Poems
Can I say
white people really bore me sometimes
to be exact
I grow tired with what's unmentioned
idling in surf club bathrooms
nothing wrong with the chips
but they're talking about Tasmania
my thoughts haunted by islands
maybe I'm dying
I've too many chips
teeth like stones
take me to be flossed
and cleaned
I need new soles
...
'Buffalo Milk' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
Suck until you burn the room
and the heat numbs
reduced to a sound
wet
like the come and go
of the ocean
water enters
my hand in your hair
my hand
if you leave me childless
this will be yours alone
these marks you make
openings, persuasions
of the woman I will become
Ellen van Neerven
'Bricks and Lightning' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
It seems I'm always walking
into the scene of a crime
moustached copper
and fuck-off tape
don't look too closely
you won't be able to sleep
I'm new to this building
I live now by the river where
the ducks look like shoes
in the water
I go to the department store
we used to frequent
I look at grocery receipts
to see how I'm saving< ...
The ground felt like it did when it's about to storm. My feet were brown and my big toe blistered. My grandmother was talking to my grandfather. A wet patch on my grandmother's back. Her hands roping those tails along the fence.
She turned to me and I saw her. Grey. A little heavy. Everything I came here for. A magpie flew lower.
Ellen van Neer ...
'the notebooks of Mr & Mrs Emeritus' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
ironing the crease into her lung with your breath
the six words in end steam over blue charcoal in her eye
your hands arrive in separate envelopes on different days
and they are addressed to each other
even the earth in its eyedropper is not medicine to our mouths
it's the milk dispensed through holes in a flute that keeps us alive
Mr & Mrs Emeritus ...
'statements to forget when remembered' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
no one ha
s ever written
there is no gr
eater poem
than this one
no one ha
s ever written
there is no gr
eater poem
then this one
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this poe ...
'the black hand of Badia Elmi' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One

Nathan Shepherdson
Recording
States of Poetry 2016 Podcast | State editor Felicity Plunkett introduces the Queensland anthology
In this episode of the Australian Book Review's States of Poetry Podcast, state editor Felicity Plunkett introduces the 2016 Queensland poets: Nathan Shepherdson, Ellen van Neerven, Lionel Forgarty, MTC Cronin, Sarah Holland-Batt, and Stuart Barnes.
... (read more)States of Poetry 2016 - South Australia | 'Gilbert Place - Cafe Boulevard' by Ken Bolton
for Lee Harwood
Softly solarised and parallel
two lines echo each other, glow slightly,
in a space that is nowhere
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