Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One Nov-Dec 2026.
Nourishment, poems by Edward Caruso.
Nourishment
How often I’ve wished
I could fight hunger by reading books
Whenever I’ve lingered too long in bookstores,
ignoring hunger pangs to stumble out
half-blind, too faint to decide what to eat,
could poring over Nicholas Nickleby or Les Misérables
nourish with a mineral boost?
Could cramming tomes
that promote millionaire fast lanes
yield nutriment?
I’m dreaming, would come the reply
as if in studying such epic leaves
they’d ripen into sustenance
after I’d shut my eyes
Early evening splinters
1
Indian pop music
a soprano’s rehearsals
& jazz piano
echo in a courtyard with Indian
& east European migrants
waiting for a soup kitchen to open
2
Clear skies after rain
light across lawns
& bare soil
our skin warmed
rather than burned
Searching for shadows
among elms
Clouds thieve the sun
dew beneath drizzle
The River Savena’s whoosh loudens
its banks turn to sludge
3
At Croara via Benassi’s disintegrating
luminescent surface
A descending sun ploughs through haze
Distances
heavier than mist
Scientific priest, Dusan Mareck*
Clouded eye facial continents
wistful shades of green
floating cheek roving brow
horizon a neat white collar
Lips palely painted
The one clear eye iris fully round
Forehead a landmass
Head and right temple an ocean
where salt and sweet waters
hold each other askance
Your sorrow ocean turns
to desert
Surf your beard
Mexico drifts down your cheek
*This painting can be viewed at LINK
© Edward Caruso
Edward Caruso has been published by A Voz Limpia, Australian Multilingual Writing Project, ‘La Bottega della Poesia’ (La Repubblica, Italy), Burrow, Communion, Kalliope X, Live Encounter P&W, Mediterranean Poetry, Meniscus, Melbourne Poets Union, n-Scribe, Right Now, P76, StylusLit, TEXT, The Robert Graves Review, Unusual Work and Well-Known Corners: Poetry on the Move. Since 2024 he has co-judged the Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize. In 2025, his third collection of poems, What Distance Means, was published by Hybrid Publishers. In October 2025, he featured on 3CR’s Spoken Word program.