Lynette Arden was brought up in country NSW and now lives in Adelaide. She is Vice President and the South Australian representative of the Australian Haiku Society. She is also the co-convenor of the Bindii Japanese Genre Poetry Group. Lynette’s haiku and tanka have been published widely in Australia and internationally. Her first book of poetry ‘A Pause in the Conversation’ was published in Friendly Street New Poets 15 in 2010.
Tanka
early mornings
she would sit and knit
woollen cardigans
I still wear
mother’s arms around me
Haiku
drought
a fallen leaf curls
over its shadow
The Twenty-five Most Beautiful People in the World
This morning
at the supermarket register
there are the Twenty-five Most Beautiful
People in the World
including me and the checkout chick,
who has a slight acne rash
and a big yellow badge with
red writing which says
Happy Easter.
None of us is buying the magazine.
Whither
The year commences.
Unprocessed refugees
set fire to desert prisons.
There is more talk of war
and argument about the justness of causes.
Bright sun reels
over the Barossa,
flushed with last year’s vintage,
plumping out this season’s grapes
on rows of gnarled vines.
The young, leaving home,
rush about on country roads,
throwing up dust,
speeding down highways
towards city lives.
I sit and listen to the radio
and dig about in old books
for a new beginning.