Murk

I am working very hard not to offend you          whilst also   surreptitiously
dropping you repeatedly from a great height     like birds do to snails 
but it doesn’t work     and I’m not even doing it anyway
we all know I’m crouching beside you on the ground     which is very real
and to which you have spitefully anchored yourself

 I am trying very hard to not appear hardworking      by being pampered     
in a leaky mall        trying to forget about the next thing you will spitefully 
anchor yourself to      trying to offend you with my coral nails and my bleached         
reef        I think it’s beginning to work        until I notice the anchor 
protruding from my beautician’s neck

 suggestive only of endless unspent water
the indifference of work        the most hatable
indifference to beauty       then down by the water on the way
to see the boys     i stop for a smoke      there's fishing        hot
night stuff
guys not talking        not my mates     i pause and attach to their quiet
in the mall bebe rexha hoons         down here gulls
i tell the boys    there was oil on top of the water          they say
of course there was

 that and worse       ebbed out of memory
into something murkier        a few voices thru the basin     
more boys      good boys     w their third-hand references 
  (  some old movie       ideas of the sixties        the night sticky 
like satin       pored over at a charity auction    years later

 I found where I'd hidden
all my darlings—sweet Georgina with the hose
on innocent little brother—lazy-eye Vanessa
(none of these worthy even of a true crime podcast)
Leanne with the dead lawn, nightshift daddy

Who never forgave the colour of that lawn
And stood always at the front gate
Silent and firm, fists curled
Like that hose before the water cut off.

 For as soil depletes into dry cracks,  
magma hearts spew 
earth love into the cities: 
Who will save her garden of Eden?

By Freya Daly Sadgrove, Eleanor Rose King Merton, Gareth Morgan, Harry Reid, Alice Allan, Eleanor Smagarinsky, & Kinga Bitsits:

Freya Daly Sadgrove

Freya is a writer and performer based in Pōneke. She has an MA in Poetry from the International Institute of Modern Letters, and her poems have appeared in various online and print publications – most recently Going Down Swinging, Minarets, and The Spinoff. Her first poetry collection is due for publication in 2020.

Eleanor Rose King Merton

Eleanor Rose King Merton is an editor and poet living in Wellington, Aotearoa. Her work appears in various publications such as Peach Mag, Sport, Turbine | Kapohau and Starling.

Harry Reid

Harry Reid is a poet from Melbourne. They co-host sick leave, a monthly reading series at the Gasometer Hotel, and their work can be found in Overland, The Lifted Brow, Cordite Poetry Review and elsewhere. 

Alice Allan

Alice Allan publishes the podcast Poetry Says, where she interviews poets from Australia and overseas about the poetry that matters to them. She also runs the Melbourne reading series Sporting Poets. Her work has been published in journals including Rabbit, Cordite, Southerly, Australian Book Review and Westerly, and shortlisted for the Blake Poetry Prize.

Kinga Bitsits

I  live in Coogee Sydney. When not explaining my Hungarian name I sell recycled clothes online. I am keen to interact with other writers and belong to a few writers’ groups. My poems have been published in two anthologies and online.