“Hair” and other poems by Kasey Shelley

My Name Is 1 Kasey 2 Bailer Kascerd Kasmeister Macy Bae 3 Casey Katie Tracey Lisa Chelsea Shelley 4 Bitch Slut Cunt Whore Prick tease Damp yoke 5 Kasim Kas Princess Hon Love Hard Work When the boy texts you to cancel your date, saying you’re hard work, say “OK”. Say “Thank you”. This will confuse him, obviously. He will be expected to respond with “How?!” “Why?!”, starting an argument, thus proving, you are hard work. When he writes back “what for?” you do not respond. When he texts you the next day saying “ah hun, babe” you still do not respond. He has already given up on something that did not have the chance to begin. Besides, you like men. Men who know what they want and go for it. Men who do not masquerade their own insecurities in yours. So you’re hard work because your walls are higher now than they were at what, sixteen? Well, he should now be taller than he was at sixteen. When you threw over a rope and he still refuses to climb. He is not worth it, not worth your time. You are not hard work. You are hardworking. You survive every day in this world. Through work, home, love, loss. Through your own mind. “You are hard work” Four words that will spur you on and give you more energy than Honey Boo Boo’s go-go juice. So write the poem. Sing the song. Get the fucking promotion. Work hard and become a better you. For you. One day someone will come to the wall. And before you even offer to throw the rope they will be scaling. Scaling brick by brick to get to know you better. Because you are worth that. So when the boy says you are hard work, say “Thank you. Thank you very much.” Impossible All over the world, Women chase the impossible Burning their skin with UV bulbs or bleach Trying to become the “right” shade Ignorant to the damage Or just screwed up priorities It is not their fault, They were taught this They watch their bodies, its size Step on scales and count calories As six-year-old girls ask “Mammy, am I fat?” The perfect brows, lips, eyes, cheekbones A flatter stomach but keep the boobs Straighter nose, whiter teeth, hair only on your head Don’t forget that thigh gap Seasons and generations dictate Insecurities and self-hatred No matter the flaw there is a solution and price tag They pay with money, tears and pain Do not blame them They were shown this A guy tells her he likes natural girls Like Kim Kardashian, Kim Kardashian How will she ever feel beautiful When even natural is distorted Supermodels photoshopped beyond recognition Striving to be beautiful When even the sexiest women In this world are not Women comparing each other With every percentage of their bodies “Who wore it best?” Dangerously competing with their own self We tell the world’s daughters to be strong and confident But we don’t allow their mothers to be Different cultures of the world decipher What is beautiful But the universal response screams “You are not” Hair The most common thing said about my hair Is how brave I am Well, it’s usually more like “Oh God I wouldn’t have the nerve to do that” Don’t get me wrong I get lots of compliments People stop me in bars or at gigs to tell me how cool it is Because it is But the general reception from women is how I was brave for cutting off us girls only superpower Psst – newsflash- I’m not fucking Samson My powers are in my kindness to others, my strange sense of humour and apparently, my ability to put words together and people call it poetry Maybe, I can but that super duper special wax and sculpt my hair into a spear and charge towards my enemy Until then, it is just hair In the two years that I have had my hair like this I have been asked twice if I am a boy Once, was by a child whose mother looked mortified while I laughed In fairness i had just done a 5K, hair scraped back in a man bun, sweat running down my face The second was on a night out by a man This was after he had already asked for my number So the way i see it, he found me attractive either way 1-0 to Kasey But I’m just so confused by this word brave Do you know what’s brave? Jumping off a cliff into the sea, swimming across to the next one and doing it again Telling your crush you like them even though there is a 93% chance they’re gonna reject you Reading a poem about your father hitting your mother, in front of your father and mother Battling a terrifying disease of the body or the mind Those are brave This? This was just a decision based on how badass Ruby Rose looked in Orange Is The New Black The Girl Won’t Delete Your Texts   The Girl Won’t Delete Your Texts We kept the texts they sent us. Declaring their love. Showing off to our friends. Giggling. Home alone we would read them back. Smiling. The women before us kept the letters. Keeping the physical proof for when the spoken words became nothing more than a memory. Using them to torture ourselves. To bring ourselves hope. The power of your words. The brutality of your indifference. Hair and other poems are © Kasey Shelley

Kasey Shelley is writer and poet from Dublin. She has been writing poetry since September 2016 and performing regularly in the Irish spoken word scene since January 2017. She has been published in magazines such as Flare, Harness and in the anthology Selfies & Portraits. She is currently working on her debut poetry book.

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How to Hide Unhappiness / Cum Ascundem Nefericirea by Ștefan Manasia translated by Clara Burghelea

The Miracle The red leaves struggle in the glass- angels whose name I don’t know I press them among the pages of the dead poet’s book, whose name I promise to unlearn. A little water (glittering like vodka) and their torture seems attractive to me. From the bus, I showed Estera the red tree like the one in Kim-Ki-duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall…Winter and Spring. I was afraid the driver might increase speed and she will per sempre miss the miracle. *Published, Waxwing Literary Journal MIRACOLUL Frunzele rosii Rezista in paharul de sticla- Ingeri al caror nume nu-l cunosc. Le presar intre paginile cartii Poetului mort, De-al carui nume Promit sa ma dezvat. Putina apa (sticleste ca vodca) Si tortura lor imi pare Atragatoare Din autobuz i-am aratat Esterei Copacul rosu ca-n Anotimpurile lui Kim-Ki-duk. Mi-era teama ca o sa accelereze soferul iar ea va pierde per sempre miracolul. *Published, Waxwing Literary Journal   Haiku My father sends off black energy also under the Moons of another planet.   HAIKU Tata emite energie neagra si sub Lunile altei planete. The Yellow Armada Swollen like lead bullets, the forsythia buds are about to burst. Unhinged from their little parachutes, the aliens have entered the town- occupied it in one night. Carlos Williams, Viorel Muresan are no longer here, no one will make it. ARMADA GALBENĂ Umflaţi ca alicele, mugurii de forsythia stau să pleznească. Descotorosiţi de paraşutele micuţe, alienii au intrat în oraş – l-au colonizat într-o noapte. William Carlos Williams, Viorel Mureşan nu mai sînt pe aici, nimeni n-are să scape.   About a Girl She has no signal but knows how to give signals. When she holds you tight by her little, , florally-tattooed hand leading you through the club, through the colonies of polyps. You’d follow her, even if there were a cage under the butcher’s block at the end of the hallway. But she’s laughing now – a strange Asian woman at an acupuncture class. You kiss her and she bites you and butterflies millions of them, subatomic, flap their wings artery to artery and ampoules of Benzedrine, thousands of them, break on their wings. And you ask yourself, almost overflowing with happiness: What does the childhood of an extraterrestrial look like? On what part of the male anatomy did the Stone Age queens nibble? Who will distribute the clones in the posthuman social pyramid? PORTRET DE FATĂ Ea n-are semnal dar ştie să emită semnale. Cînd te tîrăşte de mînă prin club prin mulţimea de polipi cu mînuţa ei fermă tatuată floral. Ai urma-o chiar dacă în capătul holului o să v-aştepte o cuşcă şi-o masă de măcelărie. Numai că ea rîde acum – asiatică stranie la lecţia de acupunctură. O săruţi şi te muşcă şi milioane de fluturi subatomici îţi zboară de pe o arteră pe alta, şi mii de fiole de benzedrină li se sfărîmă de aripi. Iar tu te întrebi aproape explodînd de-atîta fericire: Cum arăta copilăria unui extraterestru? Ce parte din anatomia masculină ronţăiau reginele din epoca de piatră? Cine o să repartizeze clonele în piramida socială postumană?   How to Hide Unhappiness Forsythia or Hibiscus? She asks, passing Rows of sofas, executive Chairs with arms, shower cabins, four-person hot tubs, energy efficient light bulbs metal-halide lamps, table lamps, screws. Hibiscus, but make sure it isn’t purple, He says, purple is kind of common and vulgar. The Chinese put the sour flour in their tea and fill themselves with antioxidants for the entire year. Hibiscus, he says, pink or white. *Published, Waxwing Literary Journal CUM ASCUNDEM NEFERICIREA Forsythia sau Hibiscus? întreabă ea, cînd traversează şirurile de canapele, fotolii directoriale, cabine de duş, căzi de patru persoane, becuri economice, lămpi metal halide, veioze, şuruburi. Hibiscus, dar să nu fie mov, Răspunde el, mov e aşa comun şi vulgar. Chinezii pun floarea acrişoară în ceai şi se umplu de antioxidanţi să le ajungă tot anul. Hibiscus, spune el, alb sau roz. *Published, Waxwing Literary Journal How to Hide Unhappiness / Cum Ascundem Nefericirea & other poems are © Ștefan Manasia, these translations are © Clara Burghelea

About Ștefan MANASIA Ștefan MANASIA (born in 1977, Piteşti, Romania). He is a poet and journalist, editor of Tribuna cultural magazine. He founded Thoreau’s Nephew Reading Club in Cluj, 2008, alongside Szántai János and François Bréda, which became the largest Romanian-Hungarian literary community in Transilvania. He published 6 volumes of poetry and had his poems translated in Hungarian, French, German, Polish and Modern Hebrew. He is also the author of a collection of essays and literary chronicles published in 2016: Stabilizator de aromă/ The aroma stabilizer. His poetical credo is Man, this mystic bug.

About Clara Burghelea   Clara Burghelea is a recipient of the 2018 Robert Muroff Poetry Award. She is Editor at Large of Village of Crickets and got her MFA in Creative Writing from Adelphi University. Her poems and fiction have been published in Peacock Journal, Full of Crow Press, Quail Bell Magazine, Ambit Magazine, The Write Launch and elsewhere.

“A Gradual Eden” and other poems by Audrey Molloy

A Gradual Eden After the lava had cooled, hardened like a carapace over the fresh-earth graves of our marriages, nothing happened for a while. Sure, you and I still talked all night, once dared to walk arm-in-arm like a real couple to the Vietnamese restaurant with the string-bead curtain and napkins folded into swans. I had to learn the basics: I only knew your every thought, but not, for instance, how you took your coffee, how you swam at five each day, leaving me to wake alone. Nothing grew on the hard-baked basalt of us. Ditches that had defined our highways vanished, once-shady trees now jutted like antlers where the lightning had struck. When the strawberries were gone we ate dandelion and fiddle-head ferns. You were an inventive chef, but I was sick of roots and leaves; I wanted Passiflora (or violets at the very least). Once, longing for old comforts, you peeked back under the edge of the rock-crust for a glimpse of green, but the lawns were mustard and thistle-pocked. Twice I peeked too. Watering didn’t help much. Neither did planting seeds. After a year or two, we got used to it. Gave up trying. Hung up boots. One day we saw the rock was dusted with faintest green, just a bristle, like your five a.m. beard—no more. And then we saw a stem unfurl, and then the flowers came.   Symphony of Skin i. Tuning up They are there if you listen. On the train, in the Laundromat— the instruments, I mean; bells, stirring in two-way stretch cotton, (their owner slumped in the window seat, his work boots tapping a secret rhythm); timpani buttoned under a cashier’s blouse, a cello bound by polyester pinafore in salmon pink. She thinks the air is flecked with soap dust, doesn’t realise it’s rosin from her bow. Air flows through apertures where, later, fingers will flutter, strings blur under the rub of horsehair; their discordant mewl barely heard above the swish of the train, the hum of machine, louder in the darkness of tunnel or the lull of rinse cycle, then soft again. Tuning up, they’re getting ready for this evening’s symphony of skin to begin at precisely 10.15.   ii. Skin music And you can never explain it in physical terms— what happens between two people on an ordinary bed, in an ordinary room. Let me ask you, could you school the cuttlefish in Ludwig’s Emperor (second movement) in terms of anvil, hammer and stirrup? Paint the hues of daybreak for the mole? There is only air, compressed and stretched. There is always space between skins, no matter how closely they press. No touch, only the music of skin; an oboe sings, a cello answers. Locked within the strands of collagen, atoms built of smaller blocks, each one a capsule packed with strings, each string a note that’s yet to play. iii. Reverberation Afterwards, they lie curled, two bass clefs facing this way, that. They talk of anything, of childhood; croak the lyrics to every Paul Simon song they can recall; this, the highlight, now the players have left the stage. They will meet people who promise them more than this, more than you could write about this. Sleep will come later, a raft pushed out on a starred sea. What oak bed? Which room? There is nothing here but phosphorescence undulating along their border. Only this tiny stage drifting on the night swell, a single baton on its floor.   Fortune reshuffled, reshuffled (The tarot anagrams) Take off your rings. They are clues to your story. I. Judgement I’m getting a strong signal. You will survive an avalanche. When it comes, you’ll be prepared. Keep your hand near your face to clear an air space. Many suffocate. Make sure you know which way is up. This is the easy part: dribble the spit out from your mouth and see which way it runs. Now, dig, dig in the opposite direction. I see something else coming through here: you’ll give him a kidney. (He is dying, you see, in the physical sense). Worst-case scenario, temperance—you’ll have to cut back on the Sancerre. Best, a scar and an empty comma on one side of your mid-spine. Still, each cluster a small lung, breathing life into the glass husk of him until he pinks up. Then he’ll ask for the other, the fool… He’ll ask you which one you are—in the show, I mean: Hank’s wife or Walt’s; the pretty, bored house-bound mum with the new baby, who knew about the drugs, or the Type-A kleptomaniac sister. Your love will die but you cannot live with another monkey on your back. Ho! Mind you heed my 4warning. Honour is nothing. They stole your fucking poem. Don’t sign anything. II. Temperance I see a case of your best Sancerre, coming from cluster to glass. Is your wife a fool? you’ll ask him, mid-fuck. And the other scenario? An empty life. You’ll have to give him a pink lung, one side dying. He’ll cut up your back, scar your spine in the husk sense. Not physical (comma) worse—something else you’ll see through. Another strong signal from you: this is Space. In which direction is Survive? Be prepared to dig when the air runs out. Will you know which way? I’m getting an avalanche of drivel: Dig, the opposite of Easy. Face it; you know your part will suffocate many, but each kid’s still breathing. See the way your spit comes up clear now? Keep your hand near your mouth. A warning sign: At 4 am your mind’s a monkey house. You cannot live with your sister, the kleptomaniac honey, who stole the show. She’ll waltz in here and type you a poem or love you back. Keep mum! Don’t heed anything the pretty ask. They are bound to be mean, bored with the new drugs, which, on my honour, I knew nothing about. The baby will die in this one. Hanky? III. The Fool See the way your Mum keeps coming up? She’s a pretty mean type. She’ll suffocate you, cut off your breathing with a hank of judgement you could sense. Heed your kid sister, the midwife, who’s bound to love you. Your baby digs you, honey. He’ll waltz you back to the monkey show, give you space to spit. You’ll ask him to dribble Sancerre into your mouth until your mind clears. (No temperance here). Another warning sign: your honour is the kleptomaniac that stole the pink from your face. Will the strong drugs put a comma in your near-dying? In this scenario, you survive. Many know your hand. The husk of a lung is bored from your back, a scar on your spine. Keep it in a glass in case the air runs out. I’m getting a signal. Something else coming through I knew nothing about: you live in a new house, one you cannot empty of poems. You give each other the best life, a physical side. But don’t ask of him. The worst part… Not prepared for anything, you see. Up this way. Easy! Then, cluster-fuck from the opposite direction… 4 die in an avalanche. They are still now.   On the Rocks There is a kind of love called flotsam. When twisted winds have paused for breath where the sea foam eddies, this love emerges like a teak plank sprung from a shipwreck. It floats proud and quiet or hangs just below the surface. There is a kind of love called jetsam. When the hold is timber-splintered and the waterline creeps higher, this love is flung on the breakers, entrusted to the sea bowl. Washed up on a remote shore, it is rediscovered as kindling. There is a kind of love called lagan. When waves have swallowed the last yellow fingers and silver rings of the crew, this love drifts from quarter light to where the hagfish lie. Moored to a sunbeam, it can always be traced. And there is a kind of love called derelict. When spite has ripped the spinnakers and set the halyards alight, this love settles at the heart’s base, nestled in the point of it. Leaden as a sinker, it is never to be reclaimed.   Five Creatures Under Every Mother’s Skin Damselfly Age thirteen, the skin splits down her back. Emerging, clad in shimmer and sequin and glassy wing to much ado. Pretty head thrown back, clasped by mate after mate. The green river air is shot silk scribbled with their heart-shaped pen. Salmon Seaward, she is drawn tail-first. The river a silversmith arming her, scale by scale. The ocean has no boundary, save memory. Though her flesh will coral with experience, she will dodge bamboo rod and vernal bear, return to gravel nurseries of the smolt. Pelican Grotesque red bill pressed to her quilled leather corset releases the last fry from gular folds. (This the tongue’s business, but hers too tiny to roll around). If they want to believe she pierces her bosom to blood-nourish her young, let them. Vixen Bring on the night! Let her stalk and cry, dog-fox by her side, blackberry picking by moonlight in fur coat and black boots. By dawn, she returns to earth, her kits an auburn ball. The sick one she’ll carry to the wood’s edge and dump it. Just in case. Pilot Whale Her skin-rubber, hashed and scored with life’s scars, hides an armchair heart. Her glands can still suckle a youngster bored with waiting for his mother, God love her, this, so much more fun. Her children’s children will be doctors.   “A Gradual Eden” and other poems are © Audrey Molloy

Acknowledgements Symphony of Skin, first published in Meanjin Volume 76, ed. Bronwyn Lea A Gradual Eden, first published in Headstuff (Feb 2017), ed. Angela Carr Fortune Reshuffled, Reshuffled, first published in The Moth Magazine, Spring 2018, ed. Rebecca O’Connor On the Rocks, first published in Australian Poetry Journal Issue 6.2, ed. Michael Sharkey Five Creatures Under Every Mother’s Skin, first published in the competition anthology of the Canberra University Vice-Chancellor’s Poetry Prize 2017

Audrey Molloy was born in Dublin and grew up in a coastal village in Wexford. She now lives in Sydney, where she works as an optometrist and medical writer. Her poetry has recently appeared in The Moth, Crannog, The Irish Times, Orbis, Meanjin, Cordite, Banshee, Popshot, and The Tangerine. Audrey’s work has been nominated for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (2018) and she is one of Eyewear Publishing’s Best New British and Irish Poets 2018. She was runner up for the 2017 Moth Poetry Prize and has been shortlisted for several other international poetry awards.

“mia council casa es tu council casa” and other poems by Ali Whitelock

i am the sea

			that january.     
			prestwick beach.

		the sea heaves.  swallows herself down 
	like cough syrup in thick slow gulps. we’d sat on this rock 
just two days before, both of us with our backs to the world 
		staring out across and into 
			the thickness. 

		i counted a thousand and one seagulls that day 
	watched them huddle together, balance like storks 
on a single orange leg the other nestled up in the warmth 
	of their soft white bellies as they, with uncharacteristic
		patience, waited for the rain that would surely fall

		and when the wind whipped up, andrew
	jumped from our rock pulled his emerald green kite
from his rucksack tore off down the desolate beach his kite ploughing 
	a trench in the sand behind him, eager for the gust that would
		lift it to where it wanted to be 
			
		and every few seconds he’d turn around 
	and run backwards untangling cords and calling out across
the increasing distance between us, ‘c’mon on ali! c’mon!’  and i heeded
	his call, jumped from our rock and ran as fast as i could
		in jeans frozen stiff as though they’d 
			been pegged on the line 

			in an overnight frost and i shrieked 
		with the gladness of finally being here with him— 
	and no black clouds could ever threaten this day for us.  and he kept on
running and turning, turning and untangling till finally a gust obliged and
	his emerald green kite soared skywards and free—as free as we are 
		ourselves if only we’ll listen.
		
		we’d parked the car just up there by mancini’s 
	snack van, closed for the winter now, its magnum ice-cream posters,
faded and neglected, flap listlessly in the wind and the menu promising 
	hot chips and curry sauce hangs on the outside wall,
		saturated by rains gone by forcing

		words to fade, corners to curl and brown 
	moisture spots to appear in the most unappetising of ways. 
we’d laid our picnic out on this rock, poured tea from our tartan thermos 
	ate buttered rolls, dunked mcvitties chocolate digestives and talked and
		talked till the sun slipped off her shoes, turned out the light 
			and slithered into the black dreams 
				of the irish sea.

			and days later with him already 
		too long gone i am sitting on our rock with my back to the world.  
	the sea heaves still. i watch her swallow the sadness rising 
		in her throat, as broken hearted waves throw themselves 
			at the feet of a shore that really couldn’t 
				care one way or the other.  


Previously published in Pittsburgh Quarterly Magazine. Editor Fred Shaw

---

eventually you will turn fifty

and this will be the day you will lose your mind.
you will produce honey and certain insects 
will be attracted to you 
you will put on a dab of hollywood red lipstick 
this will be the same colour you discovered 
when you were ten in the cardboard mushroom 
carton that doubled as your mother’s make-up box 
and when you emerged from the bathroom wearing 
the lipstick your father told you you looked like a fucking 
whore and it will surprise you that actually
he was wrong 
you will put on a black frock which never 
used to but now clings to the rolls you seem 
to have developed over-night these rolls
will make you appear more womanly and you will not mind this one bit
you will start to take more time over your hair 
buy a pair of earrings in the jewellery shop
that is closing down they will match your lipstick 
and you will look beautiful because your hair 
will fall over one eye and this will make you look sultry 
you will even consider putting on the MAC eyeshadow 
you bought seven years ago and never opened 
it may still be good a man you do not know 
will tell you your earrings make the green 
of your eyes look very nice and you will laugh 
and look away as though you are shy though 
you will hope the lens of his camera is still 
upon you 
you will have spent twenty years with the same partner 
this partner will love you more and better than anyone 
ever could including your own mother who loves you very much 
eventually your earrings and lipstick will cause your partner 
substantial discomfort though he will not say anything 
about it because he will know that turning 
fifty sometimes means that things might change 
and he will know that all he can do is wait to see if anything 
is still standing once the high pressure 
system has moved through and although he is not a buddhist 
he will accept the river of life will sometimes 
burst its banks that water will rise in kitchens 
and the insurers will need to be called in to assess the damage
to the european appliances and you will know something 
inside you is dying now that the tub of fresh double cream 
that has sat happily at 3 degrees in the refrigerator 
of your life is now on the turn you will meet a man 
you did not expect to meet you will want to spend 
many nights with him you will make up many excuses 
as to why you are coming home late you will ask your girlfriend
who is also very good at lying to join you in your dreich den
of dishonesty and she will agree to act as your alibi 
should your partner of twenty years decide 
to call her one night to confirm you are with her 
on the evenings you are not home your partner 
of twenty years will eat dinner on his own 
and he will cling wrap yours so when you come home 
he can microwave it for you so you can have a hot meal
he will know that things are now very different 
and he will know exactly what is different
but he will not say anything about it because 
he will not want to make you feel you cannot behave 
in the way you find you suddenly need to behave
he will notice you are now shaving your legs 
having your bikini line waxed and sometimes 
your nails painted fire engine red and he will not believe 
the outrageous lies you are telling him 
but he will not call you on them and this will 
make you think you are getting away with them 
and even though he is not a buddhist he will 
not show you any rage rather he will love 
you all the more because he will understand 
that you what need right now is love 
and one morning when you will have stuffed 
your liver so full of your own lies that it sits 
swollen like that of a french goose 
he will ask you gently if you want to talk about 
what’s going on and still you will tell him everything 
is fine and keep on with your lies till you are now choking 
on them   
eventually you will be home for dinner less and less 
and your lies will increase more and more 
and one night you will send him a text saying 
you will be back later than usual maybe even the next day
and your lie for this one will be very original and completely 
unbelievable but you are now so addicted 
to your lies like a kid on nothing but smarties and mars bars 
and tob-le-fucking-rones that you just keep right on shovelling 
your refined sugar onto the fire of your truth and your partner 
of twenty years will text you back simply saying ‘OK’
cause he knows you need to go through what you need 
to go through and he will eat dinner alone that night along 
with all the other nights and he will wash the dishes 
and watch the evening news and he will miss that you are not there 
shouting at the telly when the liberals come on and he will 
put the hot water bottle on your side of the bed 
and cling wrap your dinner because he understands 
the importance of a warm bed and a hot meal 
when you finally come home.


Previously published by Beautiful Losers Magazine, Editor Lee Ellis 
& Wakefield Press, Editor Julia Beaven

---

mia council casa es tu council casa

	i live out of sydney these days it is close 
to the beach though we are not wealthy.  
Some days there are whales other days dolphins 
occasional jellies and never dead babies i like visiting 
the art gallery in the city it takes me one hour 
to drive there i park at the expensive 
multi-storey it is a $10 flat rate on a sunday
after parking i cut through hyde park past the statue 
of robert burns standing alone and too far away 
from scotland we are both foreigners here of the acceptable 
kind. i like the location of the gift shop 
it is right next to the entry which is also the exit
i always go to the gift shop first they have handbags 
made of unshaved cow and earrings like hot air balloons 
and a dimly lit section at the back with mysterious 
art books in thick polythene covers the thickness 
of the polythene indicates their seriousness 
and the price and there is an arsehole in there wearing 
jesus sandals though he bears no resemblance 
to jesus and the arsehole says to a random 
woman (who turns out to be an arsehole too) he took a holiday 
in paris once on the left bank some thirty 
years back when it really was something and if hitler 
was alive today this whole thing with the syrian refugees 
would not be happening and the female arsehole agrees 
then the jesus sandalled arsehole says what’s going 
on over there is nothing but a european invasion 
and the subject of the little boy’s body on bodrum 
beach comes up and i have been there on holidays 
some thirty years back when it really was something 
the hotel was right next door to the doctor’s surgery 
bent black clad women came daily clacked rosary 
beads on milk crates in full view of fat tourists 
bathing topless on hotel loungers ordering 
chips and cokes they did not need from kadir 
the turkish waiter who brought me proper chai 
in a glass and taught me how to say 
‘tomorrow i am going to instanbul’.
After the little boy’s body got washed 
up on the sand australia offered synthetic 
duvets fake chai lattes and empty promises 
to twelve thousand of the five million 
in camps who cry themselves to sleep at night
and i have calculated this on my iPhone and it works
out to be a teardrop in the ocean to the closest 
decimal point australia i have offered 
more hope to more cockatoos more safety 
to kookaburras more gum leaves to koalas
than the crumbs you are flicking 
from your all you can eat buffet 
it is time to feed the birds australia 
tuppence a fucking bag sure what does it cost 
to pipe in a haggis share some tatties and neeps 
raise a glass to their health mia council 
casa es tu council casa australia the world’s
eyes are rolling in your general direction 
and right now you look like some kind of jesus 
sandalled arsehole sitting on the veranda 
of your ocean front property with your deep pockets 
and short arms pretending you don’t even know 
it’s your turn to buy the next round at the bar.

Previously published in Other Terrain Journal, Senior Poetry Editor Anne Casey
& Wakefield Press, Editor Julia Beaven

---

there is no sound when it snows 

like when you pull your tam o’shanter 
down over your ears and i know this muffled 
silence so well it is there always 
in the forest at the end of our road 
where conifer boughs layered with thick snow sway 
like fat babies just fed their heads 
lolling on the brink of nodding off and the train 
to london whizzes past twice a day punctuating 
the silence with two giant exclamation 
marks triggering tremors causing snow 
to loosen and waltz from boughs with a whispering swoosh 
and there were times i was on that train 
mum would drop me at the station in the village
then race back through the forest 
to wave as my train sped past and as the forest 
approached i’d wave through the window 
though the train went so fast i could never 
quite see her––but i knew that she was there. 
the air is iced and sharp here and i breathe 
it willingly stick my tongue in the air 
catch snowflakes that flit i swallow 
their flesh drink down their blood 
till i am the snowflake the snowflake is me.  
i lived here once. in this icy silence
the place i live now is hot and there are days 
i could weep for the boughs of my forest 
and the north wind that gusts and near blows 
the toorie off my glengarry this hot place i live is australia
the land is dry and cracked here 
much like the skin on the heels of my feet 
that were never like that when i lived in scotland
i’ve got my father’s feet they say heels 
that need softening in the bath for a fortnight 
before you could even begin to take the cheese 
grater to them and only then will the thick skin 
come away crumbly like the mature scottish 
cheddar i’ve never enough money to buy in the supermarket 
things have changed since i came to this hot 
place i’ve forgotten a lot about scotland 
sure that’s what i came here for in the first 
place but i have my reminders all around 
me now indeed as i lay here on my bed 
on this hot january afternoon wilting 
from the searing heat and not a breath 
of air to be had my dog eared copy of antonia 
fraser’s ‘mary queen of scots’ jams my sash 
window open since the cord of the sash snapped 
and sent the upper case hurtling to the sill 
like the guillotines that have taken the french 
heads off more people than i care to remember
and i have my postcard on the wall 
the one of the highland cow my brother 
sent me from his camping trip on skye – 
‘come back ali’ it reads ‘before you forget 
how good this air truly tastes.’ and i read 
that card daily and it too is dog-eared 
for i peel it from the wall each morning 
and stick it back with the same lump of blu 
tac i’ve been using for the last as many years 
i can’t move in this heat 
all i can do is lay here on my now damp cotton 
sheets damp from the sweat i’ve been leaking 
as hot winds torch and burnt dust swirls forcing 
locals into bars with promises of half price 
cocktails served in coconut shells at times 
of day not made for drinking 
i moved into this weatherboard cottage 
with hardly a thing it was the first place 
i’d lived in australia with a garden––i should 
say yard––they call gardens yards down here 
yards make me think of barbed wire fences 
broken concrete slabs and gnashing
guard dogs on choke chains that near sever 
their wind pipes rushing strangers that come too close 
the day i moved in i sat in my new garden 
overgrown with something green and curly
––chokoes the neighbour advised––whatever 
the fuck chokoes are i looked them up ‘native 
to mexico though particularly easy to grow 
in the australian YARD’ and this house 
came with a fish-pond baking in full sun 
naked of algae and the loneliest most bored looking 
goldfish i have ever seen he barely moves 
does not dart nor scoot unlike the darting
scooting goldfish of my youth won at fairgrounds 
knocking the heads off clowns with a coconut
i call this goldfish gordon for no other 
reason than it starts with a g 
sometimes i sit under my chokoe vine 
and stare at him once in a while he swims 
half heartedly from one end of his blistering 
pond to the other humiliated by mosquitoes 
landing on fairy feet pricking the surface 
of his pond there was a time he must have eaten them––
i don’t see him so much as place his lips 
to the surface now all he does is hang 
with all the the weight of the depressed 
man who care barely lift his head 
off the pillow and i get to thinking 
all this gold fish has probably ever
known is life in this simmering pond 
but me i’ve known something different
i’ve seen my frosted breath hang in the stillest
of air and my lips have kissed the chill 
of snow that brings a silence money 
couldn’t buy you so i’ll lay here 
on my damp sheets a wee while longer 
and i’ll dream of scotland and mary 
queen of scots and two-man tents on skye 
where toories are taken in gale force winds 
and goldfish are not boiled alive in some scalding 
pond 
sure this hot country is no place for a goldfish 
this hot country is no place for me.

Previously published by Red Room Company, Editor Kristy Wan
& Wakefield Press, Editor Julia Beaven

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and my heart crumples like a coke can you never ate fusilli nor farfalle nor spaghettini. you did not like all that italian shite. you liked chocolate eclairs penguin biscuits beef with string in gravy and custard with steamed pudding which is like a fruitcake. a long time ago we wished you would die. you loved tractors and bob-cats. a bob-cat is the australian name for a digger. one winter you dug a hole in a field with your bob-cat cut off the electricity supply to the entire village burst the mains water pipe. the water froze children skated on it wayward cars skidded into badgers and lambs born in unseasonal snow. your father was a farmer. he gave you your love of tractors. and potatoes. he skimped on other sorts of love. once you gifted a plough to mum. and a socket set. another time a cement mixer. you smoked and drank. grouse mostly. embassy regals. one time you moved a washing machine for a neighbour. you bought old tractors and renovated them sold them in the classifieds. although you could not spell it you were an entrepreneur. your legs went thin. the nutritionist said all you had to do was drink complan. you used to wash your car a lot. the celebrant at your funeral said you would be on your way to heaven in a gleaming vehicle. nobody laughed. you were not religious. i do not believe in heaven. your brother in canada rings me a lot since you died. he told me you were coeliac. it is unrelated to motor neurone disease. you were seventy fucking two. david bowie sixty nine. alan rickman the same. your adam’s apple stopped moving. i realise i too will stop breathing one day. at your funeral your sort-of-wife asked for donations to the disease you didn’t know you had. i don’t know if anyone donated. nine days before you died i visited you at your pebble dashed house, sat beside you on your tan leather couch, watched upside down chaffinches feed on the bird nuts hanging from the hills hoist in your front garden. a hills hoist is australian. in scotland it is a whirly jig. i have been away too long. you tried to make your way to the bathroom on your zimmer frame. you fell in the hall way. i didn’t know how to get you up. i lay beside you on the carpet. you kept apologising. there was nothing to apologise for. the nutritionist was wrong. you died the tuesday after valentine’s day. valentine’s day was on the friday. stephen hawking had motor neurone disease too. his is different to the kind you had. there are four different kinds. yours was diagnosed the day you died. you were already dead. stephen hawkins liked cosmological stuff and the big bang. you liked tractors. when i think of how much you liked tractors, my heart crumples like a coke can.   Previously published in The Neighbourhood Paper (Sydney, Australia), Editor Mark Mordue & Wakefield Press, Editor Julia Beaven.   “mia council casa es tu council casa” and other poems are © Ali Whitelock

Ali Whitelock is a Scottish poet and writer living on the south coast of Sydney with her French chain-smoking husband. Her debut poetry collection and my heart crumples like a coke can has just been released by Wakefield Press, Adelaide, and her memoir, Poking seaweed with a stick and running away from the smell was launched to critical acclaim in Australia and the UK in 2010. Her poems have appeared in The Moth Magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, Gutter Magazine, NorthWords Now, The Poets’ Republic, The Red Room Company, Beautiful Losers Magazine, Backstory Journal, Other Terrain Journal, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Canberra Times, Bareknuckle Poet, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Glasgow Review of Books, Neighbourhood Paper, The Hunter Writers’ Centre ‘Grieve’ Volume 6 Anthology, The Pittsburgh Quarterly Magazine and The University of Wisconsin’s Forty Voices Strong: An Anthology of Contemporary Scottish Poetry. She is currently working on her second poetry collection and her second memoir.

“Flaxen Sheaf” and other poems by Laura Scanlon

Flaxen Sheaf Softly winnowing, shifting neat Deftly yielding seed from sheath, Sifting cleft wheat from weed, Sweeping sleeves bereft of seed Wielding fleets of sickle o’er Nimbly threshing flaxen plant, Cloven seams unwoven—spent, Shafts of sheafs—swiftly rent The chaffing teeth, The shearing tooth, The shaven chaff, The grieving root.   The Echo The echo resonates— confirmation you are alone, Borne along with contractions are pitches and tone. Giving breath to life is labour— breath pregnant with sound, –collected in thought, –delivered with care, –spoken aloud. The birth of words weighty, born into new air profound, the echo will perish, the meaning resound.   Sentiment as Sediment Gloomy Tuesday sits thickly like a pot of glue, thick and almost solid, —almost set Old Monday like forgotten honey rests, —Separate, The dregs lay, Heavy at the bottom of the thick glass Tuesday, a blue day.   Flaxen Sheaf and other poems are © Laura Scanlon

Laura Scanlon has recently just completed an MA in Gender, Sexuality and Culture at UCD. Her dissertation focused on social media and the weaponization of the ‘male gaze’. She is interested in writing as well as feminism and masculinity studies. Her poetry displays an intense interest in wordplay, which she often employs to describe human creative processes, both mental and physical, as well as the passage of time and the power of language.