Brown Barrel
Body still, tense, only his
eyes danced with the fly until
it paused. Too fast to follow,
his cupped hand swept like a swift
from the sky and snatched the fly.
A skill perfected in Mao’s
time, when comrades had to trap
a mandatory sum each
day ΜΆ an audacious public
health measure. Expertise soared.
Flies lessened by the billion,
became precious as jewels. Long
-time aficionado of
Kung-Fu movies I reckon
there must be fly-free precincts
in monasteries now, where
to Shaolin monks, any swift
movement is a potential
threat. Where an arrow aimed at
the chest is cut by the sword
before it finds its mark, flies
in full flight would be sliced like
sashimi by the razor
edges of ritual swords,
I imagine.
Many international visitors came
to the mathematics department on study leave the secretary told me of one...
They are here in hundreds of thousands
padlocks with names inscribed or printed bold in light-fast ink. We imagine couples pledging...
Saying goodbye at the train on his last visit to Brisbane
I remember my father fixing me with steely eyes, as if he were...
Frequently I pause at a regenerating patch of bushland seeded
with surface soil from a not far distant forest and guess at the identity...
first I saw the dog then the form of a man threading its way noiselessly through the close-packed forest of gym machines...
The tub in our shared bathroom would have a waterline rim of grease and flakes of black skin if he bathed before me...
Enveloped tightly in food
mingled with indigestible sand.
Eat, the only way to move...
In general, none of the things with a given natural property can be trained to acquire another. Aristotle Ethics Book 2, Ch. 1
While I’m sitting at the kitchen table, she comes bustling through...
The sky is always dark and heavy as a stone, the streetscape is unlit,
inhabitants, it seems, have no desire
to have it any other way;
Were I buried unconscious,
face downward, on waking I
would think the sky below me,
for normally people are
buried with respect, face up...
While we supped the soup, my mind was wandering as usual, only fragments of conversation catching my attention...
Body still, tense, only his
eyes danced with the fly until
it paused. Too fast to follow,
his cupped hand swept like a swift