The cockatoos came home todayall showy insistencerowdy language hanging from every limb ravenous camping teens stripped the pear treeto a shrivel of skinsa dishevel of band aids the cupey-eyed passion fruit happily just flower in Bilson Street shoppers watchedthe low tumultuous skyturn this way and that across the garrulous horizon a nonchalant blink of avian … Continue reading Of a flock, returning

Skinning words, two-part arrivals She came back, suddenly   god eats your soulAt 3.47 this morning  like a custard tartI’ve learnt not to ask  pushing the crumbs of boundaryWhere she’s been  from the corners of mouthsI turn over, put my head  a knave of bachelorsBetween her shoulder and breast  wayward as a slipped jibThe way I know … Continue reading Skinning words, two-part arrivals

do not fall in love with a Godwhen they say foreverit is the duration of vanity only out of my breathless ossuarythese slow secondsturn within themselves a tapestry made of stone Eos asked him to make me eternalwe were to be beautiful togethera hand aside the mouth of Zeus his incremental curse of immortalitya hover … Continue reading Tithonus and Dawn

My dear Lizzy if I may still be so boldafter 51 years of absence from Longbournexactitude being a virtue amongst friends,as it is to be precise as it is to be worthycan I speak of that struggle so containedby society’s rigours of want for decorum?Be assured I delight in the fortunesof the other Miss Bennetts … Continue reading A not so recalcitrant reader returns to Pride and Prejudice, Jane I remain Yours, &c.

At times my body heatpresages combustion,but we’re in the Eye of Usthis constant iridescence,my VU bright litin the red corner. Going off like radiationa heart ticking boom,an amplifier out of modebut so mellow,the bass specificno matter how the EQ is justified. A kid’s month is a summer tortoisethe day a year of beach towels,before the … Continue reading Birthday Stereophonics of the Elder Kind

doves banter the night throughmade sleepless by the south’s revivalcoming in hard pushing northern dust to groundmaking claim to earth again rain brings the splotchy ozone downthe ordinance of sky restored on the highland road puddles make nonsensetrees lift off closing roadsthe detour is a waft in fogwipers pout vain against humidity the navigating voice … Continue reading To an artist’s retrospective, Jindivick

Lombardy poplars held magnet to the skythe slow horizon a repast of moonto lick the salt bone of starsmy hand bleeding from an oxide barb a fortune told by every runnel catch at them as they mindthe fat house cow kicking outagainst the pollard grip of entrapmentcold lambs asleep by the wood box fire mothers … Continue reading Under wisteria, Valley Farm

In a cruciform townbuilt of stone and sweatthey laid us both downfor the crime of theft we swam ourselves nakedshook a fist at the moonwhere the oily anointedare past dead too soon       that’s what you get baby      for wanting to be free      that’s what you get baby      for wanting to be free I kissed … Continue reading Leonard Cohen and Me, Not by the Levee

in these streetsthey still play end to endand three goals in the old mine siren soundsat midday, every day,as though the shift will come up one coaled nationality the sea filled shafts on overflowtomorrow’s cars on nature stripsturbine shadows calling time sand dunes bleat for patienceturned over bellies sun upfine ground as bone and promise … Continue reading High on the low down (even though I have to jump), reprise

The first drive east. Out past dauntless newsuburbs scattered like a teenager’s room.Asleep in the future. All that aspiration watchingfrom the cosy dissemble of the city’s embrace,but curled like a cat, the tail flicking impatiently.My first car. The HD station wagonearly morning, no other traffic –the world in hibernation except for us.Pages turned quietly in … Continue reading First, 1975