Volume XI Number 11
Quadrant magazine is the leading general intellectual journal of ideas, literature, poetry and historical and political debate published in Australia.
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Poetry
Two Poems: 1
Addiction Song
Cold turkey is the only way to go.
Withdrawal isn’t something you can savour.
All smokers, coffee-heads and drinkers know:
cold turkey is the only way to go.
Now I’ve quit you, I dare not risk “hello”:
my resolution might begin to waver.
Cold turkey is the only way to go;
withdrawal isn’t something you can savour.
Herakles’ Other Labour
A lot of us know tales of Herakles
labouring twelve labours for renown.
Known less, his pregnant mother Alkmene’s
majestic child-bed feat: though she bore down,
Eileithiya, birth goddess, crossed her knees;
Nine nights of heaving hell until he crowned.
Epic. But who sings of deeds like these?