Days that we couldn't rehearse

Third collection.  Contains poems set in Paris, Dunkerque, Sarajevo, Transylvania, Uzbekistan, Russia, outback Australia and the Melbourne suburbs of St.Kilda and Richmond. Contains autobiographical and philosophical poems, poem about Freya Stark, poem about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. $22 post-free within Australia.  

The heart at 3 a.m.

Second collection. Includes poems set in Rome, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Egypt, Sudan and outback Australia. Also contains ultra-short poems. $15 post-free within Australia.  

At Brunswick Heads, New South Wales, September 2006

The river is brown-hued, wide.

In its shallows small black fish appear,

hyphens of life,

pleasing barefoot children.

The river is pelican-ushered to the sea.                       

 

The beach curves south to a crop of hills

where a white lighthouse stands,

its spiralling stairs now climbed

by camera-burdened tourists.

In the sky, there’s a small plane, silver-bellied, 

gone when you turned 

to a Ruth Rendell paperback.

 

This coastline asks you to name yourself,

fisherman, beachcomber, surfer, retiree,

to examine whether you’re more than that.

 A gull,

eases from rock to sky,

becomes a speck and miracle

to a small boy, a sandcastle lord,

standing sandy-kneed, squinting.

The wind, the waves, play their games of give and take,

the horizon searches its deep pockets

for the makings of tomorrow’s weather.