SPINNING BLUE CIRCLE In memory of my mother A craving for meaning bled from your eyes, but the zero and one of life and death were temporarily stuck in between. At the sour grey end of this afternoon you lived in a distant dimension, holidaying on another planet where you lost your money and passport… Continue reading Spinning Blue Circle and Rue Menard

THE MEMORY OF WATER Central Australia 50,000 years ago Every waterhole is smaller and farther awaythan the one before and the plain no longer remembersthe forest that once stood here. They stagger on,a clan of exhausted Diprotodonseeking escape from the flooding dryness,their mighty front claws scuffing up dustthat floats above in a choking cloudand then… Continue reading Seven Nature Poems

In the eye of the cyclone the most important event has never taken place. Stillness holds the world in narcissistic trance: silent greyness contemplating itself under a dead star of spider dreams in a galaxy you cannot escape. You hold your breath without daring to whisper. This eternity may be your last; nature cannot die,… Continue reading 15,000 Metres Above Time

That’s you looking out of gleaming high windows over a future stretched out and waiting. Also you after that view disintegrates revealing frozen truths long hidden: stumbling along a splintered jetty towards the horizon past ice holes where trapped whales surface, gasping for air. Still you following the path to your show trial in a… Continue reading ADVENTURES IN THE CHEMICAL WORLD

REGRET Counting broken windows in a ruined city where hopes are corpses with outstretched hands. Strong arms holding your head under water until you accept mortality’s truth. Even smiles are doomed to atrocity: sunlight gleaming on a murderer’s shoulder. You will never sleep again; dreams are censored and you will never remember who shared them.… Continue reading Regret and Obelisks

Entered 3-4-1846 aged thirteen. Died 4-9-1849. Any season would do to tell this story. In summer these structures would gleam defiance, their dark brown heaviness standing guard pitiless and immoveable. Even spring would fail to brighten the picture with its thoughts of young life blunted, bent and then ended. Winter makes any scene cruel, but… Continue reading Mullingar Workhouse

LEGACY My mother was given some marron – unfortunately edible crustaceans – swimming in a plastic bag, claws grasping; throw them alive in boiling water. Lacking the neighbours’ prey drive, she led instead a revolt and set the victims free in a creek. Mum is no longer here to see them but the marrons’ descendants… Continue reading Legacy and Heron

SLAVE I was not born to this, but time has done its work. On the first day all those years ago, I smashed my head against the wall like the Spartan boy choosing death over servitude. But walls soften over time, and the life I fought against has become a barrier against the freedom I… Continue reading Slave, Art Imitating Life, Vase

Western Australia Boiling and roaring by day, the shearing shed traps heat, noise and sweat while thousands of sheep pass through, sliding on floors and ramps to leave their wool to the snarling machines and barking dogs. At night in the blissful cool the shed releases it all and goes quiet, except for the splash… Continue reading The Shearing Shed

The giant white screen is peelingand the speaker stands jut out of the concretelike stunted metal trees gripped by weeds,their long, thin evening shadowsstretching back towards another timewhen people in flares sat in carsmunching crisps and slurping drinkswhile movies flashed by and vanished. Published in The Frogmore Papers