Her job,
hour after hour after hour, is to keep a toy drone hovering above the disinterested heads of passengers in Guilin airport terminal, China. The toy: a pink plastic fairy with a helicopter dress that spins with a buzzing magic bobbing up and down, sea sick and bored. Bobbing back down, the woman holds out her hand, gently encouraging the drone, tickling it back up into the air to hover, buzz, attract a crowd that doesn’t care. She is not alone. Three or four women do the same the length of the departure lounge, looking up at the pink plastic, hoping we do the same. Published in Hidden Channel Issue 8, December 2017.
0 Comments
I Will Never Go to Perth
Great Auntie Doll died in a nursing home in Perth, a dicky heart upturned by news her son Harry, injured in a bike accident in Thailand, unlikely to walk again. I always planned to go Down Under: swing by Doll’s nursing home, hear stories of immigrating in the 1950’s with husband Harry, baby Harry on a 10 pound one-way ticket, A Better Life. A few months later, Harry smashed into infinity by a land-train truck, no chance. Doll depending on neighbor, Fred, later marrying, another son, another chance to re-start life. Years later, Fred refused to attend his step-son’s tropical wedding to his Thai love. Arm-crossed defiance his whole life. I’d travel: Ayer’s rock, the Bush, kangaroos and koalas, say hi to Sydney and its sights but now Mum’s last link to her father is gone. The boat won’t pick me up. Nothing Smaller “There is n-n-nothing smaller than the atom,” Mr Bickerstaff told us. The B-tier Physics class: we didn’t need the whole truth. “What about quarks?” I asked. Still stinging from infinitesimal test results that dumped me here with basic elements. A stained finger shot up to swollen lips: “shhhhhh!” A friendly, conspiratorial smile. You’re on a different wavelength, Friday. Face moon-marked by ancient acne, tweed arms erupting out of the giddy white slab coat, a lisp everyone hissed about. Not me. I wanted quantum. So I drew the atom and labelled lies. Published in New Contrast 180, Summer 2017. |
Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
|