Category Archives: Poetry

How we wait

The taste of hospitals and airports says: You are here under whatever circumstances, tired, no doubt stressed. Have a coffee. Sit down. No-one will care if you cry; everyone is going somewhere different sometime soon. Everyone is crying or dazed, on edge yet kept in secure wards or waiting gates, volatile, yet in comfy chairs.Continue reading “How we wait”

Mental Health November Week 1: Anxiety

This year, the people behind Movember are having a particular focus on men’s mental health, a topic close to my heart. So, while I won’t be shaving off my beard to grow a new mo from scratch, I have decided to take a handful of my old poems on mental illness and give one ofContinue reading “Mental Health November Week 1: Anxiety”

Rainy Day Sermon

The text is darker in this weather,      more emphatic, as though while he wrote, outside prison walls Saint Paul             saw the fall of some Ephesian rain-drops and thought:             If my plea should fall on hard soil… Did he see the runaway slave      in the wet, uncertain, standing at his master’s door,Continue reading “Rainy Day Sermon”

Topography

…rediscovering, room by room, what it was that I first learned there about how high, how wide the world is, how one space opens into another… (David Malouf, 12 Edmondstone Street) How many of my dreams go to this place? Always the same Queenslander balconies where I wander over those drooping eaves in search ofContinue reading “Topography”

How lonely sits the city

I did not see them go there with their flame to burn the city’s heart, the city’s bones. I did not see the past fall down in ash or hear the cries of covenant in pain. I did not hear the gongs of history clash or see foe-cities’ gods fight in the square. Yet inContinue reading “How lonely sits the city”

All our comings and our goings

Some wandered in deserts; I strayed Among Antarctic beeches and Bunya pine, Silver ferns and blood red soil, where I made Kingdoms and mountains from my trampoline. Some languished at sea; I saw an ocean Outside my window when the Easter rains Flooded the side path, and gazed at the scene In raptured delight. IContinue reading “All our comings and our goings”

#blessed

However it hits us – with sudden strike Or slow attrition – it hits all the same. Movements may be slower, tentative, like A creature not accustomed to the day; Or, paralysed, you might see the sun and Not know that it calls you to anything But sleep. If so, sleep deep. Tomorrow’s hand IsContinue reading “#blessed”

Westgate Country

Did you know that Melbourne has a Brooklyn? Mostly factories, but behind the freeway Nestled amidst houses there’s a church, in Low-ecclesiastic cream brick. Today On my way to work I saw it, vacant Being Wednesday. But on Sunday there’s family. And I smelt the Spotswood Vegemite plant With its playful chimneys; a child mightContinue reading “Westgate Country”

Thirty-Two Blessings

Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love. (Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved) That I am begotten by love, Sustained That my heart beats And my feet move That the air is rich For me to breathe That love is patient, That love is kind That I can know What goodness is That IContinue reading “Thirty-Two Blessings”