sour cherry mag 🍒

@sourcherrymag

an online diary for emerging australian poets

150 posts

the pomegranate tree by ruby davis (she/her)

January ~ A cat digs underneath our pomegranate tree Paws pushing into coarse, summer-dried grass. Maybe he will find the love spell I buried there Or the corner of a water-damaged flyer.

February ~ We harvest low-hanging fruit Maneuvering fingers through long thorns. The fruit we can’t reach we leave for possums who will crack them open, scattering jewelled seeds.

March ~ Discarded red shells watch As we scoop pink flesh into our mouths, chewing soft rubies and garnets, spitting out tough, white hearts.

April ~ A cat digs underneath our pomegranate tree Until the last of the gold leaves fall on his head Causing him to scuttle away.

He leaves behind a half-dug hole for the last fruit to fall into.

Image from the Color of Pomegranates (1969, Dir. Sergei Parajanov)

Ruby Davis (she/her) is a Naarm based writer. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2019 with a BFA Screenwriting. Her work has been featured in Demure Mag, TV Blackbox and Mantissa Poetry Review. In 2022, she was selected for Express Media’s Toolkits: Poetry Program. She is the current editor of online poetry journal Sour Cherry Mag.

Ruby was the 2019 recipient of the Australian Writers’ Guild Mentorship Award.

You can find her at www.rubidavis.com and @rvbydavis on instagram.

as bold as helvetica by lily kosef (she/her)

it is in the third layer of a christmas trifle among colourful jelly and layers of cream, under your grandmother’s silk bonnet tossled in her greys, on the front page of the Daily printed in bold Helvetica, fanned across your father’s sleeping face, in the south-east sun, the words of home and the language of love

the mother tongue dissolves in our mouths, the palette is cleansed for now, we barrel forward like bulls to blood in the rampent arena of avalon, the hedonist garden, the isle of apples

but we are forever calves cooing for the maternal, fawning in secret for the days lived in the yard, laced in ballerina shoes dancing for cake, listening close for the words of home, infant ear against your mother’s chest, the beating reader’s digest

in the bustle of life you are shucked from your shell, an oyster heart as soft and fleshy as ever, a calf again in the cradle of another, learning new tongue spelling old words for the first time

it is in the shine of your shoes relfecting the lines of your face, the yolk of your egg all glistening orange, like the south-east sun, as bold as Helvetica writes the language of love

@choccybiscuits

Image: Stroboscopic Photograph Of The New York City Ballet’s Production Of Jewells, 1967. Photo By Gjon Mili

Two Poems by Reilly Loughlin (she/they)

Reilly Loughlin grew up free-range, knee-deep in the ocean. They completed a Bachelor of Writing in 2024. You can find them in Jacaranda Journal 11.2, Blue Bottle Journal, Beaver Magazine, or on instagram at @reilly.arabelle. They enjoy the smell of petrol, the word ‘drench,’ and pushing their luck.

Reilly lives on unceded Turrbal and Yuggera land in Meanjin/Brisbane.

staring contest with a star by ruby davis (she/her)

The sun glows orange Clouded behind bushfire and pollution. I haven’t seen another person today That feels more apocalyptic.

Because of the smoke I am able now to stare into the orange sun And finally make eye contact.

It raises an eyebrow It’s hard to describe how the sun’s face looks. Sort of like Renee Zellweger If she were made of fire and celestial apathy.

The fireball blows me a kiss I look around, but there’s no mistake - The kiss was for me ! Despite my earthly flaws.

When I close my eyes, I can still see the glow of the orange sun Burning onto my eyelids like a branding iron From a time-traveling marketing campaign

I am filled with heat and love, but also somehow weightless, like a sunburned balloon, drifting into the atmosphere.

Ruby Davis (she/her) is a Naarm-based writer. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2019 with a BFA (Screenwriting). Her poetry has been featured in online and print journals such as Demure Mag, Fluff CC and Mantissa Poetry Review. In 2019 she was the recipient of the AWG Mentorship Award, and in 2022 she was selected for Express Media’s Toolkits: Poetry Program. She is the current editor of online poetry journal Sour Cherry Mag.

Ruby works in the film industry.

You can find her at www.rubidavis.com and @rvbydavis on Instagram.

lust for life by lily kosef (she/her)

the fountain of youth ages into a swill-pit, meeting the mouths of insatiable pigs who wished to be holier animals, with less of an appetite

i dare not drink from it, although mildly persuaded by swine that believe to feel enveloped in it’s promised magic

one believed to feel his snout elongating, another felt the beginning of antlers, but they all remained hungry

it was the curdles of milk that made yoghurt, the sap of pine that patented syrup, chillies once as hot as earth’s core pickled sweet like cherries

i wish to bathe in that fountain, to ferment in time for no fruit, once picked may return to the vine

and no milk that is milked from the udder, may utter again

so i will be tinned peaches and raspberry jam, my sweetness will be preserved, but my bitterness, my savoury, my compexity will surface

like mould on cheese, i will become acquired

Although I am no longer a flower bud on the cusp of bloom, or a biannual passionfruit, i am alive with experience, time has made me thrice abundant

i do not salivate for eternal life on the vine, to be ripened forever, to be renewed as a noble beast

but i hunger for a life lived long, to age like a cellar of wine, to rot and to flower again and again

on that same vine

the promised pond of permanence can not compensate

for the bountiful river of change

from which i choose to drink from

for as long as life will have me

@choccybiscuits

Image by Gary Hawke

air through teeth by christopher robin singh (he/they)

Not over your first Boyfriend, and l'm waiting For you at the rainbow's end.

At the rusted gates Of a Pearly place. Our pot of gold's just right - Did you see your face?

No matter what you do or However you pretend, My fickle friend I think this one's just right.

Well I'm Not in your arms Today or yesterday - Tomorrow's looking bleak The future's hardly paved.

Must be nice to have a platter Of bullion in your heart Like a hug from a mother Or flight of turtle doves.

And I'm in the belly, not of a beast But the air that you've sucked Into your two front teeth.

Now I'm sucking only air It's going fast right through my teeth I'd wait for you not the world Everything to keep

Christopher Robin Singh (he/they) is an artist from Naarm. @chrissobrah

Let the more loving one grow older than me By Kalliste Hardy (she/her/hers)

The old you always knew how to hum a tune. After your last baby tooth rattled loose, we went down to the lake and tossed it in. You were aiming at a lilypad and I was looking at the skin that enclosed your wrist. I assumed this was a ritual for good luck but I never asked. It was the first and last time we did this together. I knew you wanted to keep the mouth-bone as a token, but your mother had advised you to stop collecting things. Too many glass jars on your shelves that clink in fear when someone stomps up the stairs. You ask me to draw myself for you. In my ideal world I can draw, I can spin and twirl, I can pick a fight, I don’t scare myself. We’re still young enough to get away with making words out of alphabet pasta. I’m teaching myself a new language in my early years so that I don’t have growing pains later.

pear

peach

tear

teach

You called me an angel for the first time in spring. Your top and bottom lip were only an aspiration apart. We were talking about how none of us don’t know quiet no more. I can smell you from around the corner, where I can’t even see you yet. In this dream, there can be no silver bullet. I lie to your mother on your behalf and tell her we’re going for a drive, but the truth is, I’m about to stretch my right hand across your thigh. Even when the song ends, we will sit behind the foggy windscreen in silence and smile with teeth. The only truth is that I would lie for any type of sore kiss.

Two nights later, I tried to write you down:

do you remember when we had no front teeth

do you remember when we touched without hands

do you remember when I wanted freckles like yours

I wanted to scoop them off your cheeks and put them on mine

I still feel the same now. isn’t that a terrifying something

You’re singing me a version of Happy Birthday. We are shining now and jumping across rooftops from house to house. You slammed my bedroom door by accident and a picture frame went flying off the wall. It was a photo of me clutching you to my chest. Would I ever recognise a bad omen? Should I open up more? To make it up to me, you let me sit between your legs and you braided lake-shells into my hair. You cut me again when you told me I looked exactly like my mother from behind. You give me your hand.

It is a gun. It says, kiss here. I can fire warning shots even from down here.

All my unmet desires sit there burning like unblown candles on a cake.

It took three nights for your first tattoo to flush red and blue. Unlike you, I still only have one scar on my body. We’re going to live forever. We have written this line before.

I am still learning to spell the words that mean the most to me. After you left for the summer, the moon kept shining above my house, but your exodus marked my transition into a creature I didn’t know. I was Samsa in all his worst ways. I was the opposite of a Midas Touch. I tried waiting you out, sweating you out, creating arguments in my head, attempting an Irish exit, drinking cordial before bed so that I could dream weird dreams. In the mornings, I repeated compound words out loud: angel-eyed, fear-breached, tight-veined. My mother spoke to me in the gaps between waking and sleep, but I was starting new days without finishing the last, so

I was an unreliable companion in the house, constantly on the breach of telling a secret.

Two weeks of this on a scratchy loop, I became invested in the arcane act of truth-telling. This is the longest paragraph I have been able to write. I never loved you. Which, of course, in brackets, means that I love you still.

This cannot be poetry anymore since please doesn’t rhyme with I love you, don’t do this and I am not writing with a pen and I only know how to ask myself the wrong questions.

Do all of my stains tell the truth?

Do I have what it takes to spit myself back out?

You’re twenty-seven and holding a different warm hand and I’m still on the bank of a lake looking for clues that float in fresh water.

Kalliste Hardy (she/her/hers) is writing on the unceded land of the Gayamaygal people. Her instagram handle is @applebottomreads. She loves the following unconditionally: figs; Toni Morrison; Mondays through to Thursdays.

Image by @photo.destruction

A poem I didn’t write by Lily O’Brien

I find an old notebook, someone has written things down, quickly, fragmented. The same few things over and over in different forms. Some red flowers, a pool, a park, a room once yours now mine. Deep water.

They’ve tried to write haikus about blonde curly hair, a beard touching their cheek, a hand on the back of their head. A mango, a dog who walks quietly beside you. Four leaf clovers.

I wonder what it all means! A yellow T-shirt, a pair of jeans. Piedimonte’s in summer. Agapanthus and jacarandas and lavender and proteas and gum leaves.

Is anyone getting this? There’s a list of songs by Adrienne Lenker, boxes under the stairs, a cigarette, a balcony, brownies, a freckle on the iris and one under the nose.

The writing gets messier here. Lipstick on a cheek, a duck, a cactus, the sound of a van pulling up outside. Something about a letter? Something about a short, colorful dress?

There’s a page that describes, in detail, a day at the beach. Another is dialogue, a conversation in bed in the dark, with our backs turned to each other. A phone call.

Then the writing stops. The next entry is about dark hair, brown eyes like syrup, a cup of tea. That’s the end of that. This graveyard of things. I put the book back on my shelf.

I am a writer and antique bookseller living and working on Wurundjeri land. I have had previous work published through Express Media’s nonfiction Toolkits program, Sour Cherry Mag, Stew Mag, and Ephemera Theatre. I am currently working on my first novel.

Image of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez

Two Poems By Scout Manuel (They/Them)

CW: References to death and funerals

Sister

You gave me a red jasper Glove over thick finger “Staple teeth are okay,” you said.

We don’t always understand Weird Irish goodbyes Help hold words. We’re almost there.

Green huddle chapel White apothecary guardian Little bunker family awkward.

We skip the burial I’m not womenfolk You’re not interested.

That’s how I know your crystals work.

Lover’s Villanelle

This is my first time dying do you understand? You didn’t do a thing.

I’ve been men’s awakenings you’ve only been a husband this is your first time dying.

Blush is my shortcoming like your arachnoid hands they didn’t do a thing.

I left my pride in Brighton with protagonist demands this is our first time dying.

We sat beside the cliffs, forging masonry from sand and didn’t do a thing.

I left you like a king put my damn mouth on a ban it was my first time dying you didn’t do a thing.

Hi there! My name is Scout Manuel (they/them). I am a poet, editor, and book hoarder who spends far too much time analysing Hozier lyrics. If I’m not studying or writing, I’m daydreaming about duelling my true love in a Gothic castle somewhere. I currently live and work on Wurundjeri Country.

You can find me @scout_writes_too_much for more poems, memes, and updates.

Image Source Unknown

Sunday Morning By Ruby Davis (she/her) Waking up early on a Sunday And being unable to fall back asleep Is a cruel and unfair punishment - I’d like a refund. I’ll clench my teeth And think about how I need to see the dentist - Erosional caves have started to emerge In the mountain range at the back of my mouth. I’ll remember that I’m healthy Then remember that I’ll die. I’ll remember that I’m loved And then remember that I’m hated. O - why do I feel so much? Every emotion I have Contradicts the one that came before it. I’ll write replies to messages But never press send Because it’s too early on a Sunday morning.

Ruby Davis (she/her) is a Naarm-based writer. She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2019 with a BFA (Screenwriting). Her poetry has been featured in Demure Mag, Fluff CC and Mantissa Poetry Review. In 2022, she was selected for Express Media’s Toolkits: Poetry Program. She is the current editor of Sour Cherry Mag.

Ruby was the 2019 recipient of the Australian Writers’ Guild Mentorship Award.

You can find her at www.rubidavis.com and @rvbydavis on Instagram.

I don’t hog the airtime by Tali Lum Wan (she/her)

There are high-rises inside me and birds and girls laying their cardigans down on hostile metal benches.

There are hot rainy nights and girls watching the football with their legs crossed, keeping their fingernails nice, keeping their apartments neat.

I consider taking the long route home. Won’t a storm roll in? Won’t I come upon a child dancing in line for the bus, smiling up at her father, missing her two front teeth? Won’t I search for something to wallow in?

I am busy on a rooftop in my mind – someone else answers the question.

Tali (she/her) lives and works in Meanjin, on Turrbal and Yuggera Country. Currently working for the public service, Tali completed a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Social Science in 2022.

Instagram: @talilumwan

Image Credit : Vertigo by Brendan George Ko

The Growing Tongue By Caitlyn Steer (she/her)

I fear our love and loss like I fear teeth pulled, laid as jewels on a platter, wrenched out by a tudor dentist. What I mean to say is we talk up a mulberry, increasingly unapproachable as it grows, increasingly toxic, as silver leaf, lead- wrought frond unfurls, its fruits glimmering royal maroon on my platter. They are alien, not from my mouth. My dentist smiles, insists I take them into me, as if they are not sulphur-sweet, as if they come from a woman or a tree. I know but I let them root in me.

Caitlyn Steer (she/her) is a lover of words, music and the outdoors. She is currently residing on Noongar land. Her writing has appeared in Farrago and Otoliths Magazine. She is trying to capture the essence of moments in words. She is trying to fill her lack of internal monologue with poetry. She is trying to understand her world. IG: @goblinchilde

Photography by Ashley Armitage.

The two of us/a spicebag by cormac kirby @filter_head (he/him) The tuna always disappears I always finish the peanut butter You want more vegetable proteins I am famished without my daily meat We toast glutinous and gluten free They take different time in your dad’s old toaster You make light work of wilted spinach Garlic, sunflower oil and frying pan, not much can go wrong You like short grain I like long grain sometimes, but I’ve learned to appreciate those fat little things. You can drink coffee at 10pm I can toss endlessly and sweat after just one in the late afternoon We’re both for butter, which is a relief margarine is for losers You don’t eat it for breakfast though, you run out of the house empty Liquid confidence, without the alcohol I stuff myself with bread or cereal, stumble out satiated at a clip, full You used to have ice cream for dinner every night In the summer I’d get grapes My mum can’t eat garlic Your mum can’t eat chilli How’s that for pungency? It’s like we share a matriarch deep down - plain old chicken stock The shared Chinese-Irish connection It’s the only shared thing apart Dave’s Irish-Chinese on Barkly St Where they learned to put double fried chicken and vinegar together and called it a spice-bag are we are spice-bag? Sounds pretty hot.

@filter_head is a poet living on Wurundjeri land. He has been published by Rabbit Poetry, No More Poetry and has exhibited poetic work at TCB Gallery and Blindside Gallery.

Photography Credit : A Carp in the Tub is a photographic series created by a collaboration between photographer Louise Hagger, prop stylist JoJo Li and food stylist Victoria Granof

January - March 2024 by Marion Doerig (she/her)

silver platform converse from the charity shop, collages of seashells, mushrooms and fish; dreamlike.

prayer candles at the altar, $2 fairy earrings

a passage from The Tempest put into music and angelically sung.

street art in Northcote, stroll through Carlton Gardens

butterfly eyeshadow, green matcha latte

The pink hair is back, sushi date

summer dress weather, reading in the park

Pre Raphaelite art, Roman style statue in the front garden

selfie with him on the bus home. <3

Hi!! I’m Marion, currently studying Arts at the University of Melbourne. I have a passion for all things Beautiful and love to use poetry as a way to capture fleeting moments. I also really enjoy setting aside time for my other interests, such as Irish Set Dancing (which I do with my boyfriend <3), collage making/scrapbooking and playing music ♥

Wurundjeri Country

@_sans_permanence_

Image of Carlton Gardens by @rvbydavis

Bad Dog by zoe odessa (she/her)

(Content warning: allusions to animal and human cruelty and abuse, violence, strong language and derogatory terms, sexual references)

Bitch You spit And she sighs Shoulders slumped Tail between legs Sad, sad eyes She knows she is a Bad Dog

Kick to the ribs Slap to the face But she slinks back To your embrace A slobbering Mess

She won’t bite the hand That feeds her Or the hand That sometimes strokes And you like to watch her Come But you’ll never let her Go

Good girl, good pup Finally doing what you want Hold a treat Out of reach Laugh as she begs Hungry cunt

Strangled scream cuts fast and Deep in the night Sharp teeth sink swiftly She succumbs Hackles raised Fight or flight

Wild eyed, foaming mouth Watch as she licks her wounds and Runs Hunger driven, beaten slut Bad Dogs deserve the Gun

Zoe Odessa (she/her) is a 22-year-old poet and writer who wishes to be utterly consumed by words. Currently based in Cairns, Australia, on Yirrganydji land, she is at the tail end of her USYD B.A in English Literature. She loves difficult women and challenging feminist literature. You can find her on instagram @zoe_odessa_

Original Image Source Unknown.

my memories come in threes by cailin wight (she/her) (cw: mental health)

What a strange bittersweet tinge these summer days now carry with them In the early hours, before the heat sets itself into our bones and the concrete, the warm breeze holds memories of primary school Evergreen trees and Christmas beetles (which I haven't seen in four years) Wet hats that we dumped on our heads, the bees that chased us for the water-laden brims.

But these days the concrete is too hot to walk on, and the soles of my feet aren't tough like they used to be Cigs staining my breath remind me things are different and older now And I repress the psych ward memories that come to mind with the stink, because to be honest, fuck thinking about that

I drive to shops and old Greeks are still watering their pavements which is silly And I'm annoyed remembering I have to sweep up the gumnuts from the front of my house so no one goes head over heels cartoon banana peel style.

I’m Cailin, wannabe artist who’s life has truly been ruled by chaos and confusion for a very long time, and my saviour throughout the chaos has always been creating I feel very lucky to be able to transmute my emotions into art whether it be through words, ink, or a sunset captured in knitting My work hasn’t been featured anywhere but I’m now confident enough in it and myself that I believe it deserves to be shared This is a very short comparison between 3 portions of my life, happy, then sad and then somewhat stable. @kouklamouuu

Image by by Ksenya Ka

birds by lily kosef

like the apple ate eden, god had made sin how long is longing when stored deep within?

am i just as pathetic am i oh so akin? oh blood, do stop coursing from under my skin!

i know i am woeful i know it is true, i am only human with the heart of a shrew

a bird sprawled out dead, with a bent wing or two i dreamt up the sky I had plummeted through!

am i oh so pathetic? oh, what would you do? the wind in your feathers that glide into view

but unlike an eagle, just like a shrew i am prone to weakness i am stronger than few

i buckle and bend i feel weight on my back, caving to worry or my next heart attack

love is a sickness this ol’ bird can’t hack a heart bigger than body , that easily cracks

the pressure of waiting for feeling to rise, that i’ve spent years stomping for the sake of my pride

a big flowing banner a warm shade of white screaming ‘surrender!’ to ghouls in the night

but even the strongest feel small in their hearts feelings feel puny and patience feels harsh

i know that i’m longing i know i feel deep i know my emotions are never concrete

I am just like an eagle and just like a shrew they are one in the same just like me and you

we all have hearts beating we all long to be loved we all share a sky from eagle to dove

@choccybiscuits

Wurundjeri Country

Image : BTS Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me - Dir. David Lynch

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