In a still night under southern stars,
Sleeping in a rough farm shed,
From neighbouring farms
Across the valley, the dogs bark.

In our home city, the sound
Of trams rattling down the road
Blends into the background noise.
But next door, the dogs bark.

In this city, both ancient and new,
With moonlight streaming
In our window across the tiled
Rooftops, the dogs bark.

Coffee and apple
Strudel; 1970s photos
Of the smiling man.

To write a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic.

You don't know
what it's like.
You don't know
what it's like.
To love somebody.
To love somebody.
The way I love you.

I think it was Ashbery who said it,
But I've looked high and low
Without finding the source.
Like snow silently falling
While you are sleeping,
Till the tent pole breaks
Under the accumulated weight,
And you struggle outside
Naked in the beauty of the night.
Nature keeps on plugging away
While we are otherwise occupied.

Goodness is Edmund Gwen.
Innocence is Natalie Wood,
The child star.
Her future that lies before her
Is in our past.
Where does Jet Jackson
Park his jet plane?
Badness wears a black hat,
But now anyone
Can buy a white hat.

In a dry gully
The fence waits for years to be
Swept away by flood.

Eddying across
The road, thistle seeds, blown by
The wind, seek a home.

I have seen places
Where nothing at all happened.
Enough to be there.

Do the words of a
Poem repeat in your head
Like song lyrics do?

Art may be proscribed,
Yet, humans must create art,
From geometry.

A string of meaningless words,
Repeated endlessly,
Can be visual art, it seems.

In 1942 Gorgio Mirandi painted
A still life of a cup and a vase
Because they were there,
And reflected light.

A string of meaningless words
Can be art criticism, it seems.
And may even be poetry?

But string is real:
Tied around my finger,
I feel it and remember.

Stone, glass and steel is real,
If you can touch it,
Otherwise it could just be
An illusion.

The finger prints and DNA
Of all of us who touched
The rusted steel installation,
Despite the signs, are real,
Though you cannot see them
Or feel our presence.

Like the shiny parts
Of bronze statues touched
By each passing viewer,
Do these not form part
Of the work of art?

Gold coins from ancient
Civilisations long gone.
Valued now as art.

How many hands have
These coins touched. Success and
Failure, lives unknown.

Clear sky at night. Stars
And moon light the camp. No breeze
To disturb the frost.

At the coldest hour,
Shivering inside, we wait
For the sun's warm light.

When the Trapp family
Climbs that mountain, do we cry
For past or future?

Waves break ceaselessly
On the beach while we try to
Fix our past mistakes.

Imagine returning from the Crusades
With enough money to build
A grand stone house, so far
In the mountains that conflict
Could never find you again.

Sitting in this courtyard,
On the uneven flagstones laid
Long ago, I like to think
They succeeded, at least
For a generation or two.

But history tells us
You can run, but you
Cannot hide. So we who hide
Must return to confront
What is happening
In the world.

To debate whether
Ned Kelly's last words were 'Such is
Life' misses the point.

After a hot dry
Summer, rain. Trees produce new
Leaves, toward the sun.
Lying on a bed
Of dried leaves and twigs, bare skin
Absorbs the sun's gift.

Je sais que tout est
Fini derriere moi et que
Retour est exclu.

Washing off the grime
Of war. Your hesitant smile.
With us forever.

Leaves shining like jade
Against cerulean sky.
Perfect white petals.

Floating on a flat
sea, under grey skies, rain-drop
circles overlap.

Back on the beach, a
swimmer sets an umbrella
as she walks away.

Sand on my skin, breeze.
Droplets of water, disappear.
Leaving only me.

In the coldest month,
violet petals stand out
amid leaves of green

Green sea under black
Sky. Curious foreboding.
Strangely beautiful.

Bees in clover, feet
Beware. Trees in flower. Taste
Honey in the air.

It is hard to look your best
When you are dead,
But they don't seem to mind,
With their tears and memories,
And plans for tomorrow
Changed.

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion.
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain.
The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.

Beyond my parka
My nose hurts from bitter cold.
Shells crunch under foot.

The song says I will
Touch you in four places.
Unbearable. Memories.

The ancients did not
Hesitate to build atop
Their predecessors.

But city walls came
Down to make way for narrow
Roads to new places.

Dry creek, yellow sand.
Add water, hands, dull metal.
Copper bracelet shines.

Moonlight and gentle breeze
Caress the Great Wall.
Evening star our only companion.
Faintly dogs bark
In the village below.
Through the still night
Distant sounds of straining trucks
And honking horns along
The highway from the provinces,
Driven through the wall
To bring steel to the capital.
One sunset to one sunrise,
In an infinitely repeated cycle.

Did Confucius mean
Literally to set his
Ideas in stone?

Is it only a
Poet who can see through her
Tears and keep writing?

In vivo; in  vitro;
in silico; in lapis;
In pulverem.

Shall I speak of love
Or the mosquitos biting
My feet? Nothing helps.

Moonlight lays a path
Across the water. To think
One could walk on it.

Sometimes life seems like
A succession of '80s
Unguarded moments

You have to swim out
Deeper if you don't want sand
In your swimming trunks.

New gravel pathway,
Softened by rain drops, etched
By flowing water.

New growth. Leaves, flowers.
Bud, unfurl expectantly.
Future uncertain.