streets the summer dark turned to glory I crawl into the square …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffNick Powell: Late Winter
Sunday night. Faint sirens paint the town. I am thinking of the forest at the city limits, of tall pines creaking in the still air. How long they have stood there waiting for the osprey to return and fix their …
Andrew Burke: Snow in Linfen
Pine trees bend with snow. In their essays, Chinese students write 'dialectically' and 'imperialistic', words I've not read in an academic while. Japanese teacher Yoko asks, 'Do your students ask personal questions?' Each culture is different, but ironing jeans, in …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffLinda Godfrey: Recording not thinking in Melbourne
The man wearing a pink plastic nose held on by his glasses is carrying an Adelaide Writers' Festival bag. Once off the tram he lights a cigarette, cupping the nose against the wind. 'During the night, there was a TV …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffBenito Di Fonzo: australians in rome (the boys)
I was introduced to some australians in rome they were three boys from the sticks of country victoria blowing it all on their big euro trip 3 days a city – barcelona, rome, paris, amsterdam, etc. they'd been drinking all …
Sarah French: Wards of State of Western Australia
for Diane They liked church the way we liked Countdown the man had a moustache & the woman had one too – a soft, dark shadow that haunted her smile Diane didn't like calling them 'Ma' and 'Pa' because …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffStuart Cooke: Broome Beach Art
we sit by the o cean paddocks sipping moisture from salty scars this is the blee ding the in terminable drift sourcewards by opening the wet eye we can leave the bushy one c losed losen up read currents swells …
Liam Ferney: The Departed
She was to have fled between the gaps in the revolution. But not a moment too soon, or a moment too late, the gates sliced escape like cheddar. In the morning he wondered about the transition. Orbiting across the dawning …
Liam Ferney: Arcade Fire
cul de sacs of desire excised from the torn corner of a new map cyclone fences rubber embers sick aerosoled on the underside of an overpass bootleg eminem on a tapedeck the moon's bohemian plots a defection insert coins grand …
Liam Ferney: Sign on the dotted line
chase the fishmonger's asthmatic truck clogging the warren's chambers susan sangsters lounging on the hoods of hyundais ajiima lugging cardboard ajashi stoop smoking mild seven™ scooter delivery kim chi and pizza boy sideways under a truck a michael bay hero …
William Doreski: Ballet In a Hair Shirt
A sharp little mountain peak capped with bare rock draws hikers. Halfway up, I unfold a map. A complex of dense modern towns straddles a narrow green river with only two or three bridges in twenty miles of urban mass. …
Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES Comments OffAlamgir Hashmi: To a Query
No, a quake, downside up to vibrations that tell apart the yard maple from its bark, inside being outside, see that shag of brown grass perhaps an old man's beard show through the dirt still hiding school children from lessons …
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