Selected poems
Inattention
Just yesterday
the avocado was a bullet,
as suits the seller if not us.
And we must obey their logic.
How we must adapt
To give it bowl rest,
but it will not rest inside.
The softening soon begins.
And so, it stores a disappointment.
its mute process a reminder
that we cannot seem to learn
from our mistakes.
Walking past it everyday
and passing too that moment,
between the ripening and the rot.
Flee Fly
They come from nowhere the flies,
Suddenly solitary
They maze around the room like drones,
their flight path all avoidance.
Irritant returning
erratically tracing route after route
I have opened the window
but you refuse repeatedly.
It seems you are too timid to face
the welcoming warm winter sun.
Here now then
I envy the dead
Their vague vantage point
the calm repose, almost smug,
Their fail-less future
Their limitless horizon
Untrapped in time.
Like you, looking down
From that faded fridge photo,
With a kid clinging on either side.
Such a tight entity.
A smile like no other.
Even then keeping your option open perhaps,
Or so it seems now,
After all I was only there.
Behind the camera is not in the frame
Either way, there were years to come
Uncherished.
Careening towards that chicane,
The road that narrows catastrophically
And then opens endlessly.
Julian Wood is a poet living in Sydney. He is of mixed Irish and English descent. He has published in both the UK and Australia. Poetry can be found lurking anywhere but spotting it and bringing into the light often requires patience and a certain tenderness towards things and people.