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B.R. Dionysius is a poet, editor, arts administrator and educator born in Dalby, Western Queensland in 1969. He was the chairperson of Fringe Arts Collective Inc from 1994 to 2001; directed the Brisbane Writers Fringe Festival from 1993 to 1996, and directed the Subverse: Queensland Poetry Festival from 1997 to 2001. In 2004, he completed an M.Phil (Creative Writing) at the University of Queensland. He is currently enrolled in a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) Grad Entry, again at the University of Queensland. He lives in Gordon Park, Brisbane, is married to the writer Melissa Ashley and has two daughters, Rhiannon and Sylvie. His latest book is Universal Andalusia published by soi 3 modern poets.

To the innate island of extinction we belong; an
Arachnid species, & if you include the sting in our tail,
We weighed in at three feet long. We fed on dead bats
Mostly, that dropped from the sky of the mind, but other
Hungers killed us; & as for that mystery concerning Amelia
Earhart & her disappearance, we can wrap that up for you,
She landed on the wrong foot, ours, & poison did the job.
Then Japanese troops lived off us, see, they occupied our
Caves, riding the crest of near annihilation long after the war
Had stopped, but their bayonet sting was longer, appetites
Superior, & once you removed our hard shell, we were egg
Yolk soft & stewed with roots. Yet, like these guerillas we
Had vanished by 1952; new golf course fantasies erupted.
A final surrender to the inevitable conclusion: war is over.