Peter Cartwright
Parramatta Riverbank Reflected
After the image by Trish Jean

The river?       No time           for its absurd bank
water               spinning          sliding       

Its existential angst.

People                         escaping close by
the bridge        the park           is drunk
Teeth surround a cup
a spaceship the name of a bank

Grass   trees    sky      meld
hemi/spherical views              broken
            acid                 dreams            fish eye drugs      
ripple
            the sky            and ground

Picnics            with silver       arrows
green carpets              wooden fingers
stroking                       heaven

Macquarie’s memory stands nonchalantly                

I can be pragmatic
                        stumble
and not bother understanding
steal bits
            here and there
so steel bits                 can stand
not contemplating
            suicide            rebellion          revolution
the theft that all comes           naturally

I’m a practical character
                        unperturbed
by the absurdity of it all

watching poverty
                        throw cups
                                    in the street
while wealth is
                        in its cups
                                    in the cafés
by the river

You say we should stop
            for coffee
I’m                  hungry
for a glass of wine
and a chair that leans              sensibly
against the river spinning.

Peter Cartwright has been called Parramatta’s poet and been awarded
in ZineWest. He writes about life in Western Sydney in a wide variety of styles.

Tunnel Vision
Arna Radovich

within the circle—
striations, corrugations
ribs of colour and
refractions of perspective
what we imagine solid
is never
            anything but
an illusionary reality
truth distorted out of shape
focus narrowing by the day—
the disconnect between what we see
and what we think we see becoming
            what we want to see

Arna Radovich is a Blue Mountains writer of short fiction and hybrid poetry. www.arnaradovich.com.au

Artist Comment: Arna directly addresses the shape and movement of the water as well as the less tangible aspects of a reflection moved by ripples. This movement is then cleverly brought to the experience of the viewer who is invited to consider the movement of a journey of possible realisation, thus bridging the photograph and the poem through a uniting engagement. A wonderful ekphrasis.