“Mummy, if 10 x 10 equaled 50, would our paper planes fly straight?” I know the rain was heavy because the bedraggled underpass (with plinking echoes and the green glitter of smashed bottles) smells mysteriously of mint. I lift my nose and my voice to the early snare of Ravel’s Bolero adding other instruments as … Continue reading My Daughter’s Question
when you're here i want to dance with you hold you in my arms feel the rush of you, your whispers in my hair. your breath carrying secrets of the far-off ocean, your embrace ticklish my clothes disheveled, my nostrils flared. i can hear you now whispering jokes in the dark you don't play favourites … Continue reading The Easterly
A variety of things happened this week, none of which I can disclose here in any detail. But it's all left me feeling ruffled and uneasy. By the time I finished breakfast this morning, I felt slightly unwell. Just the kind of unwell you might feel if you were very nervous. But I have nothing … Continue reading Like an exam without a question…
Seventeen years ago a roar engulfed the singing pines - countless breaths exhaling the needle sting of smoke. They stood in shredded funeral garb flinging glowing ember flowers onto us below. They witnessed our syncopated falling and the operatic scream of twisting steel, the cymbal crash of exploding windows. We knelt prostrate before the fire … Continue reading The House at No. 3
mixed feelings. i get them a lot. like headaches or an itchy ear. mixed feelings are a cloud and i know that cloud is a popular word these days, especially in IT, but I don't like it. cloud is a weather word. it's two shades of a rain drop. it's grey in there. for example, … Continue reading Two Shades of a Raindrop
In the interests of good writing books imbue profundity and poetic meaning into the actions, words & lives of their characters. ** Even memoirs achieve this tidiness - this well-structured architectural masterpiece, this neat polygon life, this feeling of control. ** But I tell myself don't be intimidated because in writing things down we find … Continue reading The Luxury of Excerpts
Four glittering Cartier watch faces, keeping the time in executive spaces, handed by Holgate to high-flying wanglers who did a good deal and wrangled the bankers. $20,000 of wrist-wrapping bling to ensure these fine workers continue their thing. She came from big business where bonuses are blousy, not in the service where gifts mark you … Continue reading PM Quietly Goes Postal on CEO
This idea of a gas lead recovery... put your money on a drill bit and watch it sink spinning into the dark earth beneath the dark sea. It augers well. We're spiraling, Australia, into this gassy pit... Back in black, just as they promised.
The political slogans with blue borders on the road side read "Lower Taxes, Better Services". That's like saying "Throw out your brush & grow your hair!" or "Cheaper Shoes, Smaller Sizes" or "More roosters, less crowing." It SOUNDS enticing but when you think about it... Anyway, I say to them "More egg cartons, less apples." … Continue reading Girt by Campaigning
There's a man at our local shops who orbits erratically around his hat singing in a husky mutter, hunched over his tight, protruding belly his words foreign and incomprehensible. In their orthopedic sandals and thick white socks, his feet - like his eyes - barely leave the ground. Some days he seems bereft, his hoarse … Continue reading The Busker
Out of the Cave 