Our 10th Issue is packed full of exciting artists and writers! Our blog is an extension of the issue so we can share even more experimental, beautiful work with our readers!

Lions in the Grass

Lions in the grass, a bird flies from the tree to the cliff, orange rocks and crawling snakes jagged with lust. Here is the number five, here is the equation born from the universe and the imagination. The light goes out. The robbery is a success, this is the number five. On the outskirts of the town the sleeping woman can still hear the screaming zebra, the bookends of her slumber, the soundtrack to her flowing dream. A muscle tenses against the bone, a vacant breath for her to own, the hills rise like the edge of a cavern, the lip of a crater. No instruction is given, and the orator begins, a vacant flow of the water to cascade there under the bridge, there to touch the morning, there to awaken each one of us. As we drunkenly shake the idols from our hair, these are the gold nails hammered into the yew, hammered into the ebony, we are sore, but still we walk, still we drink from hands soft and we chant soft words to raise spirit, to break the straight line from ancestor to fateful sleep. Hold the strong, and make love to ghosts, stinging the assembly, burning the actor’s hair and beard. These candles spin, these voices are soft wrapping around our army of echoing precision. Here the masters feast on the poems of heaven, here we construct tunnels inscribed with golden prayer.

Sweet rain laying on the ground, throwing brilliant colour towards the men in space. I hold myself in the blanket and look up to the sun. Somewhere there is a fire burning the sacrifices for an understanding God. Cold hands and slouching shoulders, black shirts beneath black coats. Shoes stepping into the wet soil, shoes leaving prints in the red clay. There is smoke coming out from the roof, there are mice in the walls, and thoughts yet to be released from the shaking effects of legs and limb. All the dinosaurs came
today, all the moths flew away. Bubbles formed in the water and we flooded the valleys so we could build more boats. I read your message left for me on the standing tree, I read your words and couldn’t find the difference between now and then, age holds no recollection or lesson, age is no medal for me to pin to my dark shirt. Some new honour for me to toss in all directions, a triumph in the form of a golden apple to share at the feast, when dogs lie beneath stone tables, when horses make for home and great
philosophers sleep through the eclipse of Autumn. I do not know what your wine stands for, I do not know what your toasts are honouring, the dead they are gone. The living they are walking on dusty roads, they are kicking quartz stones against quartz stones. Pissing against the soft bark of elm trees, watching the dust of drought take effect on the middle son.

Normally the audience holds candles to the roof, normally the lust of the theatre leaves black scars on the walls. Seeds are planted beneath the floorboards, and when the building burns to the ground these will grow. On the rivers we planted grape vines, on the mud flats we planted lucerne trees. A prison was built where the caravan used to sit, and the author watched as they built statues in memory of his art. I don’t know where the paths are leading me, I don’t know where desire sits, this grassy crest beneath
citrus tree and jasmine vine, this stone ledge where the adolescent boy sits holding a cigarette to his mouth. It reminds me of a movie I once saw, the British fellow went swimming and died. I have no white shirts to wake up in, I leave words at the breakfast table, I leave words in the wine. I can’t hold this memory forever.

Bio: Tim Bocquet is an Australian writer of poetry and prose, living the semi-rural life with very large collection of books, many unread. He has a degree in Ancient History and enjoys the simple things in life, such as pork and fennel sausages and cardigans.

Find “An Ocean’s Jagged Smile” in Issue 10!