she waits for you to call
long-distance
reverse-charges
and you forget it's Mother's Day
in your haste to tell her
you got married at lunchtime

you've forgiven her
for pushing you
into that ringing white room
the hard slap
the rough towel and the tape
because you know you can gut her
any time you like

you never thanked her
for driving you to casualty
it was her bottle of valium
and besides
she wouldn't let you cut your hair

she chainsmokes
as you tell her
about your first bout of sex
if she asks you tremblingly
"was it nice?"
you can pity her and smile

she is the uninvited guest
to all your big decisions
she is millions of miles away
sleepless
in the double-bed of nails

she'll sew you
into a quilt square
she'll scrub your bloodring
from the boarding house bath
you'll lie there
white and smug
because this time
you got the last word

if you outlive her
watch out
she'll leave a hole so big
you'll never fill it
with everything you should have said
and done
it'll sting so sharp
you'll realise
this
is what she told you
all along.

-- Rebecca Edwards (Scar Country)

lived in a weatherboard house doused by a washed-out rainbow
and came to school on Fridays to teach us to hate the Jews

who killed Jesus; they were black-eyed men with dirty fingernails
and hair that stank of goat they couldn't stand this man with love
in his blue eyes they dragged him up a dark hill and stretched him
onto the silver sword that Miss Kirkfitzpatrick planted down
inside her dress

Miss Kirkfitzpatrick had trembly white hands and a soft, secret
smell that poked its nails into your shoulder while she told you
about the heart of Jesus red and oozing love inside the clean
white shirt that Mary washed for him. Jenny who coloured in her
Jesus green had to stand with her face in a corner.

There were two Marys: Mother-of-God-Blessed-Art and when you
got to Fruit-of-Thy-Womb-Jesus you bobbed your head, even if
you were praying upside-down, and there was Mary who mopped
his feet with her long black hair and cried because she was sorry
she was a sinful woman and a Jew

every night Lizzy cried from her cot and I'd carry her into my bed,
telling her about the bare, dark mound of Calvary, the three
crossed trees mottled with the blood of thieves and jesus, tracing
on her baby palms where the nails went in, and how the black-
eyed people laughed up a storm when he moaned "my God, why
have you forsaken-"

Mum snapped on the light and hissed: "Don't tell her that!" So I
knew I had another sin to string to the plastic beads I kept under
my pillow. I worried at the cloth which was my life, which Miss
Kirkfitzpatrick said was woven in threads, black for bad and good
is gold. On the darkwood loom it was a scrap so dirty I yearned to
unpick it, jump under a truck after confession at Star of Sea,
where i was washed clean, once a week, in blood

but Mum would miss me. Lizzy woke and I felt for her in the cot,
cradled her on my shoulder to the bed where the sea hummed the
song Mum taught me, of Luna and her lantern in the sky

-- Rebecca Edwards (Scar Country)

There was nothing left to break so she put her hand
through the mirror.
A pinprick line, as though she's been arranging roses.
It was like all the other half-attempts
the drunken sway at second-storey windows,
catscratch razor nicks,
stepped bruises.
As if a metal ruler-edge could carve her
into acceptable measurements.
As if it was her body she hated.

Now she was a wind with a woman's name
howling in the bathroom
where rot pulped a child-sized hole
under the sink.
And she thought she'd be safe if she washed her hands!

He sat on the bed, weathering it out like a stone.
Heard the smash.
Knew the door would break open. Braced.

He bought her two roses, on special.
Gave the glassfitter specifications
for a mirror, 20 by 24, bevelled edges.
Except he said bedevilled.

She was savage, taping boxes
like hostage birds.
Bookspines stacked in half-demolished staircases
the Rubaiyat, the Penguin Anthology of Love.

Her lips brushed him off
as she thanked him for the roses.
"My clothes are folded on the bed -
Hold the tape."

-- Rebecca Edwards (Scar COuntry)

I don't want to pull these black worms out of me. It hurts.
The white page nags like a headache for parrotfeathers
and flowers. The flowers outside the window in the room
where I make tea, cluster red-taloned, fierce in their green
nests. Somedays the red teapot is what I cling to, like a
mother. Its warmth, its comforting abundance, against the
dark.
"Write something happy. Don't you ever write happy?"
the students of literature ask me. They don't want to read
about worms. They want kisses, and no teeth in them. Just
the tip of the tongue, not its bloody, veined root.
You kiss me, and I remember I was so afraid I'd lose you.
Now I have, I wonder did I look too much behind, or too
far ahead?
These boys, they don't want seers. They want coca-cola.
In the dark.

-- Rebecca Edwards (Scar Country)

Crunch is such a boring word
The stones say 'ouch'.
Stones is such a boring word
The stones are outshone diamonds.

Fall is such a boring word
The leaves drop like bombs.
Leaves is such a boring word
The leaves are ripped hang-gliders.

Tree is such a boring word
The trees are frozen dancing girls.
Girls is such a boring word
The girls are rags of dreams.

This is such a boring poem
Boring is such a boring word
This poem is outshone diamonds.

-- Olivia Clark

She's lying.
I can see she's lying,
but what the hell is she lying about?

 She's got
 the footprints of angels.
 Her feet never touch the ground she walks on.

She breathes
in places so hot that
the very air turns her lungs to coal.

 She's alive
 but dead in a hospital bed
 while I visit her waiting grave.

She's broken
screaming, "In your face!"
She says, "I don't like people, in general."

 She's drifting
 in and out of the dream
 we all share in dreaming.

She's running
so fast she leaves her
breath behind for someone else to breathe.

 She's hiding
 behind her hair and bones.
 She lies when she says she's me.

-- Olivia Clark

Come to the edge, he said. They said, we are afraid.
Come to the edge, he said. They came.
He pushed them .... and they flew.

-- Guillaume Apollinaire

The body is but a vessel for the soul,
A puppet which bends to the soul's tyranny.
And lo, the body is not eternal,
For it must feed on the flesh of others,
Lest it return to the dust whence it came.

-- A. J. Durai

Sleep, and I'll be still as another sleeper
Holding you in my arms,
Glad that you lie so still at last.

This sheltering midnight is our meeting place.
No passion or despair or hope divide me from your side.

I will remember firelight on your sleeping face.
I will remember shadows growing deeper
As the fire fell to ashes
And the minutes passed.

--Ursula Vaughan Williams

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

--Robert Frost

We embrace.
Rich cloth under my fingers
While yours touch poor fabric.
A quick embrace
You were invited for dinner
While the minions of law are after me.
We talk about the weather and our
Lasting friendship. Anything else
Would be too bitter.

-- Bertolt Brecht

I want to go with the one I love.
I do not want to calculate the cost.
I do not want to think about whether it's good.
I do not want to know whether he loves me.
I want to go with whom I love.

--Bertolt Brecht

She came so close - so curious -
he thought he'd caught the scent of her thinking.

She said her heart, a bird - in white -
had long since left the nest, because it was restless

and hadn't returned
so he built a screen in white

around her heartlessness:
these are the hopeless movies he projected

because she offered nothing
and he accepted.

--Andrew Johnston

Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart.

--Shakespeare