The Poem of the Month for March 2026, selected by 2026 Anthology editors Elizabeth Salna and Erica Jolly, is The Bridge by Pat Lee. The commended poems are A Night Off by Steve Evans, Death Dialogue by Rob Ferris, The Future by Peter Goers and Burden by Fred Willett.
The Bridge
Pat Lee
Tooleybuc, River Murray, NSW/Vic border
Beside the bridge sits a little park,
tree’d with gums, grassed in green.
From trim front gardens across the road,
summer roses stand and watch —
People come, people go over the river’s bounteous flow.
Here, there was a slight, neat man,
I cannot say how old or young,
with deep tanned face and short black hair.
He wore a stripy shirt, black suit pants
and shiny slip-on-shoes.
On the path, this slight, neat man
precisely paced circles, and slowly, carefully
walked in rectangles no one else could see,
until, from a group of men near the river,
a young Hazara came and called him to the water’s edge.
Far from the precipices of panic,
shrieking shells and anguished air
had he seen the lawns, trees and the roses watching?
Did he hope, one day to share this river
with those he’d left behind
in treeless mountain villages?
Was he pacing invisible maps of dusty Afghan villages
or wired perimeters, prison walls of our making ?
Over the river’s bounteous flow people come, people go.
A Night Off
Steve Evans
Tonight, the lines can lie untended in their texts,
the songs hum themselves to sour sleep,
the chapters chafe restless but ignored,
and characters lost in a maze of words
go drown in the uncertainties of plot.
I have a bottle of the finest red,
sorrowful music and no intention of
giving in to writing when I have
the inevitable static of existence,
the indecipherable gabble of inner space.
My night off writing contains chocolate.
There is a cat lurking near my lap.
The moon and tides are swinging in full synchrony
towards the fierce beauty of a blank page.
Published – Other Terrain – Issue 16
Death Dialogue
Rob Ferris
A: They found him dead you know.
B: Who?
A: The poet
B: How? He was so young.
A: Choked on his own words.
B: What on earth do you mean!? Is that some kind of metaphor?
A: His words attacked him, literally. They rose up in revolt. They left the book in which he had written them down and physically attacked him. They invaded his body.
B: What are you talking about. Have you gone completely mad!!??
A: Yes, yes. it sounds absolutely crazy I know, I wouldn’t believe it myself, but you see I know the book, I saw the book with my own eyes… Look, I knew him, you know that, I would visit him, I knew the notebooks in which he wrote, I knew this particular book, the latest one, it was done, nearly finished. I read most of it, he often showed it to me. But after he died – that same book – I knew the cover – nearly all the pages were blank.
B: So?? the text could have been painted over by someone, whited out with correction fluid or something?
A: No, it wasn’t. The pages were pristine, none had been removed or replaced. The book- the evidence – hadn’t been tampered with – believe me – some of what had been written was left, but not much…
In any case, the doctors found the words – in the autopsy.
B: What!! You expect me to believe that!!?
A: Believe what you like. I’m telling you, the doctors found the words there – in his mouth and his nose and his throat. He took a long time to die because there were some down in his stomach, even in his bloodstream, even a small few up in his brain tissue.
B: You’re crazy! I think we need to examine your brain!
A: Ha. If you say so, feel free, but here’s my theory, don’t you want to know how such a thing could happen? His work was just getting darker and darker – you know that, you know what I mean – think Goya’s last paintings – well, I think it just got too much – the final poem was so dark and powerful – so evil – that the words he had used to write it, the words that he had lined up, just had enough, they couldn’t take it anymore, being part of such a poem for evermore once it got printed and copied and sent everywhere. They just said no, took matters into their own hands and rose in revolt. They persuaded most of the words already in the book to join them – strength in numbers – waited til he was asleep, then they left the page and got to him. Only the words and letters that refused to join are left in the book.
PAUSE:
B: You expect me to believe any of this?? I don’t know what to say…
A: Well, then don’t say anything.
The Future
Peter Goers
(with a nod to Roger McGough)
Will I die an old man’s death?
Like Lear
Full of wind, piss and insanity
And all my poor fools dead
Will I drop dead
Suddenly
Blessedly
That’d be nice
I probably won’t die in the post-coital
Arms of a lover like
Lucky old Billy Snedden who died
Wearing a condom full of
Spent sperm
With someone known only
As “Wendy” in the Travelodge Motel in Rushcutters
Bay
Will I choke on a toothpick?
Will I have a very bad fall
Reaching for a book like
Barry Humphries?
I’d like to be struck by lightning and
Survive to die
Laughing the next
Day
I’d rather not die from the shock of winning the
Lottery
But all this is all fancy
Hiding the fear
The fear
Of being sedated in nappies
Drooling
Into a grey blanket
Visited occasionally out of guilt and pity
By the odd friend or
Stranger
Then forgotten
Then dead
Remembered as stuff dreams are made
On
Then my grey grey boney ash and
Teeth fillings
Thrown gaily to the wind
And into the sea
To drift down past friends
And anemones
Returned to the primal sludge
Whence we all began
Ha!
And that’s ok
Yes, ok
Goodnight
Burden
Fred Willett
I was the last one in the pack
I was the last one left to see
All the carnage on the field
The hollowness of victory
So you walk away leave behind
The loss the scattered broken life
That’s the thing that costs in life
The hurt in memories that you pack
It’s things that you can’t leave behind
And all the loss you can’t unsee
In fact there is no victory
Just all the dead upon the field
So you move on, you leave the field
You start again. A brand new life
You pack away the victory
The memories you dare not unpack
There’s all new things for you to see
All your history left behind
But there are things not left behind
Things that happened on the field
Things you can not help but see
Repeating all throughout your life
A burden carried. A heavy pack
Just shouldering it a victory
Living every day’s a victory
And hope creeps up each day behind
And helps you gradually unpack
The horrors carried from the field
So you can construct a brand new life
There are new horizons for you to see
So in the end at last you’ll see
There’s more to life. The victory
Is building out a brand new life
And leaving all the past behind
You will stand in a pleasant field
The past, at last a discarded pack
The burden, the pack, behind in a field
At last you see life is the victory