This will hurt me...

Angry sticker #1. Paternoster Row, North Hobart. July 2013. Another one from Ezra! Lament of the Frontier Guard , Ezra Pound By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand, Lonely from the beginning of time until now! Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn. I climb the towers and towers to watch out the barbarous land: Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert. There is no wall left to this village. Bones white with a thousand frosts, High heaps, covered with trees and grass; Who brought this to pass? Who has brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn, A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom, Three hundred and sixty thousand, And sorrow, sorrow like rain. Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning, Desolate, desolate fields, And no children of warfare upon them, No longer the men for offence and defence. Ah,...

Words on a page. Battery Point (walking to work). June 2013. The best thing about reading books while walking is reading books. And walking. The Wombat , Ogden Nash The wombat lives across the seas, Among the far Antipodes. He may exist on nuts and berries, Or then again, on missionaries; His distant habitat precludes Conclusive knowledge of his moods, But I would not engage the wombat In any form of mortal combat.

Sunrise on the Derwent. Hunter Street, Hobart. June 2013. Don't kill. It's not nice. How to Kill , Keith Douglas Under the parabola of a ball, a child turning into a man, I looked into the air too long. The ball fell in my hand, it sang in the closed fist: Open Open Behold a gift designed to kill. Now in my dial of glass appears the soldier who is going to die. He smiles, and moves about in ways his mother knows, habits of his. The wires touch his face: I cry NOW. Death, like a familiar, hears And look, has made a man of dust of a man of flesh. This sorcery I do. Being damned, I am amused to see the centre of love diffused and the wave of love travel into vacancy. How easy it is to make a ghost. The weightless mosquito touches her tiny shadow on the stone, and with how like, how infinite a lightness, man and shadow meet. They fuse. A shadow is a man when the mosquito death approaches.

Mount Wellington in Winter. As seen from Battery Point. June 2013. Can you guess today's Sunday Top Five ? Phaseolus vulgaris. Cicer arietinum Pisum sativum. Lens culinaris. Pisum sativum.

10 Murray Street, Hobart. April 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Walking to work. Murray Street, looking out over Sullivans Cove. March 2013. Wordless Wednesday.

Buildings. Murray Street, Hobart. October 2012. The Basque History of the World , Mark Kurlansky. Entertaining history of a fascinating people. Bonus points for the recipes! B . Barbed Wire: A History , Olivier Razac. A political and cultural history of barbed wire. Razac focuses on focuses on the use of barbed wire in three crucial aspects of modern history: by American ranchers during the mid/late 1800s to both parcel up land for private use and end the roaming ways of Native Americans; as an effective killer in the defensive stalemates of World War One; and lastly that of the concentration camps of World War Two. Quite French, but don't hold that against it... B . The Invisible Man , H.G. Wells. An exciting little tale of an insane anti-hero that becomes increasingly pathetic. Staring with a slight comic start, it shifts into a darker, more subtle satire. Excellent stuff. B+ .

Shadows. Mayfair Plaza Car Park, Sandy Bay. October 2012. As you know, the Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and RSS feeds.) The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... Detecting the sea change in men’s feelings for their children. A scary story about the brave new online world, young people and the casual ease with which pictures can get them into trouble ... Tales from 1973 Chile... How did milk help found Western civilization? Mali: no rhythm or reason as militants declare war on music.

Corners. Castray Esplanade, Hobart waterfront. October 2012. I like looking up while standing at the corners of buildings. What can I say? Poetry , Marianne Moore I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine. Hands that can grasp, eyes that can dilate, hair that can rise if it must, these things are important not because a high-sounding interpretation can be put upon them but because they are useful. When they become so derivative as to become unintelligible, the same thing may be said for all of us, that we do not admire what we cannot understand: the bat holding on upside down or in quest of something to eat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolf under a tree, the immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse that feels a flea, the base- ball fan, the statistician-- nor is it valid to ...

Oh dear. Sandy Bay Road, Sandy Bay. August 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Bandstand. St David's Park, Hobart. August 2012. I can't be one-hundred percent certain, but I suspect that this poem by the indomitable Philip Larkin might just well be the bleakest poem that I have read in my entire life. Enjoy! Love Again , Philip Larkin Love again: wanking at ten past three (Surely he's taken her home by now?), The bedroom hot as a bakery, The drink gone dead, without showing how To meet tomorrow, and afterwards, And the usual pain, like dysentery. Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt, Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare, And me supposed to be ignorant, Or find it funny, or not to care, Even ... but why put it into words? Isolate rather this element That spreads through other lives like a tree And sways them on in a sort of sense And say why it never worked for me. Something to do with violence A long way back, and wrong rewards, And arrogant eternity.

I would have added a question mark. Sandy Bay Road, Sandy Bay. July 2012. Theme Thursday ? "It's your EYES", he used to say. He said it a lot. "I love your EYES." "You have the most beautiful EYES." "Your EYES are deep whirlpools of adorableness." He might have lacked a good thesaurus, but he always seemed sincere. However, his fixation on her EYES always worried her. Even during their most intimate moments, he would start and finish with them. He would start by kissing them, gaze intently at them right throughout the act and usually returned to them with soft and tender lips before rolling over into a deep sleep. To be sure, he enjoyed the delicate cleft underneath her left buttock. He relished the suppleness of her pert yet full breasts. And yes, it was not unusual for him to dwell on the gentle curve of her waist or lightly tongue her right earlobe. Yet is was always about the EYES. Even as he left, after he carefully pa...

Decline and fall. Davey Street, Hobart CBD. August 2012. Wordless Wednesday.

Morning arrives at Salamanca. Shed No. 1, Salamanca Place. May 2012. Two books this week, both Australian. The first is Helen Garner’s odd short novel-plus-two-short-story collection from 1992, Cosmo Cosmolino . Set in Jeff Kennett’s Melbourne, the chaotic communes and share-houses of the 1970s now contain bitter middle-aged people, uncomfortable in the individualistic and capitalist world they find themselves in. Drifting in and out are younger transients less tolerant of the collective temperament of the 70s. It is a tricky book, quite bleak, but never completely without hope. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but as a capture of a specific time and place that now seems long ago (despite being only twenty years old), it does a very nice job. Recommended. Second up is a book that was a real revelation to me. At the time of its release – 1976 - The Glass Canoe by David Ireland was a Miles Franklin Award-winner and widely acclaimed. Time though seems to have diminished the est...

Clean your windows! Princes Street, Sandy Bay. February 2012. Tuesday Q and A and we continue to trawl our way through The 99'er Meme: Final Part . This week, I reveal the origin of my marriage! 76) In your opinion, what makes a great relationship? In the immortal words of Bananrama: Love, Truth and Honesty . And lots and lots of hot, steamy sex. 77) How did/ could someone win your heart? Aside from the lots and lots of hot, steamy sex? 78) In your world, what brings on more creativity? Being relaxed and having time, space and a bit of peace and quiet. 79) What is the single best decision you have made in your life so far? Cripes, that is a hard question. Accepting the offer of a beer from a very attractive lady many years ago turned out okay... 80) Why did you break up with your last ex? I never really had a last ex. Alternatively, maybe I am fooling myself... 81) What would you want to be written on your tombstone? I’m not keen on tombstones. If I did it would hopefully be suitab...

Seek and ye shall find. Argyle Street, North Hobart. November 2011. Right. Settle back, make yourself a cup of tea and read this poem. The last line makes it worthwhile. If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso , Gertrude Stein If I told him would he like it. Would he like it if I told him. Would he like it would Napoleon would Napoleon would would he like it. If Napoleon if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if I told him if I told him if Napoleon. Would he like it if Napoleon if Napoleon if I told him. If I told him if Napoleon if Napoleon if I told him. If I told him would he like it would he like it if I told him. Now. Not now. And now. Now. Exactly as as kings. Feeling full for it. Exactitude as kings. So to beseech you as full as for it. Exactly or as kings. Shutters shut and open so do queens. Shutters shut and shutters and so shutters shut and shutters and so and so shutters and so shutters shut and so shutters shut and shutte...

The sun also rises. St George’s Church, Battery Point; as seen from Queen Street, Sandy Bay. September 2011. A couple of books this week, of decidedly mixed resonance (and indeed esteem). First up, the good! I read John Braine’s debut Room at the Top a few weeks ago and enjoyed it very much. Set ten years from the events of that novel, Life at the Top chronicles the life and trials of Joe Lampton, a once ambitious man of humble origins who has discovered that ‘life at the top’ (well, in the upper middle classes) is not all it was cracked up to be. A fantastic snapshot of a certain time and place (England’s industrial north in the early-1960s), of a certain class consciousness (a rising proletariat and declining landed gentry) and a shifting gender and sexual politics. Life at the Top was seemingly lost in the rush of ‘angry young men’ novels that emerged in the UK in the late-1950s and seems now long forgotten. This is a shame, because it’s definitely a worthwhile addition to the ca...

Greek Orthodox Church prepares for a new day. Antill Street, South Hobart. July 2011. Cripes, I forgot again! I am going to recycle something that I wrote in a previous comments page just to stir up the possums... It concerns the outrage that many have with regards to the issue of gay couples having children. Now, my opinion on the matter is that too many people attach far too much significance on the concept of ‘ natural ’, which seems to me itself an incredibly subjective and contestable idea rather than some immutable scientific ‘ fact ’. Yet let us not get too sidetracked on that point. My belief is essentially one that assumes the only acceptable or correct equation in this area is "man + woman = parents" is wrong. Moreover, it is such a simplistic notion that barely seems worth arguing about. Surely anybody with any experience in the world much have collected by now innumerable examples of how the "man + woman = nothing like a parent (should be)". For me - i...

Self portrait in the autumn sun. St Johns Park, New Town, May 2011. Two photographs featuring Moi within days of each other?!? My ego must be getting out of control… Either that or it’s a simple cry for help. heeeeeeellllllllllllllllp…

Sunshine outside the Magistrates Court. Liverpool Street, Hobart. Back home. A lot to say, not time to say it. Suffice to say, Jetstar, you are in my firing line...