Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2026
Getting away from it all in Albury, poems by Brent Cantwell.
Getting away from it all in Albury
After the call, the too-sprinklered lawns
of Albury, outside places and the friends I love,
kids playing games
inside curtained rooms—and I don’t blame them—
the dry trauma
-storm of being outside.
After going in, the really-getting-hot-now fly
-wire handles,
and the going-somewhere-inside not my children’s home,
we jump in the pool and talk
in the perfectly-cold
on heat drawn from soil by growing chilis
getting to eventually
I forget the ground you grow in makes a difference.
I forgot about the sweet dementia of talking,
giggling in the wrong place—
with you
I don’t always have to be thinking.
Though we remembered words
like diced, scraped, de
-seeded. When we doffed a cap
-sicum knowing the oil
of whatever this means
will stick and sting whatever
we touch,
a chilly wind blows and I call you back:
it sounds like a cool change.
Open-air theatre, Winton
Pulling back the bolt to open the gate, the lady on the door let us in
saying—as always—laugh ‘n’ cry darl, laugh ‘n’ cry.
Everyone goes to the open-air theatre for some Socko and Buskin’:
Socko has us hanging on every word—all of us—laughing,
and the way he tells a story, I dunno, an easy voice, hard to describe,
one kicked off thong so everything’s relaxed and alright, is about right.
As for Buskin’, now there’s a good listener,
a happy tragic in gumboots on a forty-degree day,
desert quiet sand and the wind mourning, I hear ya mate! I hear ya!
No-one goes to the open-air theatre alone, not with Socko and Buskin’ around.
The lady on the door watches the tidal corrugation of the crowd:
laugh ‘n’ cry darl, laugh ‘n’ cry.
Resorting
Technically, we were on the resort, trespassing a freshly
cut romance, each to the other,
across the only grass, to a pool, you know the place—
separating from the party was an easy serration
of sand in our shoes down Dahab’s
only boulevard—anyway, resorting by a pool, you know—
where I sipped a cocktail and desert adventure.
I don’t remember why,
but I slashed my Wilbur Smith in half with a melon knife—
made you re-read the start—
© Brent Cantwell
Brent Cantwell is a New Zealand-born poet who writes, teaches and lives with his family in the hinterland of Queensland’s Gold Coast. He has been published in Landfall, Westerly Magazine and Takahe and was recently awarded Highly Commended in the Bruce Dawes Poetry Prize. His first collection of poetry tether was published by Recent Work Press in October 2023.