Satellite

Peter Rose

Somewhere, I suppose, a waking
is celebrated, wine poured,
assurances exchanged.

Here, a balloon eclipses morning,
hangs like an absorbed satellite,
golden, unmanned.

Peter Rose

Peter Rose’s poetry appears in HEAT Series 1 and 2.

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The finale was majestical. Dearo, dearie, the explosion was holy in its glory. All of it was gone. The whole mine, pride of the banana state, ended up looking like a big panorama of burnt chop suey. On a grand scale of course because our country is a very big story. Wonderment was the ear on the ground listening to the great murmuring ancestor, and the earth shook the bodies of those ones laying flat on the ground in the hills. Then, it was dark with smoke and dust and everything turned silent for a long time.

The kangaroo suddenly stood up, shaking the car heavily as it rose. It stood a good two metres above the bonnet and leered through a bloody eye at them, bleeding mouth open, showing enormous yellow rat teeth. Samir, Amin, Ilham and Zeen screamed and slammed back rigid in their seats. The kangaroo raised its fists and began beating wildly at the bonnet. They could feel it kicking and tearing at the radiator.

She had eyes as black and shiny as fresh grapes. Her head was shaped like an apple and her ears were shaped like a bat’s. She was so small that she could fit into the breast pocket of my leather jacket. She was Ren, my black and tan chihuahua.

Some come down from the mountains / into the searing belly of the wind, / and sit between six fires, then turn, / already blind, towards a seventh fire, / the sun.

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Whose inked spurs to the dialectic / snaking down the rancid page – / yours? mine? a third’s? / Those epigrams were dying on a lip: / were they mine you edified, undid?

Below, the land is quilted / like a chequered past, / cosmetic, infinitely private. / The in-flight service is delayed / and I am glad, but not the Americans. / Just as the captain predicts / a smooth flight we hit the turbulence.

Basket

Satellite

Peter Rose

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A Kind Peoplefrom Carpentaria

The Kangaroo

Chihuahuas, Women and Me

Three Poems

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Roman Fleuve

To Adelaide