Melaleuca 001

7/28/2019 Melaleuca 001

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MelaleucaNumber 1: July 2009 Editor: Phillip A. Ellis

Table of Contents

An Eclipse Stuart Barnes 3

Straw Broom Christina Conrad 4

Blue Ape, 1996 Christina Conrad 5

27 December 2008 L. S. Fisher 6

Red Hills at Night L. S. Fisher 7

Quiet Weapons Billy Marshall Stoneking 8

All works are copyright by their respective creators, 2009; the arrangement of this collection iscopyright by Phillip A. Ellis, 2009.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works2.5 Australia License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/>.

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An Eclipse

bloody as a Red-back’s stripeshe sails on shadow-cape and redso Robin-red she falls from velvet sky

to earth and catches at her napea foolish lunar smileand wipes his face and leaves him

blinkingsilentfeveredstaring like the moonin the sultry August afternoon

and all around the night sang out like cockatoos ...Stuart Barnes

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straw broom

( for stoneking )

before

you bathe

your body

i ask you

to place

the straw broom

with the long red handle

outside

the bathroom

door

i must sweep

love's

naked floor

so many crumbs

becomelodged

in

her

cracks

Christina Conrad

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Blue Ape, 1996

sometimes heclimbed14 stairsto my roomso bighe reached the ceiling

he could look likea dusky squirrela monkeya lioneven a blue ape

when he looked in the mirror he'd try to press his collar

into shapecrying out against his reflection

erected on Loves Altar iheldhisfeetsecretlykeptin

tightsocks

Christina Conrad

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27 December 2008

The light has fallen on the grass and bloomsalike a dream of honey-coloured air,

and beetles pause, then pass, unknowing doomwill take the small and all alike, the fair

and not so fair alike, and in my roomI sit and write a sonnet, something there

upon the page, like sounds I've had to groomto birdsong, sweet and fleeting, free from care.

And I am one who knows mortalitydwells in the blood and bone, and whispers words

that even birds may hear, and, falling still,then look into the face of the void eternity,

the face that knows all men, all beetles, birds,the face that looks at will on ill and well.

L. S. Fisher

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Red Hills at Night

Imagine: you're living out in the bush,a range of hills near enough that they takea fair whack of the sky away towardsthe west and the north, circling round. At night,

they sigh with the sound of trees, eucalypts,wattles, with, though you cannot see them,scattered wildflowers. They break the wind, bringinga small creek, thin and winding, through paddocks.

Then one sere summer with its ashen breezes,the hills are growling red at night, you cannotsleep. And the sun brings, crossing the grass, emberstowards the dawn, racing the wind that singswith streams of smoke, the threat of violenceand the feeling that all things change, this time.

L. S. Fisher

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Quiet Weapons

The tablecloth is not your enemy.

There is no need to be afraid.

The way it canopies out and floats to earthis perfectly harmless.

The fork will answer most of your questions.

Raising the knife above the chest is ill-bred.

More butter and less vehemence.

Do not take more that you can chew.

Those who betray themselves do so

when the mouth is open.

Tomato sauce is revelation.

The spoon is mystical.

Dessert is utterly blameless.

To see one’s face in the plate

is no disgrace

so long as everyone is fed.

Sit up straight.

No elbows.Those who are tired will be sent to bed.

It is all quite natural:

the menu, the salt,

the paper napkins rising

to meet their chins,

the knife held so...

Billy Marshall Stoneking

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Melaleuca 001