The New Asylum – Mayday Hills burning

How hot is The New Asylum? A timely question . . . No, not really. Today (October 22nd, 2019) there was a report on the local news of a small fire on the grounds of the old Mayday Hills Hospital. Not too much damage done and hopefully restore-able. The news reminded me of rapidly the …

Small Town Kid – the ‘Crackers’ poem

Anyone who has read Small Town Kid (my poetry memoir of growing up in Beechworth in the 1960s and 70s), will have read about the bonfire that always started proceedings on Bonfire Night: . . . then in the fading light the bonfire on the far side of the gorge is touched off to blaze …

ford street remains

ford street starts in the middle at the post office tower with the clock that looks four ways it’s the dolphin café that’s tried to change but always looks tired in the week that follows each facelift it used to be a barber shop but now it’s empty space the man with the scissors is …

quality light

A Poem a Day in October 2016: #15 there’s a good light in Beechworth when the rain’s been falling and the sun goes down a beam hits a cloud as it sleets by in regiments painted grey there’s a good light after the storm has passed perhaps it’s the cleanse that takes the blur away …

Woolshed in Spring

A Poem a Day in September: #30 Woolshed you are loud you SHOUT like an angry man drunk on the mead of mountain water I will not close with you I hold no trust no good faith you are a belligerence held too loosely a hungry waterfall you white-water spume your testosterone flings froth into …

down without care

A Poem a Day in September #21 down come the waters from rock-pool to shallow to fall and to cascade granite is gentled a-lull by the stream yellow and pink in the sun but moss must hold in the absence of any where its grip grasped to an idea of anchorage while down come the waters …

Welcome to Beechworth

Hello and welcome to my hometown of Beechworth in north-east Victoria, where we nestle in the foothills of the Victorian Alps, within easy reach of snow and skiing. The north-east is awash with pretty and charming small towns and interesting villages, but Beechworth is a special place. It sits in the centre of an historical golden …

arthur and alice

arthur and alice found each other one day back in fifty-nine he was a young man with hair slicked and tongue tied no aspiration greater than a seat at the flicks with a girl as beautiful as… alice was a slender reed hardly of an age to say yes to next saturday night if her …