An apocalyptic poem today that tries to capture the atmosphere of a world collapsing in various ways. The title is the name given to one of the largest ever extinction event’s in the Earth’s history, long before that of the dinosaurs.  The predators are returning to the cities; their gleaming eyes flit through rubbish dumps… Continue reading The Great Dying

In a strange land, everyone does what he must. As usual, the bird in my dream was a dove covered in blood that sat on my clothes rack, preening itself, spattering my shirts red. I catch and devour small kindnesses as if they were locusts full of the ripe fruit of domestic life, but for… Continue reading Diaspora

I should have known from the retching crow that passed on my way to the station that morning. The signs were there in the sprinkle of chocolate on my cappuccino, in the graph of plunging share prices hidden in the newspaper’s entrails. She’s gone; I should have known. The signs were there this evening as… Continue reading Omens

My grandad dug potatoes for a living long ago in Australia when he was young, chiselling them out of the hard-baked soil then leaving the field each day exhausted with his back bent as low as the landscape; resilient and adaptable like the generations before him, humble but proud like the potato itself. A tour… Continue reading Mandatory Potato Poem

FIFTH VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS Tonga, 800 AD Take me with you, star duck, when you fly away down south; let me fix your broken wing. I remember watching you when I was young and dancing to music so sweet I couldn’t taste the food. You seemed so close then but now I wish… Continue reading Under the Southern Cross

Uluru, central Australia, 1000 BC You run fast, emu in the sky, on your long black legs. In every season that I’ve carried my children behind my husband you have been above. And the tree possum over your head has watched us with his hand of shining eyes. Stay over us, sky emu. Watch us… Continue reading FIRST VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS

THE WINE CELLAR In certain moments, I open the door that leads down to the hidden place. The musty air of neglect and broken resolutions meets me each time and the steps are covered with dust that I sweep away with my feet. It takes courage to descend without light, but I know it is… Continue reading Bridging Earth and Sky

For Claudia Maybe it absolutely had to be according to the laws of physics; it often feels that way, for sure, as if the whole history of the universe – the creation of the elements that made us in the hearts of vanished stars, the forming of the galaxies and planets, Earth’s atmosphere and seas,… Continue reading Love Explained, Or Not

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