Poems by Bree Alexander
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The ibis
In her territory, Hyde Park, I am seated she approaches gentle bobbing searching for connection and all I can do is shoo her away gripping tight at my anger that emerged long before her but she keeps coming back attempting to peck at my brown paper lunch bag and I shoo once more then give way to tiredness I stretch out barely a sliver of skin exposed as I look toward the bright blue sky through fine cotton fibers seeing the texture in the weave I drift off remaining somewhere between sleep and meditation the warmth feeling not leaving my body as time lapses when I see my surrounds once more she returns once more persistent and perhaps sees in me the beauty that I had lost sight of until I saw it in her and as my world expands once more and I see school uniforms who toss a paper bag at her and laugh and the group of women who shout ‘piss off ibis!’ then I know how we arrived at mutual respect Fairhaven, Victoria, Australia, Part 1 Land The air tastes different here. Salty, with body stillness lengthy enough to hear the gentle sounds breeze meeting gum leaves they sway, drawing circles with their tips an ibis roams in the adjacent clearing until the magpies begin to swoop she is perturbed and flies off into the scrub beyond view when the rain comes it softly patters the way it only can upon making contact with dry leaves and twigs Ocean I enter water that still holds winter under a divided sky multiple personalities with bright blue and dots of white to the left of my front body and deep grey-blue to the right it is hard to believe they are one water below hitting like icicle daggers I fight against the chop of waves until heat radiating from within leaves a burning sensation on my skin I am submerged, little by little cold sensations forgotten I give in to my surrounds the meeting of above and below |
Bree Alexander (also Lika Posamari) is a multi-form Australian emerging writer, editor and document designer with a background in development studies and law who spends significant time in India. Her current writerly interests include playing with form, multilingual writing and explorations of movement and writing. She is also on the lookout for collaborations. Her work has appeared with Eureka Street, Girls Will Be Girls and most recently, Australian Multilingual Writing Project Issue 2. She was shortlisted for the Overland Fair Australia Prize 2018 (NTEU category) and she has a poetry chapbook The eye as it inhales onions (in case of emergency press, 2018). She sporadically blogs at https://roundlyintheeye.wordpress.com and tweets @LaBree_A.
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