sharps (pot au feu)

i am sitting in a darkened cinema rolling a spiky metal ringup and down my fingerspressing in sharpto stop myself scratchingsigils into skin again it’s history          soup that has been simmeringthrough generations...

Drifting

It's the weekend again and the rain lashes the windows.I'd had some thought of weeding the garden, but the windHas other ideas. These artificial distinctions we makeBetween workday and rest — we’ve been home for 63 daysAnd one blends into another. I could have...

The 6th Great Extinction

There are no platypus under the bridge again today. It’s the fourth week in a row and we all ask each other Instead of ‘hello’, “Seen any platypus?” — hopeful And each time, it’s “Not today… not for a while…” None of us know whether it’s...

POETRY

Waves

Waves

A poem reflecting on the feminist work at WIRE I’m writing a letter to feminism: a love letter, A letter of longing, a letter of hope, A letter of rage, a letter of solidarity. There are echoes of us all through time, My fingers on these keys are at the same time...

Know-it-all

On the ascension of Scott Morrison to the Prime Ministership of Australia We’ve just swapped one psychopath for another, If we’re honest. It’s just that one wore the mask better. In truth, the challenge will always be that Father knows best, or thinks he does...

Beginner genie

Beginner genie

This is where you make your wishes after all, three sheets to the wind, thumb rubbing up the brown glassy condensation, wistful, dreaming of Kristobal or Mirabella or Carlos, in your bars and your nightclubs, sweat and grind, the neck of the bottle between long...

Flotsam

Flotsam

These things are the signs that, despite everything,there is meaning and order in the world:Fibonacci spirals on shells and ferns,on cactus and fingerprints, hurricanesand the spiral arms of galaxies;lattices in chrysoprase and mookaite,lapis lazuli and malachite,...

2017 was born with a scream

2017 was born with a scream

1. 2017 was a good year for fear, a good year for screaming Not like some other good american years but it slid out of A year of celebrity death and televised suffering that we were all Only too happy to see the back of And in a year where somehow no one noticed how...

Stories

Beginner genie

Beginner genie

This is where you make your wishes after all, three sheets to the wind, thumb rubbing up the brown glassy condensation, wistful, dreaming of Kristobal or Mirabella or Carlos, in your bars and your nightclubs, sweat and grind, the neck of the bottle between long...

Time and love and magic on our side

Time and love and magic on our side

We may not win the battle, she says. And while there’s always fear, somewhere down in the heart-sore depths of watching our children grow, there’s always fear that things can change in an eyeblink, that the wing-free lightness of the trilling dancers of a...

Place

Place

There used to be water in California; snowmelt rushing through ravines to coalesce laughingly as lakes and lagoons and other summer indulgences. That was long away and far ago, in some strange before time when the land wasn’t riven with cracks and the heat had some...

The ravine

The ravine

Step off. Or not. It’s one of those decisions that hovers at your peripheral vision — are you ready? Wings unfurled at your back, that sensation of almost-moistness lingering — will they hold?

The trip to America…

In October, we went to the US on what Doug called the Tour de Harper. The timing was partly to make it to my cousin David's wedding to the ever awesome Rachel and partly to get in before Harper's plane ticket actually cost money. We ended up on nine planes in 30 days...

Politics

Waves

Waves

A poem reflecting on the feminist work at WIRE I’m writing a letter to feminism: a love letter, A letter of longing, a letter of hope, A letter of rage, a letter of solidarity. There are echoes of us all through time, My fingers on these keys are at the same time...

Know-it-all

On the ascension of Scott Morrison to the Prime Ministership of Australia We’ve just swapped one psychopath for another, If we’re honest. It’s just that one wore the mask better. In truth, the challenge will always be that Father knows best, or thinks he does...

2017 was born with a scream

2017 was born with a scream

1. 2017 was a good year for fear, a good year for screaming Not like some other good american years but it slid out of A year of celebrity death and televised suffering that we were all Only too happy to see the back of And in a year where somehow no one noticed how...

Numb in the whirlwind

Numb in the whirlwind

I stand, arms outstretched as everything i know whirls around me Smashed into driftwood and debris by the tornado of circumstance They say justice is blind but I can’t help feel she’s blindfolded right now, Held to ransom as random injustice rains down on us —...

Raw

Raw

(With thanks and gratitude to Robert Borden) 1. 2017 was a good year for fear, a good year for screaming Not like some other good American years but it slid out of A year of celebrity death and televised suffering that we were all Only too happy to see the back of And...