Category: Issue Seven
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Maybe
By Abby Claridge There is a moment between waking up and being awake. A moment where you open your eyes and just physically see what’s right in front of you. It might be a pillow, a small set of drawers, a lamp, your phone… Then you blink a few times, the moment passes, and you…
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Walking
By Rose Lucas For KTM
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‘ME TOO’: VICTIM BLAMING
By Wendy J Dunn I don’t understand the first wave feminist said all you need to say is ‘Go get fucked,’ to be left alone. that’s what I did when I was young and I never had trouble with men When I was young I was terrified of men My six foot one father…
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A secret language
by Frances Roberts. Consider what we have here: a world with starving millions at one end of the spectrum and at the other those with a fortune in millions. Thousands of the poorest human beings are on the move from famine war or persecution. The children for the most part are already damaged by their…
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Lee Kofman Interview
Interviewer: Samuel Elliott About the author: Dr. Lee Kofman is a Russian-born Israeli-Australian author, who has edited two anthologies and penned five books. In addition to her long-form and editorial work, her poetry, short stories and creative non-fiction pieces have featured in a wealth of publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Meanjin and The Griffith Review, among numerous…
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Cutlery, the Importance of
By Amanda Bell Men were supposed to wield long knives, preside at table, carve thin slices sidelong. Yet when my father handed on the role I didn’t yield my brother space, and with a small sharp kitchen knife excised the white meat from the bone in one long piece, and on a board I…
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Defective
By Lauren O’Connell I think I am made to fluff up a decadent batter. Eggs, sugar, butter, grace my beaters and bowl, I can make it better than any other. No. I was designed to tick, tock, tick, tock until neither tick nor tock is necessary. I will stand tall in the hall of a…
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ENDONE® Oxycodone hydrochloride 5 mg
By Stuart Barnes Blister-white tablet engraved with ‘ENDONE’ on one side, break bar the other. It does not take the place of your doctor or pharmacist: opium or morphine: Accident or Emergency. Store it below ground, above ground, in an unlocked cupboard. Store it in the bathroom, store it near the sink. Leave…
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Gaia Cries Another Ocean
By Audrey Molloy You will remember only as far as your Babushka but, girl, the songs go back further, stored in your temporal lobes, dormant until you hear them as if for the first time. They will be carried on the wind through deserts, plucked on the grasses of the steppe. Your ponies are…
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AFTER THE SHOOTINGS
By Rochelle Jewel Shapiro Words sobbed into shoulders, into sweaty hair, the clavicle, the forehead, the breast your breast is pressed against, into the vibrations of each other`s solar plexus, the pelvis, the churning belly that is shared by both bodies in that one moment, the ear—its lobe and lobule, its pinna and auricle, into the…
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Ebon Cans
By Stuart Barnes In the twinkling of an eye, in a moment, all is changed —Gwen Harwood, ‘Bone Scan’ In the twinkling of her eye, all is changed: the small blond child afraid of almost every thing — father, mother, himself especially — but books, and paper and pen, awakens in the vestry where,…
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not quite …
By Marilyn Humbert not quite the hand on her shoulder between desk and door not quite the hazer loudmouth of innuendos not quite the excuse just joking … not quite sons and daughters believing who to ignore not quite speaking up overhearing whispers not quite redundant restructured out of a job but we too…
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GOD’S OWN…
By Julie Fredericks Disturbing events that truly challenge the moral compass we all share. all over the world a thousand hearts break a thousand stars lights diminished dull further a thousand souls collapse deeper in despair a thousand lies reminders of the past a thousand ways to die none more slowly than created by…
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Michael Farrell
Interviewed by Samuel Elliott. About the Poet: Michael Farrell’s previous collections include living at the z, ode ode (shortlisted for the Age Poetry Book of the Year Award), BREAK ME OUCH, a raiders guide (published by Giramondo in 2008), thempark and thou sand. His second collection with Giramondo open sesame (2011) was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Award for Poetry. His most recent collection, I Love Poetry, won the 2018…
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Promised Land
By Mohammad Ali Maleki (edited by Michele Seminara) I travel at the speed of electricity and wind to depression and hopelessness. I’m fed up with this miserable life — I’ll be glad to rest under the soil. The grave is my only remaining desire now. I swear to God, one day I will have…
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Charlie
By Denise O’Hagan Every hospital has a Charlie Someone who’s slipped through society’s cracks And sits obstinately on the outside A grit in the eye of every passerby And a reproof to government healthcare. He was sitting there today By the thick glass sliding doors A great raw trunk of a man Marooned in…
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joy!/joy?
By Jayant Kashyap and, somewhere, in the street surrounded by shrapnel and falling walls, children shoot each-other in a game they play after their war-heroes apart from reality what’s war to them anyway, but so much noise and constant news of deaths and seeing nothing later, when little shrapnel pieces cling to their pockets,…
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THROWING THINGS
By Kenneth Pobo The last time I got into a fight with Stan, we threw things. I took a bank book right to my bread basket. He took a cat wand right to his shoulder. We were arguing about junk. He gets too much of it. I live in clutter. He said no, he…
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“I’m almost home safe.”
By Wendy J Dunn She Lost her life the news presenter said walking home late one night She lost her life, why say that? It sounds like he thought she was careless in claiming her independence to walk home Alone That it was her fault she lost her life minutes from home Say what really…
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What Ever Works
(The Story Time Project)By Joe Humphreys Lock and key: the distinguishing device of civilization and enlightenment. Ambrose Bierce It’s not a new idea—telling stories is as old as humanity. Yet it never fails to surprise me how small the appreciation is that reading to children fosters more than just literacy. I’ve been teaching literacy and ESL in a…