contemporary aspiration
places us
among distant stars
exploring the Heavens
populating
colonising and
humanising the cosmos
while closer
in lesser divinities
our homeless
in unsponsored isolation
await mandated relief

such is irony

First published by Friendly Street Poets
in Anthology 44 ‘Kaleidoscope’, 2019
edited by Valerie Volk and Nigel Ford

the police
are busy
dispersing
angry
riotous
righteous
crowds
on streets
in public places
directed
instructed
by lawmakers
who
legitimise
Big pharma
Arms’ traders
Big tobacco
Corporate control

those law enforcement officers
are
after
the wrong people

First published at ‘into the void’ in
“WE ARE ANTIFA” Anthology,
October 6th, 2020 edited by Heath Brougher
‘brutality’

she
like he
loves to explore
the unfamiliar
accessing
behavioural boundaries
discovering and
interpreting
shared experiences
and while questions
drive her search
he, in response,
gently touches
those places
she cannot reach

First published by Ochre Coast Writers
in their Anthology, ‘Ochre Ten’
edited by Dr Steve Evans, October 2020

in
the shadows
it can be
easier
to open up
to relax
and say things
that would mean
commitment
if witnessed
in the light
but

this is just between us

First published by ‘Ginninderra’ in
“i want that in writing”, a Chapbook
September 2020 series editor Brenda Eldridge

i could almost hear
the perturbation
inside his head
that unremitting repetition
of twelve
long
school years
indoors
underpowered
and i imagined
his dream car
filled with mates
knocking about
suburban streets
me thinking
he should be
on the open road
but he’d know
he was still going nowhere

First published by Ochre Coast Writers
in their Anthology, ‘Ochre Ten’
edited by Dr Steve Evans, Oct 2020

we deny
free-world corporate control
a population crisis
automation’s arrival
and our rampant consumerism
but
when a young
articulate
informed female
organizes her thoughts
and her generation
around a planetary crisis
         we cry foul and bay for blood

First published in Coral St Artspace in Victor Harbor,
in _this breath is not mine to keep
Opening Exhibition Oct 9 - Nov 21, 2020
‘another anomaly’