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From: Vol.05 N.01 – Stick in a Thumb and Pull out a Plum: Poetry and Comsumption

An Appeasement

by Brent Cantwell

if we discard paper more carefully –

origami-like – firming each slow fold

with the flat of a thumb, if we bury

apple cores when the earth is damp and cold,

 

if we throw tin to the salt of the sea,

if we sandpaper down our dry mountains

of ball rubber, if we just plant more trees

to spine land-crabs to the land, if the sin

 

of tyres could be given to mosquitoes,

battery acid to the ants, if this new

Pacific Island of bags could feel the throes

and ultra-violence of the sun, would You

 

spare us the passive aggression of your ire,

the bile of your spit and the tantrum of your fire?

Published: January 2018
Brent Cantwell

is a New Zealand writer from Timaru, South Canterbury, who lives with his family in the hinterland of Queensland, Australia. He teaches high school English and has been writing for pleasure for 23 years. He has recently been published in Sweet Mammalian, Turbine/ Kapohau, Cordite, Brief, Blackmail Press, Landfall, London Grip and Takahe.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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