shot glass
title
"... brevity is the soul of wit ..."
- William Shakespeare

Bio


David Adès is a widely published poet and short story writer. He is the author of Mapping the World, the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal and Afloat in Light.

David won the Wirra Wirra Vineyards Short Story Prize 2005. Mapping the World was commended for the FAW Anne Elder Award 2008.

David's poems have been read on the Australian radio poetry program Poetica and have also featured on the U.S. radio poetry program Prosody. David's poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, has won the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize and has been shortlisted twice for the Newcastle Poetry Prize. His poems have been Highly Commended in the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize, a finalist in the Dora and Alexander Raynes Poetry Prize and commended for the Reuben Rose Poetry Prize.

David lives in Sydney with his wife and three children. His website is at http://davidades.wixsite.com/poet.


David Adès


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Conjunctivitis

Tonight,
in the desultory Urgent Care of a country hospital,
eyes gritty, vision blurred,
an unknown woman speaking softly,
  comforting a friend through a panic attack,
turns to me and smiles, gratuitously,
face open, warm, generous,
and I am seen,
lit up from within and without,
and what breaks in me,
what floods
 is a river of gratitude that threatens
to spill through the dam of my eyes,
a river that had lost its sea
  and for a moment, found it again.