Cordite Poetry Review

Fistfuls of Sand

Posted on February 4, 2025 by J. Marahuyo

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

we drove away
the midnight

fishers with the innocence
of our existence

clingingtooneanother like we

hadn’t just met

speaking of goals your
six year plan to settle down

me not knowing
if I ever would

like we weren’t there
just to fuck

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

‘You were so
loud I could hear
your moans echoing’

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

Half a joint

later he’s talking

when he should

be touching

I slide his hand

from around my

waist past my

v u l v a

so his fingers

are on my

c l i t

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

He and I are
face to face.

His fingers are
curious. He finds
what he’s after

and I cum
for the first time that night.

He doesn’t leave me
stranded as his fingers
lure and liberate

my opulence.

I don’t know
anything. I am

o r g a s m i c A celestial

twinkling. I am salt
and sand

I am the lick
of the ocean reaching
for dry land.

I was the heat
missing from his
midnight dreams.

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

I release
fistfuls of sand

you use my
arms as leverage
to pull me to
Reverse Cowgirl

I let you watch
my ass bounce
I let you watch
my ass jiggle

as I unmask and become
Tala.

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

moan. moaN. moAN. mOAN. MOAN. M O A N

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

Shooting stars.
How do you feel?
I tried to make a wish
All I could think was
The sky is a navy knit
I may have made a wish
I don’t remember.

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

*SECTION IN PROGRESS*

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

Moment of clarity:
Oh. My. God. You’re fucking
me right by the ocean.

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

mmm-I’m-cumming-its-so-good-mmmm-please.

Please.

OHMYGODFUCK!

Yes-YES-Mmmm-mmm-Mmmmmmm-please-ahh-Mmm-I’m-Ah-mmmm-Ohfuckk
Ohfuck-Ah-ah-Ahhhh-AHHHHHH-I’m-cumming-again-AH-AHH-AH-mmmmmnnn
YES-ahhh-ohmyfuckinggod-ahhhhhhh-mmmm-nnnnnnnn-mmmnnnnnn-ohhhh
oh-oh-oh-nnnnnnn-mm-nnnnnnnnngggg-pleasepleaseplease-ah-PLEASE-mmmm
mm-MMM-ah-Ah-AHHHH-mnnnmmmmmm-FUCKYES-AH-HAH~mmmnnnnngg…

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

One after the
other bubbles of solace
rise. Each prod and shift
of dick pricks their
e f f e r v e s c e n c e.
They travel from my
f a l l o p i a n t u b e s,
soar over my tongue and
s c a t t e r
into
the
night.

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

He lifts someone who bears my likeness.

He places his arms under her pits like

she were a scarecrow made of only straw.

He pulls her back so she’s sitting again.

He offers her water. She asks him to put

the bottle to her mouth.

He lifts the bottle.

She drinks.

My seaweed peppered lips
taste like hibiscus and honey

~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~ ✧ ~~

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged J. Marahuyo

Revenant

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Thuy On

I ignored the sign
hung askew over your breastbone:
please don’t feed this heart

but my own yearned and burned
biopsy of delusion
breath ripping like wet tissue

now unpicking the threads of us
sky sewn in tattered drapes
I am still vulnerable

to ghost nights unexorcised
revenant in my dreams
seething and grasping

we rode the line
until the sentence ended
this is the part where I leave you

cut the strings looping
the pearls of us to slacken
slip in the sibilance of rain.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Thuy On

sea urchin

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Lou Smith

baby sea urchins land on rocks / the way astronauts land on planets / hurtle through ocean space / in translucent eggs / the shape of moon landers / enter the turbulence of waves / eject into salt and spray / to live out the rest of their days / on the ocean floor / for fifty years / maybe more

on the beach / I found a dry sea urchin / pale indigo of waning summer sun / small as a fairy egg / it fit between / forefinger and thumb / tiny spiny orb / contoured by deep purple canyons /
metamorphosing once again / emersion from sea to air /
a planet no longer in motion

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Lou Smith

The fickle and everywhere wind

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Andy Jackson

Storm and stress as night turns to water, sky to floor, an intestinal tangle of corridors and navigation by touch, coughing figures in the dim periphery, and you with your face to the fickle and everywhere wind, while you whisper let this be over soon, let me rest, which could be also translated as come find me or I don’t know how to say this, but hold me, I want to be human, unalone, earthed, in other words, if this cannot end, let it be the kind of disaster in which we become, all of us here, awake and homely.

after the digital drawing & collage of the same name by Rachael Wenona Guy (2024)

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Andy Jackson

Swimming between the lines

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Carlie Daley

We live in the mouth
of the river
we swim between the lines
of our words
truth blurs honey in eyes
borne on backs
of sailors & farmers
& furniture makers & wives
who sung & cried
into their cooking pots
pretending the peeling of onions
was what undid them each night
smiles that don’t crack
like plastic rosaries
women whose cells
live in our skin
pearls in our womb
amber in our irises
fired in past kilns
like Brigid a distiller
of triple fiery clarity
they slept with the noiseless
fusillade of despair
against their breast for years
We swim in the mouth
of the river
we live between
the lines of our words
swallowed whole
by the weight
of our becoming.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Carlie Daley

i like the look and sound of shapes

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Kim Waters

i like the look & sound of shapes & how you can feel the contours of their bodies with your eyes & roll the edges of their forms around your mouth to make words like circle a shape that returns to itself like hands on a clock face or a horse on a merry-go-round even an oval a cousin of the circle has its beauty in the portrait of a child caught in the frame of a skipping rope or the profile of a perfectly sliced egg i like the shape of a triangle its corners matched in number to its sides & how if you take hold of one of those sides it will scoop you up & send your feet flaying your hair awry & how each of those sides in an orchestra refuses to ring unless held by a scrap of string then there are squares their corniced edges perfectly aligned on a pizza box, a checker board or a piece of toast waiting in its metallic pouch to be sent down into the mines to look for diamonds which are glorified squares turned on their sides & of course there’s all that money thrown into oblong notes, bricks & mortar, or if you’d prefer the word rectangle which makes the sound of the shape more sharply felt on your gums but really my favourite is hexagon which can tessellate & has a bee-hive-strong ability to leave no wasted space i like the look & sound of shapes

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Kim Waters

Loading Screens (Limbo)

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Jamil Badi

i. Bus

We shall witness the bruising sky swallow the sun
(I do not mind wading through the night)
whilst awaiting your ferryman, He Who Drags His Anchor.
(Let me sink myself into the cushioning azure)
To rest amongst yawning souls, bones disrobed of face and frown
(I offer my ear like a shore offers a radiant warmth)
as they let the naked marrow breathe. We shall trade our spines, until you
(Let me align your vertebrae; stars in a constellation)
disembark. As this vessel rocks against wet charcoal peaks
(I will remove my ribs; gaze at my guts (please pry))
we huff the frozen air as the ferryman stretches the seconds after
(Let me hold the lantern Charon. I’ve no need to anchor)
each soul staggers into the mud, boots sodden, hair damp, skin frosted.
(I yearn for us to buffer & freeze & crash & reboot)
Yet before he reaches your coffin door, your jaw flickers a tender crescent, dousing
(Let this be oil, turning my skull black before ablaze)
my frame. You retrieve your skin before you can put ember to bone. Perhaps it is
(I bid farewell (let your anchor rest at my tomb!))
water which fills my raft. Until our next voyage, I will await your flame.

ii. Train

If one were to take the knife which first sliced the black sky bleeding dawn to carve out
a chunk of this — time’s stutter — they’d s t r e t c h t h e f a b r i c ready for the grand

loom of iron threads
stitching cities&towns.
This sheet which cradles
you as sun slumbers lays
atop a bed shared by the
stationary. You bathe your brain
in a huddle of wall-white&seat-blue.
Glass pillows to watch time&worry
lose shape; perhaps they hold
no weight after all. Behind the shuttle’s
skin is zero-gravity — you mean nothing
and that is a relief for your blinking
heart. To lounge in withinthisquietcabin the remnants of
anonymous souls icancursetherain before disembarking
into the night’s fromadryplace choppy charcoal
cacophony of withoutfearof speech&rain, is
a reminder that theflamesbrought you ought to tip the
Ferryman — for bycruellighting he does not rush

these loading screens for he does not rush these loading screens for he does not rush these
loading screens for he does not rush these loading screens for he does not rush these loading

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Jamil Badi

Away

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Stuart Cooke

—further out than any of it, than this and that,
than the togethers, the whatevers,
the coulds and the maybe these, there’s this,
further out than presence, way past it,
past its fulfilment, its makeshift ends, then its hollow tubes becoming vines,
vines wound round what is pending, the strung-out possible, there’s this,
as it happens, as it rushes through, this flexible enclosure,
its bare trees in occasional flame, in strident uprushings of burnt crumb and rose,
until collaged cries stumble across the grass,
what I would do to have this again, this operatic moment, knowing it,
to be in its duration and not even wanting to blink, when it comes,
here it comes, my body like a rock in the stream of its dimensions, knowing,
no matter what I do I will not have this again,
even as I stand upon it, even as I breathe it in,
it glides, it skids, it snakes, it will not stop, will not focus,
not even on you, your morning gaze through the window,
as I find you again in the amber dust of an afternoon, even as I ask you
I slide—through the fleshed-out compendium,
the tangled situations, the arteries of our conversations
dangling in mid-air,
I ripped it out, you out, the lyrics on my playlist compel me,
turn, turn away, away from you to what? when? out across the gardens,
the ancient boats, the apartments balancing precariously, further out
across this tipped planet, its impossible brink, words breaking off
like relations and scattering across sierras, across tables, ricocheting like shards of flak,
words thudding into pillows and other soft surfaces—wet soil,
fresh breads, our shabby husks—still further out, past all of this,
I am combing my memories but there are signs that blind me,
that race off into the expanse—turn,
the song says, turn away, can I cherish this unfurling, ebullient field as an orb,
or does it recede, or does it fissure into possibilities,
to re-emerge in huddles of churned sediment,
forever to the outskirts of what I can grasp?

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Stuart Cooke

Three

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Luoyang Chen

I. 山水/Paradox

                                                        mountain
                                                              mountain
                                                      mountain mountain
                                             mountain mountain
                                                   mountain river
                                            mountain river mountain
                                       mountain river mountain mountain
                                   mountain mountain river mountain mountain mountain
                                       mountain mountain river mountain mountain
                    mountain mountain mountain mountain river mountain mountain
             mountain mountain mountain mountain river mountain mountain mountain
              mountain mountain mountain mountain river mountain mountain mountain
mountain mountain mountain mountain river mountain mountain mountain mountain
mountain mountain mountain mountain mountain river mountain mountain mountain
mountain mountain mountain mountain mountain mountain river mountain mountain
mountain mountain mountain river river
                                                             river
                                                     river river
                                                            river river
                                                              river
                                                                 river
                                                                      river
                                                                    river
                                                                       river
                                                                  river river river
          river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river
river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river
river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river
     river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river
              river river river river river river river river river river river river river
               river river river river river river river river river river
                                                river river river river river river
                                river river river river river river river river river
                                                            river river river river
                                                      river river river river
                                                             river river river
                                                        river river
                                                           river river
                                                           river
                                                                   river
                                                           river

II. 江南/Longing

北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北北

river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river
river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river river

III. 江湖/Pilgrimage

river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river river lake river lake lake river lake river lake lake lake lake river river river river lake lake river lake river river river lake lake river lake

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Luoyang Chen

Centocartography: Budapest

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Dave Drayton

Street map of area in Budapest

i.
In the shape of the Budapest street map, a poem that reads: "the whole world may end up may end up may end up as a vast void only in my eyes grief dissolves across the chill blank darknesses of space"
Sándor Petőfi, ‘Man’ (trans. Miklós Nádasdi); Attila József, ‘Grief’ (trans. Vernon Watkins); Árpád Tóth, ‘From Soul To Soul’ (trans. Watson Kirkconnell)

ii.
In the shape of the Budapest street map, a poem that reads: “pick some leaves some leaves some leaves from any tree with axes and hoes and stones would come relentless sickles, golden guillotines”
Sándor Petőfi, ‘I Dreamed Something Beautiful’ (trans. Miklós Nádasdi); Attila József, ‘At Last’ (trans. John Székely); Árpád Tóth, ‘The Pendulum’ (trans. Watson Kirkconnell)

iii.
In the shape of the Budapest street map, a poem that reads: “we wish to advance but we can really? But can we really? But can we really? Father on, like a cloistered graveyard to paint with blood the sunset’s opulence”
Sándor Petőfi, ‘To The Parliament’ (trans. Miklós Nádasdi); Attila József, ‘Night On The Outskirts’ (trans. Michael Hamburger); Árpád Tóth, ‘I, God’s Broken Cello, Shall Be Silent’ (trans. Leslie A. Kery)

iv.
In the shape of the Budapest street map, a poem that reads: “but see how the winter-world lowers and lowers and lowers and lowers and lowers and lowers I train stillness to my heart to feel your gentle body’s murmuring”
Sándor Petőfi, ‘September Ends’ (trans. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth & Frederick Turner); Attila József, ‘Ode’ (trans. Miklós Nádasdi); Árpád Tóth, ‘Evening Song’ (trans. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth & Frederick Turner)

v.
In the shape of the Budapest street map, a poem that reads: “one thought bother me night and day night and day night and day my limbs are dragging, pulling me to your as blood wakes veins whose paths are closed and numb”
Sándor Petőfi, ‘One Thought Bothers Me’ (trans. Miklós Nádasdi); Attila József, ‘You Made A Child Of Me’ (trans. Miklós Nádasdi); Árpád Tóth, ‘Evening Gloriole’ (trans. Zsuzsanna Ozsváth & Frederick Turner)

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Dave Drayton

Sea of the Edge

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Mark O'Flynn

Mare Marginus

Regarding the moon:
Beyond which dwell our hazy nightmares
transformed into demons from the pulpit.
Can a ball have an edge? Or an egg? Or
the shadow of a face as familiar as our own?
Lying on your stomach, peering over that
precipice to the bottomless void.
Bottomless
void, there’s a thesis. One giant step. One giant
banana skin. Drip by impossible drip this sea
melts to the dusty edge, the chasm below drinks
until it finds its level. On that day the vacuum
and its converse will be half of each. We
will be you. You will be us. There be a lesson.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Mark O'Flynn

Votive

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Bronte Heron

From Ovid’s Metamorphoses

the sisters carry out
their work,

hanging

the night’s
lamps

throughout

the dark

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Bronte Heron

Taupe

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Alex Creece

I want to punt the unripe
nectarine down a dawn-beige hallway of snores and shrieks.
I don’t believe that
taupe is a colour. Everyone is trying to convince me of something.
At what point is it all too ludicrous?
Taupe. That’s when.
I suspend the belief like a sky-eating pie,
grisly, gutsy, topless. Sexily soggy-bottomed. One for the necrophiles and the pimple-poppers.
A turtle without a shell isn’t
cute and naked. It’s dead. A spatchcocked ribcage. An ex-exoskeleton
thwapped open like fresh coconut. Do you know how many people die by coconuts every year?
I swear to taupe. Always pack extra bones. Conceal a peach pit in your rusted jaw.
A shell is a body. A pie is destined to splat. A coconut is shy.
I can astral project myself into anything but a false colour. I eat taupe
every day. I do the same thing forever. It’s taupe. Doesn’t exist.
I don’t know where this came from. The nectarine ripens, protects its teratoma. Taupe edges
back to the imaginary. I scare it all away.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Alex Creece

DIVIDING A SPACE

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Angela Gardner

Creatures dart between worlds
come into focus into or across meadow and forest.
In the small surety of spaces its indefinite edge fills
with movement (abundance and distribution
the uncertainty of position). Against
a general green of foliage I raise field glasses for
particularity: of leaf, of plumage, underwing, coverts.
Our interference in the process signalled by alarm calls
high above and shrill, insistent of a breach.
Requiring acknowledgment. Unable to see
my own self without distortion I see the periphery
the first surface, the furthest from my eyes.
There’s power to interpret if we can’t measure
: pretending intentions, desires, knowledge
another world, increments, the subject world, ditto.
Presence is easier to describe than absence. A bird
darts forward forsaking shelter, edges into ‘space’
our space we assume because in our field of vision.
‘Ownership’ that is disputed noisily by the bird
with its own curiosity. Visible through movement
and colour, a mosaic of spaces between things.
Quantum self. And of consciousness?¹
Lout over the nano-fields for words
: I have multiple interpretations for the vivid presence.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Angela Gardner

Neutrino Snow Over Kingston

Posted on February 4, 2025 by W. H. Chong

The sky tonight! is white

Unseamed light, seamless time
unboundaried—
the moon’s blank disguise
clockface sans figures & hands
whitely drifting in
white space

The winking snow of neutrinos
linking you 2 me
, Donne’s flea
quantum leaping, trillion biting
every body
—your blood my blood
your irradiated marrow mine
You & I molecular whole—
compact as zer0

Is all we know inferred from nature?
This is self-knowledge—our love
thoughts, our dream drifts,
the Gaia abandon of another year’s end
—don’t blink!—
hurtle-bang into the bends
the screaming free-fall of those
—blink!—
dispatched from youth
Glorious rush into my doppelganger deathself
now free-wheeling contraclockwise
to this street corner
, Hello!
my last, perfect love

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged W H Chong

Malby’s Terrestrial Globe

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Rozanna Lilley

Dr Moussé utters
a satisfied sigh
as Malby’s terrestrial globe
is unpacked from straw-stuffed crate
three feet in diameter
all points of the compass
converging at Beechworth

Mrs Goodman commands
her girls to file past
in reverential pairs
you need not be concerned
with spherical geometry
or trigonometry
with applying thought

And calculation
to the deduction of real motions
let us marvel at how
the skin of our earth
is covered with colonial ink
how we educate and elevate all

On their exit from the athenaeum
Mr White slowly spins
wondering where twilight
begins or ends
trusting he can find
the rising sun at any day or hour
by the brazen parallel

Dry-eyed, Mrs Polmear
traces the contours of the frigid zones
she can never find her son
accepts that the visible
universe is divided
into earth and heavens
that the discovery

Of cosmic dust in Greenland
is a smudge unanticipated by the

the interval of conjunction
of two revolving bodies
may be precisely reckoned
but her loss cannot be mapped

Note
A Malby’s terrestrial globe was installed in the Beechworth Public Library and Burke Museum in 1879. It was purchased second-hand in Melbourne, from George Robertson, for a sum of 34 pounds, raised through amateur concert ticket sales and direct subscriptions. Dr Moussé was ‘the indefatigable President of the institution’ (Ovens and Murray Advertiser (OMA), 5 June 1879, p.2, ‘A Globe for the Athenaeum’). The globe was the same size as the one in the Melbourne Public Library and was described as ‘a decided ornament’ and of ‘inestimable benefit in the study of geography’ (OMA, 14 June, 1879, p.8). This poem makes extensive use of found text in an 1847 edition of The Globes, Celestial and Terrestrial by Augustus de Morgan, published in London by William S. Orr and Co. This book accompanied Malby’s Globes, and was published under the superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, established in London in 1826. I am indebted to Mashdid Mayer for the phrase ‘educate and elevate’ (stanza 3) in her article ‘What on earth! Slated globes, school geography and imperial pedagogy’, European Journal of American Studies, Summer 2020, p. 7. The collaged text ‘THE QUEEN’S TREASURES’ (stanza 3) comes from an article about royal treasures at Windsor, including a peacock of precious stones and a tiger’s head with crystal teeth from India (OMA, 31 May, 1879, p.8). Arctic explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld discovered ‘a peculiar dust’ believed to be ‘of cosmic origin’ in Greenland in 1870 (OMA, 7 June, 1879, p.8).

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Rozanna Lilley

Lessons in Infinity

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Susanne Kennedy

It’s as if the blue gum stepped out
from shredded clothes
threw off its rose-coloured 
hair rollers and tie-dyed layers
to rest upwind from the seaweed’s
brittle antlers its rough bundles
of musk and chartreuse thread—
and just kept moving

Here the air hosts an orchestra
of falling whistles rainbows 
are swift-winged thunder gurgles
and sea and sky and, right now, i
are one in mood and vast uneven
breath the water’s pummeled gleaming
lurches toward a staccato
horizon an infinity

of dimples that keeps persuading
the light to fracture and fill it all
the while sea custom-knits
currents to transport her motley
prototypes—starched Victorian collars
sardonic templates
for bubble wrap assorted millinery
that’s seen better days strewn
just so in the latest
castaway installation

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Susanne Kennedy

Elegy For The Unmet Desire To Exist As A Coaxial-Rotor Helicopter Drone On Mars

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Jake Tarasenko

merely skin wrapped bits
these
four more or less
inutile limbs
stuck to a floppy core
water fat yes
they overlap
wild and grossly
inaccurate
such that left open gaps
remain
form but unmade
apertural
in real time

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Jake Tarasenko

The Distance of Proximity

Posted on February 4, 2025 by David Edwards

“What I am writing to you goes on and I am bewitched.”
– Clarice Lispector, Agua Viva

1.
Neptune’s clouds have vanished. So distant
from the Sun, high noon

is a dim twilight. Yet waning solar flares

have travelled through deep space
to reach this distant child
and empty

Neptune’s sky. We pierced
our planet’s membrane, sifted

interplanetary dust

just to watch this god
become exposed.

The images are grainy but we can see
a giant stripped of cloth

tempting moons
into its orbit.

Parent planet. Captured
moon.

2.
On Earth, I read Lispector, who wrote
of blackened fruit and hope

that she could touch us.

She takes me to Recife
where we trap moths in tissue paper,
careful not to shed their dust.

Her flame exists in oil
lamps, bewitching

wayward mayflies.

Clarice died in Rio
after publishing The Hour of the Star.

She said I sometimes flicker
within all this
distance.

3.
Neptune is slowly drifting,
blue and naked

without its missing clouds.

A planet whipped
by supersonic winds,

where seasons stay for forty years.
Radio waves crackle

when slathered in dark matter.
A dead star
is still a star.

Your solar flares
are waning.

Still, I hear your voice.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged David Edwards

Hyperventilation

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Heather Blakey

like, if she’d seen this fifteen years ago
if she’d seen the girls who like birds and heard the
severin-as-a-she speaking
venus is a boy and he’s
welcoming you to queer graces man
Gabrielle tells us of a dream
ripping up the carpet and the floorboards and the concrete but
baby
baby girl
they couldn’t remove our braces
couldn’t halt the queer spaces
couldn’t rid the places of the girls who like to sit on other girls’ faces
man, if she’d seen this fifteen years ago
she would have understood that fucking haircut
and the hyperventilation
when she says
I’ve just been having
such strange feelings
the latest?
putting your tongue in another girls’ mouth
is not linear behaviour

*‘severin-as-a-she’ and ‘venus is a boy’ are references to Gabrielle Everall’s poem ‘The birth of Venus as a boy’

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Heather Blakey

Sunlight

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Jo Ward

A child discovers the play of light
on a kitchen floor. The cosmos opens.
His mother watches tiny palms, touching
and retouching the solar display. Like a dazed
percussionist—a tiled universe the stage
for soundless concert—slow and meditative
hands press into light’s appearance-
disappearance, reach for ghost. Here:
the dimpled outline of a little foot,
a little thigh. There: the obliterating
sway of a dog’s tail. The little drummer
drums and drums again: the surface moves
and will not give to grasp. Later like this
vision softens, lengthens vocabularies—
in memory now we mouth the sun’s silent
music, opening a mother’s urge to leave
open—

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Jo Ward

Field Report from the Night Watchman

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Margaret Malochleb

No one notices the edges slip away,
how the untoothed night simmers
in the streets and alleyways.
To the innocent, there’s no reason
to question whether dimensions shift
or wonder what happens in
the moments before the scrim is lifted.
I have spent many a darkness
pondering what is lost when
peripheries vanish—what beauty
or desolation, lacking witness,
is diminished. What creature steals
away to die, alone and undiscovered.
I can tell you this: My eyes have grown
accustomed to night’s trickeries—
the apparent ease with which the body
accepts injury, the scurrying figure
beneath the streetlight’s pale flicker.
Underlying every human wreckage
is an emptiness born of want.
Sometimes I feel it. Walking the vacant
hallways, I listen for the lost,
the inconsolable, the unforgiven.
I count their footsteps, carry the weight
of their brokenness in my bones.

Posted in 115: SPACE | Tagged Margaret Malochleb

Polish Polish

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Matt Hetherington

put a vase of small pink flowers on a window ledge
look at a field of potatoes for a month
while not forgetting wars & wars & wars
grow rain inside your lungs
put on woolen gloves
& only take them off to warm your hands over the fire
fall asleep dreaming of that dead star
kick pebbles along a lane
then curse your childishness and curse your black boots
pat a wet dog like you never had children
write a letter to the son you never had
smear beetroot on a white wall as you walk through the old town
waiting for the sun to come
when the sun comes make up a song about how you want to run into it
but you’re not brave enough and a catholic so you couldn’t go that far
hide your fears in a cigar-box
suck on something that tastes like your mother
raise a toast to zibby boniek and lucy bpm 37093
point to a figure in the crowd and ask them where all the dirt is coming from
do your best at sobbing louder than the public address system that’s shouting
all those lies again
enter into collusion with the confusion of a patriarchal illusion
take pictures of cream-puffs, or
sit in a downpour and let the drops be your new poem, or
write forty-four lines of ironic resignation
and rewrite until you die of neglect but still somehow caring