changing colour as I try to describe it.At first, clouds stretch their long red tonguestowards the sun, while Spring encouragesunexpected brightness from the streetsthat quickly melts away to grey. The wind raceslike a wolf pack through fluttering puddlesas the rain whispers its apologies.Later, the moon drags the evening’s corpseto join the light’s mass grave in… Continue reading The Day is a Sleeping Octopus

It is publication day for my new poetry collection “An Ocean Called Hope”, published by Downingfield Press in Melbourne. There are links to buy from Australia, UK, USA and on ebook: https://downingfield.com/book/an-ocean-called-hope/?grid_referrer=2131 Available on all major stores. From the publisher’s page: “From the windswept Famine Trail of Ireland to the starlit skies of the Southern… Continue reading Publication Day

 You’re invited to the virtual launch of AN OCEAN CALLED HOPE by S.C. Flynn — a journey from Ireland’s Famine Trail to the Southern Cross.  Wednesday 4 June 2025  8.30pm Melbourne / 6.30pm Perth / 11.30am Dublin  Online – join from anywhere!  Register now: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/84454611-091c-40ea-b5c6-cd0c9b424a3d@1b79aa58-dd48-4326-bfcf-56b8f3c611a3

Everything is a language for something. This gentle snowfall choreography of tiny drones returning to their cases, like strange moths fluttering down and settling, is a transient allegory. The nervous electric rhythms are gone and all that remains to do in the calm is to stare at these stars as they drop and then strain… Continue reading AFTER THE LIGHT SHOW

I am really pleased to announce that my next poetry collection, entitled “An Ocean Called Hope”, will be published by Downingfield Press on 26 May. The theme is places in my life: growing up in small-town Australia; moving to Ireland, country of my ancestors; and various countries under the Southern Cross constellation. Poems from the… Continue reading

CHILDREN OF THE ICE One of those days when coincidences gather like the gulls on this rarely frozen pond, sliding and screeching in a grey and white cloud while I am passing by thinking of how at school they made us swim while hail was falling, exploding all around us, and sheet lightning flashed above;… Continue reading Two Poems

SHADED ECHOES North-eastern Australia In the great dark knowledge of the forest, life runs subtly like a reminiscence. The cassowary guarding his bright green eggs is one expression of the incomprehensible in a world of proud indifference, pure inhuman otherness at the centre of his own universe. Try following his deep, booming calls through the… Continue reading Three Bird Poems

Here are versions of my recent appearance on the Rattlecast, the podcast of leading US poetry magazine Rattle: YouTube | SoundCloud | iTunes | 

SIDE EFFECTS Back in the slanting, tilted days we tore great chunks off each other and then crept slowly apart, not looking back, like sidling crabs over cooling sands and wrote with bloody fingers on the walls words that still drip down to acid puddles. I wish I could cry in my sleep and wait… Continue reading Four Poems