Category: Literature

Between words:
Suspended
Like a gull’s wing
Cupping the wind
Before the bird
As if in thought
Swoops and snatches
A morsel in
Casual vigour.

In warm December 1792
the Atlantic sails. Port Jackson
wails and Bennelong’s family,
Yemmerrawanne’s too,
watch ’til the ship’s a speck
beyond view.

The rumours, all true?
Was your character all surface?
Or were you a clear picture
of fountaining moods?

Green-blue sea of promise:
I bob to its surge,
waist then face submerged,
salty water up my nose,
lips a Plimsoll line,
toes a gimbal on sand
ready for the ocean.

Wide-eyed and hopeful, my youngest daughter, Amanda, asked me last month: “how do you succeed in business?” Immediate, stock responses came to mind. Focus, work hard, meditate on the niche you can excel at, contemplate innovation, seek out mentors, and all the rest.

So you think you know it,
That statue in the Galleria
dell’Accademia? Wait. Before we
Get there, look for his last
Sculptures, unfinished.

Feet piston-push.
Muffled oomph!
Fingers grab bars.
Bang, swing, collapse.
Ten seconds flat.

Sniffs of irritation, bow ties,
sleek and snappy, in their eyes
eager to please, easy expertise,
starched white, jet black
connoisseur power pack.

Paused on the track, the sudden quiet
Seems to coax a mob of Big Greys
To stromp through the wet scrub, buoyantly
Springing, pogo stick jumps.

Be careful what you see.
Wretched hunter, Actaeon,
losing direction, stumbles with
lingering attention on Diana,
bathing naked.