Andrew Lansdown
Contributor Biography
Andrew Lansdown is an Australian writer whose poems, stories and essays have appeared in more than 70 magazines and newspapers and are represented in over
100 anthologies. He has published three novels, two short story collections, an essay collection, two books of photography and poetry, two children’s poetry collections,
15 poetry collections, and 11 poetry chapbooks. Lansdown has won a number of prestigious poetry awards, including the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Poetry (twice) and the Adelaide Festival of the Arts’ John Bray National Poetry Award. His novel With My Knife was shortlisted for the National Children’s Book Award; and his novel
The Red Dragon was named by the Children’s Book Council of Australia as a “Notable Australian Children’s Book”. He has been awarded six writer’s grants and fellowships by the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Andrew’s latest books are: Distillations of Different Lands (Sunline Press, Western Australia, 2018); Kyoto Momiji Tanka: Poems and Photographs of Japan in Autumn (Rhiza Press, Queensland, 2019); and Abundance: New and Selected Poems (Wipf & Stock Publishers/Cascade Books, USA, 2020). Abundance was shortlisted for the 2021 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award. Visit his website at www.andrewlansdown.com.
For Grace
Grace is out of grace
for pestering her father.
We are discussing
Important Matters and have
no time for prattle
or play. Grace is out of grace.
Forsaking us, she
clambers onto a carved chest
in the bay window,
rests her face against the pane,
the crocheted curtains
caped loose across her shoulders.
Outside, a woman
wavers while walking to wave
to a child alone
at a window. Grace’s hands
flutter like sparrows
then fall still upon the sill
as the lady leaves.
Even sparrows, Jesus said,
do not fall unseen.
Look then, Father, in the lace
while I pester you for Grace.
Restraint
But forget for now the galaxies,
the trillion trillion stars strewn
across space towards infinity—
forget even the orbiting planets
with or without oceans and whales,
volcanoes, dinosaurs and sequoia—
forget for now all that, and think
only of the astonishing power
the Almighty exercised to restrain
his boundless bounding power
for the sake of making something
as delicate as that donkey orchid.
Redemption Reflections
1.
Whipping-Prince
Petty kings provide
whipping-boys for their princes.
But the King of kings
sent Heaven’s Prince to receive
the dread lashings we deserve.
2.
Refinement
Outraged holiness
ignited the Father’s wrath…
Yet for love of us
He burned away our dross
in the crucible of the Cross.
3.
Resonance
In everything
there’s a resonance of Christ
our Redeemer…
In the bamboo’s hollow dark,
His sin-bearing cross-killed heart.
4.
Black Hole
How did the cosmos
survive the gravity of
the Almighty’s grief
as He abandoned His one Son
for doing what had to be done?
Devotional
He is the one whose name
came from angels of God,
odd though some might find it—
fit, but, for believers,
receivers of God’s grace,
place-getters in Heaven
even if they deserve
reserve-spaces in Hell—
tell, oh tell the dear name,
same for every sinner,
Saviour Master Jesus—
please us is his pleasure,
treasure us is his measure!
Zuihō-in Zen Temple, Kyoto
—i.m. Sōrin Ōtomo, temple founder, 1546 AD
Raked to ripples,
the gravel in the oblong
garden laps round
seven rough rocks obliquely
arranged to suggest a cross.
It’s in honour
of the daimyo, the domain
lord of Kyushu,
who near five centuries ago
converted to Christ our Lord.
And back a bit
in a smaller Zen garden
a Mary statue
hidden for fear of the Shogun
underneath a stone lantern.
Phan Ming Yen
Contributor Biography
Phan Ming Yen is at present Chief Operating Officer of TRCL, a not-for profit arts organisation. Phan published his debut collection That Night By the Beach and Other Stories for a Film Score (Ethos Books) in 2012. He is also one of the four writers in the collaborative writing projects, The Adopted: Stories from Angkor (2015) and Lost Bodies: Poems Between Portugal and Home (2016), while other short stories have appeared in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore. Phan has also written on the history of music in Singapore in Cultural Connections, the journal of the Culture Academy of the Ministry of Culture, Communications and Youth and in Singapore Soundscape: Musical Renaissance of a Global City.
Paradise Lost: Paradise Regained
I. Eve
faith uncaged step by step from these pages,
the disciples tried to hide the truth
that Eve first left Eden,
the saints reworked this truth
the taste of that apple,
the apostles did not tell the truth
and Man forgets all truth
with Woman’s first words of goodbye:
“I leave you in the garden burning breathless”
II. The Scribe
to cage and burn every page.
senseless within lines
of another attempt
to rewrite
please, the poet begs please
unscramble this catacomb of sleeping memories.
III. Adam
pages burnt, memories buried,
I finally wake
to
no body
no one
only
heaven
(within this blue mosaic, finally
space to live)
Silence
(homage to Shusaku Endo)
I. Before the Fumi-e
Black and blue, these strapped up limbs,
except for his legs which his jailors kept
free for him to step on the fumi-e
as the cool of the Virgin’s smile
streaks up his swollen toe
his tormentor asks, laughing:
“Pain or ecstasy what’s your pleasure?”
II. The Silent Night
Aflame in black ecstasy, orders extinguished:
after death
how will I know my love was true,
this sacrifice not an exercise in vanity?
wind that stalks these corridors
leaves with my breath
questions that tear the flesh
return after each prayer
an eternity of kneeling
will not wash away the
blood dripped into the
pit of excrement
Is what He is asking for
this body of lost confessions looking for the sun?
St Anthony’s Fire
the saint: The sun orders flames in skies,
fishes line up
to listen to my hand
that has turned against me
a thousand ants
choke my words
which
these black fingers
refuse to carry
the heretic: freed by his words
they would never know
the burning of skin
the longing of lips for air:
if hell is a deep blue sea
I want to weave as sardines in oceans
Author's Note:
These three poems were published in the collaborative writing project, Lost Bodies: Poems between Portugal and Home, by Heng Siok Tian, Phan Ming Yen, Yong Shu Hoong and
Yeow Kai Chai (Singapore: Ethos Books, 2016).