Jackson

The building’s ungainly. Glassed-in balconies bulge      from dirt-coloured walls.      Not tall, not squat, it neither looms nor crouches. It stands, seven levels,      behind its frizzy hedge,      its toothy gate. But I don’t have to judge it as I go along the path.      I live within, in the space      behind the windows where breezes twirl through Read more

the young policeman hangs his hat on his gun Read more

the haiku poet broad feet in delicate shoes small white feather facing the stratus sky a beggar’s hand spring in the Cultural Centre lavender tangles with banksia in the city no-one notices the ten-metre wall a spring seedling three tiny leaves meet an enormous shoe wind blows out my candle but not the one on Read more

against the blue and white spring sky five black cockatoos move lead and follow, pair and part, flap and glide doing together their unpromoted dance Read more

I sit through the doublebungers katherinewheels romancandles the flags names arrays of light the patterns attached to buildings and bridges the sputterings and mutterings the again and again and agains set to classic hits waiting for the seconds of silence the fizzing upward rush the half-breath pause the one sky-filling perfect plain chrysanthemum First published Read more

     in spring sunlight      the silver lizard’s      ancient skin The skink is five million years old Chasing a three-hundred-million-year-old bug it runs under the raised base of a steel post The iron is as old as Earth The fence: two winters The skink emerges, scampers, pauses Filtering the rain of wavelengths its scaly integument glistens, passes Read more