Performing poetry reading at La Mama Poetica
Melbourne, November, 2006
Picture: Jen Jewel Brown

Picture: Joel Deane

My father

My father speaks
a foreign language—
shadow meanings,
sawn-off statements,
same old questions
about the car.

When I was home
he never hit me,
he never held me
(he never knew).

We just drove round,
never touching,
always watching
what we said.

My father is a model
discontinued—
one owner only,
straight, simple lines,
doors that clunk
when they close.

Previously published in Zadok Perspectives, broadcast on the ABC's Poetica program and collected in Subterranean Radio Songs.

Picture: Joel Deane

Melbourne poetry reading:
6pm, Saturday, December 1
Victorian Writers' Centre, 1/37 Swanston St, Melbourne

My old publisher, Interactive Publications, has invited me to a reading as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations. I'll be reading poems from my 2005 collection, Subterranean Radio Songs.

One of the other readers is Paul Mitchell, who is a rather cool hombre.

Picture: Joel Deane

New poems

Some new poems of mine have been posted online.

Island has published Archimedes Principle, and Jacket has published Tuk-tuk. Both are from my second collection of poetry, Magisterium, which will be published shortly by Australian Scholarly Publishing.

Another publisher, Picaro Press, has agreed to publish a chapbook of assorted uncollected poems, which will be published in the next month of two.