New Poetry by James Walton

Inverloch – Cape Paterson Road, late August

The car park at Eagle’s Nest is nearly empty
and down the steep staircase, neatly arriving people
trickle in hesitation of a complete view.
A full tide has spread spongy wilted sand
all soft without reflection, a copse of twisted wattle
holds to purpose where the erosion bites.
Warning Signs don’t stop visitors from testing
the Strait’s gritty pull, the sea’s hypnotic stride
tap dancing away on the buckle bright shoreline.
Kelp is wedged up at each end of the bay
a russet parenthesis in need of  expression, idling cormorants
glide by in their defiant bobbing coiffure.
A Winter moon is stitched on a light denim sky
prescient in daytime; some Iranian children
laugh out Hello Mister chasing their runaway kite.
Beyond the craggy hide the Cape bends in reverse crescent
eyebrows over an ocean face, cars make a way
as greying follicles of squint into the receding west.


- James Walton 2017

James Walton is an Australian poet published in newspapers, and many journals, and anthologies. Short listed twice for the ACU National Literature Prize, a double prize winner in the MPU International Poetry Prize, Specially Commended in The Welsh Poetry Competition - his collection ‘The Leviathan’s Apprentice’ was published in 2015. He was a librarian, a farm labourer, a cattle breeder, and a public sector union official.

New Poetry by Keith Moul

In Youth, There Comes a Strange Spirit

Space, as after a sprint, intercedes.
Before the start, during the mark
on the blocks, and after the start
have all passed. Breath comes hard
at 400 metres, at a loss to look back.

My grandkids, full of strange spirit,
understand the race, but less a need
to see it through, like a calf’s birth,
or the harvest subjected to its ruin,
may never come alive, but stillborn.

The prairie circles the arriving thunder,
the way sky absorbs the starting shot;
the prairie lies prone, in wait for games;
men on the horizon are not near, nor
can they make headway through space.


- Keith Moul 2017

Keith Moul's poems and photos are published widely. Finishing Line Press released his chap, The Future as a Picnic Lunch, in November, 2015. Aldrich Press has published Naked Among Possibilities in August 2016 and has released Not on any Map in August, 2017; Finishing Line published Investment in Idolatry early in 2017. The above poem is from a new work about prairie life through U.S. history, including migration, regional trials/conflicts, character, and attachment to the land.