New Poetry by Linda Stevenson

Going Bush

Oh that’s surfeit. That’s one too many
over the odds. I want to move on now,
hurry up and head for the bush,
my loaded self propped clumsily
in a back seat, on torn upholstery.
Drive off, driver, if not into the sunset,
then down a road of unlikely return.
See, wattle wraiths the verge;
I like that, haloes of pinprick otherness,
rash bloom defying straight, light
messing about with space, dawn.
Let me breathe. It’s enough, enough
to be gone from fretful ignorance,
the gormless floundering of small egotism
scrabbling for a place in chaos.
See, the cool bright slivers
of reasonable morning
find their centre
in a generous scheme,
discover the precise way
to shine on down, learn there’s no worth
in a sole dominance,
mixing it up instead like instruments
playing immersion jazz.
This turn here, fording,
and we’re secluded, can pause here,
escapees, rescued by being,
breathing, breathing easily.


- Linda Stevenson 2017

A founding member of Melbourne Poets Union, facilitator of poetry groups in gaols and community centres, contributor to anthologies. Chapbook “The Tipping Point” published in 2015, feature guest poet on Radio 3CR “Spoken Word”. Active as a poet within the online poetry sector, hosts regular Salons at her home in Frankston, Victoria.