CLOUD SPIRITS The sound of rain on a metal roof, an orchestra of cloud spirits drumming just above your head. The first such night is sleepless, but then it becomes the most soothing thing and the rhythm just carries you away. When that roof was replaced by tiles that deadened the sound, Mum kept a… Continue reading three poems of Australian childhood

There will always be another generation to record the same experiences, making us regret all over again the perfect piece of theatre, shouted in the depths of the night and whispered in the light of day, that could have been made from the mediocre tragedy, bittersweet comedy, quaintly absurd production – ordinary, quiet, a little… Continue reading Fragments

One moment before waking, it all made perfect sense, but if there’s no return from where they’ve gone – those cuttlefish dreams of rippling colours that flashed by spontaneously, waving hypnotising tentacles of hope – I know that others will soon wash over me, calming the billions of agitated grains that choke my mind with… Continue reading Sleeping on the Beach

Amerigo Vespucci’s Ship in the South Atlantic Ocean, 1501 AD This cross that hangs in godless doubt slid out of Europe’s reach a thousand years ago down ever deeper into this pagan blackness. But now it watches as we bring a greater cross and knows there’s nowhere left to hide; nothing and no one escapes… Continue reading Ninth View of the Southern Cross

Meteorite in the Australian desert Nothing here has changed at all since this burnt rock thrust itself deep in dirt red as sword wounds all those thousands of years ago. Once the noise that no one heard had faded and the cloud of blood that hid the sky had settled, this exile waited for someone… Continue reading The Exile

Distracted, I moulded the darkness into the shape of your hips while you slept. Through the pillow I felt the splitting edge of the mental knife I’d stashed there overnight. Thinking I’d said too much already, I stopped my betraying mouth and started to think that this was just my body lying there, while my… Continue reading sleepless, fearing commitment

THE COCONUT There had never been a coconut in our townuntil my sister ordered one from the shop.We waited months for it to arriveand almost drove Mr Baldini crazyasking for news of this round messengerfrom the outside world we’d never seen.When the coconut finally arrived,it was like a taste of the exotic,a cure for our… Continue reading More Poems of Australian Childhood

I have some items of poetry news to share. Firstly, I am very pleased to have been shortlisted for the Allingham Poetry Prize. The final results will be announced next month, so we shall see what happens. Two of my recent poetry acceptances have some special sentimental value. My family originally came from County Roscommon… Continue reading News

The Continent of Insects Australia is really theirs:for hundreds of millions of years they have fought each otherand the brutal landscapein primordial arms racesthat developed specialised workers,warriors with pincers and shieldingand sophisticated social structures.Wars and alliances between themstill come and go, like their cities,while elsewhere humans in parallelare living out their noisy moment. Numbat Our journey… Continue reading Poems of Australian Childhood