Hair twisted carelessly back, she squats flat footed - the firm ‘M’ of legs and buttocks, and out front a large round wicker work tray. She bounces peanuts, wispy skins float away, sailing silent on the saline breeze. Evening washes in, ocean displacing shuffled greys. Soft syllables of the mopoke repeating and repeating; drifting to … Continue reading This is My Gravity
We who wander in the orchard are lost, howling with owls, these embittered nights among twisted apple trees. Body parts sloughed as we slumber: the busy din of scalpel bearers saving lives. Lest we forget. I never knew that mourning is a private act a spiral inwards for strength and these dictionaries we call souls. … Continue reading Mastectomy
Me & My Lid On some days in my Lockdown exercise hour the sun has poured its soothing ink quietly like warm milk between still trees and the roads have lain empty as snakeskin between closed houses. And even the birds seemed awed by the largeness of silence. But other days, the madding wind flips … Continue reading Lockdown Moods
after rain (with scattered meteors dark as cracking tar) our drive contains the Milky Way ruptured pearl and snickered light draw my eye is this our galaxy? a jeweled pot hole in the bitumen of space.
in this moment between me and Lorraine’s pink camellia Spring is perfect its face made up debutante fine coming out for the bee season hear the buzz in wattle’s chandeliers I buzz too on steroid’s limb dandled like a madman’s puppet me in autumn’s crazed falling: lost foliage and wanting sleep the camellia and I … Continue reading Remembering Lorraine
It was said that all things must pass: the big wheels turning, turning over the drought-lands, the down-and-out lands cattle skeletons ploughed in like rotted ships fence-posts - frayed and far-fetched zippers - dragging lines of wind-sawn wire – dun and drear the fierce fires rolling, roiling wanton flames - the lunge and buck, the … Continue reading Things that Pass
The sky shiny blue Thai silk - you would rip a portion and hang it like a Mantra curtains leading into the day. Step into the sun the subtle hum of traffic melding with the bees petrol fumes forgotten. Floral scents unfurl rosemary from your herb garden the kalistamon next door a giant Cootamundra wattle … Continue reading How it might’ve been…
I found a notebook from which trumpet song tanned my skin and let me breathe deep the golden sense of persimmons their voices (those poets) never wrinkle, even as pages yellow and my knuckles collect scars. echoes preserved in paper cathedrals splicing the all and nothing of experience poetry our human whale-song *Copyright abigfatcanofworms
water grips the track - glossy contorted discs of weather-based paint beyond today’s Grecian-blue covenant the sun remembers how it is to hold the hose, sprays light just so the dog, stepping stars into the puddle, elucidates galaxies around sleek ankles and in gum leaves’ vertical grating a magpie utters vowels - the fluent stream … Continue reading Tuesday
crude wooden tripods stand tethered human pendulums swinging amongst fumes and fuming damming politicians and incandescent commuters damming the city’s arteries a timely attack the heart on the hill* bloodless while the body rages taut fists enacting death throes of a planet in need *Australia's Parliament House is commonly referred to as "the house on … Continue reading Extinction Rebellion
At 7am the sky is streaks apricots and indigo a dash of gold and the wash behind of translucent milky blue 7:01 gold invades every streak ripening silhouettes deepen the northern horizon a flat heap of indigo gentle and quietly bruising 7:06 we're awash in dank mustard and over there in the pummeled north the … Continue reading The Moods of Sunrise
Hey! did you hear about that chick, Persephone? You know, she was in in that movie with Jason Gyllenhaal, yeah she’s gorgeous. Remember that scene with all the flowers? OMG soooo cheesy! Anyway, so Persephone went off with her whack-job Uncle Hades. I mean, he must’ve been a prick, right? It’s like that Lolita movie, … Continue reading More Celebrity Goss
quick silver life dose of poison tinkling in fattened veins shimmering at vision’s corner like dew drops in morning sun glaring on branch dark finger's quiet quiver bright the barb blood sport this chemo
"A watched kettle never boils" (Proverb) When my schedule allows I like to stand my hand on the rumbling my eyes outside noting the way the rain drops cling to the wired grid of the cat yard roof. I'm reminded of Elon Musk how he's netting the Earth in satellites. While I debate space travel … Continue reading Give the Sky A Rest
Cockatoo river what murmur on the sleet silted breeze set wings to strobing silver and black against the thick grey goosedown sky? Your flock's stream arcs in muscular parallel with Earth's stretch until, elated I too throw arms wide to feel the joyous horizon. Written in response to whimsygizmo's dVerse Quadrille prompt 'your poem theme … Continue reading Sky Joy #earthweal
You were there. Like the cherry tree bare and new, tucked in with love and me, cluttered as birdsong, showing you everything wonderful before your eyes had cleared ** I walk now stubble-headed as the harvest field, looking one direction - seeing black and white the blue gum and the sulo bin carved out of … Continue reading Everything Wonderful
WARP Words piled up against walls, or words toppling under cubicle doors flat-packed words in fax machines, sifted through telephones, lined up in emails or upright in train queues with rucksacks and smiles. Open wounds - flesh and muscle words bubbling hearts and glowing cauldrons; words undid them, words unhid them, spilling beauty and bandages, … Continue reading WORDS
who is she? face like mine but aged in a tiny sudden way surprising as a pond - murky water turned mother of pearl a dance-floor for the sky time is a galaxy pinpointed and vast I find security counting frost hairs around a leaf; photographing rain drops in the puddles the trees swing deep … Continue reading reflections
If one could choose a muse, wouldn’t human nature choose Tiddalik*, that greedy frog sucking all water (giver of life) to himself? Creativity is a gluttonous thing, always wanting feeding... This is what I have become - embittered like a dandelion head, seeds blown off in wind or child’s fancy. Brown and frayed and shucked … Continue reading On Muses
arriving here I stand awed at rows of violins the smells of timber and rosin and a young grandfather in a cardigan with horsehair on his workbench he handles your cello familiarly and sends us for a walk "the light might be good" he says and we head "to the end of the road" where … Continue reading How it was…
my grandmother drank her coffee black her eyelids closed to the morning's glare and the impossible barrage of birdsong on her deck you were among the branches and the flitting and the shards of mosaic sky rosellas in red profusion screeched, begging for seeds perhaps, or just yelling about the next train to Central as … Continue reading It’s what you can’t see…
the Romans feathered helmets erect learned the sterility of war their Empire's wondrous landmarks became punctuation in history's soil their roads crossed continents in massive webs their confidence still glimmers in ancient armour and upturned pillars but now, we're in dress-rehearsal writing history our age split asunder by tablets lit with green-glowing back-turned candles - … Continue reading Different Century, Same…?
Sleeping in great, deep holes fallen like leaf litter to decay and mulch and then to rise again in a breeze's brief clarity a grass blade the soft sweet scythe of spring undigging itself an arm above terror a sheath for hope broken, bruised but almost human in mortality's thick soil black as sleeping
the frost and the sun joined by the finest silken mist an early morning wedding melted into Earth by noon a greater hunger answered such selfless unions
I am a vast map: nerves, neurons muscles, cells humming with improper contrivance my shipping routes shimmer with pumped poison; destinations crumble, breaking free of shore I sift downwards a glacier shucking pieces in sudden wailing acknowledgement of ecosystems derailed shared with Earthweal Open Weekend #74
You were there. Like the cherry tree bare and new, tucked in with love and me, cluttered as birdsong, showing you everything wonderful before your eyes had cleared ** one direction it's black and white the blue gum and the sulo bin carved out of street light like midnight statues behind me the house glows … Continue reading Everything Wonderful
Step outside and smell the cold a sugary pendant in each nostril... and the billion stars like ice pins in a liquorice sky. Breathe the silence and enjoy its brittle velvet, just in case tomorrow all is unzipped and showy shards swift as starlings unsettle what you know
it's after six and we head into the autumn night dog on leash kids on edge "it's so dark! I can't feel my feet!" aside from the fingernail moon surging upward twixt a meander of clouds the street lights are on, coning through shimmering foliage splattering colour and lacework shadows caress the hollow blue-black meeting … Continue reading After Dinner
(Janet Shearon - Neil Armstrong's first wife) 382,500 miles of nothing anybody has done before and you out there in black and white like Charlie Chaplin with a different hat those shimmering images the age of light-speed, my sweet, I'm here with our two boys, holding the rails while you tango with moonstones say hello … Continue reading Imagining Mrs Armstrong
NB I don't think I have ever watched morning TV before. This morning, in a waiting room, I found myself confronted with 15 minutes of inanity. I don't know what channel it was and I didn't recognise the hosts. Only the poor Wiggles... I saw Emma today. You know, with the big bow and the … Continue reading Morning TV interviews The Wiggles
Out of the Cave 