POETRY
What’s possible between us
As another Spring begins, the bird’s brain cells bloom. New songs. Fingerprints return after the hand is burnt. Who knows what we’re capable of? I part the vertical ocean of clothes and find you there. Spider, it is almost terrifying …
Thoughts
What do you think when you kill a man? Nothing, as crosshairs move to the next target. Nothing, that night when you’re sunk in your hole, ears focussed for the prick of noise. Nothing at week’s end back at base, …
Things Wong Kar-Wai Taught Me About Love, Part 2
for Kerry Everyone needs a hole in a tree in which to whisper secrets. Some of my most erotic experiences have been in my imagination. Waiting for someone to become available is the ultimate torture. …
The Goulburn Cricket Club Love Song
The cricketers’ girlfriends lounge beyond the boundary They are smoothing their summer dresses over their long tanned legs Lounging with a long glass of beer and lemonade One smoothes the blonde hair of a batsman waiting his turn The fast …
The Garbagemen of Rome
Such sprezzatura they have in their orange jumpsuits! With their well-coiffed hair and agile movement and gallant asides to the ladies, they might as well be fencing on the battlements of the Castel Sant’Angelo, or dancing a quadrille on the …
Temperature
if the weather clears she will take the sea road walk along cliffs hang out near rocks where seals swim with purpose if the weather clears she will tie a line behind the chook shed hang dirty washing in the …
Tales Out of School (2): A Gift for Teaching
The Guru, Mister Whatsup, Oblomov, The Sleeping Beaut, and Madame Lash and the Vampire Bat are ensconced in the Common Room when Mrs Ick Deen harrumphs in with the Pickled Dill and the Human Egg for the Weekly Discipline get-together …
Tales Out of School (1): He Says, She Says
‘I’d like to know’, says the girl who intends to be married in autumn, ‘if heaven is true and it’s made up of people like us’. And she got married too. And the boy sitting next to her says, ‘I …
Swimming with Sharks
Jim, ex CBC boy and long-term Semaphore resident, reminisces about his old mate, poet, Francis Webb, 1925 – 1973. Frankly i didn’t know if he was telling the truth or simply weaving a web laced with lies & deceit …
SUB AQUA
///////////// NOW HEAR THIS //////////////////////////////////////////// WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE ///////////////// CERTAIN CREW MEMBERS MOTIVATED BY EXTREMISM AND THE DESIRE FOR PERSONAL GAIN //////// WOULD RATHER IT WERE GREEN ///////////////////////////////// LET ME ASSURE YOU //////// HOWEVER //// …
Shock To The Screen Door
You can hear it banging in the wind, or when someone delivers something and lets it ‘have its will’. It causes you to jump, inevitably. “Trouble in your bubble, mate?” is what Dave says when I look morose. Which might …
Settlers, Regurgitated
Victoria’s first settlers were whalers as well as prostitutes. They were hale, they drank ale. They were whalewrights, sexwrights – they were Whites. They ate a lot of pasta too – well before the Italians put in an appearance. They …
Saving 100 Chickens
We argue about whether saving 100 chickens – their feathers to be patted by a sentimental lesbian – will help to save their million brothers and sisters on the conveyor belt line. This was after eating two pink lamb cutlets, …
Russian Daughters
We stayed up all night with the daughters of Russian immigrants, lounging by the fire in hobo coats and corduroy trousers, listening to The Cure in the dark, talking until dawn, watching the sun rise over the bay. After sunrise, …
Relics
Gretel to Hansel My torn blouse and calloused fingers— these were relics of our adventure. Eucalypt leaves that clung in my hair; the long-stale brick of gingerbread. The bandages that wrapped my shredded legs after we emerged from the bush. …
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