Melaleuca

Number 47: May 2013 Table of Contents Jim Bennett Jim Bennett Jim Bennett Jim Bennett Phillip A. Ellis Luke Whitington another pigeon in London frontier of going leviathan war graves The Drowned World Rilke's Torso 3 4 5 6 7 8 Editor: Phillip A. Ellis

All works are copyright by their respective creators, 2013; the arrangement of this collection is copyright by Phillip A. Ellis, 2013. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/>. You are free to make and pass along copies, so long as you do not charge money or goods for the copy, and as long as this and other issues remain intact. Submission guidelines: email 2-5 poems, any length, any style, any genre to phillip@phillipaellis.com in the body of a single RTF or DOC attachment. No bios are needed; cover letters are welcome. We accept previously published material and simultaneous submissions; if work is published prior to its appearance in Melaleuca you must advise us accordingly, so that proper attribution can be made.

another pigeon in London I watch as you return from journeys into far off roads as you follow rows of houses in a geometry shaped by ridgetiles and old chimneystacks you land and walk in message shapes describing distant places with your alphabet now stand head cocked and unafraid waiting for the food that will fall crumbled from my finger tips each lunchtime as I open Tupperware to see what sandwiches I have today you arrive and stand waiting thousands of birds have flocked here but still you pick me I know what I give you but wait to see what I get in return Jim Bennett

frontier of going (for Lesley Burt) I looked through your emails today unwound the past weeks as you travel backwards on your holiday your ship sails back to when arrived from Baqsel saw the storks nesting Strasbourg and that other picturesque town the castle Cologne and the picture of Kinderdijk where windmills turn and make wind back to the point where you joined the ship I watch take the taxi from the airport full of excitement to arrive as you left to fly to where you wait to leave the packing the looking forward to it it was all an interesting experience a criss cross timeframe an x at some point gone before it is realised as you move off into the past Jim Bennett

leviathan with sucker mouths the fish explore the sharks skin kiss it like a lover would in this twilight world seaweed hangs like rope barnacles cling like lichen the candelabra sways in the current as the iron bulkhead rots like smoke driven on a breeze a school of fish twist through gaping holes how did these metal sheets and rivets keep air inside and sail upon the surface world generations of fish live and feed along its broken spine it journey to a wilder shore cut short Jim Bennett

war graves in the cemetery the neat streets of the dead stretch into the distance on either side of the path headstones stand dressed and to attention in a final parade only the religious symbols the names ranks numbers and regiments are different but the stones are identical and the soldiers are all dead Jim Bennett

The Drowned World The water rills, as my boat passes through the avenues of water, the taller building crumbling ziggurats of plants, the crocodiles cruising the sea that is Sydney, the silt covering the unnamed streets and boulevards, and I am fine, far from weary. Listening to the waterbirds, as they pass overhead, to their platforms on what were once skyscrapers, and multi-story hotels, I do not imagine the life that once was here, before the poles melted, before the planet warmed, before the world collapsed. I do not search for anything but the fish that come and go, come and go in the shallows and the shadowed passages, the fat ones, the fine ones, the thick-lipped sweeteyes, for they are fine eating, and they make a fine meal. And I wait for the sunset, the call of the currawong from the islands to the north, where my tribe's waiting. Phillip A. Ellis

Rilkes Torso Out of the torso, all we have left Of courage, grace and power Is a powerful suggestion. How much grace? How much strength? Out of how much wreckage did it survive? The torso blazes in our minds While its straining legs, the fire in its belly Its thought and time laden head Are a dispensed entourage, absences Hovering in air, like an audience Of expatriated question marks Flung high and juggled over our darting minds. We stare at the translucent shoulders, eyes trying To pin down all the orbiting bits But the torso alone survives Our meddlesome enquiry; and legless Armless, headless and above all remarkably blind It flexes its glowing pectorals, the light outstaring our eyes. Luke whitington