Palms now bare, grasp at skies of bemused blue,

Along dawdling drives of low-key grace,

I behold a line of savvy, vested dog-walkers,

led longways by the strain of their leads.


A slice of tree-lined urbane, these do-gooders...

Brisk breaths have a prolonged hang-time

Here, below a branch tableau.

Stoic canopies.  A quiet symphony,

an elegant samhain.

And the crashing din of the surf was a factor.

It was roaring.

A pride of lions.

It was howling.

A dismayed wolf-pack.

It was crying out into the listless void.

Which stared back, blank as slate.

...what a back and forth.

We dragged shoes back through the trap of the sand.

There was a tunnel.

I slump into poetry,
heave into it.
shift it across the floor and wave,
at the neighbours.

I dangle from its filmy gossamer,
pluck the spindles upon which it moves,
I fold it among the sweatshirts and wrinkles,
placing it in place, by other cherished artifacts.

I cascade into poetry,
ignite each little molecule,
remove its pits and stones,
study them.

And let it propel me, with avidity,
Into each and every fading hour.
Then, submit, as I'm shanghaied
onto a ship of poetic voyagers.

and there is someone, on this earth,
whom I'd feel saccharine
for.

The breaking apart of an ideal remains the breaking apart of something.

O, this carpet, this mattress.

I tore at the wall all night, I decree.

And I pictured fierce torrents jetting from the fissures I'd caused.

Within the whirl of half-dreams.

The evening shoved its nose into my flightpath, and coiled about the rungs of sleeplessness.

I won't fight, I will fight.

I shan't toss my next year away into the expectant wind of the world.

The measure of one's life contained,
Within an overstuffed shelf.

Too often,
I've succumbed.

Mind the pools, that sit on sidestreets in my neighbourhood, I graze past.

I run past.

Lone but with a legion of cheerers in my ears.

A haunted water.

Seas enraged, that once derailed - a pursuit of truth. In extremis

The warmth ushers footprints on, further ahead,
A foxtrotting myna hectors.

A seat atop a mound of grass, staring out, a channel churns below - out of place. Time.

The chest winces, it encases something injured, this sand, this face: relentless.

Through the afternoon, that plods methodically. On, a calmness came...

It flies high overhead, the bird Between headlands. Scrub clambers up the hill, hope tires.

The forces of the natural world snickered into the wind
Untroubled, in their unworried infinity
And something in the wickering boughs and stooping reeds suggested pity.
Piously carrying on, all their defences holstered.
We reach to scream, they reach to breathe.
Out there, beyond the rush of the falls,
The train was due in 60 minutes
the heave of the wood scarcely cared.

- composed on April 11 2020, Springwood, NSW

The flaking fence leaned into evening,
It was the backyard drunkard,
A release of heat and energy

Deserted diversions sat idly,
Everything slackened... sadly,
In the bashful light -

The slumbering grass, itches the irksome
Overthought. I, propped up on elbow and
Watching - a telegraph pole - rigid, out of place

The insistent caterwaul of insects continued,
The crepuscular kind,
The buzz of night, waiting patiently, in line.