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Curses lick with jest
at the small
of your back,
then they sear --
stinging hot:
Look around,
oath on jaundiced-cloud--
kids with eyes
big as watermelons
hold the prods of hell's burning.
`
In the beginning I was not mine—I was a hunger,
a cry stitched into the ribs of a woman
who bled me into the world.
My mother, a trembling universe of milk and silence,
Carried me like a secret the earth had whispered.
Nine months of darkness where I emerged already owing a debt
From there too many hands claimed me before I knew my own name.
Brothers and sisters taught me how to swallow porridge
and spit back in defiance.
Rewriting Memory
The mutual understanding between kindred spirits
It’s like a language spoken at a higher plane
Even in silence there’s respect and admiration
When in retrospect we know we all felt the same
Amidst reverence and passionate veneration
There’s also a devotion that consumes the soul
As if temptation tries to stain the elation
By changing direction and assuming the role
A country bumpkin,
Wrapped up in tweed.
Snobby sounding,
Vitriol he feeds.
Promotes the wealthy,
Friends in high places,
Looks down on the poor,
With his airs and graces.
Stirs up the pot,
Division's the game.
Identity is questioned,
Through politics name.
Is he a racist?
Or a misogynist fool.
A puppet for power,
Or a useful tool.
An expert in twisting,
A master of deception.
That media's misquoting,
With deliberate intention.
People say I shouldn’t remember
For I was not yet two
But as I lay, on that warm spring day
In my pram I swear its true.
I heard a sound, like a million bees
That hummed in the cloudless blue,
A shape I saw with flames behind
That stuttered and smoked as it flew.
Then mother was there in panic,
In her arms she swept me high,
Had that airborne monster crashed nearby
Then surely we should die.
April came grinning
hands behind her back
like a child hiding something
she absolutely wants you to notice.
She scattered warmth
across the morning,
let the robins brag about it,
let the snow retreat
just enough to make you trust her.
Then-
with timing of a seasoned trickster-
she flipped the sky,
shook out a cold wind,
and laughed as you reached
for the coat you swore
you wouldn't need again.
A faint drift of camp‑smoke moves across the oval,
cool on the tongue, sharp as wet timber.
Neighbours gather in a loose ring,
boots pressing small hollows into the grass.
The diary pages, worn thin at the creases,
lift slightly in the breeze
before the reader’s voice settles again—
slow as weather shifting across the range,
a front you can feel before you see.
Rewriting Memory
Some opportunities come once in a lifetime
And then some present themselves as clear as day
But if the timing or rhythm happens to be off
That opportunity will grow wings and fly away
Then there are lucky happenstances that linger
As if by good grace it comforts and consoles the heart
Even when the window has closed there’s still a light
Not so much of hope but a gift when we have to part
The screen door slams on a summer’s afternoon, the kind of summer that tasted like water from the garden tap and salt from a packet of Burger Rings. Back then, the real world ended where the pavement gave way to the woods, and your bike was a ticket to anywhere. We were the brotherhood of a ragtag group of boys. We bottled the heat in the orange plastic triangle of a SunnyBoy, believing if we licked the last of the frozen syrup, the school holidays would never end.
A fog settles upon these shoulders
the cape that sweeps across the plains
the biting wind sings its wailing dirge
whose fingers pluck and scrape and snap
Once upon a breath so dreary
the banal landscape stripped away
a peril hunched in fitful slumber
morning promise not guaranteed
When golden shafts part the curtains
and birdsong fills the early air
a once dormant heart rises
thankful for a good cup of tea
.