2016

As I stand among the crosses
Fighting man’s repository,
I watch the dead stretch far beyond
The point where eye can see.

And ponder why they fought and died,
For none but they can know.
The secret notion of delight,
That bid them thence to go.

Some duty to their countrymen?
A thought of nation’s pride?
Perchance the hope of glory led
The doomed souls hence to die.

They gave no thought to strategy
Or military reforms.
Their killers, decked with medals wore
Their own fools’ uniforms.

And silent, ever silent,
Like fallen winter snow,
They fade among the crosses white;
Row on aimless row.

The world moves on with scarce a thought,
No wiser for its loss.
A piece of sense is crucified
Upon each voiceless cross.

So I gaze o’er endless crosses
To the failing point of eye
And wordless mourn the futile cause
That led them all to die.

Look up, my child,
the fireworks are booming
splendid against night,
bold against the moon,
golden in the black –
can you feel they are
alone?

Can you see, my child,
through a frosted window
and through the chill,
there sits by the thousandth lonely fireside,
on the thousandth lonely mantelpiece,
and thousandth lonely, weary shoulders
the question of our age –
“Who am I, where do I belong?”

Look, my child, at the city –
can you see the lonely people?
Can you see with the clarity that they do
that their only place is no place?

They are silver-lined clouds
that drift
and are beautiful
but drift in emptiness.
Can you see their dreams fall down
like raindrops
in isolation?

And do you know, my child,
when all is done,
which way they must turn:
to the brightness that is theirs
or the dullness that
is everybody else’s?

Look up, my child,
the fireworks are booming
bright among the stars –
but know
though the colours are bright,
the colours fade,
though the rockets are loud
the rockets fall,
but the stars shine always,
for they
belong.

On most days:

The Writer’s work is a thunderstorm,
Striking as lightning, deafening as thunder,
Falling rain like fingers on a keyboard,
Tapping away at the windows,
Peering in at your soul.

Some days:

The Writer’s work is a fun-house mirror,
Which reflects his life’s journey,
From a different perspective,
Distorted and textured,
Packaged and sold.

On bad days:

The Writer’s work is an empty room,
With white walls like blank pages,
The inkwell of his mind,
Is barren and dry.

On the best days:

The Writer’s work is a daydream,
Warm and steadily travelling,
Uncanny yet beautiful,
Words bright like the sun.

I sit in sombre silence,
Stare mutely at these walls.
I hear no soft disturbance
From the footsteps in the halls.

And faintly I remember,
And quietly reminisce;
The fear of distant shouting,
The softness of a kiss.

An endless set of faces,
Every word they ever said;
All now are but memories;
All of them long dead.

All around my world is fading,
Yet still I linger on,
So, perhaps, shall I continue,
‘Til all I love is gone.

And for perhaps an instant,
Perhaps a thousand years,
My life draws far behind me;
The sum of loves and fears.

And what remains my purpose?
What do I linger for?
What beauty has existence
When all else is no more?

It seems as if,
This morning,
I have woken up
Without my legs.

And it seems as if,
This morning,
I have misplaced my arms.

It would seem this way because,
I cannot find my eyes,
To check
That I am still whole
On the outside.

From within,
I didn’t need eyes
To see,
To feel
Everything inside me slowly going dark,
Grinding to a halt,
Falling apart,
Into small-minded pieces,
Disintegrating in my consciousness,
Decomposing throughout my being.
So that when
Hands with an alien skin,
Coaxed thread through the eye
Of a needle,
So smoothly,
On the first try,
I looked on.

And when
They pierced my flesh,
And pulled,
Until the end of my lips,
Sealed with a knot,
It hurt.
But I did not mind.

And I can only assume,
That while l slept,
A barren dreamless sleep.
I can only assume,
That in the same fashion,
That the thread was coerced,
My eyes drifted,
Willingly out of the craters in my skull,
Up into the nails and down into the palm,
Of something else.
Because,
l didn’t need them anymore.

My eyes to reach vague voids.
My mouth to choke meaningless rasps.
My legs to wander through paralysis.
My heart to pump dust into my veins.
My arms to raise aloft the lifeless lungs slumped on the floor.
That do not belong to me anymore.

Because this morning,
It would seem,
I have woken up,
To the gentle kiss
Of death itself.

I try to catch a moment as it flies past
But it slips through my fingers
Like a dream through the night
Lost forever.
If only all my yesterdays were spread out before me
Then maybe I would find it.
But each hour of the past has already been woven into the tapestry
Of my identity.
How will I find the threads which lead to my heart,
As the light disappears
And the earth forgets the sun’s warmth?
I must wait until the memory I seek appears once more
For though I can force my lungs to breathe
I cannot force my mind
To imagine.

The sound of stilettos on cobblestoned streets
Rings through the slumbering town
From a starless sky the clouds retreat
For the Moon in her black velvet gown

The unmistakable sound of shoes striking gravel
A paradox in a town such as this
Each footstep commands like the bang of a gavel
As a figure emerges from the mist

On a moon-dappled path with a whispering breeze
She walks heeding no invitation
The half-shadowed trees twist their bodies to see
And murmur in soft susurration

It was as if she had plucked the stars from the sky
To adorn her obsidian cape
A petty revenge on her Mother up high
To leave the night a blank empty slate

A streak of shot silver in tumbling black hair
Shimmers faintly like the Milky Way
Her cheekbones are carved of ivory fair
And her eyes are a purple-tinged grey

It is her, the Night Lady, the Daughter of the Moon
Disgraced from her heavenly throne
She sings a mournful, mellifluous tune
Of a curse that she bears on her own

“Before the world spun with such frenzied intensity
Before mankind evolved with a hate-fuelled propensity
I lived in the sky, unaware of my destiny
Waiting for time to eclipse

Alone bar my Mother’s maidservants, the stars
I traced dying comets on their path to afar
I listened to planets give their sonorous memoirs
Just waiting for the lunar eclipse

Millennia passed and the world kept on turning
The desire to experience earth brightly burning
I served in the night court suppressing the yearning
Till the night of the lunar eclipse

It was a warm summer night in the middle of June
When a shadow obscured my Mother, the Moon
I slipped down to earth, my timing opportune
The night of the lunar eclipse

What a marvellous sight! Lo and behold
I wandered through cities and villages old
I learned all the stories that ever were told
That night of the lunar eclipse

And once I had done everything to be done
Out spilled the rise of the glorious sun
Panicked, I saw that the day had begun
Thus ending the lunar eclipse

The horizon was alight, the sunrise was burning
In a sudden I realised there’d be no returning
I could not go home as I quickly was learning
I was chained to the earth evermore

The haunting last notes of the melody dies
She draws an uneven breath
Gazing up at the sky she expels a long sigh
Filled with ineffable hiraeth

And so the Daughter of the Moon is bound to the earth
Sapped of her holy divinity
To walk the night is her Sisyphean curse
Till she fades into timeless infinity

Everybody else has breath
I’m gasping, drowning on dry land
I’m tired, no matter how much I rest
I’d rather hide inside my cold nest
My thoughts are shaken
When my mind awakens
‘Miracle’ pill not working
Everything I am, is hurting
My brain and my heart are at war
There’s no way out, I lose once more
Trudging along, barely breathing
The smile on my face, deceiving
People can’t tell
I’m in my own Hell
And I don’t know if I’ll be leaving
“This will pass”.

The blood drips to the sink
The smell of my own red ink
The cold blade makes its mark
And I’m left alone in the dark
Muffled cries, never say their goodbyes
For it will be no different in the morning
Whimpers and welts
Are these the cards I’ve been dealt?
“This will pass”.

There are voices inside screaming
My ears, my hands, my face – just won’t stop bleeding
How can you not see it!
I’m eroding away, bit by bit
Sleeping, is my Safety Kit
In dreams, my thoughts bring no pain
My mind is free, to roam again
The nightmares that come to me in slumber
Have no power to pull me under
For I am already down
Buried alive, trapped under ground
“This will pass”.

You’re telling me there’s “A light at the end’?
Do you really think it’s that easy to mend?
Think that I can flick a switch?
I almost feel bewitched
Sometimes we win – sometimes we lose
But this is NOT a game
Nothing can take away this pain
The loss I have for something that never existed
Is stuck in my mind, completely twisted.

Why do I bother telling you?
What’s the point in writing this down?
I’m not some sort of performing clown
A smile from a total stranger
Can lead to light, away from danger
Instead of judgment and pointed fingers
Instead of gossip and stares that linger
I need you to understand
That sometimes we all need a helping hand.

DON’T TELL ME THIS WILL PASS

Depression will strike, where Depression will
And left alone, Depression can kill.

So take the time to know me, please
See the person, not the disease.

Hold your breath, it’s not time yet, the coals are cold
Look at the hills, a grey sloping corpse, heartbeat no more
Up and down, through grass, swamps, crops, up and down
Not a sound, just dark lonely death, the soil has no soul

Do you feel the ghost that surrounds us all?
It’s thin like paper and cool like sleet
It wraps around your spine making you shiver
The air of ice seeps into the homes as harmless children sleep

Look up, the silver eye of a jewel staring at tiny lives below
Nestled in the clouds, I’m never alone, its breath is always by my side
Accompanied by dots of white and grey like bleached bones from long ago
They’re bright and gleaming like the fangs of a slinking menace

Tick, tock, tick, tock, minutes are hours but a spark will come
Red, blue, purple, grey, the colours slither up the clouds lungs with strangling scars
The boulders on the horizon try to hide their secret, but soon a golden yolk is free
The spears of light pierce the rotting clouds and dreamy darkness high

Look at the peak guiding the sun, the symbol of its presence
I remember the jutting edges that were ignited red and blue
He was old and grey, with a mask of trees and shrubs, wise eyes of shale
When I looked out, at the off cuts of stone, I knew I was home

The ball of fire would then grow solid and harsh, judge his land below
Splattering blood of heat off the mountains blunt tips
The red tails took advantage of dying barren land
Emerald outcasts of stone lurk in the thick spiny bush, when that old sun was back

I remember the great swaying gums as far as the eye could see
Left, right, left, right, whispers passed on from shaggy stiff tuft
In summer when air was fire boiling in a burning blistering kiln
Their bulges fattened and green leaves turned to wicked shards of glass

The iron barks were short and gruff little thorns
Wrinkled and old with a toad’s hide and the spines of a cactus
They stabbed the hills like sick twisted hands reaching for the blues galore
Riddled of spiders, ants, bees, angry mindless twigs bring a burden to the plain

But then there was the red gum, an old smooth display
Just one, that’s all, where the magpies would snap and boast in rough scolding voice
Engulfing the sky its bark shimmered to the West on quiet deserted noons
Thick slicing curls snapping at the clouds like the crocs in the rivers and lagoons

I can still feel the curses of that old hill
Every day was a battle against the flames of brutal punishment, in summer the green would suffer
The smell of sheer heat is still in my mind, metallic sparks of gas like a blade against a grinder
The chatter of a skeletons dry teeth was in the treetops, the clank of rocks against steel capped boots

The last thing I remember was the golden stones waiting on the hills
The rustle of the palms harsh leaves and the sight of their thorny teeth the snakes called home
The gurgle and chirps of wild grass finches, wrens and eagles, burning pebbles beneath my feet
Musty scent wafted through the air like charcoal burnt beneath dancing flames hundreds of times

As the sun rose behind the peaks I’d never see again, he didn’t pursue the hills
It glimmered boldly and poured golden rays upon the mountains
The last time I’d see the goannas and never ending rugged trees, the twisting snake’s vines, boulders scarred, the one dead gum that sat lifelessly as the wedge tails perched
The shimmering brown waters or swift rolling creek, waking to peafowl’s calls

The last time I’d hear hissing cackles of dried golden grass
The last time I’d see a red tailed hawk, devils of the sky
The last time I’d see the peaks
The last time I was home

Dear student…
You put your pencils on my head,
when you’re bored you draw instead.
Not on paper but on me,
And cover it so no one sees.
Pencils, papers, books and beads,
You shove them all inside of me.
And when do you clean me out?
You never do without a doubt.
You drag me across the floor,
It makes my feet really sore.
The chewing gum once soft and wet,
Now hard as concrete on my neck.
You poke and prod with pencils and pens,
Tell me when the project ends.
Pencil shavings dirty me,
I’m not a bin can’t you see.
It’s only been one term and still,
I think I’ll explode, I really will.
And what about the apple core,
It’s all covered with mould galore.
Why can’t you just put the lids on the felts,
I feel like one day they’re all going to melt.
Sometimes I wish that I could just shout,
When you leave all your crayons about.
I wish this stuff would all disappear,
I can’t wait until the end of the year.
Although at the end of the year I will miss you,
All apart from this dirty tissue.
I have known you since the first day of prep,
When it comes to school it’s just the first step.
I can’t believe you’re now in grade six,
Wow the years with you went quick.
Now the years are through with you,
It’s time to find someone new.

Forest and digging
Fingers dirty, heads sweaty
The dead dinosaurs pierce my fingers
I remember sitting, watching my dad suffer
Yelling and screeching
Was it too much of a sacrifice?

Are the thoughts inside my head really the thoughts inside my head?
Or are they just thoughts of things I’d like to think instead?
What a time to be alive, but what a time to be dead.
When a new era is beginning, another has to end.

And every era has its leader, good or bad or both.
And while all humans have a conscience, only some are bound by oath.
So let’s have a party. I’ll provide the toast.
To celebrate our new era, though of course I shouldn’t boast,

Because

When a new era is beginning another has to end.
So goes around and around, and around and around again.
But we’re too busy rushing into the future, to notice what we leave behind.
A city of fire, fuelled by the ruling of a liar.
But hey, politics, position versus power, right?

Trees grow to produce seeds, and seeds grow to produce trees.

We eat the fruit and then cut the tree down.
We sign a document and start a war.
Fight, kill, fight, kill.
Until we don’t even remember what we’re fighting and dying for.

Now we’ve ended that new era, like we always knew we would.
New becomes old, old becomes older, history repeats itself over and over.

And

Revenge is only sweet until you take it.
Peace is only peaceful if you make it.
Tears are tears even if you fake it.
A rule isn’t made just for us to break it.

When this new era begins, and the old era ends,
I for one, won’t be surprised.

After all, we’re just doing it again

Chained to the earth, that is holding you down.
You are so slight,
Yet your plans are so immense.

Once you separate yourself from the earth,
The chains stay,
A reminder of who you have been.
And when you can almost taste the sweetness of freedom,
A mountain arises.

The mountain is so huge that no giant could climb it,
Yet you,
Merely an ant, so easily blown away in the wind,
Begin the ascent.

There’s always darkness,
There are rivers of ice,
Yet the ant pushes through the biting weather,
And hauls into the night.

And just when you think your hardships are over,
Another obstacle emerges from the mist.

The maze takes years to complete.
Tiny ant, the walls tower higher than you can see!
Unable to break through these walls,
Or climb out of this mess,
There is no easy escape.

You walk the same path a hundred times,
But little ant, you never give up!
Your reward is the exit, but your glory is unseen,
Because the wall closes, and moves in to greet you.

A giant wall, forcing you backwards,
And you push with all your weight, tiny ant,
Yet nothing will stop it.
You begin your one way walk,
With the wall overshadowing your every move.
Yet you reach the end eventually,
You win! You beat the wall!

Your victory tastes sweet,
Like cold water on a hot dry day,
And you are empowered to keep walking,
Each step getting bigger,
Until you’re as big as the world!

You soar, little ant,
And no amount of stones thrown stop you,
But you get lazy, you forget who you are.
Your chains are long forgotten,
And you think nothing in this world can chain you again.

And that, little ant, is exactly what the earth expected.

You’re on the ground,
You need to work your way back up,
But it’s harder this time,
With more rivers without bridges,
More hills without tunnels.

Every unseen success makes you work harder,
And you clear the path crowded with boulders,
You fight every bear in the forest.

You climb higher!
Little ant, you’re almost there!
Up where the air is cleaner,
Up where birds sing!

And when you think you’ve made it, in this oh-so-big world,
You see the earth,
And your chain,
And you come tumbling down.

Because, little ant, your chains never left you.
And you give up, a squanderer of all your effort.

Little ant, your chains will never leave you,
Like your feet never left the dry earth,
Because sometimes when you start with nothing,
You don’t fly,
You can’t succeed.

If you hear screams like dying cats, you know what’s coming.
Two people will fight; the earth falls from the heavens.
Hot tears pour down your face.
A knot forms in your stomach.
BANG! A door slams. All of a sudden, it’s a hurricane.
When you feel like the world is spinning.
It is as cold as ice.
A never ending story continues.
I’ll never stop crying.
That is your thought, and you’re right.
Bursting into tears is hard to get rid of.
When the pain draws you in like rolling waves.
Panic is a bad disease.
The dark moon laughs at you.
Your weak knees give way and soon your heart freezes.
The sensation to fall to the ground and crumble gets a hold of you.
Once again, rain pours down your already wet cheeks.
It’s never going to go away.

Not even sleep can save you.

Fluorescent white snow covers the ground
The sky a gentle blue, as if painted on a canvas
Snowy peaks towering above
The wildlife hibernating
Tall trees outstretching snowy branches
The dark pine leaves, frozen at the tips
The gentle snowflakes drifting down like falling stars
Frozen, the lake reflects the powdered forest like a mirror
Mist low and thick, as if hiding something behind
Stags stand elegantly but defensively, showing off their tall antlers
Snow falls gently on my nose
Snow crystals glittering on the dark pine leaves
The winter wonderland shining with beauty

During a night march in ‘16 he heard his first nightingale. 
At smoko, remembering his Devon-born mother reciting 
Keats’ ode beside a Creswick fire, he opened his jacket 
& quick stitched that warbling song into his chest: 

‘O bird thou wert…’ 
Not a patch on our Kookas, Mum. 

He regretted throwing a mess tin at his first 
French robin after it alighted with a dainty 
flutter on Wilf Lawson’s sleeve soon after 
a whizz bang had torn off the boy’s face:

Never minded a mademoiselle 
on his arm did Wilf.

He laughed when an English gull making a trench 
raid across the railing of the troop ship taking him 
& who was left back home, snatched a slice 
of bully beef from his shaky hand: 

Greedy for life and 
lucky like me. 

While he was docked at Fremantle the Spanish Flu 
took his mother like a greedy Rook. In the family’s
bottom paddock he unbuttoned his battle dress jacket
& groaned as his birds screeched in the Creswick air.

The days before were hot and dry,
the months before as well,
at times a bank of clouds appeared –
but just as quickly disappeared
a misted mauve light bathed the land
and in the paddock he would stand
talking to ghosts with spirit voices –
“not one bloke down here rejoices
we are walking pathways all leading straight to hell”.

Long days continued hot and dry
with no relief in sight.
He watched his money disappear
along with hope, and now his fear
was soon that he would lose it all
and that would no way be his call.
He struggled daily with these things,
perhaps his thoughts had paper wings…
sad to say, that in his dreams, there was no respite.

The land wilted beneath the heat,
and now paddocks were bare.
Dark spirits from primordial times
were in each rock and tree.
He felt himself held in their arms.
Land – you belong to me…
and though clouds came to tantalize
not one drop fell from out the skies –
he saw grey cloud crevasses drifting in thin air.

He now recalled his father’s voice –
‘it rains at end of drought’.
He rubbed the sacred rain stone
on a boulder ancestors had known
and drew the dream-time serpents curves
in dust, the rituals he observed.
He threw his boomerang up high
to cut the clouds and let the sky
release the rain. Had they heard? An element of doubt.

That night he slept a dreamless sleep,
beaten and out of choices.
And in the distance thunder rolled,
the hot air cooled, the night turned cold.
The gum leaves rustled, turned their faces
as the storm fronts wind outpaces
rain that was falling straight down
to parched earths arms, dusty and brown;
he slept that night, soothed and calmed by spirit voices.

Infinite flowers all over the
Purple coloured trees
Swaying in the soft spring time breeze.
Winding its way all through the town
Is a river called the Bremer.
Can you hear the planes roaring overhead making the earth tremor?
Happiness is living in Ipswich, my home town.

I live in a d’Arcy Doyle painting complete with his favourite tree, 
a beautiful old Jacaranda that’s been around longer than me. 
Where life is a virtual canvas of every conceivable hue 
kaleidoscope colours are drawn from a palette of indigo scarlet and blue. 

There’s kids on the street playing cricket with nary an iPhone in sight. 
Some say we’re a little old fashioned and crikey they could just be right. 
Another kid’s down on the corner with a billy-cart made by his dad. 
He’s trailed by a little old lop-eared mongrel that’s never too far from the lad. 

And down by the winding old river another kid’s learning to swim. 
His mate with the fishing pole’s scoffing, no inner tube floatie for him. 
These kids never wear their hats backwards, no gutter talk drifts on the breeze. 
No grotty Reg Grundies are ever on show above pants heading south of the knees. 

If that’s what they mean by ‘old fashioned’ I’d sooner that any old day.
If ‘up to the minute’ includes all those trappings I’d rather it just stayed away. 
But ‘up to the minute’s’ encroaching, the old and the new intertwined, 
but if you’re a fan of the simple life pleasures out here they’re still easy to find. 

The old corner store is still open. It’s one of a dwindling few, 
but now it’s a quaint little coffee shop baking us treats like our mums used to do. 
They’ve given the old girl a face-lift and blimey she’s looking a treat, 
restored to what must have been her former glory, she’s perfect for this little street.

I live in a street of Queenslanders, those lovely old houses built high 
with shady verandahs to catch summer breezes that waft from the river nearby. 
Those houses so favoured by d’Arcy, and painted with love, every one, 
and we all love d’Arcy out here in his birthplace, he might be our favourite son. 

In streets lined with old Jacarandas he’s never too far from our minds. 
There’s d’Arcy Doyle paintings all over this city and down where the old river winds. 
When the purple trees blossom in springtime and the cricketers stand at the pitch 
those d’Arcy Doyle paintings all burst into life and I’m glad that I live in ‘The Switch’. 

Wherever on earth I may wander, wherever I happen to be, 
whenever I think about Ipswich, a d’Arcy Doyle painting I’ll see, 
and remember a time when I simply lived life that was fit for a king 
when I lived in a d’Arcy Doyle painting in a purple tinged city in Spring.

Once,

Once, I knew how to capture the essence of something and put it into words.
Once, I knew how to paint with letters and draw with punctuation.
Once, I knew how to make my writing sing like the nightingale
Once, I knew how to discover the true moral of something and show it
Once, I knew how to find the ugly and see the beauty in it
Once, I knew how to write a poem that could speak for itself,
Once, I knew how to tell a story that seemed to come alive,
Once, I knew how to make a lullaby for the stars at night,
Once, I knew how to convince anyone to believe in themselves
Once, I knew how to turn the impossible into reality
Once, I knew how to take something old and make it my own,
Once, I knew how to see the excitement in a blank canvas.
Once, not now, I knew how to live.

Now,

Now, I am troubled trying to put my surroundings to words.
Now, I can only paint with paint and draw with a pencil.
Now, my writing sings with a hoarse throat.
Now, I cannot recognise a hidden moral or meaning.
Now, I see the ugly as only ugly, nothing else
Now, I cannot teach my poem words to speak.
Now, I can only read stories out of paper books.
Now, I do not have the energy to compose a song for stars.
Now, I doubt others, and even myself.
Now, I find that the impossible cannot be made possible.
Now, I cannot relate to anything as my very own.
Now, I only see plain white on a blank canvas.

Once, not now, I knew how to live.

Teach me again.

Every time I visit her 
she’s different,
like a child in hospital.
One morning dozing,
with a few bobs of her head
to acknowledge me.
Another day she’s flirting with a man
who has back teeth missing 
she doesn’t notice 
as he scratches her neck,
her grey tongue clicking.
Today she allows
a few strokes of her back
while she grooms her chest,
her feathers creamy with a yellow tint
like the first blooms on my frangipani.
An old man with a halting step
stops beside me and says,
“It’s a shame to see her in a cage.”

I often feel as if I am with a priest
(both are cloaked in white)
as I talk to her
as if there should be a booth around us,
protected from the eyes of passers-by.

Yesterday I counted fifty cockatoos
in a tree, 
screaming, flying, flapping,
and I wished she could know that freedom,
that one day I will walk past her cage by the pet shop
and she will be gone.
It’s a self-indulgent fantasy,
she has never known life 
outside of the bars,
she would be like an old con,
unable to cope in the real world.
At night I imagine her locked inside,
and I marvel she doesn’t hate us,
that there is still softness 
in her brown eyes.

A bull bar is a ute’s clenched fist. There
is no prestige left in its silver colour. There
is no classic style to death. The killing floor 
was outside, late at night between the men’s 
& women’s prisons. He could imagine the 
inmates asleep in their cots, whimpering as
he drove off the road & into the grassy gutter
blasting into the radiant mob like a steel bolt 
into a cow’s forehead. The force felt inside
the cab was equivalent to smacking a face.
The high humidity suspended particles of
roo, clotting night’s air with smell of fresh 
blood, like a stained tinted window. Death
was not instant. Seventeen times he floored it.

She will do away with me that little love, that beautiful baby girl.
Without a wave or bow, she will turn and smile, door will slam
ever so gently, as she leaves nursery rhymes and mother
For a plane ticket, departing to that other place.
There is another life.

My foot stretches the length between ground and water
But I am a land creature, fixed fast to the soil of routine.
Still, I can come; take me too! I have always been ready.
Riding above the turbulence of change, means to live life
Conjured into existence.

Remember shivering in snowy blankets we saw that new place,
The ‘dream time’, so close to the motherland?
I didn’t know how to get there, only that you would.
Because its heat and dust shone in your eyes as I told its story.
You were my true believer.

Stepping over years of empty fridges, discarded gas bills
There was never pity, always playtime and singing;
Looking forward through Wonderland glass to a new heaven and earth,
To the promise marked on your head with water then wine;
For your new life.

Sometimes in my nightmares drowning children wave,
Floating in a pond of flowers; a grieving mother standing close.
She believed in the strength of her babies to walk on water.
For after all they were only ever reaching out for beauty.
My hair turns white in the shadow of their bravery.

With a pocket full of sovereigns, your dream unfolds.
Finding land to build a house and community.
I flag Foundation lessons from Walloon’s daughters
Not to stretch too far too soon, when too young.
You will grow your adult uniform; carefully.

My daughters’ place is where great hunks of steel fly overhead.
“That’s ours”, you laugh and look (it’s taking supplies to Afghanistan)
Behind her are the brave who defend a nation and lest we forget, the
Parents catching breath, sweat Amberley’s fear and pride.
Did Walloon’s mum do the same when they carried her babies home?

She grows her home in the blistering heat shimmering off new roads
Where swimming pools spring up in fields for children; unafraid still.
The coffee shops gather momentum, developing toward a future
Where work and play dance above and below the water line.
Here is that other life.

(ref: Henry Lawson’s Babies of Walloon)

I live in a d’Arcy Doyle painting complete with his favourite tree, 
a beautiful old Jacaranda that’s been around longer than me. 
Where life is a virtual canvas of every conceivable hue 
kaleidoscope colours are drawn from a palette of indigo scarlet and blue. 

There’s kids on the street playing cricket with nary an iPhone in sight. 
Some say we’re a little old fashioned and crikey they could just be right. 
Another kid’s down on the corner with a billy-cart made by his dad. 
He’s trailed by a little old lop-eared mongrel that’s never too far from the lad. 

And down by the winding old river another kid’s learning to swim. 
His mate with the fishing pole’s scoffing, no inner tube floatie for him. 
These kids never wear their hats backwards, no gutter talk drifts on the breeze. 
No grotty Reg Grundies are ever on show above pants heading south of the knees. 

If that’s what they mean by ‘old fashioned’ I’d sooner that any old day.
If ‘up to the minute’ includes all those trappings I’d rather it just stayed away. 
But ‘up to the minute’s’ encroaching, the old and the new intertwined, 
but if you’re a fan of the simple life pleasures out here they’re still easy to find. 

The old corner store is still open. It’s one of a dwindling few, 
but now it’s a quaint little coffee shop baking us treats like our mums used to do. 
They’ve given the old girl a face-lift and blimey she’s looking a treat, 
restored to what must have been her former glory, she’s perfect for this little street.

I live in a street of Queenslanders, those lovely old houses built high 
with shady verandahs to catch summer breezes that waft from the river nearby. 
Those houses so favoured by d’Arcy, and painted with love, every one, 
and we all love d’Arcy out here in his birthplace, he might be our favourite son. 

In streets lined with old Jacarandas he’s never too far from our minds. 
There’s d’Arcy Doyle paintings all over this city and down where the old river winds. 
When the purple trees blossom in springtime and the cricketers stand at the pitch 
those d’Arcy Doyle paintings all burst into life and I’m glad that I live in ‘The Switch’. 

Wherever on earth I may wander, wherever I happen to be, 
whenever I think about Ipswich, a d’Arcy Doyle painting I’ll see, 
and remember a time when I simply lived life that was fit for a king 
when I lived in a d’Arcy Doyle painting in a purple tinged city in Spring.

Beyond those peaks in smog filled skies,
was an embittered world where war was fought,
as men too powerful called for lads
At 15 you held my hand with promises,
squeezing fingers a little too tight and my smile didn’t waver
We spent lost hours to eucalypt-hazed mountains
Like your eyes, they were an ever-changing shade of blue
At night, the stars would reflect in those pools,
a surface shivering with the skimming of a breeze,
but really it was because you could still hear
Menzie’s words on the wireless
Once we were glorious under an artist’s sky,
that the disbelievers still preached those clouds as white,
but we knew better, that hidden amongst were
those hues of cobalt, crimson, raw sienna
You said that it belonged to us,
proclaiming that nothing could break those walls we’d built
In ’42 on the old swing seat that squeaked,
you told me you were going to fight for king and country
Brave like words I vowed, stuck to that balmy summer night
But alone in my room, a pillow swallowed up silent tears
and the heavy moon as my only witness, I had broken it
I marched angered prayers to that silver disc in the sky,
to the gods, whatever deity may be listening,
of sacrificial exchanges for your safe return back to me
On the morning that you left, somehow the uniform made you taller
and it filled the space between us, leaving little room for words
With your kit bag and a photograph of me,
you went courageous down the road, turning once to smile widely
But I didn’t believe you, nor the letters you’d send home
The ebb and flow of a year passed on the back of a stubborn bull
but it had rained, the long grasses tinged with green
and I made a bed on fallowed ground, it’d been a while
since we’d heard from you
When still you didn’t write, I whispered into the ears
of sitting giants to ask the clouds what they could foresee
I stopped searching for signs, when once I rounded the bend
and a fox with gizzards strewn, lay sleep like on the road
Night terrors pierced my dreams then
of those great ghost gums in morning’s mist,
with their colossal hands clawing at an inflamed sky,
like soldier boys for one last breath
So I made bonfires of old tree limbs,
standing close, because nothing seemed to warm me
When we had torn through childhood’s membrane
leaving behind skidded knees, and a mummified toad
for those old farm sheds with their rust coloured roofs,
against a patchwork landscape that hid us within
And we were reborn, you pressed hard against me,
wholly consumed by the other as we stitched together new cloth,
that we didn’t see the snake hanging from the rafters
It’s where first in gaping disbelief, I ran to
when your broken father gave me broken news
and I birthed a crippling pain that bent me over,
toppling into a well so deep, there was no measure
but in life’s monotony, and keeping up the war efforts
I crawled out one day and by then I’d stopped speaking of you
as those footprints you left us, faded with the rain
Now the ring I twist on my finger belongs to another
and I’ll not find you in the smiles of my children
I left behind those wasted promises, discarded on branches
and the landscape and sky that gave us breath
Now they’ve become photographs in old gnarled hands
But when sleep comes, again there is that girl of 17
calling to those blue, blue mountains in ancient kulning song.

She sat there in the corner of the old Walloon Saloon
Nobody shared her table. It was hot.
She looked a little out of place, a trifle too refined
drinking her beer daintily from a pot.
No doubt she’d been a beauty in her young halcyon days,
the way she dressed just told you she had class.
I noticed old Jim watching from beneath his weathered hat,
working up the courage to go make a pass.

Jim had lost his wife Mary in the floods a year ago.
I still recall the sorrow on his face.
She tried to save one old ewe from a cruel watery death,
the old ewe had got herself trapped in the race.
Jim hadn’t noticed Mary gone, and now both girls were caught
as he was mustering stock to higher ground,
his days were filled by devils and his nights with nightmares fraught.
He couldn’t cope with Mary not around.

He said – “I’d like to talk to her. Do you think it’s alright?
I mean no disrespect to my sweet wife.
A man gets pretty lonely in a big old house alone
I need someone with whom to share my life.
That lady there – I see that she has sadness in her eye,
a bar-room rose that’s wilted in the heat.
I sense in her a kindness and a very loving heart,
her petals may have faded – but the pot – pourri is sweet.”

I said to go and say G’day – ‘twas just a pleasantry.
A chat about the weather and a smile
cost nothing but a little time, and he had some of that
and good manners never go out of style.
‘Don’t stress about it Jimbo, just go over, strut your stuff
I doubt she’ll turn around and run away.
A bloke who’s nice will win over the ladies every time.
Just be yourself and it will be OK.’

He ambled quietly over and I saw him tip his hat
I watched as she looked up and gave a smile.
He wandered to the bar and headed back with two more drinks
a silly grin was plastered on his dial.
They were getting on famously that was quite plain to see
their body language showed affinity.
I watched his bar room rose begin to blossom once again
and swear to God I smelt the pot pourri.

I have come back to my childhood – 
driven over the grid, weed-riddled and rusted,
and along the wheel-rutted road to home.

But home is no longer here. 
In its place a house I do not know 
lists earthward,
vanquished by summer rains, 
winter winds, 
and man’s neglect.

I sit on the cracked front steps,
dig my fingernail under remnants of paint 
and remember 
wondrous days 
when life was hurtled into, 
and dreams foreshadowed 
endless possibilities. 

Overhead a crow, 
black smudge in the December sky, 
circles listlessly,
looks down, 
and shreds the silence with his taunts.
I raise my face toward the sun, 
praying its heat will cauterise my pain
and grieve the lost sweetness
of my childhood.

The wild spirit who darted among 
silver-green trees in early morning 
when the air was heavy
with scent of honey from the bottlebrush
is dead and buried.

Resurrected as a
responsible, 
sensible,
solid,
stolid,
grown-up person
paying taxes,
fulfilling adult duties,
approved by society.

I close my eyes and weep. 

It is time to leave.

I incarcerate the memories
deep in a canyon of my soul 
where they will moulder into dust,
and walk across the dry-baked ground
to the car.

I glimpse the ghost of a barefoot girl 
dancing among the melaleucas.

I do not know her.

The Egyptian sun, unrelenting in its intent
To focus heat on a pile of bags and belongings
Strewn for a million sleepless nights across desert sands.

Almost rainbow like in another world.
Reds, blues and gold’s of newly purchased and no doubt bought especially;
Suite cases, toys and-

Who did it? Who cares, when in the end
Whatever light is shed,
They are gone, to lie forever in blistering desolation.

The troops gaze into the carnage.
Who could look with the focus needed to
analyse, blame, dissect?

No doubt their thoughts linger on what it was their own children
were doing when they left for work.
Or how their laughter is needed here.

Photos of holidays float past.
One soldier, who reaches out, retrieves it from a heartless wind,
Grabbing furiously at the air.

He looks at it, unafraid, as only foot soldiers can
Because they are there first,
Not politicians.

A family beams out, a snapshot to the world,
With sun cream dribbling down the broad smile of a two-year-old;
The mother’s clear white smile.

“Mother of God!”

His thoughts go back to his daughter’s first communion. Perfect white. Her little
cross is held in his heart as he bends low to flag another small,
indistinguishable body.

U.S intelligence intercepts have suggested a bomb?
Yesterday London cancelled all flights.
“hello Russia, I am so so sorry”

Vladimir has sent protectors to Syria.
Still ridding bare back?
It’s never enough.

Relatives wait in chilly airport terminals
As if timetable screens will suddenly announce….
“here they come, your darling’s, your sweethearts;
sorry for the delay, held up over….”

“Oh Jesus.”

With head in hands.
What can we do in the West?
When the stench of my activity, geography and reach is so …… ineffective?

During a night march in ‘16 he heard his first nightingale. 
At smoko, remembering his Devon-born mother reciting 
Keats’ ode beside a Creswick fire, he opened his jacket 
& quick stitched that warbling song into his chest: 

‘O bird thou wert…’ 
Not a patch on our Kookas, Mum. 

He regretted throwing a mess tin at his first 
French robin after it alighted with a dainty 
flutter on Wilf Lawson’s sleeve soon after 
a whizz bang had torn off the boy’s face:

Never minded a mademoiselle 
on his arm did Wilf.

He laughed when an English gull making a trench 
raid across the railing of the troop ship taking him 
& who was left back home, snatched a slice 
of bully beef from his shaky hand: 

Greedy for life and 
lucky like me. 

While he was docked at Fremantle the Spanish Flu 
took his mother like a greedy Rook. In the family’s
bottom paddock he unbuttoned his battle dress jacket
& groaned as his birds screeched in the Creswick air.

We have no responsibility for the bees.
They were born to their lives, we to ours.
The parasites that kill them, and the disease
is for once, not of our making or our powers.

In the grey forest, these tragedies:
the silent hives and palling fall of flowers,
are not our fault. We may save the trees
with a clear heart, in these final hours.

We may save the fruit, without unease,
or even save the hives before they sour.
Over Auschwitz and Dachau, on the breeze,
the bees flew on their own business, not on ours.

No burning cities, no orphans to appease.
The places that our heavy history scours:
the bees were not responsible for these.
The bees are not obliged to farm the flowers.

1
My father walks the reef in an old pair 
of shoes; a worn bag, hessian, strung around 
his neck; a tin can hanging with bait: 
the grey shiny slime of abalone gut, 
like a muscle un-stretched. It seems too loose, 
too fragile to put on a hook, but for 
my father it stays on. Stays firm on the steel
barb, as tight as the pollard thumbed into 
the float that rises through the air in a perfect 
parabola. Sent out to lure herring.

2
My father said it was a load of bull
when he disagreed with what he heard,
did the same when he watched the 6 o’clock news. 
They’re shooting bull he would say to the screen.
This whole world is full of bull he’d gasp –
as I imagined a truck full of bulls, 
their horns raised like white radar. 
He was ten when chased by the farm bull. Just got
over the fence in time. In the war he was sent
to Borneo to shoot Japs. The only one
he remembered had him in his telescopic
sight – my father its centre, the bull’s eye.
Just a second he would say, just one more 
second and I would have been dead, then he saw
the end of the barrel turn away, and this man,
his enemy, disappeared into shadow.
He knew it had all been bullshit after that.

3
He had an eye for exits. Backdoors
were his speciality. One moment he
was standing in the kitchen, cup of tea
in hand, then gone. Dad? Dad are you there?
But he never answered. Sent the dog 
after him but he pricked his ears and turned
back. My Mum would say: “Let him go, just let
him go”, and we all did: all of us, a house
full of children, a wife, a dog. We let
him go till he returned home to us,
as if he had gone for the bread and milk,
a quick beer, a punt on the horses.

4
For a year we lived in an asbestos house,
no back fence, no side fence, out the back the loo.
Beyond the clothes-line a sand-pit, to the west 
a limestone track ran the back fences
of houses on the beach. If my father
could not live in the bush this would do.
He was there most of the time, but wasn’t. 
His trick was to disappear into light. 
He seemed a decent man, but was never 
convincing. Stella was his sweetheart 
when he was young. My mother said that she 
was the woman he should have married.
I, as I am, would never have been. 
An idea I like: the randomness of me. 
Instead he wedded someone else. A woman
at a dance who became my mother. 
The random chance of a night, 
of a dance, stalked my father for half 
a century, until with Dementia he thought 
he had married the woman he loved.

5
Never went beyond the city he was born, except
Borneo, and he was glad to be home.
Only went to school till he was twelve.
High school was as distant as Paris.
He rode horses through bush with eight
brothers, ran down roos with dogs, worked
the farm. He knew plenty. All the things that would
keep him alive in the bush – but outside, 
where the roads began, where people dressed
up to go to work – that bitch life did nothing
but stifle every word he couldn’t write.

6
What am I to do with these fragments stored?
Things washed across the reef that I have gathered?
I could make patterns in the sand:
a shell becomes an early morning 
and herring; strangled weed a kitchen scene,
with father-magician. I could dig a hole
in wet sand for the times he wasn’t there
when he was. Or the sounds of him: 5 am
leaving for work; the truck idling for three
minutes before the jolt of the gear-stick
into first. I imagined I could hear the sound
of loss, its colour metallic grey not black,
its sound a jungle rustle, not silence. 
I sometimes thought I could hear his axe,
steel edge into wood, ten miles away.

At dawn they came
Police then news crews
Friends in twos and threes to cluster
Shrouded in a desperate hope 
Yet knowing what they cannot say
To gaze over the sea

His rod wedged in the rocks
Abandoned sentinel
Still reaching out
The thread that forms the tenuous link
Now drifting in the calm, unbroken
Waiting waiting.

Throughout two days they search
Criss cross the waves
With divers black in filtered light
And helicopter pulse above
A beat that ebbs and flows hypnotic
Until dusk then slowly drifts away

And on the third day all is still
The beach is blank 
Only the soft hush of the surf
The gentle roll of waves on rocks
And all have gone
Save one man, searching for his son.

Beneath the paling-slatted skirt of his grandmother’s house
was a strange, striped world of uncertain light
a curious space between floorboards and drought-stamped soil 
where everything seemed unfinished

a dumping ground for the whims of long-gone children
the metal husks of machines and bicycle bits grown grey and bearded

This was a half-hearted containment line for rabbit holes and shadowlands
where the dust light would float, 
dervish-beautiful along the lengthening arms of winter’s sun 

this was the place where the darknesses boiled up, with a physicality that drew you in

As a child, he kept his secrets here too, folded them carefully inside Capstan tins 
stretching to hide them up high on white-ant caps – during the holiday weeks 
that bled through the loneliness
into his child’s eye, truth hung loose inside his memory box

Sometimes, he’d wait behind the laundry door, until his feet turned numb 
against the slab – watching for her as she entered that crude workplace of kindling,
splitting the firewood for the woodstove’s belly upstairs

listening for the thump, thump and crack –his breath small as she swung the axe
throwing her shoulder, again and again:
lost, somewhere violent, inside pensioner floral
a snow-white lock of her hair working loose 
In those moments, she had the body of a stranger – and he saw her, no longer 
as his grandmother, but as a stick-thin firebrand 
young, before she was wrung out over bitter nights
a kerosene lamp swinging inside the darkness

and it was always the darkness that thrilled him most – the claw and pick of it 
the sudden way it would unfold in the dark corners he kept close
exploding, flint-strike hot against the skulls of small creatures
gut-deep, here in these bad lands
somewhere between instinct and everything else that is left.

Bluest of blue
eyes reflect the sparkle and spangle
of treasure held in his one hand

Precious figurines lie undone,
uncovered and fondled by this admirer
unafraid to penetrate beauty.

He sees wealth and want
in the faces of those who would sell in a moment
a century of family keepsakes.

Blinded by perfectionism
craftsmen carved and reshaped delicate figures;
little scenes that would last forever.

So he tells their story resting back on a bentwood chair,
of the priceless ivory born of dying elephants in India;
of treacherous ocean voyages.

Carvings, concealed with lemons and lace
in leather bound suitcases bound for the colonies;
a piece of the mother land.

A minute reminder of civility and sensibility
to hold up against the savagery of unfamiliar landscapes.
to grip tightly through the souls dark night.

Gifted to lovers or others
as the measure of ageless fidelity in a moment
of grief or generosity

Exquisite pieces presented before kings
Or as bribes for retches begging a hangman’s mercy
A price. Always priceless.

Under his magnifying glass
shades deep and earthy, reflect still, distant civilisations
This master valuer of place and time, sees all.

He speaks to generations
lost in the frenzy of ‘the quick sell’ to satisfy bills
hungry for drama seen on flat screens.

They could have held in one hand
the real narrative of ancient people, smugglers and more
who exchanged blood and sweat for this treasure.

He wraps his fingers around and around
this jewel, begging with his deepest of deep blue
to never let go for any price.

But they do.

After the Old Babylonian sculptured plaque in the British Museum

I
Claw-footed goddess strong as death,
Ereshkigal stands naked-proud astride twin lions. 
Great owls flank her, left and right, taller than mountains. 
The long moth wings that graze her hips
are all the clothes she’ll ever need. 
Four thousand years ago, the unknown sculptor shaped
Ereshkigal’s long raptor-taloned feet and rounded breasts 
perfect in each smooth plane and spiky claw.
With hands and tools he worshipped her:
queen of ancient night, 
queen of life and death.

The echoing museum hall is full
of weapon-wielding kings and gods 
and four-winged human-headed beasts
all so stern behind dark-curling beards. 
Fierce Ishtar’s quiet sister doesn’t care.
Her silent kingdom’s greater far than anything 
warriors ever fought for, 
gained, or protected. 
They are all lost.
Night covers them.
Ereshkigal still rules the night.

II
Lights dim, bells nag us from the halls.
Temple servants herd us into the chilly dark. 
The pub across Great Russell Street’s stood here 
since Lilith taught Eve how to brew beer. 
Ereshkigal smiles her ancient smile.

The tables are so close that I could touch 
the woman at the nearby table’s thigh, or nudge 
her workmate’s foot with mine.
They’re not in their first youth.
They talk promotions, office politics, 
nothing too personal. But for all that,
his eyes are soft with love. 

The woman looks away and looks again. 
Her indulgent smile comes and goes. 
With his soft eyes he worships her
just as, long ago, that unknown artist
adored his goddess-queen.

III
The waiter at the Turkish restaurant
has an Assyrian face. I slurp the octopus 
he brings, minced fine in oil, 
and gulp the Anatolian red.
How many thousand years 
have they been treading grapes round there?

Unwittingly we terrify the diners next to us 
with exhibition talk of shunga from Japan, 
the octopus that nibbles at the fisherwoman’s 
delicious genitals.

A different haircut, an artfully-curled beard –
our straight-nosed waiter might be driving a chariot 
on a bas-relief three thousand years ago, 
escorting tribute from a conquered nation:
sheep, goats, slaves by the hundreds, 
lions for the king to hunt, two precious monkeys, 
one lone giraffe. 
Even the enigmatic bulls with curving wings, 
protectors of palace and people, 
have the same face
under their beards.

Much as those plump tribute sheep 
were sacrificed millennia ago,
serious-faced men char skewered lamb
on gas-fired altars. 
The smoke smells sweet enough to satisfy 
the hunger of the gods.
We gorge ourselves.
Kemal Ataturk stares approving
from his mosaic wall.
Eat up! he seems to say. Enjoy!
You’ll be a long time dead. 

IV
Ereshkigal still rules the night. 
Her ancient power tugs 
our bodies’ hidden strings.
She will have us, in the end,
in love and death.
She will have us
all.

There is movement today from the big cranes
that crept up on my office window overnight.
This is a city of cranes suspending
blithe ruin in ponderous pendulums.
A city patient with its forceps and pincers.

The fashionable edifices need to be pulled down
because they are no longer so.
The architectural masterpieces must be built
so that we can tire of them.

Every morning workmen gather over
their plans, designs and rulers
and with equal disinterest
dissect the skyline, and into the new spaces, build.

From my vantage, the industry
is prosaic mummery, and these giants
that we stand upon the shoulders of,
look up to see the giants mirrored.
And all is foreshortened. All is diminished.

I cannot tell if they are climbing
the forest up today or if
they are cutting new timber.
Today, predictions of the fall and foretelling’s
of the grace of man
can be held equally in the half of glass
I watch the big cranes dancing through.

For all the dark matter misplaced;
for all the enlightenments claimed,
or the entropies feared,
I cannot tell if things improve
or ineluctably reduce.
There is only movement.

A careless toss from passing car received by gusty breeze-
initial spiralling of smoke ascending through the trees;
the tinder sparks, ignites the tussock, fuels this tiny flame-
gives birth to brooding, sizzling fiend prepared to make its claim.
It smoulders furtive, sinister, a criminal in wait,
yet temporary captive while it festers at the gate-
till suddenly the crosswinds spread the embers randomly,
and misery’s unleashed as prisoner casts its shackles free.

It grows at startling rapid pace, insanely writhes and whirls-
a killer on the rampage now, it prances, feints and curls.
How swiftly monumental beast devours the dry terrain,
consuming vegetation as it sweeps across the plain!
It breaches fast and leaps the road, a demon unrestrained,
a wild and harsh leviathan that cannot be contained,
while creatures, choked and petrified, their stomachs full of ash,
attempt to flee the carnage as the fractured branches thrash.

In moments it engulfs with an opaque and forceful blaze,
and blackened dust is raining down through dense and filthy haze.
The mighty conflagration builds, defenceless forest burns-
inferno shows no mercy as it twists, balloons and turns.
The locals drench their houses, seize what treasures they can find
and toss them into boxes, dread of loss on every mind.
Without much hope they pray for an unlikely sudden change-
a south wind bringing rain – but still the monster rides the range.

A fiercely raging furnace from the fiery pit of hell,
creating squalls with crackling roaring din and heinous smell,
it howls with potent wrath and very swiftly takes control
while cruelly sucking energy from every living soul.
A sudden, loud explosion – further walls of flame advance,
which mesmerize and seem to taunt in chilling, deadly dance
as homes are torched and crumble in a boom of crashing beams,
demolishing along with these all former hopes and dreams.

Astounding impetus and strength, the damage very clear-
with life at risk, the people join an exodus of fear.
Here families are scattered; there a woman’s lying prone;
a red-faced child wails frantically to find himself alone.
A farmer screams his fury to the unforgiving skies;
succumbing to the yellow fumes, an ancient collie dies,
while mothers grab their kids and run and men concede defeat,
now powerless to quell persistent churning waves of heat…

The aftermath – skeletal profiles stark through murky light-
once lush and green, now charred, obscene, wiped out by kindled might.
The sickly stench of burnt existence permeates the air;
a pall of smoke sweeps hope aside and generates despair.
The fiend lies overcome at last, destruction in its wake;
collectively the hearts of all those present sink and break
in wretched disbelief at what such devastation reaps-
while over his beloved dog, an aging battler weeps.

Now miles away, the culprit lights another cigarette,
forever unaware of his immense, appalling debt
to countrymen he’ll never know, the many lives destroyed-
he tosses yet another glowing butt towards the void.
His tail lights in the empty outback darkness disappear;
the reckless youth is swallowed in the night, his conscience clear.
He sings along to music with enthusiastic breath-
and leaves his nameless legacy of chaos, pain, and death.

She is driving in and parking, well aware she should be sparking
to commence a Monday morning at her office job once more.
But she’s sitting and she’s shaking, and a beady sweat is breaking
on her brow, as once again she contemplates what lies in store.

It is not the work she’s fearing, nor the challenges appearing
that are set by her Department, or at customer request.
She’s no novice to be frightened when a deadline date is heightened,
and she juggles the priorities with skills that are the best.

Her assistance with exporting finance data and reporting
was the catalyst that led to the destruction of her peace.
It began one budget meeting, with her supervisor seating
her adjacent to himself, and drawing out her expertise.

So, as well as she was able, she addressed the meeting table
and her polished presentation was the best that they had seen.
So Directors recommended that an offer be extended
to continue her involvement in a month-by-month routine.

Soon she noticed innuendo that increased in a crescendo
that implied she was dishonest in her pathway to advance.
Someone else had done some “courses” (said suspicious unnamed “sources”)
and he felt he should have been the one rewarded with this chance.

Then what started as a grumble grew to be an angry rumble
as the colleague with the sense of “wrong” drew others to his side.
Former loyalties were broken, and diverse opinions spoken
and efficiency was lessened as a chasm opened wide.

Then her files became affected and she suddenly suspected
that her work was being sabotaged to undermine her name.
She attempted to ignore it, but increasingly was sure it
was arriving at a point where it no longer was a game.

She believed she must report it, so she tentatively brought it
to the notice of the personnel in charge of such a case.
But they didn’t quite believe her, made no effort to reprieve her –
much preferring to avoid a confrontation face-to-face.

Some had offered to support her, but experience had taught her
that when asked to make a statement, most decline to be involved
in such difficult discussions that might lead to repercussions.
So she knew that she was on her own to get this problem solved.

So she tried initiation of a reconciliation,
but instead of bridging barriers, results were even worse
as the taunting turned malicious, and abuse became quite vicious
and her personal integrity was slandered with a curse.

People dropped their gaze around her, no more friendship to surround her
as the fear of his reprisal drew the other staff away.
As he did his best to shame her, soon the boss began to blame her
and expected her to sort the situation – come what may!

Now she knows that she is beaten – and her confidence is eaten
up by fear of what is coming, what he’s planning, what he’s done.
She has no supporting voices; has been robbed of all her choices,
so she writes her resignation – knowing, sadly, that he’s won.

But the torment hasn’t ended, for her doctor’s recommended
that she take the case to court to get some justice for her pain.
He has urged her to embrace it, but she simply cannot face it –
can’t endure protracted torture to relive it all again.

She is just one more statistic as the victim of sadistic
acts of bullying that permeate the constant daily grind.
Once commended for endeavour, now she walks the street, forever
searching aimlessly for something that she doesn’t hope to find.

Sticks and stones may cause abrasion, but the flaw in this equation
is the statement (often quoted) that a word can do no harm.
Self-esteem is devastated when a victim is berated,
for a word can wound the spirit, and destroy the inner calm.

The behaviour of a vulture doesn’t fit our Aussie culture —
the philosophy of Fair Go, Mate! has kept us standing tall.
So we can’t excuse a bully. There’s no reason (wild or woolly)
for the use of words as weapons which may cause a person’s fall.

When our Bobby returned from that terrible war,
he was broken and scarred to the bone.
He’d folded his swag with a bunk on the floor,
and had slept in the dairy alone. 
When the demons were gone, he’d emerged from his cave
looking wasted and woefully frail…
and borrowed a razor to lather and shave
from a bucket he’d found in the bail.

In a calico shirt and his new dungarees,
he’d resembled the rest of the crew…
and though he’d appeared to be sound and at ease,
he was hardly the Bobby we knew.
There were shadows that darkened the china blue eyes
that had once been unclouded and warm,
and lurking behind his complacent disguise 
was a phantom devoid of all form.

He would tremble whenever the demons would come
from the blood-spattered trenches of France,
and welcome them in with a bottle of rum,
as he drank himself into a trance.
They would taunt him with images, faces and smells
of the dying, the dead and decayed; 
from Pozièrs down to the bowels of Fromelles,
where the bones of his comrades were laid. 

He would cringe in the darkness as shrapnel would burst
in the trenches surrounding his shed,
and scream at the shadows who cackled and cursed
with the voices inside of his head. 
When the shelling was over and finally done,
and the smoke of the battle had cleared…
he’d sleep with his hands on a make-believe gun,
till the demons had all disappeared.

I would stop by his shed, on my way to the yards,
with a billy and afternoon tea, 
and though we would bond over checkers and cards,
he remained like a stranger to me.
He would try to amuse me with verses of song
he had learnt in some faraway land,
but blunder the words as he shuffled along
to the beat of some mystical band.

I was only a kid, but I soon understood
that our Bobby was losing his mind.
He’d fought for a cause that was noble and good, 
but had left something sacred behind.
He had traded his innocence, conscience and soul
for a medal, a stump and a peg…
and somewhere in France, in a desolate hole,
they’d interred what was left of his leg.

He had shown me the mess that the doctors had made
with their scalpels and carpenter’s saw,
then wept for the lads of the Fifteenth Brigade
as he knelt by his peg on the floor.
He would ramble and rave to remember a name,
when his memory started to clear…
then bury his head in confusion and shame,
till their faces would slowly appear.

He would then introduce me to some of the boys
who’d been spared from the horrors in store…
for amidst all the carnage, the chaos and noise,
they had died on Gallipoli’s shore.
There was Billy from Brighton and Andy from Bell,
and another named Jindabyne Jack…
and some other bloke who’d been struck by a shell,
in the very first mortar attack.

Now that Bobby is back, he can always be found
in the bars of our local hotels…
still cursing his peg as he stumbles around
from Le Pozièrs down to Fromelles.
Though the fighting is over and freedom restored
to a world that has suffered and burned –
I wonder if history books will record
that our Bobby…has never returned.

We’d been fencin’ there for ages – jist me ol’ mate Blue and me.
The storm last night ‘ad surely left its mark.
So, we both ‘ad made our minds up then, to stop and ‘ave some tea,
when me old Black Kelpie, Lightnin’, then lets out a yappin’ bark.

“What’s troublin ’ you, Old, Boy?” I asks – an’ gives is ‘ead a rub.
‘e growls and nudges closely at me feet.
“e musta ‘eard a rabbit or some dingo after grub.”
I kneels down by the burnin’ logs, to soak up welcome ‘eat.

We stares into the fire as the Billy starts to boil.
No gabbin’ nor much gossip ‘tween us two.
We‘d been good mates forever, thru’ the spare times and the toil.
No need for extra chitchat – we instinctively jist knew

About the other’s feelins – it was like a second sense.
We could read the other like an open book.
I could tell if Blue was ‘appy or per’aps a little tense.
An’ ‘e only took a minute workin’ out, if I was crook.

Now we sat there in our silence as the grey smoke slowly rose.
It was then the ol’ Dog pricked ‘is ears an’ ‘owled.
The peace ‘ad now been broken – so uncommon I suppose.
I jist scratched me ‘ead as Lightnin’ quickly rose an’ fiercely scowled.

“What was that?” me exclamation, as I quizzed me ol’ mate Bluey.  
‘e shrugs ‘is shoulders. “Thought you mighta knew.
Sounds like a mob of Drovers with the bushmen’s call of “COOEE”.
“Ya right ya know. – it’s ‘Itchens, and ‘is War recruitment crew.”

“Did ya ever give a thought,” says ‘e “of answerin’ the call?
To tell the truth, I, ‘adn’t paid much ‘eed,
until sittin’ out ‘ere ‘earin’ now them “COOEES”, after all,
we’d be a coupla bludgers, not to join Australia’s need.”

“I ‘afta tell ya Bluey, I‘d bet money you’d be keen.
We could ‘ave a fine adventure while we’re there.
It‘ll be a chance to visit all those countries we ain’t seen.
An’ the two of us I’ll wager, we would make a likely pair.”

“Yeah! ’ An’ I’ve ‘eard that young Tom Turvey’s joined. Les Greenleafs signed up too.
This March will be the pride of all the Land.
We’ll show the ‘ole Australia , what we Cooee Lads can do.
A proudly steadfast, staunch and trusty, loyal, motley Band.”

“An’ jist fancy ‘ow so proud of us, our families will be.
We could save this mighty Nation from the foe.
We could all become sich ‘eroes, an’ The Cooees probably
will show ‘em all our Country Skills that City blokes don’t know.”

So, what ‘appened next is ‘ist’ry an’ I’ll ‘ave no need to tell
what the futcher ‘eld in store for Blue and me.
‘cause that battle that we Cooees fought ; A journey into ‘ell.
Bluey copped it. – Not the end we two ‘ad figured it would be.

There’s an ‘ero up in ‘eaven but ‘e’s surely not alone
’e’s with ‘is fellow, fallen ‘ero mates.
To be sure (I’ll not forget ‘im.) ‘e’s a standout on ‘is own.
An’ I know ‘e’ll wait there for me, till I reach them Pearly Gates.

Sometimes I wish we’d never ‘eard that Cooee call back then,
in Gilgandra where the “Cooee March “ began.
But I’ll tell ya there’ll be braggin ’ when we meet up once again,
when we‘ll swap old war time stories.
Yes! Each one an’ ev’ry ‘Itchen’s Cooee Man.

It seems I was a runner in some crazy mixed up race
and wasting all my precious time competing for a place.
I’d read the glossy posters and the promises they made
and thought I would be happy when I had my treasures paid.

I tried to reach perfection, running neck and neck with pride,
but jealousy kept pace with me and matched me stride for stride.
I joined with all the Jones’s going ‘bigger, better, best’
and thought I was invincible and up for any test.

Then cancer ran straight into me and knocked me to the ground
as pride just kept on running and perfection stepped around.
Then ‘bigger, better, best’ all swooped in one collective heap
to pull apart the broken dreams I wouldn’t get to keep.

Indifference just stared at me but not a word was said
while fearful dragged me screaming down a harder road instead.
Old greed just kept on pushing hard, it never knew restrain,
and called to me to get up quick and join that race again.

But hope was fading quickly with dear passions dying spark,
the road was getting steeper and the light was growing dark.
I offered up my treasures but it seemed they had no price.
The runners ran but cancer held. Its grip was like a vice.

Then there amidst the sorrow of an endless blackened space,
I stood before mortality and stared it in the face.
Conviction, strength and courage stood on either side of me
while faithful made me say goodbye to all I used to be.

I left with grace and gratitude while humble took my hand
and truth and joy both spoke to me and helped me understand.
That I don’t have to chase my dreams and they can come to me
and show me gifts inside myself that I could never see.

I ran that crazy race each day while thinking time was short,
but life and time are not the same, despite what I once thought.
So life retains its puzzle, I will never crack its code,
it just got strangely better when I took the harder road.

We are bringing them home with due care and respect
so a nation can honour their loss and reflect,
while their families gather to weep for the sons
and the brothers and fathers who fell to the guns
of an enemy fighting on some distant shore,
yet another sad chapter in man’s endless war.
But the headlines conceal all the sorrow and pain
that accompanied those who were waiting in vain
for a word or a sign in those days long ago
that might tell them the story they needed to know.
They were left without closure, alone with their grief
in a silence that gave them no chance of relief.

Far from home, far from home,
many men went to die,
no-one knows where they lie,
far from home.

For the fallen still missing, their fate yet unknown,
there’s a heartache remaining though decades have flown,
and while photographs linger to cushion despair,
there is always the anguish that’s so hard to bear
in the knowledge that thousands just vanished from sight
when consumed by the madness of war’s darkest night.
In the carnage of Flanders the earth ran with blood,
while the Somme was a nightmare, a graveyard of mud,
where a life was worth nothing as men fell and died
with no eulogy spoken, a tribute denied.

Far from home, far from home,
far from where they were born,
and the people who mourn,
far from home.

All we had were the stories that some lived to tell
of the chaos and slaughter in that far-off hell,
bodies buried by nature, with no-one to say
who they were, how they perished, and where they now lay.
They were lost in the meadows that flourished through time,
in the fields and the forests that banished the crime
to the pages of history, firmly held fast
in the myths and the legends of days now long past.
But anonymous headstones can never suffice
to remember the soldiers who paid such a price,
so the search must continue across foreign ground
in the hope that their destinies may yet be found.

Far from home, far from home,
yet their voice is still heard
in a phrase or a word,
far from home.

All it takes is a remnant, a fragment of bone,
for identification, the chance to atone
for those long years of silence, no more than a name
in a family record, one spark of a flame
from that raging inferno we call the Great War,
which destroyed life and loved ones as never before.
Then a new generation can find some release
in a question that’s answered, a soul now at peace.
Though the drums are all muffled, their beat echoes still
in the heat of the noonday and night’s bitter chill,
and the men will come marching to their soft refrain,
as the ghostly battalions head homeward again.

Far from home, far from home,
there is much still to learn
as the slow seasons turn,
far from home.

“Oh Father I’ve come with my sins to confession, confused and in need of respite…
for Father I’m haunted by some sort of demon who prowls through the dorm every night.”
“So tell me my child of this ‘dorm’ that you speak… is it here behind orphanage walls
or further afield in another abode, at St Patrick’s or maybe St Paul’s?“

“I speak of the dorm in the building above the communal activity yard, 
where all of the doors have been fitted with bolts and the windows are covered and barred.
I sleep in a room with the Primary kids who will vouch that my story is true…
for they have been woken at night by the demon and taunted and terrorised too!”

“So tell me my child of this ‘demon’ you speak…does it truly appear in the dorm…
or could it be just an illusion of yours, without substance or physical form?
I know that you’re feeling emotional now, but illusions are not what they seem!
Perhaps it has all been imaginary and just part of a terrible dream?”

“Remember you told us that demons are often deceitfully clever and wise?
You said they can easily influence souls and are skilled in the art of disguise!
If I have been dreaming, then maybe my dreams have been haunted by demons as well…
and maybe the demon from yesterday’s sermon has conjured a magical spell?”

“Then why have the others not spoken to me of this ‘demon’ that you have disguised …
and why hasn’t resident Father O’Brien or our Brother Gerard been advised?”
“I’m frightened of bothering Brother Gerard…and especially when he’s on call.
He blames us for causing disturbance at night and he flogs us for nothing at all!”

“Oh don’t be so utterly ludicrous child! You are clearly confused and distressed.
Our Brother Gerard is a man of the cloth who’s been formally chosen and blessed!
You should be discussing this matter with him ̶ as the Brother in charge of your ward;
for he is the one who will conquer your demon and teach you to trust in the Lord!”

“I trust in the Lord but not Brother Gerard, who resembles the demon I see…
for he is the one who awakes me at night and is constantly bothering me!”
“What bothers you child…is it something he’s done or just something he’s threatened or tried?
Perhaps it was something you’ve seen or you’ve heard, or just something he may have implied?”

“He touches us Father… in ways that he shouldn’t and says it is misunderstood.
He says it’s considered permissible here and is natural, pleasing and good.
I know it is wrong, but I daren’t complain as I’m frightened of what he will do.
He bashes us Father and says he will send us away when enrolments are due.”

“I think you are overreacting my child, you are being ridiculous now!
Our Brother Gerard is a shepherd of God who has taken a virtuous vow.
For penance I want you to pray and forgive, then forget what you’ve seen and you’ve heard…
as voices and images often distort, when our senses are drowsy and blurred.“

“If he is the shepherd, then why does he come to the dorm at eleven o’clock
and waken the lambs that have fallen asleep to entice them away from his flock?
You tell me that I should ignore what I’ve seen, to be free of all shame and regret…
but Father I know …for as long as I live ̶ I will never forgive or forget!”

There are ghosts who walk these hallways from the pallid light of dusk
(though l know some people choose to disbelieve) –
through the dark of night till dawn return to wallow and lament
for the goals expectant hearts did not achieve.
Many people found release of course, and settled down to life
with excitement in their colony of dreams,
but the anguish of those others who did not survive their fate
haunts the corridors today-or so it seems.

ln the north of Sydney Harbour back in eighteen-thirty-two
this location was established, like a wall
to prevent the spread of epidemics coming in on ships
from infecting and annihilating all.
Every vessel on these waters from the corners of the globe
brought a risk of deadly illness on the tide;
whether Spanish influenza, smallpox, cholera or plague,
there were dozens who succumbed and later died.

During busy times accommodation often would be scarce
so the residents would camp around the site,
and the healthy ones would clear the bush to build what they required
while the sick received the treatment for their blight.
Those were dismal mean conditions, sanitation not the least,
and their suffering would put them to the test;
they’d already borne long journeys on disease infested craft,
so the atmosphere was sombre at its best.

With the scarlet fever, enteritis, typhoid and the like
many scared yet hopeful pioneers fell ill;
it was said that from the ocean you would know the station’s spot
by the whitened tombstones standing on the hill.
So the men and women, children – convicts, passengers and crew,
in appalling, overcrowded misery
fought the battle how they could, but in the end their numbers fell –
battered pawns of some malicious destiny.

Once it bustled with new immigrants and sailors by the score
in divided groups depending on their class –
they were sometimes held against their will as long as it would take
to dissolve the threat and let the danger pass;
while disposal of the bodies of those hapless ones who died
was a job for which men earned some extra rum –
this was payable by body, so whenever scourge was rife
they were regularly drunk and overcome.

You perceive the shattered hopes that smashed like boats on rocks below
as you stroll amidst these buildings filled with pain,
through the residences, hospital and isolation wards
to the morgue, the streets and graveyards that remain.
As the years went by the base would serve to isolate, protect
many others who were better off than these,
from pandemic victims, immigrants, to military men –
even natural disaster refugees.

They improved upon surroundings here, upgraded steadily
till its final use in nineteen-eighty-four,
then they closed it as a station and it’s now a tourist stop
where you have the chance to take a guided tour.
With disease no longer rampant, blown away in mists of time,
there is nothing left of sadness from the past
but a presence that may tug your arm, or breathe and turn you cold
as you feel a depth of sorrow unsurpassed.

Though it’s now a modern centre in a park of some renown,
all the buildings in this place won’t always stand,
for unruly gusty weather, salty spray, eroding dunes
will conspire with native bush to claim the land.
So enjoy the splendid views across this harbour from the cliffs,
the sensation of tranquillity and space –
during daytime it’s a haven for reflection and repose,
an astonishing, delightful scenic place.

But at night the spirits wander as lost souls are wont to do,
for they colonise a world that lies between
yet are searching for the lives they feel were stolen from their grasp
when they died while undergoing quarantine.
They refuse to be forgotten and indeed they never should,
for they are part of our great nation’s history –
though they started out with passion, fervour, courage and desire,
they were struck by ruthless fate and tragedy.

So they mourn their long lost colony, the happy chances missed –
there are lights and apparitions on display,
and they’ll often try to touch you to divert you to a place
where you’ll empathise with insight and dismay.
They’re attempting to communicate and help you sense their grief,
so at times a ghost may take you by the hand
to entreat your hearts to understanding, pity for them all,
that they perished while they sought their Promised Land.

metallic rain, grim-faced,
turns within itself for you
are its child – born in the night,
lingering in cesspools of 
regret and fermenting sorrow
you cradle the frostbitten stump
held up your sleeve;
damn the blank stare
of wet bitumen 
under your bare feet

its 4 am 
or something like that
and a mouthful of car fumes
shifts above the dead bird
under the power lines–
you can feel its missing heartbeat
under your nails,
it’s where he used to live;
the stiff-winged hello
of a road-casualty in the rain
climbs, for a moment, into the 
limbo where the torn carcass 
of what was rots silently

you don’t know why you are here,
by where you spent summers
wholly entangled,
your wet shirt
feels like fingers up your skin
to a quiet place between your eyes
he used to kiss–
the street lights feel less
severe when you close your eyes
and try to pretend it’s dark
and there’s the bird 
only less dead

and from the obtrusive grin
of purple flowers by his back fence
you swallow the glimpse of life
shuddering behind the curtain;
under the rising grin of the moon,
too late, you feel yourself bleed
between his fingers once more,
alone yet still whole,
the alternative more frightening – 
to be fully engulfed,
to watch yourself fade 
like sheets left in the sun too long

The hole-shaped heart
that lives in my pericardium
beats only to the sound of
static tapes and fond scents
that take me back
to that day
when I handed that stranger my fate.

I am so far away from it,
much closer to an ocean of lost and bitter.
The crash and cool of rocks I now call home
as you left me here to climb alone,
sweep away the clouded mess
to which I now must bid adieu
and shake off the dirt within my bones.

I sigh:

We’re all just sacks of dreams and desires.
No one more godly than the other.
But to know how to slip the potion
of your own inner wildfires
into someone else’s skin.
Is what makes him
trouble to be with.

I want to buy her flowers 
Hold her hand in the cinema 
And go out for fancy dinners
That neither of us can really afford 

I want to hear her breathing beside me in the night 
Feel her curled up next to me, amongst tangled sheets 
See her tousled hair and sleepy eyes in the morning 

I want to travel the world with her 
See the seven wonders 
Look at her
And see the eighth 

I want to build a home 
Paint the walls and get flecks of colour in our hair 
Argue about which couch to buy 
And then let her choose the one she likes 

I want to hold 
The soft, heavy bodies of our children in my arms
Watch them grow up, as we grow older 
Together 

I want to drop our children off for their first day of school 
Cry with her at their graduations 
And sit down together to write
Speeches for their weddings 

I want to care for her when she’s old 
Flick through a lifetime of photo albums 
And see her face next to mine
Over the decades 

And in amongst that somewhere
I want to slide a golden band onto her finger
And say ‘I do’ 
But in this country
The government says 
I can’t

When the light goes out,
The howling never stops.
It stretches out its tendrils, 
Shrouding every space in my mind.
No light seeps through anymore, 
Only shadows cast by the weeds
That have firmly rooted themselves 
In the bottom of my feet.
With 
Each 
Step
I’m reminded of the weight;
The darkness
That holds me down. 

When the light goes out,
A cocoon of obscurity hugs my limp body.
My soul released,
Butterflied by the hands of faith.
Because when stability never greets your feet,
You must learn to fly, you must grow wings;
You must believe.

When the light goes out,
Remember that fire within:
It was always ablaze,
You just needed to trust.
You just needed to see; 
See in the dark

There was a place
Beyond the trees
Where sunlight danced
With the breeze

There was a place
Where nature spread
Rainbow carpets,
An endless bed

There was a place
Where children played
In midst of the
Enchanted glade

Now they are dead.

I hobble with my walker
To revisit the place.
The perfumed air we breathed
Is rich with dust and petrol and cars.

The endless hills of metal stretch
And brush the horizon,
A bleached rainbow.

Yet sunlight filters through the steel,
And dances with the breeze
Puzzle pieces, lost, confused,
Searching for the trees

Beaten until I bled
Slapped until I was red
11 years a punching bag
And treated like a dirty rag
Yelled at like I was nothing
She said she’d hit me… she wasn’t bluffing
I felt safe when I was asleep
But the safety I couldn’t keep
I woke scared everyday
Cried myself to sleep at night
Wanted to defend myself, but I couldn’t fight
Too small, too weak
Your heart was bleak
You weren’t a mother or a carer
Every week there was terror
You were a monster
I was only ever a punching bag
You “looked after kids” but there was no need to brag
Revenge is for the weak, so I guess I’m weak
I felt menacing when I left you
Just like you did when you hit me too
You even got everyone else into it
I was the odd one out
You even lied about my mother and how she didn’t love me
Truthfully, there was only one thing you couldn’t see
All the pain you had caused
My mother wanted me safe, but there was no safety
I would cry for help, but no one heard me
As your fist flew through the air, tears rolled down my face
All the cuts you’ve given me, leaving a trace
You never understood what we felt
But I would like to thank you
Because, without you there are a lot of things I couldn’t do
Thanks for treating me like a dirty rag
11 years a punching bag.

Forgive me, Time (thy rhythmic god) 
our unholy matrimony was never meant to end
But like my sugar-blossomed baby blanket,
I have deemed this love stitchable.

A veil has been lifted from my brown
buttercup eyes
and I can breathe it now:
the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Skies
– I’ve climbed to the golden fruit,
tasted its calling; felt its perfect crimson;
heard its smoothened skin; seen the sweetness of its juices –
The Age of Whining & Pining is over
and now I can sing

summer, autumn, winter, spring

You’ve risen this Earth, bathed in vivid heartstrings,
pulsing the veins of this regal orchestra:
pounding against water – the bass of bird wings;
belting the air – cries of beasts (a formula
of breathless harmony); smoothing the edges
and bolding the loudness of the silence,
birds, beasts, bugs and thistle leaves alike fuel a gentle engine –
a slow drum of seamless imperfection

Your gasp aches the bleached bones of trees,
limbs shudder at the bite of your breath,
leaves fall, skipping and prancing in the breeze,
dancing to your mellow chimes that sing the birds to bed.
Lullaby this butterfly to sleep, my lord,
unveil its inchoate cocoon, lay its head
As goes the flowers –
Stone them if you must!

Reflection

I now breathe clarity:
The clouds are parted by your hand.
This world of darkness – my most unfriend – is treated for its severity –
only in gentle doses do you return it to this land
in your masterful collaboration of two worlds,
that, together, weave a proliferation of life

dawn, noon, dusk, night

Flowers erupt like exploding stars;
the Earth like one gleaming lake, immersed
in skies reigned by night,
as if you, my lord, had not raised the universe
from The Age of Darkness.

I have lifted, risen –
my senses are now
infused in the golden blood
stored in the patient seeds
streaming up the emerald veins of the Earth
reaching up to the animal (the beast just born)
nourishing its every breath and harbouring its heart
giving it the strength to reach beyond
let go
understand

I must teach my heart your circular song

to harvest a child
they are best picked
young
it’s easier to spoil
an identity that way

          use crushing words
          and society’s moulds
          to smother the useless
          flame of
          imagination

                  then narrow the mind
                  harden the softness
                  and stifle their
                  voice

                          there is no room
                          for wonder
                          so dismantle childish
                          beliefs

                                  finally
                                  eradicate the
                                  innocence
                                  and
                                  you are left
                                  with an
                                  adult

I don’t care
If you’re young or old, I don’t care,
Skinny, fat, I don’t care,
Tall, short or in between, I don’t care,
Girl, boy, both, neither, I don’t care,
Black, white, Asian, all three or more, I don’t care,
Gay, straight, pan or ace, I don’t care,
I don’t care who you are, what you like, what you do,
You respect me, I’ll respect you.

When it’s cold we wish for sunshine
When it’s hot we wish for snow
Why is it that we never miss things until we see them go?
I see that your life was a sad one
All black and white and grey
Did anyone ever notice?
Were you brave enough to say?
Did your sunflowers show what you were feeling?
Unable to stand up straight.
Were the stars in the sky your wishes to catch? 
You were somehow always too late.
Did the room show that you were lonely?
With no one around to share.
And now that you are gone
Why is it that we now all care?

You always know what I want you to say
When you come home from work, in the evening, each day.
You give me love with a hug and a kiss
And tell me how much I was overly missed.

When you drive me to sport, we laugh and chat
And you always remind me how to hold my bat.
You make things better when I fall and cry
And lovingly show me how to do up my tie.

You glow with pride when I do well at school
And jump with excitement when I race in the pool.
It couldn’t be easy to be a father, I bet
And even harder to reach the standard you set.

When wrestling with you, I can feel myself stronger
And although you can beat me, you won’t for much longer!
I love when you demonstrate recipes to cook
And smile in amazement when I read a big book.

‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ is our special rock song
And when it plays in the car, we enjoy singing along.
It’s great to have a father, who gives credit to me
And believes that in time, success I will see.

Just so you know, I’ll make it perfectly clear
When I’m old enough Dad, I will buy you a beer.
I’ll thank you for all that you’ve given to me
And forever I’ll try, the best son to be.

A sickly grey foam curdles at the water’s edge, 
and an air of stillness lies over the river.
A pelican’s vast shape sets shadows across the water, 
whom the sun has set her warmth upon.
Dusk carries a slight, delicate breeze, 
which ruffles my hair where I stand,
looking out across the river with wonder in my eyes.
A swirling golden mist shrouds the river
and dusk shines feebly for the last time
before losing itself amidst the evening.

The long sleek
black body
of a crow.

Like ink splashed
across a page
the short burnt beak.

The sad weep
when tears stream down
soft broad wings.

Balanced out
as she floats
across the light blue sky.

I can see clouds rolling on the far horizon,
Everyone preparing for what lies ahead,
Feeling scared for the event that’s coming,
The ground rumbling underneath my feet,
Rain pattering lightly along the ground,
Birds silence with anticipation.

Flood gates closing,
Clouds getting darker by the minute,
Flashing furiously,
Thunderous clashing bangs,
Water rising,
The storm is here.

As I walk down clean, polished floors
I am surrounded by history
Paintings to my left, paintings to my right
Creations hanging from the ceiling above me
I see colours, shapes and lines.
Some make sense.
Some feel strange.
Others confuse me.
Finally, I come to one that draws me in.
I see circles – lots of circles.
Circles that repeat again and again and again.
As I stare into them, I feel that the circles will never end.
They pull me in, like a tornado strong enough to devour a small village.
Down, down, down I go into a never ending blackness.
Into the heart of the circles
I think I should look away.

From my window l can see
The big, yellow diggers.
First thing in the morning
They hungrily eat the dirt and soil,
Open and closing their huge mouths,
Each with an almighty roar.
All day long they move their long necks
In every direction like big, dirt-eating dinosaurs.
Finally when night comes, they go to sleep
Their heads resting on the ground,
Their necks curled up and facing their body.

Gunshots blasting through red, bulldozed sands of Gallipoli,
The Turkish soldiers murdering my friends in this destroyed land. 
The blazing sun burns my nervous skin as my anger is released, 
My best mates are dying while I’m crying inside. 
The deafening bombshells of the Turkish artillery piercing my ears, 
My friends screaming in pain as the Turkish take us down. 
My guns being filled with gunpowder as I fight for my amazing country.
Sweat from nervousness carving into my devastated hands. 
My mum’s mouth-watering pie and sugar taste ruined by the irony – the taste of my enemy’s blood and stale salty meat.

Flying springs
Shooting balls
Bouncing characters
Flinging latches
Mini game
Playing music
Pinning balls
Loud crowd
Always happy
Grand finals
Coming soon
Can’t give up
Flying springs
Shooting balls
Bouncing characters
Flinging latches
Mini game
Playing music
Pinning balls
Winning score
All done!

Silver snow, subzero cold,
Crystal clear, white mountains,
A powdery touch melts in your hand.

Snow covered park,
From heavy whiteout during night,
Frozen grounds, nothing to see,

Conifer forest with elegant trees,
Energy lines split, grass so white,
Thick snow and icy roads.

News reports about weather,
Avalanche hits, snow rushing down,
No one knows what is happening.

Nothing left, no shops or buildings,
Cars piled on each other,
Tragic event, winters wipe-out.

Waves crashing into and over the sand.
Clean white seagulls flapping on the breeze.
Fresh salty air embracing all. 
Mixing with gum leaves scent in the sun.
My senses filled to the brim.

Magic running through the air
classes going everywhere
reading books and doing chess
the librarians in colourful dress

Fairy tales, facts and more
I love stepping through this door
into a world
a different place
a reading, learning, creating space

I saw a great grey cloud thundering towards me
It sounded like an earthquake.
I was terrified.
All of a sudden a triangle horn poked out.

Secondly l saw a massive grey body.
It charged!
It head butted!
Help!

Just as I thought…
A great grey rhino.

Playing in the playground
Waving in the wind
Cars zooming fast
Crunching leaves
Chattering children
Banging tunnel
But then the bell rang.

I love cricket
I really want to get a wicket
I’m going to bowl a fast ball
At the batter who’s really tall
I’m going to knock over middle stump
It’s going to make a gigantic thump
The umpire puts his finger in the air
My whole team shouts “Yeah!”
“Woohoo” I got him out for a Golden Duck
It was all my skill and a little bit of luck
The umpire says “That’s wicket number ten”
So I’m going to go and bat with my partner Ben
I jog out onto the cricket pitch
I hear Mum and Dad in the crowd yell “Go Mitch!”
The bowler bowls a fast ball at me
I hit a reverse sweep down on one knee
I run as fast as the Flash
I hope Ben and I don’t crash
Next ball I’ll try and hit for a four
Because my legs are getting really sore
I hit a six on the last ball of the game
Everyone wins a trophy, which are all the same

My friend did a stunt on my tramp.
He did a front flip and landed on a ramp.
Then he jumped into a tree.
And back flipped down and landed on me!

My friend he was a silly galoot.
For next he slipped and began to scoot.
He rode his motorbike in a wheelie.
And sent it rocketing with a squeally!!

Seas of red,
Flowing wildly,
We remember those who fled.

Guns banging,
Here and there,
We fight to try to be fair.

Trees breaking,
Fire bursting,
People running from the flames.

Tanks brawling,
Here and there,
Everybody fighting down there.

We remember those who died,
In 1945.

Surfing,
Bending, shaking,
At the beach,
Enormous waves crashing,
Surfboard wipe-out.

Special animals
Eight legs
Spinning webs
Eating insects
Laying eggs
Creepy crawly
Very scary
I scream!

Black, blue, grey, green, lavender, lime,
Colours on a wall, colours on a ball.
Tan, white, silver, mango,
Colours on a mat and colours on a cat.
Red, yellow, pink and orange,
Colours on a fish, colours on a dish.
Colours everywhere.