some depend on a high
while others
prefer a low

there are waves which
want a mid and rising tide
another mid and falling fast 

not much is said for quarter tides

so if ever someone
tells you they need it 
quarter and rising
or quarter and running out 

know you've found them
on the reef 
where they've had one too many 
and are still 
waiting for the one 

summer's end  
though we had an afternoon ahead 
and a baby 
size orange
in your stomach 

dripping from a clear sea
to towels beyond the tide line 
tugged down 
into the great sun beam 

we unwrapped halves
of crisp white bread 
the butter 
lying thick beneath the vegemite
was our idea of yellow 

Peace briefly on the couch beneath
his yellowed ceiling 
now screening
the future. 

He saw a holiday up there -
nothing desired. 
Resting beside plump 
unbruised fruit
shoreline of lazy waves 
and something readable 
splayed asleep in chest hair.

Never happier.

Picked his wallet up and went  
to a place predictably 
thick with itch 
wind a stinging sideshore
tissue still scarring the ligament 
required for walks and
sometimes breath it felt like. 

On you go, there you are.   
Even the king bed 
seemed to desire 
another body. 
One of these strangers 
by the bain-marie
sun-taut and stinking of his same
muscular gel 
his tube of green repellent. 

None of them at ease either
upon seeing the rub -
that peace resides 
in lack of want 
lies untraveled 
in the afternoon 
complete on a frayed couch 
or abroad 
if you could be on that plane 
which isn't always elsewhere.

Just twenty seconds awake  
before the tale of my life 
took off again - 

what to worry about, 
quest for enlightenment, 
flourishing, 
who I am and 
so forth.

Fk off I pled,
sitting on the bed's edge 
and by grace came another twenty.  

Simply the sound 
of early walkers,  
voices lifting over pigeon murmur.

Felt my feet on the lightless floor,
the gleaming tap,  
water cold across 
my eyelids. 

Last Thursday 
there were moments 
with nothing yet to be. 

turned out by thoughts
hurried as famished thieves

fingering trampling chucking 
sausages to my dogs 

relentless have they 
trashed your joint too?

one day I'll keep  
nothing they find of value

cough impatiently
or sit heavily down on the bed again
in hope
of waking you
as I might’ve days before

sleep's a blessing yes
so is finding  
what’s changed in the night

sunrise engoldens
new fur on your dome
the croissants of your legs
are lengthening

now you 
sigh
open your fist 
rest fingers on plumpening cheek
a gooey eye creaks toward opening

so I prepare to say something
brightly nonsensical
but you just

smile and simply
continue dreaming or
whatever it is
you’re getting up to in there

fourteen he pounced on the beast
yanked it out the grevillea
thumb cinched the nape 
in shades motherly 
   until he hoisted that scaredy cat 
   above our fledgling eyes 
   and legged it along the cliff

Maroubra’s distant headland 
had all day served us smoulder 
on a southerly which doubled as we whisked 
through scrub and palings tailing this  

elder minor 
found stationary over the sea pulse 
   where

pleas were beaten by brittle laughter
paws reached for nil but night air 
and glands begged new dominion 
scentlessly amidst a combusting understory  
of wattle banksia 
all the idle litter 
that fire was razing in the distance

Blue Pacific - Arthur Streeton (1890)

Well I was on the beach listening in a drizzle.
Ready and then some.
Two raincoats on.
Boiled egg in each pocket.
In time to watch the tide drop.

Metal post driven into the dune. 
Egg in hand I tapped the shell and found
the albumen spew forth on
the verge of liquid.

Yolk sighing on the rim of the steel. 
Fingers at childish play with
underdone glubs and splinters of shell.

Sticky hands splayed to the sky needing rain now. 
Two raincoats on for the weather which never came.

Photo: Deni McIntyre

the waves slow
we queued neatly
some watching the headland
where a wood chipper had parked
beside the tree barrelled over

its short years 
now understood the southerly
 
old Steve stroked over
interrupted the lot of us to say 
this same wind had grown
the bones of both his ears closed

we'd been talking
about something I can't recall
but not the tree

so a crude pause followed
some searching his line of logic
others ignoring 
and in the silence
I heard him whimper
like a pup 
turn his board bitterly
break for the wave not his

the top of the order jolted

first in line said pull off
second reached to snag his leg rope
and fell short for

Steve was on
ears sealed to insult
soon to be a gliding silhouette
distant in the swallowing water 
the light of autumn

photo - Federica Gentile

legs in wetsuits dangling in the murk
we sat
like black pudding
marbled meat and merlot

a cow in the shipping lane
dead and rolling out
on an exhausted tide of
mine tailings and gasoline
made drugged lunch for the fish

shit flood they said
one in a hundred year luck as
we bobbed
waiting for river mouth waves

until 
the surface thrashed a fin
panic drowned reason
and our flock flapped
madly back to the breakwall
where scrambling up
we of course

met the others
clambering 
down

poised
to seize waves we hadn't
steady 
to the point of exasperation
reckoning the rotting fleet 
of cattle carcasses 
had fed the sharks yesterday
this morning and this afternoon  

no worries
they skimmed out into the effluent

and rain came down
in drops the weight of mullet
for days down 
until the river sank the bank
and children swam through low streets  
where dogs stir crazy 
yelped out
from the wooden islands of their porches 

@waynoflix

trust me brother

you said
as we took shots on goal
one training day

in battle
soldiers get leg-ups
any way they can

but we were not soldiers
and you not so much a history buff
as a man tied in tales

of Nazis fighting on meth's edge
Hashashins plotting in smoky rooms
how the French knocked back the plonk
the Burmese bit betel nut
and Russians ravened the commissar's vodka

had I known then I'd have told you  
that soldiers also fought for
post with pressed flowers from home
and scripture stuck in breast pockets

but these were not the men you had in mind
Saturday mornings that season 

as you came charging from your Nissan in the carpark
to the halfway line in the nick of time
bothered as you followed 
your dripping 
raw tipped 
nose

in the first load of furniture 
I took an easy chair to the balcony
and found two new pigeon eggs in the planter box

on the day they'd given us keys
we'd walked one egg each
your idea
to the park down the road 
and rested them under the lomandra

worse now I was alone
with the pigeon who'd heard me arrive
watching on the building opposite
her eyes little wonder-circles

who knows what she thought when I went inside
to the toilet
smashed her orange eggs against the bowl
and returned empty handed

what she thought as I stood a moment on the balcony
then sat quietly
back in the chair I'd brought 

Waiting On A Train

I was staring at the station ceiling
so tall you could've hid a cathedral beneath it
in this city of cathedrals
and when I turned a man was making 
with less than half-effort
an attempt to sell me his ticket before
I could get to the machine

no grazie - 
though he nodded and walked away 
before the words were out of my mouth  

waiting later I saw him again 
in the park by the station 
where the blankets hang from branches 
he and uncounted others 
Dhaka Khartoum Abeche 
in some way all through Tripoli

and around us the fountain was a haze 
of laughter and Lucky Strikes
so thick we could have sent a message 
to who I don't know
and how best to capture
in smoke this boredom and urgency
could have kept us up all night

The Blanket

each morning that year I was rolled tight 
pressed to the bottom of a black backpack
having been his night's cocoon 

Khartoum we crossed like this
Abeche and Tripoli bundled
over the Mediterranean on sweating shoulder

but see me now 
full bodied from the branches 
evening hanging up on this alpine town 

as down beneath me sit
the small circle of men 
their transient haze of laughter 

and Lucky Strikes thick among 
my yawning fibres my stitches
snapping in a small ecstasy 

it took all youth to reach

from The Mapping Journey, Bouchra Khalili

this week the staffroom laughed
when through the louvres we heard
the kid with the speech impediment
who'd issued fuck off
to every task asked of him
hit spat and kicked  
at the rest of Red class

yell out that he
hates his wife!
when really he meant to say that he
hates his life!

and at the end of that long first week
the effect of his impairment
was much funnier
than the fact that he'd really had
no holiday at all

in a briefing we were told
that at the end of last term
his mother's new boyfriend
came interstate
moved in gifting a Knights hat
before he saw
their stash of vacation cash
and up and left

in the back carriage
of a train bound north or south
we imagine the man departing
with no opportunity now to see
what we see -
the way that kid wears the Knights hat
daily down around his eyebrows
the way he shuffles to keep in shadow

but it's possible the man heard
the funny voice from under the hat
in just the same way we had
and smiled
at least
I've seen it turn a room  
of the best of us
chuckling into teacups 

here's my off-white mug with surfer on it
standing on the shore enjoying
it's safe to assume 
a durrie 

and round the other side he paddles 
a board too big 
toward a wave pitching early
too early for him to duck beneath 

now on the mug's inside  
at the bottom when the coffee's gone
there's a shark 
or rather 
just the cold cobalt fin of it

which would move even the abstinent  
quicker than caffeine 
to shore to stand 
cigarette between the fingers warm
sand between the toes

padding my kitchen floor
in the humid dark of predawn
these feet amass what fell    
from the baby's plate last night

cheese grated to a dust gone gluey
and on the cusp of overripeness
watermelon smuggled like a dessert
between my final two toes

into bed beside
her noiseless dreaming
only two things stir the morning:
one myna beyond the curtain

and then down the bed the dog  
fourteen and here before all this
nose eagering from sleep toward the feet
I leave outside the sheet for him 

water clear to the sea floor
one friend in cooee and
not a knot to vein the surface
over which flit shifting
birds of the morning 

a moment since 
riding there inside  
a perfect circle 
sailing through sea grass 
turning foam  
agape
blown into the channel 
thinking 
could die easy like this

but paradise 
is no escape from the rules 
mandated day dot
that every pleasure ticks away
anticlockwise by the millisecond
within the caveman brain 

so watch the left then right arm
pull the ocean back
for more

sniffing out scraping into
one better wave
two better three

tooth fillings ground down as 
tallies build an
ever increased numerator
ever improved experience

no rest for the wicked and
for the righteous 
none 

there was a time 


say  

first year of the new millennium 

when I felt I could just about walk in anywhere  

ten years old lingering 

down the side of your house 

back yard garage roof clambering like  

something with a tail  

up on the fenceline 



I was uninterested in neighbourhood cats 

slowed never to read a collar or consider their lives in 

the Balls' hydrangea  

Dempsey's little laundry outpost with its 

family photos  

its perfumed kitty litter its 

pristine shitter



three properties I'd cross to 

to get nearer Mr Soden 

where I felt easy as 

close to his death  

behind glass 

the old widower 

evening dimming 

gently on his couch sat  

for Wheel of Fortune 



I wonder, were we alike in our worry 

for the three contestants 

their choice of consonants  

the price of their vowels  

their hopes spinning from main game 

to bonus round to final spin? 



it's possible Mr Soden was a man  

for the colour of it all  

for the cheerful wheel of opportunity 

and for luck  

as much as strategy 



but of course, twirling the letters with joy 

was Adriana  

hostess in the gold dress 

sequinned shimmering sleeveless  

the scoop neck  

the collarbone  

the legs 



and there was the back of old Soden's head 

never turned to see me standing there 

Howard Arkley, Suburban Urban Messages 1987