Rachel Manning was born and raised in South Australia. She studied Literature and Education at Flinders University before travelling widely. She currently works as an adult educator.
She has been writing poetry since the age of 10, when her first poem was stuck up on the wall of her Year 3 classroom. She got a taste for publication and has since been widely published in South Australia and nationally.
Rachel is currently working on another collection of poems and her first novel.
cataracts
earlier
grandmother had cataracts
in both eyes
yet still saw well enough
to comment on
the dust
in my lounge room
the doctor removed the eyes
rolled them around on her cheeks
then popped them back in
later
the yellowed patch was peeled back
taking bits of skin and hairs with it
grandfather leaned in for a look
she saw clearly at last
and cried in frightened delight
arthur
oh dear
arthur
how old and ugly you have grown
quickly
bring me a mirror
From Friendly Street No. 11
pixel nervosa
your digital camera
allows your eating disorder
to soar to new heights
you capture food in pixels
create jpegs of breakfast
bitmaps of lunch
gifs of dinner
your pc’s menu
takes on
an entirely new meaning
later
you binge
in a slideshow of courses
meals flash across your screen
in
calorific technicolour
you savour each morsel
as it slips
past
and down
and through
you’re fit to burst
stretched to server capacity
temporarily sated
until
remorse sets in
and
the download begins
at ten megabytes per minute
it takes seventeen seconds
to move the entire contents
of your stomach
to the recycle bin
From Friendly Street No. 11
farewell nepal
according to the pseudo-scientific documentary
aired on a return flight from sydney last week
the entire continent of india
(please ensure your tray table is safely stowed)
moves northward by fifteen centimetres
(please ensure your seat is returned to the upright position)
every year
butting into asia
crushing mountain upon mountain
and making headway of
fifteen centimetres
every single year
that’s six inches in the old language
the height of a pint
the width of an octave
the length of a prayer
at this rate by the year ten million
one hundred and forty seven thousand
two hundred and eleven
a.d.
nepal will have ceased to exist
and
mt everest will have officially slipped into
the administrative subdivision of
the people’s republic of china
the communist plot thickens
From Friendly Street No. 11