WELCOME TO LORNE JOHNSON'S BLOGSCAPE

PLN

2012-01-15T16:24:00.000-08:00

Over at my Wild Bundanoon blog site, I've put up an interview with poet, activist, Bundanoon local and mate, Peter Lach-Newinsky. Peter discusses various things including coal seam gas extraction, life with Peak Oil looming, the origins of apples & the drama and wonder of life on his beautiful property. He also throws in a fresh poem.

Check it out at http://wildbundanoon.blogspot.com

LJ, January 16 2012.

MT

2011-12-15T18:24:00.000-08:00

Mark Tredinnick has just won the Montreal Poetry Prize for his fine poem Walking Underwater. This is a big, big deal. He receives fifty grand for that piece. As we've talked about the business of crafting memorable verse, been birding together in the Southern Highlands and commented on one another's poetry, I called and congratulated him. He'd had a busy morning on the phone (poet laureates saying well done!) and was a little dumbstruck that he'd won. We ended our brief conversation talking about the beauty of Nankeen Night Herons (Mark has had a few of them on his property of late), as Aussie poets worth their salt (and pepper) must always do.

LJ, December 16 2011.

THE GUNMAN

2011-12-13T15:27:00.000-08:00

I called in to Adam Cullen's latest exhibition Aiding the Bet (with animals) at Gallery Ecosse, Exeter, on Saturday arvo (the above image isn't featured in the show).

Charles Waterstreet (clad from head-to-toe in black, imposing, & looking a lot like what Michael Hutchence may have turned into), friend of Adam's and also his legal backbone, launched the exhibition. He said, astutely, that the life of the Australian artist (whether writer, photographer or painter), is akin to travelling a 'broken highway'. Adam, though dapper in earthy-coloured threads, looked like a man shaken daily by the darkness. He walked sluggishly, failed to smile. Apparently, he takes much medication per day and has been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

His work, though it can leap off the wall and dance with you, polarised me. I wouldn't have it on my walls, it's too boisterous. One painting, depicting a Tasmanian Devil with seemingly bleeding eyes and face, stirred me, considering how the animals are being battered by facial tumour disease.

Back in July, Cullen was in trouble with the law for firearms possession and driving whilst under the influence. A Taser, shotguns and rifles were among the weapons confiscated. He'd been blowing up TVs and spray cans whilst creating fresh art close to Goulburn. He received a 10 month suspended jail sentence. His arsenal has been destroyed.

I guess we'd say he's a colourful chap.

LJ, December 14 2011.

THE TREE OF LIFE

2011-12-08T18:16:00.001-08:00

As I type this, I'm re-watching the humbling universe-meets-everything else sequence in Terrence Malick's bloated, ambiguous, glorious, dazzling and profound The Tree of Life.

I meant to watch the film in the cinemas, but life stopped me from getting there. I caught up with it last night. It is one of the most gorgeous and meaningful movies I have ever sat down with. Many have struggled with it. Some have hated it. Reading the audience reviews over at the Rotten Tomatoes website, reveals how polarising Malicks's opus is. So many people said they didn't get it and didn't have the patience to get it.

I thought the overall message was obvious, really (he said arrogantly): pay attention to life, salute the glory that encompasses you at every moment, always have everything in perspective, walk fearlessly and end every day with a considered act of forgiveness or mercy.

There's a poignant moment where a velociraptor-like dinosaur approaches another that is dying on riverstones. The healthier dinosaur places its foot on the sick dinosaur's head, but spares its life. This vignette got to me more than any of Spielberg and co's epic dino films or TV series. There's another sublime moment where Brad Pitt's rigid, cantankerous, discipline-obsessed father hugs his eldest son after much belittling and tells him he is a 'sweet boy'.

There's so much cinematic pap out there that gets financed. Thank god for Terrence Malick's vision and poetry. He reminds us to pay attention to every aspect of this torrid, confused, horrifying life and liberate ourselves from all that scares and harms us... and to keep reaching for the 'beautiful light', like Jim Caviezel's restless soldier in Malick's other gem The Thin Red Line.

LJ, December 9 2011

POEM #10

2011-12-01T18:14:00.000-08:00

WALKEN

Clad in threads as dark

as all the world's rooks,

with Dover scarp skin,

he lurked outside

the Lowenbrau Bierhall

one night in two-thousand.

I applauded his

considered embodiment

of The King of New York;

he rasped something akin

to gratitude, or disgust,

gave me nothing else.

Al least, he could've

smiled, laughed, hissed

like Sleepy Hollow's Hessian,

shot me in the bloody neck

with his weapon of choice.

LJ, December 2 2011.

POEM #9

2011-11-29T16:20:00.000-08:00

COOK'S RIVER IRONY

Ensnared by

pneumatophores,

a half-swallowed

shopping trolley

and someone's toilet,

this gaudy, framed

portrait of Ganesha.

LJ, November 30 2011

POEM #8

2011-11-22T16:02:00.000-08:00

WHAT WAS FOUND IN A SODDEN SANDSTONE CLEFT IN THE VICINITY OF FITZROY FALLS

Glowworms,

like misplaced shards

of kryptonite

or Hulk's tears,

carrying to mind

a Qantas run

in two thousand and three,

where,

en-route to Paris,

I saw the distant

squid-lights

of Filipino fishing

vessels,

pulsing like

fresh stars

in obscene obsidian,

somewhere west

of where eagles

eat monkeys

& militia

eat liberty.

LJ, November 23 2011.

POEM #7

2011-11-22T13:49:00.000-08:00

LAST SUMMER

Four cocky climbers

in naval frigate grey

jumpsuits, wave to me

from the wind-smacked summit

of Sydney Harbour Bridge,

as I sit below them on the burnt deck

of a Parramatta-bound ferry,

thinking of how so many of us

prefer strained friendships.

LJ, November 23 2011.

POEM #6

2011-11-22T13:35:00.000-08:00

SWAMP POEM

This clamorous

froglet nocturne

sounding, through

the heavy sweat

of northern nights,

like a room full of

giddy kindy boys

popping bubble wrap,

scrunching cellophane

and imitating cicadas

that night they were born.

LJ, November 23 2011.

POEM #5

2011-11-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

SUGAR 'N SPICE AND ALL THINGS VICE

The coroner's report

revealed a liquorice bullet

ended the gingerbread man.

LJ, November 16 2011.

POEM #4

2011-11-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

STRANGER

She

passes,

full-rigged,

freighted

with salt-spice:

he happily

drowns in her

perfumed

wake.

LJ, November 16 2011

NEW & EMERGING WORK

2011-11-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

So, the Judith Wright Prize for 'new and emerging' poets (that would be moi) is open again. Peter Minter is judging it. I got nowhere in it last year.

I'm weaving the final stitches into the work, which revolves around the significance of nature in the face of possible terror on September 11 of this year. The piece I'm editing has more of a scatty layout than usual. The lines have been battered my stampeding bison, constricted by boas. I'm proud with the fact that I've loosened up and structured something differently. And that after months of soft focus on this work, everything's become pointed.

And that in the face of knock backs courtesy of Perilous Adventures, Southerly, the Blake Prize, the Dorothy Porter Prize, Australian Poetry Journal, the Dear Dad collection, Cordite & a couple of competitions, I've leapt back on the okapi*.

The poem's due on Nov 15.

LJ, November 4 2011.

* Okapi: weird red-brown and white horse-like beastie from the heart of Africa that can licks its own eyes (always handy).

GURRUMUL

2011-10-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back, I listened to Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu's albums Gurrumul and Rrakala, back-to-back, over three days, courtesy of my father-in-law.

The music press has salivated over Gurrumul's work, declaring him the greatest voice Australia's ever produced. Sting's been stung, telling all who still treat him seriously that Gurrumul is a higher being. Punters twist 'n shout. I, though, have been underwhelmed. I almost feel guilty for feeling this way. UnAustralian. Unsupportive of indigenous Australia. Racist.

It's just that so many of his tunes are repetitive and flat and uninteresting. I never wept. I never fell unconscious. I didn't want to fly to Yolgnu country and become one with a brolga.

Can listeners split their reaction to Gurrumul's voice from the fact he has been blind since birth (his eyes are like opals) and comes from a remote corner of the country? Maybe not. With Gurrumul, you get this romantic package, a gateway and invitation into a world you've turned your back on, intentionally or unintentionally. Buying an album, you feel you're supporting something bigger than yourself, maybe easing indigenous pain. His long fingernails add to the mystique. And all the lyrics go over our white heads and that is so cool.

Saying all that, 2 or 3 of his tracks are gorgeous, their lullaby-like power haunting. And Rrakala's stunning gold cover and the inside sleeve shot depicting Gurrumul having his forehead painted white by an elder in a white dress, whilst a cousin/brother/friend looks on, is richly evocative.

Still, I don't need another Gurrumul album. I'm not interested in seeing him live. I don't want to read another hyperbolic review. Personally, I want Garrett to wake up, step out politics' back door and reform the Oils.

LJ,

POEM #3

2011-10-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

MALLEE TOWN

Abandoned main drag shops

like diver & chest-stripped aquariums;

a weedy, graffiti-eaten playground longs

for children's theatrics/tricks/antics;

an obese man in prison green

mows a tangled yard holding up

a ripped Eureka Stockade flag.

Some dusty figure in Rolf specs

straight out of a Drysdale canvas

stares at me as if I'm a drifter/saviour;

either a larrikin or a simpleton

has painted a grinning white elephant

on the side of a rusted silver silo

crowned with sleepy feral pigeons.

A small girl in a red polka-dot dress

twirls in the gutter outside the main pub

(a veritable fortress in Barbie racing car pink),

where blokes with Blundstones & kidney stones

compare faded notes on stoicism/survival,

whilst clenching XXXX & Bundy cans

with fingers stained gold by canola.

LJ, October 9 2011.

WHAT THE MALLEE GAVE US

2011-09-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've returned from almost five days in the gorgeous NSW mallee with an old mate of mine (and gun birder), Steve Edwards, as well as three members of Southern Highlands Birdwatchers. We were blessed with rich cobalt skies and unbridled sunshine for 95% of the time we were out there. Our home was Lake Cargelligo Caravan Park (not salubrious, but all we needed).

The birding was extraordinary - we saw dozens of impressive species. However, we dipped on 4 of our targets: Malleefowl, Red-lored Whistler, Ground Cuckoo-shrike and Orange Chat. We came and went from Round Hill and Nombinnie Nature Reserves, Sheet of Water (private property), Lake Cargelligo Sewage Treatment Works (as you do), various roadside spots between LC and Condobolin, Lake Brewster Weir, Murrin Bridge and Booberoi Creek, in search of birds. The entire area is a keen birder's fantasy land.

Here's what we unearthed...

GREY FALCON (wacko!; my second record - the first being out at Fort Grey in Sturt National Park about ten years ago; bird was circling effortlessly on and off over an hour above the old wheat paddock in Nombinnie Nature Reserve; distinct black fingered wing-tips; no flapping; obvious universal grey; silent; left alone by other birds)

BLACK FALCON (2 birds very high over celebrated 'chat alley' on the way to Round Hill; Batman-like flight silhouette clear against white of massive clouds)

LONG-TOED STINT (tick; one bird at Lake Cargelligo Sewage Treatment Works; zig-zagging flight; obvious bronze-edged secondaries; pale legs; a lot smaller than Red-kneed Dotterel it stood next to; there are very few records of these birds in NSW)

PAINTED SNIPE (tick; thanks to Steve-o who found this at wetland by road to Condobolin within seconds, close on dusk, after 3 earlier trips failed to unearth the nomad)

GILBERT'S WHISTLER (I was fortunate to see both a male and a female singing in one afternoon; about 8 birds in various areas in and around old wheat paddock within Nombinnie; may not have seen the bird had we not been using playback)

CHESTNUT QUAIL-THRUSH (tick; glimpses of 2 birds dashing between porcupine grass in the old wheat field; bird's soft whistle often heard; Eastern Spinebill-like call also heard)

SHY HEATHWREN (bad view in old wheat paddock; not worth talking about)

SOUTHERN SCRUB-ROBIN (as with the heathwren)

SPOTTED BOWERBIRD (close to 10 birds by Lachlan River at Euabalong)

STUBBLE QUAIL

WHITE-FRONTED HONEYEATER

YELLOW-PLUMED HONEYEATER

GREY-FRONTED HONEYEATER

WHITE-BROWED BABBLER (nesting near wheat paddock)

BLACK HONEYEATER (Steve saw many near railway line that intersects Nombinnie and Round Hill Nature Reserves after I'd headed home with SHB members)

CRIMSON CHAT (Steve also saw these, I failed to)

WHITE-FRONTED CHAT (bad views of 3 birds in swampy area along Condobolin Rd; different spot from where Painted Snipe was viewed)

WESTERN GERYGONE (more attractive than I recalled)

CHESTNUT-RUMPED THORNBILL (two birds by nest in dead tree branch at Murrin Bridge)

INLAND THORNBILL

ZEBRA FINCH (3 birds seen on barbed wire fence along 'chat alley')

PINK COCKATOO (only one bird seen during the 5 days!; are their numbers dropping?)

SOUTHERN WHITEFACE (on road to Murrin Bridge township)

SUPERB PARROT (circa 10 birds seen between Temora and Harden on way home; the male is a gorgeous, gorgeous thing; is it the most spectacular of our parrots?)

EMU (only 2 birds seen on the way to 'chat alley')

GLOSSY IBIS (a couple of dozen at the LCSTW on our first day; brilliant stuff)

BAILLON'S CRAKE (possibly 20 birds at LCSTW; out in open and confiding, to a point; also seen at the spot we recorded Painted Snipe; I'd never seen so many)

SPOTLESS CRAKE (a couple of birds found near bird hide at LCSTW)

AUSTRALIAN SPOTTED CRAKE (many birds at Snipe spot and LCSTW)

WHISKERED TERN (maybe thirty birds on our first dat at LCSTW)

BROLGA (2 flying birds seen fleetingly through trees at Sheet of Water)

BARN OWL (4 birds seen in one night!; all close-ish to Lake Cargelligo)

When it comes to reptiles, we came across a lone Central Bearded Dragon (handsome; yellow & light grey), a handful of Mallee Dragons (damn quick), as well as Sand Goannas (similar to Lace Monitors, but more indistinct tones and lighter eyes), when traversing Round Hill and Nombinnie. There wasn't much on the mammal front: a small number of Western Grey Kangaroos somewhere or other and a Yellow-bellied Sheathtail Bat or two, on dusk, over the road between Nombinnie and Round Hill.

This was one of the most rewarding bird sojourns I've ever been part of. Thanks to my fellow birders for the laughs, passion, skills in the field, camaraderie and laughs.

I can't wait to the next installment.

LJ, September 29 2011.

GOING WEST

2011-09-20T02:33:00.000-07:00

This Saturday morning, I'm off to the middle of NSW for 5 days, to search for rare and endangered birds. The mallee is meant to be glorious at the moment. It's been a demanding (yet rich and rewarding) school term and I can't wait to tune out and replenish myself.

LJ, September 20 2011

POEM #2

2011-08-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

A brief poem (of the times)...

Shooting, burning,

looting, churning;

hooting, yearning:

rebooting, turning?

LJ, August 25 2011.

JESUS JONES AT THE ENMORE

2011-08-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

I was spellbound by Jesus Jones and The Wonder Stuff at The Enmore last night. The gig was fantastic.

I've been a Jesus Jones fan ever since the early 90s. Their performance was gutsy, tight, polished, with tremendous physicality and presence; Get a Good Thing, Zeroes and Ones, Right Here Right Now and Info Freako were the essentials on the playlist. My mate Andre (Gallery Ecosse's captain) and I met JJ's vocalist Mike Edwards, at the back of The Enmore, post the gig. He was an amicable, humorous and modest chap, unexpectedly dapper in a purple shirt. We got the band's bass player, who was having a smoke in the back alley, to fetch Mike especially for us (you gotta love a frontman who doesn't mind meeting a couple of fans and appears to have zero ego). The band's off to Tokyo tomorrow - they've always been a big deal in Japan.

It was surreal to see the red skivvy clad member of The Wiggles queueing for an expensive beer ($7.50 for a Coopers Lager can - give me a break!) at The Enmore's bar. He's a massive bugger. I was almost scared.

LJ, August 21 2011.

POEM #1

2011-07-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

It's about time I put some fresh, brief poems on this site. There's an old thought out there in writing land that the writer should eavesdrop on conversations so as to attain interesting ideas for their own arrested writing. I've listened in to discussions occasionally, only to be disappointed by the boring tripe dribbling from dry mouths. Yesterday though, presented a beautiful discourse between two maths teachers at work that was mainly lost on me (mathematics has always been my nemesis). I love it when the world isn't clear. It doesn't happen enough. Here, I've snatched fragments of their chat for effect...

WHAT I OVERHEARD TWO MATHS TEACHERS SAYING ON PI DAY

it's moving away

from the origin,

slowing down -

velocity has

to be positive -

kids will end up

with a negative

LJ, July 23 2011

MID-WINTER UPDATE

2011-07-21T20:19:00.000-07:00

Over the daily deluges... delighted by all the starbursts of wattle in Morton National Park (particularly on monochromatic days)... coordinating almost one-hundred and fifty Year Eleven students at Magdalene CHS... trying to marry poignancy with wit and pyrotechnical variation in one-hundred and fifty lines of poetry on Aussie birds for the Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize (a chapbook is the prize)... feeling Hicks should make some money from his Guantanamo book which I read a whilst back (the man went through unjust crap none of us would want, or possibly cope with, so what's a little return?)... I'm up to over one-hundred and twenty birds on my hometown list... keen to see The Tree of Life... impressed by Rango which I saw with my son (there's a beautiful scene where Rango hits the road alone and dodges traffic and bumps into a Clint Eastwood doppelganger posing as mystic; Hans Zimmer's score is exquisite)... Bloc Party and The Cure dominating the stereo... wondering if Gillard will last as a PM... thrilled the Greens have balance of power... loving the varied shows at Exeter's art-space Gallery Eccosse (shout outs to Andre/Nina)... looking forward to trekking out to the precious mallee stretches and bluebush scrub reaches of Round Hill and Nombinnie Nature Reserves in central NSW in my next school holidays (bring on a Red-lored Whistler)...

LJ, July 22 2011

MEANJIN - VOLUME 70

2011-06-15T05:15:00.001-07:00

My sincere thanks to Judy Beveridge for accepting my aphoristic poem Equidae for the latest edition of Meanjin, now in really, really good bookstores (eg Gleebooks, where there are about twenty copies). It is a joy to be in the journal, surely one of Australia's most essential and respected publications (still going strong since 1940!). My thanks also goes to Deputy Editor of Meanjin, Zora Sanders, for her attention to detail and professionalism.

Equidae was awarded second place in 2008's Shoalhaven Literary Award, judged by Jennifer Compton. I have dedicated the poem to her. I was fortunate to have Jen as a mentor of sorts several years ago - she generously read my poems late at night and offered up insights, criticisms and wisdom. She is also a horse lover.

The poem looks figuratively at the horses that have accompanied us throughout time. It's not a country-girl-feeding-apples-to-a-beautiful-horse-called-Bobo piece. Unlike my father-in-law, who fills his life with all things equine, I have no great connection to horses. They are venerable and awesome, but not creatures that attract me. I'm not sure why. Perhaps their flighty, nervy nature unnerves me.

Anyhow, I hope you gallop for a while post reading my poem. Look out for a slightly different version of it on Meanjin's blog very soon.

LJ, 15 June 2011.

THIS GOVERNMENT MUST BAN LIVE CATTLE EXPORTS TO INDONESIA IMMEDIATELY

2011-05-30T19:19:00.001-07:00

CHRIS LILLEY

2011-05-26T17:58:00.000-07:00

Chris Lilley is a super-gifted actor, writer, director etc. We Can Be Heroes was jaw-droppingly rich and imaginative. We'd never really seen such fresh and bizarre characters on our screens before. Lilley gave us characters who were compelling because they were riddled with narcissism (except good old Pat Mullins) and a real lack of empathy for others. Summer Heights High followed in much the same manner - more narcissistic people, more drama. It was a roaring success. I liked it less than WCBH. Perhaps the school teacher in me (seventeen years full time and counting) was jarred too much by Jonah.

With these two arresting series, Lilley seemed to be telling us Australia was full of losers, but losers we should care for, or, at least pity. I think. Was he also saying Australians needed to stop and reassess themselves? Was he saying Australians were in trouble? Was he just, to echo Ricky Gervais, "havin' a laugh"? Who will know.

His new thing, Angry Boys (backed by HBO), which I was eagerly awaiting, is waring. I so wanted to be hooked in by it. I'm bored by the many references to penises and testicles and scatology and bestiality. I wish S.Mouse would just shut up. Gran doesn't do much for me. I don't care about meeting the faux-gay Asian skateboarder. I'm sure there are scores of thirteen year old boys out there guffawing and wheezing at the humour in the show; I've barely laughed. Maybe, I'm showing the fact I'm thirty-nine years of age. I'm not sure whether I'll watch the entire series. I feel I should, oddly, so as to be part of the zeitgeist. What will I get out of lasting the distance?

I guess Lilley wants to polarise, wants to be a dissociative, wants us to cringe and moan. To what end, I ask. What can we learn from his chameleon's dish?

LJ, May 27 2011.

RIP LIONEL ROSE

2011-05-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

Sad news about Lionel Rose's passing. Here's a photograph I took a few years ago of a wall poster in inner-city Melbourne - Lionel is sparring with Elvis in Hollywood in the 50s. I love the warmth and energy between the pair.

LJ, May 16 2011.

NORTH EPPING

2011-05-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

I spent a bit of time as a teenager and twenty-something in the north-western Sydney suburb of North Epping. This was during the late 80s and early 90s. I had some good friends there; there were parties, laughs, drinks, grand days of dreaming and wondering. I walked in the forested edges of the suburb searching for owls and a spirituality often lost in suburbia.

North Epping has always been a still, leafy, expansive suburb filled with big, predicatable homes (that sell for over $800, 000) where wholesome families can live secure lives. It is a place of educated professionals with good money who drive everywhere. Most residents are Roman Catholics. There are a fair number of Hong Kong Chinese, Koreans and Indians in the area. Former Australian prime minister, John Howard, used to be the local member for the district. Everything about North Epping speaks of opportunity, opulence, solace, impeccability, safety and maybe, just maybe, grace.

In 2009, five members of a local Chinese family, the Lins, who owned a Newsagency in Epping, were bashed to death, seemingly as they slept: a mother, a father, two of their three kids (the third child, who attended Cheltenham Girls High School, was in New Calendonia on a school excursion at the time), and the wife's sister. Like so many, I was stunned and sickened when I heard this news.

Yesterday, police arrested the 47 yr old brother-in-law of Mr Lin, a Robert Xie, in connection with the murders. Apparently, he was stoic and didn't resist arrest when the police got him. That seems like the actions of a man who was expecting their arrival; perhaps, a man who knew, one day, his luck would end. Forensics and circumstance were his undoing. The facts are still coming out. What's harrowing, is Robert had taken his niece under his wing since her immediate family's death. He and his wife had also taken over the family's newsagency. They all lived within a kilometre of where the Lin family were executed.

North Epping never seemed a place that would court calculation, morbidity and murder direct from Shakespeare's page.

LJ, May 6 2011.

ISLET No. 5

2011-04-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

An old poem of mine, Suburban Pacific, has been published online with Island's other face, Islet. I extend a huge thank you to editor Anica Boulanger-Mashberg for taking this poem. The work comes from my days in Ashbury, in Sydney's inner-west - it looks at how we isolate or restrict ourselves, either intentionally or accidently, from beauty in suburbia. There's a resonance with the Pacific in there too.

There are terrific poetic voices in Islet 5... I particularly love April Krause's evocative photographs of seemingly barren snow-meets-tundra realms.

I wish Anica the best as she moves on to new worlds of words and leaves her editorial position with Islet. In turn, I look forward to what future issues of Islet uncover and hold forth as glittering prizes.

LJ, April 3 2011.

HOW TO PEN A SHORT STORY

2011-03-27T20:29:00.001-07:00

I've written a handful of ordinary short stories over the years. I'm not sure I know how to write them. Poetry is my poison; I can do (mostly) the fine art of distillation. Anyhow, I'm putting finishing touches to a short story for the $5000 Country Style short story comp due tomorrow... I haven't got it all together. What to leave in? What to leave out? How much dialogue is too much dialogue? Is plot that crucial? How does one end things effectively through the use of novel, subtle, suggestive symbolism/imagery and metaphor? It is what it is... And all it might have been.

LJ, March 28 2011.

VITAL INTEREST

2011-03-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

To Libya...

I'm guessing America/NATO's objective is all about oil interests and maintaining Europe's access to resource-rich land. Perhaps I'm too cynical. There's a bit of a saving-the-innocent-populace-under-Gaddafi theme thrown in there, which is a good thing. But how exactly are America/NATO saving them?

Hillary Clinton just announced, 'This is a watershed moment in international decision making' - nice and nebulous - what does she mean? It'll be interesting to see what waffle-dressed-up-as-important-justification spiel Obama brings to us in the next few hours when he addresses the US population about America's role in Libya.

So many hollow things. At least our servicemen and servicewomen aren't caught up in it all. Yet.

LJ, March 28 2011.

LUKE DAVIES AND THE FERAL APHORISMS

2011-03-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

Gleebooks, Australia's finest bookstore, provided the venue for Vagabond Press' launch of the new chapbook by Luke Davies, The Feral Aphorisms, last Sunday. I've always been impressed by the scope, intelligence, emotional weight and pyrotechnics of Davies' work. His poem Totem is one of the most impressive sustained, lyrical works any Australian writer has offered us.

Luke was a support when I first began seriously sculpting verse a decade ago. He once told me I was a writer going somewhere. His words have helped lift me when I thought I was a writer going nowhere.

I look forward to his next full-length poetry collection released in September.

LJ, March 15 2011.

MEN, MEN, MEN, MEN ETC.

2011-02-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

Charlie Sheen and Matthew Newton are coming over at 8 tonight for a game of Boggle. I'll probably break out the camomile tea and fairy cakes. We'll wrap things up about 11 with a few random readings from the Old Testament. It should be fun.

LJ, March 1 2011.

A RIVER OF CONSCIOUSNESS...

2011-02-28T02:39:00.000-08:00

Just back from Danny Boyle's 127 Hours (I wept at various stages of the film. I'm not sure I've ever put such emotional investment into a cinematic character)... Aron Rolston was interview on 2BL recently and said, pretty much, that he was euphoric when he cut his arm off... listening to fresh, semi-intriguing Moby ep... watching the frocks on the Oscars as I type (what the hell is Cate Blanchett wearing? Go Shaun Tan, go! how cool is Javier?)... questioning how God communicates his/her methodology/grand schemes when I feel sick and angry re. recent reports of burnt children, in Australian media (4 yr old twins in western suburbs of Melbourne badly injured when a garage exploded; 5 yr old horribly damaged when gas canister blew up on camping trip a day or so ago)... teaching my Yr 12s the Gothic-Romantic powerhouse that is Frankenstein (talk about well-drawn characters)... wondering how Liberal Australia still is... it seems a bloke with a Southern Cross tattoo isn't far away... just leave the Southern Cross in the Milky Way... knocked out that the original line up of Big Audio Dynamite have reformed (let's hope they tour here)... confused re. how Alice Springs' indigenous population can recover their dignity and intrinsic worth in the face of relentless alcohol-dependency, dope and crime (an insightful and sobering report by Nicolas Rothwell in The Australian got to me)... aghast some trendy spot in London is selling breast milk ice cream (who the hell would buy it?)... asking myself if Libya, Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain etc. will really move towards some fresh democratic angle or if dictators and their unthinking minions will always prevail... stoked, surprised and bemused that I've been interviewed twice of late for local publications re. finding 110 species of birds in my home town of Bundanoon (that's 13% of Australia's mainland and Tasmanian birds)... chuffed I have old poems coming out with Islet and Meanjin soon (I will give details in a future post)... crossing my fingers re. the Judith Wright Poetry Prize judged by Peter Minter... trying to sort out the plot for a short story (set on Stewart Island in NZ) that I'm writing for Country Style's $5000 prize judged by Cate Kennedy... tramping Morton National Park regularly in case of bedazzlement... thanking God and the greater world for finding myself in a rewarding place right now... I could be so many desperate people on the other side of the world... count your blessings, sew them to you heart.

LJ, February 28 2011.

BLADE RUNNER

2011-02-11T12:41:00.000-08:00

Blade Runner is the film that means the most to me. I adore it. Vangelis' score, Jordan Cronenweth's cinematography, Rutger Hauer's iciness, Sean Young's great beauty, all the incidental sounds/noises, that caracal-and-rabbit chase at the end, Harrison Ford drinking alone ninety-seven floors up whilst watching the blue-grey cityscape... heaven!

I first watched it in Sydney cinemas back in 1982 when I was 10 yrs of age (I distinctly recall my mother blocking my eyes during Tyrell's death, literally at the hands of Batty) and it absolutely thrilled me, lifted me. It moved me more than any other sci-fi film. I bought the comic, the sketchbook, the video, any magazines I could find on it. I have the 2007 box set now and I've watched every version of the film that has been released.

Now, I'm teaching The Final Cut for the first time - to a Yr 12 Advaned English class in south-west Sydney. What a blessing. I'm floating. What's wonderful is finding the devil (and all gods) in the detail. Another colleague (who also adores the picture) and I are completely pulling it apart and making links to Frankenstein, the companion text for this HSC study. Most of the kids are into it.

This is what we're picking up and pointing out to the kids (for any of you BR geeks out there)... some of this stuff I've never picked up before, even after many screenings... a dead African buffalo and a hunter on the lampshade on Bryant's desk, stacked mannequins in the lobby of JF's apartment, all the grog bottles in Deckard's apartment, what appears to be a sarcophagus over Deckard's shoulder when he buys alcohol from the seller with the eyepatch, the replicants' sanctuary (the Yukon building), fans and more fans, the matchstick man with an erection, the movement of shadows in Rachel's bogus mother/daughter photo, the story of the baby spiders eating their mother, the black and white appearances of Tyrell and Batty in Tyrell's bedroom (how they reflect each other; symbiosis), a unicorn in JF's apartment etc.

All these points have lead to expansions/metaphors and discussions on humanity, the frontier, wilderness, loneliness, yearning, American might, imperialism etc. We've also peppered our discussion with observations from Ridley Scott, courtesy of interviews, and commentary from The Final Cut. The students are in safe hands!

I could watch BR every day of my life and not be bored.

LJ, February 11 2011.

SUMMER RARITIES/VAGRANTS

2011-02-11T12:29:00.000-08:00

Over Summer, a swag of rare/vagrant bird species have turned up within Australia's territory, many of them from the extremities (Christmas and Cocos-Keeling Islands). A handful have been seen on the mainland and in Tasmania. I'm not a twitcher (a hard-core birder who drops everything to dash for the next flight out of wherever they are so as to pursue a rare bird) but a lot of me wishes I could've captured in my binoculars several of the outstanding rarities/vagrants that birders have recently unearthed.

From the outlying Australian islands we've had, during December and January... Chinese and Japanese Sparrowhawk, Watercock, Malayan Night and Javan Pond Heron, Yellow and Cinnamon Bittern, Red-collared Dove, European Roller, as well as both Hodgson's and Large Hawk-cuckoo. A White Wagtail turned up on Bruny Island in Tasmania. An Eyebrowed Thrush (a first for Australia) is in North Queensland at the moment. A Uniformed Swiftlet was also seen up that way recently. Perhaps cyclonic conditions have had an impact on the movement of these unexpected birds.

LJ, February 11 2011.

FIJI (PART THREE)

2010-12-26T01:17:00.001-08:00

FIJI (PART TWO)

2010-12-26T01:08:00.000-08:00

FIJI (PART ONE)

2010-12-26T00:43:00.000-08:00

Back in October, I went to Fiji for 5 days and stayed at The Outrigger on the Lagoon resort, situated on the Coral Coast. The resort had everything a stressed holidayer wants: BULA bellowed ecstatically from the strapping gatekeeper once you arrive, service with warmth, reef walking, fire and kava ceremonies, crab racing, coconut palms and golden palms and palms that turn you into the person you always wish you were, memorable international cuisine, traditional dances, Indian music, bar crooners, splendid lagoon and ocean vistas, resplendent gardens etc. I felt utterly spoilt and blessed to be there.

Several of the staff at the resort had lost their homes and farms during a 2009 flood that devastated the local area of Sigatoka; they were trying to rebuild their livelihoods and dignity, as well as provide for their families. Most staff walked or hitched to work as they couldn't afford cars. I tried to help out where I could with tips, but this seemed a token act. I felt, as a privileged westerner, with two cars, I was exploiting people. Then again, without me, these people wouldn't have jobs.

I greatly enjoyed speaking with the local people and hearing their stories. I made a friend in a gardener who sported stacked frangipanis behind his ear and a real passion for flora - he turned the resort into the slice of Eden it is today. I have his address: I must send him a letter inc. photo's of my local Highland flowers.

Fiji is more than just endless sunshine and poolside luxuriance... I get the sense that there are thousands over there struggling under military rule - there is no real sense of democracy - people felt nervy speaking out against the government. The land has been plagued by drought for years. Most of the geography between Nadi and the Coral Coast is a tattered patchwork of sugar cane fields, paw paw groves, fiery hills, goat-flecked waste and odd riparian scrub. Everywhere you drive there are poor peddling paw paws and polychromatic fish. The country seems heavy, groggy, foggy... yet surviving.

Touristy photographs from the resort are in my next couple of posts. These shots reflect the Fiji Aussies want to see and the Fiji most Fijians, I guess, want us to see.

LJ, December 26 2010.

VIEWER VS LUNATIC

2010-12-20T01:51:00.000-08:00

I've just watched Edward "Bear" Grylls drink his own urine in The Kimberley.

My life is now complete.

LJ, December 20 2010

MOUNTAINOUS GORILLAZ

2010-12-18T23:19:00.000-08:00

Some friends and I went to see Gorillaz at Sydney's Entertainment Centre last Thursday evening. I've been a Gorillaz devotee for some time. This year's offering from Damon Albarn and co. - Plastic Beach - is probably my album of the year.

The gig was a stunning affair; punters of all ages (ten year olds to those in their forties) weren't given any respite from an onslaught of mesmerising percussive bombast, guitar glamour and electric eclectic performers from Hypnotic Brass Ensemble to De La Soul (who opened for Gorillaz and almost knocked over AMP/Centrepoint Tower with their hilarity and temerity).

The pinnacle of the event for me was seeing my guitar heroes Mick Jones and Paul Simonon together. As mentioned in an old post, Jones' BAD is THE band that has meant the most to me in my thirty-eight years on Earth. The Clash is a close second. Witnessing MJ cut loose on his electric, show off his peculiar 'winged' dancing style and race after other performers with a huge grin, elevated me. And PS has still got it - his bass line for the Snoop-led Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach was spine-marrow jarring.

Much of the cartoons for the tour featured characters under seige, warfare, bullets splashed everywhere, and virtual band members losing their temper and being electrified ... I didn't really get the point... still, it was engrossing.

Damon Albarn is a visionary - his Gorillaz are unpredictable and dazzling- they're saving music from turning into wet cardboard.

LJ, December 19 2010

ISLAND #122

2010-10-18T17:53:00.000-07:00

I have a poem in the latest edition of Island. The edition with the cool, bizarre appliances-as-robots cover.

The poem concerns a golden moment a few years back when I was sitting in front of the TV early one evening, in Sydney's inner-west, and fire flashed through the western sky. I raced outside, adrenalised by thoughts of alien craft and abductions, to unravel what the fire was. Looking up, outside my front gate, I saw only poetry. My dad, a learned man often hoping for evidence of the metaphysical, is also in the poem. In a way, the poem is for him.

Peter Skryznecki commended the poem this morning, in an email, which was flattering; Peter's exquisite work has meant much to me over the years. It's great to be published in this edition with Jennifer Compton, who has been a mentor and guide, and John Kinsella, such a luminary on Australia's poetry scene. My thanks to Adrienne Eberhard and the Island team.

I trust the poem takes you elsewhere.

LJ, October 20 2010.

WILD BUNDANOON

2010-10-18T01:33:00.000-07:00

I've just begun a new blog about the verdant side of my home town, Bundanoon. Check it out - http://wildbundanoon.blogspot.com

LJ, October 18 2010.

TROLLEY MAN

2010-09-19T18:52:00.001-07:00

A big shout out to Charles Pickett over at The Powerhouse Museum who has put up my poem Trolley Man (published online with Mascara Literary Review in 2008) about Sydney eccentric and homeless man, Joseph Cindric, on the Museum's website. You can access the poem, various people's memories of Joseph and an extended piece on him composed by Charles, if you go to the 'collection' and 'blog' links and find 'The Trolley Man Immortalised'.

LJ, September 21 2010.

RAMBLE

2010-09-19T02:58:00.000-07:00

Sitting between boxes and papers and boxes and papers as I'm about to move to glorious Bundanoon... digging new tunes by venerable Aussie musos Megan Washington, Little Red and John Butler Trio... very much looking forward to Mark Tredinnick's Fire Diary (Mark and I went birding at Fitzroy Falls and Kangaroo Valley recently; we also read our work at a gallery in Newtown a month or so back: he was the headliner), Peter Lach-Newinsky's new collection through Picaro and Delia Falconer's Sydney... reeling from Tobey Macguire's extraordinary, otherworldly performance in Brothers - I didn't realise Spiderman was such a splendid actor... working sporadically on assorted writing projects (free time is as hard to pin down as Osama bin Laden)... over Masterchef (if I see George eating once more I'll gnaw through my left arm like a coyote in a bear trap)... sending equanimity, fearlessness and ultimate recollection powers to my Yr 12 Standard English posse who leave for their pre-HSC weeks tomorrow (may they recall how to spell Peter Skryznecki's surname correctly and scream like Lola!)... praying that the trapped Chilean miners get through.

LJ, September 19 2010.

THE SUNSET LIMITED

2010-09-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

The New York Times described Cormac McCarthy's play The Sunset Limited as 'a poem in celebration of death'. I read the play in an hour and a half whilst sitting in a bookshop in Newtown last month. At first, I wasn't sure what McCarthy was getting at. Was it a statement against orthodox religion? Was he saying something about the ultimate loneliness of all men? Was it a take on narcissism? Was he preaching that life is hollow and there's no point in looking for meaning? I think, ultimately, McCarthy is offering up a meditation on self-determination and freewill. His work is saying that we have to give our brothers ultimate respect - this can only come from harnessing objectivity, divorcing yourself from your opinions and not telling someone how to live their life.

The Sunset Limited brought to mind a week I spent in Balgo Hills in Western Australia back in 2003. Balgo is a mission, near where the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts converge, run by the De la Salle Brothers. I was there with two other teachers and twenty-five kids from Oakhill College in Sydney's north-west. At night, some Aboriginal teenagers would drift about with soft drink bottles filled with petrol attached to their faces. A colleague and good mate of mine would tell these young people they were messing up their brains when sniffing and they should give it up. They paid him little attention. I said nothing to these drifters. I didn't want my silence to condone the petrol abuse, but I was well aware of self-determination and freewill; who wants to hear a fortunate, spoilt know-it-all from Sydney on a soapbox?

LJ, September 7 2010.

A ROSELLA ON OLD SOUTH ROAD

2010-09-06T02:33:00.000-07:00

The other day I hit one of a pair of Eastern Rosellas as it sped over Old South Road at Mittagong. Framed in my shaky rearview mirror was an explosion of feathers and a struggling bird. I did a u-turn and drove back to find the bird bent, broken, almost still. Knowing the rosella was beyond help, I killed it. I plucked a striking emerald and turquoise tail feather and carried it back to the car. The feather sits below my car stereo - I felt I had to keep some of the bird's beauty with me.

LJ, September 6 2010.

INCEPTION

2010-08-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

I fell asleep through Christopher Nolan's Inception. Consequently, I understood everything in it.

LJ, on the last day of Winter, 2010.

READING WITH THE SPIRIT OF WHITELEY

2010-08-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

High on poetry, I read a poem at the Brett Whiteley Studio on Sunday afternoon during the open mic section. The poem, 'Paternal Song', a flowing pastoral thing springing from my son and I walking through the fecund stretches of Seymour Park in Moss Vale, and opening up the world as a result, went nowhere in this year's Blake Prize (I was dejected for a few hours the day I found I hadn't made the shortlist - still, life's in the bouncing back). It was great to broadcast the piece at the Studio and have it received well - one lady in the audience, bless her, likened the work to Gerard Manley Hopkins. I wish.

Hats off to Angela Stretch, Brooke Emery and co. for hosting the readings at Whiteley's Studio. The gorgeous space, with its more-than-a-moa-sized bird eggs on nests almost as expansive as Brett's hair, dead birds (I think I saw either a rock or elegant parrot in a box - cue a Monty Python reference!), range of interesting photos (inc. one of Brett and Malcolm McLaren - spot the difference!), vinyl collection, old stereo, multiplicity of magic art tools and magnificent 'The balcony 2' from 1975 (surely Brett's greatest work) is a beacon in inner-Sydney.

LJ, August 24 2010.

STURT POETRY BASH (PART II)

2010-08-23T16:47:00.000-07:00

What an honour it was to hear the luminous lyricism of Peter Boyle, Michelle Cahill and Peter Lach-Newinsky at Sturt Gallery last Saturday. The scope and power of their work was deeply affecting. It was a pleasure to read with the three of them and act as MC for the afternoon. Thanks also to Head of Sturt, Mark Viner, for being so interested in readings at the Gallery, and all who came and listened before the fire. Stay tuned for another poetry event at Sturt in the height of summer.

LJ, August 24 2010.

STURT POETRY BASH

2010-08-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

I've put together a poetry bash at Sturt Gallery in Mittagong for August 21. I will be reading my work with luminaries Peter Boyle and Michelle Cahill, and celebrated local, Peter Lach-Newinsky. Starting time - 4pm. Entry fee - $10.

Come along and tune out of the Julia and Tony Show for a while.

LJ, August 10 2010.

INVASION SMAZION

2010-07-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, the good ol' Telegraph reported that 800 Indonesians 'could' be arriving on our shores. The headline shrieked and blared 'Invasion'. In Abbott and Gillard's televised debate on Sunday night, the 'boats' (we're not talking dragon boats or Sydney to Hobart yachts here) were mentioned several times. Ah, the doctoring, fashioning and promotion of boat people phobia - how our media and governments love it!

I'd like to know how many people in Australia actually fear refugees/asylum seekers. How many of us really think people smugglers are 'evil' or 'scum of the earth', to quote a couple of Labor leaders? I'd like to meet an Indonesian refugee and a people smuggler just to see what sort of person they are, so I could form my own opinion, not be manipulated by the rhetoric of Suits fostering and selling paranoia.

Every Australian government from now to the end of the world will campaign on the 'here comes the gruesome OTHER, ready to take our homes, our jobs, our children' theme. There are WW2 echoes of 'the Hun' and 'the Jap' here. There needs to be sensible discussion about the processing and accommodation of asylum seekers from our leaders, not empty words about stopping boats from departing their destinations and turning boats back. This will never happen in a sustained, effective way. As long as there's war, neglect, tribalism, global warming leading to rising sea levels, genocide, hatred, xenophobia, religious persecution etc. overseas there will be hopeless people fleeing countries that are a mess. We need to learn how to embrace these escapees.

Vietnamese, Polish, Italian, Greek, Armenian, Lebanese, and many other races, have helped shape Australia. Many of these people were escapees. As Mick Jones, in the immortal Big Audio Dynamite, once sang, 'Don't anybody know that this city was made of immigrant blood and money?'

LJ, July 28 2010.

TEN POTENTIAL AUSSIE BAND NAMES...

2010-07-21T00:47:00.000-07:00

Deadset Nutbags
Azaria's 21st
Bogan Wagon
Where's Holt?
Bottle O
Inside The Rock
Chuck a U-ee
Howard as Beatboxer
When Keating Krumped
Spinifex

LJ, July 21 2010.

THE PRIME MINISTER AS WOOLLY RHINO

2010-07-18T20:20:00.001-07:00

Julia Gillard makes me think of the woolly rhino - hardy, powerful, unflappable, chilled out and unconventionally attractive. And, of course, there's the nose/horn thing.

LJ, July 19 2010

NOT A COMPLETE DOG BOX

2010-07-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

Currently, my life is all about the draining search for real real estate. I'm living and breathing dimensions, pest inspections, cosmetic needs, the search for cracks and rising damp, praying for extraordinary architectural bones and fitting economics. One local agent recently promoted a property by saying, "It's not a complete dog box". What an ambassador for the cause! I'm sure the incomplete dog box's vendors would've loved to have heard that.

LJ, July 15 2010.

IS THERE STILL TIME TO PAINT THIS LIFE?

2010-06-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

Driving between Burradoo and Moss Vale yesterday, I passed a woman near a ute, who was standing by an easel, looking east. She was painting the almost gold fields by the Wingecarribee River.

I cannot recall the last time I saw someone painting by a road.

Maybe I've never seen this.

LJ, June 29 2010.

WINTER NOTES

2010-06-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

A week or so back, at 8am, in minus 2.5 degrees, I had the pleasure of watching a party of five Flame Robins foraging in a cleared paddock adjacent to an abbatoir in Moss Vale. Unfortunately, the splendid males, with their electric red chests, weren't close enough for me to warm my hands. For the entire time, the cries of trapped bovines filled my ears. The sky was a washed out blue and frost lay everywhere like exhausted snow.

Two days back, at Fitzroy Falls, when the eastern escarpments beyond the immediate valley where the Falls centre themselves were painted with pink light, I showed my son his first Superb Lyrebird. The bird (a male - about six years old) was talking and screaming up in a tree, then it came down to scratch for invertebrates in the chilled earth ten feet away from us. The bird's vocalisations were extraordinarily loud. Steam came from its mouth as it mimicked the calls of six other birds (including a Pilotbird and a Satin Bowerbird) and pulled in the night as if a dear lost friend.

Looking forward to leading a birding trip for locals to the humbling green boulder, Tarzan vine and matted canopy kingdom of Barrengarry Mountain in early July.

Following the World Cup with interest. This will be anyone's Cup, with so many strong teams looking so listless, although I tip Argentina or Brazil to catch the glory. I think a t-shirt with 'Poor Harry' written on it could sell in Australia right now. Did he really deserve that red card?

Hoping my entry into this year's Blake Poetry Prize sings... whatever... Organising a couple of poetry events for the Southern Highlands - one, at Sturt Gallery at Mittagong in August, should be a small spectacular! Happy that local rag Your Times published a poem earlier in the month.

Questioning, yet again, why the hell we're over in Afghanistan, after the deaths of five Aussie soldiers in two weeks. I suppose oil is the answer. If only I could have a chat with Henry Rollins, Noam Chomsky and Sebastian Junger about American/Australian motives. Just how much of a threat are the Taliban to you and I? Sure, they're a worry, but do we need to be taking them on? An academic was on 2BL this morning saying that he can see Australian troops over there for another nine years of engagement. And at the end of that time, where will we stand? There will still be terrorism, fear and the burning of innocence.

Thrilled the Greens are polling so well currently. I think about 16% of responders are behind them. Will people actually vote for them on election day, however, or will it all be knee-jerk stuff stemming from main party disillusionment and confusion?

Teaching and teaching and teaching and hoping the students are getting something from it, as one does each year.

LJ, June 22 2010.

DENNIS HOPPER

2010-05-31T04:34:00.001-07:00

I've had a photo of Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider on my work desk this year. That revolutionary film is a song to the critical pursuit of freedom and individuality, the greatest and most vulnerable of human states, and its punk resonance always travels with me. I thank Dennis Hopper for it.

Renaissance Man, counterculture hero, director, star of over two-hundred films and TV shows, photographer, poet, drug lover, artist, art collector, visionary, nutcase and maverick, Hopper showed us how to turn life into a carnival, something to relish. His death from postate cancer, at 74, is a blow. I can't think of anyone living who's another Hopper.

LJ, May 31 2010.

ROBIN: WOOD

2010-05-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Let's tally the cliches in Sir Ridley (my only brilliant film was Blade Runner) Scott's take on Robin Hood...

Slow motion of hero in desperate situation. Tick.
Extended, animalistic battle cry from hero. Tick.
Panicking horses rearing up. Tick.
Spinning axe in back of villain's body. Tick.
Screaming peasants fleeing marauders. Tick.
Beach landing invasion sequence to end all beach landing invasion sequences. Tick.
Villain (the talented Mark Strong, wasted) with nasty scar. Tick.
Stale stir-up-the-unwashed-and-agrieved speech. Tick.
Boring credo to lift oppressed hero. Tick.
Gargantuan soldier who is made to feel small. Tick.
Damsel in distress who looks yearningly into the distance. Tick.
Megalomaniacal king knocking over tables in rage. Tick.
Climactic battle shown as blur. Tick.
Kiss between hero and heroine at film's end. Tick.
Religious and pious soul who actually has tough streak. Tick.
Heartless laughing soldiers torching village. Tick.

Sixteen... But I could have gone on and on and on... The film barely had an original bone in its peasant-during-the-Black-Death-thin body.

LJ, May 26 2010.

BUNYAH'S KAHUNA

2010-05-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

Les Murray's resplendent, variegated and heavily cerebral work inspired me to write poetry. I studied poems from his collection The Vernacular Republic when I was in my senior years at high school (1988-89). Those poems (among them An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow, Spring Hail and The Widower in the Country), were precious, precious objects that lifted me out of the doldrums. I have most of Les' work and eagerly await each new collection. I turn to Les when I need to be inspired and challenged. Les has read some of my work and kindly offered up suggestions. I've heard him read, in his pure, honest way, many times.

I've just finished reading his latest offering Taller When Prone published through Black Inc. The volume's overall opacity is somewhat detrimental. I felt like I was staggering through rugged terrain in a remote corner of West Papua without water, decent boots and a compass or catching snatches of a conversation in a nightclub whilst The Chemical Brothers and Aphex Twin were being mashed up at blaring levels. But hey, who am I to judge? Maybe I'm just dim/stupid/closed-minded. Saying that, several poems shone, including Nursing Home, which contains this beautiful line, 'in the pastel light of indoors, there is a lady who has distilled to love beyond the fall of memory.' For that line alone, Taller When Prone is worth sitting quietly with.

LJ, May 21 2010

BILL & TONI'S

2010-05-18T20:04:00.000-07:00

When up in Sydney, I occasionally have lunch at Bill & Toni's in East Sydney. With its ultra-modest interior stylings (ah, how I love those plastic chairs and ordinary tables), old pinball and arcade machines, shoebox toilet, walls covered in gig flyers, gaunt Asian waitresses who barely acknowledge your smile as you place your order, but still call you 'darling' as if they deeply care about your welfare, polychromatic patrons (wheezing geezers, sleazy lizards, standover and rollover men, shifty drifters, merry young families wondering how they got there, haunted musos and Muse-hunters), cramped layout and super-affordable Italian food (I always opt for the vegetarian focaccia, which, year-after-year, contains, solely, eggplant, cheese and tomato, and is served with a gorgeous snowflake-like paper doily), it's a love song to simplicity, immovability and nonchalance.

LJ, 19 MAy 2010.

NAMES FROM DESERT, NAMES FROM MYTH

2010-05-03T01:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, when I was at a cafe in Sydney's Breakfast Point, a mother called out to her toddlers, who were running away from where she was standing. The kids' names were 'Sahara' and 'Phoenix'. Brilliant names, though Gobi and Harpy would've been better.

LJ, 3 May 2010

BOGGED AT BELANGLO AND BOGGED DOWN FOR PICARO

2010-04-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

Late morning on Anzac Day, I went out to Belanglo State Forest (ten minutes away) for the first time to unearth a poem, a state of mind, a feel, an opinion, some sort of new reverence for those golden tourists who were stolen, and some bird species I've yet to add to my Southern Highlands list (it's meant to be one of the only spots down here for emu).

The place is a maze of dull Christmas Trees and dusty roads the shade of overcooked salmon. I didn't find a poem or resonance or any interesting birds. What I got was a bogged Holden and half an hour of digging with thick sticks to try and free the beast with zero fortune. I worried about the drivability of the vehicle. Luckily, a burly, cheery State Forests ranger passed by - on a winch and a prayer, he freed me. Another Great Samaritan saves the day! This time around, I bought him a six pack of Premium Blondes and delivered them to his home at Moss Vale later that day.

The rest of my day revolved around selecting twenty-six pages of poetry for the Picaro Press meets Byron Bay Writers' Festival prize due at the end of the week - the placements of hyphens, commas and semi-colons dominated proceedings. The comp is only open to those in rural NSW. The prize is chapbook publication through Picaro and a launch at the Festival. I have a fair chance of winning. I think. If I don't, the genteel side of philosophy will befriend me and I will go on to the next thing with aplomb and alacrity.

LJ, April 25 2010.

FROM HATING JEWS TO LOVING JESUS, I GUESS

2010-04-21T03:24:00.000-07:00

This American chap, who was an Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and pro-wrestler, who's now an evangelical Christian, is coming to talk at a church near where I live. I'm almost tempted to go and hear the bloke speak - see how he turned down a better avenue and realised all the errors in his days - but I'm sure his story will be predictable and there'll be a vast, cringeworthy Hallelujah Factor. It's great this man has left the KKK and found Christ, but why give a guy who was in that backward organisation any platform whatsoever? Still, where I live, there is some palpable racism stemming from Aussie jingoism and southern cross hijacking, so maybe his message is needed.

LJ, April 21 2010.

A GOOD SAMARITAN IN WOLLONGONG

2010-04-21T03:11:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I drove into the heart of Wollongong to attend an inservice at the Catholic Education Office. Before the inservice, my Hyundai's battery decided to whimper, splutter, moan and have a heart attack outside a major shopping centre. Immediately, a worker nearby downs his tools and comes over to check under the car's bonnet. He then drives his ute up to mine, connects his jumper leads to my battery and brings the Hyundai's guts back to life. When packing his leads away, he said, "People don't do this in big cities anymore." I was thoroughly impressed and offered to buy him a beer, which he waved off. This vignette, though not major, shows there is still a soul in busy commercial areas. I feel obliged now to help out someone who needs it.

LJ, April 21 2010.

MOSS VALE IN AUTUMN

2010-04-14T01:17:00.000-07:00

The leaves of my local deciduous trees look like they've been hand-painted with strawberry jam or dipped in molasses... the late afternoons swim in oceans of hallowed golden light... dog walkers smile widely and their old canines show they've still got some new tricks in them... big flocks of corellas feed on vacant blocks... planets show off before stars each dusk... high clouds are whiskered or reminiscent of the eyebrows of elderly men... blokes in fluorescent work tops drink and drink outside the pubs... the earth exhales the cold earlier... we consider heaters and electricity bills... and a cool new design shop in the main drag called 'Made by Others' triumphantly brings Smith St in Melbourne a little closer.

LJ, April 15 2010.

AMERICAN DREAD

2010-04-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

I've just been soaked in American Dread, a new offering from my favourite musicians, Dreadzone, courtesy of Don Letts' radio show on BBC 6. The track is infectious and groovy as all hell... it makes me feel utterly blessed to be alive... I want to jive and bounce from here to Los Angeles! Bring on the end of April, when Dreadzone's new album, Eye on the Horizon, is released.

LJ, April 2 2010.

THE US CAN BREATHE A LITTLE BETTER

2010-03-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

It's tremendous to see that some 32 million Americans now have health insurance due to Obama and the Democrats. It's a shame that not one Republican voted for Obama's bill. Typical.

LJ, March 23 2010.

PILGER

2010-02-23T23:56:00.000-08:00

John Pilger - activist, thinker, historian and champion of the left - has always been inspiring. His is an essential voice. I've used his books, such as A Secret Country in the classroom - his pithy writings help unmask our history's awkward, and at times horrid, buried truths.

In last weekend's Sydney Morning Herald, there was a piece by Pilger entitled 'When education favours division over diversity' (an excerpt from a speech he delivered at a recent Sydney Boys High School gathering) where he addressed life's successes and how we should assess ourselves as moral people. I love the manifesto/credo with which he concluded this piece - 'Go into the world and relinquish the safety of silence and make trouble - remembering the most important trouble is calling to account those who assume power over our lives.'

LJ, February 24 2010.

UNHAPPY FEET

2010-02-11T23:31:00.000-08:00

I heard, through Adam Spencer's morning radio show on Sydney's 702, that there was a stand up comedy event at The Sugarmill in Kings Cross last Tuesday night. Punters apparently paid $8 at the door to see some spirited local talent. What they got, unexpectedly, for their $8, was Elijah Wood heckling in the audience, then (drum roll) Robin Williams (cymbal crash) stepping up to the mic to do an impromptu rant on Australia for half an hour. I love Robin Williams' old Saturday Night Live work. He's a maniacal, hysterical force of nature. Williams and Wood are in town making Happy Feet 2 with George Miller. My feet are unhappy because they didn't rush the rest of me to Sugarmill.

LJ, February 12 2010

CORDITE BITES

2010-02-11T01:29:00.000-08:00

Australian poetry collective Cordite have an awesome egalitarian thang happening on their busy website... Poets can add their own lines to pieces currently under construction. Each poem begins with an opening line pulled from Cordite-published works penned by various Aussie bards, including Michelle Cahill and Peter Lach-Newinsky, whom I know. I've added a few lines here and there. Check it all out under 'Post-Epic' at www.cordite.org.au. My lines should be towards the end of about ten poems.

LJ, February 11 2010.

FEB

2010-02-02T00:19:00.000-08:00

Here I am presuming once again that people out there in Twittersphere might give a toss about what my brain wants to let go of... anyhow... if I don't write I fade... I've got Groove Armada's Black Light on very high rotation at the moment (Fall Silent, Paper Romance, Cards to Your Heart and I Won't Kneel the killers)... buried, finally, in the dense, mesmerizing pages of Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap... happy with a new teaching job on the outskirts of Sydney... still marveling at the Southern Highlands' unpredictable weather cycles... I've downed my poetry tools temporarily... waiting for pleasing publishing and award news... still attempting to fathom the anarchy, despair and waste in Haiti now there are over 170, 000 dead... what is this life we stagger and dance through?

LJ, February 2 2010

BUDDEROO PLATEAU

2010-01-19T13:48:00.001-08:00

WHAT ANGERED VOODOO'S DEITIES AND ANCESTORS?

2010-01-15T19:52:00.000-08:00

Roughly this time last year, I was finding it hard to select the necessary words as some sort of response to Victoria's ghastly forest fires. Now, in the middle of my smooth Highlands day, I'm speechless in the face of Haiti's recent earthquake, which has left circa 50, 000 dead. How, exactly, do I process this? The psychological effects of the quake must be gargantuan on so many levels for such a religious people (according to the SBS World Guide pub. in 2006, 80% are Roman Catholic, 10% Baptist and the rest of the pop. are a mix of Pentecostal, Adventist and Protestant. Roughly half the pop. also practises voodou). My spirit is with the people of Hispaniola and the aid workers who do greater work that I.

LJ, January 16 2010.

THE STUFF THAT MOVED ME IN 2009

2009-12-30T13:21:00.001-08:00

The people: my family and friends, Chevalier College staff and students, the indigenous NPWS mob at Morton NP, The Chaser posse, John Safran (perhaps the scariest and bravest man on TV), The Spicks n Specks gang, HG Nelson and the Bush Slam makers, all involved in constructing the first season of Underbelly, Shaun Micallef, Sacha Baron Cohen, the Eremaea regulars, all those at Copenhagen who tried to embrace the Earth, not stuff it up further.

The places: Monga National Park, Braidwood, Melbourne (particularly Collingwood, Fitzroy and Carlton), Morton National Park, Budderoo National Park (mainly the Budderoo Plateau), Berrima, Bowral, Mittagong, Moss Vale (for Seymour Park, my home away from home), Carrington Falls, Belmore Falls and Fitzroy Falls, Canyonleigh, Mt. Gibraltar, Yarrawah Brush, Robertson, Barren Grounds Nature Reserve, the wetlands at Mossy, Wombeyan Caves, Mannings Lookout, Kangaroo Valley, Cambewarra Lookout, Hyams Beach, Homebush Bay and Mason Park, Canberra, Lake George, various Southern Highland wineries, Sydney (particularly Glebe Point Rd. and King St. and Red Eye Records and the glorious harbour).

The words: Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Paul Ham's Kokoda, Dave Cullen's Columbine (a sobering, raw and incredibly dense analysis of the massacre at Columbine High School ten years ago, showing the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, were not victims of bullying and members of the 'Trench Coat Mafia' as the media reported, but confident, scheming psychopaths and bullies who hated the world and wanted to be remembered for murder), Robert Adamson's Inside Out, Mark Tredinnick's The Blue Plateau, Nikki Gemmell's Why you are Australian - A Letter to my Children, Dorothy Porter's The Bee Hut, Nicolas Rothwell's Another Country, Deborah Ellis' Parvana, Peter Lach-Newinsky's The Knee Monologues and Other Poems, selected essays in Five Bells (Vol. 15 No. 4 & Vol. 16 No. 1), Andrew Lansdown's Communion and Other Poems, various poems by Jennifer Compton published in Quadrant.

The films: The Wrestler, Avatar, District 9, The Combination, Seven Pounds, I Am Legend, Closed For Winter.

The music: Dreadzone, BAD (for unearthed track from '85 Electric Vandal), The Big Pink, UNKLE, Faithless, Boxcar (ah, they're back!), Depeche Mode, Bad Lieutenant, Pet Shop Boys, The Prodigy, Salmonella Dub, 7 Worlds Collide, Paul Dempsey ('Ramona was a Waitress' the best Aussie song of 2009), Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Imbruglia.

The birds: Lewin's rail (my first tick for the year), olive whistler (my other tick for the year), sooty owl, ground parrot (munching on stems on the Budderoo Track), superb lyrebird (listening to its extraordinary impressions of a myriad of other birds and wild music, when foraging at Fitzroy Falls, was awesome), bassian thrush, eastern bristlebird, southern emu-wren, beautiful firetail, dollarbird (skimming Lake Alendandra), peregrine falcon (circling my car and getting aggro because I was disturbing it from its fresh kill, a crested pigeon!), yellow thornbill (two of which landed on my Astra's revision mirror and proceeded to check out their reflection for twenty minutes at the Moss Vale wetlands), yellow-throated warbler (on its teardrop-shaped hanging nest at Fitzroy Falls... finding nest fallen and destroyed with broken eggs some weeks later).

LJ, December 31 2009.

TIGER

2009-12-12T17:53:00.000-08:00

I can see it now...

TIGER. An Oliver Stone film. Will Smith playing Woods. Charlize Theron as Woods' wife. Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton and Megan Fox (in a blonde wig) as three of his many lovers. Music by Will.i.am and Hans Zimmer. A number by Will Smith and Will.i.am over the closing credits. The bill poster all green, with a small black man in red Polo shirt and beige pants looking up at the sky, with a golf club in one hand and a bra in the other. The tag line: even legends have handicaps.

At the Academy Awards, the film will win best picture. Stone will hold his Oscar high and Will and Tiger will spontaneously run to the stage to hug Stone and smile for the cameras. Denzel Washington will be first to his feet to applaud. At the after party, Woods will cry and fall over a table and kiss a cute waitress on the cheek and Annie Leibovitz will take the photo's for a special edition of Vanity Fair.

And somewhere in there, Richard Wilkins will say something profound for the Aussie telecast.

LJ, December 13 2009.

THE ABR OF WRITING A POEM THAT ONE RESPECTS AND MAY JOLT THE SPINAL CORD OF A FEW LITERARY JUDGES

2009-11-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

I am crack-bang in the absolute middle of penning a biggish poem for the Australian Book Review's 2009 Prize and I'm reveling in every movement of its sporadic creation. This work is unguarded, ridiculous, fanciful and hopefully, resonant and poignant. It's an Australian-centred piece incorporating drugs, abstraction, visions, crimes, celebrities, wildlife, oddities, kitsch stuff and burning history's pages whilst still celebrating our magnificent, perplexing continent.

My recent sojourn to Monga National Park (and seeing an upside down rotting wombat by the side of a road within), Allen Ginsberg's immortal HOWL and the poetics of Anthony Lawrence were the bright stimuli for the poem.

One of Australia's great poets, Robert Gray, once said to me, in a Country Road store in Sydney, that writing poetry is like dropping stones into a well.

Let's hope this stone causes a tsunami... or at least a wave big enough for a well rat to surf...

LJ, November 9 2009.

NON-SEQUITUR

2009-10-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

Please read the comment attached to my Sydney Harbour Bridge picnic post below... I think the blogger/blogging crew somehow missed the point of my blog!

LJ, 27 October 2009.

BREAKFAST ON THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE

2009-10-26T16:52:00.000-07:00

Billed as 'the world's most dazzling picnic' and 'a once in a lifetime experience', Breakfast on the Bridge occurred last Sunday morning. Some 6,000 people sat on grass laid down on the car lanes of the Bridge, for two hours, to have a picnic. The event cost NSW tax payers a million dollars. What a joke. Bring back the anarchic spirit of 1932... Where's Colonel De Groot when you need him?

LJ, October 27 2009.

OLIVE WHISTLERS + WARATAHS

2009-10-11T02:19:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, I ticked a new bird for my Australian list, an Olive Whistler. I have now seen 522 of the 800+ species recorded for Australia and its territories.

I saw a few of these Whistlers deep within the Edenesque surrounds of Monga National Park, 20km south-east of Braidwood in NSW. The birds, along with many Pilotbirds and Superb Lyrebirds, were in the vicinity of the Mongarlowe River, where tiny pink waratahs were starting to bloom. The waratahs brought to mind the unclenching fists of toddlers or opening marsupial hearts. It's been a decade since I last came upon the floral emblem of New South Wales in the wild.

The Whistler's extremely reclusive and shy nature had an autistic edge. I was not allowed to get close to its spirit. Unlike Golden or Rufous Whistlers, the Olive is no show off. I was able to record three particular ringing, gutsy calls the bird made on my mobile. I don't think a lot of Australian birders see Olive Whistlers regularly. I'm sure many Aussie birders have never seen one. I count myself most fortunate.

LJ, October 11 2009.

ELLALONG

2009-10-05T00:28:00.001-07:00

I'm back in the Southern Highlands after three tranquil days on (and around) my father-in-law's property at Ellalong, near the base of the Watagan Mountain Range, deep within the splendid rolling reaches of the Lower Hunter Valley. I found myself unwinding and luxuriating within all the towering gums, seas of ferns and yellow box coppices up there.

The birding was tremendous. I recorded, in a variety of habitats (from yellow box woodland to paddocks with dams), 71 species from Saturday afternoon to today (Monday) at 12pm. The highlights were: Speckled Warbler, Brown Treecreeper, White-winged Chough, Grey-crowned Babbler, Little Lorikeet, Superb Lyrebird, Pied Butcherbird, Channel-billed Cuckoo, Wonga Pigeon, Brown Cuckoo-dove, Peaceful Dove, White-throated Gerygone, Yellow-tufted, Brown-headed, Scarlet, Blue-faced and Fuscous Honeyeaters, Jacky Winter, Zebra Finch, Boobook Owl, Australian Hobby, Wedge-tailed Eagle and Brown Goshawk.

It was grand to catch up with wildlife artist extraordinaire, Alison Green, and King of Trees, Max Elliot, when up there. Max told me a great story about when he used to work in a koala rehab centre... He had to 'tame' this koala called Blinky Bill so it would be down with the then novel idea of having its photo taken with tourists. For weeks, all Blinky wanted to do was attack Max. He clearly recalled Blinky biting him so hard, through layers of clothing, one day, that the animal's head was shaking with rage!

Check out Alison's website: www.alisongreendesigns.com.au

LJ, October 4 2009.

WHITEWASH

2009-09-30T18:51:00.000-07:00

It frustrates me that whenever I turn on the box, all I see are Anglo-Saxons in advertisements.

Australia is a vibrant, exciting melting pot of cultures various, yet we don't get that from our advertising companies. If an alien from Deep Field Six, or thereabouts, was to land in a middle Australian backyard, open a middle Australian back door and wander into a middle Australian lounge room to flick on a middle Australian TV (with more plasma than us), they'd swear Australia was comprised entirely by healthy and happy Anglos.

Whenever you do see those from other cultural backgrounds in advertisements they are usually caricatures jumping about due to culinary joy. I dare say that Chinese folks are more than the sum of their dim-sims.

It's no longer 1899. We aren't Brits or Irish who have been relocated. Let's move on and truly see Aussies the way they are: exquisitely diverse, integral to the way this land moves and valuable for our future.

I doubt the wholesome Anglo mums of Australia's sparkling kitchens (who do ALL the shopping and care-giving for their families' welfare so ad's show us) are going to suddenly cease buying wholemeal bread because a Lebanese family are advertising its appeal.

Yours truly, Insulted, NSW.

LJ, October 1 2009

ROVE

2009-09-30T18:42:00.001-07:00

And as for Rove... He's probably the greatest Australian who ever lived.

LJ, October 1 2009.

KYLE AND JACKIE O

2009-09-30T18:35:00.001-07:00

How desperately sad it is that Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O's popularity appears to be waning. Over so many years, they've offered this great continent of ours immeasurable wisdom, insight, wit and moral integrity... In fact, they delivered a great cultural renaissance when it was most needed.

Lest we forget.

LJ, October 1 2009

DAYBREAK WITHOUT BRAKES

2009-09-24T03:46:00.001-07:00

DREADZONE AND THE TYRANNOSAURUS OF DISTANCE

2009-08-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

Ah, how I wish I was over in England now, seeing Dreadzone live on their epic cross-country tour. I've never seen them in full band mode. The tyrannosaurus of distance is a grotesque thing...

The new Dreadzone album (due in 2010) should be a titanic affair. It's great to hear Dreadzone's king, Greg Roberts, has invited into his West London studio Tim (ex-Dreadzone/Subsonar) Bran, and Adam Wren, engineer for dynamic future-dub duo Leftfield, to sculpt the fresh offering.

It can only mean one thing: life turned to something celestial.

LJ, August 30 2009

YARRAWONGA

2009-08-12T01:18:00.001-07:00

FREEZING JULY SUN THROUGH FLYSCREEN AND GLASS

2009-08-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

PRIDE AND GLORY AND COCKROACHES

2009-08-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I watched Edward Norton's competent bent-NY-cops-meets-bent-heads drama Pride and Glory.

Accompanying the main picture was a behind the scenes doco, where an animal wrangler talked about working with cockroaches on the film. The man said it was important for the 'roaches to be "active and happy". I thought this was hysterical.

I can't imagine this bloke has too many mates. Or a wife. Maybe, I'm just being mean and needing to have a go at someone who is more nerdy than a birder like myself.

LJ, August 5 2009.

THE CHASER'S WAR ON EVERYTHING

2009-07-30T01:46:00.000-07:00

It's sad to see The Chaser's War on Everything has ended. I am a fan of The Chaser boys. They are renegades, fools, larrikins, critics, upstarts, firebrands and dissociatives. We need them. They keep us all in check.

LJ, July 30 2009.

AFGHANISTAN

2009-07-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

So, eleven Aussie troops have now died in Afghanistan. Can someone remind me why we're over there?

LJ, July 30 2009.

MELBOURNE AQUARIUM

2009-07-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back I visited Melbourne Aquarium.

I was knocked out by what I saw there: king and gentoo penguins in various states of bliss in an icy box featuring a cool pool (I thought the kings were robots from a distance!), jellyfish lit for effect, nonchalant weedy sea-dragons, various massive rays being fed by game divers and most remarkably, a leopard shark eating a cos lettuce.

It was also tremendous to see so many kids rushing from tank to tank in utter rapture. Animals are crucial for children - they encourage kids to find wonder, selflessness and empathy.

LJ, July 30 2009.

I BLAME MICHAEL JACKSON'S DEATH ON THE BOOGIE

2009-07-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

WET INK

2009-05-15T17:39:00.000-07:00

A poem of mine entitled Valley Pieces is being published in the next edition of Wet Ink magazine. I am chuffed.

That poem was drawn from a sacred time in Kangaroo Valley, on NSW's south coast, back in 2006; a time of Asian tourists running with wombats, ancient gum gloom, failed python and platyypus searches, much laughing over a mythical quest for a Were Wombat with complete stangers, toadlet operettas, green-grey rain, poems scratched in windscreen ice and many types of family nurturing...

Much respect to Dominique Wilson and her Wet Ink team for saluting my work. Apparently, I was ahead of seven hundred other entries! This is a great boost - I recently went nowhere in three significant literary prizes.

LJ, May 16 2009.

NPP 09

2009-05-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

I've just started putting paper to pen for this year's Newcastle Poetry Prize, Australia's most prestigious poetry prize. Entries are due in July.

I'm full of gusto and uncertainty all at once. I have two main ideas I'm fleshing out... One involves Joannes Lees, Peter Falconio and the Stuart Highway. I was traveling through the Northern Territory in July 2001, when Falconio went missing - it was a surreal time. I recall Identikit images of Bradley Murdoch being in shop fronts in Alice Springs and this creeping unease under the surface of things. When driving at night, you had to distract yourself from thoughts of being potential prey. The other concept centres on possible truths stemming from humanity's relationship with North Queensland's wilderness.

Who knows which of the two pieces will bloom and radiate the most? At the end of the day, I'm not that worried. If a poem makes it into this year's anthology, as my work did in 2007, well and good, if not, there are always other avenues to explore... As Karl Wallinger from World Party sang in the early 90s, 'the possibilities dance all around me.'

LJ, May 2009.

EUROVISION

2009-05-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Ah, you've got to love Eurovision... the tizz, the glamour, the glitz, the pomp, the majesty, the hair, the implants, the cheekbones, the boots, the fire and ice, the passion, the sincerity, the rich layers of meaning and nuance in the song lyrics... and the hair... If you missed this year's early round stuff, check out Bulgaria's stupendous entry... It made me cry.

Oh, did I mention the hair?

LJ, May 16 2009

THE TEACHER'S MARCH

2009-03-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

March: teaching and more teaching in a gorgeous Englishesque environment with terrific, welcoming staff... limited creative time... the odd big and small idea emerging then blurring... hoping Cordite will take three poems I sent them... waiting with baited breath on results of Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize for 2009;I entered a piece on my trip to North Queensland last year... hoping to see my first olive whistler in the vicinity of Fitzroy Falls this weekend... basking in splendid autumnal sunshine every afternoon... enjoying Nicolas Rothwell's Another Country... impressed by The Wrestler; Mickey Rourke one of the coolest dudes on Earth; I've seen nearly all his films; I love his duality (he's a boxer and tough guy, but lover of chihuahuas!)... into the new Prodigy album more than I thought I'd be... digging tours of local wineries... not missing Sydney one scrap!

LJ, March 17 2008

NICK CAVE + WARREN ELLIS + JOHN HILLCOAT + VIGGO MORTENSEN + CORMAC McCARTHY = EXPECTANCY TO THE POWER OF TEN

2009-02-26T20:00:00.001-08:00

I read in Metro magazine that dark princes of snarl-folk and gloomy-ambient, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, have teamed up to paint the score for John Hillcoat's upcoming film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's bleak and brilliant The Road. This really is something to look forward to. I was blown away by Hillcoat's last film, the Ray Winstone and Guy Pearce vehicle The Proposition (a sublime and gothic Aussie western); Cave and Ellis's soundtrack for this was subtle yet commanding.

I hope Hillcoat's film grabs the majesty and lyricism of McCarthy's novel and doesn't let it go. The fired flare falling on a grey sea, unexpected discoveries in empty houses, a grieving woman holding an executed crossbow-firing assassin, the father's constant support for his son, the son's pain over his father's death, the entrance of surrogate parents: all these moments need to be kept intact. It'll be most interesting to see how Cave and Ellis explore these vignettes if indeed they are in the film.

I think Viggo Mortensen is an excellent choice for 'The Man' in the film. His work in Eastern Promises and A History of Violence was absolutely captivating. Incidentally, my brother-in-law once, accidentally, had a drink with Viggo Mortensen in a bar in Melbourne. He said he was completely down-to-earth.

On another note, a few years ago I visited a desolate place of spinifex, ghost gums, silence and bustards, called Skull Hole, which is part of Bladensburg National Park in Western Queensland. Skull Hole was the site of an Aboriginal massacre last century. History's imprint made me feel uneasy when I was out there. It was in this area that Hillcoat filmed some of The Proposition.

LJ, February 27 2009.

A TIGER, A CROC AND A CHIMP

2009-02-22T00:43:00.000-08:00

Some animal stories have caught me eyes and grabbed my ears in the last few days...

Firstly, two illegal loggers in Indonesia were mauled to death by a Sumatran Tiger today, bringing to five the total of Indonesians executed by tigers in the last month on the island of Sumatra. The Sumatran Tiger is the world's most critically endangered tiger. According to an article in The Sydney Morning Herald, there are about two-hundred and fifty left. The deaths of these loggers does not sadden me. How dare these guys illegally destroy this animal's habitat? Still, these people were sons, brothers and fathers; loved people battling to provide for their families.

A five year old boy was killed by a four metre saltwater crocodile on the Daintree River last week. The boy's parents, who ran a rainforest touring business in the area, insisted the crocodile that attacked their son not be killed. The beast is to be taken to a farm. This astounds me. The boy died trying to protect his boxer pup.

In Connecticut a few days back, a woman had her face ripped off by her friend's pet chimpanzee, Travis. Apparently Travis' owner had given the ape some drug and this made the animal hysterical. Police were called and Travis, once a TV star, was shot. Travis could use computers and televisions. Who knows whether he loved his safe, suburban domesticity? I'm sure he yearned for the wild's barbaric and civilized yawp.

LJ, February 22 2009

TONIGHT, I DON'T LOVE A SUNBURNT COUNTRY (PART 2)

2009-02-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

Today is a National Day of Mourning for the 209 people now dead courtesy of Victoria's fires. Meanwhile, I live my life well... I'm breathing, thinking, laughing and creating whilst many other Aussies have nothing.

How does one mourn for those who are complete strangers? I've given some money to Red Cross and led prayer sessions at school for the families of fire victims and talked about the destruction with family and colleagues...

Perhaps absolute recognition is enough.

LJ, February 22 2009

TONIGHT, I DON'T LOVE A SUNBURNT COUNTRY

2009-02-09T00:38:00.000-08:00

131 Victorian people, 'good' Victorian people, as Kevin Rudd described them, are dead as a result of the cataclysmic infernos that have engulfed Kinglake and surrounds over the last 40 hours. My heart goes out to these people and their surviving loved ones. News footage from the scorched zones brings to mind 80s film The Day After, Cormac McCarthy's The Road and the road to Basra in 1991. This afternoon I told my history students that this grim hour will be in the history books of future Australian school students. Our nation is not used to this amount of death in peacetime.

God, stay with the Victorian people.

LJ, February 9 2009.

A VIEW OF SYDNEY HARBOUR MINUS STALE ICONS

2009-01-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

IMPROVISED BOTANICAL SNAPSHOTS FROM BEHIND BURRAWANG VILLAGE HOTEL

2009-01-13T15:51:00.000-08:00