Proud to have been part of the launch of Friendly Street's New Poets 21 collection last night, in company with Tarla Ritchie and Mark Kramer. If you'd like to buy a copy, they're a bit old school on payments and there are no e-book versions available but we'd all be pleased if you could see … Continue reading New Poets 21
Poetry
What’s a metaphor you, alphabetically speaking?
You're like: Abseiling (if you could teach an abalone to seil) Busking in Brunswick with a balalaika, Cats who only eat Dine, Dancing (strictly no ballroom), Ease (only accomplished without practice) Fencing without a face mask, G, but with no strings attached, Honesty (often unseemly and embarrassing), Intelligence (seldom found disappearing up itself), Joy (beware … Continue reading What’s a metaphor you, alphabetically speaking?
A mother’s lament
In the outer suburbs, in the space between the bush and the town, therapy is what you get from a physio. When the cracks appear in the plaster and they start to match up with your mind, because the foundations have slipped, you ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls because it never tolls … Continue reading A mother’s lament
Some morsels of pasticherie
Sonnet: Be still, my swell-ed heart I did but see her glassy-eyed, astride her pied ride as she wended to her home sighing in her saddle set to the side, clutching her cask of wine to her bos-ome Full sore my lovesick heart (and other parts) swell-ed as Cupid’s arrow shrived my mortal soul and … Continue reading Some morsels of pasticherie
A magnetic personality
Your healing, random, magnetic, barely understood, as you intend. Home to refugees, your face reaches in and palpates (like a surgeon) that fluttering life muscle behind their eyes, and leaves them anaesthetised with wisdom. As your moon-tides wax and wane, these words, the iron filings of my own secret armour, cling to your magnet eyes … Continue reading A magnetic personality
Blood lines
At her birth she staggered on unfamiliar legs while her mother licked her clean and tried not to stand on her in forgetfulness or fatigue. Soon she stood alone, with a coat that waxed in spring and waned in winter moon. At the yearling sale she pranced, nostrils flared, unminded of her fetlocks in the … Continue reading Blood lines
Zen and the Art of Personal Maintenance – 10 Meditations
1. If all the world's a stage, be the one hand clapping. 2. Like baubles across a bassinet the past invites endless play. 3. Your future is in the distance between this breath and the next. 4. Every day is your birth-day; give yourself a present. 5. Never let your right … Continue reading Zen and the Art of Personal Maintenance – 10 Meditations
A friend in Another Place
Other people always seem on course, Full Ahead to somewhere on the Sea of Life. I am forever losing the compass and forgetting how to drop anchor, permanently adrift in an Other Place. Occasionally I see harbour lights beckon but their beams wax and wane in the fog of novelty. Besides, I've decided, they're probably … Continue reading A friend in Another Place
Will I still be with you in the City of Dreaming Spires?
When, in languid times, you reach into your mind for companions intemperate to share the fruits of summer succulence, will my face float into view and hover (ever the tantalising gadfly) or will it stay Titanically submerged under the wet weight of wavers-not-drowners? In the mythical winters of the sheepish plains, when even marrow moves … Continue reading Will I still be with you in the City of Dreaming Spires?
Where there’s death, there’s hope
Last week the death panic came again, just as I was drifting off to sleep or to die? No! (turning over quickly and opening my eyes) No! Not yet, it's not fair! I haven't had time to ... (what?) ... unfail my true purpose in life (which is..?) Give me more time (who the hell … Continue reading Where there’s death, there’s hope
