The Value of Peas I am Eve Langley and I know the value of peas. They are sweeter than an Italian singer on a winter morning. They are Afghan kisses that scatter like camel’s hooves across the sand of my skin. Eating one without thought will bankrupt you. Their beauty - too perfect for a mouth to form words on, and their tiny size holds the terror of the universe within it. My babies, three sets of pea green eyes who looked at me as if they knew me. What a mystery. The Tasman’s stopped hissing my name And Gippsland’s abandoned efforts to draw me back. What was left behind by red raw fingers and cracked knees in the fertile dirt of my youth where now nothing good can grow? But I am not gone, I am here writing, writing beneath that old crazy maker, the full moon, that shivers and shines like a frost covered pea left too long on the vine. Now I am where the towering trees and rocks have pushed themselves up defiantly from the earth to stake their claim before us. There is no soft soil here for pathological rows of neatness where nature’s curves can be perfected to straighter tastes. But I am not alone here in the Wildeness. I have my peas, and their company is more than I can bear. © Sandra E Laight
Untitled Jo Brannigan
Blue Shut the door on that blue room, it's like something died I see reminders about, the paint tray in the yard, the grass claiming it now, splashes on the bricks where the rollers rest It's not safe out there, the window is looking, it watches me hang clothes, with my back to it, wants me to turn, to see those walls, even it's distant cousin clouding above threatens Today I notice wings in the dirt and poke at feathers at claws, want them to perch on my stick Paper litters the yard, I think of wrapping this gift, think of digging by our tree, while ants treck blood on my boots Tammy Allen
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"Untitled 13" © Louise Molloy
"Playing Scrabble Naked" ©Jade O'Donohue
My mum & Miro used a whirlpool (for Miro) you suck man you really do you're the great fucker sucker                                      Miro no doubt about it. happens every time; one minute phantasmagorically frozen next ------- Woosh I'm sucked into your world spinning inside your washing machine mind feeling my way through your dictionary, metaphors of colour and line tumbling refractions in the whirlpool. I understand cycles            Miro my mum used a whirlpool I know all about spin rinse coloureds and delicates, take your harlequins drip-dry prancing around singing loud "we're iron free brilliant in colour brilliant in soul we dance as we please so perfect in drip-dry we're not even chinese" and what about the dogs, not to mention a few birds as well spun out all unsteady from an elongated spin, woozy in the eye wobbly in the legs was it vodka straight in the final wash? dog needs a breathalyzer to walk the ladder moon keeps searching for that straight line; won't find it of course, bleached out. such a talent with the stain remover, try as I may unlike my linen I can't find a smudge, daubs ordained by the holy palette yes jazz yes swing be-bop rythm yes yes yes all in the womens' faces forms yes dreams yes buttons silks and cotton stars and space, clarity of thought in the final rinse yes. I understand cycles            Miro my mum used a whirlpool            yes she also left her signature. Josef Lesser
WAR CRIMES CANNOT BE FORGOTEN NOR FORGIVEN NEVER EVER Enjoy coca cola © Mishko Desovski
"Maternity" ©Cass Allen
bin Mae Wetberth	straight Beverly Wong
tvhead Darren Carney Untitled Catherine Bailey Leaves 1 Natalie Brem Surface Tension Timothy Preston