Brooke Forbes

There’s fresh water at my teeth,  As I swim, Floating eloquently it seems, Around the layers of jutting rock faces at Ormiston gorge.  Voices echo and light plays with reflections, Bouncing from one coloured rock layer to the next.  I open my mouth to say something, a chamber of sound reverberates backwards, spiralling my mind… Read more: Water at My Teeth

I almost swerved, at what I thought was a cockatoo, which turned into a white piece of paper, twisted and contorted, blowing in the wind.  The incident resulted in an accident avoided, and a soft, inward chuckle at the absurdity of it all.  This paper cockatoo reminds me of moments reconfigured, dismembered through perceptions, then… Read more: Paper Cockatoo

As Venus aligned with the Waning Cresent – a bright dot on top of a sleek slither of a moon – there were rumblings of a different kind on the Ilparpa property.  Something was building, after 6 days spent out bush – a soul thought by some lost emerged – in the morning dawn –… Read more: Daisy’s Return

Where the Mulla Mulla grows, deep in West Arrernte country, there’s a sign-posted turn off to a valley full of dreams.  There’s an uncovering, an unveiling, a revelation of sorts – in sharing art simultaneously modern and historic, a deeply cultural experience, an exchange in sorts.  In purchasing a fragment of culture, you are also participating in… Read more: Valley of Dreams

This country speaks to me in poetry, in a succession of moments flashing,  before my unsealing eyes.  It’s in the tiny flock of zebra finches,  drinking from water gathered under the road grid, and how they move, together, an uncharted mass, switching shapes and forming shadows,  unique separately but together a force.  It’s in the… Read more: Desert Metamorphosis

Add honey, to your tea, sweet pea, add heat, to your shower, honey, add spice, to your dinner, sugar.  Bathe longer, in that soapy scent, of lemon myrtle.  Clean your bones, fresh and white, in native fragrances, while you scrub, ever so frantically, away, the madness – of daily expectations.  What will you find?  A… Read more: A Drop of Honey

There’s a stillness in the change, beckoning the seasons forward, light to dark and back again, sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, the subtle tweaking based on daily repetitions. But, also, there is a foreboding, a mild shock.  How have we ignored the crispness softly falling away? The subtle blooms in the field, the subtle smell of… Read more: Seasonal Beckoning

You’re not intertwined in this memory,  in this beautifully measured moment, in the sweetness of the air or firmness of the earth.  You’re not here, not present, not conjured,  like a spirit, lost in a disturbed form of evanescence.  You’re not like a grandfather clock, dominating this time or space.  Your rhythm here is bare,… Read more: Absent Memory

I saw a camp dog eat what could only be described as sacrificial bones,  the other day,  when wandering into a Town Camp, uninvited officially but on official business.  To avoid marking time, we did not take photographs, of the camp dogs lined up under a car wreck, lapping up the shade in lazy silence. … Read more: Sacrificial Bones

If a poetry collection is a conversation with a friend, soft and subtle, a journey of sorts, a journal of sorts, a beginning to a turning point, a turning point to an end. And on this journey if I arm my accomplice with the soothing sounds of words, stringing sentences together in the hope of… Read more: Poetry Collection

My body aches  from a fractured dream where you appeared: disassociated, dislodged, disempowered.  You appeared through excerpts of hand written words, where it all started to go wrong, your friends said, as you scrawled anti-abortion slogans, phrases I would never compare to poetry.  You appeared in the form of body modifications, of elongated noses and… Read more: Fractured Dream

Town is modern, Town is bustling, Town is central, Town is mending – From all the broken hearts trying to find their way home, again.  One the edge of town lies Ilparpa: across the train tracks and home to the Clay Pans, reflections of clay-laden water and light.  Along the west ranges andthrough burnt out… Read more: Town and Ilparpa

There’s a story I’m writing,  about the pitfalls of being female, the dangers, the darkness, the struggle for clear vision amongst stereotypes. In it, the protagonist nearly falls prey to a past stalker, someone who wants to take from another, someone who is not all darkness but who is certainly lacking light.  His cryptic puzzles… Read more: Female Affliction

There’s a beat to this town, a music to the madness, a rhythm to the radiance. Hinged on the edge of sprawling ranges, rich with stories and creation, Mparntwe sits with confidence, isolated yet so full of life.  This beat reverberates through the streets, children play to it, birds sing to it, people dance to… Read more: Mparntwe Music

On a date farm 80ks out of Mparntwe, I’m on adventure of a different kind, through beats and moonlit dancing, through date palms high and shadows deep, through collective movements that make a chosen tribe,  I’m edging towards a type of freedom. The gathering is modest but the souls are connecting,  Bobbing in unison to… Read more: Edging Towards Freedom

There’s a beauty in banality, they say.  A shared experience,  a definition of fem, a labour of love and loss, simultaneously.  In conversations with a religious outcast, I’m taught of the luring message of repetition in monasteries, of how they attempt to cure your mind of all wanderings and rebellions, cure you of quirks of… Read more: Chore

Moonshine provides natural light,  Soft and ambient, Wistfully landing, Amongst the Ghost Gums.  Unlike the sun,  You can stare at this solar entity, Absorbing its energy directly, Without being blinded by the light.  Music plays as I bath in moonshine, It tells stories of colonisation, of conversation, of survival.  The backdrop is part of the… Read more: Bathing in Moonshine

The moonrises over Anzac Hill, giving light to shadows, depth of vision to vantage points. The steady white light bounces across the town and plays with twinkling street lights and dwellings, touching near and far.  What’s kept beneath is a town gently decompressing, Escaping from the humdrum of the day: A moment for recovery.  It… Read more: Sunset Moonrise

I wanna do beat poetry, to the sound of an Emu, the rhythmic dook dook dook, a sign of comfort and discomfort alike, a resounding message through the throat of a dinosaur, directing me, let’s face it, off his territory.  I wanna write poetry that flicks and flutters like a Splendid Fairyren, capturing souls through… Read more: Bird Poetry Semantics

Your identity politics isn’t poetry –  he yelled across the room in a wave of angst so great it cut through thin air itself. Your hair doesn’t even look good red –  he added in what could be deemed a fair analysis of externalising mental illness.  Your music is repetitive and your clothes too corporate –… Read more: Not a Poet