Tide
A collection of poetry and fiction from the Faculty of Creative Arts' creative writing program
Starting Over
Jessica and I loved to play with worms when we were kids. We’d pluck the fat ones from our dad’s award-winning worm farm and allow them to infiltrate the mud pies we molded into ice-cream tubs and then baked in the sun....
East of Westerbine
Toby fumbled through the stack of envelopes in his leather pouch as Mr Jessop Cole waited, arms folded across his wide chest. Toby remained just outside the yard of the Cole property, his knees bent awkwardly as he leaned back to catch his pouch upon his belly....
The lover’s promise
love had come to rest below my window and i resolved myself to let him in — for he looked ragged and wild , well in need of the rum i offered ( a slick inch of urine in the tumbler , neat — my own with a squeeze of lemon ) also there was the matter of the dove whose heart i had recently come to acquire....
Degustation
My husband’s tiny, a baby, compared to me. He wasn’t even born when I had my first kiss. Even stranger, he’s short and thin and round-cheeked. He can’t grow a moustache. He sleeps curled around himself like a foetus: tiny and gilled. When we have sex he’s a desperate sucking mouth, greedy hands.....
Kung fu, lies and videotape
JOHN AND ANNE’S LOUNGEROOM – DAY
ANNE is cleaning an immaculate room. A knock sounds. Anne opens the front door partway to.....
12 o'clock sky
It was only after dying that I realised I had all these blank pages left over. My face was still pale and smooth then. I had never bothered to grow any lines or to smile. I didn’t think to create those little tracks or worlds inside me—the kind you take with you when you die. .....
The ocean knows this
Your skin more yellow
where I can’t see it,
face like plasticine
your mouth
a hollow carved out for sound....
Absolution
Chris Jaeger
The sky is a baptismal font.
The people of Cronulla
offer up hand massages to the Lord:
in return rain falls on Wanda Beach
four times a week, in the spot
where men with noses like street directories
take gulps of bottom-dollar whisky
and hold pissing contests against the sea wall.
Their squirts are sent to meet graffiti;
the last few droplets weave
a trail down their legs:
if more than three shakes is for wankers
then dripping denim is for men