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From: Vol.07 N.01 – Plant Poetics

Call me Rose Dorothea. I prefer the word for the thing to the thing itself.

by Stuart Barnes

Two lines, fast

Edens,               limelight a rose,               con

-ceal rhododen

-drons, aphids,

thrips. Their

repartee dares

the egotist, silent, eerie

as fertiliser.       All

specimens are

focal            points.

Finer than shears’

flashing grim edges,

per so nag es

shift among the

elements.      Cro

-cosmia

Dierama

Freesia corms

starch garments.

Acid soil          in ter ro gates         worm

casts, a ring of

toadstools,

firing pistils,

stamens,   in

flagrante delicto,

crowns

thistles.      A hollow tine

aerator intercepts

to p   dr es sing,

whets itself.

Swarms of half

-moon edgers

massacre the green.

                                                                  s

                                                                e

                                                                 c

                                                       e                 n

                                              o         r      e      s         c

                                                            f       l

                                                          i           n

g

n

i

l

f

s

d

i

h

c

T e r r e s t r i a l

o

The intercrop swan

song: ‘Pollination’s

a con

-cept.’      The gardens air

no tender

-ness

for chrome posse

-ssion

-s:

these parts are the

hereafter’s carollers.

Note:

this poem only uses letters from its title, which is a phrase from Emma Jones’ ‘Citizenship’

Published: March 2020
Stuart Barnes

Stuart Barnes’ first book, Glasshouses (UQP), won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and was shortlisted/commended for two other awards. He’s working on his second collection, Form & Function, and a novel. Poems are forthcoming in POETRY (Chicago), Scars: An Anthology of Microlit and The Night Heron Barks. Twitter/Instagram: @StuartABarnes

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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