[x]

Good Morning, WorldThere’s noise – lots of it – and my ears strain to hear the excited shrieks. I roll over, groaning as the sheets knot against my body. An illuminated 7 AM greets me and I turn around, as if refusing to acknowledge the passage of time.

‘It’s Sunday.’ The words vibrate against the walls. My heart thumps. I can feel a patch of my skin warming from the sunlight screaming through my window.
‘Sunday, Sunday.’ His little feet patter down the hallway and I can hear his fingertips grazing the wall as he goes.
‘Sara.’
‘Yes?’ I lift my head to see his eyes level with mine. He’s jumpin

Ghost ArmorComing back soon... to be published within the HOAX #22 issue of antiTHESIS, a Melbourne University publication. x

ShiverAn earthquake rolls across her skin
as green curtains reserve a space
for construction -
he looks at splattered bed sheets
and cradles a small shiver.

He inhales, holds the breath. Hands
calloused by supermarket boxes grip
the railing. Cord of blood and sweat
fused into life is taken into other,
more precise palms.

A hand on his shoulder whirls
him around - birth is burdened
into his arms. Black curls smell sweet.
He feels her hand envelope his as he
leans forward to kiss the wailing temple
turned an angry shade of red. She's
whisked away - to wash and dry.

A statue of bones -
becomes a colossal collapse.

Small GiantsNo more do birds rise
the way we first taught them—
attack quick. This humid war
has made us sluggish and led
us into its defeat-scape.

We were small giants in a storm,
our body-made boats—
a structure of spine, vertebrae
ribs, sternum, also the heart
root of trees

and the same thread
that hems the town of us.
This drift between should be
treated biological, as though
we never lost sight,

or touch. Let me sleep
by the door, so that I'll be closer
when the tsunami hits.

not a seamstress yet

Let me
cut pockets away
from suit pants
and throw them through windows,
bus doors and into buckets
and buskers hats.
your fingers now shine
from frosted sweat
and you,
no place to hide
chewed nails
and perhaps a little secret:
those stubborn things
that stick
of gum, the neighbours spare key
with it’s king parrot
key ring
and those seams lipstick-kissed
from cheeks with no flush
or pride.
Here, let me, cut.

Tea, Anyone?

A withering elderly lady drags the quintessential flap-topped grocery trolley into the dimly lit underpass. Her hair is a tangle of combs, an electric frizz fallen prey to old age, now sits static and snow-white. Muttering quietly, she stops as she sets eyes on the musician, beating his bongo drums. The skin around her eyes gathers crows-feet and for a second her eyes seem to brighten, wide and beautiful with recognition. She moves closer and begins to speak.

My Grandpop used to say that an’ I never knew him to be poetical. I mean…he was no Shakespeare or nothin’, but he were somethin’ with his greased up fingers from all

on becomingthe sound of rising: traffic on the road
and between siren and bird, the two keep rhythm.
everything falls apart, pre-collison you feel
the atria, the brass glow of the tuba,
stuttering out a tenor voice, this suffering.
the day pinches you out from your cave of
cotton and wool. the beginning of time
happens every morning. the city
disguises reflections with cloud and the asphalt
feasts on this darkness. wind makes your
skin secondary and like armour,
you become reptilian.

1988

Let’s start out as a dream
hidden in-between palm folds,
crushing church steeples
and the finger-wings of butterflies
that would soon fade and rise
with the excitement of big city shine.

The birch trees sway, the paper bark
fraying like stewed meat
as the bone is stripped away.
The night watches him hover,
inching in darkness, white noise & sounds
I once used to confess.

Then things happen: boys, glasses askew
& noise – a buzz at being called beauty
full head against thighs. Only clothing left to clutch,
the spread of skin as yet untouched. Time has grown.
Rising to my mother’s cheek, I turn
only to give a ma

Sand and CementShe dreamt in the morning, the bed half empty with the sheets harnessing her body. In the dream there was only a street corner, the rest of the street a white mass, yet to be sketched. Her face wasn’t her own, but she could feel each tendon move and the sensation follow. The bicycle rested against her thigh, a replica of the one her dad bought back in ’87. She ran a hand through the two-tone streamers as she waited for the newspapers, and turned her face just as the wind smoothed by. In the white basket laid a baby wrapped in newspaper, its face woven red, but when she tried to pick the newborn up, her arms changed. They merged to t

The Village Bicycle Project
The Village Bicycle Project

Pet projects. Groups, prompts, contests, news serials. We all have them, whether it be one, or two, or ten if we've got a premium membership and a largesse of time. We start them for various reasons: to make a change for the better, to provide an opportunity that wasn't there before, or simply to make our mark on this wide and diverse community. Of course, it wasn't always like this. When I was first kicking around deviantART, News was still in beta (heck, beta-testing was still in beta) and Groups were nothing more than a glint in the ninja milkman's eye. What few projects there were were run out of the forums, individual journals or dedicated accounts, while the vast majority of contests came directly from the Gallery Directors. But now, thanks to these new features, anyone can be a community volunteer. You might not get the hat or the tacit permission to fling poop or rend innocents with your dinosaur teeth, but you are a community volu

En l'air

In the air

Outside the stuffiness of our kitchen, we were
makeshift dancers pirouetting greyscale streets:
the strip of grass, failing poppies
and the roar of bottlenecked traffic.
Feet flew across floorboards,

secret tunnels squashed between city sights,
our laughter found places where bolts held iron poles,
catering for awkward Pliés. Palms mimed clock-work,
and our muscles pushed against our winter woollies.

We watched light flickering through wood-work cracks,
our chests groaning with breath; the tick of exhaustion
sliding down foreheads, and the whirl of wind fuelling
our feet towards the house where warmth waited.

The Secret to Buoyancy

chapter 1

On that beach, he and I lay like deflated whales; our greying wetsuits became our second skin, encasing our then lithe bodies. We were, in that one moment, just a skeleton of breathing bones, blanketed flesh and little smiles showcasing teeth.

I moved, stretching out my arms as if I were just waking. I could feel the press of sand upon cheek, and dotting moistening lips, as saliva reinvented the mouths wash and cleanse cycle. Squinting, I looked into the spangle, and watched as the arc of sun turned blue. The prune of my fingers made me think, strangely of home.

If I remembered correctly, I’d

the origin of tweed coats

.

tailors, surgeons, homemakers
keep the human closet covered:
violet knitted hearts, corduroy veins
keep this,
and this tucked in your pocket
adjust the place of something old
and add, add, add
like a mathematician
stuck on one sum
take this tweed patched to pinstripe
thread up and through
through fabric, and prick -
the first mistake and ebb of red
prick, prick, prick -
let me, your mother says,
pins between lips,
fingers knitting thread
through brown and blue

Prose YourselfHis hands are sweaty
Lines weak but the plot is heavy
There's typos in his writing already
'Mom's spagerti'
He's done this
But in other drafts it was brash and crappy
It lacked soul, he kept on forgetting
What's he wrote now?
A hoe-down?
That's enough of that plot for now
He opens the ledger but the sheets won't come out
He's submitting now
Everybody's critting now..
'File not found'
Another plan on the ground...
SNAP BACK TO HIS MASTERY
OH, THERE GOES CLARITY
STUCK WRITING POETRY
HIS PRETTY POOR LITERARY, SKILLS DON'T
STAND WITH ME, NOPE
THE CRIT, HE WON'T GET IT
HE KNOWS HIS WHOLE BACKSTORY
IT DON'T MATTER HE WROTE
Y.A, SO DOPE
YET SO STAGNANT, HE KNOWS
WHEN HE GOES BACK TO THE CUMBERSOME
STYLE OF THE LAB AGAIN
HE BETTER CAPTURE HIS MOMENT AND HOPE
THEY DON'T BAG ON HIM...
Chorus
You better lose yourself in the writing, the fanfic
You may own it but don't ever let it go
You've got writer's block, do not miss your chance to show
The world a motherfucking good time.
The plot's es

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POLISHED POETRY COMPETITION WINNERS

by `Amberlouie, Jun 1, 2010, 7:11:39 AM
Journals / Art News / Literature

WINNERS OF THE POLISHED POETRY COMPETITION

I am so excited by this competition, the entries and the results. It was incredibly hard out of the 16 shortlisted entries to choose the winners. So hard we had to add on a 4th HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. I guess what I was really excited and still am quite ecstatic with is that the winner was the first submission I received. I read it and I felt my word-palette literally shiver.

The objective of this competition was to give me your most polished, edited, beautiful and cohesive poems. Poems were judged on this and those that did it well were in the shortlist this can be found here: [link]. The other aim of the competition is to show that a website community like deviantArt isn't amateur. People think deviantArt when they think young and inexperienced. This is such a myth. dA writers and artists are fantastic. It was also a way for poets to be considered in Verandah Literary and Art Journal free of charge.

Let's recap on prizes:

DEVIANTART PRIZES:

1st place:
- 2,000 devpoints
- PRINT of your choice worth $20.00
- Critique and feedback from `Amberlouie

2nd place:
- 800 devpoints
- 6 month subscription
- Critique and feedback from `Amberlouie

3rd place:
- 400 devpoints
- 3 month subscription
- Critique and feedback from `Amberlouie

Highly Recommended:
- Critiques from `Amberlouie

* All winning recipients and highly recommended will AUTOMATICALLY be in the pool to be considered for inclusion in the publication of Verandah Literary and Art Journal, Issue 25.

WINNERS

1st place: winter footnotes by ~e-bojnowski

2nd place: Epoch by `jade-pandora

3rd place: Of Hall and Field by *Nemonus

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Hare's Tortoise by `ATrue

Instructions to the First Maestro in Space by ~Elmara

the living and the dead by =sunshinegypsy

Symmetry, Truths by `PinkyMcCoversong

What happens now? Prizes will be handed out MID JUNE. All your poems will be going into Verandah 25's in-tray to be considered. You will recieve notice LATE JUNE as to whether your poem has been accepted.

Thank you all for entering, loving the article, pimping it in your journals!

Amber & the Verandah 25 team

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