Albany Portraits This Week

The Wedding

Red HT GTS Monaro
Ahead of a red Ford, same ilk,
(Now there's a marriage of compromises).
Babies, Mums and Dads wait at the beach restaurant.
They don't fight for parking, this day,
Those white crepe paper ribbons over the bonnet
Give them right of way.

Tom the Piper,
Always a random element,
Just happens to be warming up,
On the white sand, as the easterly swell rolls in.


Cruel Flower

Rose sits, all legs. One ankle rests on her other knee.
She drinks beer and drags on a rollie.
Thin legs, thin hair,
With glinting studs in her ears
And hungry, glittering eyes.
She could be a guy, with that hungry look, I think,
If it weren't for a flowering of blood through
The crotch of her jeans.


House Fever

He jingles his keys
He plays with a plastic bag
He chinks coins
His fingers rub against each other, 'til they click.
At work, he doesn't do any of those things.


Year Seven

One day at school without his meds
And Lachie loses every single fight that he starts.


Ooga Booga

He's 50.
He's carrying gift-wrapped fish and chips.
From the fish and chip shop
To his family's summer house.
He recalculates the value of the ageing beach-house blocks
From last year,
From the last fifteen steps.
He really wants a piss
Because he had to wait so long
For the fryers to heat up
And there's too many houses
And not enough bushes.