Lizz Murphy - Poem 309: feverish beast

feverish beast

tinkering buttons

two-backed shame 

just a little random word thing 

Lizz Murphy - Poem 308: Passing a horse paddock

PASSING A HORSE PADDOCK

Pedigree horses in white turnouts

trench-coated detectives from old crime

novels or saints come marching in swinging

their white robes or the Ku Klux Klan their

unlovely eyes blinking from hooded faces

P.S. Cottier #15 Blinky

Blinky

Australia was home to the first mammal species possibly made extinct due to recent climate change

Some ugly little rat may no more
pronk at the side of a coral cay.
We’ll plonk fuel in the 4WD
to take the kids to school,
and pick them up for soccer.
And after soccer, we’ll scoff beef
corralled in such convenient buns,
as we stay wrapped in bullish car.
And yes, oh yes, we will have fries.
Some ugly little rat is drowned —
we never learned to say its name.
Who would miss the melomys,
which even spell-check would despise?
Mere melanoma on far beach’s skin,
excised by surgeons of blunt bliss.

P.S. Cottier

Lizz Murphy — Piece 146: Trophies

Mark Roberts #26 Slide 25 The Shed Cats, Holmside. Lidster, Via Orange circa 1967

the shed cats

inside the shed it was always

cool and dark, the smell of sheep,

lanolin, and diesel.

the old blue tractor stood in the space

on the right, behind large doors

you had to lift and drag to open.

The wooden floor was so high

Tom could step across onto the tractor

- I always wanted to try but the space

was just a little too far for my

seven year old legs. On the ground,

near the front wheels of the tractor,

were a few dishes of warm milk,

splashed in from from the milking

buckets before they were taken

to the cool room.There would always

be kittens around the milk, half wild

they lived under the shed and lived

off the rats and mice

that took shelter there.

While there always

appeared to be a swarm of kittens

around the milk there were only

ever a few fully grown cats.

Lizz Murphy — Poem 52: Dream poem

DREAM POEM

Could I find a poem in a dream before it 

evaporates Book and pen under the pillow

Are those people who decipher hieroglyphics

in the Yellow Pages?

A dust buster turned strange echidna long

spiky tail curled up and over buff private parts

we walk together through the garden

A canvas painting glued around a cardboard 

archive box and lid There are pink and gold 

patches a red line Someone pins it in their 

window complains about the line

I so need to archive

I draw the line on dreams

Lizz Murphy — Poem 27: Knots

No animals were harmed in the making of this piece.