Light and Colour I

Anyone who has met me knows that I don't really have a haiku vibe. I'm neither minimalist not serene, but in the interest of exploring different poetic forms, I wrote a few haiku for the 'Light and colour' issue of Echidna Tracks journal last year, and had two published.

This is the first one. The editors removed the word "where", but I prefer the symmetry of the 5-7-5 format.

When I read this now, over a year later, the word 'mourn' jumps out, but at the time, it was written with the intent of capturing a particular time and place.

Just over a decade ago, I was heartbroken after being dumped by someone who I'd been crazy about. I was living with a friend in Brunswick, in Melbourne's inner-north. The front of the house faced west, and in typical sharehouse style, we had an old couch on the verandah. I loved that I could have the comfort of the couch combined with the warmth of the afternoon sun.

The relationship had ended right at the beginning of winter, and even in my heartbroken state – oscillating between frenzied activity and lethargic despair – the sun had a restorative effect, as it has had for many heartbroken people before me, and many to come.

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Heathrow

My poem Heathrow was written for the 'Dreams' issue of Ghost Girls Zine . I enjoy themed calls for submissions, because it often prompts me to write something new. In this case, I wrote about my recurring dream of running late for an international flight. I am so often lost in an airport, or in tunnels between platforms at unfamiliar train stations. Something I enjoy about poetry is the opportunity to write something completely bizarre, and to have others read it and laugh, saying "yes, it's just like that!" Thanks to Ghost Girls for the inspiration. Heathrow It’s 10am. The plane is leaving at 11. The gate is past the airport juice bar. It’s 4pm. The plane left at 11. You are at the juice bar on a beach in Jamaica. It’s 11am. You are on the plane, with your pineapple-mango mocktail and your sleeping bag. It’s going to be a long flight. You wish you hadn’t left your books on your hotel bed. You are at the hotel, collecting your boo...

Cash, Handshakes and Crowded Trains

I live in Melbourne, which claimed to be "the world's most liveable city", until COVID hit us harder than anywhere else in the country. For me, 2020 was a bit of a weird time for my city and the world to be turned upside-down by a pandemic. The reason was, I'd spent the last two years fighting hard against obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which hit me hard in 2018 following hospitalisation with a life-threatening illness and ongoing physical disability. My OCD manifested in a few ways, but the main one was around the avoidance of germs. So, it was somewhat surreal to suddenly have everyone else fretting along beside me, but with a slightly different emphasis. While the reality of OCD was very clear to me, it was often spoken about it a way that I found profoundly irritating. The preoccupations and self-protection mechanisms of OCD suffers were described as being completely ridiculous, when in fact many (though not all) are grounded in truth, albeit taken to u...

Hello!

Hello, I'm Steph. Welcome to my page. I'm a part-time social scientist, part-time writer from Melbourne, Australia. I'll be posting some of my published work here, along with a bit of commentary, for anyone who's interested to read it. I mostly write poetry, but have published a few short stories and essays, and sometimes do freelance copywriting on request.

Steph Amir, occasional poet

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