The Poem of the Month for August 2025, selected by 2025 Anthology editors Val Braendler and Ben Adams, is Billy by Rory Harris. The commended poems are Perspective by Michele Slatter, Monopoly by John Atkinson and Today’s Tide by Pat Lee.
Billy
Rory Harris
the schoolyard is empty
the day noises are forgotten
are vaulted tight
each morning explodes its own celebration
its own defeat
in the smallness
in the greatness
of a universe
carried at the end of fingers
from canteen to classroom
where children arrive hungry
the moon floats behind clouds
like a toy
the neons buzz
blink from rocks thrown up
from dares
that did not explode them
shadows dance on the empty oval
ghosts of children
who once attended
hushed in the background
a mile away the highway churns
cars pull through the night
in both directions
drivers carry thoughts
into the darkness
steered along a thread of light
like a vein
Billy springs down the street
leaps over the fence
treads over the flower beds & lawns
it’s too early to leave footprints circled with dew
his head bobs out of the collar
of his turned-up jacket
a face full of freckles
hair like the sun
legs pistoned, hips & ground
he’s cat-like, mouse-like
the nervous creak of the school gate
nothing disturbs him
he ticks like a bomb
hands pulled in close to his body
he begins a shuffle
like a prisoner, like a drunk
who’s spent a life time acquiring a gait
& now almost never falls
Billy blends into the shadows
sleeks around the buildings
turns over a rubbish bin
scrambles up
peers into his classroom’s darkness
pulls back his sleeves
turns his hands into fists
into hammers
his breath stops
he punches the glass
the noise muffled by a scream
he pulls back
his breath comes with the shock
pain with the blood
with the ripping of flesh
arms opening
after the explosion
he jams them into pockets
the red oozing from flaps of skin with cloth
his body spins
starts into a run
the drunkenness of adrenaline flash
he turns into red light
the blood seeps out of his coat
leaves prints across the quadrangle
his feet kick into the night
as he bursts through
into the street’s silence
his blood absorbs the darkness
he hasn’t time for tears
Perspective
Michele Slatter
Thank you, Miss Carney, Miss Conway, Sister Ebba,
Mrs Daniels, Miss Kilmartin, Sister Cuthbert, Mrs Del.
You gave perspective to our childhood whines:
grazed knees, chapped hands, being last to be collected.
Shush. Think of those poor children in the camps
and thank Our Father that it wasn’t you.
The camps. Still vivid in the public mind,
the newsreels, trials, the liberators’ tales.
At home I’m sure it wasn’t talked about
but school said rosaries of love
for orphans, widows, victims of hate and war,
survivors wandering in the vale of tears.
By seven, I could measure misery,
with metrics, scales that stifled most complaints:
Weekends of blistering walks up endless hills?
Wet afternoons jabbing at embroidery?
Greenstick fractures? Having to eat fish?
Minor discomforts. Deo gratias.
The camps were Misery. And death.
Turns out that gratitude is good for you,
endorsed by science, with or without prayer.
So, every night I’m grateful for small things
a stranger’s smile, clean sheets, my meals
but if I do become disconsolate
now Gaza is the measure of my ills.
Monopoly
John Atkinson
The asthma token
lands me on the hospital square
three times in quick succession.
After the third, instead of passing home
I go direct to the airport,
fly off to an aunt and uncle
in Adelaide.
A few weeks later my family
arrive for Christmas.
The game starts again.
My parents, younger brother and I
all land at the same time on West Cinema
to see a circus film,
the Metro to see ‘Mary Poppins,’
throw a six to see the Zoo.
Then I’m told that I’m going
to be in the Red Cross Home at Glenelg
and won’t get a Get out of the Home free card
for three months.
‘It’s for your own good,’ Mum said.
A place for country kids like me
to get updated medical help
but I’m bereft, my family
abandoning the game
going home without me.
With the last throw of the dice,
it’s my aunt
who takes me there.
Tells them I eat Weetbix for breakfast,
I’m allergic to oats.
The following morning
I cry into my lumpy porridge.
Today’s Tide
Pat Lee
Today’s tide
brings yesterday’s splinters of experience,
smoothed and bleached by wind and sand years.
Old pieces of driftwood,
memories tempered more gently.
Calm in their presence I follow waves’ endings.
With time the ebb and flow will change
the sharp-edged
now.