Microscopic particles of time
rain upon our lives.
Paper promises grow brittle,
mapped forgiveness folds, unfolds,
frays and tears along the creases.
Our memories refract through prisms
until the brightest day is lost
in anesthetic runes.

~/~

I heard a motor revving in the carport,
and from my gate,
I watched my Kia Starfish drive away,
with the spindly legged carport
galloping behind.

I am
in bloom.
Full of blood,
bubbling, full of life.
Face aglow, I am awed
by the blood vessels
flowing into womb,
thickened veins and
umbilical pulse. I can
feel their swollen contours
as they inflect upwards beneath
the skin. Bulbous breasts plump with
sweet amber, ~~ dripping like blackstrap
molasses. ~~ Soon the ambrosia will pour
forth as the new baby feeds, feeding the
flowering plants, tuberose and jasmine,
clematis and columbine, blossoming
blackberry brambles; ~~ this milky
blancmange enriching the fertile
soil of spring. ~~ Efflorescence
all around; a flurry of blood
cell activity flourishing in
living to fullest potential.
Warm mountain spring
water placates all of the
pressure and submerged
I float like slumbering
baby in womb. Resting in
this nine-month umbra,
cloistered from world’s
abrasive ways, ~~~~ I am
imbued with an afflatus
shine; mother and baby,
together an emblem for
Holy Spirit’s ripest fruit.

I’m the man in the iron cage, the pilgrim with an unrepentant, unyielding heart, the prophet who has regressed into a poet with anguish breaking through bone, and then skin, the tendrils tying my tongue, muting my real howl and creating a soft shriek which they consider beautiful. I’m the Kierkegaardian stereotype, a freak tortured and tormented by his panoramic paranoia, a twisted, fucked up birds eye view of skulls and enemies, of corpses punching keys and hate, and I can’t see a horizon. I’m the label of everyone’s disgust, an animal in an asylum which sensibly speaks, but in alliteration—the zookeeper’s delight. “Look now, here’s Mr. Bipolar. Hysterically jump or flat line, it’s your prerogative, but make sure you entertain, because they’ve paid with their time and energy. Be Quick!” But the more I rattle, the more they rile. The more I lie, the more they cry, until I…

A detective, his client, the mystery of what lies beyond the quotidian sea, and a marginally relevant precedent.

The sunlight hurts my eyes,
I’m unaccustomed to the lack of walls,
and I miss the certainties
my office prison offered me.

My client gives me glasses, dark,
and thoughtfully plasters zinc cream
on my nose,
but the world is not as I expected.

It’s that time of the year when many of the streets in Adelaide are coloured purple.

As the flowers fall the streets below are carpeted in purple. Simply stunning, the flowering jacaranda is known by students to be the harbinger for end of year exams.

Jacaranda mimosifolia, if grown from seed, can take anywhere from seven to fourteen years before it flowers. For a jacaranda tree to be considered ‘mature’ it is probably twenty years old. They can live up to 75 years and grow as tall as 50 feet.

Interestingly, the jacaranda is not native to Australia. They found their way here from Brazil. However, our climate seems to suit them very well as they thrive here.

©  Raili Tanska

Steps for Peace

Let your eyes feast on the beauty of nature. It feeds the Soul.