Solo

solo football
you always have
a wall

In lockdown 
you can make eggs any time you like.

An afternoon niblick?

That’s a golf club, darling.

I don’t see why the golfers should have all the nice food.

*

Could you give me a quick call. I need to do a tick and flick. 

distinguishment

the rain on the roof
washing down on me like a dried stem

back to work
after lockdown
the miracle of the bus

red & green parrots
falling through trees

after the rain
threads of worms
on the asphalt

No sorry is the reason Australians find ‘sorry’ such a difficult word to use – you almost never hear it. When it finally arrived on Sorry Day with Rudd’s speech, it was too late, because the statement was supposed to be the end, not the beginning. I steal your car. I say sorry. Enough? No. You want your car back. Exaggeration? Australian Customer Service = ‘What d’you expect me to do about it?’ Link/ no link?

November sky 
I burn
for the mountains



we were wrong
we were new
my generation

mould 
the corner
under the wardrobe . . .
were my darkest days
yet to come?

hummingbird’s
wings a blur –
it stands on air

the building
now rubble, one of my
childhood guns

the shape
of my sister’s hair –
the stand-in mum

the garlic
going to seed
tells us pick

the rains are back
like the raven
black

my jug, Celenial
is a cream jug
she holds about enough cream
to make a carrot cake
slice even more dangerous
she has two, wide, uplifting eyes
& on the other side of the page,
as it were, a long, serrated mouth
that’s more for show than anything
her spout tight & leaflike
handle thick, bronzed wire
she’s stoneware, at the base
& elsewhere burnished bronze
she sits by my bedside
supping cream
I hear her in the night
& it comforts me
it comforts me
to know

a hole 
in the clouds
races by

meditation
I am the eye
of the needle

allowing the self
again & again

I’m happy
in myself

knowing 
there’s no one
there

knowing
at the centre
emptiness

I lose my hat
I’m given a better one

I lose my umbrella
I’m given a better one

stumbled into
what I needed to do

my shirt must be unbuttoned . . .
I’m not even wearing it

the tensions in my body
too many to be observed

there goes one . . .



I am happy
in myself
where else can I be

your brain
rips up
the future

the process 
of the poem
re-writes
the poem

deciding 
to be joyful

allowing
to be joyful

which?

if I relax
fully
I’ll fall
through the floor

what’s the point in getting
what you don’t want

I’m back
there’s my breath

I let go life
the chin tension
first

my centre
not someone else’s

in the end
I am

emotions
having a rest


meditation
more or less
tensed

*

I am the abundance
                                my breath
                                                  my anchor
my emptiness
                       out-breath
                                         stilled
for a second
                    a moment of nothing

*

A funeral is not the place for telling the truth, I’ve been thinking.

the sea changes 
constantly
we watch
for patterns
that aren’t there

Alternative change not adopted.

Silence is the One Word.

the river
flows without me
the sea’s tide

blank slate
can I wipe it
cleaner

opening the door
the warmth & the lemon smell
baking

*

Anger is blind energy. 

*

pink ribbons in the trees –
a serial romantic,
or marked for pruning?

. . . going from nothing to unlimited . . .

the sonic scraping of fingers on fretboard 
in Merchant of Love by Joan Armatrading

I live on the edgelands, I always have.

Life is richer on the edge.

the cormorant’s sleek 
underwater

empty chrysalis
I wonder how
the life went

age
I settle into
the eternal valley

by the lake
someone selling something
from a cart that plays
Greensleaves
haunting
like Molly Malone
whistled by the gravedigger
in The Premature Burial
(all about narcolepsy)
I change direction
let the music fade
into whispers

we must carry on
we think
after death

The sea is a giant, we try to defeat it. We hate things that are bigger. The bigger man, the elephant, the rhinoceros. The sea defeats us, it’s warming up, it kills our coral joy. 

Australia’s universities converting as little as 1% of casual staff to permanent despite labour law change

I won’t let my mind spin
I’ll wait on your word
your hand

Fixed Term Part Time

a strategy, not a reaction

Will I let them take my mind as well?

owen bullock